A total of 53 dipterocarp species belonging to ten genera were studied to examine phylogenetic relationships using the sequences of two non-coding regions in chloroplast DNA. Phylogenetic analysis showed the Selangan Batu, Yellow Meranti and White Meranti of the genus Shorea were monophyletic, while the Red Meranti was divided into three natural clades. The relationships in the Red Meranti could not be ascertained because of an insufficient number of nucleotide substitutions. The White Meranti was clustered with sect. Pelltacme and situated in an outer position of the genus Hopea, Neobalallocarpus and Parashorea although the bootstrap probability was not high. Two of the three deciduous Shorea species collected in Thailand, one belonging to White Meranti and the other to sect. Pelltacme based on morphological and anatomical evidence, were found to constitute a monophyletic group clustering with the other White Meranties. The third species in the Selangan Batu was clustered with the other Selangan Batus. This suggests that the deciduous character in the genus Shorea has evolved independently in different lineages. The divergence within sections of the genus Shorea was largest in sect. Mutica and smallest in sect. Richetioides. The genera Shorea and Hopea were more divergent than the other genera. These results suggest that they are the groups of phylogenetically more diversified species.


This study proposes a novel Two Phase Bandwidth Allocation (TPBA) mechanism incorporated with a prediction-based scheme in Ethernet passive optical networks (EPONs). Two phase dynamic bandwidth allocation mechanisms are designed in the proposed TPBA. In the first phase, the TPBA can resolve the idle time problem in traditional DBA mechanism. Furthermore, the TPBA can predict and allocate the excess bandwidth fairly and improve overall system in the next phase. The traffic characteristic in differential traffic class is also considered in the proposed prediction scheme to provide more accurate prediction. Simulation results using OPNET show that the proposed TPBA mechanism with adaptive prediction scheme performs better than well-known DBA methodologies in terms of wasted bandwidth, throughput end-to-end delay and queue length.


This paper explores the complementarity between skills, organizational change and investments in information and communication technology (ICT). Our work contributes to the literature on the effects of ICT by testing the hypothesis of complementarity in a panel of 540 Italian manufacturing firms during the period 1995-2000. Our analysis provides strong support to the hypothesis of complementarity between skills and ICT (which is at the core of the skill-biased technical change theory). We also find some evidence in favour of the skill-biased organizational change hypothesis. The results obtained by drawing on different statistical methods suggest that interactions among ICT, skills and organizational change are complex and non-linear and difficult to explain.


Public–Private Partnerships (PPP) in transport are a growing phenomenon throughout the world. The developing world in particular has seen a veritable explosion of such arrangements. There can be, however, a significant difference between developing countries that are 'low-income' versus those that are middle-income. In some ways low-income countries can benefit more from the access to new capital and technical expertise that a PPP can bring. On the other hand there can be significant barriers to implementation of PPP's in low-income nations and equity issues can loom especially large there. This paper examines these differences by way of a case study of the country of Bangladesh. The paper concludes with a discussion of preliminary 'lessons learned' in bringing transport PPP's to low-income countries.


The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between the inflammatory mediators tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF ! ) and serotonin (5-HT), the inflammatory markers erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP), as well as rheumatoid factor (RF) and thrombocyte particle concentration (TPC) in blood versus temporomandibular joint (TMJ) radiographic changes in patients with clinical TMJ involvement by rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Twenty patients were included. Venous blood was collected for quantification of the mediators, markers, and TPC. The radiographic signs of erosion, flattening, sclerosis, subchondral pseudocyst, and osteophyte as well as radiographic grade were investigated with computed tomography. The median (IQR) plasma levels of TNF ! and 5-HT were 0 (13) r pg/mL and 13 (22) r nmol/L, respectively, while serum level of 5-HT was 1360 (874) nmol/L. ESR, CRP, and TPC were abnormally high in 53%, 25%, and 15% of the patients, respectively. The most frequent radiographic signs were sclerosis (75%), erosion (50%), and flattening (30%). Erosion was found to be associated with high TPC and flattening with high plasma level of TNF ! . In conclusion, patients with clinical TMJ involvement by RA show an association between high level of TPC and TNF ! in plasma versus radiographic signs of joint bone destruction.


This study employs a business exit concept of a family-owned business and provides a deeper understanding on the success of the business. Furthermore, this study aims to determine the process of family succession prior to the continuity of the business owned by family members. This study is a qualitative study, employing case study design which sources were obtained from the CEO of Lombok Post-Indonesia. The data of this study were obtained through interviews and observation. The results showed that managing FOBs is a complicated and demanding task to do, especially within the event of choosing particular candidate for future succession since not every family member is intrested to engage in family-owned entreprises. Furthermore, FOBs does not always have any objectives to pass on the leadership to the family member unless they are ready and wellprepared with sufficient knowledge to take over the business.


We present a new model for the transport of macroscopic particles such as specks of dust in a rarefied gas, based on a purely kinetic approach. Assuming that post‐collision velocities are given by a diffuse reflexion on the surface of particles, we obtain a couple of two Boltzmann‐type equations. Moreover, we propose an asymptotic expansion of one of the collision operators with respect to the ratio of mass between a molecule of gas and a particle which leads to another equation for the transport of dust. Starting from those models, we performed some numerical simulations using two different methods: a first one based on the initial system of equations and a second one based on the system obtained after the asymptotic expansion has been performed. Theses methods are validated thanks to an explicit formula obtained in a particular case.


Objective To assess school health education and student nutrition work in China and needs of sectors involved for them. Methods With a stratified multi-stage cluster random sampling method, 57 elementary and high schools of 12 cities (counties) were selected for this study in 6 provinces. Students and their parents, teachers, food-service workers, school administrative personnel and administrative personnel in educational sectors were surveyed with different methods including questionnaires, focus group discussion and interview. Results Approximately 90% of the schools had the policy for health education. Some regions had developed the plans for health education. Most schools had health education class. Most health education teachers were part-time teachers and were not trained for health education. Lecture was the major teaching method in implementation of school health education. People had not paid much attention to school health education. The health and nutrition knowledge levels of students, parents, teachers and school food service personnel were quite low; they all expressed a desire for getting more information on health and nutrition. Conclusions Some problems and difficulties occurred in school health education and student nutrition work in China should be solved. People should pay more attention to health education and nutrition. The reform of school health education should be deepened, and health promoting school should be popularized.


Image captioning has received significant attention with remarkable improvements in recent advances. Nevertheless, images in the wild encapsulate rich knowledge and cannot be sufficiently described with models built on image-caption pairs containing only in-domain objects. In this paper, we propose to address the problem by augmenting standard deep captioning architectures with object learners. Specifically, we present Long Short-Term Memory with Pointing (LSTM-P) --- a new architecture that facilitates vocabulary expansion and produces novel objects via pointing mechanism. Technically, object learners are initially pre-trained on available object recognition data. Pointing in LSTM-P then balances the probability between generating a word through LSTM and copying a word from the recognized objects at each time step in decoder stage. Furthermore, our captioning encourages global coverage of objects in the sentence. Extensive experiments are conducted on both held-out COCO image captioning and ImageNet datasets for describing novel objects, and superior results are reported when comparing to state-of-the-art approaches. More remarkably, we obtain an average of 60.9% in F1 score on held-out COCO dataset.


Recognition of the object contours in the image as sequences of digital straight segments and/or digital curve arcs is considered in this article. The definitions of digital straight segments and of digital curve arcs are proposed. The methods and programs to recognize the object contours are represented. The algorithm to recognize the digital straight segments is formulated in terms of the growing pyramidal networks taking into account the conceptual model of memory and identification (Rabinovich (4)).


Neurogenic inflammation has been proposed to play a crucial role in activation and sensitization of the trigeminovascular system in migraine pathogenesis. A dural neurogenic inflammation model was successfully induced by topical infusion of inflammatory soup (IS) over the dura mater. Evidence has demonstrated that calcitonin gene-related peptides (CGRP) are involved in the pathophysiology of migraine. The aim of this study was to establish a modified animal model of migraine involving mixed mechanisms through dural infusion of IS combined with CGRP. This study investigated the combined effects of IS and CGRP on periorbital mechanical thresholds and dural neurogenic inflammation including meningeal artery dilation, vascular permeability, and mast cell degranulation. Dural infusion of IS combined with CGRP induced significantly decreased periorbital mechanical thresholds. Meningeal blood flow showed a significant increase after dural treatment of combined IS and CGRP compared with that in rats receiving IS or CGRP, separately. Dural infusion of combined IS and CGRP resulted in significant plasma protein extravasation within the dura mater. In addition, topical administration of IS combined with CGRP over the dura produced an increased percentage of degranulated mast cells in the dura. These results suggest that stimulation of the dura by a combination of IS and CGRP produces a greater effect upon neurogenic inflammation than IS or CGRP alone. This modified and integrated animal model can be a useful tool for better understanding the pathophysiology of migraine and finding new therapeutic targets.


Owing to the effect of energy band bending, p-type Co3O4 quantum dots sensitized by Eosin Y showed a high and stable photocatalytic activity (∼13,440 μmol h(-1) g(-1)(cat)) for water reduction and hydrogen production under visible-light irradiation without any cocatalyst.


