Religion offers a powerful social identity. However, religious change is common across the lifespan, including some who leave religion altogether. Research on leaving religion has mostly been fragmented and failed to embrace a unified theory that captures the breadth of the extant research and appreciates the crucial nuances revealed by empirical findings. Toward that end, we adopt Saroglou's (2011) classification of four dimensions of religiousness to introduce a conceptual model to explain the varieties of different research strands that have examined those leaving religion and integrate them into a unified theory of religious change. We explain how religious deidentification describes how one no longer identifies as religious, and this process can occur via disbelief, disengagement, discontinuance, and disaffiliation. We contend that religious and spiritual struggles are potential pathways by which deidentification may occur. Finally, we situate the work on religious deidentification among other related constructs and provide a brief framework for future research on the nonreligious experience.


ABSTRACT Consumers who experience a psychological threat may compensate by acquiring a product that directly boosts the threatened aspect of their self-concept (i.e., within-domain compensation), or they may compensate by acquiring a product that boosts an unrelated aspect of their self-concept (i.e., across-domain compensation). The current research investigates how self-verification motives influence consumers' preference between these two compensation strategies. In two studies, participants with a self-verification motive displayed an increased preference for within- (vs. across-) domain compensatory products following a self-threat. Underlying this effect, those with a self-verification motive reported a greater desire for products that re-confirmed the threatened domain of their self-concept.


This study examines the profitability of Indian private sector banks using a non-parametric test namely Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The study uses Malmquist total factor productivity to examine the shift (inward or outward) of banks' efficiency frontier during the study period 2011-2013. Only secondary data has been used from the Bankscope database for this study. In this study, emphasis has been given on consolidating the efficiency of Indian private sector banks which is much more expected to the management point of view than the profitability. This study uses three input variables and three output variables to measure bank efficiency. The specific findings of this research shows that the private sector of Indian banks did not achieve progress in all respect during the study period, the banks with higher loan loss reserve and large liquidity reserve have been found as the most regressed banks, and the banks with higher progress have diversified the profit successfully from both interest and not-interest income. The limitations and policy implications of this study have been presented. The scope of future studies has also been addressed.


Research on Islamic banks have grown rapidly, however, a special study on the regional development banks which belong to the local government. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of efficiency of sharia business unit's financial performance, regional bank development in Java Island, Indonesia. The method used is the Data Envelop Analysis with five banks and the period 2013 to 2015. The efficiency is an important factor in the development of a bank. Our results showed that the general level of efficiency sharia business unit Regional Development bank on the island of Java has achieved good efficiency, although there are some banks and a few years yet to achieve efficiency. The main factors that cause inefficiency bank among other operating costs and expenses for the results


It is highly necessary to realize the unity purchase,unity processing and whole allocation of the information resources of the libraries in university towns. All libraries in university towns should actively cooperate with the social organizations and institutions, quicken the speed of the construction of digitalization of literature information resources, and realize the joint construction and share of the information resources in the university towns.


To solve the stack selection problem in the integrated management of inventory and production for the iron steel enterprises,we construct a joint optimization model to balance the load of each stack and to maximize the slab comprehensive matching degree at the same time based on the A-shaped constraints,dispersive constraints et al.To help the solution jump out of the local optimum during the evolution when using the particle swarm optimization(PSO)algorithm,we introduce an elitist learning strategy,which can improve the solutions when the group converges.Finally,simulation results demonstrate the validity and feasibility of the proposed algorithm.


In the following research, we present a descriptive analysis of the application of an Attitudes towards Politics Questionnaire to a sample of 875 people who live in Arequipa City. The sample consists of 416 men and 459 women, whose average age is 38 years old. The questionnaire has 11 items and two dimensions: (Governability and Political participation) with proper levels of validity and reliability (α= 0.730). The results indicate that attitudes towards politics are negative, from which attitudes towards Politics participation are more positive than towards Governability.


