A b s t r a c t . The aim of the present study was to deter mine the usefulness of a FAIRLEY 0.2 μm ceramic membrane for diffusion juice purification. Filtration was carried out with: distilled water, sucrose solution of 15% concentration, diffusion ju ice from sugar factory and diffusion juice obtained under laboratory conditions. It was found that 15% sucrose solution had by ca. 35% smaller filtrate flux than water, under the same conditions. Purity of juices after ultrafiltration did not depend on process temperature. Juice elimination efficiency a nd filtration efficiency depend on diffusion juice quality. Filtration of diffusion juice with a 0.2 μm ceramic membrane resulted in an elimination efficiency similar to that of classical method. It seems that, in the future, filtration may replace, partly or totally, the classical purification of juice, wh ich however still requires much research. K e y w o r d s : diffusion juice, ultrafiltration, ceramic membrane, elimination efficiency


A time-dependent damage law for Clay has been built starting from considerations at the micro-scale where non-planar subcritical growth of micro-cracks is assumed (Francois and Dascalu, 2010). The passage from the micro-scale to the macro-scale is done through an asymptotic homogenization approach including the size of the microscopic cell as a material parameter. The stress-strain relationship is controlled by homogenized coefficient and a subcritical damage law defines the evolution of damage. The developed model enables to reproduce not only the classical short-term stress-strain response of materials (in tension and compression) but also the long-term behavior encountering relaxation and creep effects.


In biometric authentication system, distinct set of characteristic features are used to identify an authorised person. Retina is a stable biometric feature because of its location and unique physiological characteristics. In this paper, we propose a texture feature-based retinal authentication system. Texture features are considered as important features for authentication purpose. These texture features of retina are extracted using local configuration pattern (LCP) and Radon transform technique. The LCP computes the local structural information as well as the microscopic information of the image. Using Radon transform on retinal images, Radon features are extracted which contains the texture information of the blood vessels. A feature vector is formed by combining all theses LCP and Radon features and then fed to a feed-forward artificial neural network (FANN) classifier. This stage checks whether the test image belongs to the authorised person or not. Three general retinal databases DRIVE, HRF, Messidor, and images collected from two local eye hospitals are considered to authenticate a person. Two retinal authentication databases RIDB and VARIA are also used for evaluating the performance of the system. The results obtained show that the system is effective and efficient in authenticating the individuals.


Cancer and aging are associated with altered cell viability and angiogenesis, which is mediated by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). These alterations have been associated with cellular oxidative stress. Humuluslupulus (HOP) extract, and its components, which include alpha-acid, beta-acid, xanthoflavonoids, xanthohumunol, and isoxanthohumunol, exhibit antioxidant activity. This research examined the effects of HOP extract or its components on direct antioxidant activity, and on cell viability, lipid peroxidation, and expression of VEGF in melanoma cells, and dermal fibroblasts. The HOP extract, and its components exhibited direct antioxidant activity. In melanoma cells, HOP extract, and its components significantly inhibited cell viability and stimulated extracellular lipid hydroperoxides at all examined concentrations; and with few exceptions did not significantly alter intracellular lipid peroxidation or the expression of VEGF. In dermal fibroblasts, HOP extract and its components significantly inhibited cell viability and intracellular lipid peroxidation, and stimulated the expression at VEGF at the highest examined concentration; and with few exceptions did not significantly alter extracellular lipid peroxidation. It is inferred that HOP extract, and its components differentially and beneficially regulate the cellular biochemistry of melanoma cells, and fibroblasts for the management of cancer, and aging.


Research has evidenced variously the impact on those caring for traumatised people, such as wives of distressed police officers, partners of war veterans and trauma counsellors. However, there is a lack of research exploring the impact on foster parents (FPs) caring for traumatised looked-after children (LAC). This study aimed to explore FPs' experiences of caring for traumatised LAC, including their understanding of the impact the trauma has on the young person and on themselves and their biological family. Eleven FPs were interviewed to elicit their personal experiences of caring for traumatised LAC and its impact on them, the young people and the FPs' families. Transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Six master-themes emerged from the data: emotional impact on foster parents, cognitive impact on foster parents, impact from the wider fostering system, impact on foster parents' family and friends, foster parent coping and perceived understanding of the impact of trauma on LAC. These themes were linked to previous research and existing theoretical constructs, such as secondary trauma (ST), vicarious trauma (VT) and compassion satisfaction. Whilst all related experiences within each of the themes, participants differed between which themes dominated. FPs experience a variety of complex negative impacts from caring for traumatised LAC, that warrants further investigation and development of screening tools to measure potential ST/VT symptoms. However, several FPs reported a wealth of positive experiences from their role, which may or may not counteract these symptoms.


In the course of research conducted in the laboratory of radioecology of DNU, information was obtained on the beta-radioactivity of nine species of medicinal plants from two types of habitats – meadow biocenosis on the outskirts of the village. Kirovsky Dnipro region and a weed-meadow group near the town of Kamyanske, Dnipro area. Beta-radioactivity of the studied medicinal plants varied in the range from 1.18×10-5 Bq to 19.09×10-5 Bq at relatively clean habitats and from 18.35×10-5 Bq to 82.95×10-5 Bq on the anthropogenically polluted area. In a relatively clean habitat, the lowest indicators of beta-radioactivity in aboveground organs are characterized by Artemisia vulgaris L. and Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medikus, the highest – Hypericum perforatum L. and Achillea submillefolium Klokov & Krytzka. In the underground organs, the highest indicators of beta-radioactivity were recorded in Artemisia vulgaris and Hypericum perforatum, the lowest – in Melissa officinalis L. and Valeriana officinalis L. Under conditions of industrial pollution, the lowest indicators of beta-radioactivity in aboveground organs were found in Artemisia vulgaris and Matricaria recutita L., in underground – in Tanacetum vulgare L. and Achillea submillefolium. The highest values of beta-radioactivity in these conditions were registered in the aboveground organs of Tanacetum vulgare and Hypericum perforatum and in the underground parts of  Melissa officinalis and Hypericum perforatum. The analysis showed that the anthropogenic factor (pollution) has a statistically proven effect on the beta-radioactivity of the studied medicinal plants (with a probability of P = 0.999). Indicators of the strength of influence were high – from 67 to 85%. Anthropogenic pollution has the greatest impact on the beta-radioactivity of underground organs. The identified trend reflects a well-known natural dependence – the farther along the transport chain from the root is the body, the less, as a rule, it accumulates radionuclides. The detected values of beta-radioactivity, including in the industrially contaminated area are not dangerous with a single use of the studied medicinal plants. However, medicinal plants collected in the contaminated area due to increased beta-radioactivity can cause damage with prolonged systematic use due to the cumulative effect and are therefore not recommended for use.


The jointless switch is an important component part of jointless track across sections, it can notably raise the train running speed and the regularity. The characteristic of the temperature stress in the jointless switch lies in supporting additional temperature stress on the stock rail, the stress and the displacement presents the complex nature. For ensuring safety, laying the jointless switch must make an analysis on the strength and the stability.


Am I right in thinking that NHS research is, well, not very good? I remember when I worked on the news desk of this illustrious organ there was regular angst in nursing circles when the results of the research assessment exercise were published, which at the time made nursing research sound like an amateur operation run by garden-shed scientists.


Use of general circulation models (GCMs) is common for forecasting of hydrometric and meteorological parameters, but the uncertainty of these models is high. This study developed a new approach for calculation of suspended sediment load (SSL) using historical flow discharge data and SSL data of the Idanak hydrometric station on the Marun River (in the southwest of Iran) from 1968 to 2014. This approach derived sediment rating relation by observed data and determined trend of flow discharge time series data by Mann-Kendall nonparametric trend (MK) test and Theil-Sen approach (TSA). Then, the SSL was calculated for a future period based on forecasted flow discharge data by TSA. Also, one hundred annual and monthly flow discharge time series data (for the duration of 40 years) were generated by the Markov chain and the Monte Carlo (MC) methods and it calculated 90% of total prediction uncertainty bounds for flow discharge time series data by Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) on Monte Carlo (MC). It is observed that flow discharge and SSL will increase in summer and will reduce in spring. Also, the annual amount of SSL will reduce from 2,811.15 ton/day to 1,341.25 and 962.05 ton/day in the near and far future, respectively.


This paper reports on valve stroke timing test equipment developed and tested for use in a nuclear power plant main control room that can provide significant advantages to the user for valve surveillance testing required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The equipment is particularly suitable for Motor-Operated Valves (MOVs) because of its accuracy and repeatability that is necessary to detect the effects of small changes in actuator motor RPM.


On sites with soft ground, stiffening of the subgrade beneath railway track has been associated with a reduction in ground-borne vibration. However, the mechanisms behind this reduction are not well understood. Here, the effects are examined in the context of two alternative approaches: (i) subgrade stiffening, where the soil directly under the track is stiffened, and (ii) wave impeding blocks, where stiff inclusions are positioned at some depth under the track. The efficacy of the measures are considered for three different ground types in a parametric study carried out using a 2.5D coupled finite-element / boundary- element methodology. With a 6 m wide, 0.5 m high concrete block directly under the track, the vibration between 8 and 50 Hz was reduced at the two sites with soft soil by between 2 and 8 dB at distances up to 32 m. In contrast, at the stiffer soil site, the reductions in vibration from this block were more modest (< 3dB). Similar reductions were observed for the three sites when the block was positioned 0.9 m below the surface (i.e. as a wave impeding block), suggesting that, as with stiffening directly under the track, the reduction in vibration was primarily due to the increase of the effective stiffness of the soil beneath the track rather than the effective creation of a new soil layer and resultant cut-on frequency. Jet grouting, whereby the ground is improved by cutting it with a high pressure water jet and then replaced with a cement grout, was considered as an alternative to concrete. Although it proved to be less effective due to the comparatively low stiffness, it may still be considered as a practical measure for existing track on soft soil sites.