Thymocytes have been studied at various stages during ontogeny in relation to their responsiveness to β adrenoceptor agonists and ability to bind L‐[propyl‐2,3‐3H]dihy‐droalprenolol ([3H]DHA), a specific radioligand of the β adrenoceptor. Specific [3H]DHA binding and the activity of an isoproterenol‐sensitive adenylate cyclase were compared and correlated between (14 to 20‐day) fetal mouse thymocytes and young adult thymocytes. Preliminary experiments show that [3H]DHA binding to thymocytes demonstrated the kinetics, affinity and stereospecificity expected of binding to adenylate cyclase‐coupled β adrenoceptors. Similarly, isoproterenol was shown to selectively increase intracellular adenosine 3′: 5′‐cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) levels and was antagonized by propranolol (a β adrenoceptor antagonist), but not by phentolamine (an a adrenoceptor antagonist), nor by lignocaine (a local anesthetic). The rises in fetal thymocyte cAMP levels found after stimulation with isoproterenol were of greater magnitude than in adult thymocytes. The number of [3H] DHA‐binding sites in both fetal and adult thymocytes was the same (Bmax = 50 fmol/2 × 106 cells). However, the affinity of the binding sites for [3H] DHA was less for the adult cells than the fetal cells (with KD values of 8.0 and 2.2 nM, respectively); this was reflected in the amount of [3H] DHA bound being up to 8 times greater in the embryonic cells.


Spatial database systems and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are currently only able to handle crisp spatial objects, i.e., objects whose extent, shape, and boundary are precisely determined. However, GIS applications are also interested in managing vague or fuzzy spatial objects. Spatial fuzziness captures the inherent property of many spatial objects in reality that do not have sharp boundaries and interiors or whose boundaries and interiors cannot be precisely determined. While topological relationships have been broadly explored for crisp spatial objects, this is not the case for fuzzy spatial objects. In this paper, we propose a novel model to formally define fuzzy topological predicates for simple and complex fuzzy regions. The model encompasses six fuzzy predicates (overlap, disjoint, inside, contains, equal and meet), wherein here we focus on the fuzzy overlap and the fuzzy disjoint predicates only. For their computation we consider two low-level measures, the degree of membership and the degree of coverage, and map them to high-level fuzzy modifiers and linguistic values respectively that are deployed in spatial queries by end-users.


Mean progeny on Heliothis virescens (F.) produced by female Brachymeria ovata (Say) was 227.2±98.3 at 30° C in the laboratory, and more female progeny were produced at this temperature than at other temperatures. Males developing at 35° C were generally sterile, while those developing at lower temperatures became sterile after a few days of exposure to 35° C. Mean male longevity ranged from 34.4 days at 35° C to 162.9 days at 20° C; females lived somewhat shorter periods, but one female held at 15° C lived 326 days. The study was conducted to gain knowledge of reproductive potential of this parasite for use as a biological agent of the range caterpillar, Hemileuca oliviae Cockerell.


To realize real-time goal-oriented navigation for a mobile robot in unpredictable environments, a fuzzy reactive system is proposed in this paper. Besides the establishment of the fuzzy logic system, this paper focuses on the the physical meaning of the parameters in the fuzzy system, and proposes a systematic method to automatically suppress redundant fuzzy rules from the rule base. Under the control of the proposed system with automatic redundant fuzzy rule removal, the mobile robot can preferably avoid obstacles autonomously, and generate reasonable trajectories toward the target in various situations. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach are demonstrated by simulation and experimental studies.


Objective of the study: Delayed diagnosis of increased intra-abdominal pressure in PICU patients increases morbidity and mortality rates. In 2007 our PICU implemented a protocol for indirect intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) measurements by an indwelling bladder catheter using a pressure transducer. One of the indications to start IAP measurement is an increased abdominal distension. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of this protocol, including the nurses' compliance. Methods: This retrospective study included patients admitted between 2007-2009. Children who underwent IAP measurements and/or abdominal girth measurements were identified from the Patient Data Management System and their records were analyzed. Results: Over the study period 36 children (19 male) with a mean age of 23 months (±49.3) underwent IAP measurements and 175 underwent three or more abdominal girth measurements. Both measurements were performed in 23 children. IAP measurements were mostly performed in neonates (52.8%) after closure of abdominal wall defects. The median number of IAP measurements was 14 (range 3-79); the median IAP was 8 mmHg (range 1-44). Eleven children (31%) had an IAP > 20 mmHg, indicating abdominal compartment syndrome. Most patients were treated conservatively and three underwent a surgical intervention. Conclusions: This study shows that after implementation of the IAP protocol nurses most often applied abdominal girth measurements in cases of suspected increased intra-abdominal pressure. We can conclude the nurses' compliance is moderate with IAP protocol. Strategies should be used to improve this.


Due to the high cost of graphite in the chemical synthesis of graphene oxide, studies on low-cost alternative carbon sources such as coal or carbon black have intensified. In this study; oxidation of graphite and carbon black obtained by pyrolysis from worn out waste tires, was oxidized using the Improved Hummers method. The product properties – structural defect, carbon content, specific heat capacity of graphene oxide (GO) and oxidized carbon black (CBO) was determined and compared each other. When the Raman patterns are analysed, it was determined that carbon black obtained by pyrolysis from worn out waste tires has a more defective structure (ID / IG = 5.65) than nano-sized and high-purity carbon black (ID / IG = 2.66) and graphene oxide (ID / IG = 1.40). However, X-Ray Diffraction analyses showed that oxidized carbon black had higher regular graphene layer content than graphene oxide. While the atomic carbon content of oxidized carbon black was found as 83.10%, the atomic carbon content of graphene oxide was determined as 73.10%. These results show that carbon black has higher carbon content even if oxidized. One of the remarkable results in the study is the specific heat values of oxidized carbon based materials. All specific heat capacity values of graphene oxide measured between – 40 ° C and 50 ° C were found to be higher than the oxidized carbon black. In the improved Hummers method, it was concluded that the use of certain amounts of carbon black instead of graphite is necessary for the product properties not to be too far away from graphene oxide. In addition, it was concluded that oxidized carbon black should be compared with graphene oxide in terms of potential industrial applications such as water treatment and electronic applications.


Many populations of waders breeding on open shores and shores with short vegetation espe- cially on the Baltic coasts have recently become endangered. The declines have taken place simulta- neously with human-induced loss and deterioration of habitats due to eutrophication and overgrowth. To investigate mechanisms by which habitat changes could affect breeding success and ultimately popula- tion dynamics, we studied an endangered coastal population of Temminck's stint. We hypothesized that the rate of nest predation has become higher because the nest defence strategy (early detection of predator and early departure from the nest), which originally evolved in open habitats, is less effective on shores with reduced visibility. As predicted, nests survived better on wide than on narrow shores. Predation made a major contribution to this trend, although successful and predated nests did not differ in concealment at a microhabitat scale. The better the visibility from the nest, the longer was the flushing distance, but only in response to alarm calls or behaviour of other species, not when they were absent. Temminck's stints seem to obtain information about an approaching predator visually from sentinels. Therefore, it is essential that there is at least moderate visibility around the nest. We conclude that habitat characteristics - visibility from the nest and sentinel birds - affect the effec- tiveness of the nest defence strategy of Temminck's stint. These should be taken into account when seek- ing causes and mechanisms for declines of Temminck's stint and other waders of open and shortly vegetated shores.


Teachers in all levels of education are very crucial in the educational development of any society and their satisfaction will basically affect the quality of services they render to the educational sector. However, the teaching profession is associated with a lot of stress arising from work overload and poor remuneration. This can lead to high prevalence of burnout, psychological distress and low level of job satisfaction among teachers. This study assessed the prevalence of burnout, psychological distress and job satisfaction among teachers in secondary schools in Enugu, south east Nigeria. The Maslach burnout inventory, the General health questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the Generic job satisfaction scale were used to assess 432 teachers working in secondary schools in Enugu south east Nigeria for prevalence of burnout, psychological distress and level of job satisfaction. The prevalence of burnout was 40% for emotional exhaustion, 39.4% for depersonalization and 36.8% for reduced personal accomplishment. 32.9% had psychological distress while 39.6% had low level of job satisfaction. There was high prevalence of burnout, psychological distress and low level of job satisfaction among the teachers.


The onset of a microseismic signal on a geophone trace is determined by modeling the noise and seismic signal in windows using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Initially developed to predict an optimal order for an autorecursive filter, the criterion can be used to demark the point of two adjacent time series with different underlying statistics. The AIC first-break pick algorithm is robust in the presence of highamplitude random noise, computationally fast and could be implemented automatically. Introduction Techniques have been presented in the literature and at conventions to detect and pick the arrival times of different seismic waves. A class of first-break detection algorithms has utilized the work of Akaike (1973). He proposed "an Information Criterion" (later changed by others to "Akaike Information Criterion" or AIC). In seismic data, the AIC is a measure of the order of the variance of the component not explained by an autorecursive (AR) process modelled to fit the data. An algorithm is proposed here based upon the work of Sleeman and van Eck (1999). A window of microseismic data is analyzed to look for first-break events. The algorithm is compared to an STA LTA difference method and an energy trace windowing approach on microseismic data. Finally, short length AIC windows will be automated for a first-break picking scheme. Autoregressive Model Order and the AIC Picking Algorithm Akaike's information criterion was developed in 1971 (Akaike, 1973). He was studying the goodness of fit of an estimated statistical model for a given order of an AR process to try to find the lowest order that would best fit observed data. The AIC is a test for selecting lengths of feedback loops. A side benefit is that the criterion can efficiently separate events in the same time series. Assume a time series of length "nsamp" can be broken down into two pseudo-stationary time series. As defined here, a pseudo-stationary process has unchanging mean, variance and autocorrelation over the time of the investigation. The first series is random noise and the second series records an energy motion over an adjacent interval (Figure 1). For an autorecursive filter of length M, the AIC at sample k for a time series of length nsamp is expressed as: AIC(k) = (k M)log(σ 2 1,max ) + (nsamp – M k)(log(σ 2 2,max) + const (Eqn. 1) AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90173 CSPG/CSEG/CWLS GeoConvention 2011, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, May 9-11, 2011