Graph mining applications, such as subgraph pattern matching and mining, are widely used in real-world domains such as bioinformatics, social network analysis, and computer vision. Such applications are considered a new class of data-intensive applications that generate massive irregular computation workloads and memory accesses, which degrade the performance significantly. Leveraging emerging hardware, such as process-in-memory (PIM) technology, could potentially accelerate such applications. In this paper, we propose PIMMiner, a high-performance PIM architecture graph mining framework. We first identify that current PIM architecture cannot be fully utilized by graph mining applications. Next, we propose a set of optimizations and interfaces that enhance the locality, and internal bandwidth utilization and reduce remote bank accesses and load imbalance through cohesive algorithm and architecture co-designs. We compare PIMMiner with several state-of-the-art graph mining frameworks and show that PIMMiner is able to outperform all of them significantly.


Considering a class of (2,0)-super-Yang-Mills multiplets that accommodate a pair of independent gauge potentials in connection with a single symmetry group, we present here their coupling to ordinary matter and to non-linear σ-models in (2,0)-superspace. The dynamics and the couplings of the gauge potentials are discussed and the interesting feature that comes out is a sort of "chirality" for one of the gauge potentials once light-cone coordinates are chosen. PACS numbers: 11.10.Lm, 11.15.-q and 11.30.Pb firstname.lastname@example.com and firstname.lastname@example.com firstname.lastname@example.com and email@example.com firstname.lastname@example.com


Objective To discuss the effect of problem-based learning(PBL)model in Neurological history collection.Methods PBL model was performed in Neurological class during the period of novitiation,and estimated by the students.Results PBL model has more advantages in improving autonomous study motivation,and brings up accurate clinical learning method.Con-clusions Compared with the traditional model,PBL model was more suitable for the development of modern medical medicine.


Two models describing the distribution of linear and monomethyl alkanes in Fischer-Tropsch products from a cobalt catalyst are formulated. Distribution parameters for monomethyl isomers are derived by assuming either a post-branching effect on linear chain growth or a decreasing reactivity toward branching with increasing chain length. Distribution parameters for each of the models have been extracted from an extensive experimental data set. We find that the experimental results are well represented by both the models.

A "break" in the distribution of linear paraffins has also been observed and is modelled as a sum of the yields of two Anderson-Schulz-Flory distributions. We postulate that the two chain growth processes which produce the distributions are governed by two kinds of termination.

Deux modeles ont ete formules pour decrire la distribution d'alkanes monomethyls et lineaires dans des produits Fischer-Tropsch avec un catalyseur au cobalt. Les parametres de distribution des isomeres monomethyls sont calcules selon l'hypothese soit d'un effet de post-ramification sur la croissance de la chaǐne lineaire, soit d'une diminution de la reactivite dans la direction de la ramification avec une augmentation de la longueur de chaǐne. Les parametres de distribution pour chacun des modeles ont ete extraits d'une serie de donnees experimentales etendues. Les deux modeles representent bien a notre avis les resultats experimentaux.

Une "rupture" dans la distribution des paraffines a egalement ete observee et est modelisee comme etant une somme des rendements de deux distributions de Anderson-Schulz-Flory. Nous estimons que les deux procedes de croissance des chaǐnes qui donnent les distributions sont gouvernes par deux types de terminaisons.


An experiment was conducted at farmer's field, near College of Horticulture, Anantharajupeta, Andhra Pradesh during the year 2017-2018 under Dr. Y.S.R Horticultural University, to assess the effect of potassium silicate and salicylic acid on fruit shelf life in mango (Mangifera indica L.) cv. Alphonso. The experiment consisted of nine treatments viz. T1 (control), T2 (potassium nitrate @ 1%), T3 (salicylic acid @ 100 ppm), T4 (salicylic acid @ 200 ppm), T5 (potassium silicate @ 0.1%), T6 (potassium silicate @ 0.2%), T7 (salicylic acid @ 100 ppm + potassium silicate @ 0.1%), T8 (salicylic acid @ 0.2% + potassium silicate @ 200 ppm), T9 (paclobutrazol @ 3 ml m-1). Seven years old mango orchard was selected for experiment and planted with spacing 7.5 m in square system. Results revealed that foliar application of salicylic acid @ 200 ppm + potassium silicate @ 0.2% (T8) found to enhance shelf life of fruits (15.10 days), marketable fruits percentage (88.94%), firmness (4.97 kg/cm2) and reduce physiological loss in weight during storage period.