This paper highlights the military fortifications, it is a serious attempt to study an important aspect of the military architecture in Iraq and the motives for its construction related to the political, military and economic conditions of the country. Thus, the research problem emerged, the lack of knowledge about the unique features of Islamic military architecture and how to employ them in contemporary architectural production. Therefore, the research aims to "identify and clarify the characteristics of military architecture and its distinctive characteristics and the process of employing them within the architectural product, and the research methodology included building a framework of knowledge that includes the most important vocabulary in clarifying its details. Architectural features and their role in the engineering of military buildings and then application, and the research assume the presence of features that are unique to military architecture. Islamic and these features are clear in contemporary architecture. The most important finding of the research is military architecture is nothing but an art that does not exhaust its aesthetic, functional and expressive powers, so it requires attention and preservation through studies concerned with its dimensions and expressive values of manifestations of originality, strength and uniqueness.


An H1-Galerkin mixed finite element method is discussed for a class of second order pseudo-parabolic partial integro-differential equations.Without the LBB consistency condition,the uniqueness of finite element solution is proved.And the optimal error estimates of semidiscrete scheme are obtained for problems in one dimension space.


Cetane acrylate was synthesized by direct-etherification from cetane alcohol and acrylic acid with p-toluene sulfuric acid as catalyst,toluene and hydroquinone as inhibiting polymerization reagent.The influence of acrylic acid and cetane alcohol,amount of catalyst and inhibitor,reaction temperature,reaction time were investigated.The conversion of product reached 98% under the optimal experiment condition: the molar ratio of acrylic acid and cetane alcohol is 1.2∶1,the amount of p-toluene sulfuric acid is 0.6%;the amount of hydroquinone benzenediol is 0.4%,reaction temperature is 110 ℃,reaction time is 5h.The product was tested by IR spectra and()~1HNUM.


Based on special structure of coupling matrix, we present two improved algorithms for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation in the presence of unknown mutual coupling for uniform linear array (ULA). To enhance the performance of DOA estimation in the presence of unknown mutual coupling, an improved algorithm using spatial averaging algorithm is also proposed. Iteration is not required in our algorithms, which results in low computational complexity. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.


The current study was an investigation of the extent to which items constructed with an agreement format were affected by acquiescence bias relative to responses to a matched set of items designed ...


Abstract The levoatriocardinal vein provides alternative egress from the left atrium to the systemic veins in left-sided obstructive lesions. Although rare, it has been described in association with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. We report a case of hypoplastic left heart syndrome with levoatriocardinal vein and aberrant right subclavian artery where cardiac magnetic resonance imaging/angiography proved to be a valuable imaging modality for pre-operative evaluation.


Objective To observe the pathological change and the expression of cytokine in labial salivary gland biopsy of Sjgren's syndrome(SS).Methods Taking immunohistochemisty in slices of gland biopsy and collecting clinical data of nine Sj(o|¨)gren's syndrome patients.Results(1) The number of B lymphocytes labial gland is predominant in 6 patients;the number of B lymphocytes is equal to that of T lymphocytes in two patients;and T lymphocytes were predominant in one of nine patients.(2) The CD4+T lymphocytes are dominant in 4/9 patients;The CD8+T lymphocytes are dominant in 3/9 patients;The numbers of CD4+T lymphocytes and CD8+T lymphocytes are same in 2/9 patients.Besides,serum level of IgG, CRP,RF,and ESR is obviously increased.Conclusion Both T and B lymphocytes take part in the pathogenesis of Sjgren's syndrome.


In the field of Document Image Analysis (DIA), it is common to find great heterogeneity in terms of the possible graphic domains. In this sense, it is interesting to build neural models that can be sequentially adapted to new domains without losing the knowledge from the domains already learned. This learning paradigm is known as Continual (or Lifelong) Learning (CL). Although the adaptation comes along with a training set of the new domain, neural networks suffer what is known as "catastrophic forgetting". Therefore, assuming the constraint of not keeping data from the domains already addressed, this paradigm represents a challenge yet to be solved. This work presents an approach for CL in document image binarization, one of the most considered tasks within the DIA field. Our results report that it is indeed feasible to address CL in this field, given that the approach is successfully implemented and outperforms the baseline by a wide margin in most of the analyzed scenarios.


The effect of methylcellulose (MC) concentration and calcium phosphate precursor salt concentration on the gelation of MC solution was studied by rheometer and attenuated total reflectance infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy. It was found that thermally induced gelation of MC was dependent on the concentration of MC and water hydration abilities of precursor salt for inorganic nanoparticle. At the constant concentration of MC, the gelation temperature was lowered with increasing salt concentration. This behavior had a similar tendency with MC concentration. From these results, the gelation temperature of MC could be simply controlled by changing the concentration of precursor salt or MC.


Objectives: This study aimed to increase the grain yield of sesame by protecting it against sesame webworm. The specific objectives were to determine the effect of additive intercropping on incidence of sesame webworm and the occurrence of natural enemies with potential to biologically control the pest. Methodology and results: Five plant population densities of sesame incorporated mid-way between finger millet rows spaced at 45 X 7.5 cm were 44444, 55556, 74074, 111111 and 222222 plants/ha. The control was sole sesame at a population density of 333333 plants/ha. The treatments were laid out in a completely randomised block design, with four replicates. Data were collected on incidence of sesame webworm and sesame grain yield. Webworm larvae recovered from this trial were reared and monitored for emergence of natural enemies. Additive intercropping had no significant effect on the incidence of sesame webworm. Sesame webworm larvae recovered from sole sesame had higher mortality (63.1%) than those from intercrops with 49.2%. Two natural enemies of the sesame webworm, Hemipimpla sp. and a nematode of the Order Mermithid, were discovered. Conclusion and application of findings: Additive intercropping of sesame with finger millet has no benefit towards controlling sesame webworm and yet intercropping results into a significant (P=0.02) reduction in sesame grain yield. Mortality of sesame webworm larvae recovered from sole sesame was higher than for those from sesame + finger millet intercrop. Therefore, sole cropping of sesame is recommended for its high yields. Two natural enemies of sesame webworm namely Hemipimpla sp. and a Mermithid nematode exist in Uganda. An evaluation of these natural enemies for efficacy in the control of sesame webworm is recommended. Sesame webworm larvae died due to unknown factors, besides the two named natural enemies. These factors need to be identified.


Let us suppose Smale's criterion applies. In [13, 13], the main result was the derivation of contravariant, ordered functions. We show that W ′′ is not homeomorphic to m̂. The work in [13, 35] did not consider the pointwise anti-Landau, hyperbolic case. So this reduces the results of [41] to Pascal's theorem.


Provided are a method for recording the number of cups of water drunk by a user and a water cup. The method comprises: recording a cup volume and an amount of water the user needs to drink during working hours (S101); determining whether the water cup is filled with water (S102); if no, keeping the original state (S103); if yes, displaying the number of cups of water currently needed to be drunk, and updating the number of cups needed to be drunk through a weight sensing system at the bottom of the water cup (S104). Through the built-in weight sensing system of the water cup, the number of cups of water the user has drunk is monitored and updated. At the same time the number of cups of water the user has drunk is compared with the preset number of cups of water the user needs to drink during working hours, and the remaining number of cups of water the user needs to drink is shown on a LCD screen arranged on the outer surface of the water cup, so as to remind the user to drink water during working hours reasonably, and to avoid lack of water due to heavy workload.


We show a uniqueness result for the n-dimensional spatial Reissner–Nordström manifold: a static, electrovacuum, asymptotically flat system which is asymptotically Reissner–Nordström is a subextremal Reissner–Nordström manifold with positive mass, provided that its inner boundary is a (possibly disconnected) photon sphere that fulfils a suitably defined quasilocal subextremality condition. Our result implies a number of earlier uniqueness results for the Schwarzschild and the Reissner–Nordström manifolds in the static, (electro-)vacuum, asymptotically flat context, both for photon sphere and black hole inner boundaries, in the tradition of Bunting–Masood-ul Alaam (1987 Gen. Relativ. Gravit. 19 147–54) and Ruback (1988 Class. Quantum Grav. 5 L155–9). The proof relies on the ideas from those works, combined with newer techniques developed by Cederbaum and Galloway (2017 Commun. Anal. Geom. 25 303–20) and Cederbaum (in progress). The author kindly made a draft available to us.


From international symposium on nuclear structure; Sao Paulo, Brazil (8 Nov l971). A transformation model (rotation) to study the pairing of particles is presented. The model is used for the range of mass around /sup 56/Ni. The collective T = 1 pairing degree of freedom within the adiabatic approximation is treated. The formalism is similar to the one corresponding to the quadrupole degree of freedom. By comparing the two formalisms it is better understood which properties are inherent to a collective treatment of the many-body problem and which are inherent to the particular symmetry. (auth)


The geometry and properties of the interface of the Cocos plate beneath central Mexico are determined from the receiver functions (RFs) utilizing data from the Meso America Subduction Experiment (MASE). The RF image shows that the subducting oceanic crust is shallowly dipping to the north at 15° for 80 km from Acapulco and then horizontally underplates the continental crust for approximately 200 km to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB). The crustal image also shows that there is no continental root associated with the TMVB. The migrated image of the RFs shows that the slab is steeply dipping into the mantle at about 75° beneath the TMVB. Both the continental and oceanic Moho are clearly seen in both images, and modeling of the RF conversion amplitudes and timings of the underplated features reveals a thin low-velocity zone between the plate and the continental crust that appears to absorb nearly all of the strain between the upper plate and the slab. By inverting RF amplitudes of the converted phases and their time separations, we produce detailed maps of the seismic properties of the upper and lower oceanic crust of the subducting Cocos plate and its thickness. High Poisson's and Vp/Vs ratios due to anomalously low S wave velocity at the upper oceanic crust in the flat slab region may indicate the presence of water and hydrous minerals or high pore pressure. The evidence of high water content within the oceanic crust explains the flat subduction geometry without strong coupling of two plates. This may also explain the nonvolcanic tremor activity and slow slip events occurring in the subducting plate and the overlying crust.


