According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2009 over 1 billion people did not have enough to eat, compared with 848 million in 2003. With the continuing economic crisis in 2010/11 and rising food prices, there is concern that this number will increase further. With only 5 years to go to meeting the Millenium Development Goal of halving the global proportion of people who go hungry by 2015, a focus on food and nutrition security becomes even more pressing. Gender is a key determinant of access to resources and intra-household allocation of these (including food resources), and thus of sustainable development outcomes, particularly for women. Food security issues relate to production, access and utilisation – all of which are central to women's roles and responsibilities – and the largely invisible role they play in ensuring household food security. This special issue aims to deepen understanding of how women are positioned in relation to food and nutrition security, with much cogent data presented. Guest Editor Shirin Motala introduces the issue with an exploration of the meaning of the 'right to food', which suggests that to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty, a necessary precondition is that gender equality is addressed. Michele Ruiters and Alvino Wildschutt provide a nuanced geographic information systems map of women's food insecurity in South Africa, and policy recommendations on how food insecurity could be reduced in areas where it is most prevalent. Catherine Cross and Miriam Altman point to a concealed gender struggle over women's access to wage work: women may acquiesce to male partners' demands that they not go out to work in order to avoid the greater food security risk of becoming female household heads. Peter Jacobs shows that the gap between maleand female-headed households that never experienced adult hunger in 2008 is 5 percentage points, while chances of female-headed households falling into moderate (~4 percentage points gap) and serious hunger (less than 1 percentage point gap) are also higher. The briefing by Miriam Altman and Stewart Ngandu considers employment trends in the context of the global economic crisis, gender bias in these trends, and implications for household food security, while Claudia Mitchell et al. argue that faculties of agriculture need to disrupt the status quo through development and implementation of a curriculum that questions power differentials and access to resources, and seeks to be transformative. Tim Hart's gender analysis of a rural village in Limpopo Province, South Africa, indicates the different gender roles and responsibilities of household members, sheds light on current food production practices of female producers and identifies where support services can focus attention. His next piece profiles the success stories of three rural South African women whose experiences provide us with interesting lessons about achieving food security. Innocent Matshe et al. highlight the role of education of women, particularly rural female farmers, in mitigating the prevalence of gendered differences in access to and subsequent use of productivity-enhancing farm inputs, especially those provided via market institutions. Joyce M. Thamaga-Chitja et al.'s focus aims to provide insight into challenges of land-based livelihoods in two research sites in rural KwaZulu-Natal by considering questions around gender sensitivity of land reform and access to water. The issue closes with Olubukola Victoria Oyerinde and Mary Adebola Ajayi examining access of rural women to forest resources and its impact on household food security in Ondo State, Nigeria. Focusing explicitly on this range of topics in this issue of Agenda will hopefully not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the gender dynamics that impact negatively on food and nutrition security, but


To study pathophysiological changes of sea-cultured coho salmon affected with erythrocytic inclusion body syndrome (EIBS), hemochemical assessments and lipid analyses were carried out using fish from one net-pen during an outbreak of EIBS.Fish examined were grouped by hematocrit (Ht) values which indicated the disease progression. Few differences in plasma components were observed in fish that were not seriously anemic. In fish with advanced disease (Ht value l20%), values of plasma total protein, total cholesterol, triglyceride and phospholipid were lower and potassium and GPT activity were higher. A decrease in plasma glucose and increases in plasma sodium, potassium and chlorine were observed in moribuned fish. Except for the moribund fish, blood thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values were higher than 20 nmol/ml in almost all of the fish and C22 : 6 level of liver phospholipids decreased as the disease progressed.It was considered that the changes in plasma constituent levels in the diseased fish reflected the effects of anemia.


Analysis of the source file is a learning flash design of animation effective method,through the analysis of the source file can learn one graphic drawing,color of filling and animation design of every detail.This article introduces how to learn and master Flash animation through analyzing Flash source file.


To assess the frequency of occurrence of poorly‐marginated and focally‐defined pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by MRI and to determine whether these appearances correlate with clinical features and histopathological grade.


This lengthy collection of chapters by experts in the various subfields of language acquisition is designed to be used by advanced undergraduates and graduate students, with at least one course already in language development. In addition, researchers will find much of interest in the collection, for most of the chapters contain state-of-the-art accounts of work in particular domains. The strong point of the book is its welcome balance of European and American researchers and references. Its weakness lies primarily in the editing. I would not envy Fletcher and Garman the task of introducing such a heterogeneous group of writers and topics, but the introductions to the three sections are difficult to read and inconsistent in their provision of historical or theoretical perspective. The referencing and indexing are less than perfect, with some of the most interesting-sounding references being unpublished work. Despite these minor annoyances, the material in the chapters will suggest research directions, and clarify methodological issues, for new and seasoned researchers alike. The text is divided into three major sections, the first being pre-speech communication, which is given inordinate weight but probably reflects the balance of interest in the field at present. Stark provides a detailed, useful picture of sound production in infancy up to the use of expressive jargon, but the chapter could not be read as an introduction to that area. Crystal gives a cautious overview of prosodic development, pointing out the pi.tfalls of taking a simplistic approach to ' intonation' in child speech. Menyuk & Menn have a provocative chapter on early phonology from a more theoretical position: they dismiss the experimental work on infant speech perception as irrelevant to the processing of language that begins later, and emphasize the importance of context in children's early understanding. In addition, they argue against the view that children build up (or break down) words feature-by-feature, and propose instead that the whole word is at first an indivisible target for the young learner. As a consequence, standard phonological analysis is less than useful for describing this period of language.


This study used the manufacturing process in the petrochemical industries as an example and developed a dedicated maintenance programme and executive information system (EIS) for this industry. The software for EIS was established on a CMMS platform, with logical and extractive analysis used to store the information in a KPI databank. The system developed can provide plant managers and engineers with a complete summary of information and keep them updated regarding the present status of their maintenance efforts. The objective of this study was to establish a management system for maintaining knowledge in the petrochemical industries, such as the management of standard operating procedures (SOPs), historical records and the analysis of data for the facility. To design the software, a review of petrochemical facility was purposed to enhance the maintenance efforts and facilitate the decision-making process. The main functions of the system include asset reliability analysis, failure analysis and maintenance benefit cost analysis. For the petrochemical industry, the impact of safety and environment caused by equipment malfunction is more substantial than that of other industries. If executives can manage essential points effectively and make decisions according to a key performance index, risks to safety and environment, which result from equipment malfunction, can be decreased and safety can be enhanced for petrochemical refineries.


The utility model discloses a leak floor for hog house, including a leak floor body and a leaking sewing provided on the leak floor body, wherein reinforcing steel is provided between two adjacent leaks of the leak floor for hog house, reinforced bar is provided between the two adjacent rows of leaks, the slit width of the leaks is form 1.5 to 2.5 cm. As reinforcing steel is provided between two adjacent leaks of the leak floor for hog house and reinforced bar is provided between the two adjacent rows of leaks in the utility model, the proportionality of the slit width of the leak to the leak space length is 1:1 to 1:1.5, for both ensuring its durable performance and saving the use number of the steel product and concrete; in addition, the slit width of the leaks is form 1.5 to 2.5 cm, which is a comparatively appropriate scope setup based on the features of hog bodies in different stages, which will not block the protruded hog hoofs, and on the other hand can ensure that the feces discharged by the swinery can be easily fallen down.


Organic nonlinear optical crystals of l-Valinium picrate was subjected to 100 MeV Ag ions and 50 MeV Si ions. A drastic increase in the dielectric constant is seen due to irradiation. The UV-Vis spectra of the pristine and irradiated samples were recorded and quantified. There is a decrease in optical bandgap. The observed results are discussed in detail.


Background/Objectives: The purpose of this study is to identify attitudes of Korean people towards influx of immigrants and to examine factors affecting the attitudes. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Samples for the survey were drawn from the adult population aged 18 or over who live in households of Korea by multi-stage area cluster sampling procedure and interviewed face-to-face with a structured questionnaire. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, univariate analyses and multivariate regression. Findings: The findings reveal that the average level of attitudes of Koreans towards the number of immigrants currently entering Korea to live is 2.8 on a 5-point scale, which is close to the response, 'the number of immigrants to Korea nowadays should be remain the same as it is.' Among the variables in the study, real threat, symbolic threat and multiculturalism appear to be salient variables in predict-ing the attitudes towards the number of immigrants entering Korea to live, which confirms the previous theoretical expectations. The directions of their associations with the attitudes, however, are different: higher the degrees of both real and symbolic threats are associated with more favorable attitudes towards reduction of the number while higher the degree of multiculturalism is associated with more favorable attitudes towards increase of the number. There are no sociodemographic background variables having a statistically significance, except religion. Attitudes towards the influx of immigrants are more positive among Protestants than members of other religions. Improvements/Applications: The result is slightly different from the dominant view that members of majority groups hold negative attitudes towards immigrants and support restrictions on immigration. The study includes measurement of attitudes towards influx of immigrants, perceived threat and multiculturalism. Attitudes towards influx of immigrants are measured with an item asking a re-spondent's evaluation of the number of immigrants currently entering Korea to live. The item was rated with a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (reduce a lot) to 5 (increase a lot). Perceived threat is assessed with two dimensions, realistic and symbolic. Realistic threat is measured with three items asking effects of immigrants on the prevalence of crime, Korean economy and Koreans' jobs. Sample items include "Immigrants increase crime rates (reverse coded)," "Immigrants are generally good for Korean economy" and "Immigrants take jobs away from people who were born in Korea (reverse coded)." Symbolic threat is measured with two items asking ef-fects of immigrants on Korean society and culture. Sample items are "Immigrants improve Korean society by bringing new ideas and cultures" and "Korean culture is generally undermined by immigrants (reverse coded)." Responses to the threat items were rated using a 5-point agree-disagree scale with higher scores reflecting stronger feelings of threat.


