The invention provides a five-in-one variety breeding method. The five-in-one variety breeding method comprises the following steps: firstly, taking a hybridized combination A*B or a population variety C as a base material, planting the base material in a strong stress environment at high density and large group, continuously carrying out selfing and test mating by using an IPT ((Isopentenyl-Transferases) method, planting the test mating progenies in regions with remarkably different ecological environments and selecting single plants D of which the test mating progenies meet certain standard; secondly, carrying out DH (Doubled Haploid) breeding by taking the D as the material to obtain more than 1000 haploid seeds, doubling the haploids to obtain more than 100 DH pure lines, carry outing target character selection, genetic background restoration selection and homozygosity identification by using an MAS (Marker Assisted Selection) molecule marker assisted breeding technology and selecting a DH pure line F according with a breeding target; thirdly, taking F as parent and assembling the F with the traditional common pure line cultivar to form a hybridized combination, planting the hybridized combination at more than ten test points in different ecological regions and selecting hybridized combination with strong adaptability, high quality and high yield as a hybrid variety G for breeding. According to the five-in-one variety breeding method provided by the invention, the breeding efficiency is increased.


A method of making a group III nitride-based compound semiconductor includes providing a semiconductor substrate comprising group III nitride-based compound semiconductor, polishing a surface of said semiconductor substrate such that said polished surface includes an inclined surface that has an off-angle t of 0.15 degrees or more and 0.6 degrees or less to one of an a-face, a c-face and an m-face of the semiconductor substrate, providing a stripe-shaped specific region on the polished surface, the specific region comprising a material that prevents the growth of the group III nitride-based compound semiconductor on its surface, and growing a semiconductor epitaxial growth layer of group III nitride-based compound semiconductor on the polished surface of the semiconductor substrate. The specific region is provided on the polished surface such that the longitudinal direction of the specific region intersects with the longitudinal direction of a step portion that is formed with an atom-layer height on the polished surface by introducing the off-angle t.


The main characteristics that define meat quality are the physicochemical, organoleptic and microbiological properties. These characteristics are influenced by like production system, racial group, feed, transport, ante‐mortem animals handling and post‐mortem meat handling. The ante‐mortem handling is very important, where stress physiology and the factors that provoke it (fasting, transportation, stunning, specie) and their effect in each step of the ante‐mortem handling is reflected in final meat quality (pH, conductivity, color, water holding capacity and shelf life).


Objective To investigate the application value of nicardipine injection against renal artery spasm in live donor nephrectomy. Methods 69 relatives of donating kidney in our hospital from January 2008 to December 2013 were analyzed and divided into two groups. 36 cases in group A were given nicardipine injection against renal artery spasm by infiltrating the renal artery and renal hilar, while 33 cases in group B were given 2% lidocaine. And the situation of renal artery spasm in live donor nephrectomy of the two groups was compared and analyzed. Results No renal artery spasm and renal ischemia occurred in the 36 donors of group A, while renal artery spasm occurred in 8 donors of the 33 donors of group B, the incidence was 24.2%(3 cases had pale donor kidney section, the occurrence rate was 9.1%; 3 cases had soft texture of kidney section, the occurrence rate was9.1%; 2 cases had long time of urine secretion, the incidence was 6.1%). Conclusion Nicardipine injection used in live donor nephrectomy has significant effect on renal artery spasm and reducing the incidence of donor renal ischemia.


The aim of this study is addressed to environmental problems from the perspective of the Qur'an. The focus of the research is the anthropocentric verses in the Qur'an. Anthropocentric verses are verses that have the meaning of humans as the center of the universe or humans as creatures that are super-being. The categorization of anthropocentric verses is compiled thematically (mau d hu'i) using a contextual hermeneutic approach. The classification of anthropocentric verses as a result of this research are: 1) Humans as the most glorified creatures 2) Humans as creatures that have power in nature, and 3) Humans as caliphs on earth. Several hermeneutical analyzes of the anthropocentric verse have been obtained. Human must not be arrogant as creatures that degrees are glorified. Humans are instructed not to cause damage on the earth and must be able to do good i h sân to all creatures created by Allah SWT. The obligation of humans as caliphs on earth is to prosper the earth rather than damage the earth


Drug combination therapy has become the mainstream approach to cancer treatment. One fundamental feature that makes combination trials different from single‐agent trials is the existence of the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) contour, that is, multiple MTDs. As a result, unlike single‐agent phase I trials, which aim to find a single MTD, it is often of interest to find the MTD contour for combination trials. We propose a new dose‐finding design, the waterfall design, to find the MTD contour for drug combination trials. Taking the divide‐and‐conquer strategy, the waterfall design divides the task of finding the MTD contour into a sequence of one‐dimensional dose‐finding processes, known as subtrials. The subtrials are conducted sequentially in a certain order, such that the results of each subtrial will be used to inform the design of subsequent subtrials. Such information borrowing allows the waterfall design to explore the two‐dimensional dose space efficiently using a limited sample size and decreases the chance of overdosing and underdosing patients. To accommodate the consideration that doses on the MTD contour may have very different efficacy or synergistic effects because of drug–drug interaction, we further extend our approach to a phase I/II design with the goal of finding the MTD with the highest efficacy. Simulation studies show that the waterfall design is safer and has higher probability of identifying the true MTD contour than some existing designs. The R package "BOIN" to implement the waterfall design is freely available from CRAN. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A current focus of tissue engineering is the use of adult human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) as an alternative to autologous chondrocytes for cartilage repair. Several natural and synthetic polymers (including cellulose) have been explored as a biomaterial scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering. While bacterial cellulose (BC) has been used in tissue engineering, its lack of degradability in vivo and high crystallinity restricts widespread applications in the field. Recently we reported the formation of a novel bacterial cellulose that is lysozyme‐susceptible and ‐degradable in vivo from metabolically engineered Gluconacetobacter xylinus. Here we report the use of this modified bacterial cellulose (MBC) for cartilage tissue engineering using hMSCs. MBC's glucosaminoglycan‐like chemistry, combined with in vivo degradability, suggested opportunities to exploit this novel polymer in cartilage tissue engineering. We have observed that, like BC, MBC scaffolds support cell attachment and proliferation. Chondrogenesis of hMSCs in the MBC scaffolds was demonstrated by real‐time RT–PCR analysis for cartilage‐specific extracellular matrix (ECM) markers (collagen type II, aggrecan and SOX9) as well as histological and immunohistochemical evaluations of cartilage‐specific ECM markers. Further, the attachment, proliferation, and differentiation of hMSCs in MBC showed unique characteristics. For example, after 4 weeks of cultivation, the spatial cell arrangement and collagen type‐II and ACAN distribution resembled those in native articular cartilage tissue, suggesting promise for these novel in vivo degradable scaffolds for chondrogenesis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract This paper extends the Realized-GARCH framework, by allowing the conditional variance equation to incorporate exogenous variables related to intra-day realized measures. The choice of these measures is motivated by the so-called heterogeneous auto-regressive (HAR) class of models. Our augmented model is found to outperform both the Realized-GARCH and the various HAR models in terms of in-sample fitting and out-of-sample forecasting accuracy. The new model specification is examined under alternative parametric density assumptions for the return innovations. Non-normality seems to be very important for filtering the return innovations to which variance responds and helps significantly upon the prediction performance of the suggested model.


The Internet and Internet search engines have revolutionized the way in which we search for, and integrate information into our daily lives. One of the problems with general Internet search engines is the diversity of contexts queries can assume. Therefore, the construction of context-restricted search engines designed for use within a specialized domain has been proposed (S. Lawrence, 2000). The objective of this article is to suggest a model for a collaborative, personalized meta-search agent system for the virtual manufacturing enterprise in the context of resource location and integration across scope of the extended manufacturing enterprise. The key differences between the proposed model and general search engines are (1) the ability to personalize the search task according to an individual user need, (2) the utilization of similar search sessions through partner collaboration at an information retrieval level, (3) leveraging on existing search services available on the virtual enterprise extranet and (4) autonomous behaviour through the use of


The Pacific Islands is regularly recognised as a region that does not favour the political ambitions of women. While Pacific women have played important political roles within women's organisations as advocates for social and political change in past decades, their path into institutional politics has been more difficult. The result is a region where women currently hold roughly 8% of parliamentary seats.1 New Zealand is not included in these figures. As a post-industrialised country, it makes more sense to compare the political standing of women in New Zealand with women in Australia rather than other Pacific Island countries (PICs) because of both countries' regionally unique levels of wealth, long histories of self-government, and broadly similar political traditions. New Zealand was the first state to recognise women's right to vote in 1893 but women did not win the right to stand for electoral representation until 1919, and it was not until 1933, that the first woman entered New Zealand's national parliament. By the 1980s, however, women began to make their political mark. Because of a party leadership challenge, Jenny Shipley became the first female Prime Minister in 1997, an office she held until a change of government which saw New Zealand's voters directly elect a second consecutive woman, Helen Clark, as Prime Minister in 1999 at the head of a Labour party government. Clark's government was re-elected three times until her party's electoral defeat in 2008, leading to her resignation as party leader. New Zealand's third female Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern won office just under a decade later, again at the head of


Turkey breeding is one of the most stress loaded areas of poultry farming. In order to remedy negative conditions caused by the stress factors associated with artificial incubation, the team of authors suggests transovarian use of a promising and all-pervasive antioxidant in the body – Glutathione. The article presents evidence of the presence of such properties in the claimed tripeptide, which was expressed in a decrease in the products of the peroxide cascade and an increase in the antioxidant activity of blood serum. It is proved that their implementation determines conditions to obtain biologically adequate offspring, promotes an implementation of their productive qualities in further ontogenesis. According to the results of the meat Biosafety study, it is recognized that glutathione does not negatively affect the quality and safety of meat.