Fat‐specific protein 27 (Fsp27) is a lipid droplet‐associated protein that promotes lipid droplet (LD) growth and triglyceride (TG) storage in white adipocytes. Fsp27 is also highly expressed in the steatotic liver and contributes to TG accumulation. In this study we discovered that the liver produces Fsp27β, an alternative Fsp27 isoform, which contains 10 additional amino acids at the N‐terminus of the original Fsp27 (Fsp27α). White adipose tissue (WAT) and the liver specifically expressed Fsp27α and Fsp27β transcripts, respectively, which were driven by distinct promoters. The Fsp27β promoter was activated by the liver‐enriched transcription factor cyclic‐AMP‐responsive‐element‐binding protein H (CREBH) but not by peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor gamma (PPARγ), which activated the Fsp27α promoter. Enforced expression of the constitutively active CREBH strongly induced Fsp27β and the human ortholog CIDEC2 in mouse hepatocytes and HepG2 cells, respectively. In contrast, loss of CREBH decreased hepatic Fsp27β in fasted mice, suggesting that CREBH plays a critical role in Fsp27β expression in the liver. Similar to Fsp27α, Fsp27β localized on the surface of lipid droplets and suppressed lipolysis. Consequently, enforced expression of Fsp27β or CREBH promoted lipid droplet enlargement and TG accumulation in the liver. Conclusion: The CREBH‐Fsp27β axis is important for regulating lipid droplet dynamics and TG storage in the liver. (Hepatology 2015;61:857–869)


The UK Military Trauma Registry was searched for all cases of primary bilateral lower limb amputation sustained over 6-years between March 2004 and March 2010. There were 1694 UK military patients injured or killed during this six-year study period. Forty-three of these (2.8%) were casualties with bilateral lower limb amputations. All were men injured in Afghanistan by Improvised Explosive Devices. Six casualties were in vehicles when they were injured with the remaining 37 (80%) patrolling on foot. The mean New Injury Severity Score was 48.2 (SD 13.2). Nine patients also lost an upper limb (triple amputation); no patients survived loss of all four limbs. Six patients (14%) sustained an open pelvic fracture. Perineal/genital injury was a feature in 19 (44%) patients, ranging from unilateral orchidectomy to loss of genitalia and permanent requirement for colostomy and urostomy. The mean requirement for blood products was 66 units (SD=41.7). The minimum transfusion requirement was 8 units and the greatest was a patient requiring a total of 193 units of blood products. Our findings detail the severe nature of these injuries together with the massive surgical and resuscitative efforts required to firstly keep patients alive and secondly reconstruct and prepare them for rehabilitation.


NEW DATA OBTAINED FROM THE BARTOSZYCE AND GOŁDAP BORE-HOLES

Summary
During the regional geological researches belonging to the first stage of basal investigations in the Polish Lowland area two bore-holes have already been made. The first one was localized to the east of Bartoszyce, the second one to the west of Goldap. The main purpose of these bore-holes was to investigate the older Palaeozoic formations in conditions of wedging-out running towards the Masurian-Suwalki elevation. The next aim was to recognize the development of the whole younger series of sedimentary rocks, particularly the Zechstein deposits, as well as to investigate structure of the basement rocks. The main geological and search problems concerning the north-eastern area of Poland were already disscussed in the "Przegląd Geologiczny", Nr 4, 1960.
In the article only preliminary results obtained from both the Bartoszyce and the Goldap bore-holes are presented.


Previous experimental results from time measurement of fly(TOF)of Si particles during pulsed laser ablation in vacuum,helium or argon gas,using laser induced fluorescence,is analyzed. The results show that the velocity distribution of Si particles,ablated in vacuum,were approximately Maxwellian,and for the gas ambient,the departure from Maxwellian distribution increases with increasing of gas pressure.Moreover,compared with helium,argon induces more obvious departure.The velocity dependence of resistance force applied to Si particles in ambient atmosphere leads to the above departure.