This article studies and analyzes the performance difference between a new catalyst,a toluene disproportionation and transalkylation catalyst developed by an overseas company,and a contrast catalyst,a homemade toluene disproportionation and transalkylation catalyst developed by a domestic company, based on the operation data of a transalkylation unit at home.The results show that the contrast catalyst is superior to the new catalyst in translation rate,selectivity and reaction temperature,but H/O ratio of the contrast catalyst is about two times that of the new catalyst This article studies the transal-kylation unit in a domestic plant,analyzes the feasibility of homemade transalkylation catalyst from aspects of reaction conditions and equipment performance, points out the problem which will be brought by catalyst change,and puts forward some suggestions.


In this paper, the isolated word recognition using very simple recurrent neural network plus (VSRN+) and noise compensation linear predictive coding (LPC) analysis is proposed. In the proposed system, a feature extraction based on noise compensation LPC analysis achieves accurate speech feature vector in noisy environment. Since VSRN+ is utilized as a recognizer, the proposed system is able to deal with complex time series data. Therefore, the proposed system yields accurate word recognition in noisy environment. From the investigation of performance evaluation, the proposed system improves word recognition rate in noisy environment.


The day after the 2015 Belgian National Day (21 July), a political and media controversy exploded. A MR (Mouvement reformateur – Wallon party) party's deputy declared on his public social media page that it was a shame that the only person interviewed by a national TV channel during the celebration was a Belgian veiled woman of Moroccan origin. To quote his words: "Ah, the ONLY person interviewed by the Radio Television Belge Francophone (RTBF), a veiled women that says nice things about Belgium! Yeah, we live in a marvellous country, but not politically correct! As if during the Congo national day, Congolese TV would interview a White man, and only him! But in Congo this will never happen! […]". Then, he declared "this way the RTBF wants to confine us within a sort of communitarian regime!" Public reactions for and against these statements have quickly run on social media as well as the newspapers.
This event is one among several others in the country. For instance, in 2010-2011, some deputies submitted a proposal to restraint family reunification arguing that "most of these family reunifications are solicited by Belgian citizens, born in Belgium from immigrant parents, or having acquired Belgian nationality" and declaring openly that this measure aimed to stop intra communitarian marriages as they perceive that intra-family marriages are conducive to migration among Moroccans.
Do not old legacies matter?
Since the 1960s, Morocco has been the main workforce supplier for Belgium (convention of 1964). Nowadays, Moroccans are the most ancient migrant community. In 2012, they reached a total of 429500 and 49% of this demographic group had acquired the Belgian nationality. The population of Belgians of Moroccan origin represent 13% of the whole population in Brussels. Besides, Moroccans are the most significant group of non-EU entrepreneurs (8% out of the total).
Overall, Moroccan immigration to Belgium was mainly driven by the pursuit of more prosperous economic opportunities. However, unlike in other countries, such as France and Spain, there was no colonial ties whatsoever: Moroccan immigration flourished, in the beginning, upon a consent from both sides Belgium which solicited manual workers and Morocco that was willing to offer its national workforce:
Indeed, the case of Moroccan immigration to France and Spain, as aforementioned, was at its inception dictated by colonialism, and thus, was asymmetrical in many respects. Morocco was a French and Spanish protectorate from 1912 until 1956. Unfortunately, there are still colonial residuals at stake since Morocco and Spain are still disputing the cities of Ceuta and Melilla - as well as other small pieces of land - which are under Spanish control nowadays.
How to probe into the new dynamics of EU-Morocco relations with regards to migration?
Within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, established since 1995, the North African Kingdom enjoys an advanced position in the agreements with the European Union. As Morocco acquired the advanced status in2004, we have witnessed a blooming economic exchange but not equal fluidity in the mobility of people on both sided of the Mediterranean not even after the implementation of the Global Approach to migration in 2005 and the agreement of mobility facilitation in 2013.
It is interesting to note that Morocco has become the gatekeeper of migrants towards Europe. EU seeks actively to influence Moroccan migration policy in a way that suits European interests: This is best illustrated in the on-going discussions on Readmission Agreements. It seems that these agreements are the price to be paid by Morocco to obtain a "quota" of legal migrants to Europe at the detriment of a "real" mobility and free circulation of persons. In a way, the policy if implemented would simply be a translation of the logic "you get more according to what you give".

A diachronic approach to migration, does it offer clues to untangle the problem?
The paper explores Moroccan "postcolonial and economic preferential" old and new ties and European migration management, analysing them through the voices of migrants and cross-national couples. The discourse of several institutional and para-institutional actors (ex. politicians, bureaucrats, civil society militants, social workers) will be integrated to offer a detailed and articulate contextual frame of analysis.
Combining two analytical approaches, namely, "recognition" and sentiment of "belonging" in relation to the implementation of "politics of belonging", the paper questions if and how both colonial domination and economic hegemony have been substituted by migration management. It seems, in fact, that behind the facade of enhancing international collaborations and protecting internal public security, migration policies highlight the broader question of the selection of who fits and has to be included among quasi-citizens and, perhaps, future citizens, affecting directly the Moroccan population (invited to settle) settled in Europe.


AbstractThis work improved the low-temperature rheological properties of asphalt modified with styrene butadiene styrene (SBS) using an acid modifier, namely polyphosphoric acid (PPA), and investig...


Today cloud computing has been the buzzword among many communities. Many users are using the cloud to ensure cost effectiveness towards their hardware resources. As cloud may seem tempting there are many security issues relating to the cloud. One the issue is the activities performed on the data, which are monitored by logs. These logs are used as evidence to the forensic investigators. But due to the emerging technologies the hackers are able to modify the log data. When the hackers modify the data, it is a painful task for the forensic investigators to rebuild the evidence. So to address this issue we are developing a mechanism to generate the log files, ensure security to log files and making the log files interoperable to the Cloud Service Provider (CSP).


With increasing lateral tilt of the head (0°, 30°, 45°, 60°) the apparent vertical (AV) is progressively inclined in the same direction. Simultaneously, the variance of settings of a test edge increases, consistent with the theory of a progressive decline in the effectiveness of the statolith organs. The AV can also be influenced by moving visual scenes rotating around the observer's line of sight. It has been argued that visual motion information, which also results in apparent body tilt, contributes to the central computation of orientation of the gravitational vector. If with lateral head tilt graviceptive sensory input is less accurate and less powerful the visual influence should become more potent. Indeed, displacements of AV induced by exclusive visual stimulation with the head erect are moderate but increase progressively with larger head tilt angles. The potentiation of the net visual effect on AV in an inclined head position is maximal if the visual stimulus is moving opposite to the head tilt. ...


Introduction To investigate the effect of bilateral thoracic paravertebral nerve block(BTPVB)combined with general anesthesia on bridging vascular flow in OPCABG. Methods Fifty patients were randomly divided into two groups randomly:BTPVB combined with general anesthesia group (T group,n=20) and general anesthesia group (G group,n=30). Before anesthesia induction, the patients in group T underwent bilateral thoracic paravertebral space puncture through T4-5 space. The experimental dose of 1% lidocaine 5 ml was injected on both sides, and the first dose of 0.375% ropivacaine 15 ml was given 2 minutes later.Primary Outcome Measures: Immediate flow and pulse index of bridge vessels were recorded in both groups. Secondary Outcome Measures: Dosages of intraoperative anesthetic drugs were recorded in both groups. After the placement of the floating catheter (T1), after the sternotomy (T2), after the completion of anastomosis of all bridging vessels (T3), and before the exit of the chamber (T4), HR MAP, CVP, MPAP, CCO, SVRI and PVRI were recorded. Results The level of pain block after BTPVB in T group was 5.1 and 0.6 segments, as shown and G group, and CVP at T3 and T4 in T group SVRI and PVRI were significantly decreased (P Discussion BTPVB combined with general anesthesia has obvious analgesic effect significantly increased the vascular flow of the left internal thoracic artery bridge and decreased the vascular pulse index of the left internal thoracic artery bridge after OPCABG.


This article is the Dutch notification of a report by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on authorship.


We assess different fluid neutral models by comparing the resulting plasma sources to the sources from a Monte Carlo simulation of the kinetic equation. The background plasma is kept fixed and represents an ITER detached case. The fluid models take into account the microscopic cross-sections and rate coefficients from the AMJUELHYDHEL databases and the microscopic TRIM reflection model. We accomplish the latter by elaborating macroscopic fluxes that are imposed as boundary conditions, without the introduction of any user-defined fitting parameters. The pure pressurediffusion equation provides accurate results for the particle source, but is inaccurate for the parallel momentum and ion energy source. Therefore, we have added a parallel momentum equation. This gives maximum errors of about 9% for the momentum and 32% for the energy source. These errors are further reduced to respectively 6 and 14% by adding a separate neutral energy equation. It is hard to ascertain whether the remaining fluid-kinetic discrepancies are either mainly due to numerical or modeling errors.