The effect of iron content on hot tearing of the high-strength Al-Mg-Si alloy was systematically investigated. The alloy with higher content of iron resulted in the severe occurrence of hot tearing during direct chill (DC) casting. Mechanical properties of this alloy in which iron content was changed were investigated during solidification using an electromagnetic induction heating tensile machine. Tensile strength and elongation were discussed in relation with solidification progress of which sequence of crystallization, crystallization temperature of formed phases and their crystallized amount were calculated by a thermodynamic calculation software Thermo-Calc. In order to confirm the calculation results of solidification path, a quenching test also was carried out. Furthermore, by comparing the fracture surfaces of the tensile testing sample and DC billet, the temperature range of crack initiation of the alloy was examined. Comparing the temperature range of crack initiation with the crystallization phase and its crystallization order, iron content influenced hot tearing significantly owing to the crystallization behavior of � (AlFeMn) in high-strength Al-Mg-Si alloy. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.47.2821]


Introduction. The Arkhangelsk region is one of the largest domestic timber-processing regions with the most modern production complex. This region has a great raw material potential (the total wood stock is 2,573 million m3) and has a unique position for the export of target products. However, the existing potential in this timber industry area, as in other regions of Russia, is used irrationally. Only 20 % of the harvested wood is processed at the enterprises of the domestic timber industry complex (hereinafter –– TIC), and the rest is exported in unprocessed form. The irrational use of resources is due to a number of reasons, including the peculiarities of the existing territorial and spatial organization of industrial territories and settlements, which does not correspond to the changed technologies of harvesting, transportation and processing of wood, as well as reproduction of forest resources. As a result of this discrepancy and the old ways of explaining it, extensive forest use is carried out, significant disturbed territories are formed, the boundaries of logging activities are constantly shifting, which leads to the removal of forest resource base sites from settlements where the production territories of TIC enterprises are located. All this negatively affects the functioning of these enterprises and, as a result, the viability of settlements whose population participates in the processes of processing and processing of wood. A change in the approach to the territorial and spatial organization of settlements can contribute to solving these problems.
Materials and methods. The study was carried out on the basis of publicly available data, published works of foreign and domestic authors. During the research, the method of system analysis and the methodology of the territorial and spatial organization of settlements in the region were used.
Results. The classification and identification of interconnected settlements of the timber industry district is proposed, based on their role in the planning organization of the district and in the implementation of technological processes of wood processing. The existing production functions of settlements are defined and possible options for their expansion are proposed. On the example of the Arkhangelsk region, a scheme for expanding the production functions of settlements has been prepared. Measures have also been identified to bring the areas of the forest resource base of timber processing enterprises closer to the production territories of settlements, which must be implemented during the territorial and spatial organization of settlements.
Conclusions. In the current socio-economic conditions, there is a need for a planning system that makes it possible to develop a TIC that ensures the relationship of the processes of harvesting, consistent waste-free processing of wood and reproduction of forest resources with the territorial and spatial organization of settlements in the timber industry district.


The goal of this study was to perform an evaluation of a set of voice interaction models (supported by a hands-free solution activated by a wake-up word, a mobile app and a TV remote control with microphone) to identify the most appropriate solution for interactive television. The research addressed issues associated with natural language systems such as usability, interaction and privacy perception, and aimed to analyze the strengths and limitations of the voice interaction models. On a first evaluation approach, a prototype based on a Wizard-of-Oz methodology was used, while a second approach was based on a functional prototype. The preferred interaction model was the hands-free solution activated by a wake-up word because it was easy to use and raised the least difficulties in any task execution. Despite this result, the other two models are not disregarded for a future voice interaction system in television. The TV remote control was the most natural way of interaction for the study's participants. The need for control provided by the remote and by the app makes the participants feel like these grant more privacy. Participants considered that a voice-operated system for TV would be very useful and almost all were receptive to having such a system at home. Lastly, based on commercial standards and guidelines, solutions to issues identified by participants in the visual interface of the TV system were proposed and considered for the next phase of prototype development, also benefiting other researches in the field.


In this paper, we describe the problems that affect availability in BGP, such as vulnerability to attacks, slow convergence time, and lack of scalability. These problems arise from the basic assumption of BGP: every router has to cooperate to make routing work. We propose a new routing system, feedback based routing, which bifurcates structural information and dynamic information. Only structural information is propagated. Dynamic information is discovered by the routers based on feedback and probes. Routing decisions are made based on the dynamic information. We argue that this system is resilient to minority compromises in the infrastructure, provides higher availability than BGP, and can scale to the size of the Internet of the future.


The geosynthetic technique of reinforcing retaining walls is one of the techniques that are currently being developed in the field of geotechnics. This article focuses on a numerical study, using two-dimensional finite difference Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua FLAC2D software, to investigate the influence of a uniform surcharge application on the behaviour of a geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall, especially on the maximum tensile force and wall displacement at the end of construction. A parametric study was undertaken taking into account the surcharge load, the width and its distance from the continuous facing panel. The results show that the tensile forces in the reinforcement and the horizontal displacements of the facing panel increase with increasing the uniform surcharge. Furthermore, a small effect was noted on the maximum tensile force in the geosynthetic layers with varying the surcharge distance from the back of the facing panel.


Since Chinese government adopted the policy of reform,the information industry has developed rapidly,and formed four biggest information industry clusters in China.The paper introduced the status of in- formation industry clusters in China,and analyzed the formed model of the information industry clusters ac- cording to the independent factors and dependent ones.


This document gives an overview of the different documents that
comprise a full solution to the YANG versioning requirements document.
The purpose of this document is to help readers understand how the
discrete parts of the YANG versioning solution fit together during
working group development of the solution documents.


There is an ongoing discussion on the role of workplace internet leisure (WIL) and whether it is a vice or virtue. Considering this, Current study is aimed to examine the effects of Workplace internet leisure on employee productivity with mediating role of employee engagement in the Army health care sector of Pakistan. The data was collected through self-administered questionnaires from Armed forces nursing officers of different Army hospitals and institutes through convenience sampling size of 300.SPSS model macro Version 3 (Hayes, 2018) was used to analyze the respondents' feedback. For analysis of workplace internet leisure influence on employee engagement regression is calculated and results indicates that workplace internet leisure has positive and significance impact on employee engagement, while work place internet leisure has positive but insignificance impacts on employee productivity. Additionally, indirect analysis is calculated for mediation analysis, results indicate that employee engagement positively mediates association between workplace internet leisure and employees productivity.


A theory of transport phenomena for anisotropic semiconductors is developed in which inelastic carrier scattering is dominating and the Debye screening radius of defects is large compared with the carrier mean free path. The effect of edge dislocations on electrical conductivity, magnetoresistance, and transverse and longitudinal Nernst-Ettingshausen effects is investigated using tellurium as a model semiconductor. The defects are found to considerably affect the electrical conductivity of Te depending on the magnitude and the direction of magnetic field.

[Russian Text Ignored]


The adoption, integration, and use of technology in the classroom should be planned by school leaders and teachers, who should also arm themselves with the newest technological developments. This study was designed to determine the impact of school heads' technology leadership to teachers' instructional innovation and academic optimism during the COVID-19 period. The study utilized a quantitative research design and a descriptive-correlational research method and was confined among 31 school heads and 651 teachers in Candelaria East and West Districts during the S.Y. 2021-2022. The survey-questionnaire, which was developed by the researcher and validated by research practitioners and experts, was the primary data gathering tool. From the findings, it was deduced that there is no significant difference between the perception of the elementary and secondary teachers on the school head's technology leadership, teachers' technological proficiency, and teachers' academic optimism. It revealed that the social, legal, and ethical issues; and the leadership and vision significantly predict the teachers' technological proficiency while the social, legal, and ethical issues; leadership and vision; productivity and professional practice and support; and management, operations, and finance significantly predict the teachers' academic optimism. In light of the findings and conclusion, the study recommends that DepEd may include the nature and concept of digital citizenship in school management and leadership.


Apart from the publication of a few articles written by a small number of psychoanalytic orientated practitioners, it is noteworthy that outside of psychoanalytic journals in Ireland, the most we encounter are fleeting references to the work of Freud, in relation to addiction. It is safe to say that those of us who draw upon the work of Freud in the execution of our clinical work are sadly under-represented in Irish publications on addiction. In fact, this under-representation is clearly visible on training courses as well, the average psychology core text book regularly condenses twenty six volumes of Freud work and over 50 years of clinical work to on average two pages.


As important chemical raw materials and intermediates, aliphatic nitriles are widely used in the field of materials and medicine synthesis. In this review, we summarized the research progress in synthetic strategy, including the oxidative cyanation of alkanes, alkenes, aldehydes and amines, direct cyanation of alkanes, haloalkanes and alkenes with cyanogen reagents, and the dehydrative cyanation of amides, carboxylic acids (esters) and aldehyde oximes. Meanwhile, the industrial preparation progress of aliphatic nitriles and the bottleneck problems therein were introduced taking acrylonitrile, adiponitrile and acetonitrile as typical examples. The future development on the synthetic strategy and industrial preparation of aliphatic nitriles was also prospected.


In this paper, we discuss the WSNS data fusion in intelligent agriculture temperature control by using the artificial neural network and adapting weighting. It can be proved that our methods can accurately estimate the tested data. And our methods have high precision and robustness.


An absolute determination of the superconducting penetration length in niobium has been carried out by a novel technique, in which the reflectivity of a polarized-neutron beam from a polished surface is measured. The result thus obtained, ..lambda..(0) = 410 +- 40 A, is in substantial agreement with the earlier work.