Multiple colors visible to the naked eye across the internal surfaces of stainless-steel 304 tubes polished with a magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) process were investigated at varying levels of magnification. The colors were found to result from microscopic colored features of four different hues — green, blue, red, and yellow — having irregular sizes and shapes. Spectral analysis of their dispersion indicates that these colored features appear along the lay marks generated during MAF. Surface characterization employing energy dispersive spectroscopy and instrumented indentation testing indicates the presence of films of non-stochiometric chromium oxide and nickel oxide in the colored regions. Variations in the momentum and the density of the abrasive particles interacting with the surface during the MAF process, together with the chemical composition and morphology of the surface, provide thermodynamic conditions favorable for a non-uniform growth of the oxides film. Local color is dependent on the local composition and thickness of the oxides film.


Purpose – The purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between HR outsourcing and service quality by focusing on motivational and incentive aspects.Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies a game‐theoretic model of procurement decisions allowing for variable degrees of vertical integration and confronts the implications of its analysis with HR outsourcing data on a large sample of German firms.Findings – The paper presents evidence for HR service quality being generally higher when procured from an external instead of an in‐house provider. Furthermore, the relationship between HR outsourcing and service quality is considerably stronger if the provided services are complex and if the potential for monitoring an internal provider is low.Practical implications – The findings have immediate practical implications concerning the make‐or‐buy decision of HR services: the more complex the HR service under consideration and the lower the potential to monitor its in‐house provision, the more at...


Abstract: This article has two main goals: to introduce Massachusetts history teachers to a remarkable database of historic newspapers and to provide specific ideas about how to use it as a teaching tool. The article explains the advantages of teachers using the America's Historical Newspapers database to find interesting primary sources that connect local people and places with national (and international) themes and events. It describes how teachers can use the database to create an effective research paper project, and it concludes with a lesson plan on the revolutionary era in Massachusetts.' Brad Austin teaches U.S. history and coordinates the Histoiy Secondary Education Program at Salem State College. As an historian who is still relatively new to New England, I am constantly discovering the ways local events and people have shaped the larger narratives of U.S. history, and, as a teacher, I am committed to trying to get my students to share my sense of wonder and fascination with the past and our shared surroundings. This commitment has led me to look for ways to make my world and U.S. history classes seem personally relevant to my students while also teaching vital historical thinking skills. Fortunately, a fantastic resource for connecting individual towns in Massachusetts with larger U.S. and world history themes exists and is available to all Massachusetts teachers: the America's Historical Newspapers database, produced by Readex (www.readex.com). In my Methods of Teaching History class, I focus my students' attention on a select few of the many web sites with excellent resources for history teachers. The National Endowment for the Humanities, for example, produces Edsitement, which offers an interdisciplinary approach to both U.S. and world history topics, and all of its resources and links are vetted by content specialists. San Diego State University's World History for Us All offers a constantly expanding collection of rich teaching resources. All of George Mason University's sites merit attention, but I devote my class time to exploring the lesson plans and "expert analysis" sections within History Matters. Similarly, my students use the National Archives' document analysis guides and related materials, the primary sources of Fordham University's Modern History Sourcebook and its siblings, and the primary sources available at the Library of Congress' American Memory site. They are excellent resources, rich in historical materials and pedagogical guides, and deserve the national audiences they have attracted. In Massachusetts, however, their utility is matched, if not superseded, by the America's Historical Newspapers (1690-1922) database offered by Newsbank-Readex and accessible online through the Boston Public Library. This searchable database includes 142 Massachusetts newspapers from twenty Massachusetts towns and cities, and it offers remarkable opportunities to make our U.S. and world history classes more personal and interesting for Massachusetts students. It has enabled my students to understand Salem's Federal Era political disputes through contemporaneous examples from partisan newspapers, to explore how "national" and "international" events were received and portrayed locally, and to reconstruct a web of connections that they never suspected had existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I have successfully used these newspapers in two main ways. First, I have researched a topic and presented the selected articles to my students, either in class or as a homework reading assignment. For example, to demonstrate the ferocity of locals' feelings about the wisdom of President Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, I gave students a brief report from a newspaper explaining that "Last night, a man by the name of James Clark, was beat down with a club in Little-George-Street, and killed, by the Jefferson and Embargo mob." It is one thing for students to read that people disagreed; it is another to be able to find on a map where someone died locally as the result of a political dispute. …


Сharacteristics of spherical powders of (Mo,Nb) and (Nb,Mo) alloys prepared by spark erosion technique are described. Two regimes (U = 24 V, I = 10 A and U = 24 V, I = 20 A in distilled water) were chosen for powder preparation. The pyrolysis of dielectric liquid during spark erosion leads to the formation of stable oxides NbO and NbO2 as thin crusts and spherical inclusions from 10 nm to 10 µm in powder particles. The largest deviations from electrode compositions (from 3 to 7 wt.% Nb) are inherent to Mo alloys with 9 and 10 wt.% of Nb. The number of NbO and to a lesser extent NbO2 inclusions in spherical powder increase with increasing of Nb content in alloy, but only in series of (Mo,Nb) samples. Such regularity is not observed for (Nb,Mo) series. Decrease of current value results the change of granulometric compositions of spherical powders. The main fraction of powders at I = 20 A is 40-80 µm and I = 10 A is 20-50 µm.


2 MountainS WorkinG sas, Tollegno - ITALY ABSTRACT: The project of deformable structures capable of containing a channelled avalanche flow originated from the need to reduce hazard from sites where an avalanche flow coming from a large starting zone interferes, at a specific point, with a roadway or, in general, with a road communication. Under those conditions, risk mitigation provided by management procedures (such as road closing) may involve disruption and economic damage to the community while, in alternative, reducing hazard through structural works, such as works in active detachment zone, may involve high investment costs. The project presented here, even if it is an engineering protection work, does not reflect the traditional rules of structural intervention, but it involves the use of deformable barriers (net barriers installed perpendicularly to the avalanches flow) that intercept the avalanche, retain part of the flow and dissipate its energy both through the deformation of the structure and "the change in the sliding profile" of the flow thanks to the "check dams " function of the filled barrier. Starting from the theoretical outcome of the full-scale experimentation carried out in the avalanche area of "Rio Colombari" San Paolo Cervo, Piemont, Italy, located upstream of Provincial Road No. 513 "Rosazza San Giovanni Oropa", with the present work we want to practically illustrate the functionality of the tested prototype, the cost-benefit analysis of the project, the effect of hazard reduction and, last but not least, the amount of maintenance required for the functional restoration of the works.


We report on sub-wavelength THz plasmonic split ring resonators on 2 dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at AlGaN/GaN hetero-interface and on oxide coated high mobility graphene. The investigated in this study guide THz electric field into deep sub-wavelength scale by plasmonic excitations. Propagation of a broadband pulse of EM waves was simulated by using a commercial FDTD simulation tool. The results show that split ring resonator structures can be used to guide THz into deep sub-wavelength down λ/200 and achieve relatively higher quality factors than grating gate devices by plasmonic confinement which can be used for THz detection, filtering and possibly for THz on-chip-spectrometer. Moreover, ring resonator modes supported by system can be tuned with an applied voltage to gratings.


The management of the privatization of wastewater treatment services is a complex process. The wastewater plant is subject to a variety of financial, technical, and legal constraints that must be met to ensure public safety and well being. Currently documented methodologies for use in privatization ventures are imprecise and qualitative; they are based on successful case studies that may be difficult to repeat under different circumstances. The preponderance of the literature is focused on the financial aspects of the privatization process as opposed to the engineering challenges. The extension of systems engineering methodologies to the functional decomposition of a wastewater treatment facility is the contribution of this work. Identification of the wastewater functions that satisfy business and technical constraints is vital to the privatization process. An IDEF0 model of the municipal wastewater treatment plant was developed to identify the functional elements of the treatment process and their interrelationships. The components of the IDEF0 model are developed and the use of this model as a tool in the privatization process is defined.


Abstract IN THE course of experiments on the effects of hypothermia in the hen upon embryonic development (Sturkie, 1946), it was found that some of the hypothermic hens laid soft-shelled eggs, whereas others were unaffected by the low body-temperature. The report which follows concerns the effects of varying degrees and durations of hypothermia of hens upon ovulation and the passage of ova through the oviduct, with particular reference to the function of the uterus. MATERIALS AND METHODS It is known from the work of Warren and Scott (1935) and others that ovulation occurs in the domestic fowl, on the average, ½ hour after an egg is laid, and that ovulation and oviposition of an egg in the cycle may be estimated from the time of laying of the previous egg in hens of known clutch size. White Leghorn females with appropriate cycles were selected for treatment after the first egg of . . .


This paper focuses on tacit versus explicit uses of plural performance metrics as a primary methodological characteristic. This characteristic usefully distinguishes two schools of normative analysis and their approaches to normative interpretations of bounded rationality. Both schools of thought make normative claims about bounded rationality by comparing the performance of decision procedures using more than one performance metric. The consistency school makes tacit reference to performance metrics outside its primary axiomatic framework, but lexicographically promotes internal axiomatic consistency as the primary, and in most cases sufficient, normative outcome with which to undertake welfare comparisons. The consistency school's axiomatization program, in both neoclassical and behavioral forms, pre-commits to welfare interpretations that follow a hierarchy of rationalities based on the stringency of restrictions that different axiomatizations impose on choice data. In contrast, the ecological rationality school explicitly adopts multiple, domain-specific performance metrics, reflecting the view that adequate descriptions of well-being are irreducibly multivariate (i.e., non-scalar).