In this chapter, personal professional development trainings, which need to include ubiquitous learning environments, are discussed. First of all, professional development is explained. Then, the authors discussed factors affecting the efficiency of professional development activities and how they can incorporate new technologies into professional development activities to meet the needs of adult learners. After that, based on the definition of ubiquitous learning, ways of using technology in terms of meeting adult needs with professional development are examined. Finally, the process that was evaluated within the framework of technology integration is presented to readers. Enhancing Personal Professional Development Through Technology Integration: The Need for Ubiquitous Learning


This study aimed at identifying the level of depression and sense of insecurity among a sample of female refugee adolescents, and the impact of an indicative program for reducing cognitive distortions in reducing depression and their sense of insecurity. The study sample consisted of 220 female refugee adolescents, 7 th to 1 st secondary stage, at the governmental schools in the Zarqa educational directorate, who came to Jordan as a result of war conditions in their home land. The experimental sample contained 20 female refugees, the ones who got the highest scores regarding the depression and sense of insecurity scale, and they were set randomly into 2 groups, experimental and control, with 10 females each. The study used the depression scale, and the sense of insecurity scale. It also used an indicative program consisting of 12 sessions, each one lasts for 45 minutes, with a rate of 2 meetings a week. The results indicated that the female refugee adolescents suffer from a medium-level depression, with an average of (73.97%), and a sense of insecurity (69.46%). Findings showed that there was a statistically significant impact at the level (a=0.05) between the control and experimental groups for depression and sense of insecurity among the female refugee adolescents, ascribed to the indicative program.


Objective To observe the efficacy of integrative medical pathway in treating gastric cancer.Methods Totally 200 gastric cancer patients were randomized into the pathway group and control group,with 100 in each. In the pathway group,treatment combining with Traditional Chinese Medicine( TCM) Clinical Pathway for Gastric Cancer by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and an integrative clinical pathway by the authors' hospital was adopted,which included TCM syndrome differentiation to choose Chinese patent medicine and western medicine and using characteristic TCM therapies according to disease conditions. For patients with chemotherapy indications in the control group,the appropriate chemotherapy was chosen according to Gastric Cancer NCCN Guidelines( China). At the same time,the treatment of protecting the stomach with antacids,enhancing immunity,nutritional support,maintaining water and electrolyte balance was applied. Routine treatment was given to patients with side effects of chemotherapy. Patients without chemotherapy indications received supportive treatment. Patients with gastric cancer related complications received symptomatic treatment. The treatment courses of both groups were the whole hospitalization period. After treatment,the scores of hospital stays,medical costs,quality of life( QOL)and TCM symptom scores were assessed in both groups. Results The hospital stays in pathway group was significantly shorter than that in the control group( P 0. 05),but with no obvious decrease of medical cost( P 0. 05).Comparing with the control group,the QOL score and TCM symptoms were significantly improved in pathway group( P 0.05). As for TCM symptom scores,there were 27 cases of markedly effectiveness,54 cases of effectiveness and 19 cases of ineffectiveness in the pathway group and the total effective rate was 81%,while 15 cases of markedly effectiveness,48 cases of effectiveness and 37 cases of ineffectiveness in the control group and the total effective rate was 63%. The difference between groups had statistical significance( P 0. 01). Conclusion Integrative medical pathway can reduce hospital stays,relieve TCM symptoms and enhance QOL in patients with gastric cancer. But the pathway still needs to be further completed.


The submitted manuscript describes how the 100-year return level of daily snowfall water equivalent from Safran reanalysis has changed in the French Alps between 1959 and 2019 based on non-stationary GEV distributions. The study demonstrates an elevation dependent result with mostly decreasing values below 2000 m and mostly increasing values above. However, the investigated regions and elevation ranges often show a high regional variability.