It is important to detect crop rows accurately for field navigation. In order to accurate weeding, cultivator guidance system should detect the crop center line precisely. The methods of vision-based row detection for lentil field were studied. Monochrome and color images were used in this research. The color images are transformed into grey scale images in two different formulas to make comparing among them and find an optimal one. In order to detect the center of the crop row rapidly and effectively, Hough transform and gravity center image processing algorithms were applied to acquired images. The field crop images were segmented into two parts by using optimal thresholding (plant and soil as a background), then Hough transform was applied on these binary images. Gray scale images were used in gravity center method. The center line detection algorithms were tested for two weed distribution density, include general and intensive. It was observed that both systems successfully detects and calculates the pose and orientation of the crop row on synthetic images. The mean errors between the calculated and manually estimated lines were obtained. Mean errors for Hough transform and gravity center methods were 8 and 10 mm with standard deviations of 7 and 12 mm in general distribution density and 12 and 16mm with standard deviation of 11 and 15mm in high distribution density, respectively. Computational time for Hough transform and gravity center were 0.7 and 0.4 s for general distribution density and 1.2 and 0.8 s for high distribution density, respectively.


Affiliations: 1CMR Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK 2National Institute of Heart and Lung, Imperial College London, UK 3Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Bob Champion Research & Education Building, James Watson Road, Norwich, NR4 7UQ, UK 4Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Essex, UK 5British Heart Foundation/University Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh, UK


Due to rapid increase in digital data transmission over internet, information security becomes a vital issue. Audio steganography is one of the ways used for information security over the internet. In audio steganography, the secret data is transmitted with audio signal as the carrier.
In this paper, an algorithm for hiding image data in an audio signal is proposed. The cover audio signal is transformed from time domain to wavelet domain using lifting wavelet transformation. Image is encrypted using Arnold transformation. Transformed image is then hidden in wavelet coefficients of cover audio. The quality of the resulting stego audio signal is tested by computing
Squared Pearson Correlation Coefficient (SPCC) and SNR values. And the extracted image quality is tested by computing Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index Metric (SSIM) and Universal Image Quality Index (UIQI). Results show that stego audio is perceptually indistinguishable from the cover audio. Cover audio is robust even in presence of external noise. It provides high capacity, secure data extraction.


The invention relates to a multi-hard-disk automatic identification method comprising the following steps of: controlling a hard disk controller to read the information of connected hard disks through a hard disk interface, wherein the information contains physical serial numbers of the hard disks; receiving information on the physical serial numbers of the hard disks; reading disk sign identifiers distributed by an operating system and finding physical serial numbers corresponding to all disk signs according to the disk sign identifiers; comparing whether the physical serial numbers of the hard disks are consistent with the physical serial numbers corresponding to all the disk signs, and finding the disk signs corresponding to all the hard disks; and displaying the corresponding relationship between each hard disk and each disk sign in a display. The invention also provides a multi-hard-disk automatic identification system. According to the invention, the disk sign corresponding to each hard disk can be found accurately and conveniently by a user.


The research on the increasing of execution of orders needs to be improved in the business process management nowadays.Therefore,in order to perform force,the paper puts forward an efficient implementation of production planning method and then introduces advanced management ideas,tools,so as to establish effective order execution system in the supply chain mode.


Coherent wave-packet dynamics on coupled electronic surfaces within a condensed–phase environment is studied. Based on a path integral approach, exact expressions for the case of a one-dimensional reaction coordinate in a donor–acceptor complex are derived. The path integrals over the electronic degree of freedom are further evaluated by applying the golden rule approximation. This procedure allows for an exact treatment of the coupling between solvent or residual molecular degrees of freedom and the reaction coordinate. A detailed picture of the intimate relation between dissipative wave-packet motion and electron transfer is gained also for lower temperatures, strong coupling and slow bath modes, where Redfield type of equations cannot be used. The electron transfer triggered by the coherent vibronic motion leads to a stepwise decay of the population in the donor state. On the acceptor surface the wave-packet dynamics displays a complex interference pattern. Further, it turns out that for a reaction coo...


This paper presents a Controller Area Network (CAN) communication system in the Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), which is Xilinx Artix-7. Hardware circuits and the software flow char are described in detail. The reusable IP (Intellectual Property) technology is used in FPGA as the core controller. In addition, the CAN communication system is implemented by System-on-a-Programmable-Chip (SOPC) technology. The MicroBlaze soft-core is used as an embedded processor in FPGA. The AXI Quad SPI core is used to implement the SPI control logic and the AXI INTC core to implement the interrupt control. The implemented system based on the SOPC technology can shorten the development cycle, improve the system reliability, and make the system easy to be transplanted and upgraded.


The upper surface of the vocal cord is usually smooth. The increasingly common employment of laryngography has however disclosed a groove on this surface in the frontal projection in normal cases on phonation (BRINDLE 1967, BRINDLE & STELL 1968, JING 1970, LANDMAN 1970). BRINDLE (1967) called this the corrugated vocal cord. He pointed out that the groove is observed only when the central beam is exactly parallel with the upper surface of the vocal cord, which means that it may appear only on one vocal cord. The cause of this normal corrugation is not clear. On phonation the vocal cord becomes longer owing to the fact that the distance between its points of attachment on the thyroid and cricoid cartilages increases. This extension of the cord takes place by contraction of the cricothyroid muscle (PERNKOPF 1952), which also contributes to vocal cord adduction (ARNOLD 1961, TANABE et colI. 1972). The cords are firmly anchored to the cricoid cartilage and trachea, however, by a ligamental membrane known as the conus elasticus. Phonation of a high tone may therefore possibly lead to a depression of the upper surface of the cord above the attachment of this ligament (Fig. 1). This mechanism of the origin of corrugation has been suggested by BRINDLE (1967).


This study concerns the effectiveness of various solvents and solvent mixtures in removing pigments from the moist curd leaf protein concentrate prepared from lucerne (Medicago sativa L.), and at the same time produce a hot air-dried product which was neither black nor had a hard texture. Sixteen solvent systems representing polar, non-polar and mixed (1:1 v/v), as well as the usual lipid solvents 2:1 v/v chloroform:methanol and 3:1 v/v ethanol : diethyl ether were evaluated. Acetone, ethanol, propan-2-ol and butan-1-ol were found to be most effective. In further tests to optimise the conditions of use, propan-2-ol and butan-1-ol emerged as the most promising solvents for large-scale extraction. This was concluded from their ability to remove the pigment from leaf protein concentrates (LPC) in extractions at room temperature and using recycled solvent.


Nonequilibrium dynamics of transverse optical (TO) phonons in few-layer hexagonal boron nitride is studied in mid-infrared pump-probe experiments. TO phonons display a 1.2 ps lifetime and a transient redshift due to anharmonic coupling with low-frequency interlayer modes.


In this paper, we propose diffusion-based least mean square (LMS) algorithms that are robust against fading phenomena in wireless channels. The proposed algorithms, developed by combining diffusion LMS and classical estimation approaches, are able to estimate and update the underlying system parameters at each node by exploiting the sensor measurements and the fused data obtained from the neighboring nodes. The fusion of the information at each node takes place based on a convex combination strategy whose coefficients are determined according to the channel state information, the noise statistics and the output error of the local adaptive filter. In this work, we assume the broadcast data from the sensors experience Rayleigh fading and are further contaminated by the additive noise. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms and show their satisfactory performance compared with the costly centralized adaptive techniques.


The general objetive about this research is to propose the use of the Nearpod virtual platform as a technological resource that it allows to improve the academic and research activities in the students of fourth year at Pedro Vicente Maldonado school in Pujili, due to the teachers don`t use the Nearpod virtual platform as a technological resource. The methods used were: the inductive in the analysis, interpretation and formulation of conclusions also for the development of justification; the deductive method in the verification of scientific question and helped in the development of the research review , The results about are that teachers don´t use Web 2.0 to teach their classes and activities are repetitive, students have the opportunity to interact his speech becomes mechanized. As conclusion that changes in technology invite teachers and students to resort to using Nearpod as input in the process of teaching - learning as a pedagogical and didactic classes mechanism.


A fast method of crosstalk noise avoidance for correct-by-design MCM routing is discussed. During substrate routing, coupled noise in nets is calculated and noise amplitudes exceeding coupled noise budgets are corrected as part of the routing process. This represents an improvement over the heuristic noise reduction methods employed by some MCM routers and geometrical wiring rules generated by detailed simulation used by others. Lookup tables of coupling data are used in conjunction with closed-form equations in order to obtain noise estimates quickly. The method is applicable to a wide variety of MCM technologies without alteration, since the noise estimation is based only on interconnect geometry and the dielectric constant of the medium. The correctness of the noise estimation has been verified using a transmission line simulator and the effect of the procedure on the routing density achieved by an MCM autorouter has been investigated.


The lowermost two hundred feet of Chickamauga limestone, on the subsurface flank of the Burning Springs anticline, West Virginia, has been dolomitized. Evidence based on detailed thin section petrography and carbon and oxygen stable isotope analyses suggests dolomitization occurred following lithification and was effected by upward migrating fluids from the St. Peter sandstone aquifer. The presence of dilated, horizontal stylolites is considered evidence that, for a time, fluid pressure exceeded overburden pressure, promoting upward fluid migration. The dolomitizing process was inhibited when the solutions made contact with a zone rich in calcium sulfate. Dissolution of calcium sulfate resulted in the production of substantial (20%) intercrystalline porosity. The presence of undilated, inclined stylolites suggests that the dolomitization event preceded Alleghenian tectonism. Carbon isotope data indicate that at least some of the carbon in the dolomite of the gypsiferous zone was derived from organic matter or microbial sulfate reduction.