The phase of the entire banking industry is rapidly changing in the 21 st century. A focus-shift from traditional banking to new service delivery channels is paramount among many banks to provide customers with 24/7 (around-the-clock) access to banking services for improved customer service delivery. Herein, we investigate into the impact of electronic banking (e-banking) service delivery on customer satisfaction in Ghana. A purposive non-probability sampling technique was utilized in a 150 sample-size selection from e-banking customers of Trust Bank Ghana Limited, Ecobank Ghana Limited and Barclays Bank Ghana Limited (50 from each bank). SPSS Statistics version 21 was used to analyze the primary data. Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the impact of e-banking service delivery on satisfaction of customers in the selected banks. For this study, a positive correlation between customer satisfaction and e-baking availability, reliability and convenience is established. It is therefore recommended that banks provide customers with uninterrupted, reliable and convenient e-banking services in order to satisfy and retain customers. Original Research Article Addai et al.; BJEMT, 9(3): 1-8, 2015; Article no.BJEMT.19269 2


It has been argued for many years that a new standard of Mandarin is developing within Taiwan, distinct from the official form based on the Beijing pronunciation, as well as the non-standard vernacular, Taiwan-guoyu. The parameters by which this new standard, Taiwanese Mandarin, may be recognized, however, and the extent to which it exists in common perceptions, remain largely unknown.
In order to better describe this variety, interviews were conducted in the north and south of Taiwan to elicit metapragmatic reports on the linguistic characteristics of highly standard and non-standard speech to mark opposing ends of a continuum of standardness. The inner area of this spectrum reveals the shape of a normative standard of Mandarin in common language ideologies. A quantitative sociolinguistic analysis was also conducted to measure usage of the segments elicited in these reports.
Participants indicated that the prescribed form of the retroflex initials [ʈʂ], [ʈʂʰ], and [ʂ] creates distance within interaction and marks speakers as 'weird' or 'strange'. Though it represents the standardized form, it is socially disfavored in general usage, thus marking one end of the continuum. In contrast, deletion of the labial feature in [w], [f], and [y], was most highly associated with a crude lack of sophistication, ruralness, and low education, marking the other end of the continuum.
In the quantitative analyses, the non-prescribed labial segments were associated with low SES, older age, and factors of local identity. The prescribed retroflex correlated with higher SES, and northern identity, and showed a change over time toward more prescribed usage. The youngest age category, however, showed a reversal of this trend. An intermediate category of the retroflex initials patterned very similarly to the prescribed form, however it was free of negative qualitative associations. Thus Taiwanese Mandarin is marked by the absence of prescribed retroflex and non-prescribed labial forms, and presence of the intermediate retroflex.
Some also questioned the basic existence of a 'standard' Mandarin in Taiwan, or explicitly affirmed the notion of a Taiwanese Mandarin. It is evident that the nature of standard Mandarin in Taiwan is in a state of sharp ideological and behavioral change.


My subject is the flood of decisions for coeducation at elite colleges and universities in the United States and the United Kingdom in the period 1969-74. Why did so many very traditional, very conservative, very elite, very old colleges and universities decide to embark on such a fundamental change? What happened, and how well did coeducation work in its early incarnations?In the United States, coeducation happened because it was in the strategic self-interest of all-male institutions like Princeton and Yale to admit women. By the late 1960s, these schools were beginning to see their applications decline, along with their yields. The high school students they called the "best boys" no longer wanted to go to all-male institutions, and the key issue was their ability to continue to attract those "best boys." (Harvard had begun to pull away from Princeton and Yale in the competition for the best high school students.) Coeducation became the means for places like Princeton and Yale to shore up a first-rate applicant pool and enrolled student body. It was not the result of a high-minded moral commitment to opening educational opportunities to women, nor was it the result of deep thinking about how to educate women. Rather, it was about what women could do for previously all-male institutions-about how women would help these schools renew their hold on the "best boys." Women played the instrumental role of improving the educational experience of men, and therefore, it is not surprising that going coed did not always well serve the women who were admitted to the early coed classes.A related point: The protagonists in this story are men. Save for Mary Ingraham Bunting, the president of Radcliffe College, every strategist, every decision-maker, every person leading the charge for coeducation was male. Coeducation resulted not from organized efforts by women activists but from strategic decisions taken by powerful men.Why did coeducation happen when it did? Changes in application patterns were a trigger, but the larger context of the 1960s set the stage. Thanks to the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the student movement, and the women's movement, colleges and universities by the end of the 1960s looked quite different than they had at the beginning of the decade. The composition of student bodies began to change to include a large number of public school students as well as students from less advantaged families, Catholics and Jews, and even African Americans. Admitting women followed logically. Men and women students demonstrated together, protested together, and registered black voters together, so not going to school together seemed increasingly outmoded. All of this, of course, bears on why high school students changed their minds about the attractiveness of all-male schools.It would be difficult to overestimate how tough it was to make coeducation happen. There was fierce opposition from alumni, as well as significant resistance from many faculty and students. Some examples illustrate the point.As for alumni, let's start with the title of my book, "Keep the Damned Women Out" It comes from a 1970 letter from a Dartmouth alumnus to the chair of the Dartmouth trustees: "For God's sake, for Dartmouth's sake, and for everyone's sake, keep the damned women out."2Next, consider an example from Yale. When the Yale Corporation first opined publicly on the education of undergraduate women, one alumnus responded this way: "There is a glory to tradition. I think of the girl filled weekend-the cocktail party, the dances, the plays . . . the big football game. Then there is the adventure of . . . journeying to the girls' colleges. . . . And gentlemen-let's face it-charming as women are-they get to be a drag if you are forced to associate with them each and every day. Think of the poor student who has a steady date-he wants to concentrate on the basic principles of thermodynamics, but she keeps trying to gossip about the idiotic trivia all women try to impose on men. …


Agalactia is a condition that is a complication of the postpartum period and is characterized by a complete absence of milk from the mother. The article presents data on the spread and causes of agalactia in cats, the results of the therapeutic effectiveness of the use of various drugs in its treatment. It was found that the main causes of agalactia in 6,6 % of cats were stresses of various etiologies in 27 % of cases, hormonal disorders in 23 %, infectious diseases in 41 %, and breast underdevelopment in only 9 %. Cats with agalactia by generally accepted pattern were intramuscularly injected with oxytocin 0.3 ml, twice a day, 5 days in a row; biogenic stimulator Apilak 1/2 tablet 2 times a day, 5–7 days; and subcutaneous injections of natural biogenic stimulator — cerebrospinal fluid obtained from cows 3 ml 1 time a week. Subcutaneous injections of cerebrospinal fluid as a biostimulator, which lacks the species specificity of cows at a dose of 1 ml per 1 kg of weight once a week, allow 94 % of newborn kittens to be preserved during 30 days of follow-up after childbirth, which confirms its stimulating effect on the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and central regulation of endocrine functions in general. Application in practice for blood loss and neurological diseases actualize the use of cerebrospinal fluid in obstetrics and gynecology with theoretical justification and clinical studies.


SUMMARY To estimate the total catch in a sport fishery sampled by a roving creel survey, we multiply an estimate of the total fishing effort by the estimated catch rate (i.e., catch per unit of fishing effort). While the statistical theory for estimating the fishing effort from instantaneous or progressive counts is well established, there is much confusion about the appropriate way to estimate the catch rate. Most studies have used the ratio of means or the mean of the ratios of individual catches and efforts. We analyzed the properties of these estimators of catch rate under the assumption that fishing is a stationary Poisson process. The ratio of means estimator has a finite second moment, while the mean ratio estimator has infinite variance. Simulation studies showed that the mean of ratios estimator tends to have high and unstable mean squared error relative to the ratio of means estimator and this is in accordance with empirical observations. We also studied the properties of the mean of ratios estimator when all interviews with people fishing for less than e minutes duration were disregarded for values of e up to 60 minutes. There was typically a marked reduction in mean squared error when the shorter trips were not included. We recommend that the mean of ratios estimator, with all trips less than 30 minutes disregarded, be used to estimate catch rate and hence total catch under the roving creel survey design. It has the correct expectation (at least approximately after the truncation) and almost always had smaller mean squared error than the ratio of means estimates in our simulations.