This paper reviews current information about rhizosphere in the soils based on works conducted since 1900s. The forms of rhizosphere phenomena namely nutrient distribution, movement of heavy metals, microbial activities and relevant pH occurring across rhizosphere in soils which influence plant growth and development largely are discussed. The historical development of the methods for studying rhizosphere processes is reviewed with emphasis on rhizobox approach based findings useful in interpreting plant -soil relationship studies. The rhizobox model established in 1987 and its modified versions to study the variably root affected chemical, physical and biological properties of soil zone called rhizosphere along with the defined range of rhizosphere is discussed and recommendations are suggested.


How to detect the collected P300 EEG signals more accurately is the core part of brain-computer interface technology. Aiming at the collected P300 EEG signals of the classical oddball paradigm, this paper proposed a fusion model based on CNN and RNN by using deep learning technology. This model adopts gated neural network GRU and combines attention mechanism to make the model better extract the time characteristics of EEG signals. At the same time, the model fuses the convolutional neural network to capture the spatial characteristics of EEG signals. The feature map extracted from the independent network is sent to the fully connected layer after splicing to obtain the classification results. Compared with some single convolutional neural networks, the proposed fusion model can better capture the time domain characteristics of signals. In terms of classification accuracy, the model proposed in this paper once reached 97.5%.


The article is dedicated to the one of the priority areas of health service high-tech medical help to population. The structure and dynamics of direction of patients to federal hospitals for six years have been analyzed, the role of the Department of organization of high-tech medical help as a new subdivision made in 2007 has been shown, the possibilities of the use of telemedical and internet technologies while transferring the medical information about patients have been given; and that allowed to quicken the process of giving high-tech medical help in several times.


PURPOSE: A method for manufacturing a capacitor of a semiconductor device is provided to improve the capacitance of the capacitor by enlarging the surface volume of an electrode. CONSTITUTION: A contact hole(C) is formed on an inter layer insulation film(12) formed on a semiconductor substrate(11). A first poly silicon film(14) formed with an anti reflection film(15) is deposited on the inter layer insulation film(12). A photoresist pattern(16) is formed on the anti reflection film(15). Then, the first poly silicon film(14) is etched. A second poly silicon film(18) for a polymer spacer(17) is formed on the upper portion of the structure. By etching the second poly silicon film(18), the polymer spacers(17) are formed. After removing the polymer spacers(17), a dielectric film(19) and a third poly silicon film(20) are sequentially formed on the structure.


This study i s concerned with the problem of environmental data c o l l e c t i o n , interpretation and presentation for regional land use planning. A landscape c l a s s i f i c a t i o n was carried out for the watershed of the southern Okakagan Valley by c o l l e c t i n g and integrating data on s u r f i c i a l deposits, vegetation, s o i l and bedrock geology. Thirty nine land systems are described and mapped, and shown on a base map at a scale of 1:125,000. The land systems are r e l a t i v e l y homogeneous landscape units, characterized by a pa r t i c u l a r landform (or patterns of landforms) with associated vegetation and s o i l . Interpretive guidelines were developed for determining the s u i t a b i l i t y of the land systems for selected engineering (urban development), recreation and w i l d l i f e interpretations. The interpretive guidelines with the derived s u i t a b i l i t y ratings provide planning information for the region, show how the c l a s s i f i c a t i o n system can a s s i s t regional land use planning and form a framework for si m i l a r studies in other areas. Methods of data presentation were used to f a c i l i t a t e the understanding and application of this information by planners, technical experts,scientists and the concerned public. S p e c i f i c a l l y this was accomplished through the use of an expanded legend, stereopair and colour photographs, and by having separate sections f o r referencing information. i n The methods used in this study provide a rapid and r e l a t i v e l y inexpensive framework for c o l l e c t i n g , presenting and interpreting environmental baseline information. The information can be of valuable assistance to technical and non-technical people in the land use planning and decision making processes.