The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in mood during exercise. Twenty recreational runners were administered the instrument, Profile of Mood States, at 5, 15, 25, and 35 minutes during a 40-minute treadmill run. Half of the sample ran at 65% of their age-predicted maximum heart rate and half ran at 85% of their age-predicted maximum heart rate. An additional 10 runners were assessed during an equivalent period of quiet reading. Analysis by a series of 2-way Repeated Measures ANOVAs with post hoc tests revealed that mood did not change during the condition in which participants ran at 65% of their maximum heart rate. During the run conducted at 85% of maximum heart rate, levels of fatigue were significantly higher, relative to prerun levels, by 15 minutes into the run and remained elevated at each of the subsequent assessment points (at 25 and 35 minutes and 10 minutes following the run). No alterations in mood were reported during the control condition. It was also noteworthy that mood was generally more negative at the assessment designed to familiarise participants with the testing procedure than it was at the later precondition (baseline) assessment. The present findings supported reports linking negative mood with demanding physical activity and emphasised the importance of using a familiarisation assessment of mood prior to preexercise measures.


Abstract : A critical success factor for pararescue jumpers (PJs) executing combat search and rescue (CSAR) missions is maintaining situational awareness while navigating through unfamiliar terrain, mitigating threats to both the PJs and their target, and monitoring the location of team members during a mission. To meet these challenges, PJs use different technologies, such as specialized video displays. This study continues research to explore the potential for 3D (spatialized) audio displays to enhance performance. With this technology, digital signal processing is used to modify sounds so that, even though they are delivered through headphones, they are perceived to come from specified locations in the external environment around the listener, for example marking the location of a team member, a threat, or a significant landmark. This technology was evaluated in three experimental tasks conducted in an integrated virtual platform (IVP), a two-site distributed virtual environment that is described in the report. The first task found that subjects using personalized audio profiles were able to localize sounds presented in the IVP, but their performance was not as accurate as that observed in the Auditory Localization Facility (ALF) used by the Battlefield Acoustics Branch (RHCB) located at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. The second task found that subjects were able to locate and respond to a threat (sniper) while travelling in a convoy through a representative urban terrain more rapidly when aided by a 3D audio display versus two non-spatial auditory displays. The third task required two subjects to find each other in an urban terrain. They were able to rendezvous more rapidly when they talked to each other through a spatialized communication channel that made their voices appear to arise from their actual location in the terrain than when they used a normal monaural communication channel.


The University of Florida Medical Center has developed an On-Line Medical Record (OLMR) that serves as a repository of patient information from a number of individual department databases, the Radiology Information System included, and builds a comprehensive electronic patient based chart. The OLMR, widely used by clinicians to view information on test results, will be expanded to add image and graphics display capabilities, and will require pointers to PACS images.


This study was designed to observe the effect of ethanol extracts from fish flour on the nucleic acid metabolism in rats. Young rats, weighing 75-85g were used as the experimental animals and diet used were 8 kinds; diet supplemented with 10% fish flour, diets which were supplemented with the extracts and or remainders of fish flour after extracting by either 76% or 96% ethanol to the rice diet, respectively, and diet supplemented with 6% casein. After feeding corresponding diet for 40 days, RNA and DNA contents, and DNase activities in the liver, kidney and braid were determined. The results obtaioed from this study are summarized as follows: 1. The RNA contents of the ethanol-treatment groups are, in the liver and kidney, similar to, and in the brain, generally higher than, that of the control group. 2. The DNA contents of each organ show no difference between ethanol-treatment groups and control group, but in the liver, of ethanol extrat groups are lower than casein group. 3. the DNase activity of each organ in the ethanol-treatmeut groups, is generally lower than the control group. The above results indicate that ethanol extracts from fish flour have influence on the nucleic acid metabolism.


Although most authors agree that convergence is accommodated by a large shortening in Asia, two radically different modes of shortening have been put forward. In one approach, the mechanism of shortening is considered to be homogeneous, producing diffuse deformation in the crust and the mantle. In the second one, motions are localized along faults which are supposed to extend into deep lithospheric shear zones, inducing a heterogeneous deformation pattern. Seismic anisotropy is one observable manifestation of large scale deformation. Large scale seismic anisotropy field are inferred from the two extreme competing models. 3D‐mapping of anisotropy, inferred from surface waves, reveals a better coherence on average with filtered heterogeneous strain models between 100 and 200 km depths. It suggests a strong coupling between surface and deep motions down to at least 200 km. At larger depths, the coherence with homogeneous strain models suggests that mantle flow becomes more homogeneous.


Our understanding of this group will be much clearer if we recall that it is an offshoot from the Mycetophilidae, the species of which subsist largely upon decaying vegetable matter or low forms of vegetable life. The family Itonidae, better known as the Cecidomyiidae, has attained its present large proportions not by reason of strength, great resistant powers or unusual fecundity, but through an amazing adaptability. We find larvae in decaying vegetable matter, in dead wood, on fungus, affecting all parts of a very great variety of the higher plants and presenting thereupon almost every conceivable grade in the development of the gall, living as parasites at the expense of very small insects or even preying upon their near allies. Broadly speaking, taxonomic studies in this family show at least a moderately close relationship between specialization in structure and divergence in the food habits from those of ancestral forms.


TCP- and phthalimide-protected n-pentenyl glucosaminide (NPG) precursors have been utilized in a convergent stereocontrolled synthesis of the nodulation factor NodRf-III (C18:1, MeFuc) produced by Rhizobium fredii USDA257, 2. Nodulation factors are lipooligosaccharides that are secreted by bacteria which trigger the early steps in the formation of root nodules in leguminous plants. This symbiotic relationship between plant and bacteria plays a major role in the global nitrogen cycle. Key to our synthetic approach was the use of the TCP (tetrachlorophthaloyl) group to provide for N-differentiation of the linear glucosamine backbone and the use of FeCl3 for the removal of benzyl protecting groups from the tetrasaccharide. The saccharide skeleton was assembled via the NPG-based coupling of a linear β(1→4) glucosamine disaccharide to a 6-O-fucosylated glucosamine acceptor. Significant yield enhancements for NPG couplings were observed at lower temperatures. Subsequent exchange of benzyl to tert-butyldimethyls...


This work describes the Arctic Portal – a geographic information system (GIS), allowing monitoring and forecasting the state and dynamics of the ocean-atmospherecryosphere system in the Arctic region, based on the integrated use of satellite and model data. The paper summarizes the general features of the Arctic Portal and clarifies its main structural peculiarities. The Arctic Portal is a freely available web application, which uses a set of programming technologies and open source libraries, providing reliable and fast satellite data processing, the final goal of which is to visualize data on the Arctic map. In addition to data representation, it has several capabilities, which makes usage of the Portal the "first step" for educational or scientific research.


The objective of research: assessment of possibility of trachea and esophagus stenting. Materials and methods . Stenting of trachea and esophagus at esophagus cancer is performed to 5 patients. Results and discussion . It is registered that the combined stenting allows to restore permeability of respiratory tracts and esophagus. Conclusions . the technique of double stenting is a choice method at prelum or germination of trachea an esophagus tumor.


With the current rate in growth of evidence in multiple sclerosis (MS) rehabilitation, systematic reviews and clinical guidelines typically lag behind the most currently published research findings. In addition, most health care professionals lack the time, resources, or adequate skills to identify and evaluate new evidence, and hands-on tools to implement the latest evidence into clinical practice are often lacking or not readily available. The Applying Evidence with Confidence (APPECO) platform is a newly developed online tool that addresses these key challenges. APPECO was initiated as a proof-of-concept for the common MS symptoms fatigue and cognitive function. Subsequently, intervention studies about depression, pain, and mobility were added. APPECO currently hosts detailed information from 250 randomized clinical trials, 293 interventions, and 1250 effect sizes on 53 patient outcomes. Few studies with high quality (ie, low risk of bias) are available specifically designed to test the benefits of MS rehabilitation on fatigue (n = 5 [2.4%]), cognitive function (n = 4 [1.6%]), and depression (n


The hyperbranched Boltorn polyester,with the hydroxyl as the end group,is modified with benzene 1,2,4-tricarboxylic acid 1,2-anhydride. Co ion is encapsulated in modified hyperbranched Boltorn polyester to produce metal coordination. Its structure and property is characterized by UV spectroscopy,infrared spectroscopy,Thermo Gravimetric Analyzer. It was found that the force in the encapsulation process was coordination bond,the Coordination form between Co ion and modified hyperbranched Boltorn polyester was single tooth coordination. Result of TGA showed that the decomposition temperature of metal complex was within 260 ~ 460 ℃.


This paper describes the development of a prototype instrument of the Vertical Scanning Long Trace Profiler (VSLTP) under a SBIR Phase II grant from NASA. The instrument is capable of scanning shell mirrors with a diameter as small as 100 mm for a travel distance of 700 mm in vertical configuration. Main components of the optical system are described. It has a beam separation set, a beam splitting set, a Fourier transform lens system, a penta prism pair, a Risley prism pair and a cylinder lens. The main hardware and software for implementation of the prototype instrument are also presented. They include the major mechanical structure, 9-axis motion control system and the data acquisition and analysis software. The design of the optical and mechanical systems makes the VSLTP very tolerable to the deformation of the slide deformation, laser pattern shift and fluctuation due to temperature change. Results obtained from the Phase I show that the VSLTP instrument is capable of a measurement accuracy of 50 nm for the height and 1 microradian for the slope.


Objective: To discuss the technique used in abdominal closure with new material. Methods: By comparing 95 cases using single-layer closed technique to stitch peritoneum and lineea alba together with #0 ETHICON loop late absorbed by continuous manner to 75 same-term cases using layered closure technique with silk suture by intermittent manner, the clinical data were collected and analyzed, then the review was made. Results: The single layer closure group: there were no patients suffered peritoneum dehiscence when closing the abdomen, there were no postoperative complications such as wound dehiscence, peritoneum dehiscence and bowel obstruction, incisional hernia etc. There were 5 patients suffered subcutaneous fat liquefy dropsy or wound infection. The layered closure group: there were 10 patients suffered peritoneum dehiscence when closing the abdomen. Bowel obstruction in 1 case. Dehiscence of abdomen wound in 1 cases, 8 patients suffered subcutaneous fat liquefy or dropsy, incisional hernia in 1 patient. Conclusion: This technique is an easy and rapid procedure with less complications, it can deal with some difficult cases in operating such as peritoneum dehiscence, difficult abdomen closure prolonged operative time and etc. It was a favorable choose when performing surgery in the obese, seriously ill or critical patient or the patient who has poor narcotic effect or abdominal muscular tension.