Abstract : Crisis stability indices calculated for two-sided strategic interactions are used to discuss the impact of boost and midcourse defenses. They largely suppress missiles, leaving bombers and cruise missiles to deliver the bulk of restrikes. Boost-phase defenses are able to attrit missile attacks, but lack the preferential needed to defend specific targets. Midcourse layers could protect a significant fraction of forces; combined defenses could defend more. Results are sensitive to decoys and target sets.


In an electricalsystem, harmonicsare defined as voltages or currents or other This paper investigatesthe harmonic electrical parametersthat are presentin the content of the rotor current,rotor voltage system at some multiple integer of the and the torqueof the variablespeedconstant fundamentalfrequency. Whereasthe stator frequencydouble output inductiongenerator distortioncurrents are defined as the (VSCF-DOIG).The waveformsof thesevariables currentsinducedin the statorwindingsby the were generatedusinga directthree-phase rotor current harmonicsat frequenciesthat model and then analyzednumericallyfor their are not an integralmultipleof the stator harmonic content using a Fourier series fundamentalfrequency. subroutine. In addition, this paper investigatesthe stator distortioncurrents In convertingthe ac powerto dc power a that are beinginducedin the stator windings convertereffectivelybreaks or chops the ac by the rotor currentharmonicsat frequenciescurrent waveformby allowingthe current to which are not an integralmultipleof the flowduringonlya portionof the cycle. This s7tatorfundamentalfrequency.As a checkon resultsin thegeneration of harmonicvoltages the analysisthe calculatedstator current and currents on both ac anddc sides. waveform is comparedwith the experimental oscillogram. For a six-pulseconverterthe harmonics


The energy conversion efficiency of organic solar cells based on simple electron donor/electron acceptor heterojunction has been studied as a function of the interface anode/electron donor. The anode is fluorine doped tin oxide film. It is shown that the solar cell efficiency increases when a metal ultra thin layer is introduced between the anode and the electron donor. Experimental and theoretical studies show that the work function value of the metal is one of the main factors which allow improving the organic solar cells performances, via better hole collection efficiency. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


Htirivaasa [HV] depicted Visrpu who was born as a human being KTsoa, and K;s4a kills a wicked king Kaipsa. Besides this Krs4a story in the HV, various other stories are contained. The HV in the Critical Edhion [HVCE] consists of 118 chapters. It is told that, HV is a supplement of the great Indian qpic Adahabharata [MBh]; on the other hand, it is told as a kind ofPurauas, which is a group of literature on Hindu myths and legends. Kirfel [1927] showed that HV has great many common verses wnh Puranas. The author of HV is said to be VyEsa; a legendary saint. In VUIgata-version IIV consists of approximately sixteen thousand verses. Because the contents of HV are very complicated, such an incoherent story ceuld not be made by one person. It is Said that many authors and editors took long time to make the book. In this paper, first I will show two previous important studies about the foumation process of HV, then I will examine the idea of BrinldLaus from the Brahmapura4a [BP] that HV chapter 23.121 was formerly linked with HV chapter 114.


The functional evaluation of catalytic converter conducted by engine bench test is considered as one of the key techniques in the research and exploitation of catalytic converter. The integrated cordierite catalytic converter, modified from the precious metal Pt-Rh, was produced by the author with help of maceration. It has been applied in the engine bench experiment to purify exhaust under the condition of various rotational speeds of carburetor-mode small petrol engine. It has been proved in the experiment that integrated cordierite catalytic converter performs best when the ratio of Rh to Pt is 0.25. Moreover, the NOx purifying capacity of the catalytic converter has been extremely strengthened; Meanwhile, the NOx transforming rate temperature window has also been highly widened;What's more, the three major pollutants in the petrol engine exhaust -NOx, CO and HC can be simultaneously purified. In conclusion, promising future can be predicted in the application of this kind of catalytic converter in the exhaust purification of carburetor-mode small petrol engine.


Research on traditional medicine was conducted in the village of Lubuk Ambacang District of Hulu Kuantan Kuantan District Singingi. This research was conducted with the aim to explain how the belief systems that underlie the use of traditional medicine in the village of Lubuk Ambacang society and how the effective use of traditional medicine in the view of people in Desa Lubuk Ambacang. In this study the author uses qualitative research, is an attempt to present the social world, and perspective in life, in terms of concept, behavior, perception, and the question of human investigate. Data collection techniques using observation, interview and documentation. The research proves that became the foundations of society in the use of traditional herbs that is based on faith (Religion), hereditary tradition as well as fact-based reality has been perceived. While the effectiveness of the use of traditional herbs in the village of Lubuk Ambacang society there are positive that in the field of health, the economy and maintain the tradition of hereditary. There is also a negative effectiveness, such as a distorted belief, believe that the shaman could cure diseases suffered by the patient. Keywords: Traditional medicine, Belief System, Effectiveness


small amounts can be lethal". To date, 13 outbreaks of botulism, mostly type E, have been traced to this source. Further north, a traditional delicacy among Alaskan Eskimos is 'TItuktuk, the fiipper of a beluga whale cured by several weeks' immersion in seal oil; 5 outbreaks of type E botulism have been traced to this commodity. Farther east, in N.W. Canada and Labrador, seal flippers similarly prepared (utjak.) take the place of beluga whale, but with similar results. It is probable that type E botulism has been endemic in these areas from ancient times, but that the mortality incurred by the consumption of these delicacies has not been sufficient to cause their use to be discontinued. In Japan, botulism had not been reported till 1951, when a clinically unmistakable outbreak took place in Hokkaido, in which there were 14 cases with 4 deaths. This was traced to izushi, a popular relish prepared from fermented raw fish, and type E toxin was identified. Thus alerted, public health workers in Hokkaido had identified 9 further similar outbreaks by the end of 1966, and since then !ida and his colleagues have brought the total to about 44 outbreaks in the northern part of Japan, mostly due to the consumption of izushi; with one exception, all these outbreaks were due to type E toxin. Again it seems that the disease has long been endemic to this area, but that its presence has only recently been recognized. A few type E outbreaks have also been reported from the Scandinavian countries, again associated with preserved fish. Type E botulism is therefore overwhelmingly associated with fish and other marine products from high northern latitudes, and it becomes of interest and importance to establish the natural occurrence of the responsible organism. Dolman and !ida have attempted to do this by consideration of reported outbreaks and by direct investigation. They point out that even before the identification of type E, Russian workers had shown that in fish-borne botulism, type A or B spore contamination could be derived either from the intestinal fiora of the fish concerned or from the external environment. Then, though most outbreaks have been marine-associated, a significant few have been traced to freshwater fish taken far inland. The presence of the organism in the sea has been well documented by extensive sampling of littoral and ofr-shore sediments. It can be isolated with considerable frequency from some localities, but is apparently completely absent from other areas. Dolman and !ida therefore put forward the hypothesis that type E spores are terrestrial in origin, "perhaps widely but thinly scattered, except in heavily seeded foci in the littoral of certain land masses of the northern hemisphere, to which the spores [are] brought mainly by rain and river erosion, and whence they [may] eventually reach the ofr-shore sea-bottom". From there they may be further distributed by bottom-feeding fish and their predators throughout the marine environment. Type E 01. botulinum is well adapted to survival in niches afforded by such circumstances. Dolman and !ida also cite recent work from Sweden which gives strong independent confirmation of their hypothesis. It should be realized, however, that not all outbreaks of type E botulism occur in primitive surroundings. Considerable stir was caused last year in the United States by an outbreak in Detroit traced to canned tuna, on which we commented at the time.· Another outbreak which should perhaps receive special mention is that which occurred in Minneapolis in 1960 and was traced to smoked cisco trout from the Canadian Great Lakes, vacuum-packed in sealed plastic containers and distributed unfrozen. This type of packaging has many technical advantages, but, as newer types of plastic are impermeable to oxygen, it can provide highly suitable conditions for the multiplication of clostridia if the contained foodstuffs are contaminated before packing. A recent comment on the subject in the British Medical Journal" states: "It seems certain that if vaccum packing is to continue for this type of product ... then the packs will have to be stored at temperatures below which growth of the clostridia and production of toxin occur. Explicit instructions must also be given on how to prepare the fish product for the table."


The generalized potential of the inertial forces acting on a holonomic system in an accelerated reference frame is derived in a way which admits a simple physical interpretation. It is shown that the generalized potential refers to all the inertial forces and, apart from the very special case of a uniformly rotating frame, it is impossible to distinguish a contribution to only the Coriolis force and a contribution pertaining to the residual, velocity-independent fictitious forces. Such an approach to the determination of the generalized potential of inertial forces may be helpful in introducing the topic of the generalized potential to advanced undergraduate and graduate students.


A study was made on the IR of Orthophthalic,isophthalic,terephthalic unsaturated polyesters and vinyl esters et al.The experimental results were discussed and analyzed.


This research was conducted to evaluate a mutual fund that has optimal performance during the period 2005 until 2008.Dalam this study as the research object is an equity fund investment Mandiri. Mutual fund performance measurement in this study using weight-time method, rate of return and Sharpe methods that incorporate elements of risk in their calculations. The aim in using the method of weight-time rate of retrun is to know the historical performance of a particular period of a mutual fund while the purpose Sharpe method is based on what is called the risk premium (risk premium). Riks premium is the difference between average performance resulted from mutual funds with an average investment performance that is free resiko.dalam this pembahsan investment without risk is assumed as the average interest rate of Bank Indonesia Certificates (SBI) data used is the net asset value per unit (NAV / unit) from 2005 to by 2008.