This research demonstrates that the Transmuted
Inverse Exponential distribution is more robust than the
Inverse Exponential distribution. The comparison was made
using two real life data sets and the performance of the
competing models were rated based on their loglikelihood
value and Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) value. The
analysis was performed using R-software. In addition, some
further statistical properties of the Transmuted Inverse
Exponential distribution were established


A simple fiber-optic sensor based on a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) embedded in a fiber modal inter- ferometer (MI) for simultaneous measurements of temperature and strain is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The fiber MI is constructed by splicing two sections of the no-core fiber (NCF) between the single-mode fibers. Due to the different responses of the NCF-based MI and the FBG to the same temperature and strain, the discrimination between temperature and strain can be easily achieved. For a 0.01-nm wavelength resolution, the resolution of the sensor is 0.216°C and 6.75 μe in temperature and strain,


ogist. All patients had an ocular examination, and thereafter, samples from the corneal infiltrate were collected by direct smear on blood, chocolate and Sabouraud agar plate by direct incubation and on Copan. Agar plates and Copan were sent to the department of microbiology for incubation and plating. All plates were incubated in 5% CO2 for 96 hours. The growth of a bacterium was categorized as positive, unless it was coagulase-negative Staphylococcus species, Corynebacterium or viridans group Streptococci in small amounts. The sensitivity and specificity were calculated and compared by a chisquare test. A total of 114 eyes from 114 patients were examined. Retrospectively, only 45 patients had bacterial keratitis defined as an infiltrate >1 mm. We found a sensitivity of 31.1% for agar plates (14 of 45) and 24.4% on Copan (11 of 45; p = 0.5). The specificity was equal in both methods (95.7%). Positive predictive value for agar was 82.3% and 78.6% for Copan (p = 0.78). Negative predictive value was 68.0% (agar plates) and 66.0% (Copan). The overall agreement between the two methods in patients with bacterial keratitis is shown in Table 1. Two cases had more than one organism on agar plates and Copan; in these patients, organisms contiguous to the ocular surface were found. Overall, we found a trend of agar plates being more sensitive and with higher specificity than Copan for the diagnosis of bacterial keratitis; however, this was not statistically significant, possibly due to the low number of cases. Our results are similar to those of other studies on liquid media. In a clinical study (Pakzad-Vaezi et al. 2015), Copan and agar plates had comparable sensitivity. In an experimental study on pig corneas (Kaye et al. 2003), a liquid-based method (BHI) was found to be equal to direct sampling on agar plates. The advantage of the Copan is that it is a simple method and is more accessible than agar plates, and this could be relevant in the community setting. In conclusion, our results indicate that agar plates might be superior to Copan, and therefore, Copan cannot replace agar plates for diagnosing bacterial keratitis.


Bohuslav Spacil SJ, a professor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, has written a three-part book of contemplation for priests entitled Psallite regi nostro. The third part of the book was considered to be lost because the communist dictatorship in 1948 destroyed its letter board in the printing office and precluded its publication. Thanks to the courage of a printer, Josef Tichý, one copy of the book was saved. It is now in the library of Centrum Aletti in Olomouc.


Synthesis of the pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-3-one congeners of guanosine, adenosine and inosine is described. Glycosylation of 3-methoxy-6-methylthio-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4(5H)-one (13) with 1-O-acetyl-2,3,5-tri-O-benzoyl-D-ribofuranose (16) in the presence of boron trifluoride etherate gave 3-methoxy-6-methylthio-1-(2,3,5-tri-O-benzoyl-β-D-ribofuranosyl)pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4(5H)-one (17) which, after successive treatments with 3-chloroperoxybenzoic acid and methanolic ammonia, afforded 6-amino-3-methoxy-1-β-D-ribofuranosylpyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4(5H)one (18). The guanosine analog, 6-amino-1-β-D-ribofuranosylpyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine-3,4(2H,5H)-dione (21), was made by sodium iodide-chlorotrimethylsilane treatment of 6-amino-3-methoxy-1-(2,3,5-tri-O-acetyl-β-D-ribofuranosyl)pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4(5H)one (19), followed by sugar deprotection. Treatment of the adenine analog, 4-amino-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-3(2H)-one (11), according to the high temperature glycosylation procedure yielded a mixture of N-1 and N-2 ribosyl-attached isomers. Deprotection of the individual isomers afforded 4-amino-3-hydroxy-1-βribofuranosylpyrazolo-[3,4-d]pyrimidine (26) and 4-amino-2-β-D-ribofuranosylpyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-3(7H)-one (27). The structures of 26 and 27 were established by single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The inosine analog, 1-β-D-ribofuranosylpyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine-3,4(2H,5H)-dione (28), was synthesized enzymatically by direct ribosylation of 1H-pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine-3,4(2H,5H)-dione (8) with ribose-1-phosphate in the presence of purine nucleoside phosphorylase, and also by deamination of 26 with adenosine deaminase.