In our quest to hew to evidence-based practice, we therapists are victims of our professional fecundity: "Unless there is functional equivalence among different manualized renditions of the same treatment, the practitioner who wants to apply ESTs [empirically supported treatments] to his or her practice is faced with the daunting problem of learning 150+ specific manualized treatments" (Malik, Beutler, Alimohamed, Gallagher-Thompson, & Thompson, 2003, p. 151). In the face of the daunting challenge of mastering an array of therapies, a comprehensive review of decades of psychotherapy research yields the following irony: "It is hard to find a treatment that works better than another treatment and all seem to be better than doing nothing" (Beutler & Castonguay, 2006, p. 5). In the trauma field, concerted efforts have been made to sort the wheat from the chaff in grading treatments according to the extent and quality of research on their effectiveness (Foa, Keane, Friedman, & Cohen, 2009). Leading contenders for treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) include prolonged exposure and cognitive therapy, with significant overlap between them. Although exposure therapy is to be commended for the sheer extent of supportive research and the relative simplicity of the treatment protocol, its efficacy is not demonstrably superior to other effective therapies. It also bears noting that—to varying degrees—exposure is common to trauma therapies of different varieties; moreover, the mechanisms by which exposure works are anything but straightforward. Various brands of therapy have evolved and been researched in relation to narrowly defined psychiatric disorders, PTSD among them. Yet Foa and


The consumption of "snacks" has increased, however, data on their chemical composition are scarce. This study aimed to determine the levels of lipids and fatty acid profi le of these foods. It was analyzed 13 types of fried salted and 9 types of roasted savory. Fatty acids were determined by gas chromatography. The levels of total fat ranged from 2.7% to 28.8 it was found that the levels of saturated fatty acids in fried salted ranged from 0.7% to 9.7% and in roasted from 0.6% to 8.1%, with a predominance of stearic (0.2% to 2 , 2%) and palmitic (0% to 5.9%) acids. What concerns unsaturated cis, the range of variation was 1.0% to 8.1% in fried and 0.5% to 12.7% in roasted goods, with a predominance of essential fatty acids linoleic (0.0% to 11.4 %) and linolenic (0.0% to 1.3%). Trans fatty acids were detected in almost all snacks, the higher levels were found in roasted salted, especially in chicken pies and chicken pastry made in the oven (0 to 5.9%)


AccountAbility's 2005 Annual Conference, 'Reinventing Accountability for the 21 Century', did little to rekindle my faith in the game that has become accountability. It did not begin well, as we trailed along poorly signed corridors within the bowels of London's Earls Court to find the venue. Broader stakeholder interest appeared to have done little to shape the nature of arrival at this event. Grateful to have found the plenary session, we were returned immediately to the labyrinth that we had recently left. But this time it was an absence of conceptual signage that left us wandering and wondering. In the course of the opening sessions, accountability was claimed as the protector of human rights, the means of ensuring legal conformance, the road to global standards, the key contributor to democratic process, and the critical agent for fighting corruption. Had we, perhaps, inadvertently slipped into the conference on the Weapon for Mass Reconstruction? While speakers such as Mary Robinson and Achim Steiner were excellent, what was on the table for reinvention? The meaning of accountability would not be so bothersome if it was not patently clear that the accountability field has become big business (though big business has not essentially become more accountable). The large registration fee aside, the value of accountability appears to have been reduced to the ability to measure. The event was a marketplace awash with offers of measurement frameworks, studies, and qualifications. As I resisted the urge to join the programme that creates 'Certified Sustainability Assurance Practitioners', or the invitation to delve into the Accountability Rating 2005 that places BP and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in pole position, some questions came to me. These were less about the reinvention of accountability and more about a deeper debate on various issues that have been in the air for some time.


The article presents generally selected issues regarding the safety of ship structures, fuel containment systems, processing and preparation of LNG liquefied gas as fuel for marine propulsion systems and generating sets, in relation to certain requirements of the IGF Code and the provisions of the classification society Bureau Veritas rules. The publication presents the fundamental criteria and assumptions of the IGF Code, which may be taken into account when creating the concept and design of units powered by LNG fuel, also considering the limits of air pollution emissions from ships defined in Annex VI of the MARPOL Convention.


Background The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is growing in western countries. Poor liver status and tumour size make curative options scarce. Palliative treatments such as chemo-embolization are improving survival in selected patients, but side-effects are frequent. There is a need for the validation of alternative treatments. Metabolic radiotherapy using lipiodol labelled with 131I-iodine (I-131-lipiodol) is one of these treatments. Objectives To analyse the effect of I-131-lipiodol in a population of advanced HCC patients and to define the potential prognostic factors in this setting. Methods A retrospective analysis of the effect of I-131-lipiodol on 29 patients bearing multifocal tumours was performed. An analysis of two subgroups, defined by a Cancer of the Liver Italian Program (CLIP) score of 2 or less (n=20) or greater than 2 (n=9) was performed to assess the prognostic significance of the score in this setting. Results Overall median survival in the entire study population was 203 days (95% confidence interval 83–322 days). Median survival was significantly better in the group with CLIP scores of 2 or less than in the group with CLIP scores greater than 2 (453 versus 60 days, P⩽0.001). Treatment-related mortality was 6.9% (one interstitial pneumonia and one acute liver failure). Conclusion The survival of patients treated with I-131-lipiodol in this series compared favourably with published data. Stratification according to the CLIP score was useful to predict survival. In particular, patients with portal vein thrombosis should only be considered for I-131-lipiodol if the CLIP score is lower than 2.


The A. analyzes the material on natural and magic healing from Dolenjska and Bela krajina, collected between 1950 and 1983. Even though this material had not been collected in a systematic manner, it contains basic and valuable data which would be of great value for a possible comprehensive study on folk medicine in Dolenjska and Bela krajina. Medicinal, and especially herbological knowledge, has once again became popular in this part of Slovenia. This is also due to numerous advices on how to heal with plants, published in newspapers, magazines and books. The material on ethnomedicine, collected in the Dolenjska and Bela krajina areas, therefore represents part of an acquired and inherited knowledge on healing and curing.


A method is described for optimal capacitor placement along a distribution line, using the data gathered by reactive current recorders installed at major feeder taps. A computer program was written to summarize the data and adjust it for seasonal variation so that they represent an average week. These adjusted data are then used to determine the size and placement along the feeder of both fixed and switched line capacitors to loss. The method used by the program for reporting the data is discussed. >


The IPA symbol is one of the key elements in studying English. Being able to recognize the symbols is generally acknowledged can help the EFL students in identifying word at the level of pronunciation. This paper attempts to present the comprehensive pictures of what students, who are taking English education as their major at one of teacher training institution in Bandung, have in their mind toward the use of IPA symbols when they took Pronunciation class. It also aims to depict the students' knowledge in regard with the IPA symbols, and its function according to their own perspective. This study will employ a qualitative descriptive research design embracing the characteristics of an empirical study. The data were obtained from two stage of questionnaires; close-ended and open–ended questionnaires and retrospective interview. The findings were expected to provide insight and suggest EFL lecturer to give more exposure on teaching IPA symbols to prospective EFL teachers. Teaching IPA symbols comprehensively will equip them with better pronunciation and help them in teaching pronunciation to their students in the foreseeable future.


An experiment system suitable for laboratory level is developed which can be used to analyze motions of 2 wheel driven car and simulate the performance of running control system. Although the system is manufactured corresponding to the structure and kinematics characteristic of gantry crane, other vehicle's running control algorithms can also be studied.


With the world population aging, the prevalence of age-related brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's, and cerebrovascular diseases. In the following, we built brain age predictors by leveraging 46,000 brain magnetic resonance images [MRIs] and cognitive tests from UK Biobank participants. We predicted age with a R-Squared [R2] of 76.4+/-1.0% and a root mean squared error of 3.58+/-0.05 years. We defined accelerated brain aging as the difference between brain age (predicted age) and age. Accelerated brain aging is partially heritable (h_g2=35.9+/-2.6%), and is associated with 219 single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs] in 25 genes (e.g CRHR1, involved in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal pathway). Similarly, it is associated with biomarkers (e.g blood pressure), clinical phenotypes (e.g general health), diseases (e.g diabetes), environmental (e.g smoking) and socioeconomic variables (e.g income and education). We performed the same analysis, this time distinguishing between anatomical (MRI-based) and functional (cognitive tests-based) brain aging. We found the two accelerated aging phenotypes to be phenotypically .112+/-.006 correlated and genetically uncorrelated, with distinct SNPs and non-genetic factors associated with each. In conclusion, anatomical and functional brain aging are two distinct, complex phenotypes, which also differ in their genetic and non-genetic factors. Our brain predictors could be used to monitor the effects of emerging rejuvenating therapies on the brain.


The interaction between identical two-level atoms with a system that consists of two coupled cavities connected by an optical fiber was investigated. With new bosonic operators, the interaction Hamiltonian between the fiber and the cavities can be diagonalized (Pellizzari's model1). In the strong coupling regime (cavity field-fiber), the interaction between atoms and the non-resonant normal modes can be eliminated, simplifying our system to that of one atom interacting with a single-mode cavity. For this interaction, we have analyzed the entanglement between distant atoms. We present two simple procedures to generate two atoms in a maximally entangled state, interacting (i) successively and (ii) simultaneously with the coupled cavities system.


In this work it is used as a dynamical system the electronic circuit that integrates the modified system of Rössler coupled equations. This system has a nonlinearity given by a piecewise linear function and shows chaotic behavior for certain values of the system parameters. The experimental characterization of the modified Rössler system dynamics is realized through a bifurcation diagram. It is presented a theoretical fundamentation of dynamical systems introducing important concepts like strange attractors, invariant manifolds and also a stability analysis of asymptotic behaviors like fixed points and limit cycles. For a metric characterization of chaos, the definition of the Lyapunov exponents is presented. Also introduced are the conditional and transversal Lyapunov exponents, that are related with the synchronization theory of chaotic systems. It is also presented the conceptual ideas of chaotic synchronization introducing the definitions of identical synchronization, phase synchronization and synchronization manifold. The main properties of modulational sychronization are obtained from discrete systems (maps), giving special attention to the scaling laws. We report our chief contribution: the experimental analysis of modulational intermittency in two coupled Rössler circuits (electronic oscillators) in a master-slave configuration. Particular attention is devoted to the statistical laws associated with modulational intermittency.


Transpiration and accumulation of mineral nutrients in grape berries 3 weeks after full bloom clusters of Silvaner vines were treated with a Na 2 CO 3 -olive oil-emulsion (E) or with liquid paraffin (P), respectively, in order to promote or delay transpiration of the berries. Transpiration (μl H 2 O · cm -2  ·  s -1 ) of untreated berries decreased by about 80 % during the experiment (30-85 d after full bloom); treatment with E increased, treatment with P decreased transpiration. The Ca content (mg berry -1 ) of untreated or P-treated berries increased slowly, while in E-treated berries the Ca accumulation increased rapidly. In E-treated berries the Mg and K contents were increased also, but the differences were less often significant. P-treated be rries did not significantly differ from untreated berries with respect to their Ca, Mg or K contents. The Ca accumulation in berries and the transpiration rate of these berries are closely correlated (r = +0.7505).


