There are no proven safe and effective therapies for children who develop life-threatening complications of SARS-CoV-2. Convalescent plasma (CP) has demonstrated potential benefit in adults with SARS-CoV-2 but has theoretical risks. We report on the first use of CP in children with life-threatening COVID-19, providing data on four pediatric patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. We measured donor antibody levels and recipient antibody response prior to and following CP infusion. Infusion of CP was not associated with antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) and did not suppress endogenous antibody response. We found CP was safe and possibly efficacious. Randomized pediatric trials are needed.


Crown panel design studies showing the relationship between panel size, cost, weight, and aircraft configuration are compared to aluminum design configurations. The effects of a stiffened sandwich design concept are also discussed. This paper summarizes the effect of a design cost model in assessing the cost and weight relationships for fuselage crown panel designs. Studies were performed using data from existing aircraft to assess the effects of different design variables on the cost and weight of transport fuselage crown panel design. Results show a strong influence of load levels, panel size, and material choices on the cost and weight of specific designs. A design tool being developed under the NASA ACT program is used in the study to assess these issues. The effects of panel configuration comparing postbuckled and buckle resistant stiffened laminated structure is compared to a stiffened sandwich concept. Results suggest some potential economy with stiffened sandwich designs for compression dominated structure with relatively high load levels.


Abstract : The main goal of this research has been to develop a unified geometric-asymptotic-adaptive methodology for feedback design of nonlinear control systems. Such a methodology is needed because the existing differential geometric results are restrictive and often violated by small modeling errors. Effects of these errors can be analyzed asymptotically by singular perturbation methods, which, however, are still lacking a clear geometric interpretation. Neither geometric, nor perturbational problem formulations can cope with large parametric uncertainty, for which an adaptive approach seems suitable. Conversely, both geometric and asymptotic techniques can become constructive steps in the design of an adaptive scheme and in the analysis of its robustness. In our research these three heretofore separate techniques have been to be merged into a methodology which eliminates their individual shortcomings. In a separate research direction we have initiated a study of systems with practically important nondifferentiable nonlinearities such as dead-zone, backlash and hysteresis. These systems can not be analyzed by existing methods.


BACKGROUND— Ventricular remodeling after myocardial infarction begins with massive extracellular matrix deposition and resultant fibrosis. This loss of functional tissue and the stiffening of myocardial elastic and contractile elements starts the vicious cycle of mechanical inefficiency, adverse remodeling, and eventual heart failure. We hypothesize that SDF-1 α therapy to microrevascularize ischemic myocardium will rescue salvageable peri-infarct tissue and subsequently improve myocardial elasticity. METHODS— Immediately following LAD ligation, mice were randomized to receive peri-infarct injection of either saline or SDF. After six weeks, the animals were sacrificed and samples were taken from the peri-infarct borderzone, the infarct scar, and the left ventricle of non-infarcted control mice. Determination of the tissues' elastic moduli was carried out by mechanical testing in an atomic force microscope. RESULTS— SDF treated peri-infarct tissue most closely approximated the elasticity of normal ventricle and was significantly more elastic than saline treated myocardium (109 + 22.9 kPa vs. 295 + 42.3 kPa, p < 0.0001). The myocardial scar, the strength of which depends on matrix deposition from vasculature at the peri-infarct edge, was stiffer in SDF treated animals when compared to controls (804 + 102.2 kPa vs. 144 + 27.5 kPa, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS— This study, through direct quantification of myocardial elastic properties, has demonstrated the ability of SDF to re-engineer the evolving myocardial infarct and peri-infarct tissue. By increasing the elasticity of the ischemic and dysfunctional peri-infarct borderzone and bolstering the weak aneurysm prone scar, SDF therapy may confer a mechanical advantage to resist adverse remodeling following infarction.


Objective To study the changes of tears components in patients with autotransplantation of submaxillary gland.Methods The tears and submaxillary saliva in 30 normal individuals and patients with the"saliva-tears"in sumaxillary gland transplantation were analyzed and compared.The analysis included amylase,lysozyme,sodium,potassium,calcium,phosphorus,somotic pressure,urea,cretinire,uric acid,total protein.SIgA,triglyccride,gluose,pH etc.Results After the transplatation,amylase in"saliva-tears"was 10 times higher than that in control group,the sodium level was lower than the control group;somotic pressure was hypertonic,the level of uric acid was higher than that of normal tears,and the lysozyme level was lowered to 1/100 of normal tears.There were no difference among other criteria.Conclusion "saliva-tears"of the patients receiving the transplatastion have the characteristics of normal tears and submaxillary saliva,high level of amylase indicates that the transplanted subumaxillary gland remains its function of secretion,so amylase can be used as an indicator for monitoring transplant survival.


Bioremediation technologies were applied to experimental microcosms, simulating an oil spill in a lower intertidal area. Three treatments (oil only, oil plus nutrients, and oil plus nutrients and microbial inocula) were applied, and each microcosm was repeatedly filled and eluted with seawater every 12 h to simulate tidal cycles. To minimize washing-out of the inoculum by the tidal cycles, microbial cells were primarily immobilized on diatomaceous earth before they were applied to the oiled sand. Oil degradation was monitored by gravimetric measurements, thin layer chromatography/flame ionization detector (TLC/FID) analysis, and gas chromatography (GC) analysis, and the loss of oil content was normalized to sand mass or nor-hopane. When the data were normalized to sand mass, no consistent differences were detected between nutrient-amended and nutrient/inoculum-amended microcosms, although both differed from the oil-only microcosm in respect of oil removal rate by a factor of 4 to 14. However, the data relative to nor-hopane showed a significant treatment difference between the nutrient-amended and nutrient/inoculum-treated microcosms, especially in the early phase of the treatment. The accelerating effect of inoculum treatment has hardly been reported in studies of oil bioremediation in the lower intertidal area. The inoculum immobilized on diatomaceous earth seemed to be a very effective formulation for retaining microbial cells in association with the sand. Results of this study also suggest that interpretation of the effectiveness of bioremediation could be dependent on the selection of monitoring methods, and consequently the application of various analytical methods in combination could be a solution to overcome the limitations of oil bioremediation monitoring.


Macroporous GaP photoelectrodes with wall thicknesses of approximately 500 nm and pore depths ranging from 0 to 45 μm have been prepared from nondegenerately doped single-crystalline n-GaP(100) with a minority-carrier diffusion length of only 110 nm. The photoelectrochemical behaviors of planar and macroporous photoelectrodes have been assessed in nonaqueous regenerative photoelectrochemical cells operated under potentiostatic control and employing dry acetonitrile containing ferrocene/ferrocenium. Enhancements in the short-circuit photocurrents tracked increases in internal quantum yield measurements at long wavelengths for macroporous n-GaP. The observed photocurrent densities and spectral response measurements were consistent with values expected from GaP/liquid heterojunctions controlled by faradaic charge transfer to an outer-sphere, dissolved redox couple. Lower open-circuit photovoltages were observed with macroporous electrodes with increasing pore depth, consistent with distribution of the photoc...


The invention discloses a locking device for connecting modular buoyancy boxes used for an ocean platform. The locking device comprises two pins, a locking plate, an upper positioning plate and a lower positioning plate. The pins are welded to the side of one buoyancy box, and the upper positioning plate and the lower positioning plate welded to the side of the other buoyancy box are used for containing the locking plate and can vertically move the locking plate. When the pins are inserted into the locking plate through open holes in the upper positioning plate and the lower positioning plate, the locking plate only needs to be moved downwards, the locking plate is clamped into grooves of the pins, the two buoyancy boxes can be connected together, the situation that the two buoyancy boxes are connected together in a traditional welding mode is avoided, the construction accuracy of the ocean platform is greatly improved, transport is convenient, and the locking device can be suitable for operation of the height-permitted sea area of a cross-sea bridge. In addition, the manufacturing process of the pins and the locking plate is simple, cost is low, and cost can be effectively controlled.


An efficient approach for predicting wind‐induced fatigue in large horizontal axis wind turbine coupled tower–blade structures subject to aeroelastic and yaw effects is presented. First, aerodynamic loads under yaw conditions are simulated based on the harmonic superposition method and modified blade element momentum theory, in which wind shear, tower shadow, tower–blade interactions, aeroelastic, and rotational effects are taken into account. Then, a nonlinear time‐history of wind‐induced responses under simulated aerodynamic loads is obtained. Finally, based on these results, wind‐induced fatigue damage and lifespan are predicted according to linear cumulative damage theory. For completeness, the influences of mean wind speed, aeroelasticity, and yaw angle on horizontal axis wind turbine fatigue life are discussed. The results indicate that the aerodynamic loads and residual fatigue life can be estimated accurately by the proposed model, which can be used to simulate the 3D wind fields of wind turbines under given wind conditions. The wind energy of the wind turbine blade is mainly concentrated at its edge and is weaker at the hub. Estimation of wind turbine fatigue life is therefore suggested to be based on the component with the shortest life, being the blade root. Furthermore, yaw conditions significantly shorten fatigue life and should not be ignored. Fatigue life is also rather sensitive to mean wind speed.


With the development of complex system simulation techniques, computational capabilities, and data management capabilities, the simulation results tend to be big data. There are also high-dimension, high-redundancy, and high-correlation issues among indexes. Based on the above background, a two-layer Autoencoder neural network is used for feature extraction and dimensionality reduction. Then, 10 deep neural network models are established for index learning. The experimental results show that the 32-layer Resent network works best for low-dimensional data effectiveness evaluation.


Mulberry juice was added as auxiliary material to brew healthy draft beer.The result showed that the mulberry juice should be added between the steps of post-fermentation and filtering,and the adding amount of mulberry juice should be 3%~4%.The product had the characteristics and flavor of both draft beer and mulberry and was anticipated to be good to health.