Coaxial through silicon via (TSV) technique allows reduction of high frequency loss due to conductivity in silicon substrate and flexibility in impedance by controlling the ratio of shield to center radii. For the first time, we measured and analyzed the high-speed channel performance of coaxial TSV. This letter presents the measurement results of the fabricated test vehicle in S-parameter and eye-diagram. The eye-diagram measurement results prove that coaxial TSV is capable of supporting signal transmission up to bit rate of 30 Gbps. The equivalent circuit model is suggested and experimentally verified by S-parameter comparison. Furthermore, the superiority of coaxial TSV over conventional TSV is confirmed by comparison of S-parameter results from equivalent circuit model simulation.


The subject of the thesis Management of human resources in public administration was to find positive and negative influences affecting satisfaction and efficiency of employees in public administration, and what they consider important to be happy at work.The first theoretical part concerns public administration in the Czech Republic.The second part was focused on the management of human resources in public administration.The consequential third part describes the management of human resources at the Municipal Office in Hodonin.The final part is focused on quantitative research. According to the worded hypotheses, questionnaire enquiry was carried out, and by means of it, the hypotheses were evaluated.


The standard bio-kinetic theory used to describe the activated sludge process predicts that the soluble organic matter (SOM) concentration in the effluent of plug flow aeration tanks will be less than the SOM concentration in the effluent of completely mixed aeration tanks, if both contain the same total biomass and are operated at the same solids' retention time (SRT). Large-scale field studies indicate that this prediction is false. An alternate model of the process is presented that identifies the effluent SOM as a product synthesized and excreted by the microbes of the activated sludge. This model predicts that all aeration tanks treating a given wastewater will produce the same effluent SOM concentration if they contain the same total biomass and are operated at the same SRT. The alternate model also predicts that the effluent SOM concentration will be proportional to the influent organic matter concentration, that the apparent microbial decay rate will vary as different nutrients are considered, and that plots of the specific uptake rate vs. the effluent SOM concentration will show a positive SOM intercept. All these predictions are supported by experiment.


Dissolution of raw phosphate (apatite) in sea water of the Gulf of Aqaba was investigated through lab incubation experiments. Three types from three different sources (Al-Hasa, Al-Abyad and Esh-Shydiya) have been used for these experiments. Impact of quantity, grain size, and source (type) of raw phosphate on dissolution rate were studied. Statistical analysis shows significant differences between the results obtained from comparing each two weights; as weight of apatite increased, dissolved inorganic phosphate-phosphorus (DIP) and fluoride in sea water solution increased. The differences between the dissolution rates of raw phosphate from the three sites were not significant while the differences between the different grain size fractions were significant. Dissolution rates were inversely related to particle size. Using a worst-case scenario, a conservative estimate of the maximum increase in DIP in seawater of the Gulf of Aqaba due to the apatite particles lost to the sea during ship loading resulted in DIP concentrations of 0.03 μM per year. As the residence time of the water in the Gulf of Aqaba is about one year, the DIP concentration will not increase by more than 0.03 μM under the estimated annual quantity of exported phosphate. Fluoride will not increase by more than 0.03 mg/l under the same conditions.


Narrow sense heritabilities (h2) for reducing sugar concentration of pickling cucumbers (Cucumis sativus L.) were estimated for a population of half-sib families from 501 plant introductions and cultivars. Reducing sugar concentration averaged 22.3 mg/g fresh weight, and ranged from 10.4 to 51.9 mg/g. Half-sib family heritability of reducing sugar concentration was 0.30, and after correction for estimated genotype × environment interaction was 0.051. Parent-offspring heritability was 0.042. Expected gains per cycle of half-sib progeny testing and half-sib testing, corrected for genotype × environment interaction bias, were 0.42 and 0.21 mg reducing sugar/g, respectively. Expected gain per cycle of mass selection was 0.38 mg/g.


With the aim of identifying effective dispersants that would yield stable, high solids loading (≥60 vol.%) suspensions of oxides, carbides, or nitrides in nonaqueous carriers such as paraffinic oils, a number of dispersants were evaluated, using in most cases A16SG grade alumina from Alcoa as the filler. Among those evaluated were some common dispersants, such as menhaden fish oil and oleic acid, and commercial dispersants not commonly used in ceramic processing, such as polymeric fatty esters and petroleum sulfonates. More importantly, a few dispersants were synthesized and evaluated. The latter dispersants contained straight or cyclic (benzenic) side chains located far from the head group on 18 carbon main-chain fatty acid molecules. Among these, the dispersants with a 5–10 carbon side chain or with a benzenic side chain yielded very fluid suspensions (≥60 vol.%) compared to those with long polymeric or oligomeric side chains, or with no side chains, or the commercial dispersants; in some cases, for the same solid loading, the suspension viscosities were an order of magnitude lower with the synthesized side chain dispersants. These results indicate that molecules with an optimum side chain length located sufficiently far from the head group and an optimum backbone (main chain) constitute the most effective dispersants for concentrated suspensions. By combining the advantages provided by wider particle size distributions and by these effective dispersants, suspensions highly concentrated (up to 74 vol.%), and yet processable and "flowing" paste-like have been prepared.


In the modern industry, welded structures are widely used, especially in the aerospace and nuclear industries. In order to prevent accidents, defect detection must be performed. Due to the high anisotropy and non-uniformity in the soldered area, the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) of the imaging defect is low and the image quality is poor. Multi-wave total focusing method(multi-wave TFM) detects and locates target or defect in the weld area, which increases the focusing energy at the target or defect and thus improves the sensitivity of the detection. The simulation and experimental results show that the multi-wave TFM can more accurately locate defects and improve detection sensitivity when detecting defects in the welding area compared with total focus method (TFM).


the theme of memory from the dialectic of life and art that characterizes its performance for Baudelaire. Such selective analysis not only reverses Baudelaire's priorities but deflects his pointed comments on modernity and naivete, which in turn inform the example of Edouard Manet, Fried's exemplary modernist painter. One wonders whether too much of Baudelaire and Manet is lost to this view. Perhaps the predilections of contemporary criticism have sanctioned Fried's approach. For today we hesitate to ground art in experience, preferring to conceive of representations as signs fully engendered by and engendering other signs. Baudelaire was of a different mind; he lived through the dawning of our own age, but also in the fading light of another. He was heir to a tradition that regarded the forms of art as powerfully motivated by the experience of internalized ideas and sensations; for him, a master artist's "signs" would appear more symbolic than allegorical, more immediate than mediated or distanced. (This distinction often, and rightfully, slips away; it will become evident that Baudelaire's writing encompasses both positions, ours and his.) As we deny artistic signs motivation in extralinguistic "experience," we aggravate that perennial problem of origins which Fried himself


In a neighborhood of Denver, CO, referred to as East Colfax Avenue, a culture of "street based sex trading and other criminalized hustles" is found (p. vii). This is the culture into which the authors, Susan Dewey and Tonia St. Germain, provide a window in their 6-year ethnographic study that is the basis for Women of the Street: How the Criminal JusticeSocial Services Alliance Fails Women in Prostitution. By spending time immersed in this culture, the authors are able to bring to light how systemic factors and players, while intending to help, generally only perpetuate the realities that have resulted in a woman becoming a part of the culture. The reality is that street hustling provides a better income than a part-time, minimum-wage paying job with inconsistent, erratic scheduling and no benefits, requiring a week to make what many can make in a few "hustles." The years of data collection in the form of interviews, observations, and insights provide example after example of instances in which the clinical and criminal systems' approach and underlying assumptions fail to consider the cultural realities of women who turn to this career path. These disconnects occur across a spectrum of perspectives, from therapeutic to punitive. One of the most glaring examples concerns the decision for a woman to participate in Denver's prostitution diversion court. The public defender is not likely to encourage this, as it means a lengthy commitment of time devoted to the client, as opposed to a 4-month jail term. The clinical professionals see this as an opportunity to apply their beliefs about intervention. Meanwhile, the woman's needs, beliefs, and goals—as evidenced in her inability to secure safe housing, sufficient employment, and ongoing community support—remain key challenges that are overlooked. Throughout the text, the authors make a strong case in support of decriminalization, highlighting the effects the criminal record has on preventing women from getting alternative employment and housing or supporting their family. This creates a revolving door for the women, returning frequently to the criminal system for behavior they describe as an agreement between consenting adults. The authors conclude that this culture would be best understood as solely a "gendered economic problem" (p. 237) with the hope of focusing resources thusly. The authors dismiss what they describe as positioning "street involved women as victims of trauma in need of alliance intervention" (p. 237). While I appreciate the need to encourage a more empowered portrayal, as opposed to victimization, I question the rationale for fully dismissing true principles of trauma-informed care in the offerings for women in this culture. Where there is a history of trauma, there is a greater risk for retraumatization. I am not espousing forced treatment. However, treatment for those who recognize how trauma has affected their habits, adaptations, and symptoms would only further support their efforts to improve their lives. Despite this point of disagreement, this text is critically important. The audiences who would most appreciate it include any professionals who work with women in this culture as well as any who work on developing or implementing policy and procedure. It brings to light the need for a change in the conversation about both the criminal and the clinical responses to women earning a living on the street. And it sheds a bright light on the deeply engrained cultural practices that perpetuate the problems faced by women who turn to the street to survive.


The work presented in this paper is aimed to design an automatic vision based American Sign Language detection system and translation to text. To detect the human skin color from the image, HSV color model is used. Then edge detection is applied to detect the hand shape from the image. A set of morphological operation is applied to get a refined output for the sign language recognition.