In order to search for countermeasures of crop planting under the background of climatic change,the response of yield of spring rape to available soil water storage and heat was studied in dryland of high-elevation area by staging sowing method.The results showed that the soil water storage in dryland of high-elevation area was more in the early growth period than thatin the late growth period.The influence of available soilwaterstorage toyieldwas relatively low in seedling and blossomperiod,butitwas ratherhigh in bolting,flowering and pod developmentperiod.There were significant positive correlations between rape yield and soil water storage in bolting,flowering and pod development period.When soil waterstorage increased by 10mm during bolting and flowering period,the rape yield could be improved by 71.7 kg·hm-2;when it increased by 10mm during pod development period,the rape yield could be improved by 30.13kg·hm-2.Heat was also an important factor affecting rape yield.There were significant negative correlations between rape yield and daily mean temperature aswell as accumulated temperature.When daily mean temperature rose by 1℃,the rape yield could be reduced by 163 kg·hm-2;when accumulated temperature rose by 50℃·d,the rape yield could be reduced by 251.15 kg·hm-2.Differentplanting response measureswere proposed according to the growth characteristics of rape under different climatic conditions.


A copper-mediated oxidative radical addition/cyclization cascade of o-cyanoarylacrylamides with sodium trifluoromethanesulfonate (Langlois' reagent) has been achieved. The reaction proceeds through radical addition, cyclization, and imine hydrolysis, in which the cyclization was accomplished by an intramolecular addition of the carbon radical to the nitrile. This transformation exhibits a wide substrate scope and good functional group tolerance, thus providing a highly efficient and practical access to a variety of trifluoromethylated quinoline-2,4(1H,3H)-diones. Furthermore, using other sulfinic acid sodium salts as sulfonylating agents, sulfonated quinolinediones were also obtained through a similar radical cascade.


Wind resource assessments have shown high potential for wind energy in northern Japan. In regions where large wind resources are estimated, previous studies suggest that orographically-induced winds often occur. However, more observational studies are necessary to obtain detailed pictures of the orographically-induced winds and understanding of generation mechanism is required. With an increase in development of offshore wind energy and installation of offshore wind power plants, meteorological studies are increasingly required to estimate offshore wind resource, to understand the variation in the wind energy, and to predict the wind power output. Therefore, this study presents the orographically-induced winds around northern Japan and their occurrence mechanisms, and discusses contribution of the orographically-induced winds to regional wind resource.


Japanese respectful speeches are of various kinds which are strictly prescriptive and variable depending on time, place and person they are used in and for. For this reason Japanese learners usually cannot use them correctly. Problems are analyzed and suggestions put forward.


In textile and wearable electronics, the demand for a stretchable, durable, and easily manufacturable electrode is ever increasing. This paper describes the development of a highly stretchable and durable textile electrode fabricated by simple stencil and screen printing methods. It specifically investigated the effects of an interface layer as a planarization layer between the conductive electrode and the textile on the durability of the textile electrode. A stretchable conductive paste was synthesized by mixing Ag flake powder in polyester. The conductive electrode was encapsulated with Ecoflex material. The stretchability and durability of the textile electrodes were evaluated via stretching, bending, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) folding, twisting, and dynamic endurance tests. The stretching and MIT folding tests indicated that the interface layer significantly enhanced the durability of the textile electrode. A highly stretchable and flexible textile electrode exhibited a low sheet resistance of 0.05 Ω/square, excellent stretchability of 70%, and a critical bending radius of 1.5 mm. The textile electrodes also withstood dynamic stretching and bending endurance tests of 10,000 cycles. The illumination of a light-emitting diode with the conductive electrode was also stable under 70% tensile strain and in water. The potential application of the textile electrode as a strain sensor was demonstrated by applying it to a glove to detect finger motion. The strain sensors responded well to the finger motion, with considerable stability and repeatability.


As statistical consultants we often end a consulting session feeling that we have done a reasonable job, and that although improvements are possible there have been no major hitches. We may feel twinges of disquiet about one or two points in the session, but then those sorts of problems come with the territory. Given the conditions under which we operate, a perfect job is not possible. Most of us, if asked, would include the following as basic objectives of a consulting session:


Immunofermental test-systems (IFTS) were worked out to determine the level of antibodies to vaccine antigens used in the framework of National Vaccination Calendar meeting WHO requirements. In the paper, the possibility of using test-system data for performing mass epidemiological examinations has been shown. The latter were aimed at objective estimation of vaccination efficiency and revaccination against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis 8, characterization of immune structure of inhabitants and high risk groups as well as evaluation of quality of preventive preparations.


Bio-particles in the air and the non this detection method using Bio-particle detection device in real time, and it is disclosed. Bio-particle and a non bio-particles in real time detecting apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, bio-floating in the air particles (bio particle) and the non sucking the bio-particles (non-bio particle) and then classified by size, each size Bio particles and the non impactor to a detector 600 for detecting in real time the concentration of the bio-particles, sucked from the outside and a non bio-particle particle size classified by the bio-particles (200); Charge control device 300 to charge each of the classified particles from the impactor 200 in a specific charge (positive or negative); The charge is charged particles from the apparatus 300, it enters the separator 400 for classifying the charged particles by using the air flow and electrical power of a constant flow rate and different amount; And it is attached to the vent where they discharge the classified particles from the separator 400, particle sensor 500 for measuring the concentration of particles which are discharged to the discharge port; and that it comprises a base in the configuration.


The significance of the size of the iodine pools in which the radioiodine is diluted in the thyroid is analyzed, and it is shown that there is a danger in interpreting radioiodine tests in isolation. The uptake of I/sup 131/ is inversely related to the extrathyroidal inorganic icdine pool, and the PBI/ sup 131/ is inversely related to the intrathyroidal iodine pool. Both these pools may be diminished in euthyroid persons and thus a high uptake of I/sup 131/ may be associated with a high PBI/sup 131/ and so lead to false diagnostic conclusions. In order to avoid diagnostic errors, standard I/sup 131/ tests should never be reported without some knowledge of relevant clinical features, for example, whether there is the possibility of prolonged iodine deficiency, of previous treatment, of Hashimoto's disease, or of dyshormonogenesis. In this way due weight can be given to factors which increase or decrease the iodine pools of the body and discrepancies between the clinical picture and radioiodine tests become obvious. More specific investigations can then be undertaken in appropriate cases. (auth)


A simplified approach to routine bulk-notice generation, without recourse to the Task Manager, is described. A locally developed server-based application embeds an XSLT processor, thus exploiting existing style sheets. Notice branding is facilitated without requiring knowledge of XSLT using arbitrary HTML headers and footers. By utilizing MIME subtype Multipart/alternative, Email attachments are avoided.

Audience: ALEPH system administrators, circulation back-office staff

Version: 15 and above

Educational outcome: This poster session seeks to educate about the customization potential inherent in ALEPH's multi-tiered printing architecture. The session may stimulate others as to the wonderful opportunities made possible by this architecture.


(NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division), George H. Bryan, Ronald Dobosy, Jun A. Zhang, Gijs de Boer, Altug Aksoy, Joshua B. Wadler, Evan A. Kalina, Brittany A. Dahl, Kelly Ryan, Jonathan Neuhaus, Ed Dumas, Frank D. Marks, Aaron M. Farber, Terry Hock, and Xiaomin Chen. Published in BAMS online February 2020. For the full citable article see DOI:10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0169.1. Launched into the Hurricane Observations from Small Unmanned Aircraft


The processing of product buying is a very difficult task when we have thousands of items in each market category. In order to study items similarity for dependable buying we try to analyze item descriptions on AliExpress, eBay marketplaces and test k-means algorithm for item grouping/product segmentation. The usage of the classical clusterization algorithms for grouping similar products according to their descriptions is studied. A corpus of different products (bikes and smartphones) from e-shop AliExpress, eBay is developed. Each entity in this corpus contains photos and a product description. Each entity in this corpus contains product description with different fields. These short texts are used for experiments. As a result, it is found out that the k-means algorithm works well only for uniformly distributed data by categories, but this is not suitable for the segmentation of heterogeneous descriptions. The task of item descriptions systematization is set in the research below.


Joseph Severn's first posthumous portrait of John Keats stands in a complex relation to the quality of likeness in biographical representation. Severn pictures Keats as an absorbed reader, whose unawareness of observation is and is not like his final obliviousness in death. A comparable scene recurs in memoirs of Keats by other friends, and likewise in his letters, in an imaginative movement that is both essentially fanciful and oriented towards the truth of a remembered relation. Severn tell us that his portrait recollects the last time he saw Keats looking 'like himself ', and this essay argues that comfortable, habitual unconsciousness is the foundation of this type of likeness too.