Subwavelength optics has emerged as an important research field in optical science. Among its various topics, epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials have attracted great attention for their highly unusual optical properties. For example, ENZ materials were employed for perfect coupling through a narrow channel, optical switching and bistability, and directivity control of antennas [1-4]. More recently, it was also pointed out that a thin ENZ layer supports a new type of guided modes near the epsilon zero frequency (Re[e(ω)] = 0), termed ENZ modes [5, 6]. Strong field enhancement in ENZ modes can be useful for enhancing light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Here, utilizing strong field enhancement caused by these ENZ modes, we demonstrate a novel type of optical strong coupling between a planar metamaterial (MM) layer and ENZ modes in an ultra-thin doped semiconductor. The ENZ frequency can be tuned in a wide range of infrared (IR) frequencies by controlling the doping density. Furthermore, using the interconnected MM layer as an electrical metal gate, we deplete the doped semiconductor and electrically control the optical coupling between MM and ENZ layers. This work opens a path to a new type of IR optoelectronic devices based on ENZ materials of deep-subwavelength-scale thickness.


Covid-19 is a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 which affects respiratory, gastrointestinal and neurological systems. It not only causes atypical pneumonia with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), but also, acute cardiac damage, acute renal failure and gastrointestinal complications.1 It is a disorder that not only presents with fever and respiratory symptoms but can involve the nervous system with varied presentations in form of cerebrovascular accident, loss of taste, loss of smell, myelopathy, neuropathy, meningitis and encephalitis.2 Some cases of Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS) associated with SARS-CoV-2 have been reported in the literature. GBS is acute immune mediated inflammatory polyradiculopathy.3 GBS presents as limb weakness or cranial nerve weakness, loss of deep tendon reflex, autonomic dysfunction due to peripheral nerve demyelination and sensory root demyelination.


This book analyzes, from a multi-disciplinary perspective, what global interdependence means for individuals and societies entangled in the network of complex relationships with others. Contents: Knowledge Acquisition and Human Development; Individual Autonomy and Social Order; Balance and Coherence in Social Development; The World in Transition; Coordination and Harmonization; Cultivating Global Awareness.


Shadow removal is a challenging problem in hyperspectral remote sensing images due to its spatial-variant properties and diverse patterns. In this work, a shadow removal framework with multiexposure fusion is proposed for hyperspectral remote sensing images, which consists of three major steps. First, a color space conversion method is exploited to detect the shadow regions. Second, the principle of the intrinsic decomposition model is utilized to generate a set of differently exposed hyperspectral images (HSIs), i.e., multiexposure images. Third, the generated multiexposure images and the original HSIs are fused together with a two-stage image fusion method so as to remove the shadows in hyperspectral remote sensing images effectively. Experiments performed on three real hyperspectral datasets confirm that the performance of the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art shadow removal approaches.


Current midwifery practice takes place in ever-changing political, social and cultural settings. In order for midwives to justify and validate their practice, a theoretical understanding of ethics is essential. Professional ethics involves reflecting upon practice, weighing alternatives and applying ethical theories within the clinical arena. This article examines some popular ethical theories and attempts to apply these to midwifery practice through exemplars and situational analysis.


One of the major issues in current internet architecture in that it was not designed to support the user mobility. In order to overcome this restriction, in this paper, we propose an identifier/locator separation architecture which contain the overlay mapping system to store the identifier-to-locator mapping record. In addition, we design the mobility management scheme base on Identifier/Locator separation above for Furture Internet architecture. We then devise the analysis model to evaluate the signaling cost of our scheme. By conduction the simulation. We show that our scheme can operate with lower signaling cost than other schemes.


Measurements of total ozone at Macquarie Island (55°S, 159°E) reveal statistically significant reductions of approximately twelve percent during July to September when comparing the mean levels for 1987–90 with those in the seventies. A back-correction of 1963–79 Macquarie Island monthly mean ozone data is described which enabled this comparison.


ABSTRACT II-VI compound-semiconductors, e.g. CdTe/CdZnTe are well-known photoconducting materials for room-temperature, high-energy radiation detection. Photoconducting devices show better resolution over scintillation devices in image formation. High atomic number and large band gap are required for absorbing radiation and consequently putting impression of image. CdTe has a band gap of 1.44 eV. Incorporation of zinc into CdTe put impact on the resistivity and band gap of CdTe. The fabricated material emerges as Cd1-xZnxTe. In this case, the value of 'x' lies between 0 and 1. For 'x' = 1, the material is ZnTe and for 'x' = 0, the material is CdTe. Compared to CdTe, ternary Cd1-xZnxTe has higher and variable bandgap. It has higher resistivity, improved charge collection efficiency and better stopping power of high-energy radiations as compared to CdTe. Incorporation of zinc in CdTe lattice calls for its Band-Gap Engineering. This results in the increase of image resolution capability due to enhancement of band gap and high atomic number. Zinc can be incorporated into CdTe lattice by various steps. Uniform distribution of zinc is an essential parameter for getting good images. Proper methods are required to introduce zinc uniformly over the entire surface to modify the band gap. This results in development of material where perfect absorption may occur which results in the generation of appreciable number of carriers to provide better resolution of the image. In this paper, RF Sputtering and PVD methods are discussed for the fabrication of Cd1-xZnxTe thin films.


Gangliosides are glycolipids which contain sialic acid in their carbohydrate portion. There are diverse molecular species determined by the carbohydrate sequence of gangliosides. Gangliosides are rich in the nervous system, localized on the cell surface membrane, and are considered to be involved in the cell-cell interaction, neuritogenesis, synaptic transmission, etc. Each ganglioside molecule is known to have a unique distribution in the nervous system.


A law passed in Brazil after the last energy crisis prohibits the use of machines with insufficient energetic efficiency. In a Brazilian-German project, the energy consumption and milling quality of hammer mills when milling maize were ascertained. Furthermore, the validity of the various energetic calculation models was investigated. The effect of throughput, revolutions and sieve mesh diameter on specific energy consumption proved itself.


Nanoand pico-satellites in low earth orbit (LEO), unlike their larger counterparts, have more stringent limitations on antenna design due to power constraints that govern the operational frequency and size that defines the mass and volume constraints. High bandwidth applications use higher frequencies and require higher transmission power. High gain antennas can reduce the transmission power requirements. CubeSat's with body-mounted solar cells are limited in power generation due to limited surface area. Deployable solar panels offer a solution to the limited power by maximizing the surface area of solar cells exposed to solar radiation. The metallic deployable solar panel support structure can be exploited to behave as an electrical ground and microwave signal reflector for a high gain antenna in several configurations. This paper presents multiple novel high-gain S-band antennas that exploit the structure of a 3U CubeSat equipped with deployable solar panels for gain improvement. The configuration of the satellite is designed to operate in a low drag configuration by operating outside of the passive gravity gradient stabilized attitude by using passive or active attitude control. Gain improvements of more than 3 dB are obtained through careful packaging. The antenna configurations have a gain of more than 7dBi and bandwidth of more than 10MHz. Analysis is provided with considerations of power, satellite coverage, as well as attitude stability. This technique of improving antenna gain can be extended to higher as well as lower frequency of operation.


Electromagnetic M1 and E2 transitions in the seven-nucleon systems, the /sup 3/He(..cap alpha..,..gamma..)/sup 7/Be radiative-capture problem, and the electron-capture reaction of /sup 7/Be into /sup 7/Li are studied. The wave functions employed are from a previous single-channel resonating-group calculation which yielded satisfactory results for the /sup 3/He +..cap alpha.. and /sup 3/H +..cap alpha.. scattering cross sections and polarizations. With no adjustable parameters, the calculated B(M1) and B(E2) values for transitions between the ground and first excited states of /sup 7/Li or /sup 7/Be are found to agree rather well with values empirically determined. The B(E2) study shows, in particular, that the nuclei /sup 7/Li and /sup 7/Be must have strong collective features, which are describable in terms of ..cap alpha.. plus three-nucleon clustering. The cross-section factor S(0), important in astrophysical considerations, is determined to have a value between 0.5 and 0.6 keV b. For the electron-capture reaction, the calculated value of the branching ratio to the first excited state of /sup 7/Li is 10.31%, which is in very good agreement with the measured value of 10.36 +- 0.10 % reported prior to 1982.


Abstract Editorial comment: A variety of devices exist which enable visually impaired students to gain access to microcomputers. In an effort to provide guidance for students, professionals, and others in the field who may be called upon to evaluate the merits of such devices, this article outlines the advantages and limitations of each generic kind of microcomputer access technology used by visually impaired persons. Factors such as how the device is to be used are also considered.


Diameter, height, crown shape, and crown area were measured on 23-42 trees ranging in size from saplings to large adults for each of eight common dicotyledonous tree species in a neotropical forest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Six species were canopy trees, one species was an emergent tree, and the remaining species was an understory tree. Crown areas and shapes were quantified by eight radii measured every 450 from the trunk to the vertically projected edge of the crown. Crown areas were calculated from the areas of circles with the average radius; crown shapes were measured by the coefficients of variation of the eight crown radii. Age-diameter relationships were estimated from diameter growth increments over an 8-yr period. Observed height-diameter relationships were compared to expectations based on the theories of elastic similarity, constant stress, and geometric similarity. Slopes of log-transformed height-diameter relationships differed from the theoretically expected value of 2/3 for elastic similarity in three of eight species; two canopy species had higher slopes, but not as high as the expected value of 1.0 for geometric similarity; one canopy species was shorter, but the slope was greater than the slope of 0.5 predicted by the constant stress theory. The theory of elastic similarity also predicts that canopy mass to trunk mass ratio should remain constant during tree growth. Observed ratios based on proxy variables for the masses were constant in six of eight species- the two deviant species had heavier crowns in large trees than expected from their diameters. Crown shapes were much more variable in some species than others. The understory species had much lower r2 values for height-diameter and crown-diameter relationships, suggesting that these relationships may be more variable in trees that live in the less windy understory than in trees that reach the canopy. The allometric relationships for the species in this study were not unique for each species, suggesting that it may be possible to model the allometric relationships of many species with fewer equations than species. If the primary adaptive forces acting on tree species in a diverse forest are their physical environment and the sum of competitive interactions with an ever-changing mix of neighbors, then different species may have similar resource allocation patterns. Thus, using the age-size relationships, we found three groups of species among the seven canopy species. Two groups had three species each and one species (Ocotea whitei) was in a group by itself. The understory species, Faramea occidentalis, was also in a group by itself.