Necrotic hoof lesions are an increasingly common finding amongst chronically lame cows in UK dairy herds. Some vets have reported these lesions as the most common indication for claw amputation, replacing historic causes such as deep digital sepsis. More recently, some hoof trimmers and cattle veterinarians have adopted a surgical debridement approach with some success, leading to resolution of lesions once called 'non-healing'. A key part of success is ensuring there is regional or local anaesthesia of the distal limb, and sufficient analgesia during and following the procedure to manage pain. This article reviews some of the considerations for cattle practitioners.


Based on the orthogonality between the signal subspace and the noise subspace, we propose a sparse recovery method for the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. With the assumption of uncorrelated sources, signal covariance matrix fitting is achieved by embedding the MUSIC-like weights into a quadratic minimization, which is capable of prompting the sparsity of the solution. Numerical results show that the proposed method outperforms some other sparse recovery methods.


It has been known for many years that the Mahānubhāvas used ciphers for the transmission of much of their religious literature in Marathi. They devised a number of such ciphers which are known in the sect by names such as sakaḷa, sundarī, anka lipī, etc., but of all these sakala lipī is by far the commonest—no doubt because its extreme simplicity commended it to the scribes. Its invention is traditionally ascribed to Ravalovyāsa, the author of Sahyādrī-varnana, some time around A.D. 1335, but the earliest references to it are in fifteenth-century texts which simply call it ravalobāsāci nāgara līpa. One text of approximately the same date, however, refers to it as sakalita līpa and within the living tradition of the sect it is always known as sakala lipī or sakalī. The name has been variously derived from Old Marathi sakala 'all', because it was used throughout the sect, and from Skt. sankalita, because it is full of abbreviations. The former seems more plausible. The cipher was the first to be introduced and is the most widely used, whereas later, more complex ciphers tend to be the private preserve of one or other of the Mahānubhāva āmnāya or sub-sects.


Abstract The south Indian species of Charaea Baly, 1878 are revised. The genus Cneorides Jacoby, 1896 is synonymized with Charaea. Cneorides flaviventris Jacoby, 1896 is transferred to Charaea and new replacement name Ch. jacobyi nom. nov. is proposed for it due to homonymy with Charaea flaviventre (Motschulsky, 1861). Three new species, Ch. boukali sp. nov., Ch. nilgiriensis sp. nov. and Ch. sahyadrica sp. nov. are described. Lectotype is designated for Cneorides flaviventris. Colour photos of habitus and drawings of both male and female genitalia are presented.


The paper examines the Safety, Health and Environment program developed and implemented by the Manitoba Heavy Construction Association (MHCA). The program will provide a Certificate of Recognition (COR) that is a comprehensive approach to reducing human, financial and environmental costs of accidents and involves education, training, and implementation of standard safety, health, and environmental practices. The paper discusses the COR training program, process of program implementation within companies, benefits of implementation, lessons learned and next steps.


PurposeThis paper examines the current state of blockchain governance research. The study's findings also propose a conceptual framework for the use of blockchain in governance and global governance and provide a global look at how public and private sectors alike are implementing new technologies.Design/methodology/approachThe study is qualitative as well as quantitative in nature. The authors used Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) to gather data for the study. Furthermore, a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer visualization tool and R Studio was carried out to attain the research objectives.FindingsMany scholars and practitioners from around the world are interested in the topic, according to the analysis. This is a multidisciplinary study, so researchers have looked at how the blockchain can be used to govern countries, public utilities and global facilities, including corporations. There are numerous examples of how technology has been used in global governance, and the authors found that governments, as well as corporations around the world, have implemented technology in a variety of areas that affect the public and other stakeholders.Practical implicationsThis study makes numerous contributions. In the first place, it presents the complex concept of blockchain in an easier to understand way. The numerous governmental and commercial initiatives that have made use of blockchain are also highlighted. As a result, the use of technology in corporate and social governance will continue to grow. Finally, the research will inform the academic community on the current state of the topic and potential future directions.Originality/valueAs a result of this research, academics and scholars can better understand the potential of blockchain in various governance models, ranging from developed to developing economies. The general public, as well as organizations, will benefit from the decentralized nature of the blockchain in a variety of ways related to their day-to-day governance. To the best of authors' knowledge, this is a first kind of research on blockchain in governance using PRISMA and bibliometrics tools.


The power law distribution of social tag frequency is one of the most important statistic characteristics in social tagging system. Researchers have proposed several models to predict this distribution, but these models depend on specific system. What's more, data fitting methods were failed to describe the raw data precisely compared with a mathematical model. Random Group Formation (RGF) model is a newly proposed mathematical model which could predict the power law distribution precisely. This model does not depend on the specific system. It could predict the power law distribution precisely using only three values: total number of elements, groups and the number of elements in the largest group. In this paper, RGF model is employed to predict the power law distribution of tag frequency. The experiments show that the power law distribution of tag frequency can be predicted precisely by three values, and the distribution is independent on specific system. The analysis of the tag dataset using RGF model shows that the exponent of power law decreases with the increasing of the dataset's size.


A tool for 3-D modeling of EM and SM in interconnect lines has been developed based on a commercial finite element code. After detailing the approach, we focus on the verification of the simulator by comparing the results of 1-D analytic and FEM simulations, and then we apply the simulator to interconnect line segments with a specified grain structure.


Male meiosis and pollen fertility studies have been performed in 35 species belonging to 25 genera and 13 families of Polypetalae from the Dalhousie hills. Impatiens laxiflora (n=6) was counted chromosomally for the first time. Corydalis cornuta (n=8), Erysimum hieracifolum (n=16), Arenaria serpyllifolia (n=10), Drymaria diandra (n=13), Geranium lucidum (n=14), Nasturtium officinale (n=16), Geum roylei (n=21) and Chaerophyllum reflexum (n=11) are worked out chromosomally for the first time in India. New cytotypes are recorded for Thalictrum saniculiforme (n=14), Drymaria diandra (n=13), Geranium lucidum (n=14) and Chaerophyllum reflexum (n=11). Present chromosome counts for the rest of the species substantiate earlier reports by other researchers. Intraspecific diploid (n=12) and tetraploid (n=24) cytotypes recorded presently from Dalhousie hills in Oxalis corniculata are morphologically indistinguishable. The phenomenon of cytomixis involving inter PMC (pollen mother cell) migration of chromatin material has been observed in Ranunculus diffusus (n=16), Thalictrum foliolosum (n=7), T. saniculiforme (n=14), Gypsophila cerastioides (n=15), Oxalis corniculata (n=24), Murraya koenigii (n=9), Geum roylei (n=21), Potentilla atrisanguinea (n=21) and Pimpinella diversifolia (n=9). Cytomixis in these species results in various meiotic abnormalities and heterogeneous sized pollen grains. In the remaining species, the meiosis is normal, leading to high pollen fertility.


The students in high vocational college now lacks study motives, the cause is very complex. Only correct education countermeasures and teaching method can arouse students' study enthusiasm, and satisfy their heart appeal in study.


This paper compares and analyzes the protection performance of thermorelay and intelligent integrated monitor,and introduces the practical application and application effect of intelligent integrated monitor in the motor protection of industrial enterprise.


A polyimide fibre is prepared through preparing the spinning polyimide dope, extruding out by spinneret nozzle, passing through air, coagulating bath, heat treating by three heat tubes, and thermal stretching. Its advantages are high break strength and high refractory performance (300 deg.C or more).


In this paper, we demonstrate the specific ways in which the influence of Chinese manifests itself in the structure of the noun phrases containing relative clause modifiers in colloquial Singapore English. We argue that while previous researchers have been correct in pointing out the substratal influence of Chinese, they have not gone far enough in articulating the specific nature of this influence, in particular on the grammar. Colloquial Singapore English relative clauses are interesting because they show an amalgamation of both substrate and superstrate grammatical features. This blending of features is a precise one in which substrate influence is in some way regulated and limited by the superstrate grammar. The combination of superstrate and substrate grammars is illustrated in the constituent ordering of relative clause modifiers, as well as the grammatical behavior of the relative pronoun one. In this paper, we also seek to show that colloquial Singapore English relative clauses are extremely elaborate grammatical structures which argue against new varieties of English being characterized as simplified versions of their superstrate language


This guide briefly discusses reading and writing, and then presents 43 strategies for becoming better readers and writers. The guide discusses writing and reading as processes, and lists questions that writers ask and that readers ask. Some of the 43 ways to help students listed in the brochure are: read aloud to students; practice journal writing; have students make predictions about the story; have students read and write for a variety of purposes; give genuine praise for improvements in reading and writing; provide time for reading; give students plenty of opportunity to write and read a variety of forms; model reading and writing; encourage students to edit and reflect on what they have written; provide students with adequate time to prepare and practice if they are to read literature or their writing aloud to the class; allow students to make some choices about what they read and write; and link reading and writing to what is being taught in class. (RS) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ***********************************************************************


Using structural equation modeling analyses weexamined the correlation in levels of depressionsymptoms within couples to determine whether theunderlying mechanism is due to common stressors,empathic reactions, or crossover via social interaction.The analyses were based on two waves of data collectionfrom a sample of 354 male Vietnam veterans, Era veterans(veterans who served elsewhere during the period of the Vietnam War), and nonveterans andfrom their wives or committed partners. The resultsdemonstrated that the correlation in depression symptomswithin couples is due primarily to common stressors and crossover via negative social interaction.Common stressful life events increase depression in bothspouses, and this in turn increases social undermining,which further increases depression.