Introduction: Ex vivo drug sensitivity studies of samples derived from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients have been shown to be predictive of in vivo response. These findings are based on a limited number of well-characterized agents for which in vivo patient response data and ex vivo drug sensitivity data—on that same patient—are available. To show the feasibility of scaling such ex vivo studies to large drug screens, we characterized the reproducibility of expression-based models of drug response across two independent data sets—one generated at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and the second at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM). Methods: We harmonized two large-scale AML ex vivo studies screened for drug response and profiled transcriptomically—OHSU (303 AML patient samples and 160 drugs) and FIMM (48 AML samples and 480 drugs). The two panels have 94 drugs in common. Log-logistic curves were fit to the dose-response data and area under the dose-response curves (AUCs) were calculated. Predictive modeling using Ridge regression or an integrative Bayesian approach was performed for each drug AUC independently using 202 highly-variable and/or cancer-associated genes as features. Results: For each of the 94 drugs in common between the two data sets, we trained a Ridge regression model on the OHSU data set, used the model to predict response in the FIMM data set, and calculated the Pearson correlation between the predicted and observed FIMM responses. 41 of the 94 drug models had a positive and statistically significant correlation [false discovery rate (FDR) -4 ) Conclusions: Our results using independent data sets and two statistical approaches suggest that certain drugs (including MEK and EGFR/VEGFR inhibitors) are amenable to expression-based predictive modeling in AML. Future work will focus on inferring individual biomarkers of response. Citation Format: Brian S. White, Suleiman A. Khan, Muhammad Ammad-ud-din, Swapnil Potdar, Mike J. Mason, Cristina E. Tognon, Brian J. Druker, Caroline A. Heckman, Olli P. Kallioniemi, Stephen E. Kurtz, Kimmo Porkka, Jeffrey W. Tyner, Tero Aittokallio, Krister Wennerberg, Justin Guinney. Gene expression predicts ex vivo drug sensitivity in acute myeloid leukemia [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3883.


The theory of customer satisfaction had a long history in theory research and practical application of the service industry, and obtained significant theoretical and practical value. However, the application of theory of customer satisfaction in medical service industry has just started, there are less results and many problems that need to explore in the theoretical research and practice. In this paper, we summarized the problems of the research on customer satisfaction in medical service industry through analyzing the present situation of the theory of domestic and foreign customer satisfaction, tried to establish a evaluation system of customer satisfaction in medical laboratory, and to explore its positive significance in improving the ability of medical service through review of the research and application practice of theory of customer satisfaction in other industries.(Chin J Lab Med, 2015, 38: 451-453)

Key words:
Laboratories, hospital; Consumer satisfaction; Evaluation studies


We report in this letter two-photon-absorption photopolymerization using fluorescent dye-doped resin, by which complex fluorescence-active three-dimensional (3D) microstructures were readily produced. Structures were imaged by means of two-photon confocal techniques. The realization of dye-doping photopolymerization would be an important step towards production of photonic-crystal-based high-efficiency polymer optoelectronic devices. Furthermore, we found that the doped dye acted as label molecules to stain solidified structures, which provided an effective two-photon fluorescence technique for internal microdiagnosis of polymerized 3D microstructures.


Background. Gram‐positive organisms, including vancomycin‐resistant enterococci (VRE), have emerged as major pathogens on the organ transplant service at our institution. We hypothesized that our use of vancomycin as part of routine surgical prophylaxis increased the risk of VRE colonization and infection; conversely, there was concern that failure to use vancomycin prophylaxis would increase peri‐operative morbidity due to gram‐positive organisms.Methods. Renal transplant recipients (n=88) were randomized to receive either a) vancomycin/ceftriaxone or b) cefazolin; and pancreas transplants (n=24) to receive either a) vancomycin/gentamicin or b) cefazolin/gentamicin. Stool samples or rectal swabs were obtained for culture for enterococci within 24 h of transplantation and weekly while hospitalized.Results. Enterococci were isolated on stool culture from 38 (34%) of 102 patients at the time of transplantation; 4 (11%) of the isolates were VRE. The percentage of patients who subsequently acquired VRE was low (1–7% per wk) but remained constant during hospitalization. There was no association between new VRE detection and vancomycin use for either prophylactic or therapeutic purposes. Forty‐four patients (39%) had a post‐operative infection with 46% of these infections due to gram‐positive organisms; rates were unaffected by prophylactic vancomycin use. Pancreas transplant patients who did not receive vancomycin prophylaxis had a significantly longer initial hospitalization (p=0.03); however, differences were not statistically significant when total length of stay (LOS) within the first 90 d of transplantation was compared.Conclusions. Vancomycin surgical prophylaxis does not appear to have an effect on VRE colonization or infection, or on rates of infection with gram‐positive bacteria. Elimination of vancomycin prophylaxis in renal transplant patients may be a reasonable part of an overall program to limit vancomycin usage, although as a single measure, its impact may be minimal. Vancomycin surgical prophylaxis may be of greater importance in pancreas transplants.


The aim of this study was to analyse the research data collected over a 5-year period, observing the interrelations between the process parameters of an operating wastewater treatment plant and the biosorption and adsorption of heavy metals in activated sludge. In addition, the following daily key parameters of the activated sludge process were determined: hydraulic retention time (HRT), mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS), sludge retention time (SRT), pH, sludge volume index and dissolved oxygen. In the case of HRT, an inverse linear interrelation was found: the longer the HRT, the less heavy metals accumulated in the activated sludge. The SRT impact assessment revealed that the accumulation of all the metals in the activated sludge was at the highest for SRT periods of 15–19 d. The examination of MLSS concentrations in the range of 3,500–6,000 mg/L indicated that the accumulation in the activated sludge decreased in the given range.


The Department of Energy (DOE) is developing the concept of threshold quantities for use in determining which waste materials must be handled as radioactive waste and which may be disposed of as nonradioactive waste at its sites. Wastes above this concentration level would be managed as radioactive or mixed waste (if hazardous chemicals are present); waste below this level would be handled as sanitary waste. Ideally, the threshold must be set high enough to significantly reduce the amount of waste requiring special handling. It must also be low enough so that waste at the threshold quantity poses a very small health risk and multiple exposures to such waste still constitute a small health risk. It should also be practical waste above or below the threshold using available instrumentation. Guidance is being prepared to aid DOE sites in establishing threshold quantity values based on pathways analysis using site-specific parameters (waste stream characteristics, maximum exposed individual, population considerations, and site specific parameters such as rainfall, etc.). A guidance dose of between 0.001 to 1.0 mSv/yr (0.1 to 100 mrem/yr) was recommended with 0.3 mSv/yr (30 mrem/yr) selected as the guidance dose upon which to base calculations. Several tasks were identified, beginning withmore » the selection of a suitable pathway model for relating dose to the concentration of radioactivity in the waste. Threshold concentrations corresponding to the guidance dose were determined for waste disposal sites at a selected humid and arid site. Finally, cost-benefit considerations at the example sites were addressed. The results of the various tasks are summarized and the relationship of this effort with related development at other agencies discussed. 13 refs., 1 fig., 1 tab.« less


Distributed acoustic sensors (DAS) based on phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (ϕOTDR) have demonstrated interesting performance for many applications ranging from seismology to pipeline protection. However, the sensitivity of traditional DAS relying on coherent detection is strongly dependent on the system noise and trace fading points, offering poor reliability of the results in the spatial dimension. In this manuscript, we evaluate the statistical performance of a recently proposed DAS technique, namely, chirped-pulse ϕOTDR, in terms of sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Our results show behavioral trends that significantly differ from those of traditional DAS. In particular, the acoustic SNR distribution in chirped-pulse DAS is notably narrower than that in the traditional case, allowing to ensure a large system dynamic range across all the points of the optical trace. Hence, chirped-pulse ϕOTDR offers localized perturbation detection with very high reliability, almost independent of trace fading points, along the complete reachable range of the sensor.


A steering wheel modified to produce lateral skin stretch provides perceptible cues in a vehicle being driven on the road. We conducted tests to determine whether drivers can correctly perceive and react to skin stretch navigation cues. Additionally, we compare skin stretch feedback to audio navigation cues during an auditory N-back distraction task simulating a phone call. Results show a statistically significant difference (p-value = 0.044) between haptic (98.5%) and audio feedback (96.6%) in navigation accuracy and in N-back response accuracy (haptic = 89.9%, audio = 87.2%, p-value = 0.047).


I demonstrate that the entropy change solely due to ultra‐fast electronic excitation in a swiftly excited solid is minor in comparison to the entropy catastrophe value. The formation of point defects, one of two major sources of disordering, appears to be the longest of all relaxation processes in fs‐laser excited solid. Thus ultra‐fast excited solid can be disordered only if a lattice is superheated over the critical temperature determined by the entropy catastrophe. Disordering solely by the electronic excitation is proved to be thermodynamically impossible at excitation levels close to disintegration. Entropy catastrophe criterion in analysis of diverse experiments reveals these salient features of ultra‐fast transformation and resolves the controversies in their interpretation.


The reaction of 2,4-disubstituted thiosemicarbazides with 2,3,5,6-tetrachloro-1,4-benzo-quinone gave 2-aryl-5,6-dichloro-3-(substituted imino)-2,3-dihydro-1H-indazole-4,7-diones in 57–66% yield together with smaller amounts of 2-aryl-3-(substituted imino)-4,6,7-trichloro-2H-indazole-5(3H)-ones (21–25% yield). Reaction of 2,3-dichloro-1,4-naphthoquinone with 2,4-disubstituted thiosemicarbazides provided 2-aryl-3-(substituted imino)-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzo[f]-indazole-4,9-diones in 63–74% yield. Rationales for these transformations are presented.


Five Citrus varieties ("Washington navel", "Tarocco", "Biondo comune", "Valencia" sweet
oranges, and "Avana" mandarin) on different rootstocks (sour orange, "Troyer" citrange, citremon 1449, Poncirus trifoliata "Rubidoux", "Orlando" tangelo), and at two planting distances (4x4 m, 5x5 m) were evaluated for 3 years in a factorial experiment, with a completely randomized design. Observations were made on growth, productivity and fruit quality.
Tree growth, productivity and fruit quality were affected both by variety and by rootstock and
planting distance. "Valencia" and "Biondo comune" showed the best growth and yield, and "Avana" mandarin the poorest. Several differences in fruit quality were observed in the different varieties, mostly concerning fruit weight, rind thickness, juice, TSS and T A. The
rootstock also affected growth, yield and fruit characteristics. The growth was decreased by
"Rubidoux" trifoliate orange, while the yield was slightly increased by "Troyer", "Rubidoux" and "Orlando". "Rubidoux" and citremon improved several fruit characteristics, such as rind thickness, juice, and TSS content. As the trees were still young, planting distance did not affect growth, but some small differences were found in fruit quality. The yield/tree and the
efficiency were increased by 5x5 m treatment, while the yield/ha was, on the contrary, higher in 4x4 m treatment. Finally, some interactions were found between variety and rootstock.