A new method for the determination of trace amount of lead by flame atomic absorption spectrometry with cloud point extraction was proposed.Lead was complexed with PMBP in an acidic medium using Triton X-100 as surfactant and quantitatively extracted into a small volume of the surfactant-rich phase after centrifugation.The effect of experimental conditions such as pH and concentration of reagents on cloud point extraction and determination sensitivity was discussed.The chemical variables affecting the separation phase and extraction recovery were optimized.Under the optimum conditions,the limit of detection for lead was 0.065μg.L-1with an enhancement factor of 20 and the relative standard deviation was 2.8%(n=5,CPb2+=20μg/mL).The method was applied to the determination of lead in reference material and soybean samples with satisfactory results.


PI man disease is one of the most common diseases in the department of spleen and stomach diseases, Its incidence of high,disease lingering, seriously affect the quality of life of patients.Professor Huang Yahui believes that the basic pathogenesis of the disease is middle coke qi block, the loss of spleen and stomach.In clinical syndrome differentiation.In clinical syndrome differentiation, it is emphasized to distinguish deficiency and reality, cold and heat and different combination, and to focus on the main symptoms and tongue and pulse syndrome differentiation.The clinical syndromes are divided into four syndromes: phlegm dampness block,  dampness heat internalization, liver and stomach qi stagnation, and spleen and stomach weakness.This article summarizes professor Huang's thoughts and experience in the treatment of PI man's disease and cites a classic case.


There are nine prefecture-level cities selected from the first batch of the 12 typical resources-exhausted cities.The gap between the country and the resources-exhausted cities is measured in the areas of industrial structure,environmental pollution control,people's living standards and the speed of economic development by calculating the related indicators.On this basis,the authors analyze the problems and bring out the corresponding countermeasure to the problems.


Background: Bilirubin, a marker of hepatic and hematological diseases in clinical practice, is not only a waste end-product but also an antioxidant that may protect against diseases associated with oxidative stress. Numerous epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relationship between the serum total bilirubin (TBIL) level and the risk of ischemic stroke (IS). However, markedly elevated TBIL levels may exert neurotoxic effects. Based on this, we conducted a dose-response meta-analysis to quantify the relationship between blood TBIL and IS as well as between TBIL and all types of stroke (AS) in the physiological range of bilirubin.Methods: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Central databases were searched up to March 2019. Additional studies were identified by reviewing references and contacting authors. Categorical and dose-response meta-analyses were performed to quantify the relationship between TBIL and IS. The primary outcome was ischemic stroke, and the secondary outcome was all types of stroke.Results: Nine observational studies (seven publications) involving 110,032 participants and 3710 stroke cases were included for analysis. The average OR of IS for every 1 µmol/L increment in TBIL level was 0.978 (95% CI: 0.957–0.999). The summary OR of AS for every 1 µmol/L increment in TBIL level was 0.974 (95% CI: 0.956–0.992). Subgroup analysis based on gender showed a negative dose-response relationship between the circulating TBIL level and IS or AS in males, but not in females.Conclusions: The present study found a negative dose-response relationship between the circulating TBIL level and the risk of IS or AS within physiologic range of serum TBIL in males. Moderately elevated blood TBIL levels might be associated with a diminished prevalence of IS. Every 1 µmol/L increment in serum TBIL level was associated with a 2.2% decrease in the risk of IS and a 2.6% decrease in the risk of AS. However, due to the limitations in the number of included studies and their quality, large-scaled prospective cohort studies are needed to confirm the conclusion of the current analysis.Trial registration: This study was registered at PROSPERO (https://www.crd. york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/[CRD42017075988]).


Constraint-based multicast routing, which aims at identifying a path that satisfies a set of quality of service (QoS) constraints, has became a very important research issue in the areas of networks and distributed systems. In general, multi-constrained path selection with or without optimization is a NP-complete problem that can not be exactly solved in polynomial time. Hence, accurate constraints-based routing algorithms with a fast running time are scarce,perhaps even non-existent. The expected impact of such a constrained-based routing algorithm has resulted in the proposal of numerous heuristics and a few exact QoS algorithms. This paper aims to give a thorough, concise and fair evaluation of the most important multiple constraint-based QoS multicast routing algorithms known today, and it provides a descriptive overview and simulation results of these multi-constrained routing algorithms.


A spherically expanding flame in a quiescent premixture is a bifurcation phenomenon, in which the flame becomes unstable at a radius, greater than some critical value, while remaining stable below that critical radius. Beyond this critical radius, developing instabilities are initiated by propagating cracks to form a coherent structure covering the entire flame surface and the flame accelerates. The present paper reports a Schlieren photographic study of spherical flame propagation in methane—air, iso-octane—air and n-heptane—air premixtures at different initial conditions where the onset of instability and the flame acceleration are clearly perceived. Critical size and corresponding elapsed time for the development of such instability are measured and these values are correlated with the appropriate flame parameter. DOI: 10.1115/1.2098867


In this work, we extend the micro-macro decomposition based numerical schemes developed in [3]
to the collisional Vlasov-Poisson model in the diffusion and high-field asymptotics. In doing so, we first write the Vlasov-Poisson model as a system that couples the macroscopic (equilibrium) part with the remainder part.
A suitable discretization of this micro-macro model enables to derive an asymptotic preserving
scheme in the diffusion and high-field asymptotics. In addition, two main improvements are presented:
On the one hand a self-consistent electric field is introduced, which induces a specific discretization
in the velocity direction, and represents a wide range of applications in plasma physics.
On the other hand, as suggested in [30], we introduce a suitable reformulation of the micro-macro
scheme which leads to an asymptotic preserving property with the following property: It degenerates into an implicit
scheme for the diffusion limit model when $\varepsilon\rightarrow 0$, which makes it free from the usual diffusion constraint
$\Delta t=O(\Delta x^2)$ in all regimes.
Numerical examples are used to demonstrate the efficiency and the applicability of the schemes for both regimes.


This paper describes recent social changes in Poland and their implications for early childhood care and education, focusing on the creation of a progressive educational system based on the unified school. Key issues receiving particular attention are the problems of reorganizing the educational system, increasing students' learning effectiveness, incorporating new modes of curriculum innovation, developing patterns of political socialization, organizing educational research and its relevance to pedagogy, and creating new patterns in teacher education. The paper analyzes whether it is possible to create a new and progressive educational system in a short time. (KB) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Andrzej Radziewcz-Winnicki University of Silesia Katowice, Poland U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION >tceCENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as ceived from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Educational Changes The Basic and Real Facts of Traditional Continuity in Post-Communist Poland A (Implications for (hildhood Education) (Presentation at the 8th European Conference on Quality in Early Childhood Education"Santiago de Compostella, Spain, 2-5 September 1998)


—This paper presents workspace analysis of tendon- driven planar serial kinematic chains which allows single-point and multi-point routing with bundling per rigid link. Target- ing a musculoskeletal two-link system with different tendon arrangements as a case study, the wrench-closure and wrench- feasible workspace are evaluated for different configurations. It is observed that, the single-point internally routed chain has more feasible workspace than the externally routed robot with 3 tendons.


This editorial introduces the special issue on design, discovery, and growth of novel materials. The papers of this special issue review and reveal technical details of of how specific growths are developed and implemented.


Computer vision techniques that can anticipate people»s actions ahead of time could create more responsive and natural human-robot interaction systems. In this paper, we present a new human gesture forecasting framework for human-drone interaction. Our primary motivation is that despite growing interest in early recognition, little work has tried to understand how people experience these early recognition-based systems, and our human-drone forecasting framework will serve as a basis for conducting this human subjects research in future studies. We also introduce a new dataset with 22 videos of two human-drone interaction scenarios, and use it to test our gesture forecasting approach. Finally, we suggest follow-up procedures to investigate people»s experience in interacting with these early recognition-enabled systems.


This technical note presents an anomaly in the use of the Reynolds number as a kinematic similarity criterion for scale modeling of slot-ventilated enclosures and, based on theoretical considerations and experimental observations, proposes the Euler number, akin to a head loss coefficient, as an alternative kinematic similarity criterion.


Along with the development of Internet, to produce more and more massive amounts of data, and visualization methods can rapidly and effectively simplify and refine data. Heat map is a method of data visualization, It can provide a basic support for the optimization of urban traffic management that we researched the trajectory of the heat of an area of mobile users in a certain period of time. In this paper, taking part of the mobile users in Chongqing area as data base, we researched and implemented a static heat map model in a moment of overall user location in the background of data visualization technology, and further researched the mobile heat map in a certain period of time the user from the beginning to the end of the moving trajectory.