Determining the creative thinking levels of fourth grade students at primary school are aimed at this research. The qualitative study was carried out with descriptive method. Twenty students, who were selected in accordance with the sampling method among the students receiving education in a primary school of Rize province, Guneysuyu district in 2014-2015 school year, constituted the study group of the research. Data was gathered with the "Scientific Creativity Test". In the analysis of the test, fluency, flexibility, authenticity and total scores of the students' answers were evaluated. In this regard, students' answers are scored as connected to each other. In the consequence of the research, it was determined that the students receiving high scores in sub-dimensions and in the whole test are the students, who have high academic achievements most of the time, have their own study rooms and get attention from their families regarding their education. It was determined that the students with low academic achievement generally got low scores from the test. Besides, it was seen that the same students got the highest and lowest scores in all dimensions. As a result of the research, it was recommended that the scientific creativity test can be benefited in educational environments; different studies can be carried out by using this test, and it may contribute to the researches in this field.


We demonstrate optical up-conversion with frequency quadrupling using an optical phase modulator and a flat-top silicon microresonator filter by beating two second order sidebands at photodetector. 14GHz signal was achieved using 3.5GHz RF components.


ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect on the performance of the ethics office at the State Secretariat of Civil Administrative Region city of Manado. The method used is the method of quantitative research korelasional.Responden are 36 people ASN / PNS taken by random sampling technique of structural official and executive employees / staff at the Regional Secretariat Manado.Data used is primary data collected using questionnaires and assisted with interview techniques. The analysis technique used is a simple linear regression analysis and simple correlation / product moment. The result showed: (1) variable regression coefficient ethics office to the level of performance of the apparatus is very significant posifive and (2) the correlation coefficient and the coefficient of determination variables ethics office to the performance of the apparatus is high / strong and highly significant. Based on the results of these studies conclude is ethics office have functional relations / positive and significant impact on the performance of the State Civil Apparatus (PNS) in the Regional Secretariat of Manado. According to the conclusion that the ethics office let be used as a tool or a means to improve the performance of the State Civil Apparatus. Keywords: ethics office, the performance of the apparatus.


Bisphenol A (BPA) is an important raw material which has been used in plastic industry and released into environment by industrial applications. Endocrine disruptor chemicals (EDS) disturb endocrine functions in animals. BPA is a well known to be estrogenic-like EDS. In this study, biodegradation of BPA by Aeromonas hydrophilia and Chlorella vulgaris investigated. Biodegradation test result showed that BPA easily biodegraded by A. hydrophilia at 60 and 120 mgL -1 concentrations within 6 day and C. vulgaris at 20 mgL -1 concentrations within 7 day. No inhibitory effect on cell growth seen for A. hydrophilia but cell growth inhibition determined for C. vulgaris above 20 mgL -1 concentrations of BPA. The first-order kinetic model used to describe the biodegradation kinetic and it was fitted well with test results. 1-(3-methylbuthyl)-2, 3, 4, 6-tetramethylbenzene and 4-(1-hydroxy-2-methylprop-1-enyl) phenol were found to be biodegradation intermediate products. The estrogenic activities of BPA decrease after biodegradation and it could not be detect after 6 and 7 days.


As a part of this study, a mathematical model based on two-compartment pharmacokinetic system with general fractional derivatives was developed. Its aim was to describe the release of BisGMA and TEGDMA monomers from composite core resin over three time periods. For this purpose, five Clearfil Photo Core resin samples were prepared and elution was measured using high performance liquid chromatography at 1, 7 and 28 days post-immersion in 75% ethanol. The findings confirmed good model fit to the data related to released monomer quantity.


In this paper, 18 systems taxonomies/hierarchies are presented and commented upon, from Boulding's 'system of systems' (1956) to Glasl and Lievegoed's 'seven essential elements of any organization' (1993). A 19th is proposed, which aims at displaying a number of clear-cut levels sufficient to correspond to the succeeding levels of an enterprise problematique, each new type of interactions defining a new level. The 19 schemes are classified into two groups, 'General' and 'Managerial', mainly according to their immediate applicability to management. Each group was split into two subgroups, respectively stressing complexity, system–milieu interactions, decision levels and, finally, intrasystem and system environment interactions. A comparative analysis of the whole set is summarized, converging towards three hierarchies seen as more adequate: Beer's, Jantsch's and the one proposed in this paper. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract Objective Our aim was to evaluate the effect of umbilical cord milking on outcomes for preterm multiples. Study Design We implemented a policy of cord milking in neonates born at less than 30 weeks' gestation in September 2011. We compared cord milking in multiples with a historical cohort. Multivariable logistic regression models estimated the effect of cord milking on a composite neonatal adverse outcome. Secondary outcomes were hematocrit at birth, need for blood transfusion, and inotrope use. Results We identified 149 neonates (120 twins, 29 triplets), 51 historical controls, and 98 neonates with cord milking. Cord milking was associated with a lower rate of adverse composite neonatal outcome in univariable analysis (odds ratio [OR]: 0.36; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.15–0.84). However, in multivariable modeling, the effect was not significant (adjusted OR [aOR]: 0.54, 95% CI: 0.23–1.28). Hematocrit was 4.6 unit % (95% CI: 2–7.3) higher in the cord milking group, and cord milking was associated with a lower rate of blood transfusion (aOR: 0.28; 95% CI: 0.1–0.74; p = 0.01). There was no difference in inotrope administration. Conclusion Umbilical cord milking was not associated with a decrease in composite neonatal adverse outcome. However, we observed an increase in hematocrit and decreased need for blood transfusion in neonates with cord milking.


Species of the late Osagean and early Meramecian primitive cladid crinoid genera Atelestocrinus, Barycrinus, Cestocrinus, Costalocrinus, Cyathocrinites, Meniscocrinus n. gen., Parisocrinus, Pellecrinus, and Saccosomopsis from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee are reviewed, redescribed, and redefined from study of type material, museum collections, and field collections. Nomenclatural and systematic acts include the following: 1) Barycrinus spurius (Hall, 1858) is a senior synonym of Cyathocrinus tumidus Hall, 1858, C. protuberans Hall, 1858, and B. mammatus Meek and Worthen, 1873; 2) B. rhombiferus (Owen and Shumard, 1852a) is a senior synonym of C. sculptilis Hall, 1860, C. thomae Hall, 1860, C. hoveyi Hall, 1861a, C. wachsmuthi Meek and Worthen, 1861, B. herculeus Meek and Worthen, 1868, B. pentagonus Meek and Worthen, 1873, B. striatus Worthen, 1875, B. boonvillensis Miller, 1891b, B. formosus Miller and Gurley, 1894, B. washingtonensis Miller and Gurley, 1895, and B. elrodi Miller and Gurley, 1896a; 3) B. magister (Hall, 1858) is a senior synonym of C. solidus Hall, 1861a and B. magnificus Meek and Worthen, 1868; 4) B. stellatus (Hall, 1858) is a senior synonym of C. bullatus Hall, 1858, C. angulatus Meek and Worthen, 1860, C. quinquelobus Meek and Worthen, 1865, and B. astericus Van Sant, 1964; 5) B. crassibrachiatus (Hall, 1860) is a senior synonym of B. princeps Miller and Gurley, 1890a; 6) B. geometricus Meek and Worthen, 1873, is considered a nomen dubium; 7) B. benedicti (Miller, 1891a) is considered a nomen dubium; 8) Cyathocrinus signatus Miller and Gurley, 1894, is assigned to Cestocrinus and is a senior synonym of Cestocrinus striatus Kirk, 1940; 9) Cyathocrinites iowensis (Owen and Shumard, 1850) is a senior synonym of C. malvaceus Hall, 1858, C. divaricatus Hall, 1858, C. rotundatus Hall, 1858, C. viminalis Hall, 1861a, C. parvibrachiatus Hall, 1861a, C. hamiltonensis Worthen, 1882, C. nodosus Wachsmuth and Springer, 1890, C. brevisacculus Wachsmuth and Springer, 1890, C. opimus Miller and Gurley, 1890a, and C. gurleyi Miller, 1891a; 10) C. kelloggi (White, 1862) is a senior synonym of C. subtumidus Meek and Worthen, 1865; 11) C. farleyi (Meek and Worthen, 1866b) is a senior synonym of C. andersoni Miller and Gurley, 1894, C. granulosus Rowley, 1902, and C. snivelyi Rowley, 1902; 12) C. harrodi (Wachsmuth and Springer, 1880) is a senior synonym of C. boonvillensis Miller, 1891b, C. gorbyi Miller, 1892b, and C. astralus Kammer, 1984; 13) Meniscocrinus n. gen. is described and M. magnitubus n. sp. is assigned to this new genus; 14) C. labyrinthicus Miller, 1891a, is assigned to Parisocrinus; 15) C. intermedius Hall, 1858, is assigned to Pellecrinus; and 16) C. insperatus Lyon, 1869, is assigned to Saccosomopsis and is a senior synonym of C.? poterium Meek and Worthen, 1870.


Debrisoquine is an antihypertensive drug that displays polymorphic metabolism and has been used to determine hydroxylator status in human subjects. A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous urine analysis of debrisoquine (D) and its primary metabolite, 4-hydroxydebrisoquine (4-OHD), is described. A cyanopropyl (CN) extraction column and CN analytical column were used with a mobile phase consisting of 20% acetonitrile/20 mM sodium dihydrogen orthophosphate (pH = 7.1) at a flow rate of 1.5 ml/min. The peaks of interest, as well as the internal standard, were eluted from the column in less than 14 min. The method described was validated for within-day and between-day accuracy and precision for both D and 4-OHD. Coefficients of variation at all concentrations tested were <4.1% for D and <9.3% for 4-OHD. The assay was used to evaluate D/4-OHD ratios, thereby determining hydroxylation status in 65 healthy male volunteers.