Ebola hemorrhagic fever (HF) is a severe and often lethal disease that occurs in primates, including humans. It was first identified in 1976 during two outbreaks of fatal haemorrhagic fever in Central Africa. Due to its high fatality rate and lack of a widespread cure, Ebola HF poses a considerable challenge in treatment, making Ebola virus disease (EVD) one of the deadliest zoonotic diseases. The viral genome is ∼19kb long, linear, non-segmented, and negative single-stranded (-SS) RNA. The genome of the Ebola virus (EBOV) comprises seven genes, namely NP, GP, L, and VP (VP30, VP24, VP40, VP35), which encode nucleoprotein, glycoprotein, RNA polymerase, and viral proteins. By optimizing the DNA sequence through codon adaptation, we observed significant enhancements in the codon adaptation index (CAI) and the GC content compared to the wild-type strain. These findings demonstrate that optimized genes hold the potential for improved expression in the host organism without the production of truncated proteins. Further, these optimized genes can facilitate proper protein folding and function. In conclusion, these results have implications for vaccine production, as higher codon optimization enhances the expression of the genes, making them appropriate amounts for vaccine development.


Abstract : Adsorption, catalytic activity and metal deposition at the metal/ solution interface have been studied in a coordinated fashion by radiochemistry, ultra-high vacuum spectroscopies of surface science and electrochemistry. The metal part of the interface was usually a single-crystal of platinum, rhodium or gold, or an ultra-thin metallic film of either cadmium, copper or silver obtained via underpotential deposition processes. The adsorbates predominantly included bisulfate, perchlorate, phosphate, acetic acid and urea. The integrative feature of the adsorbates was their capacity of a reversible adsorption on the platinum electrode. The molecule with which the catalytic rates have been measured was methanol in perchlorate, bisulfate and phosphate solutions. These studies have focused on (1) effects of anions on the catalytic oxidation of methanol on platinum single crystal electrodes, (2) surface chemistry of the studied adsorbates on the clean and admetal covered electrodes, (3) surface studies of the solid/liquid CO (as the most probable methanol chemisorption product), and (4) phase transitions of urea induced by lateral adsorbate-adsorbate interactions. Two methods for in situ and ex situ electrode characterization, namely the radioactive labeling and the ultra-high vacuum- electrochemistry, have been used and advancements in their performance, or new areas of applications, have been reported.


Vertical farming using LED lights offers potential for the early production phase (few weeks) of young ornamental plants. However, once transferred to the greenhouse, the photosynthetic acclimation of these young plants might depend on this initial light regime. In order to obtain insight about this acclimatization, Chrysanthemum (sun species) and Spathiphyllum (shade species) were pre-conditioned in growth chambers for four weeks under four light qualities: blue (B), red (R), red/blue (RB, 60% R) and white (W) at 100 μmol m-2 s-1 . Monochromatic light (R and B) limited leaf development of both species, which resulted in a lower leaf mass per area when compared to multispectral light (RB for Chrysanthemum, RB and W for Spathiphyllum). R-developed leaves had a lower photosynthetic efficiency in both species. After the light quality pretreatment, plants were transferred to the greenhouse with high-intensity natural light conditions. On the first day of transfer, R and B pre-conditioned leaves of both species had an inhibited photosynthesis. After one week in natural light condition, rapid light curve parameters of Chrysanthemum leaves that developed under B acclimated to sunlight had a similar level than RB-developed leaves unlike R-leaves. Spathiphyllum leaves showed a decrease in maximum electron transport rate (ETRmax ) and this was most pronounced for the R pretreatment. After one month, R pre-conditioned Chrysanthemum had the lowest dry mass, while no effects on the dry weight of Spathiphyllum with respect to the pretreatments were observed. Light quality during pre-conditioning affected the leaf ability to acclimate to natural high light-intensities in greenhouse environment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Abstract We karyotyped and sequenced 1,140 base pairs of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b of a specimen of Zarudny's rock shrew (Crocidura zarudnyi) from Baluchestan, southeastern Iran, to clarify its cytogenetic and molecular relationships with other Eurasian species of Crocidura. According to the karyotype (2N = 40, FN = 50), Zarudny's rock shrew belongs to the group of the lesser white-toothed shrew (C. suaveolens), which is different from other known crocidurine karyotypes, considering the combination of the diploid and fundamental number of chromosomes. Molecular results revealed that C. zarudnyi is included in a monophyletic clade with the C. suaveolens group, where it is a sister taxon to the others (mean Kimura 2-parameter distance = 9.7%).


Taking China`s special national conditions into consideration,this paper mainly analyses the band -4 oral test for English majors by the six qualities of test usefulness from a micro angle,and analyses its content and implementation in detail in order to verify the rationality of this design .


Among the renewable energy sources, solar energy is the most important, because of its abundance, sustainability and is completely free of charge. Besides, using a solar collector tracking the total energy received on a clear day can be about 30-45% higher than for the same solar collector static. We designed and built a system of autonomous and able to follow the movement of the sun, which was coupled to a photovoltaic panel to improve efficiency in energy capture tracking. Device performance was evaluated in terms of energy, three evaluation tests programming it to be oriented to the sun every 60, 30 and 5 min, and the results were compared with the energy efficiency of a fixed photovoltaic panel. The software was developed for the entire territory of Mexico and throughout the year. The best energy performance is obtained when the solar tracker is oriented to the sun every 60 min, the energy generated was 27.98% compared to the fixed panel, with an energy expenditure for operation of 1.3% of final energy gain. Comparing energy production system with the global solar radiation (ISR), usuing 13.27% of the available energy, and 2.93% on the fixed panel.


Clumped isotope geochemistry requires extremely high analytical precisions compared to most traditional single-isotope measurements, as the target isotopologues are extremely rare. Measurements are complicated by several analytical challenges, including variable sample digestion and clean up procedures, molecular fragmentation and recombination in the source [Huntington et al., 2009], the generation of interfering ions, pressure-dependent baselines [He et al., 2012; Bernasconi et al., 2013], and drift in equilibrated gas slopes and scale compression factors [Meckler et al., 2014]. An outstanding question is whether differences in the application of these corrections and other operating factors may contribute to measurement discrepancies between lab groups. Here we explore these issues through the analysis of a suite of synthetic carbonates grown at controlled temperatures as well as internal laboratory standards using measurements on two different mass spectrometers, and compare them to a previously published dataset of the same materials [Defliese et al., 2015]. The materials are analyzed using different extraction and purification techniques, and measured on both a Thermo Fisher MAT 253 and a Nu Instruments Perspective mass spectrometer. We compare the effects of different background correction and standardization techniques on the same dataset, such as standardization to the absolute reference frame [Dennis et al., 2011], including using only equilibrated gases versus a mixture of gases and carbonate standards, and carbonate standards alone.


We studied the collective motion of Josephson vortices generated by microwave irradiation and by an external dc magnetic field applied in parallel with the planes of intrinsic junctions of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ single crystals. In both cases, for a low vortex density and driving current, splitting of the 'supercurrent' branch corresponding to different plasma excitation modes was observed in the current-voltage characteristics (IV C). For a high vortex density in fields beyond 3−4 T, the IV C merged into a single non-hysteretic curve with kinks, similar to those arising from the theoretically proposed structural transformation of moving vortex patterns.


A brief summary of current surface science is followed by a perspective. Two recent pieces of photocatalyst research are presented as examples along with the perspective.


Some common problems were analyzed in college chemistry curriculum,according to the characteristics of the college chemistry curriculum,the new curriculum system was established,college students employment ability had been improved through various channels.


With improving efficiency and cost effectiveness of public cloud systems, there has been a growing trend to complement in-house cloud environment with them. We propose an open solution to the problem of distributing jobs in a hybrid environment, as a substitute to hadoop systems which are cloud specific. The proposed system, MultiStack, is a big data orchestration platform for deploying big data jobs across multiple cloud providers. The specific architecture elaborated in this paper uses Amazon Web Services as the public cloud provider and Openstack as the private cloud framework. Our solution supports complete Hadoop ecosystem tools - hive, pig, Hbase, oozie etc. and on-demand scaling of Hadoop clusters. The proposed framework aims at reducing the Job completion time on workloads along with decrease in cost using Spot Instance provisioning compared to on-demand provisioning. This is achieved by providing two modes of operation: Proactive scheduling and Reactive scheduling, which takes into account user providing job characteristics(eg memory, cpu, etc), quota limitation and business objectives. From our experiments, we conclude that Multistack is able to reduce average job completion time by 30-37% with minimal increase in cost.


AIM
To design and substantiate an effective combined therapy scheme for patients with chronic viral hepatitis (CVH) and chronic opisthorchiasis (CO).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
10 patients with CHB and 12 patients with CHB + C in the presence of CO. All the patients have undergone clinical and device examinations before the treatment and in the course of therapy with biltricide and reaferon.

RESULTS
Patients with CVH at the stage of moderate activity and in the phase of virus replication received antihelminthic therapy with biltricide which caused neither complications nor deterioration, antihelminthic effect was observed in 20 of 22 patients. In a month, the patients started on reaferon given for therapy of hepatitis. As a result, all the patients improved clinically with normalization of biochemical blood parameters. Markers of viral hepatitides disappeared in 17 of 22 patients.

CONCLUSION
Combined therapy of CVH in active process in the presence of CO may include antihelminthic and antiviral treatment and should be staged.