The creep properties of organic coated and uncoated No. 6 deformed steel reinforcing bars, embedded in concrete prisms, were measured for 2 yr with corresponding tensile stresses in the bars at the loaded ends of 15,000 psi (103 MN/m²) and 30,000 psi (206 MN/m²). Twenty-four reinforcing bars were included in the tests, consisting of: 18 bars coated (in duplicates) with nine different epoxy materials; two bars coated with a polyvinyl chloride material; and four uncoated reinforcing bars. Reforcing bars coated with six of the epoxy materials developed slip-time relationships (creep) after 2 yr of testing that were nearly the same as those for the uncoated bars. The remaining epoxy coated bars were judged to have poor creep properties. The excessive slip of the polyvinyl chloride coated bars in the concrete should preclude their substitution for uncoated reinforcing bars in concrete. The relative performance of some coated reinforcing bars in the creep study were different than those obtained in earlier pullout tests.


Objective To observe the impact of amlodipine besylate combination with benazepril on blood pressure and blood pressure variability in peritoneal dialysis patients.Methods A total of 145 peritoneal dialysis patients with hypertension were divided into two groups:treatment group(n=80) and control group(n=65).The treatment group was treated with amlodipine besylate and benazepril,and the control group with nifedipine sustained release tablet and benazepril.Follow-up of the patients lasted 24 months beginning from the treatment for one month.Comparisons were made for changes of blood pressure,blood pressure variability,and cardiovascular events including cardiac failure,acute coronary syndrome and sudden death between the two groups.Results In the two groups,blood pressure and blood pressure variability were significantly decreased after the treatment(P0.01).Blood pressure variability was significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group(P0.01),but the change of blood pressure was statistically insignificant between the two groups(P0.05).The prevalence of cardiovascular events and cardiovascular mortality rate were significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group(P 0.01).Conclusion Amlodipine besylate combined with benazepril or nifedipine sustained release tablet combined with benazepril can efficiently control blood pressure in peritoneal dialysis patients.However,amlodipine besylate combination with benazepril was more effective in lowering blood pressure variability and thus the prevalence of cardiovascular events and cardiovascular mortality rate.


Sensory testing with children can provide important insight into their likes and dislikes. Sensory professionals need to use methods that are appropriate for different age groups. This article reviews the current state of knowledge in this area and stresses the importance of considering the sensory, cognitive and social factors that may impact how best to conduct testing with children.


In this paper, the solutions of some typical nonlinear fractional differential equations are discussed, and the implicit analytical solutions are obtained. The fractional derivative concerned here is the Caputo-Fabrizio form, which has a nonsingular kernel. The calculation results of different fractional orders are compared through images. In addition, by comparing the results obtained in this paper with those under Caputo fractional derivative, it is found that the solutions change relatively gently under Caputo-Fabrizio fractional derivative. It can be concluded that the selection of appropriate fractional derivatives and appropriate fractional order is very important in the modeling process.


This paper studies the struggle over the rehabilitation of the Patarei Sea Fort in Tallinn (Estonia), a former prison where during the Soviet period political prisoners were held and corralled before deportation to Siberia. We explore how three groups of stakeholders assemble and define the future of the site: The Estonian State; ngo Eesti Muinsuskaiste Selts (the Estonian Heritage Society); and Europa Nostra. Each of these groups have a competing future for the site in mind. The struggle over the Patarei Sea fort is connected to discussions over heritage politics in those countries that entered the European Union around the early 2000s. In comparison to other memory practices in the region, the Patarei Sea Fort is not instrumentalized by the state to support a national historical narrative othering the Russian Federation. Rather the state's engagement with the site is restricted and textured by ambitions to gentrify the district it is situated in. Not the state, but an ngo, assisted by a European heritage association, promotes a heritage discourse geared at strengthening the Estonian national narrative.


Although many problems in aluminium matrix composites have been solved, there are still many difficulties and challenges that need to be solved. In this work, graphene reinforced aluminum matrix composites are prepared by hot isostatic pressing and vacuum sintering. The microstructures of composite powders and composites were studied by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The effects of different ball milling parameters on the microstructures of composite powders were analyzed. The particle size of graphene coated aluminium composite powder increases with the increase of ball-to-material ratio. With the increase of milling time, graphene was gradually dispersed and coated on the aluminium powder particles, and the aluminium powder particles could be completely coated. with the increase of the speed, the large particles are extruded, sheared and the particles become smaller. The internal micro-deformation characteristics of graphene reinforced aluminium matrix composites were analyzed in detail.


Histogram Equalization is a simple and effective contrast enhancement technique. In spite of its popularity Histogram Equalization still have some limitations –produces artifacts, unnatural images and the local details are not considered, therefore due to these limitations many other Equalization techniques have been derived from it with some up gradation. In this proposed method statistics play an important role in image processing, where statistical operations is applied to the image to get the desired result such as manipulation of brightness and contrast. Thus, a novel algorithm using statistical operations and neighborhood processing has been proposed in this paper where the algorithm has proven to be effective in contrast enhancement based on the theory and experiment. © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved Elixir Elec. Engg. 74 (2014) 26771-26775 Electrical Engineering Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal)


Autogenous bone transplantation is an important bone augmentation technique before the implant surgery, but there are controversies about whether to use the guided bone regeneration membrane routinely after the transplantation. This text summarizes the researches about the guided bone regeneration membrane application in the autogenous bone transplantation.


To the spatial query,the important problem is the similar of the goal. In R tree,the MBR is usually used to represent the node; however it is not very similar to the goal. So using orthogonal polygon can improve the similar accuracy of the spatial object. In this paper,we mainly talk about the splitting algorithm of R tree that the node is represented by orthogonal polygons.


Objective:To investigate the relationship between G-protein β 3 subunit gene polymorphism and essential hypertension(EH) in the high risk population of Dong nationality group in Huaihua district or Hu'nan Province.Methods:PCR-RFLP was used for genotyping of GNB3 825C/T in 96 patients with EH and 89 healthy control subjects.Results:There were no significant differences or the β 3 subunit polymorphism genotypes and alleles between 96 hypertensive patients(CC18.8%;CT59.4%;TT21.8%;C48.4%;T51.6%) and 89 ealthy control subjects (CC24.7%;CT52.8%;TT22.5%;C51.1%;T48.9%).The systolic blood pressure(SBP) and diastolic blood pressure(DBP)did not differ significantly between CC and CT+TT genotypes in hypertensive patients.Conclusion:The 825C/T polymorphism of the G-protein β 3 subunit gene was not associated with EH in the population of Dong nationality group in Huaihua district.


Building More Expressive Structured Models Yujia Li Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Computer Science University of Toronto 2017 Structured data and structured problems are common in machine learning, and they appear in many applications from computer vision, natural language understanding, information retrieval, computational biology, and many more. Compared to unstructured problems, where the input data is represented as a vector of independent feature values and output is a scalar prediction like a class label or regression value, both the input and output for structured problems may be objects with internal structure, like sequences, grids, trees or general graphs. Effectively exploiting the structure in the problems can help build efficient prediction models that significantly improve performance. The complexity of the structures requires expressive models that have enough representation capabilities. However, increased model complexity usually leads to increased inference complexity. A key challenge in building more expressive structured models is therefore to balance the model complexity and inference complexity, and explore models that are both expressive enough and have efficient inference. In this thesis, I present our work in the direction of building more expressive structured models, from developing more expressive structured output models, to semi-supervised learning of structured models, and then structured neural network models. The first technical part of the thesis describes a model that uses a new family of expressive high order pattern potentials, for which we characterized the theoretical properties and developed efficient inference and learning algorithms. Next we study semi-supervised learning algorithms for structured prediction problems that can help improve prediction performance by using unlabeled data. Motivated by our observation that standard structured models with iterative inference algorithms can be converted to neural networks, we study in particular structured neural network models for structured problems, and propose a new model that can handle prediction problems on graphs. Discussions about promising future directions are presented at the end of each technical chapter as well as at the end of the thesis.


Background:
 Ageing and metabolic syndrome are associated with poor leptomeningeal collateral status. Animal studies suggest that collateral rarefaction and consequent decrease in vascular efficiency may result in increase in white matter hyperintensities. Using mediational analysis, we test if the known effect of ageing and metabolic syndrome on development of white matter hyperintensities is mediated through collateral status.

 Methods:
 Data are from the Keimyung Stroke Registry. Consecutive patients with M1 segment middle cerebral artery (MCA) ± intracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusions on baseline CT-angiography (CTA) and brain MRI done within 90 minutes after admission CT/CTA, from May 2004 to July 2009, were included. Baseline and follow-up imaging was analyzed blinded to all clinical information. Two raters assessed leptomeningeal collaterals on baseline CTA by consensus, using previously validated regional leptomeningeal score (rLMC). FLAIR volume of white matter hyperintensities (ml) was measured in the unaffected hemisphere using Quantomo® software. The template of Baron and Kenney along with two tests (Sobel's and Aroian's) was used to test for the presence of mediation.

 Results:
 Baseline characteristics (n=120): mean age 67.4±11.4 years, male (53.3%), median baseline NIHSS 14 (IQR 11-20), and median stroke symptom onset to CTA 166 minutes (IQR 96-262). Poor collateral status at baseline (rLMC score 0-10) was seen in 42/120 (35%). Mean periventricular hyperintensity (PVH) volume was 6.5 ml (SD=6.0) while mean white matter hyperintensity (WMH-total) volume was 8.6 ml (SD=8.0). Higher age was associated with increased PVH and WMH-total (p<0.01) while metabolic syndrome was associated with increased PVH only (p=0.03). We did not find statistical evidence of leptomeningeal collaterals mediating the association between ageing and PVH/WMH-total or between metabolic syndrome and PVH (Sobel's and Aroian's test p>0.05).

 Conclusion:
 The effect of ageing and metabolic syndrome on development of white matter hyperintensities is independent of an effect mediated through the poor collateral status.