The pH within red blood cells is of fundamental importance. Hydrogen ion concentration serves as a governor for both glycolysis and oxygcn dclivery, the former supplying energy and intermediates to maintain erythrocyte function, thc lattcr being crucial to the integrity of the organism. Under resting conditions, crythrocytes, like most other cclls studied, have an intracellular pH that is lower than the extracellular pH (Waddell & Bates, 1969). In norimal human erythrocytes from venous blood, the intracellular pH has been reported to be between 7.07 and 7.28 with an cxtracellular pH in the range of 7.25-7.39 (Waddell & Bates,


Whenever I see a patient with a large carcinoma of the rectum or rectosig mold colon, I think how unfortunate it is that this patient had not had a sig moidoscopic examination as part of his routine physical examination in the preceding years. For if he had, then this large lesion may have been dis covered in its early preinvasive, or even premalignant, stage, when surgical treatment would have been so much more effective. While the complicated and expensive search goes on for a chemical or ray of energy with which to cure cancer, the use of a simple, in expensive diagnostic procedure to de tect rectal carcinoma hi its inception is often neglected. Perhaps, a brief pres entation of some of the facts involved may help emphasize the importance of the sigmoidoscope, as well as the car dioscope (cardiogram), in the exami nation of the patient over 40 years. In spite of increased education of the public to undergo an annual physical examination, many people still feel it is not necessary to visit the doctor as long as they "¿ feel fine.―It is still not appre ciated by many people, including phy sicians, that the completely asympto matic person may harbor an early or even a somewhat advanced carcinoma of the rectum or rectosigmoid colon. The American Cancer Society has warned the public to be aware of the danger signals (symptoms) of cancer, which include unusual bleeding and


Singularities and uncertainty in manipulator dynamic is a major issue in kinematic control of manipulator which is obtained by applying robot model. In this paper, artificial neural networks with optimal training process and training data have been proposed as a way to solve this problem. The main idea of this approach is to use an artificial neural network to learn the characteristics of the robot instead of using an explicit model of the robot. Network is designed to have one hidden layer. The inputs are Cartesian position of the end-effctor along the X, Y, Z axis and Roll, Pitch and Yaw (RPY) orientation and linear velocity of end-effector. Network outputs is defined the position and angular velocity of each joint. In a workspace without obstacle, smooth geometric trajectorys in the joint space are designed. One of the major problems of using neural network is the selecting appropriate training data for network training, therefore, after presenting a method to generate training data, Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm applied for training the network. At the end, results compared with other neural network and real values. The results show that the proposed neural network has good performance.


Analytic expressions of three-centre two-electron Coulomb and hybrid integrals over B functions are obtained using the Fourier transform method thoroughly explored by Steinborn's group. These analytic expressions involve semi-infinite integrals which are slowly convergent due to the presence of hypergeometric and spherical Bessel functions in the integrands. We have proven that these hypergeometric functions can be expressed as finite expansions and the integrands involving these series satisfy all the conditions required to apply the HD̄ approach which greatly simplifies the application of the nonlinear D̄-transformation. This work presents a rapid and accurate evaluation of these integrals, obtained by using a new approach, which we called SD̄. This new method is based on the HD̄ and D̄ methods and some practical properties of spherical Bessel, reduced Bessel and sine functions. The SD̄ method has greatly simplified the calculations, avoiding the long and difficult implementation of the successive zeros of the spherical Bessel function and a method for solving linear systems, which are required by HD̄ and D̄.


Immune algorithm with the lightweight,distributed and self evolution characteristics can solve the problem efficiently of unknown Trojan detection which is in the domain of information security.It makes up for the defect of traditional Trojan detection technology.It discusses concretely the immune algorithm of unknown Trojan detection and the process of detection,and summarizes the existent problem from both detector generating and detection's process perspectively.A chart of trend of antigen detection is also proposed.According to the artificial immune theorem,negative selection algorithm and r bit sequence match algorithm is applied,the significant parameter r in the artificial immune system about the unknown Trojan detection is carefully analysed.Experimental results show that the greater the detection set is,the better detecting performance the system has,and the system's performance and detecting parameter r are closely related.


Soon to be published in its Third Edition, this now established reference work has been expanded to include additional syndromes and further information to aid the reader in contacting self-help groups. Dictionary of Syndromes and Inherited Disorders provides a practical reference for those with a syndrome or inherited disorder and for their caregivers. It describes the disorders and problems of both child and adult, and considers the day-to-day management of these conditions. It is written in non-technical language, so as to be comprehensible for a general audience, but with enough detail for the medical and nursing professions. The text is well indexed and has an extensive glossary.


Julie Rajaratnam and colleagues describe a novel method, called the Corrected Sibling Survival method, to measure adult mortality in countries without good vital registration by use of histories taken from surviving siblings.


The present studies were carried out on melon crop in the experimental fields of the Faculty of Crop Protection, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam. When the plants were fully grown, a 30- leaf sample from the third and fourth node of randomly selected creepers from the field were plucked. The leaves were tentatively subdivided into four Sectors (A, B, C and D). The sector A and D were presenting the proximal half of the leaf whereas B and C the distal half of the leaf. The whitefly egg and nymphs were separately counted on these sectors. The overall mean eggs of 30 leaves on sector A (32.88±2.55), B (20.76±1.82), C (17.10±1.30) and D (24.58±1.71) were recorded. Egg-density on the proximal leaf Sectors A and D was 34.49% and 25.78%, respectively, which was higher than sector B (21.78%) and C (17.93%). The population percentages of nymphs on sectors A, B, C and D were 21.09, 26.92, 29.35 and 22.62%, respectively. The overall mean number of nymphs on sector A as121.73±9.29, B 155.37±10.71, C 169.41±11450 and D 130.59±11.39, respectively. The Analyses of variance showed that the distribution of whitefly eggs varied significantly (P<0.001) on leaf sectors. However, the nymphs were significantly more in number on Sector B and C than on A and D (P<0.05). It was also confirmed by DMR test.


In most speaker recognition systems speech utterances are not constrained in content or language. In a text-dependent speaker recognition system lexical content of speech and language are known in advance. The goal of this paper is to show that this information can be used by a segmental features (SF) approach to improve a standard Gaussian mixture model with MFCC features (GMM-MFCC). Speech features such as mean energy, delta energy, pitch, delta pitch, the formants F1 – F4 and their bandwidths B1 – B4 and the difference between F2 and F1 are calculated on segments and are associated to phonemes and phoneme groups for each speaker. The SF and GMM-MFCC approaches are combined by multiplying the outputs of two classifiers. All the experiments are performed on the two versions of TEVOID: TEVOID16 with 16 and the upgraded TEVOID50 with 50 speakers. On TEVOID16, SF achieves 84.23%, GMM-MFCC 91.75%, and the combined approach gives 95.12% recognition rate. On TEVOID50, the SF approach gives 68.69%, while both GMM-MFCC and the combined model achieve 95.84% recognition rate.. On both databases, the number of male/female confusions decreased for the combined model. These results are promising for using segmental features to improve the recognition rate of textdependent systems.


This article reinterprets the urban pattern of the oases of southern Tarim Basin, which flourished in the first half of the first millennium C.E. using the dispersed urban complexes framework. Disperse urban centre, also known as a low-density urban complex, is a site that had an urban function, but its morphology was much different from compact cities of, for example, China or mediaeval Europe. Low-density urban complexes, like Tikal in Mesoamerica or Angkor in South-East Asia, despite their distinct urban functions, had the cityscape consisting of intermingled monumental agriculture, water management features and agricultural field. Thus, the oasis-cities of southern Tarim Basin were different from compact urban centres of neighbouring China and western Central Asia and showed some similarities to complexes like Tikal and Angkor. This article evaluates if those sites can be associated with low-density urbanism. Three selected sites, 尼雅 [Niya], 米兰 [Miran] and 樓蘭 [Loulan], have been evaluated for the presence of characteristic associated with low-density urbanism: dispersed monumental architecture, large scale anthropogenic landscapes modifications, and pattern of alternating housing clusters and agricultural fields. This can affect our understating of both the understanding of urbanism in the region and low-density urbanism on the global scale.


At the AL-Ramadi Teaching Hospital in Al-Ramadi, seventy samples of hair, nails, and skin were collected from patients with probable dermatophytosis of various ages and genders. between the 8th of December and the 2nd of February (2020-2021). There were 32 males and 38 females among the 70 patients tested, with ages ranging from 8 to 76. The largest rate of dermatophyte infection was found in the age group 21-40, with 33 cases, followed by the age group 0-20, with 20 cases, and the age group 41-60, with 8 cases, while the lowest rate was found in the age group 61-80, with 3 cases (4.3 percent). All of the specimens To identify the dermatophyte species, they were examined directly (KOH 10%) and cultivated on Sabourauds dextrose agar media. In both males and females, direct microscopic inspection indicated positive results, and cases were verified by culture (containing dermatophytes and Candida spp.). Tinea pedis, Tinea capitis, Tinea corporis, and onychomycosis were the most prevalent clinical types. Tinea cruris and Tinea faciei are two species of Tinea that grow together. had the lowest infection rates because they were both. Males were found to have more T. pedis, T. corporis, T. cruris, and T. faciei, whereas females had more T. pedis, T. corporis, T. cruris, and T. faciei. were found in greater numbers in males. Six species from two genera were discovered among 26 isolated dermatophytes species. Trichophyton rubrum,, followed by ,Trichophyton verrucosum, ,was the most commonly isolated etiologic agent in the total. Other dermatophytes included Microsporum canis, Trichophyton interdigitale,, Trichophyton mentagrophytes,, and Microsporum gypseum,, in that order.The CTAB technique was used to extract genomic DNA from all isolated samples (dermatophytes and Candida spp.) with a purity of 1.7-1.8. To identify dermatophytes and Candida species, the ITS regions of all extracted DNA were amplified using the ITS1/ITS4 primer combination. The goods were excellent. Electrophoresed 2 percent agarose gels in TBE buffer were electrophoresed, and the results were visualized using ethidium bromide staining under UV irradiation.