A common assumption in the processing of broadband acoustic signals is that the underlying processes are Gaussian. Although Gaussian processes arise naturally in the ocean acoustic environment, another motivation for the Gaussian assumption is the desire for analytically tractable results and simple algorithms. In this paper, a broadband propagation model is used to analyze the statistical properties of random signals propagated in a deep ocean environment. In particular, measurements of the first‐order probability density functions associated with the source and received signals will be presented for several source‐receiver configurations. These measurements provide insight into the appropriateness of a Gaussian assumption in broadband processing. They also illustrate the effects of acoustic propagation mechanisms on the statistical structure of a signal. Measurements of correlation functions are presented to show the effects of multipath propagation. [Work supported by the Office of Naval Research.]


The analysis of composite laminates is a process that requires trade-off between computational efficiency and model accuracy. Equivalent single layer (ESL) plate models provide adequate displacement accuracy for some purposes, but can not provide the information required to predict and simulate the growth of damage such as delamination. Models using full 3D formulations and multi-layer plate models address this, but require a large increase in number of degrees-of-freedom to solve. Plate models achieve dimensional reduction from a full 3D problem by representing the displacement at any point as a function of the displacement on a 2D plane. Typically, the displacement is the product of the planar displacement, and some function of the thickness coordinate, z. A number of models exist that implement various forms of the through-thickness function for laminated plates: C 1 continuity for ESL models,C 0 for layerwise models, and no continuity in models for lamina separation. A method is presented whereby the advantages of both ESL and multi-layer plate models can be combined to provide a powerful technique for simulating the response, delamination initiation, and growth in an efficient manner.


This article includes the information about activity within the project «Specification of display of Russian and Mongolian cultural constants in the transboundary area of Altai». This shows the preliminary conclusions and determines the directions of researches for the next year.


The question of how successful a project is beyond the handover stage is still echoing in the literature on project management and more magnified in international development (ID) projects. In addressing the question, this study aims to demonstrate the importance of time frame in assessing project success, particularly identifying the success criteria at the posthandover stages (outcome and impact stages). This study used a qualitative approach that was rooted in interpretivism, allowing the use of constructivist grounded theory method (CGTM) in an ID project as an example. The study identified eight success criteria: Convenience, Development, Documentation, Maintainability, New Capability, Price of Service or Product, Training, and Usability. The study also found that, first, each participant had different emphases on different success criteria; second, most of the identified success criteria were still under the outcome stage; and lastly, usability received the highest responses from the participants as the most concerned criterion at the post-handover stages. This last finding verified the importance of time frame where the other criteria became less important if the outputs were useful to deliver the institutions' strategic objectives. Future studies that use more sampled participants and different types of institutions are also encouraged. DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTEREST The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. FUNDING This study was funded by Australian Awards Scholarships from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Government of Australia and the Provincial Government of North Maluku, Indonesia, through Kieraha Scholarship. 103