Some high-quality reactor physics benchmark experiments are being re-evaluated with today's state-of-the-art methods, particularly using that of detailed 3-D models. Two experiments analysed in the framework of the International Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhE) project are SNEAK-7A and 7B. These assemblies are characterised by Pu-fuelled fast critical assemblies in the Karlsruhe Fast Critical Facility for the purpose of testing the cross section data and calculational methods. As the detailed information on the SNEAK-7A and 7B benchmark experiments becomes available, the purpose of this paper is to neutronically describe these experiments as closely as possible to the configuration as they existed in the critical facility, thereby minimizing subsequent corrections caused by modeling deficiencies. The basic cross section libraries used for this analysis are JEF-2.2 and ENDF/B-VI. Core eigenvalues, spectral indices and central material worths are compared between the predictions and measurements. The capability of modern 3-D transport methods is appreciated and the quality of the basic library is assessed. In addition, the core eigenvalue sensitivity analysis for the basic cross section of each important nuclide is performed, using a sensitivity and uncertainly analysis code. Using the deviation of the calculated spectrum indices from the measurement, together with the sensitivity coefficient, itmore » is shown how the sensitivity analysis can be usefully adopted to figure out a specific detail of a basic cross section needing improvement in each library. (authors)« less


Highly transparent and conductive amorphous zinc‐stannate thin films were prepared by rf magnetron sputtering using a target with a Zn/(Zn+Sn) content of 33 at. %. The resistivity distribution of the zinc‐stannate films having a composition near ZnSnO3 and deposited on the surface of substrates placed parallel to the target surface was successfully controlled by optimizing both the sputter gas pressure and oxygen partial pressure. A uniform distribution with a resistivity of 4–5×10−3 Ω cm and an average transmittance above 80% in the visible range was obtained for undoped zinc‐stannate films deposited on substrates from room temperature to 300 °C. The zinc‐stannate films were found to be thermally and chemically more stable than undoped SnO2 and ZnO films.


BACKGROUND AND AIM
Tooth staining is a common side effect of chlorhexidine mouth rinses and caused by the interaction of the di-cationic antiseptic with dietary chromogens. A product is now available, which claims an anti-discolouration system (ADS) with one clinical study in support. This study in vitro aims to determine whether two ADS rinses do or do not bind dietary chromogens.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Optically clear acrylic specimens were cycled through human saliva (2 min), one of the three chlorhexidine rinses (two ADS and a positive control) (2 min) or water and then soaked in tea (60 min). After each cycle the optical density (OD) of specimens were read on a UV/visible spectrophotometer. The exit point was the cycle at which OD was >2.0.

RESULTS
All three rinses exceeded OD 2 at 11 cycles and there was no significant difference in staining for the ADS rinses compared with the positive control rinse.

CONCLUSION
Based on extensive literature for the correlation of this test in vitro with chlorhexidine anti-plaque activity and propensity to stain in vivo these ADS rinses will have the same anti-plaque efficacy and potential to cause stain as established chlorhexidine rinse products.


Backgrounds: Breast Chemotherapy agents in breast cancer's patients are also
playing role in their immune depression. Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) is an
essential fatty acid which may increase cellular immune system activity. The aim
of this study is to evaluate the effect of EPA supplementation on stage III B
breast cancer's patients CD8+ T cells count who received chemotherapy.
Methods: It was pre and post test randomized controlled design study. Samples
were patients diagnosed with stage IIIB invasive ductal carcinoma of the breasts.
Samples divided into control and treatment group with EPA supplementation and
also tested for CD8+ T cells count before and 21 days after first cycle CAF
chemotherapy. Test of difference using Mann Whitney.
Results: Samples obtained were 40 patients, 20 patients on control group received
CAF chemotherapy and 20 patients on treatment group received CAF
chemotherapy and EPA supplementation. CD8 + T cells count were significantly
higher 1131,7 (483 – 3506) on treatment group compare to control 1131,7 (483 –
3506) (p<0,05). The CD8+ T cells difference were significantly different on both
study group before and 21 days after first chemotherapy( p<0,005).
Conclusion: The CD8 + T cells count increase by the EPA given in stage IIIB
ductal invasive carcinoma patient's who received chemotherapy.
Keywords : CD8+T cells, invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast stage III B,
chemotherapy CAF, Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)


This paper proposes a new physical layer architecture for uplink multiple access based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). It achieves low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and high reliability with low computational complexity at both the transmitter and receiver, targeting low-latency communications such as transmission of control information in machine-to-machine (M2M) and device-to-device (D2D) communications. Our approach is based on the judicious combination of subcarrier hopping and super-orthogonal convolutional codes (SOCC) for achieving high coding gain and frequency diversity, together with Golay complementary sequences for low PAPR signaling. By introducing non-orthogonal multiple access where the subcarriers of different users are partially overlapped, the overall bandwidth efficiency can be improved. Furthermore, the low PAPR nature improves the power efficiency and thus enhances the transmission range. Employing the successive interference cancellation at the receiver further mitigates the resulting multiple access interference.


Weapons and weapon systems/Weapons of mass destruction; Weapons and weapon systems/Weapon systems; Weapons and weapon systems/Warheads; Weapons and weapon systems/Nuclear and radiological weapons; Weapons and weapon systems/Conventional weapons; Weapons and weapon systems; Politics and government


We describe a web-based user interface to retrieve Hyper Suprime-Cam data products, including images and catalogs. Users can access data directly from a graphical user interface or by writing a database SQL query. The system provides raw images, reduced images and stacked images (from multiple individual exposures), with previews available. Catalog queries can be executed in preview or queue mode, allowing for both exploratory and comprehensive investigations. 1. HSC and HSC Survey Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a new, gigantic camera for the prime focus of Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. It covers a 1.5 degree diameter field of view with 104 scientific grade Hamamatsu CCDs (Miyazaki 2012). HSC saw first light in January 2013, and is now in the phase of scientific verification. With the combination of wide field coverage (1.77 deg), large aperture (8.2 meter) and excellent image quality of the Subaru telescope, HSC will provide a large, high-quality dataset for various scientific programs. An HSC Collaboration team (consisting of astronomers in Japan, Taiwan and Princeton University) successfully proposed a Strategic Survey Program (SSP) to use 300 nights over 5 years to survey wide (∼ 1500 deg), deep (4 × 7 deg) and ultradeep (2 × 1.77 deg) layers in both broad (grizy) bands and some narrow band filters. The expected data volume is about ∼3 million FITS image data, which corresponds to 300 TB after reduction by our data pipeline. The final catalog is expected to contain ∼1 billion celestial objects, which are multiply measured on each exposure, and a total of ∼6 billion individual detections/measurements. As the output data is so large, it is important to develop an effective data archiving and retrieval system, to accelerate the scientific activities using HSC SSP data. 297


Rapid catalyst deactivation is a major economic impediment to the production of liquid fuels by direct coal liquefaction processes. In order to gain a better understanding of the deactivation phenomena and their impact on liquefaction processes, we have developed a quantitative approach for evaluating the modes and the rates of activity loss experienced by catalysts during coal processing. It is currently believed that direct coal liquefaction proceeds primarily by a donor solvent mechanism in which high molecular weight coal molecules are thermally fragmented into lower molecular weight free radicals, which subsequently abstract hydrogen from polynuclear hydroaromatic compounds in the process solvent. The resulting dehydrogenated polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are catalytically rehydrogenated as a portion of the recycle solvent. We have used measurement of the rate of hydrogenation of pyrene, one PAH found in significant amounts in coal liquefaction solvents, to evaluate the activity of catalyst samples periodically withdrawn from a two-stage liquefaction process. This paper describes how kinetic measurements, using pyrene as a probe of activity, have been employed to quantitatively determine the rates of deactivation by two classes of catalyst contaminants, metallic and carbonaceous deposits. 8 refs., 5 figs.


We consider three-dimensional nonlinear viscoelastic models that account for both stress relaxation and creep/recovery phenomena. These models are based on different frame indifferent time derivatives: the Oldroyd (or upper-convected) derivative, the Jaumann (or co-rotational) derivative and the Cotter–Rivlin (or lower-convected) derivative. Under a simple tension creep process, these constitutive equations predict the same stress relaxation but lead to different situations. The models based on the Oldroyd and the lower-convected derivative require restrictions on the values of the material parameters as well as on the traction/compression stress. The model based on the Jaumann derivatives does not require any restriction. All the constitutive models examined are used to study the finite amplitude, horizontal oscillatory motion of a mass attached to a rate-type viscoelastic string. In this way we generalize the classical results by Beatty and Zhou (1991).


Abstract Formulation of topic properties is the goal of this paper. These properties are to be used in judging the difficulty of topics appropriate to the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) ad hoc task. Applying statistical methods to both TREC-6 and TREC-7 information retrieval results, we identify topic pairs that exemplify topic properties useful in relating topic statements to system performance. From two topics that seem the same with respect to the challenge they provide information retrieval systems, we formulate topic properties by relating the corresponding topic statements to what is known about information retrieval systems. Some properties apparent in the topic pairs identified are linked to topic expansion. These pairs exemplify both the need for expansion and the danger in automatic expansion.


The document starts with a short conceptual framework. In the second chapter, it
reconstructs the historical facts of the indigenous movement with the agenda of
plurinationality in diverse sociopolitical scenarios, and in the third chapter, it analyzes
the proposal and contents of the concept of plurinationality as conceived by the
CONAIE and the 2008 Constituent Assembly in relation to the nature of the State, the
political regime, the economical model, the rights and guarantees, which generated
divergencies within the different political blocs in the Constituent National Assembly
and society. Some sectors have declared themseleves against this proposal, arguing that
it may cause the desintegration of the nation, generating parallel states within the
National State, ignoring the diverse composition of the country.