The aim of this study is to examine how Swedish companies manage business relationships and cultural barriers with Chinese customers. In order to achieve this, two research questions were formulate ...


Similar timing of movements of the two hands has been observed when they are moved to separate targets (Kelso et al., 1979). This was taken as evidence for a low-level, co-ordinative structure that constrains the muscles of the arms to function as a single unit. An experiment to investigate the relation between voluntary timing control and timing in bimanual movement is described. The task required subjects to make repetitive movements of unequal difficulty for the two hands with the hands arriving synchronously at their respective targets. Estimates of the covariance of successive intervals defined by pairs of left-right responses (arrivals at the targets) were not negative. It is shown that this indicates that the motor delay between the timer regulating repetition rate and the overt responses has no component common to left- and right-responses. Although the co-ordinative structure is described as low-level, in terms of the time sequence of operations associated with each response pair, the data indicate its place is before, not after, the timer.


We give two, new upper bounds for oblivious permutation routing on the mesh network. One is an O(N0:75) algorithm for the twodimensional mesh with constant queue-size. This is the first algorithm which improves substantially the trivial O(N) bound. The other is an 1:16√N + o(√N) algorithm on the three-dimensional mesh with unlimited queue-size. This algorithm allows at most three bends in the path of each packet. If the number of bends is restricted to minimal, i.e., at most two, then the bound jumps to Ω(N2=3) as was shown in ESA'97.


The effects of temperature,light intensity,pH value and salinity on photosynthesis of Botryococcus braunii UTEX 572 and B.braunii UTEX 2441 were studied by measuring net photosynthetic O2 evolution.For B.braunii UTEX 572,the suitable light intensity range was 400-1600 μmol·m-2·s-1,with the saturation light intensity 800 μmol·m-2·s-1;the suitable temperature range was 25-35℃,with the optimal temperature about 30℃;the suitable pH range was 5.0-8.0,with the optimal pH about 7.0,the suitable salinity range was 0-0.2 mol·L-1,with the optimal salinity about 0.1 mol·L-1.For B.braunii UTEX 2441,the suitable light intensity range was 400-1600 μmol·m-2·s-1,with the saturation light intensity 400 μmol·m-2·s-1;the suitable temperature range was 25-35℃,with the optimal temperature about 30℃;the suitable pH range was 5.0-8.0,with the optimal pH about 7.0;the net photosynthetic O2 evolution decreased dramatically while the salinity increased.The photosynthetic characteristics of two B.braunii strains indicated the basic physiological and ecological characteristics:adaption to relative strong light intensity,relative high temperature,neutral to acid environment and lower salinity.The results are helpful for optimizing the culture condition.Some differences exist between two B.braunii strains in their response to the change of light intensity,temperature,pH value and salinity,compared with B.braunii UTEX 2441,B.braunii UTEX 572 has higher saturation light intensity,adaptive to higher temperature and much broader pH,its growth is promoted by mild increase of salinity,which indicates that B.braunii UTEX 572 has greater potential for fast growth in cultivation,the result provided evidence for selecting good strain that suitable for mass culture of B.braunii.


Filtration tests were made on Al-deoxidized iron melts in a 50 kg vacuum induction melting and casting unit using commercial foam, multi-hole and loop filters. Samples from the solidified metal were prepared for chemical analysis and quantitative metallography. Al2O3 inclusions were produced by the addition of pure Al to the oxidized metal. Filtration efficiencies based on the content of chemically analysed total oxygen or oxide particle size distribution were evaluated. Filtration of pure iron melts using ceramic foam filters reaches efficiencies up to 90%. A minimum of total ixygen content around 20 to 30 ppm is attained independent from the initial oxygen content of the melt. The lowest levels are achieved when 25 ppi foam filters are applied. Filtration tests using 100 cpsi multi-hole filters for pure iron reveal filtration efficiencies of 80% and total removal of inclusions larger than 20 μm in diameter. Filtration efficiencies of 72 to 84% for pure iron were obtained using ceramic loop filters of different string diameters. From the evaluation of volume flow capacities and filter resistances it was evident that casting time is prolonged up to the threefold as compared to casting tests without integrated filters. Filtration of steel melts using ceramic foam, multi-hole or loop filters is an effective tool. High separation efficiencies are achieved, but filtration capacities of the porous filter media are limited in view of large steel volumes.


We performed Principle Component Analysis (PCA) over 264 galaxies in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (Sanders et al., 2003) using 12, 25, 60 and 100μm flux data observed by IRAS and 9, 18, 65, 90 and 140μm flux data observed by AKARI. We found that (i)the first principle component was largely contributed by infrared to visible flux ratio, (ii)the second principal component was largely contributed by the flux ratio between IRAS and AKARI, (iii)the third principle component was largely contributed by infrared colors.


The following short articles were presented at a special session of the Pacific Arts Association, held at the College Arts Association annual meeting in New York in February 2007. Entitled "Cultural Properties—Reconnecting Pacific Arts," the panel brought together curators and anthropologists working in the Pacific, and with Pacific collections elsewhere, with the intention of presenting a series of case studies evoking the discourse around cultural property that has emerged within this institutional, social, and material framework. The panel was conceived in direct response to the ways that cultural property, specifically in relation to museum collections, has been discussed recently in major metropolitan art museums such as the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). This prevailing cultural property discourse tends to use antiquities—that most ancient, valuable, and malleable of material culture, defined categorically by the very distancing of time that in turn becomes a primary justification for their circulation on the market or the covetous evocation of national identity—as a baseline for discussion of broader issues around national patrimony and ownership.


Teaching processes are changing, and Higher Education is not an exception. Professors are adapting their teaching methods to b-learning classes. They are looking for innovative approaches and tools that allow engaging students in the classrooms. This paper presents the results of a teaching and challenging experience. The TeachTeach paradigm was used in a fully online environment. Professors explored several methods/approaches during the semester, and the students were faced-off with a new reality of learning. They attested students skills like programming, resilience, innovation and entrepreneur capabilities during the development of a project with an actual web application. The results show that the efforts were tremendous but beneficial for all the stakeholders. At the end of the case study, a few numbers should be highlighted: 11,173 Downloads, 15,224 Messages, 200,000 Sessions and 208 online hour classes. Comparing this approach with other curricular units (CUnit) online strategies, 96,53% of the students considered it equal or better. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Applied computing → Interactive learning environments


The construction engineering project cost control is an eternal theme for the construction enterprise cost management,also has important meaning for our today's society.But with the market price rising,especially the cost of labor booming in recent years,materials and diesel price fluctuating frequently,it brings about a big impact for cost control.But if the enterprise wants to implement modern business management,it is indispensable to perfect the project cost management system and improves the quality project cost management work.All of these are based on the effective project cost control.


Concomitant with the rise of neoliberalism, Booker prize winning novels, since the 1980s, have consistently mediated global awareness of national contexts within a globalised economy.

This paper will discuss the globalization of literature through the celebrity status of the Booker prize. It focuses, in particular, on the contemporary Irish writer, Anne Enright and her 2007 Booker prize novel, The Gathering. I will argue that the ephemeral nature of the text, expressed through the intimate details of the domestic, the psychological and familial, appear at odds with the contemporary national preoccupation with excessive materialism, consumerism and overspending. Does Ireland's relationship to global economic conditions reflect national, cultural and social pathologies reflected in its literature? Does globally recognized Irish literature represent an alternative vision of Ireland that resists the vicissitudes of the global economy, even while these images depend on global forces?

If Enright's novel gained international fame just as Ireland teetered on the cusp of economic decline, then I suggest that the novel resists this by recuperating and celebrating the rich legacy of Irish literary culture, and indeed, Irish culture more broadly. The text becomes a site of contradictory images of Ireland, asserting a timelessness that is paradoxically reaffirmed only by the novel's timely emergence onto an international scene only too conscious of Ireland's economic woes


Synopsis The mites of the subfamily Parasitinae in the British Isles and the Channel Islands are revised. Thirty-six species belonging to nine genera are recorded of which one is new to science and fourteen are new to the British fauna. Habitat and distributional data are given and keys to the genera and species for deutonymphs, males and females are provided. The taxonomy includes eleven new specific synonyms and five new combinations.


The successful expression of the visual beauty of architectural buildings is a common feature of all the masterpieces during the history. Without a good understanding of its meanings first, an architect couldn't harmoniously translate his or her ideas into a real works. This paper focuses on the relationship beneath the appearance of visual art, which has unveiled the order of the nature. By summarizing the principles of the visual art modes, the author deems that it is a dynamic process in the organizing of the fundamental components of the architecture language, i.e., the mutual communication of the observer and the objects. These principles are also important in the appreciation of existing architectural buildings, especially in the grasping of the relationship between its cultural heritage and the technical progress. Through a perspective review on the historical development of the modes of the visual beauty of the architectural buildings, the author has reached a conclusion that although the way for the discovery and manifestation of the visual beauty of the architectural art is changing, the inner nature of their beauty is eternal, and that to grasp the essence of its beauty is still endless pursuit of modern architects.