Male Siamese Fighting Fish (Betta splendens) were conditioned to emit an operant response sequence reinforced by presentation of a model of a male Siamese Fighting Fish in aggressive display. Operant response rate varied as a function of the color of the model with respect to the color of the subject.


Database Architecture and Infrastructure R apidly advancing available and emerging technologies for computation, data storage, and communications promise a wealth of aggressive and high-performance options for establishing the GTL Knowledgebase (GKB). To take full advantage of these opportunities, GKB technical requirements and operational needs must be well defined. In addition, decisions on system architecture and infrastructure will be influenced substantially by institutional requirements manifest in the GKB governance and management model and by the resultant roles of data providers, integrators, and users. Moreover, resources for creating, maintaining, and using the knowledgebase will arise from various elements of GTL research initiatives and from computing and informatics programs and institutions. These research and computing programs in turn will influence the choices and locations of hardware and software efforts and assets. Building a successful knowledgebase will require evaluating and implementing numerous design choices for system architecture that impact models for GKB development, scalability, and GTL-relevant use cases. Investigation of these choices and requirements has revealed several viable options for GKB architecture (each with distinct strengths and weaknesses) that could meet at least part of the data needs of the GTL community. However, GKB architectural design ultimately must satisfy the full range of GTL researchers' data requirements and provide a foundational software platform for cost-effective software development and operations. In these capacities, system architecture is fundamental to the GTL Knowledgebase project. To meet various user and operational requirements, optimal GKB architecture most likely would be a hybrid design combining elements of several basic architectural options. This solution could link, for example, a central data model (perhaps supported at multiple sites) with more heterogeneous and distributed data and analysis support accessible through a Web services model. Existing, proven architectural designs set precedents for the success of such a venture. Since the early development of genome databases, system architectures have undergone revolutionary changes that the GTL Knowledgebase should exploit. Major features of these changes follow: Unifying algorithms and data by integrating programming languages with a database • system. This creates an extensible object-relational system in which nonprocedural relational operators manipulate object sets. Integrating Web services with a core database management system (DBMS). • Such integration has significant implications for how applications are structured, with DBMSs functioning more like object containers. Online analytic processing is now integrated into most DBMSs, and service-oriented architecture (SOA) models based on Web services can be leveraged successfully in this approach. Progressively …


Distinguished trade theorists maintain that a national economy cannot be uncompetitive as a whole, contrary to the frequent statements of many politicians, because a country must possess a comparative advantage in some sector according to Ricardo's principle. In this paper the author argues that such a criticism addressed to the notion of national competitiveness neglects a bottom line of a national economy engaged in a global market. In this context, characterized by free capital movements and possible unemployment, absolute productivity and absolute advantage may prevail over relative productivity and comparative advantage and can affect the competitiveness of all productive sectors of a single country. Such a reappraisal of international equilibrium offers a theoretical foundation to the intuitive idea that national competitiveness can be a source of possible economic conflict among the national members of a global economy.


With the origin of cloud computing, the intruders have likewise brought their bar up in the shadow of cyber crime .Lack of security is the only hurdle in wide adoption of cloud computing. However, the regular monitoring of the logs is the most crucial part in finding the attack and building the defense against Cloud. Our design focuses on accurate time synchronization, evidence segregation without breaching the confidentiality of other users, and helps in information analysis and evidence reporting which are required for management of logs. This project will develop and enhance forensic technique for collecting logs in the emerging paradigm of cloud technology. The framework will primarily focus on obtaining accurate logs & analyzing for auditing the system.


Leptin induces tumor angiogenesis by mechanisms not completely understood. Here we investigated whether VEGFR and Notch signaling are involved in leptin-induced angiogenic features of endothelial cells (EC). Human umbilical vein (HUVEC) and porcine aortic EC (PAEC: wild type not expressing VEGFRs, and PAEC-VEGFR-1, PAEC-VEGFR-2 transfected cells) were challenged with leptin and inhibitors of Notch (γ-secretase inhibitor, DAPT), VEGFR-2 kinase (Semaxanib/SU5416 and siRNA VEGFR) and leptin (pegylated leptin peptide receptor antagonist 2, PEG-LPrA2). Involvement of VEGFR on leptin-mediated induction of Notch and HUVEC proliferation and tube formation was assessed via MTT, cell cycle progression and matrigel assays, respectively. Leptin-induced trans-phosphorylation/activation of VEGFR-2 was determined by ELISA and Western blot. Present data show that leptin induces VEGFR-2 transphosphorylation at Y1175, Y951 and Y996. We found for the first time that leptin induces Notch expression in EC via trans-activation of VEGFR, which was linked to increased cell proliferation, and the development of angiogenic features. Leptin-upregulated Notch1 and Notch4 were linked to both VEGFR-1 and -2 activities, but leptin induction of Notch2 and JAG1 was related to VEGFR-2 transactivation. However, the specific biological relevance of these findings needs to be further investigated. Remarkably, leptin's effects were independent of VEGF-induced signaling. Present data suggest that high levels of leptin found in overweight and obese cancer patients could lead to increased tumor angiogenesis via VEGFR/Notch axis in EC. Combinatory inhibition of leptin signaling and Notch or VEGFR-2 could be used to develop new strategies targeting tumor angiogenesis. Background Endothelial cells (EC) play a major role in normal biological processes such as bloodtissue exchange, blood-cell activation, vasculogenesis, and angiogenesis. These cells line the blood vasculature, are key regulators in vascular homeostasis, and form a barrier to create the endothelium; which acts as a vessel for the circulating blood. EC under the actions of several circulating factors can help to modify the phenotype of the vessel wall. In these processes, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor type 2 (VEGFR-2) play major roles in driving angiogenesis. VEGFR-2 is a kinase insert domain receptor encoded by the human KDR gene, which corresponds to the FLK-1 mouse gene. It plays an essential role in the angiogenic process in physiologic and pathological scenarios. VEGFR-2 is a major mitogenic and chemotactic receptor found in EC, which can induce several cellular processes common to many growth factor receptors, such as, cell proliferation, migration, and survival vascular development during embryogenesis as well as new blood vessel formation. In addition, VEGF/VEGFR-2 signaling is essential for autocrine/paracrine survival processes of breast cancer cells. Another factor that plays an important role in angiogenesis is Notch. Activated Notch leads to EC proliferation, differentiation, survival, and angiogenesis. Abnormal expression of Notch correlates to cancer development and poor outcomes. The Notch receptor family is composed of four members, Notch1, Notch2, Notch3, and Notch4. Notch1 is considered a hallmark of breast cancer, and is generally overexpressed in tumor tissues. In contrast, Notch receptors are lowly expressed in normal breast tissue. Several ligands of Notch: Jagged (JAG1 and JAG2) and Delta-like (DLL1, DLL3, and DLL4) are also abnormally expressed in cancer tissues. Ligand binding to Notch receptors on adjacent cells leads to the activation of


Abstract The primary goal of this study is to investigate the influence of sustainability disclosure (SD) practices on the relationship between audit committee chair characteristics and firms' performance. The current study used an experimental approach to data collection and analysis. The predicted variable is the AC chair characteristics; the predictor variables are the performance indicator's return on equity (ROE). The study investigated the indirect impact of the mediating role in the SD index. We manually analysed 405 annual reports of the companies listed on the ASE from 2014 to 2018. The findings revealed a significant and positive relationship between the accounting expertise, tenure, and monitoring expertise of the AC chairs and the performance of the firm measures tested, namely, ROA and ROE. Meanwhile, AC chair experiential expertise types and firm performance measures have a positive but insignificant relationship. Furthermore, the findings revealed that sustainability disclosure mediates the relationship between AC chair effectiveness and ROE in part. The results of this study will help firms understand the expertise of AC chair characteristics that can help firms in Jordan to perform better. The findings indicated that the effectiveness of AC chairs contributes to improved firm performance through sustainability practices. This study is one of the few studies that dealt with AC chair characteristics and one of the first studies that linked this variable to firm performance. Furthermore, our selection of the Jordanian context emphasizes the topic's importance, as it is one of the developing contexts that has recently seen regulatory reforms in financial markets. It also expands on previous research by looking at Jordan's listed ASE firms.


This course considers the application of option concepts from finance to valuing real assets and investment opportunities. The focus is on using real options theory and methodology to determine to the optimal timing of investment expenditures characterized by uncertainty and irreversibility. We consider the implications of real options theory for the firm's decision to invest, as well as for industry equilibrium. The course begins with an introduction to stochastic processes, Ito's Lemma, the BlackScholes equation, contingent claims analysis and dynamic programming. Numerical methods to solve simple option value problems will be presented, such as binomial trees and Monte Carlo simulation. Applications will focus on problems in natural resource and environmental economics, such as the optimal timing to exploit a mining asset or install pollution control equipment and, time permitting, other applications in economics.


Increase in the data rate of fiber optic communication system is limited due to the nonlinear effects like self phase modulation (SPM) cross phase modulation (CPM) four wave mixing (FWM), stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and stimulated Brillion scattering (SBS). Many investigations are carried to mitigate these effects and in multi channel systems, four-wave mixing (FWM) in optical fibers induces channel crosstalk and possibly degrades system performance. An optical orthogonal code is a family of (0,1) sequences with good auto and cross correlation properties The use of optical orthogonal codes enables a large number of asynchronous users to transmit information efficiently and reliably. This paper examines the fiber optic code division multiple access technique and proposes an alternative frequency assignment scheme to suppress the FWM crosstalk by allocating frequencies to a set of unevenly spaced channels determined by an optical spreading code. This scheme is advantageous than the previously mentioned frequency assignment schemes like reduced optical bandwidth requirements, more number of channels with null FWM crosstalk points


A novel erbium ions doped fluoro-tellurite glasses were prepared, and intense 2.7 μm emission was observed. The present Er3+-doped fluoro-tellurite glasses with large 2.7 μm emission cross-sections (6.32×10-21 cm2) indicates that it has a very promising application for solid state lasers around 3 μm.