Aim. This article seeks to show that Rembrandt is the most profound, comprehensive and reliable interpreter – not an illustrator – of the Old Testament: "His ability… makes him one of the great visual interpreters of Scripture… a theologian not by academic degree but in his very nature" (Parker, 1994, p. 28). It is the purpose of this article to demonstrate the acute difference between Rembrandt's depictions of Old Testament events and those by other artists who merely converted the overtly stated text in the Holy Bible into the visual medium.
Methods. The case for claiming that Rembrandt interpreted rather than merely depicted the Old Testament will be made by analysing five of his works and the comparison to others portraying the same events. Rembrandt's unique methods and techniques such as adding or omitting certain figures or details, using chiaroscuro extensively and deviating from expected iconography will be demonstrated as he unearths the core significance of each event.
Results. This article manifests how Rembrandt whose production of artwork relating to Old Testament scenes was prolific did not merely depict Old Testament scenes but rather interpreted the deeper, psychological meanings of the subjects involved and events portrayed, exhibiting a profound understanding of the messages in the original Hebrew text.
Conclusion.  The article unfolds Rembrandt's significant artistic accomplishments surpassing those who preceded or succeeded him. It reveals the different means he used in each painting expressing its high point according to Old Testament interpretation rather than through the prism of the New Testament.


The present work examines the essential role played by silence in literary micro fictions. They can be defined by the value that the void reaches as a sign inside them, their defense of the erasure, and the different data restriction and subtraction techniques handled by them. This phenomenon leads to texts marked by expressive intensity and ellipsis where readers' participation turns out to be cardinal for full interpretation.


Abstract Segmentation of a brain tumor from magnetic resonance multimodal images is a challenging task in the field of medical imaging. The vast diversity in potential target regions, appearance and multifarious intensity threshold levels of various tumor types are few of the major factors that affect segmentation results. An accurate diagnosis and its treatment demand strict delineation of the tumor affected tissues. Herein, we focus on a smart, automated, and robust segmentation approach for brain tumor using a modified 3D U-Net architecture. The pre-operative multimodal 3D-MRI scans of High-Grade Glioma (HGG) and Low-Grade Glioma (LGG) are used as data. Our proposed approach solves the problem of memory and system resource constraints by robustly applying dense network training on image patches of 3D volumes. It improves the border region artifact detection by applying convolutions at an appropriate phase in the proposed neural network. Multi-class imbalance data are handled by using Categorical Cross Entropy (CCE) loss developed by combining the Weighted Cross Entropy (WCE) with Weighted Multi-class Dice Loss (WMDL) functions, which enables the network to perform smart segmentation of the smaller tumorous regions. The proposed approach is tested and evaluated for the challenge datasets of multimodal MRI volumes of tumor patients. Experiments are performed to compute the average dice scores on BraTS-2019 and BraTS-2020 datasets for the whole tumor region.


Water is a main role in our daily life since a long time ago. Based on the analysis of renewable energy in Malaysia, river water is one of potential to generate electrical
energy. The research and development system of river water on progress because it highest cost and details information data to develop in big scale. The aimed of this project is to construct and develop the system by turbulence energy harvesting of river current with the available scale. The objective project focus on the potential surface area of river water. System components are reviewed and include turbine, electrical generator, gearbox, controller, converter, and battery bank. Among several turbine designs reviewed, a helical cross-flow turbine is selected, due to its self-start capability, ability to accept inflow from any direction, and power performance. The aspect of overall project present about how the potential of turbine position (either horizontal and vertical position) and the number of blades performance with their actual ability of Gorlov's turbine to fix as a performance system to generate electrical energy by current water river. Besides that, to promote the renewable energy, environmental friendly and commercialize water river as a sources of electricity
generation. To describe the implementation result and discussion of the research, the simulation done with software such as SOLID WORKS SIMULATION, AUTOCAD PSCAD, MATLAB and CA THIA CAD and the data comparison recorded. The
expected outcome of the project is to develop and construct the system that can generate electricity from river current or turbulence energy harvesting system. Based on the comparative study on the energy generating performance, the suitable system can applied to the real life and suitable for users. This system might become as generator to backup power for power supply to get the benefit from the energy of
environment. This research project can be used as a reference to other researchers for improvements to existing systems, or develop a system that similar in concept for the
next.


As a general case of molecular graphs of benzenoid hydrocarbons, we study plane bipartite graphs with Kekule structures (1-factors). A bipartite graph G is called elementary if G is connected and every edge belongs to a 1-factor of G. Some properties of the minimal and the maximal 1-factor of a plane elementary graph are given. A peripheral face f of a plane elementary graph is reducible, if the re- moval of the internal vertices and edges of the path that is the intersection of f and the outer cycle of G results in an elementary graph. We characterize the reducible faces of a plane elementary bipartite graph. This result gen- eralizes the characterization of reducible faces of an elementary benzenoid graph.


Background. Wnt signaling is involved in fibrosis, but the mechanisms of cross-talk with other pathways, like TGF-β, are not fully understood. (Pro)renin receptor (PRR) functions as an accessory protein to a V-ATP-ase responsible for acidic pH maintenance in intracellular compartments, and recent data indicate that PRR could be a regulator of Wnt signaling. A circulating fragment (sPRR) is generated by enzymatic cleavage of the extracellular domain and can be quantified in plasma, serum and urine. Objectives. This is a pilot study, to explore the serum concentrations of the soluble (pro)renin receptor (sPRR) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). Patients and methods. Serum samples from 29 subjects with a confirmed diagnosis of SSc have been tested using an ELISA method. Clinical and laboratory parameters have been analysed for associations with sPRR serum levels. Results and conclusion. Serum levels of sPRR were higher in patients with a history of digital ulcers (p 0.041, Mann-Whitney U-test) and those with digital pitting scars (p 0.037, Mann-Whitney U-test). Serum levels of sPRR correlated with serum creatinine (r 0.424, Spearman test), in line with previously reported data. Our results indicate the need for a larger study to assess the sPRR changes in patients with SSc, including more cases with severe disease and excluding a possible impact of angiotensin-receptor blockers.


Nash's proof of equilibrium existence has offered a tool of seminal importance to economic theory, however, a remaining, nagging hurdle is the possibility of multiple equilibria, perhaps with quite different properties. A wide range of approaches has been employed in an effort to reduce the study of games down to analyzing a single behavioral point (e.g., best or worst equilibria with respect to social welfare). We move away from the search of a single, correct solution concept. We propose a quantitative framework where the predictions of different equilibria are weighted by their probability to arise under evolutionary dynamics given random initial conditions. This average case analysis is shown to offer the possibility of significantly tighter understanding of classic game theoretic settings, including quantifying the risk dominance of payoff dominated equilibria in stag-hunt games and reducing prediction uncertainty due to large gaps between price of stability and price of anarchy in coordination and congestion games. This approach rests upon new deep topological results about evolutionary dynamics, including point-wise convergence results for replicator dynamics in linear congestion games and explicit computation of stable and unstable manifolds of equilibrium fixed points in asymmetric games. We conclude by introducing a concurrent convergent deterministic discrete-time dynamic for general linear congestion games and performing stability analysis on it.


Abstract When it comes to education, the dream cannot be controlled by the strictures of language or the conscious mind, and in its insistently disobedient character, is unwilling to submit to the demands of a deliberate and conscious curriculum. Indeed, we might say that what dreams represent is the absence of education itself, and a mobile energy antithetical to a fantasy of smoothly functioning teaching. In this article, we approach the question of dreaming's place in education through two intertwined lenses: the conceptual and the literary. First, we intersperse throughout our paper excerpts from an untitled fictional narrative about a group of students who become progressively more beaten up, and whose teacher is unable to see their bruises, as they embark on the precarious task of expressing their dreaming, creative selves. We also turn to psychoanalytic theory (and, in particular, Thomas Ogden's theory of dream thinking) to discuss the significance of the impenetrable nature of the dream, and ask how such qualities of unrepresentability might challenge our desires for answerable questions and legible answers. We end this piece with a recognition of the ways in which shared experiences of reading and writing may also support a place for dreams.


This study sought to examine the mentoring experiences of new principals in Washington State and its impact on their job satisfaction. This quantitative study employed the Principal Induction and Mentoring Survey (PIMS) to 496 Washington State public elementary school principals who were serving in their first five years of their principalship. Using a correlational design, this study explored (1) the impact mentoring had on job satisfaction for elementary school principals, (2) the relationship between job satisfaction and gender, (3) the relationship between job satisfaction and teaching experience, and (4) the underlying structure of the PIMS. Results from this study suggest the overall job satisfaction of mentored principals is higher than those who were not mentored. However, job satisfaction did not differ between genders or years of teaching experience. The data indicated mentoring as a strong system of support for new principals, and it is a practice increasingly implemented across the state. The scale analyses of the PIMS suggest the need for retooling to better measure and understand job satisfaction of new school principals. This study may be used to inform future research regarding implications of mentoring new principals, as well as efforts to increase the effectiveness with interested stakeholders of their mentoring programs.