In order to deeply research aerodynamic performance for lift wind turbine and lift-drag wind turbine,based on the CFD software this article used k-ω SST turbulent model,adopted double moving mesh technology,carried out field calculation on lift wind turbine and lift-drag wind turbine,calculated their start-up wind speed and cut-in wind speed,research their aerodynamic performance under low wind speed. The result showed that lift-drag wind turbine had the larger starting torque,smaller cut-in wind speed and smaller start-up wind speed; lift-drag wind turbine was easier to start-up than lift wind turbine at low wind speed while the lift-drag wind turbine's output power was larger before stall,but its output power was lower than that of lift wind turbine after stall.


It's the requirement of the new era that quality education develop to innovation education and that the Chinese teaching in middle school transform from impartation mode to creativity one.The creativity mode should be oriented to"learning to create through acquiring new knowledge",the entrance to which is to teach with practice as its centre.Its main idea is to foster creativity and imagination;the proper approach is to activate factors of motive,emotion and intelligence;the scientific ways are rich learning,excavating discussion,everyday thinking and ability fostering in research.The core is to discard useless adaptability and develop useful adaptability and individual character.


Background Trace metals like copper (Cu) play a vital role in phytoplankton growth, yet aspects of the role of Cu in biogeochemical cycles remain unclear. Cu is complexed (>99%) by strong organic ligands that control the bioavailable Cu2+ concentrations in the marine environment. Despite the importance of Cu-binding ligands, an understanding of the cycling of these ligands and their impact on Cu distributions has not been established. A large scale view of Cu and Cu-binding ligand concentrations will offer an improved understanding of the role organic ligands play in the Cu biogeochemical cycle.


Carcinoma of the large intestine or rectum is not a common tumor in Japan yet it equals the stomach in frequency among Hawaiians of Japanese ancestry. A study of carcinoma of the large intestine discovered at autopsy in a Honolulu hospital revealed clinically unsuspected cancer in 3.4% of 379 Japanese patients who were older than 70. These constituted 14% of all of this hospital's newly registered large‐bowel cancer patients in this age group. The majority of the tumors were at the Dukes A stage, suggesting that they were probably presymptomatic. These patients averaged 83 years of age. This suggests that careful autopsy study of the large intestine in all Japanese dying after age 70 might double the yield of new tumors in this age group. In the face of a rising incidence of large‐bowel cancer in old age, de‐emphasis of frequency and precision of autopsies will make future morbidity studies increasingly inaccurate.


After 12 years of implementation, the National Target Program on building new-style rural areas in Vietnam has achieved remarkable achievements in terms of both scale and speed of meeting the standards of building new-style rural areas, making an important contribution to the cause of rural socio-economic development in particular and the development of the country in general. However, there are still some limitations in terms of standard local structure, sustainability of criteria, investment resources to build new-style rural areas, quality and value of products, etc. If there is no solution soon, it will become a big barrier, negatively affecting the results of the program in the coming time. This article focuses on analyzing the current situation of the implementation of the National Target Program on building new-style rural areas in Vietnam for the period 2010-2022 in terms of economic aspects, recognizing the successes and identifying the limitations and specifying the cause of the limitations, thereby proposing some remedial solutions to contribute to the effective implementation of the policy of on building new-style rural areas throughout the country.  Article visualizations:


A special committee set up by the People's League of Health in July, 1935, to investigate and consider the nutrition of expectant and nursing mothers in relation to maternal and infant mortality and morbidity has prepared an interim report of its research. This document is signed on behalf of the special committee by its chairman, Prof. James Young, by Dr. C. 0. Hawthorne, chairman of council of the League, and by Dr. W. C. W. Nixon, medical secretary of the special committee. The report, with minor omissions, is printed below. 0


textabstractAbstract
We investigated the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the 10-item Questionnaire on Smoking Urges (QSU-Brief) in a Dutch smokers sample (N = 208). The questionnaire displayed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alphas > 0.83), and scores were strongly correlated with three other rating scales for measuring craving, urge, and desire for cigarettes, and moderately linked to questionnaires that tap related constructs, such as cigarette dependence. As in previous research, a two factor structure was revealed. The first factor was best described by 'the relief from nicotine withdrawal or negative affect with an urgent and overwhelming desire to smoke', and appeared to be associated with negative affect, but not with positive affect. The second factor reflected 'the desire and intention to smoke', and was neither associated with positive nor negative affect. The factor structure, however, slightly deviates from the original, English version of the QSU-Brief, which might be explained by language differences. Overall, the Dutch translation of the QSU-Brief offers a reliable, valid, and multidimensional assessment of cigarette craving and appears suitable for use in a general population of young, Dutch adults.


Numerous research articles exist for backbone formation in wireless networks; however, they cannot be applied straightforward in cognitive radio network (CRN) due to its peculiar characteristics. Since virtual backbone has many advantages such as reduced routing overhead, dynamic maintenance, and fast convergence speed, we intend to propose a backbone formation protocol in CRN. In this paper, we propose a tree‐based backbone formation protocol along with its maintenance. Our protocol is based on non‐iterative approach, thus leading towards limited message overhead and faster convergence speed. The proposed algorithm first forms the tree by maintaining the parent‐child relationship, and second, the parent nodes are connected together to form the virtual backbone. In the end, we evaluate the performance our protocol through extensive simulations.


: The key purpose of the very research is to highlight the role and significance of abusive supervision, workplace incivility and emotional intelligence in the health sector of Pakistan. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 302 respondents from health sector in KpK. Stratified sampling with proportionate allocation method of probability sampling technique was used by the scholars. Exploratory factor analysis and structure equation modeling were used to analysis the collected data. Results of the study demonstrate a strong positive link between all the three dimension of abusive supervision (i.e. anger active abuse, passive abuse, and humiliations active) and workplace incivility. The results further suggest that emotional intelligence play a moderating role in the relationship between abusive supervision and workplace incivility, such that with high emotional intelligence the strong effect of abusive supervision weaken on workplace incivility. Practical and theoretical contributions of the study was highlighted with suggestions for future research were given at the end of the paper.


The present invention discloses a surveillance camera automatic cleaning device, to overcome the prior art clean installation of surveillance cameras in the high, low efficiency of manual cleaning work, insecurity, but also disadvantages occupied a crane provided. In the side of the support pole surveillance camera, the support is mounted on the push-linked with lifting mechanism, so that the rotatable brush fit to surveillance cameras cover electric putter. Because of the surveillance cameras installed electric pole putt, putting electric lifting mechanism with interlocking push the brush so that the brush and cover with surveillance cameras fit, operated electric lifting mechanism and a rotating brush , you can monitor the camera cover cleaned, ready to clean up the steering mechanism, so that surveillance cameras monitor remains in good condition, cleaning staff will not need to use a crane to clean up under the surveillance cameras, automatically clean safe and reliable. The apparatus is simple structure, high efficiency, does not occupy a large crane used in the production.


We report herein a new, practical, and economic synthesis of the phosphodiesterase inhibitor Rolipram on a multigram scale as well as the synthesis of new 4-aryl pyrrolidones and beta-aryl-gamma-amino butyric acids (GABA derivatives) employing an efficient Heck-Matsuda arylation of 3-pyrroline with aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborates. Racemic Rolipram was resolved into its enantiomers using chiral simulated moving bed chromatography having the low-cost microcrystalline cellulose triacetate as a chiral stationary phase.


Effects of somatotropin and Insulin on oocytes of porcine in vitro maturation,cleavage after parthenogenetic activation,apoptosis of cumulus and expression of Bcl-2 and Bax were studied.The results showed that somatotropin and Insulin had double effect on oocytes maturated in vitro and cleavage.The rate of maturation and cleavage of porcine oocytes matured in medium supplemented with somatotropin(0.15μg.mL-1) or insulin(5μg.mL-1) was significantly higher compared with control and other groups(p0.05).Somatotropin and Insulin could inhibited apoptosis of cumulus and expression of Bax on cumulus in porcine in vitro maturation cumulus-oocyte complexes.


This paper reports functionalized zinc sulphide (ZnS) semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots, approx., 2.5 nm) which are an important building block in self-assembled nanostructures. ZnS is functionalized by organic stabilizer Thio glycolic acid (TGA). The samples have been synthesized by colloidal technique at relatively low temperature (below 100°C) at an atmospheric pressure of 10−3 torr. Manganese (Mn) doping ions have been incorporated (doped) in ZnS host lattice and observed its effect on growth morphology and optical properties of ZnS colloidal nanocrystals. By XRD, SEM, TEM, and PL, the obtained cubic phase nanosized TGA-capped ZnS materials were characterized. The morphology of ZnS obtained at different temperatures are analyzed by SEM. The crystallite size of the ZnS nanoparticles was estimated from the X-ray diffraction pattern by using Scherrer's formula (approximately 2.5 nm) which is confirmed by TEM. The estimated bandgap value of ZnS NC's by (𝛼ℎ𝜐)2 versus ℎ𝜐
 plot was 4.89 eV. Gaussian fitting curve in photoluminescence (PL) spectra indicated room temperature emission wavelength range from 300 to 500 nm in undoped and Mn-doped ZnS, with different emission peak intensities, and suggested the wide band emission colours in visible and near UV region which has wider applications in optical devices.


In this paper, a new, extraction method of nonlinear behavioral model for RF power transistor is presented. With this new extraction method, we can use only one set of nonlinear model to cover the entire Smith char with acceptable accuracy, which greatly reduce the model complexity compared with existed load-pull model extraction method. Both simulation and experimental test examples are provided to validate the new extraction method.