Let g;h :âa;ba!R be nonnegative nondecreasing functions such that g and h have a continuous ¢rst derivative and gOaUahOaU;gObUahObU. Let paOp1;p2U be ap air of positive real numbersp1;p2 such that p1a p2a 1. a) If f :âa;ba!R be a nonnegative nondecreasing function, then for r;s < 1 M âra p O b


A crucial technology with many applications in traffic management, security, and law enforcement is license plate detection utilizing machine learning. In this abstract, a machine learning-based method for precisely locating and identifying license plates in pictures and video streams is presented. Data gathering, preprocessing, object detection using deep learning methods like YOLO, license plate recognition using optical character recognition (OCR), and post-processing to improve findings are all part of the mPlate Detection, OpenCV module, OCR Technology.ethodology. Metrics including precision, recall, F1-score, are used to assess performance. The system offers enormous promise for improving efficiency and safety in numerous sectors when it is implemented in real-world circumstances, whether on edge devices or in the cloud. This abstract emphasizes how important machine learning is for automating difficult processes, solving real-world problems, and improving CV. The trained model can also be used in a variety of applications, including security systems, toll booth monitoring, parking enforcement, traffic management systems, and parking enforcement. The system can be implemented on edge devices for real-time processing or in the cloud for scalability depending on the individual requirements of the application.


This study sought to determine what student characteristic best predicts advising satisfaction. Outcomes of this study suggest that faculty behaviors such as discussing personal values, majors/ academic concentrations, and financial aid account for significant variance in the prediction of student advising satisfaction. This would suggest those faculties who provide developmental advising are more likely to receive positive advising outcomes. Since the 1980s, colleges and universities have become a much more diverse environment as ethnic minority and other groups continue to increase in proportion (Priest & McPhee, 2000). Many institutions have been forced to reexamine their retention strategies in response to cohorts of incoming students who are increasingly diverse in gender, ethnicity, race, age, and socioeconomic status. This reexamination often has focused on the role of the academic advisor in the institution, as well as certain student characteristics like worldviews (Coll, in press; Coll & Zalaquett, in press). Worldview has been variously defined as equivalent to a person's perception of the world and philosophy of life (Ivey, Ivey, & Simek-Downing, 1997; Naugle, 2002). Ibrahim (1985) emphasizes that knowledge of a person's worldview helps others to understand an individual's life experiences, culture, and interaction within the environment. Sue (1978) defined worldview as relating to the individual's perception of and relationship with the world, and emphasized its importance in development of a person's identity. The notion that an individual's worldview is important to his or her life was reinforced by Koltko-Rivera (2004), who stated that individuals are actively engaged with their surroundings through the process of specifically constructed worldviews in order to gain a self-defined individualistic purpose. Traditional retention strategies focused upon student ability and motivation; the changes in student population have encouraged a change in the focus of retention strategies. Educational institutions historically have used advising as a primary means to increase retention, and many researchers (Carstensen & Silberhorn, 1979; Glennen, 1976; Noel, 1976; Tinto, 2006) have supported the link between academic advising and student retention. The main thrust of these studies is that regular contact between advisors and students is an essential element in retaining students.


A millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless system is highly focused as a powerful mean enabling to perform very high data transmission. This paper proposes media access control (MAC) for mm Wave wireless system. Existing MAC has limits to achieve high data transmission over 1~2 Gbps by reasons of low frame transmission efficiency and high overhead of signal exchanges. In addition, the transmitting frames need to be protected in poor channel condition for high quality of service. The proposed MAC provides frame aggregation with unequal error protection (UEP) and block acknowledgement (Blk-ACK) / block negative acknowledgement (Blk-NAK) methods, which can solve the problems of existing MAC and guarantee the high quality of service. Theoretical throughput analysis shows that the proposed MAC has high throughput enhancement compared to the existing MAC and achieves MAC throughput over 2 Gbps.


The northern flank of the Trans-Hudson Orogen on central Baffin Island comprises, from north to south 1) reworked Archean basement (Rae Province); 2) the Paleoproterozoic Piling Group, which comprises a lower, passive-margin sequence (Dewar Lakes and Flint Lake formations) and an upper, foredeep sequence (Astarte River and Longstaff Bluff formations); 3) a mafic volcanic thrust sheet (Bravo Lake formation); and 4) a metamorphic-plutonic internal zone. Field relationships suggest that the contact between the Piling Group and the underlying Archean basement is a reworked unconformity. Locally, the contact is obscured by the presence of large biotite syenoto monzogranite plutons that crosscut both the Piling Group and the Archean basement. Four distinct tectonometamorphic episodes are recorded, with an earlier, middle-amphibolite-facies Archean event (D1A), two compressional Paleoproterozoic events (D1P and D2P), and a late cross-folding event (D3P) that produced a set of basement culminations in the southern portion of the map area. 2001-C23 D. Corrigan et al. 1 CURRENT RESEARCH RECHERCHES EN COURS 2001 Article Article Titles Titres Purchase Information Information pour acheter 1 Canada–Nunavut Geoscience Office, Building 1306, P.O. Box 2319, Iqaluit, Nunavut X0A 0H0


Report presenting a theoretical investigation of an automatic control system with primary sensitivity to normal accelerations as used to control a specific supersonic canard missile. The control system is made up of an integrating servomotor that receives a signal from an accelerometer that is sensitive to normal accelerations of the airframe that it is controlling. The acceleration control system appears to work well for obtaining longitudinal control, but works best when combined with a homing seeker or guidance system for controlling directional space.


The invention relates to the field of the production of a floor board, and particularly discloses a composite floor with small expansion rate and contraction rate and a production method thereof. The composite floor board comprises a wearable layer, a color film layer and a base material layer from top to bottom in sequence, wherein the base material layer consists of calcium carbonate, PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), a plasticizer, a stabilizer and a modifier ACR (Acrylics); the production method comprises the steps of processing for shaping, implementing thermal compounding, implementing surface UV (Ultraviolet) and tempering, cooling and finally implementing slicing and grooving. According to the composite floor board and the production method thereof, the calcium carbonate adopted for the composite floor board has a specification of over 500 meshes; the processing temperature is rationally controlled through the production method, so that the contraction rate and the expansion rate can be effectively lowered; consequently, the lowest contraction rate can reach 0.04% and the lowest expansion rate can reach 0.1%; as the volume change of the composite floor board caused by expansion and contraction is greatly decreased, the use performance and the service life of the composite floor board can be effectively improved.


Abstract : The overall goal of this program is to contribute to the development of the next-generation anti-corrosion and other protective coating systems for USAF aircraft. During the past year, NDSU's promising Mg-based primer was further optimized. Five different Mg alloy pigments were evaluated, and the optimal pigment volume ratio was established. Flexible binders were identified that substantially improved mechanical properties of the Mg-based primer without sacrificing corrosion properties. Research continued to implement high-throughput methods for coatings formulation and optimization, including development of a technique that enables high-throughput screening of the abrasion resistance of cured coatings. A hybrid organic-inorganic binder for Mg-based primers was developed that includes silica nanoparticles, which has been shown to provide excellent corrosion resistance to important aluminum alloys. Research continued to develop a rapid-cure Mg-rich primer system that would minimize out-of-service time when an aircraft is repainted. These "dual-cure" binder systems combine ambient-cured siloxane networks with a UV-curable cross-linked network. Progress was made in developing in-field methods to deposit transparent conducting oxide coatings on aircraft canopies by atmospheric pressure plasma methods. Such coatings are needed to dissipate static charge buildup on canopies when in service. Finally, NDSU has investigated the use of electrochemical sensors embedded between the Mg-rich primer and the topcoat, to monitor the degree of corrosion protection provided by the primer. A principal advantage of this approach is that the topcoat protects the sensor from the environment, which reduces electrochemical noise, improves measurement accuracy, and extends the sensor lifetime.


The paper discussed inflammation related cells(including neutrophilic granulocyte,lymphocyte,monocytosis,macrophage,endothelial,vascular smooth muscle cells and glial cells),extracellular matrix even neurons and also their products(IL-1,IL-6,TNF-α,ICAM-1,ECM) interacted during ischemic stroke.


The debate on research ethics can be applied both to the scientific methodology as other disciplines, such as sports. In the field of Brazilian sports health, it has been common research that do genetic testing to identify athletes with sickle cell trait. Despite the persistence of Brazilian sports federations to discriminate athletes with this inherited trait, sickle cell trait is not a disease. This article reports the case of a soccer athlete victim of genetic discrimination: identified with the sickle cell trait, she was deemed unfit to participate in a championship for the Brazilian Football Confederation. The paper analyzes the implications of genetic research to identify the sickle cell trait in the absence of ethical care aimed at preserving the rights of those who submit to testing. It also shows the vulnerability to which are exposed people involved in research that do genetic testing without ethical care or even reasonable justifications and the results are interpreted under the rationality of biological determinism and genetic reductionism. Brazilian sports federations interested in identifying athletes with sickle cell trait should submit this order to study the evaluation of Research Ethics Committees, as this is a potential to cause harm to the procedure of athletes. The genetic test can not be considered an act of health care, since no disease is being treated.