Weak Central Coherence (WCC) is recognised as a major cognitive theory of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and is characterised by a processing bias for local information. Furthermore, individuals with ASD have been found to be more susceptible to depression and lower mood. Considering negative mood seems to result in better performance on detail-based processing tasks, the present study suggests that WCC could be a result of high levels of negative affect in ASD. This was explored in two experiments using a non-clinical sample with autistic traits. Experiment 1 involved manipulating mood, whereas Experiment 2 was a longitudinal study. The study"s findings were inconclusive, although some promising results were found for future research and the potential role of affect in WCC.


The novelist Joseph Conrad, whose most famous work is probably 'Lord Jim', himself worked at sea between the ages of 14 and 40, and in a short work entitled 'Youth' [1] gives a biographical account of a voyage in the 1880s from England to Bangkok with a coal-bearing vessel. In the event, there was spontaneous heating of the coal and consequent shipwreck. The author of this note has been interested in spontaneous heating of coals for many years but was unaware of this account until recently. Though steam vessels were in use by the time of the Conrad story, the coal-bearing vessel ('barque') was propelled by sails only. It is clear from Conrad's account that seamen accustomed to working with coal as cargo could sometimes judge intuitively, from appearance and possibly background odour, whether a particular shipment they had been assigned was or was not susceptible to spontaneous heating. Some weeks after leaving England, by which time the vessel was in the Indian Ocean, the consignment of coal began, in Conrad's words, to 'smoke in earnest'. There had previously been detection, purely by olfactory means, of released gases and vapour, but it was the appearance of smoke which caused the vessel's crew to go into 'emergency mode'. The captain of the vessel made a decision to continue for Bangkok instead of putting in at an intermediate port, and continuous admittance of sea water to the cargo of coal led to cessation of smoke


The bridgehead enone (16) was converted into the allylic trisulphide (22)/(23) in a completely stereospecific manner, and the thermal and reduction chemistry of some allylic trisulphides was examined.


Universal Design for Learning is a concept which liberates people from labels that separates them from the norm. It proposes teaching methods that compensates a need, similar to pushing a door opener when hands are occupied, a ramp for pushing a stroller or using an elevator instead of stairs. In the classroom, universal design for learning (UDL) incorporates numerous methods to differentiate instruction. Students are given multiple ways to express their understanding and mastery of what is taught. The multiple opportunities for engagement is the most important UDL principle. The ultimate goal of UDL is to vary approaches and strategies that differentiate and maximize learning.


Semi-aromatic copolyamides owing to both possessing the machinability of aliphatic polyamides and the high temperature resistance of aromatic polyamides, were widely used in automotive and electronic fields. To better summarizes the research on the structure-property relationship of semi-aromatic copolyamides, the review was carried out from three aspects: synthesis, structure characterization and structure-property relationship. The study of structure-property relationship can be applied to the modification process of semi-aromatic copolyamides, and it can shed light on the design and actual production process.


We appreciate Pierce's and Blackburn's comment on our article and share their interest in evaluating the effects of privatizing services formerly provided by local health departments.1 A few resources are available, including a workbook that the National Association of County and City Health Officials designed to help local health departments examine their role in the provision of clinical services.2 Also, we recently completed a study of privatization's effect on access of the uninsured to certain health services. Elsewhere, we reported outcomes of privatization as perceived by local health department directors.3,4 These perceptions reveal a variety of ways that privatization affects the public health infrastructure and suggest some of the measures of process and outcome that should be included in structured evaluations. Such measures include not only indicators of access and outcome associated with specific services but also broader indicators of public health capacity.3–5 Unfortunately, access and public health infrastructure frequently have not been priorities among politicians exerting political or financial control over local health departments.

Many local health departments have faced external pressures to privatize. These pressures often have been based on general state or local governmental policies, such as hiring freezes, or general ideologically oriented premises, such as the stance that less government is better.6,7 Carefully designed evaluation studies could provide a factual basis for privatization decisions. Such evaluations should not rely solely on the outcome measures typically used in studies of personal health services; they must also find ways to measure the impact of privatization on broader public health infrastructure. Our survey revealed that many local health department directors were concerned that contracting out certain services, particularly those relating to communicable disease, can result in a loss of capacity to respond to disease outbreaks and other public health crises.1,3

A final point concerns the design of evaluation studies. It was helpful that Pierce and Blackburn compared local to statewide trends in immunization coverage. National and statewide secular trends may be attributable to a variety of factors, such as the Clinton administration's efforts to increase childhood immunization rates. Ideally, an evaluation study could control for a range of potential confounders, but elaborate evaluations of individual public health privatization initiatives rarely have been funded (one exception was the evaluation of Pennsylvania's "Community Health Project").8

It is also important to monitor trends within vulnerable populations. For example, the statewide survey cited by Pierce and Blackburn indicated that vaccination coverage, as defined in the Texas Immunization Survey, decreased among children without health insurance in Texas, while coverage increased among insured children.9 Evaluators should confirm that any overall increase in access associated with privatization is not masking declines in access among the uninsured.


This research focuses on the environmental impact assessment of the visual stream Monjolo inorder to focusing in developing sustainability initiatives. We tried to make a survey of theenvironmental impacts from the source of the stream Monjolo following the stretch that runsaround the area of the Blue Lagoon Water Park. This research also aimed to investigate theunderstanding that the students of two classes of fifth grade of Public School Leopoldo Ost haveabout the subject, from the point of view of developing environmental education activities thatcontribute to improve the quality of life. The investigation took as a reference the adoption of aqualitative approach as a method to analyze the environmental and demonstrations bystudents. Lectures and interactive conversations were made the subjects in the classroom. Initially  the room that led the environmental impacts identified visual field and the students had expressto their opinion about the environmental impact that needs to be helped with more urgency.Secondly tried practical actions that could contribute to environmental improvements in thestream Monjolo. However, the actions undertaken in this project already accomplished at thesource of the stream Monjolo. The students had been committed to separation and properdisposal of the waste. At the school the waste compost receives and sweeping will be used as ateaching tool.


This article reviews total footage drilled in the first quarter of 1984, with a regional analysis showing an increase in footage for seven of nine wells drilled. The article concludes with a forecast for 1985.


Based on the appraisal and analysis of concrete cracks in a frame structures,this paper describes the regularity and cause about concrete shrinkage cracks.


In order to get high signal-to-noise ratio,silicon avalanche photodiode(APD) is used to measure Thomson scattered spectrum.A charge-sensitive preamplifier has been developed for minimizing the noise contribution from detector electronics.Many measures are taken,including a new design electronic amplification circuit and a series of anti-interference technique.Therefore the Thomson scattering diagnostic system is successful to measure the plasma electron temperature on HT-7 tokamak.


This paper reports that the major fault which created a half graben-like basin controls the features of both structural geology and petroleum geology at the steep side of the half graben-like basin. The sedimentation and subsidence centers of the half graben-like basin are all close to the major fault, near which rich oil source was generated. The nonuniform growth of the major fault resulted in various traps at the steep side, thus forming abundant hydrocarbon resource, or more correctly multitudinous oil accumulations at the steep side. So the steep side is an important place for oil exploration.


Reading is a pattern for children to obtain external information and absorb knowledge.Children are the future of the nation,the reading promotion the children possesses great significance and profound influence.From four aspects of the government,society,expert and network,this paper introduces the present situation of and problems existing in children's reading promotion in China,puts forward some strategies for library world to promote children's reading,and calls on the whole society to pay high attention to the problem of the promotion of children's reading.


In spite of the worldwide occurrence of domestic cats and dogs, and their close relationship with humans, the number of published papers on free-ranging cats Felis catus and dogs Canis familiaris, is small. The diet of both species was estimated in a suburban and rural environment in July 2002 and January 2003. Visual observations and scat collection of both species were accomplished along a 10 km transect line in the Campus 'Luiz de Queiroz', University of Sao Paulo, Piracicaba, south-eastern Brazil. The diet of both species was determined by analysis of sterilized, washed, dried and sorted scats. Estimated abundances of free-ranging cats and dogs in the sampled area were 81 ( � 4.32) and 42 ( � 2.96), respectively. Cats and dogs were more abundant in the suburban than in the rural environment (t= 3.78, Po0.001, N = 55; t= 8.38, Po0.001, N = 55, respectively) and cats were more abundant than dogs in the suburban environment (t= 6.76, Po0.001, N = 55), even though there was no significant difference between the abundance of both species in the rural environment (t = 0.82, P= 0.46, N= 55). Invertebrates were the most commonly consumed item by both species, followed by mammals (cats: 63.24 and 20.51%; dogs: 57.05 and 25.15%, respectively). Niche breadth was 0.4892 for cats and 0.4463 for dogs. Niche overlap was almost complete (0.97108). The consumption of mammals was estimated to be between 16.76 and 25.42 kg individual � 1 year � 1 for dogs and between 2.01 and 2.9 kg individual � 1 year � 1 for cats. These data might be useful to establish a management program to minimize the predation pressure of free-ranging cats and dogs on wildlife.


Based on the perspective of supply chain,analyzes and discusses the cost of quality decision of general contractor and subcontractors from two aspects of centralized and decentralized decision-making of the supply chain. Calculated by centralized decision-making,it maximizes the overall quality and efficiency of the supply chain when each of both sides share a certain quality costs. Under the decentralized decision-making,there are three ways to bear the external quality loss,they are general contractor bears alone,subcontractors bear alone and the two sides share according to a certain proportion. By the calculated,both sides bear the loss according to a certain proportion can make the whole supply chain achieve optimal quality and benefit. Finally,puts forward some related suggestion of cost of quality management of general contractor and subcontractors by analyzing the results.