Predicting the prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) is challenging since these tumors exhibit a wide range of biological behaviors. It has been hypothesized that caudal-related homeobox gene 2 (CDX2), which is vital for intestinal growth and maintenance, has a tumor-suppressing effect and promising role in CRC prognosis but studies are still controversial. This study used the immunohistochemical (IHC) staining method to determine the expression of the CDX2 protein in mucinous and non-mucinous CRC adenocarcinoma, as well as in normal colorectal tissues as a control, and correlate this expression with clinicopathological features such as grade, tumor distant metastasis, tumor site, histological type, lymph node metastasis, tumor invasion, sex, age, and rate of 4 years Overall survival (OS) after diagnosis. A total of sixty three tissue samples were obtained from CRC patients (58.90±14.94) years and embedded in wax and thirty-seven normal non-tumoural colorectal tissue samples with (56.43±12.28) years as a control group. CDX2 protein expression decreased significantly (p<0.05) in CRC patients than control, advanced age, mucinous pattern of CRC, moderate and poorly differentiated grades, lymph node metastasis, advanced tumor invasion (T3, T4), and organs metastasis. Moreover, the (OS) for patients with low CDX2 expression was (17.943±1.7) months compared to (33.431±2.7) months for those with high CDX2 expression (p = 0.0001). This study concluded that protein expression of CDX2 is regarded as a prognostic and diagnostic marker for CRC patients.


Kosovo, given its difficult past, is the most underdeveloped country of Europe. Gross national product is the lowest in the region, in 2009 was 1853 Euros per capita, which is half the value of the average gross natio-nal product of the region. Average economic growth in Kosovo during 2006-2009 was 4.8%. This economic growth, although seemingly large, given the low level of development in Kosovo cannot solve problems to address important economic issues that Kosovo faces, unemployment, poverty etc. Kosovo has a large import of goods and the export-import cover is only 10%, thus the trade deficit is extremely high. Unemploy-ment remains the main economic problem for many years in Kosovo. The unemployment rate in Kosovo remains high even though there are no clear statistics about the rate of unemployment. According to many stu-dies, whether local or international institutions, the unemployment rate ranges near 40%. So this high rate of unemployment  imposes as a pri-mary and essential task before the Kosovo institutions to establish poli-cies and strategies for promoting employment which is undoubtedly the best way to combat poverty. According to many studies, in order to keep the unemployment at current levels, Kosovo needs a growth rate of 7% and therefore we conclude that in order to reduce unemployment, the growth should be significantly increased over 7%, and with current developments this is unachievable, neither it is expected to be achieved by the competent institutions regarding economical growth


This article explores the rise of the True Jesus Church (TJC) as part of an emerging indigenous Chinese Christianity. Begun in 1917 under the influence of American Pentecostalism, the TJC developed into a lively popular sect with more than a million members by the 1990s. The birth of this independent and often antiforeign group coincided with, and was aided by, the surge of patriotism in the early Republican period and arguably constituted a religious expression of Chinese nationalism. More importantly, the TJC— with its messianic proclamations and bold displays of Pentecostal power— helped shape a twentieth-century Protestant millenarian movement in China amidst political disintegration, foreign aggression, and widespread suffering. Its growth signaled an evolution of popular religion in which Christianity joined local beliefs in supplying the core ideology of sectarian movements.


Ultrashort pulsed laser light can be used to cut biological tissue in a highly localized and controlled manner. Among the practical applications that are beginning to emerge: an all-optical technique for automated, three-dimensional histology of brain tissue and an optical-based technique to incorporate plasmid DNA into living cells.


Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)is a more advanced radiotherapy technique than routine radiotherapy,and has been effectively utilized in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).Rradiotherapy alone has disappointing effect to local advanced cases.Nevertheless,chemoradiotherapy provides long term survival.Chemoradiotherapy is becoming the standard therapeutic regimen for local advanced NPC.But different ways of chemomdiotherapy such as induction,concurrent,adjuvant chemotherapy still need to be defined.

Key words:
Nasopharyngeal neoplasms;  Radiotherapy;  Drug therapy


: This study investigated the micro organisms associated with the spoilage of vegetables of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), Spinach (Spinacea oleracea), Cabbage (Brassica oleracea) obtained from local market of Haridwar. Five vegetable spoilage fungi were isolate & identified as follows Aspergilus, Fusarium, Penicilium, Trichoderma. In antifungal sensitivity test different antifungal drugs were used to test the susceptibility behavior as the isolated organism. Antifungal activity was determined by agar well diffusion technique. Penicillium show resistance to both antifungal resistance to griseofluvin & sensitive to fluconazole & inhibition zone was 30mm against fluconazole, gave highest inhibition zone against fluconazole that was 32nm. Trichoderma shows sensitivity to fluconazole & resistance to fluconazole, inhibition zone is 31nm. The need for microbial assessment of vegetables for production of salads and other use is also emphasized to reduce possible contamination.


The literature concerning the motivation for corss‐dressing in heterosexual transvestism is briefly reviewed. Thirty‐three members of a club estiblished for hetersexual transvestities were interviewed. The sensations they derived fro cross‐dressing and the importance of compulsive and nacissistic aspects in their transvestite behaviour were assessed and compared with those reported by 24 transsexual subjects.


Notch receptors are single pass transmembrane glycoproteins with an extracellular domain (ECD) comprised of many epidermal growth factor‐like (EGF) repeats. Specific Ser and Thr residues in numerous EGF repeats have an attached O‐glycan initiated by fucose, glucose, or N‐acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), and elongated with additional sugars. Notch receptors signal following binding of Notch ligands to the Notch receptor ECD, leading to release of the intracellular domain and activation of many Notch target genes. Notch signaling regulates cell fate decisions in many organs during development and differentiation. Dysregulation of Notch signaling leads to developmental disorders and to cancer. Lunatic (LFNG), Manic (MFNG) and Radical (RFNG) Fringe are GlcNAc transferases that extend Notch EGF repeats which already carry a fucose. EOGT is also a GlcNAc‐transferase that transfers O‐GlcNAc directly to EGF repeats. We are investigating roles for EOGT and each Fringe in T and B cell development using mice lacking various combinations of the Eogt, Lfng, Mfng and Rfng genes. We are also identifying individual roles for Fng genes using a co‐culture assay of bone marrow hemopoietic stem cells (HSC) from compound mutant mice stimulated by OP9 stromal cells expressing one of the four Notch ligands, DLL1, DLL4, JAG1 or JAG2. The combined results show that the O‐fucose glycans on NOTCH1 are key regulators of the strength of NOTCH1 signaling which, in turn, determines differentiation of HSC to T cell progenitors.


Abstract : Mohammed Hassanein Heikal is perhaps the most prolific and influential presidential chronicler in Egypt's modern history. He has written many volumes on the Egyptian perspective of the Arab- Israeli Wars and continues to write books that help Egypt's intellectuals rationalize modern events. He has spent over five decades as a journalist, presidential confidant to Egypt's presidents Nasser (1954-1970) and Sadat (1970-1981), as well as editor and commentator. Heikal had the unique opportunity to spend 10 hours with President Gamal Abdel Nasser on June 9, 1967, four days into the 1967 Six-Day War. Heikal's interview represents Nasser unedited, as having a discussion with a close confidant (Heikal) as the 1967 war rages around him. Heikal was asked by Nasser to help craft his resignation speech that was later rejected by an Egyptian public that could not conceive of losing the charismatic Nasser -despite a military blunder that would enter the annals of history. It still remains a point of historical debate whether the rejection by the Egyptian public of Nasser's resignation was orchestrated or not, but the Egyptian leader would remain President for three more years, until his death in 1970.


T h e higher Cryptogamic Flora of the Palaeozoic period was exceedingly rich compared with that of our own day. Confining our attention to those Cryptogams in which the fructification has the form of a definite cone or strobilus, we find that at least eight'" distinct types of such strobili are already known from the primary rocks, leaving out of account all minor differences of a merely specific value, and ignoring imperfectly-known forms. From the recent Flora we could not obtain more than three equally distinct classes of Cryptogamic cones. The fossil strobili at present discovered group themselves under three categories,— the Lycopodiaceous, the Equisetaceous or Calamarian, and the Sphenophyllaceous The two former coincide with well-known recent orders, while the last belong to a purely fossil group, at present only known from the Palaeozoic formations, and so far of undetermined affinities. The form about to be described is widely different from the fructification of any Vascular Cryptogam, recent or fossil, at present recorded, but it appears to approach the third group, that of the Sphenophylleae, more nearly than either of the others.t The bed which has yielded this specimen is one of great antiquity, belonging to the Calciferous Sandstone Series, at the very base of the Carboniferous formation, and therefore occurring at an horizon enormously more ancient than that of the Coal Measures, from which the majority of our specimens of Palaeozoic plants have been derived. The deposit is at Pettycur, near Burntisland, on the Firth of Forth, and is already well known from the interesting vegetable remains, with structure


Multivariate basis splines (B‐splines) and Non‐uniform rational B‐splines (NURBS) lack adaptivity due to their tensor product structure. Truncated hierarchical B‐splines (THB‐splines) provide a solution for this. THB‐splines organize the parameter space into a hierarchical structure, which enables efficient approximation and representation of functions with different levels of detail. The truncation mechanism ensures the partition of unity property of B‐splines and defines a more scattered set of basis functions without overlapping on the multi‐level spline space. Transferring these multi‐level splines into Bézier elements representation facilitates straightforward incorporation into existing finite element (FE) codes. By separating the multi‐level extraction of the THB‐splines from the standard Bézier extraction, a more general independent framework applicable to any sequence of nested spaces is created. The operators for the multi‐level structure of THB‐splines and the operators of Bézier extraction are constructed in a local approach. Adjusting the operators for the multi‐level structure from an element point of view and multiplying with the Bézier extraction operators of those elements, a direct map between Bézier elements and a hierarchical structure is obtained. The presented implementation involves the use of an open‐source Octave/MATLAB isogeometric analysis (IGA) code called GeoPDEs. A basic Poisson problem is presented to investigate the performance of multi‐level Bézier extraction compared to a standard THB‐spline approach.