This paper aims to present new techniques to determine if fuzzy and stepwise regression are
effective in mitigating the occurrence software risk factor in the implementation phase. The proposed
process compares the accuracy of prediction between stepwise multiple regression analysis techniques
and fuzzy multiple regression. In addition, After applying MRE, the results show that the most value of
MMRE in fuzzy multiple regression modelling for risks were slightly higher than the value of MMRE in
stepwise multiple regression except risk 1 models around about fuzzy regression. Therefore, the most
value of Pred (25) fuzzy multiple regression model for risks were slightly higher than or equal the value
of pride (25) stepwise multiple regression except 9 were slightly higher than stepwise. The model's
accuracy slightly improves in fuzzy multiple regression than stepwise multiple regression. Successful
application of software project risk management will greatly improve the probability of project success.


A study has been made of the influence of various electrolytes in promoting gelation of aqueous supersaturated solutions of the urates of methylamine, lithium, piperazine and tetramethylammonium. The cation has been found to be the active agent. The minimal concentration of the electrolyte which is effective has been determined over the gelation range of the urate. The order of efficacy of the cations may be stated in general to be K > NH4 > Rb > Cs > Li > Na. A maximal concentration of electrolyte has been found above which immediate precipitation rather than gelation occurs. The time required for gelation varies inversely with the amount of electrolyte present in any single concentration of urate. The rigidity varies directly up to the point of precipitation. The time of crystallization of the gel varies directly with the concentration of the electrolytes, sodium chloride, rubidium chloride and lithium chloride but inversely with potassium chloride and ammonium chloride. Certain organic diamines have be...


Background: Over the past decades, breast cancer treatment has evolved from extensive disfiguring surgery to less invasive procedures. In patients with small localized tumors breast conserving therapy (BCT) has become the standard of care. However, surgery still involves risks associated with general anesthesia and complications such as bleeding, infection and suboptimal cosmetic results. Conversely, Magnetic Resonance-guided High intensity Focused Ultrasound (MR-HIFU) ablation of breast cancer is an entirely non-invasive procedure that can be performed under procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA). With MR-HIFU, a focused ultrasound beam penetrates through soft tissues and causes localized heating (55-70°C) of a target. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used for target-identification and real-time temperature-monitoring (MR thermometry). In a previous phase I study in ten breast cancer patients, tumors were deliberately partially ablated and safety and accuracy of a dedicated MR-HIFU breast system (Profound Medical) was shown.1,2 This system's lateral sonication approach and wide aperture reduce the risk of heating heart, lungs and skin to a minimum.3 In the current study we aim to demonstrate that complete breast tumor ablation with MR-HIFU is feasible. Trial design: Single-arm phase II study in patients with primary breast cancer. We will use a dedicated MR-HIFU breast system (Profound Medical) to ablate breast tumors before BCT or mastectomy, in a treat-and-resect protocol. We will perform MRI before MR-HIFU, during the MR HIFU session and one week after to evaluate radiologic response. Primary endpoint is efficacy, assessed by percentages of necrotic and residual viable tumor. Secondary endpoint is safety, assessed by adverse events and cosmetic changes. Descriptive statistics will be used. Eligibility criteria Non-pregnant, non-lactating women ≥18 years of age, weighing histologically proven invasive breast cancer, cT1-2 N0-2 Mx, subtypes invasive ductal carcinoma or invasive carcinoma 'not otherwise specified' / 'no special type' a tumor in reach of the HIFU beams, diameter ≤ 3.0 cm and distance ≥1.5 cm to skin, nipple and pectoral wall WHO-Performance Score ≤2 a body size fitting in the MR bore and the ability to lie in prone position no prior treatment with neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the past 3 months no prior radiotherapy, thermal therapy or surgery in the targeted breast no contraindications to PSA, MRI or MRI contrast agents no conditions that may interfere with MR-HIFU such as a pacemaker, scar tissue, breast prosthesis or surgical clips no extensive intraductal components, determined on biopsy Additionally, patients may be excluded when the risk of adjuvant over- or undertreatment (due to performing Bloom and Richardson grading on the tumor biopsy) is considered too high. Target accrual 10 patients (present: 0, IRB approval obtained) Conclusion In this phase II trial we aim to show the feasibility of complete tumor ablation of breast cancer with a dedicated MR-HIFU breast system. This approach could lead to a non-invasive treatment alternative for selected patients with primary breast cancer. References 1Merckel 2016, Eur Radiol; 2Deckers 2015, Phys Med Biol; 3Merckel 2013, Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol; Acknowledgements Financial support of Center for Translational Molecular Medicine and Vrienden UMC Utrecht. Profound Medical provides non-financial support. Contact information Josanne de Maar, firstname.lastname@example.com ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02407613 Citation Format: Josanne Sophia de Maar, Roel Deckers, Lambertus Wilhelmus Bartels, Thijs van Dalen, Joost van Gorp, Paul J van Diest, Arjen J Witkamp, H. H.B. Vaessen, Maria NicoleGerardineJohanna Aleida Braat, Chrit Moonen. Efficacy of magnetic resonance-guided high intensity focused ultrasound for the ablation of breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr OT3-07-01.


The article aims to analyze the role of modern interpretations of Sharia on women's emancipation in Tunisia. Even though Tunisia is a Muslim country influenced by the Maliki school of thought, its social, cultural, and political conditions are conducive to women's emancipation efforts. This condition was created partly by the government's efforts to adopt Sharia's modern interpretation in Tunisia. Efforts to modernize Islamic law through state law have been going on for a long time and are consistent. Islamic legal modernism is evidenced by the Constitution, which guarantees women's equal rights, manifested in state law and policies. A case in point is family law in Tunisia that prohibits the practice of polygyny, gives equal share of the inheritance, and punishes perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence against women. Modern interpretations of Sharia have resulted in Islamic law that is more gender-friendly and maximizes women's potential in Tunisia's public sector. As a result, women's political participation in Tunisia is very high: they occupy many Parliament seats and high government bureaucracy positions. The condition of equality of women in Tunisia is far different from that of its compatriots in the middle east and north African countries, which are still influenced by conservative Islamic law interpretations. Keywords: Islamic legal modernism, women's Emancipation, polygyny prohibition, sexual harassment


[1] A simplification of a dust emission scheme is proposed, which takes into account of saltation bombardment and aggregates disintegration. The statement of the scheme is that dust emission is proportional to streamwise saltation flux, but the proportionality depends on soil texture and soil plastic pressure p. For small p values (loose soils), dust emission rate is proportional to u*4 (u* is friction velocity) but not necessarily so in general. The dust emission predictions using the scheme are compared with several data sets published in the literature. The comparison enables the estimate of a model parameter and soil plastic pressure for various soils. While more data are needed for further verification, a general guideline for choosing model parameters is recommended.


Abstract This article presents the approach used for building and using the knowledge-based system SUPER to fulfill several types of requirements corresponding to different engineering-domain contexts. SUPER was developed for maintaining and updating information about an evolving system as its slate changes due to abnormal events such as faults or as a consequence of external actions taken on the system. After analyzing different requirements corresponding to engineering-application domains, the successive steps of the approach are given, mainly based on structuring the knowledge base in the shape of a network at the time of knowledge acquisition and maintaining the database consistent at run time. The first step was to develop a knowledge-acquisition module that uses a logical knowledge model to construct and compile the knowledge base as an AND/OR network and that maintains a consistent network of rules as it incrementally increases. The second step was to develop a looped inference engine to select an ...


The book is a revolution in energy. It tells how energy is stored as convolutions in matter and that matter particles are little magnets with north south polarity and when they oscillate electric current is generated as on burning of nuclear matter. Thus nuclear energy is safe and only electrical signal is generated on combustion of nuclear matter. There are no harmful radiations like alpha beta and gamma rays. It can be safely used for missiles,submarines and electricity plants.


This article uses the context of the widespread circulation of accounts about "CoronaJihad" in India during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine how public WhatsApp groups that participate in disseminating such accounts function within the ecosystem of hate around Hindutva majoritarianism in the country. The manner in which the WhatsApp platform operates within this ecosystem is mapped through a granular study of three public Hindutva WhatsApp groups;the messages within these groups during the first phase of the COVID-19 lock-down in India were examined during the course of this study. The pattern of messaging within the three groups that contribute to the narrative of "CoronaJihad," which blames the minority Muslim community for the spread of the virus in India, were analyzed. The article focuses on factors including company policies and the specific sociopolitical situation in the country to understand the circumstances that make WhatsApp's deep entanglement with the divisive politics of Hindutva majoritarianism in India possible.


Based on geological survey and mapping, large-scale ancient landslide occurred three times in Huanglangvalley. The landslide blocked the valley and formed a huge landslide barrier lake - Lake Mahu. A discrete element numerical analysis program, UDEC, was utilized to study dynamic response characteristics of a mountain as well as dynamic process of a "barrier" causing mountain collapse. Research results indicate that the stability state of limit equilibrium dynamical critical acceleration is 1.6 g while the "barrier" causing high-speed, long distance, debris flow starts at a critical acceleration of 2.4 g with a corresponding seismic intensity of less than XI. Therefore, it is inferred that a prehistoric intensity XI earthquake occurred along Mabian-Huangjingba fault zone where Lake Mahu is located. This intensity exceeded that from a modern Ms7.1 earthquake.