The relationship between Southern producers and Northern consumers in organic agriculture is impoverished. Although producers and consumers are actually connected through lengthy commodity chains, there is generally a strong sense of felt disconnection. They do not feel part of the same system. People in the chain lack physical presence for one another: they exist in the realm of ideas, if at all. In order to find ways of creating quality relationships between producers and consumers, the emerging agenda of social certification in organic agriculture is examined. A quality of life toolkit, which is capable of capturing the needs and aspirations of smallholders and plantation workers, is developed in order to contribute a new 'bottom-up' methodological approach to the process of social certification. Extensive research with organic smallholders and plantation workers was carried out in Madagascar in the development of the toolkit. The concept of a new social label that could be applied to organic products is also explored. Such a label could be validated by data and information produced by the quality of life toolkit during the process of social certification. The prototype label that is developed occupies quite different ground to labels dealing with the conditions of production, or trading relationships, or international labour standards. Attention is paid to the values and aspirations that producers actually hold. The aim is to ensure that these are supported, rather than eroded, through the process of production for the Northern market. An important feature of the label is its ability to acknowledge and build upon the ethical values held by the consumer. Research based on surveys, interviews, and focus groups was carried out in Germany in order to assess the receptiveness of organic consumers to such a label in the context of their own ethical lifeworlds. The thesis concludes that social labelling invites actors in organic producer to consumer chains to engage in a richer and more meaningful relationship that extends the realm of legitimate values included in the market exchange of products.


Creep rupture behavior of dissimilar weldments between FB2 and 30Cr1Mo1V heat-resistant steel by multipass welding at 783 K (510°C) under different stresses (260 to 420 MPa) was researched. The fitted creep rupture exponent is 14.53, and the 10,000 h extrapolating strength values predicted by the power law and Larson-Miller parameter show good agreement with experimental data. The samples exhibit a ductile fracture character and fracture in the weld fusion zone, which has a highly heterogeneous microstructure and grains with different morphologies and sizes and an obvious softening. There exist a decrease in the dislocation and precipitate density and an increase in the subgrain size in the weld metal after creep. The rupture is a transgranular fracture characterized by dimples as a result of microvoid coalescence. Laves phases along with copper-rich precipitates are observed in the vicinity of fracture surface, which creates a stress concentration that can cause transgranular fracture initiation.


The behavior of a hybrid system can be described by continuous flows interleaved with discrete changes. Hybrid systems are often affected by uncertainties, which can be modeled via stochastic hybrid systems. In this thesis, we propose a modeling language for stochastic hybrid systems and discuss our design choices. We define stochastic hybrid automata that extend hybrid automata by spontaneous jumps. Additionally, the jumps are assigned weights to make a probabilistic choice between several jumps that can be taken at the same time. We expect our model to be extensible with other sources of stochasticity regarding, e.g., resets, initial states, or continuous dynamics. Our modeling language is designed with respect to two goals that we found to be missing from existing approaches for stochastic hybrid automata, while additionally trying to keep the model as expressive as possible. Firstly, we aim to define a compositional model allowing for communication between different components via shared variables. Secondly, we intend to enable easy modeling of competing stochastic events, in particular of stochastically independent competing events. To this end, we associate each stochastic event with a set of jumps. Each stochastic event has a state-dependent probability distribution determining when some associated jump should be taken.


Risley prisms are commonly used in continuous scanning manner. Each prism is capable of rotating separately about a common axis at different speeds. Scanning patterns are determined by the ratios of the wedge angles, the speed and direction of rotation of both prisms. The use of this system is conceptually simple. However, mechanical action in most applications becomes a challenge often solved by the design of complex control algorithms. We propose an electronic servomotor system that controls incremental and continuous rotations of the prisms wedges by means of an auto-tuning PID control using a Adaline Neural Network Algorithm, NNA.


This study aimed to isolate lactate-degrading bacteria via treatment with poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) in a thermophilic anaerobic digestion reactor to investigate their ecophysiological characteristics. Enrichment cultures were established with a basal medium (pH 7.0) supplemented with lactate and a thermophilic digester sludge as an inoculum, followed by anaerobic culturing at 55°C without shaking. Thereafter, 16S rRNA gene-based cloning analyses revealed that the predominant bacteria in the enrichment culture were of genus Moorella. Roll-tube cultures containing lactate and Moorella-resistant streptomycin were serially diluted to isolate Moorella cells from a series of the diluted enrichment cultures. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses using a Morl93 probe revealed that a pure culture of the strain (strain Hama-1) was successfully obtained. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain Hama-1 is closely related to Moorella perchloratireducens strain An10T with 99.6%...


We have analyzed the effects of vortex in the basin and jet stream on heavy rain in the east of Sichuan province in September 2004, and have done numerical simulation, The results show the process of precipitation is related to mesoscale cloud mass, jet stream and vortex activities in mid and lower-levels, at the same time, and along with to activities of subtropical high pressure and "SHANG DA" typhoon. The vortex in Sichuan basin appeared in the left of lower-jet stream, and the heavy rain in the east of Sichuan occurred in the south of upper level jet stream, there exits strong south east lower jet stream to south east of low vortex. Maintaining of positive vortex in the basin is benefit to the development and lasting of the vertical ascending movement over the basin, and provided dynamic condition for heavy rain. Vertical ascending movement was the ligament linking jet stream and basin vortex as well as dynamic driving result in the basin. The south-west jet stream had built before the heavy rain appeared, and heavy rain and basin vortex appeared almost at the same time, as well as the heavy rain, low jet stream and basin vortex weaken together. The high jet stream was progressively increasing before and during the process of the precipitation. When the upper level jet stream weakened. heavy rain was ending.


April 2009,a so-called "swine influenza" outbreak occurred in Mexico and soon spread to North America,including USA and Canada.It seems the disease is spreading further down to Europe and suspected case was also reported in Korea.Now animalorigin or zoonotic influenza is again in the spotlight of the world after the first case of H5N1 human infection found in Hong Kong in 1997 and subsequent reoccurrence since 2003 covering more than 15 countries.Is the animal-borne influenza virus capable of causing human epidemic or even pandemic? Why did the WHO make a new decision on April 30th to change the name of this outbreak from "swine influenza" into new subtype of A(H1N1) influenza? Are we well -prepared for a possible pandemic? In this review article we overviewed the 3 historical pandemics of influenza and described thecharacteristics of the influenza virus,esp.its animal-origin characters.Moreover we discussed the role of pig as a "mixing vessel" for the dissemination of influenza virus subtypes.


The global increase in Muslim populations and purchasing power has created a new demand for halal cosmetic product development.While the introduction of new product may facilitate companies in gaining competitive advantage, the failure rates of product innovation is also high. Owing to such interests, this paper aims to determine factors that motivate young adult Muslim consumers in the emerging market to adopt halal cosmetics. This study expands prior research by integrating Diffusion of Innovation theory and religiosity dimension to explain the antecedents of halal cosmetics adoption among young Muslim consumers. Data were collected from 238 young Muslim consumers using questionnaires distributed at a number of supermarkets in Kuala Lumpur. The conceptual model and hypotheses developed were tested using partial leased square.Our results demonstrate that perceived product characteristics, social influence and consumer innovativeness influence young Muslim consumers to adopt halal cosmetics products. This study also report religiosity as moderator between these three predictors and halal cosmetic adoption.


Edge placement error (EPE) is a critical indicator for the imaging performance of semiconductor technology nodes, and is among others influenced by writing errors on the reticle. The impact of global mask variations is generally well understood and local variations are often considered to have a similar behavior. In this contribution we highlight the differences between the local and global mask variations and their impact on CD and placement in resist. We discuss the concept of local Mask Error Enhancement Factor (MEEF) and the impact of mask perturbation on neighboring structures within a certain interaction length. We show that local mask variations have a significantly smaller effect than global effects, which can have an influence on mask requirements. We show results of HyperLith simulations for a DUV use case of staggered contact holes arrays. We explore the prediction of the impact in resist of random mask fingerprints using impulse responses from single contact hole perturbation. We show that such prediction can be used to calculate the global MEEF from the local effects. The simulation results are compared to experimental data, measured in resist with CDSEM.


Development of efficient methods for optimum design of electrode and insulator contour in a HV apparatus has been an important area of research in the recent past. A self-organizing fuzzy inference system is developed for electrode optimization which is an improved version over traditional iterative approach of optimization and more recent methods employing neural networks. This fuzzy system has been implemented for two practical examples of an axisymmetric single-phase gas-insulated system (GIS) bus termination and a disconnecter switch configuration. Improved electric stress distribution demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed method. A new methodology for automatic generation of the fuzzy rule base from the input-output data set is also proposed in this scheme. This fuzzy system is much simpler and less time consuming to implement compared to other optimization techniques presently available for optimization of HV electrodes.


ABSTRACT This study offers a new approach to understanding the president's agenda and impact. Because the court lacks the ability to implement its decisions, it depends on political actors and the public to maintain legitimacy. We argue that the president's decision to go public on an issue, depending on the intensity in which it is done, induces the Court to defer to the executive. We examine the Supreme Court's responsiveness to presidential preferences on civil liberties and rights cases. If a policy area is especially important to the president, we assume it is in this area that he will work hardest to protect his interests. We find that the greater the proportion of the State of the Union that the president devotes to the topic area of civil liberties and rights, the more likely the Court is to rule in the president's ideological direction.