(Accepted for publication February 16, 2015.) during fluid administration demands discontinuance. This principle, more authoritatively evidenced by previous studies, is further supported by our data.3,4 However, 4 of 32 cases showed a combination of diffuse B-lines and EVLW less than 10 ml/kg. This is not surprising because the phenomenon of B-lines is not only linked to pulmonary congestion but also to acute respiratory distress syndrome and infections, which represent more complex pulmonary conditions. Avoiding fluid overload in these patients is safe in any case. When the B-pattern is detected, our suggestion is to avoid or consider more carefully the fluid administration by relying on adjunctive tools. Of course, fluids are better guided once invasive monitoring is established, which is clearly reported and continuously repeated in clear words in our article. We leave to the judicious opinion of Foti et al. but especially of anyone else who really faces complex emergency situations at bedside, whether this potential is useful or not. Indeed, B-lines cannot be used to predict fluid responsiveness but only the lung tolerance to fluid administration. However, even when we have the possibility to use more advanced tools for hemodynamic monitoring, like usually happens once the patient is admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), B-lines assessment still maintains its importance because it is the only bedside tool that allows a safe direct insight into the lung.5 Finally, we do not understand why Foti et al. extrapolated some sentences from our article and interposed their words to change the original meaning. We did not write that "even" the combination with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) did not improve the accuracy of lung ultrasound. Foti et al. will understand that if they add the word "even," the meaning of our sentence totally changes. What is true is that, in the EVLW group, LVEF did not increase the performance of lung ultrasound, simply because it was sufficiently accurate by itself.


. The paper deals with the progress in various aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in US and China. There is concern about high-level machine intelligence and super-intelligent AI coming up in a few decades, bringing with it significant risks for humanity. In other quarters, these issues are ignored or considered science fiction. High level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to super-intelligence in less than 30 years thereafter. They estimate the chance is about one in three that this development turns out to be 'bad' or 'extremely bad' for humanity.


Marx's "Human Essence" affected his early views about freedom,disassimilation,practice and the social ideal.The critique of traditional "human Essence" inspired Marx to found historical materialism,which becomes the organic constituent of Marx'theory to explain "riddle of the history".Hegel,Feuerbach and Hess had their effect on Marx's theory of "human Essence".however,Hess was the first in Germany to connect "human Essence" and communism,who was the important role in inspiring and promoting the formation of Marx's early economic alienation and socialist thoughts.


The experience in improving foundry method for a bulkhead cast with stainless and heat resistant steel was introduced. Sodium silicate self-setting sand was adopted for making mould, zirconite paint was adopted for coating the mould surface, and the top open riser was used in improved foundry method. The problems with metal penetration and difficulty to cut off the risers have been successfully solved after the method was improved, and the casting quality has been obviously enhanced, process yield rate reached 66%.


The primary aim of this research was to develop a set of indicators that can be used to evaluate the adaptive capacity of construction organisations for climate change adaptation. Drawing upon past research findings, four critical factors indicating organisational adaptive capacity were identified: Technology, Business Strategy, Political/Legal and Operational. Once the critical factors had been established, an Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) was performed, using an input from eight industry experts from major construction organisations around Australia, to rank the importance of the identified factors and their associated indicators. These industry experts were asked to provide judgment based on a series of pairwise comparison through a questionnaire survey. The most significant aspect of this analysis was to develop the weighted importance index of each critical factor and indicator. The importance indices can be further applied to developing an assessment framework based on a scoring system, which can be used to measure the adaptive capacity of a construction organisation.


PHITS is a 3-dimensional general-purpose Monte Carlo code, which can transport of all varieties of hadrons and heavy ions with energies up to around 100 GeV/nucleon. To be able to estimate the biological damage from neutrons with PUTTS, a feature has been included to treat low energy neutron collisions as "events" which means that the energy and momentum is conserved in each event and makes it possible to extract the kinetic energy distributions of all the residual nuclei without using any local approximation. To estimate the direct biological effects of radiation, mathematical functions, for calculating the microdosmetric probability densities in macroscopic material, have been incorporated in PUTTS. This makes it possible to instantaneously calculate the probability densities of lineal and specific energies around the trajectories of high energetic charged particle tracks. A method for estimating the biological dose has also been established by using the improved PUTTS coupled to a microdosimetric kinetic model.


Network interconnection and information sharing among firms and their departments expose them to cybersecurity breaches. Traditional cybersecurity studies have paid little attention to the reallocation of security investment within firms. This paper proposes a mathematical model for optimal allocation of cybersecurity investment among headquarters and branches with budget constraints. The differences in size of information sets and system interconnection have been taken into account. The responses of optimal allocation to internal and external factors, such as the portion of branch information set, the propagation probability, the budget constraints, and the intrinsic vulnerability, have been studied in deep both theoretically and numerically. Analysis results indicate that the group will give priority to protecting headquarters when the total budget is small and intrinsic vulnerability is high. The security investment allocated to each branch increases with budget, propagation probability and portion of information set, but never exceeds 1 / ( n + 1 ) of total budget. Numerical simulations also verify that security information sharing among headquarters and branches can help improve the efficiency of security investment in the whole system. Furthermore, the findings of this paper will draw attention to the reallocation of cybersecurity investment within a business group and help cybersecurity managers to develop investment allocation strategies and policies.


Current language processing tools presuppose input in the form of a sequence of high-dimensional vectors with continuous values. Lexical items can be converted to such vectors with standard methodology and subsequent processing is assumed to handle structural features of the string. Constructional features do typically not fit in that processing pipeline: they are not as clearly sequential, they overlap with other items, and the fact that they are combinations of lexical items obscures their ontological status as observable linguistic items in their own right. Constructional grammar frameworks allow for a more general view on how to understand lexical items and their configurations in a common framework. This paper introduces an approach to accommodate that understanding in a vector symbolic architecture, a processing framework which allows for combinations of continuous vectors and discrete items, convenient for various downstream processing using e.g. neural processing or other tools which expect input in vector form.


The Decision of Strengthening Population and Family Planning Work and Stabilizing Low Fertility Rate by the Central Committee of CCP and the State Council has epoch-making significance in practice and theory.To stabilize low fertility rate shall enhance demographic studies,master the numerical relations and limitations.There will be a certain side effect of keeping low fertility rate.However,one should scientifically and overall weigh up the gains and losses.Generally speaking,the advantage outweighs the disadvantage.Keeping low fertility rate is good for healthy development of population,resources and environment,and social sustainable development


Although the cognitive and behavioral modeling communities now have a rather lengthy history and there is ongoing research and development in these areas across dozens of academic, industrial, and government research laboratories, very little of the work has been explicitly competitive in orientation. That said, there are precedents for modeling competitions in this area. Two examples include the PokerBot Competition (Lebiere & Bothell, 2004) and the Dynamic Stocks and Flows Model Comparison Challenge (Lebiere, Gonzalez, & Warwick, 2010). Both of these were successful and interesting events. However, they were also both single shot modeling competitions that did not evolve into annual events in the spirit of the Robocup (2012) robotic soccer competitions.


Motorcycle is one of risky transportation in traffic accident. This accident is caused by motorcycles aren't equipped with special safety. Often the motorcyclist are also less attention of safety riding, with traffic violations that could harm other riders. The traffic policeman as a law enforcer seem slow in taking action againts the traffic violations. The aim of this research is to know how the implementation of law No. 22 of 2009 About Traffic and Road Transportation: (Special) for Motorcyclist in Semarang, by using phenomenons of implementation effectivity they are appropriateness of the police, implementor, target, and enviroment. Also to know about support and resistor factor by using implementation model George Edward III wich is mention four factors that influence the implementation they are communivation, resources, dispotition, and bureaucracy structure. This research is use descriptive qualitative research method. The result of this research shown the implementation of law No. 22 of 2009 About Traffic and Road Transportation: (Special) for Motorcyclist in Semarang has been going well and effective. This can be seen from the phenomenoms of implementation effectivity that can be reached. Although has been going effective its still have resistor factors. So needs adding some traffic policeman, budgeting, fasilities, information system, to over come the problem of traffic, enforcement of stict sanctions for traffic policeman that misuse authority.


Eric Ewazen. Sonata for Horn and Piano. San Antonio, TX: Southern Music Company, c1998. [Note on the composer, front cover verso; score, 47 p.; and part. SMC SU338. $20.] Eric Ewazen. Sonata for Trombone and Piano. San Antonio, TX: Southern Music Company, c1998. [Note on the composer, front cover verso; score, 47 p.; and part. SMC SU339. $20.] Eric Ewazen. Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. San Antonio, TX: Southern Music Company, c1997. [Note on the composer, front cover verso; score, 44 p.; and part. SMC SU337. $20.] Born in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio, composer-pianist Eric Ewazen studied at the Eastman School of Music (B.M. 1976), the Tanglewood Music Festival, and the Juilliard School (D.M.A. 1980) under several composers including Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, and Joseph Schwantner. Since 1980, he has been a member of the Juilliard School faculty (for more on the composer, including many recorded examples of his music mentioned and discussed in this review, see Ewazen's Web site at http://www.ericewazen .com/newsite/, and more recent information and a list of works at the Stanton Management Web site at http://www .stantonmgt.com/Composers/ewazen-new .htm [and an earlier list at http://www .stantonmgt.com/Composers/ewazen.htm], plus Michael Ethen's September 2004 "Interview with Eric Ewazen," ComposersOnline.org 7 [November 2004], http://www.composersonline.org/modules. php?name=Newsf small ensembles of brass instruments (A Philharmonic Fanfare for trumpet, horn, and trombone [1997]; and Dagon //for bass trombone and tape [1980]); works for brass quintet (Grand Valley Fanfare [2001], Frost Fire [1990], Colchester Fantasy [1987], and Kronos for brass quintet and timpani [1979]); pieces for various brass choirs (High Desert Octet for eight horns [2002], Sonoran Desert Harmonies for eight trumpets [2002], Empire Fanfare for trombone octet [2002], Great Lakes Octet for trombone choir [2002], Legend of the Sleeping Bear for eight horns [2001], A Concert Fanfare for six trumpets [2000], Prelude and Fugue for trumpet choir [2000], Myths and Legends for trombone quartet [2000], Posaunenstadt for twelve trombones [2000], Concertino for bass trombone and trombone choir [1999], Fantasy and Double Fugue for trombone choir [1997], A Western Fanfare [1997], Grand Canyon Octet for eight horns [1996; also for eight trombones], Concertino for bass trombone and trombone choir [1996], Fantasia for seven trumpets [1991], Symphony in Brass [1991], and Kwaiden: A Trombone Quartet [pub. 1977]); various chamber works with brass instruments (Art of the City for clarinet, horn, and string quartet [200O]; Mandata for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, and cello [1999]; Ballade, Pastorale and Dance for horn, flute, and piano [1993; the second movement later arranged to form the Pastorale for trumpet, tenor or bass trombone, and piano, 1996]; Trio for trumpet, violin, and piano [1992]; Quintet for trumpet and strings [1990; reworked in 1998 to become the Concerto for trumpet and string orchestra]: Trio for bassoon, horn, and piano [1983]; and Devil Septet for four tubas, piano, and two percussion [pub. 1976]); and works for brass and orchestra (Damante for trumpet and wind ensemble [2004], Concerto for euphonium and orchestra [2003], Rhapsody for bass trombone and string orchestra [1997], and Shadowcatcher: A Concerto for Brass Quintet and Orchestra [1996; also for brass and wind ensemble] ). …