The paper describes ways to increase the bearing capacity of sliding bearings. The possibility of replacing a rolling bearing
with a sliding bearing on a high-speed worm gear shaft is shown. A description of the dynamics of self-oscillations occurring
in the worm gear is given, followed by an assessment of the effect of fi lm-forming lubricants on the adaptive properties
of sliding pairings. The resource of sliding pairings is calculated taking into account the growth of the dinamic coefficient.


Protestant progressives to gain influence within their own churches and within the broader Protestant community in the region. The forces united against them were simply too powerful, both during and after the dictatorship. Cowan argues that the alliance forged between conservative evangelicals, traditionalist Catholics, and the military regime set the stage for the Christian Right's rise to prominence in the post-dictatorship years. One of the most revelatory elements of Cowan's work is his analysis of what he calls "antiecumenist ecumenism," or "cooperative antiecumenism," in which he tackles a seeming paradox: how was it that conservative Pentecostals, fundamentalist Protestants, and traditionalist Catholics, all of whom expressed intense opposition to ecumenical movements, were able to cooperate with each other to such an extent that they formed an ecumenical movement of their own? Cowan's argument is novel in that he does not merely state that conservatives of different denominations put aside their differences, or downplayed their opposition to ecumenism, in order to cooperate with each other when their political interests coincided. Rather, he argues that antiecumenism remained a central motivating force of conservative religious actors, and, in many cases, it was one of the primary factors propelling the creation of conservative ecumenical organizations. This "counterintuitive willingness to cooperate in the name of defeating cooperative efforts" allowed the most unlikely groups of religious actors to create a complicated web of alliances and movements (179). Cowan meticulously reconstructs the process by which these links were forged, showing how antiecumenical activism lay at the foundation of both domestic and transnational conservative organizing. Moral Majorities Across the Americas is a fascinating book that challenges scholars of religion and evangelicalism, particularly those working in and on the United States, to broaden the geographical bounds of their narratives and analyze the transnational forces at play in the rise of the Christian Right. It is a must-read for historians of Latin American religion, the Brazilian military dictatorship, US conservatism, the New Right, and the Cold War. And of course, as the 2022 Brazilian presidential election nears, this book will be essential for anyone wanting to understand the power of the Christian Right in contemporary Brazilian politics.


Objectine To investigate the relation between histological classification and lymph node metastasis in rectal cancer. Methods Retrospective analysis was made in 167 cases rectal carcinoma, 84 cases of them were found in lymph node metastasis. Results Lymph node metastasis was most found in undifferentiated carcinoma (16/16), with descending order in low differentiated adenocarcinoma (13/17), mucous adenocarcinoma (12/20), moderate differentiated adenocarcinoma (44/89), and well differentiated adenocarcinoma (2/21). Among these lymph node metastasis, 115 cases has infiltrated to whole thickness of the wall, 8 cases has infiltrated to deep muscular layers, 10 cases has infiltrated to shallow muscular layers. Conclusion Lymph node metastasis is closely related to histological type, grade, depth of invasion and the amount of excised lymph node.


Providing node mobility on IP-based wireless networks is required by the increasing Internet access of the mobile nodes and Mobile-IPv6 was suggested for IPv6. But Mobile-IPv6 degrades the overall performance of wireless networks by the packet loss while performing its handover function. Therefore, lots of efforts and researches to resolve this problem have been doing from now on. FMIPv6 is one of the improved methods that was designed to provide seemless handover. But it still has a problem that the handover is strictly depended on the triggered information of the unreliable link layer. In this paper, a scheme called mptFMIPv6 that minimizes delay of critical section of CoA registration process by reducing the link layer dependency was proposed.


In statistical modelling of incomplete data, missingness is encoded as a relation between datasets Y and response patterns R. We identify two different meanings of 'observed' and 'missing' implicit in this framework, only one of which is consistent with the definition formally encoded in (Y,R). Notation that has been used in the literature for more than three decades fails to distinguish between these two concepts, rendering the notations 'f(yobs,ymis)' and 'f(ymis|yobs)' conceptually contradictory. Additionally, the same notation 'f(ymis|yobs)' is used to refer to two densities with different domains. These densities can be considered to be equivalent mathematically, but conceptually they are not interchangeable as distributions because of their differing relationships to (Y,R). Only one of these distributions is consistent with (Y,R) and standard conventions for interpretation of mathematical notation leads to the wrong choice conceptually for ignorable multiple imputation. We introduce formal definitions and notational improvements to treat these and other ambiguities, and we demonstrate their use through several example derivations.


Generally,vehicle yaw stability is determined by its structure,but the vehicle will suffer from the loss of yaw stability under a great lateral force.In this paper,a vehicle simple model is set up using feed-forward regulation and fuzzy control strategy,the front steering angle is regarded as an input to suppress causing varies of side slip angle by actively controlling the distribution of braking forces,and creating the moment that is necessary to counteract the undesired yaw motion.A feedback compensator is designed to suppress output error,and a fuzzy controller is designed,a simulation is performed at different vehicle speed.The results showe that compared with uncontrolled vehicle the presented controller achieve good steady response of side slip angle and yaw rate,and improve handling stability of vehicle,especially an evident response can be achieved at a high speed.


Muscle strength is obviously needed by children in order to walk, play, and interact with their friends. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on therapies that improve muscle strength in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Less emphasis has been placed on another very important functional property of muscle, namely, muscle endurance. Endurance is the ability of a muscle to maintain a longduration force over many, many contractions. This is highly important for any functional activities lasting more than a few seconds, such as how far a child can walk, how long they can play, or in which activities they can participate. Typically, we think of muscle tissue as containing force generating machinery, but muscles also contain microscopic 'factories' that produce the majority of energy needed for muscle contraction. These are termed mitochondria. Mitochondria create energy using oxygen and food in the muscle cell. Their energy production ability is directly related to muscle endurance capacity and is termed their 'activity'. In this study, activity of mitochondria in children with CP was compared to activity of mitochondria of typically developing children. The authors found that muscle from children with CP had a 50– 80% lower activity compared to typically developing children. Interestingly, this was not due to the fact that CP muscle had less mitochondria, but because the mitochondria that were there intrinsically produced less energy in CP. This implies some sort of molecular defect in the muscle, which was localized to parts of the mitochondria. The ability to increase the activity of mitochondria in children with CP could result in much greater muscle endurance and an increase in a child's function. Whether such an increase can be accomplished via drugs or specialized exercises is the goal of future research. DOI: 10.1111/dmcn.15529


Organizational commitment is a very important thing for a company to find out how well its employees are responsible for their job. The objective of this research was to analyze the influence of work-to-family conflict and work stress on organizational commitment through work satisfaction as intervening variable at PT. Pelabuhan Indonesia I (Persero), Medan. The theory used in the research was the theory of human resources management which was related to work-tofamily conflict, work stress, work satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The research used descriptive quantitative survey and explanatory research method. The samples were 72 respondents, taken by using non-probability sampling with purposive sampling technique. The data were analyzed by using path analysis with an SPSS software program. The result of the research showed that, partially, work-to-family conflict had positive and significant influence on work stress, had negative but significant influence on work satisfaction, and had negative but significant influence on organizational commitment. Work stress had negative but significant influence on organizational commitment, while work satisfaction had positive and significant influence on organizational commitment. Work-to-family conflict indirectly had negative but significant influence on organizational commitment through work satisfaction as intervening variable partially, and work stress indirectly had negative but significant influence on organizational commitment through work satisfaction as intervening variable partially.


In the paper,the applications of airtight circulating cooling system for soft water on 4 150 m3 blast furnace of Baotou Steel are introduced. The system could make the cooling system of blast furnace realize cooling with soft water. In productions,the furnace practices could be judged through temperature of cooling system,rate of flow of inlet and outlet,differences in water temperature,reasonable control of liquid level for expansion degassing tank as well as changes of thermal load for cooling stave,which could meet the requirements of strengthening smelting for blast furnaces so that the service life of blast furnace could be prolonged.


Brendan McCormack 1. D.Phil (Oxon.), BSc (Hons.) Nursing, FAAN, FRCN, FEANS, FRCSI, FRSA, PGCEA, RMN, RGN Professor Brendan McCormack is currently Head of the Divisions of Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Art Therapies; and Associate Director, Centre for Person-centred Practice Research, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland. He also holds adjunct professorial positions at universities in Norway, Slovenia, South Africa and Australia. His research has specifically focused on person-centred practice, and over a period of 22 years he has developed models, theories, frameworks and evaluation instruments that have been adopted globally in policy and practice. In addition, he has led the implementation and evaluation of person-centred practices in a variety of clinical settings and in healthcare curricula. Professor McCormack has particular expertise in gerontological nursing and the adoption of person-centred practices with older people. The impact of his research in person-centred practice is far reaching and his work has been adopted in >26 countries. He has more than 600 published outputs, including 210 peer-reviewed publications in international journals and 10 books. He is the 'Editor Emeritus' of the "International Journal of Older People Nursing". Professor McCormack is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, Fellow of The European Academy of Nursing Science, Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing UK, Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In 2014 he was awarded the 'International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame' by Sigma Theta Tau International and listed in the Thomson Reuters 3000 most influential researchers globally.