Objective:To evaluate the procedure and the preliminary results of the resection of upper thoracic vertebrae through modified anterior cervico thoracic approach.Methods:Seven cases with thoracic spinal pathology were treated with upper thoracic vertebra resection through this modified approach.Results:The procedure was fulfilled in all 7 cases as planed.There were no other major complications in all cases.Conclusion:This modified approach is adequate for the resection of upper thoracic vertebra.Although it is comparatively safer,care must be taken to avoid major vascular and nerve injury.


AbstractTropical cyclone (TC) forecasts from the NCEP Global Ensemble Forecasting System (GEFS) Reforecast version 2 (1985–2012) were evaluated from the climate perspective, with a focus on tropical cyclogenesis. Although the GEFS captures the climatological seasonality of tropical cyclogenesis over different ocean basins reasonably well, large errors exist on the regional scale. As different genesis pathways are dominant over different ocean basins, genesis biases are related to biases in different aspects of the large-scale or synoptic-scale circulations over different basins. The negative genesis biases over the western North Pacific are associated with a weaker-than-observed monsoon trough in the GEFS, the erroneous genesis pattern over the eastern North Pacific is related to a southward displacement of the ITCZ, and the positive genesis biases near the Cape Verde islands and negative biases farther downstream over the Atlantic can be attributed to the hyperactive Africa easterly waves in the GEFS. Th...


Isolation and identification of enteroviruses from clinical specimens by routine methods generally require 2 or more weeks. Fluorescent antibody procedures, which have been applied to rapid diagnosis of influenza by Liu (1) and to demonstration of several viruses in tissue culture(2,3), also appear to offer the possibility of more rapid identification of enteroviruses isolated from clinical material. This report presents data concerning use of fluorescent antibody for identification of poliovirus isolates. A preliminary report of some of these data has already been made(4). Materials and methods. Hyperimmune monkey poliovirus typing sera prepared by Wenner et al.(5) were used for preparation of fluorescent antibodies. Trypsinized rhesus monkey kidney cells were employed for isolation of viruses. Buffered saline consisted of 0.14 M NaCl, 0.01 M NaH2PO4 · H2O, with the final pH adjusted to 7.0-7.2 by addition of 40% NaOH solution. Globulins were precipitated from monkey antisera by 50% saturation with (NH4)2SO4 and labeled with either fluorescein isocyanate (6) or fluorescein isothiocyanate (7). The latter compound was added in powdered form to globulin solutions at pH 9 with stirring in an ice bath (personal communication, Riggs. 1958). Before use, conjugates were absorbed twice with monkey liver powder(8) and once with a suspension of monkey kidney cells. For fluorescent antibody study. 85 stools previously tested by routine methods were selected from storage and given to 2 of the authors (MHH and GWA) who had no knowledge of the earlier results. The specimens were then processed entirely as unknowns. Ten to 20% stool suspensions were prepared. penicillin and streptomycin added to final concentrations of 4000 units/ml and 2000 μg/ml, respectively, and 0.1 or 0.2 ml portions inoculated into tubes of monkey kidney cells. As soon as a 1 to 2+ cytopathic effect (CPE) was observed, maintenance fluid was poured off and cells rinsed with 1 ml of 0.02% versene in buffered saline.


Dynamically engineering bandgap in semiconductors may enable a flexible design and optimization of electronics and optoelectronics. Layered black phosphorus is a 2D semiconductor with a direct bandgap and promising device characteristics. Theoretical studies indicate that the bandgap in black phosphorus can be tuned by electrical field. Here, through designing a double-gated field-effect transistor device configuration, we experimentally demonstrate that the bandgap in few-layer black phosphorus can be dynamically continually tuned by perpendicular electrical field. With an electrical displacement field of 1 V nm−1, the detailed study indicates that the bandgap can reduce around 100 meV. The finding here should be helpful on the flexible design and optimization of black phosphorus electronics and optoelectronics, and may open up some other new possible applications.


e main aim of bachelor´s thesis is to realise theme of food wastage, both in the context of sustainable development and from the point of view of the general 'resources' of waste and the Czech Republic. Areas of uneconomic food use will be identified and an option of their alternative use. The main method which will be used is literary research. The practical work will be devoted to surveys at household level at the final consumer. By using an analytical approach to evaluating collected data, answers to questions on consumer wastage issues will be obtained. The work also deals with the reduction of food waste in all parts of the food chain - from primary production to household. It also deals with food banks. Further, there are presented the impacts of the waste, and the legislation is mentioned at the border. Finally, there are activities against wastage and some examples of solving this problem both in the world and in the Czech Republic.


In this paper it is shown that the generalized smoothing spline obtained by solving an optimal control problem for a linear control system converges to a deterministic curve even when the data points are perturbed by random noise. We furthermore show that such a spline acts as a filter for white noise. Examples are constructed that support the practical usefulness of the method as well as gives some hints as to the speed of convergence.


The aim of this study was to develop and inexpensive manufacturing process for deposition of functionally graded thin films of LSM oxides with porosity graded microstructures for use as IT-SOFCs cathode. The spray pyrolysis method was chosen as a low-temperature processing technique for deposition of porous LSM films onto dense YXZ substrates. The effort was directed toward the optimization of the processing conditions for deposition of high quality LSM films with variety of morphologies in the range of dense to porous microstructures. Results of optimization studies of spray parameters revealed that the substrate surface temperature is the most critical parameter influencing the roughness and morphology, porosity, cracking and crystallinity of the film.


Ivan Baruch Kutisker was a Lithuanian Jewish businessman who became a prominent symbol of Nazi propaganda and antisemitism in the Weimar Republic. Before Kutisker came to Germany he had a brief engagement as the Finnish government representative to Soviet Russia. This article contributes to the research on Kutisker as well as to the research on antisemitism in Finland. Ivan Kutisker's sojourn in Finland has been an unknown chapter in his life. Kutisker's contact persons in Finland were Heikki Renvall, Kai Donner and K. N. Rantakari. The attitudes displayed by Renvall, Donner and Rantakari indicate that antisemitism was widespread among the Finnish political and military establishment. The article illustrates how antisemitism influenced the thinking and decision-making of high-ranking Finnish officials.


The lecture capitalizes on an ethnographic research of
communication in a classroom and it primarily analyses a
teacher's movement around the classroom and his/her body
language. It describes both individual and objectified gesture
components (Wulf, 2010). Primarily, it focuses on the
structural effect that a teacher's nonverbal communication has
upon the whole teaching process. This is based on an assumption
that there is a universal pattern of a teacher's phasing of
his/her teaching, where the verbal and nonverbal components are
closely connected.


An novel amylolytic yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae HA 27, isolated from nuruk, displayed resistance against high sugar (50% glucose) and alcohol (15%). Maximal production of amylolytic enzyme by S. cerevisiae HA 27 was achieved on 9 days of cultivation at the optimal temperature 20℃ and pH 6.0. The activity of amylolytic enzyme produced by S. cerevisiae HA 27 was stable, even at 70℃, and over a broad pH range (4.0-11.0). Also, the amylolytic enzyme of S. cerevisiae HA 27 showed optimal activity in pH 5.0 at 50℃. S. cerevisiae HA 27 exhibited 6.2%(v/v) alcohol fermentation ability using starch as a carbon source.


"Ecosystem services"has become a catch-phrase for the complex connections between the natural environment and human well-being. This paper considers the impact of changes in the supply of ecosystem services, and programs to increase their supply, on near-term growth of gross domestic product. It focuses on the relationship between locally generated versus transboundary services and growth in developing countries, where the highest rates of ecosystem degradation tend to be found. There is a common perception that there is a tradeoff between environmental protection and economic growth, especially in the near term. This perception can make policymakers reluctant to support environmental protection. Where the environment is a source of economically important services, then environmental protection may stimulate growth of gross domestic product instead of reducing it. The paper considers evidence on the economic value of regulating services; the degree to which ecosystems actually supply some of the services they are commonly assumed to supply; and the near-term growth implications of restoring ecosystems, and reducing their loss. This leads to a discussion on the effectiveness of programs intended to reduce ecosystem loss, with a focus on protected areas and payments for ecosystem services, and the effects of these programs on poverty alleviation.


The present invention relates to zeolitic materials in the form of agglomerates comprising at least one zeolite and mesoporous having both the characteristics of the mesoporous zeolites, properties related to the microporosity and the mechanical properties of the agglomerates without zeolitic mesoporous zeolite. The invention also relates to the process for preparing said zeolitic material in the form of agglomerates.


Laser induced elastic waves in soft media have great potential to characterize tissue biomechanical properties. The instantaneous increase in local temperature caused by absorption of laser energy leads to a mechanical perturbation in the sample, which can then propagate as a pressure (or an elastic) wave. The generation of the elastic wave can be via thermoelastic or ablative processes depending on the absorption coefficient of the sample and incident laser fluence. It is critical to differentiate between these regimes because only the thermoelastic regime is useful for nondestructive analysis of tissues. To investigate the transition point between these two different regimes, we induced elastic waves in tissue mimicking agar phantoms mixed with different concentrations of graphite powder. The elastic waves were excited by a 532nm pulsed laser with a pulse duration of 6 ns. The fluence of the pulsed laser was tuned from 0.08 J/cm2 to 3.19 J/cm2 , and the elastic wave was captured by ultra-fast line-field low coherent holography system capable of single-shot elastic wave imaging with nanometer-scale displacement sensitivity. Different concentrations of graphite powder enabled excitation in sample with controlled and variable attenuation coefficient, enabling measurement of the transition between the thermoelastic and ablative regimes. The results show that the transition from thermoelastic to ablative generated waves was 0.75 J/cm2 and 1.84 J/cm2 for phantoms with optical attenuation coefficients of 6.64±0.32 mm-1 and 26.19±1.70 mm-1, respectively. Our results show promise for all optical biomechanical characterization of tissues.