In the last few decades, public management system with emphasis better performance accountability. One of the means of support in realizing the performance accountability is inadequate performance measurement system. Performance measurement system plays very important role in terms of ensuring how the performance of the government institutions carry out what they are responsible.
This study examined how the performance measurement system developed in the public sector. The purpose of this study was to examine the technical and organizational factors that influence the development of performance measurement system in Indonesia Central Government. The difficulty in determining the performance indicators, personnel educational background and training of employees into technical factors that were analyzed in this study. As for the organizational factors, we examined the organizational culture and vague of the organizational goals and objectives.
This study was conducted to carry out testing quantitative and qualitative data with sequential explanatory approach (mixed methodology). Research data was collected through surveys and semi-structural interview at the Budget Officer of Finance Ministry of Indonesia Central Government. Subsequently, analysis of research data using Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) for quantitative data and Thematic Analisys for qualitative data.
The study results show that technical factors significantly affect the development of performance measurement system for the central government operational orientation and incentive orientation (except the difficulty determining performance indicators factor). In addition, organizational culture are also found to affect the development performance measurement system for the Central Government incentives and exploratory orientation. While the goals and objectives vagueness factors found not to influence. The study also found that the development of performance measurement system in the Central Government by coercive isomorphism (coercive pressure) and normative isomorphism (normative pressure).


: Room-temperature oxidation of aluminum is strongly enhanced by the exposure to atmospheric-pressure dielectric-barrier discharges (DBDs) and post-discharges in Ar-O 2 mixtures. The contribution is focussed on the roles of oxygen atoms and of photons with energies beyond the oxide band gap, produced in the DBD. To enable an independent variation of O-atom densities and surface-flux of photons, a special F-shaped double-DBD reactor was designed. Results are discussed within Cabrera-Mott theory of metal oxidation.


The research development on new dry vibrating re- fractories,magnesia based slag dam and bubble curtain barricade for continuous casting tundish was introduced.


The invention discloses a method for producing steel for a stirring tank with a limit specification through hot rolling, and belongs to the technical field of steel rolling. The production process comprises the following steps of: heating a continuous cast slab, roughly descaling, processing by using a fixed-width press, roughly rolling, processing by using a sheet coiling box, processing by using flying shears, finely descaling, finely rolling, performing laminar flow cooling, and coiling to form a steel coil. The following technical parameters are controlled in the process. The quality problems of misroll, poor shape control, edge upwarping, low yield and the like which easily occur in the conventional hot rolling production are solved.


A knight in the arena - Enrico Scrovegni and his "true image", Laura Jacobus reconstructing Benozzo's Gozzoli's artistic identity, Francis Ames-Lewis patronage and identity in Renaissance Florence -the case of S. Maria a Lecceto, Jill Burke art and life in the Renaissance - a blurring of identities? Rupert Shepherd a preface to signatures (with some cases in Venice), Creighton Gilbert fashioning identities for the Renaissance courtesan, Mary Rogers beauty and identity in Parmegianino's portraits, Mary Vaccaro problems of identity in an age of change - the viewer of art in Renaissance England, Tatiana String Moretto and the congregation of S. Giorgio in Alga -fashioning a visual identity of a religious congregation, Gabrielle Neher "ut vita scultura" - Cellini's "Perseus" and the self-fashioning of artistic identity, Victoria C. Gardner Coates artists into heroes - the commemoration of artists in the art of Giorgio Vasari, Joan Stack "Cittadin nostro Fiorentino" - Michelangelo and "Fiorentinismo" in mid-16th-century Florence, Frances Thomas the identity of the Prince -Cosimo de'Medici, Giorgio Vasari and the "Ragionamenti", Paola Tinagli "frail flesh, as in a glass" - the portrait as an immortal presence in early modern England and Wales, Tarnya Cooper.


Most Korean linguists consider that the grammatical function of 'ida' and 'anida' is different, so they treat 'anida' as an adjective, 'ida' as a predicative case marker. The purpose of this study is to confirm the relationship between 'ida' and 'anida' in Modern Korean and to clarify that their grammatical function is equal. The major findings of this study are as follows: First, there is a morphological connection between 'ida' and 'anida', in that the very same ending can be attached to them. Secondly, there is a syntactical connection between 'ida' and 'anida', in that they are the predicative which need two noun phrases. Moreover, they have something in common in that case marker, assistant marker, verbal ending can precede not only 'ida' but also 'anida'. Thirdly, there is a semantical connection between 'ida' and 'anida', in that they share the same semantic components with the execption that 'anida' is the antonym of 'ida'. In conclusion, there is a close connection between 'ida' and 'anida', therefore we have to treat them as the adjectives equally. Then Korean teacher can easily teach the relationship between 'ida' and 'anida' to Korean students, as well as to foreign students who learn the Korean language.


Abstract Background Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection has been increasingly recognized as an important cause of acute respiratory illness (ARI) and a trigger for exacerbation of underlying cardiopulmonary disease in adults. Incidence of hospitalized RSV infection remains uncertain as adults have not been systematically screened. Previous incidence estimates, derived primarily from modeling studies, have ranged from 84 to 190/100K population in adults >65 years of age. Accurate burden data are critical to inform RSV vaccine development for adults. We used active surveillance among hospitalized adults to determine population-based incidence rates of RSV infection. Methods Hospitalized adults ≥ 18 years old residing in the surveillance area with >2 ARI symptoms or exacerbation of underlying cardiopulmonary disease were screened for eligibility during October 2017–April 2018 and October 2018 to April 2019 in 3 hospitals in Rochester, NY and New York City. Respiratory specimens were tested for RSV using PCR assays. RSV incidence per 100,000 persons (per 2010 US Census data) was adjusted by percent market share for study hospitals in their catchment area. Results In total, 8,217 hospitalized adults residing in the surveillance area that met the surveillance case definition were tested for RSV; 768 (9.4%) were positive. Adults were aged 18–49 (12%), 50–64 (30%), and ≥65 years old (58%); 55% were female. RSV infection incidence varied from year 1 to year 2 and was highest in patients aged ≥65 years old (table). Conclusion This is the largest prospective RSV incidence study to date. Preliminary results indicate that the incidence of RSV infection may be higher than previously reported, especially in urban-dwelling adults >65 years of age. Results confirm the need for vaccines to prevent RSV infections in older adults. Disclosures All Authors: No reported Disclosures.


Takeo Kurafuji, Ad Neelemean, Alan Prince, Luigi Rizzi, Hubert Truckenbrodt, as well as audiences at University of Geneve, Georgetown University, University of Groeningen, OTS-Utrecht, Stuttgart University, and at the JohnsHopkins and University of Maryland's HOT Workshop. This research was genereously financed through the NSF grant NSF SBR 95 11891. OT-interactions between Focus and Canonical Word order: Deriving the Crosslinguistic Typology of Structural Contrastive Focus*


In particular, the present invention is to provide a DV epitope binding agent antibody (e.g., antibody and / or antigen-binding fragment thereof) and a composition comprising thereof and designed to provide, deployment, use, identification and / or characterization method thereof. In some embodiments, the antibody provided by the agent exhibit significant binding to a variety of serotypes of DV. In some embodiments, the antibody provided by the agent exhibit significant binding to all four serotypes of DV. The antibody agents suitable, for example the prevention, treatment, diagnosis, and / or research DV.


A structure with high crystallinity and orderly molecular packing is a requirement for high‐performance optoelectronic devices. However, growing large‐area, long‐range order, highly crystalline micro or nanostructures remains a challenge. Endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs) are spherical π‐conjugated molecules with unique electronic structures, hence they can be easily assembled into highly ordered crystals through intermolecular π–π interactions. In this work, large‐area single‐crystal microwire arrays of M3N@Ih‐C80 (M = Sc, Lu) are prepared with the assistance of a pillar‐structured template, and the microwire diameter can be tuned via the fullerene concentration. A field‐effect transistor is fabricated using Sc3N@Ih‐C80 microwire arrays, exhibiting a record‐high charge carrier mobility (6.16 cm2 V−1 s−1) among EMF‐based devices. Further, microwire‐based photodetectors are developed, with a response time as low as 0.1 s. The precise arrangement of the M3N@Ih‐C80 molecules helps improve the electron transportation channels, thereby enhancing the device performance.


To examine the safety of intralesional injection of collagenase Clostridium histolyticum (CCH) for the treatment of Peyronie's disease (PD), using a pooled safety analysis of patients who received at least one dose of CCH in any of six clinical studies.