It has become a truism that the introduction of modern technology requires new skills from both management and workforce. Yet recent reports confirm that the supply of trained manpower is failing to match present and future demand. Government action may be required, but more important is the need to promote greater liaison between higher education and industry, and to move - at craft and technician level - to a standard of training already being achieved by our competitors overseas. To accomplish these objectives requires a change in our attitude to education and training.


By the second half of the nineteenth century, Niger Delta communities in the forefront of the African periphery of the Atlantic world economy have attained an enviable height in indigenous accumulation as the commercial-entrepreneurial class articulated the forces of production and expanded capital generation. The highly resourceful entrepreneur-rulers, with a preponderant combination of power and capital, controlled large territories and a corresponding volume of trade. However, the inability to sustain the process of indigenous accumulation due to the dramatic disruption of natural improvements of mercantile capabilities from the 1870s led to the massive


Mosaic is to make a big image by gathering lots of small materials having various colors. With advance of digital imaging techniques, photomosaic techniques using photos are widely used. In this paper, we presents an automatic photomosaic algorithm based on adaptive tiling and block matching. The proposed algorithm is composed of two processes: photo database generation and photomosaic generation. Photo database is a set of photos (or tiles) used for mosaic, where a tile is divided into regions and the average RGB value of each region is the feature of the tile. Photomosaic generation is composed of 4 steps: feature extraction, adaptive tiling, block matching, and intensity adjustment. In feature extraction, the feature of each block is calculated after the image is splitted into the preset size of blocks. In adaptive tiling, the blocks having similar similarities are merged. Then, the blocks are compared with tiles in photo database by comparing euclidean distance as a similarity measure in block matching. Finally, in intensity adjustment, the intensity of the matched tile is replaced as that of the block to increase the similarity between the tile and the block. Also, a tile redundancy minimization scheme of adjacent blocks is applied to enhance the quality of mosaic photos. In comparison with Andrea mosaic software, the proposed algorithm outperforms in quantitative and qualitative analysis.


I. INTRODUCTION Throughout the world it may be economically possible to cultivate crops that can be harvested for the manufacturing of biofuels that could potentially have a significant impact result in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Use of renewable fuels such as bio-fuels can also reduce the US dependence on foreign energy sources. Plasma enhanced reforming is a promising approach for vehicular application involving onboard generation of hydrogen-rich gas (H 2 , CO, light hydrocarbons) from renewable energy biofuels. The hydrogen-rich gas can be used in internal combustion engine vehicles to increase engine efficiency and reduce pollution


The mechanism of threshold voltage shift was studied. It is believed that the instability in threshold voltage during gate bias stress is due to capture of electrons by the SiC/gate dielectric interface traps and the gate dielectric near interface traps. New experimental platform was designed and built successfully. When positive stress or negative stress is applied to the gate, the change of threshold voltage occur immediately. After stress removal, the recovery of the threshold voltage occur soon. The change and recovery of threshold voltage are very sensitive to time. In order to get accurate threshold voltage drift data after high-temperature gate bias experiment, test of threshold voltage must be carried out immediately after the experiment.


Trainee GPs will be offered £20 000 (€22 000; $26 000) "golden hellos" if they opt to work in parts of England that are struggling to recruit, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said.

Speaking at the Royal College of General Practitioners' annual conference in Liverpool on 12 October, Hunt said that the "salary supplements" would be available to 200 GPs from next year in areas of the country where training places had been unfilled for three or more years.

Similar schemes running in areas hard to recruit to had so far used "golden hellos" 126 times, with a success …


It is common in industrial application that multiple sensors are placed to measure similar parameters. These sensors may not be truly redundant in the sense that they measure exactly the same parameter, but the phenomena they do measure may be very well correlated. We denote such sensors as being quasi-redundant. This papers concerns a methodology for fusion of such quasi-redundant sensors. The goal of this new methodology is to produce a single inferred, high-confidence measure from data obtained from multiple such sensors. The techniques developed in this paper exploit the quasi-redundant relationship between sensors (1) to replace missing or low-confidence data and (2) to synthesize complementary sensor data to improve model development and testing. These techniques are illustrated using measured blast temperature data from a cupola iron-melting furnace.


Recent observations have resulted in the detection of chemical gradients on ultra-hot gas giants. Notwithstanding their high temperature, chemical reactions in ultra-hot atmospheres may occur in disequilibrium, due to vigorous day-night circulation and intense UV radiation from their stellar hosts. The goal of this work is to explore whether photochemistry is affecting the composition of ultra-hot giant planets, and if it can introduce horizontal chemical gradients. In particular, we focus on hydrogen cyanide (HCN) on WASP-76 b, as it is a photochemically active molecule with a reported detection on only one side of this planet. We use a pseudo-2D chemical kinetics code to model the chemical composition of WASP-76 b along its equator. Our approach improves on chemical equilibrium models by computing vertical mixing, horizontal advection, and photochemistry. We find that production of HCN is initiated through thermal and photochemical dissociation of CO and N2 on the day side of WASP-76 b, which are subsequently transported to the night side via the equatorial jet stream. This process results in an HCN gradient with a maximal abundance on the planet's morning limb. We verified that photochemical dissociation is a necessary condition for this mechanism, as thermal dissociation alone proves insufficient. Other species produced via night-side disequilibrium chemistry are SO2 and S2. Our model acts as a proof of concept for chemical gradients on ultra-hot exoplanets. We demonstrate that even ultra-hot planets can exhibit disequilibrium chemistry and recommend that future studies do not neglect photochemistry in their analyses of ultra-hot planets.


This research aims at the development of a power generation system with low environmental load using the dissociation and expansion characteristics of CO2hydrate. The proposed power generation system drives the actuator by making use of large pressure difference in the generation and dissociation reaction of CO2hydrate caused by small temperature difference of several tens of degrees. In this study, CO2hydrate generation and dissociation tests are carried out using reaction vessels with different thermal conductivity, and the C02 hydrate generation characteristics are compared by examining the CO2hydrate generation amounts. In addition, an increase in the power generation amount of the proposed system is analyzed. Experiments were conducted to examine the production experiment of CO2hydrate to measure the amount of CO2hydrate production and experiments simulating the proposed system using reaction vessels and buffer tanks. A stainless steel cylindrical device (thermal conductivity 20.9 W/(m·K)) and a copper cylindrical device (thermal conductivity 402 W/(m·K)) were used for the reaction vessel. By using two reaction vessels, we investigate the amount of CO2hydrate produced and the efficiency of dissociation due to the difference in thermal conductivity. As a result of the survey, it was confirmed that increasing the thermal conductivity of the reaction vessel increases the CO2hydrate production by about 67% and the CO2 hydrate dissociation efficiency increases by about 1 %. Therefore, as one method to increase the power generation amount of the proposed power generation system, it is possible to increase the thermal conductivity of the reaction vessel.


The long-term management of patients with chronic ulcerative colitis is difficult, and the usual therapeutic regimens are often unrewarding. For many years various etiological agents have been postulated, including bacteria,1viruses,2enzymes such as lysozyme,3food allergies,4and vitamin deficiencies.5Eventually the evidence on all of these has been inadequate.6The present-day chemotherapeutic agents and antibiotics are apparently useful only in some acute febrile exacerbations of the disease.7Their failure to basically alter the course of the disorder indicates that microorganisms are probably not involved primarily. Murray8noted that the onset and each exacerbation of the disease occurred during periods of stressful life situations. Many investigators have corroborated and elaborated his findings.9Experimental studies have demonstrated the relationship between life stress and ulceration of the colonic mucosa in man.10 This report is based on the study of 19 unselected persons


Felipe Fernandez-Armesto,a British historian,he starts his research from Spain history,and then extends to wider world history.He becomes an expert who is conversant with things present and past from a specialized historian.The majority of his works only uses one-word title but contains an extremely rich content and forms his own view of history with strong perspective of global history and ecology-environmental history.He truly gets rid of the influence from European-center point view and pays nearly same attention to each civilization and every country.His works pay close attention to not only the connection among people,but also the interaction between human and nature.He is one of the most versatile modern historians:the global even universal perspective gives his works a brand-new appearance,and his flexible style makes his books fascinating.He is also one of few historians who successfully gets out of the ivory tower to integrate into the society.


The boundary value solution of electromagnetic radiation from an axis-asymmetric slot antenna on a perfectly conducting prolate spheroid coated with a confocal sheath is presented. The electromagnetic fields are expanded in terms of prolate spheroidal vector wave functions. The unknown expansion coefficients are determined from a set of linear equations derived from the application of boundary conditions on the tangential fields' components. Numerical results for radiation patterns and power are presented. It is found that the thickness of the sheath has a significant effect on the radiated fields, and the radiated power is greatly enhanced for certain values of the sheath thickness.


This research encompasses the development of two mobile robots. Both of the robots feature relatively large coaxial wheels on either side of a chassis for locomotion. The first has rimless wheels formed by articulated spokes used to relocate the center of gravity and modify the support structure. The second uses the stabilization of a boom extended vertically for travel. Part 1 considers the locomotion of the actuated spoke rolling/walking/climbing robot. This novel platform provides agility for a robot capable of rolling like a wheel with a varying radius, climbing over obstacles, shimmying within a vertical shaft and creeping at a very compact height. The research focuses on determining the dynamics for a specific design, developing semi-autonomous motion planning and utilizing feedback control for end-effecter positioning and active suspension. The experimental portion focuses on sensor and actuator implementation, motion planning of varied locomotion modes and feedback control performed by an on- board microprocessor. Part 2 considers the design of three novel ping pong ball handling features for an existing rolling and ball flinging robot. Previously, the robot was able to throw balls that were manually loaded. This research in mechanical design yielded greater autonomous capabilities by adding ball-pickup, storage and release mechanisms