S Fidler,1 J Anderson,2 Y Azad,3 V Delpech,4 C Evans,5 M Fisher,6 B Gazzard,5 N Gill,4 L Lazarus,4 R Lowbury,7 K Orton,8 B Osoro,9 K Radcliffe,10 B Smith,11 D Churchill,6 K Rogstad12 and G Cairns13 1Imperial College London, London, UK, 2Homerton University Hospital, London, UK, 3National AIDS Trust, London, UK, 4Health Protection Agency, London, UK, 5Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, UK, 6Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, UK, 7Medical Foundation for HIV & Sexual Health (MEDFASH), London, UK, 8Department of Health, London, UK, 9Positively UK, London, UK, 10University Hospital Birmingham Foundation NHS Trust, Birmingham, UK, 11Terrence Higgins Trust, London, UK, 12Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK and 13NAM Publications/Aidsmap.com, London, UK


Students studying enabling programs are now expected to learn from the electronic medium rather than from paper study materials. Most universities have budgeting constraints that impact on the production and provision of the traditional paper study materials. As a result of the Bradley Report, universities are increasing the participation rates in their enabling programs (Bradley, et al., 2008) by accepting new students who have low academic skills and often lack confidence to succeed in higher education. Together with increased student numbers in enabling courses and tighter budgeting constraints, electronic resources are seen by universities as being more cost effective. Many students may be computer literate but do they manage to learn effectively or as well as students who studied using traditional methods?


The present invention discloses a method and apparatus for virtual key layout on a terminal, the method comprising: a terminal configured virtual key layout file for the application according to a user instruction received; when starting the terminal application from the virtual key layout document display virtual keys. The present invention solves the technical problem of the inability to adjust the shape and size of the keys likely to occur resulting in erroneous operation at the time of application operation of the prior art, thereby improving the accuracy of the application operation, the extension terminal can support the type of business, increase the flexibility of mobile terminal applications.


Austerity measures—the set of economic policies implemented with the aim of reducing government budget deficits—are a key component of economic adjustment programmes prescribed by the international financial institutions in the context of their efforts to address sovereign debt and other financial crises. They essentially entail public spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. While multilateral creditors impose austerity in all debt restructuring programmes, economists generally agree that in order to sustain growth, productivity and consumer confidence, it is imperative that in situations of debt crises the government pour money into the economy (as was the case in post-2007 USA) rather than restrict liquidity. Hence, austerity is fundamentally antithetical to financial sense and if the aim is to repay creditors then higher consumer spending is beneficial as are tax decreases. The chapter explains austerity from a legal and financial perspective and argues that its imposition serves political objectives.


The objective of the study was to find out the impact of Personal Resource variable on psychological well-being and depression in Pakistani population. Study design was cross-sectional research design, survey method. The study was conducted in privately registered, semi-government and government institutions of Rawalpindi and Federal Capital Territory during the year 2016-2018. Data was collected using purposive random sampling from 200 employees working in private, semi-government and government organizations. 55.5% were males and 44.5% were females; Mean age = 26.81 (SD = 5.7); Mean job experience was M = 4.5; SD = 5.49; highest qualification was 35 % Masters among Matric, Inter, Graduation, M.Phil and PhD. Results of the study showed that regression analysis showed that Personal Resource variable accounts for 21% of variance in psychological wellbeing and 27% of variance in depression. The alpha coefficient reliability for the newly constructed four factors of self-efficacy, resilience, hope and optimism based questionnaire, was found to be α = 0.86 and split half reliability coefficient was .74 and .79 on Pakistani sample which was sufficiently adequate. Hence our objective of the study which was to find out the impact of Personal Resource variable on mental health and depression within Pakistani culture was thus established.


During conditions of northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), the near tail plasma sheet is known to become denser and cooler. The mechanisms, and their efficiency, which allow for the formation of this cold dense plasma sheet (CDPS) are of great interest, in particular whether plasma is transferred to the magnetosphere via poleward-of-cusp, lobe reconnection or via mechanisms at the flank magnetopause. This work builds on a recent case study by the authors, in which data from a wide variety of spacecraft observations, including Double Star (TC-1 and TC-2), Polar, LANL GEO and IMAGE, showed evidence of lobe reconnection in both hemispheres along with large-scale flank boundary waves. In this current study, we will present observations from the recent tail and dayside seasons of the Cluster and Double star missions, whose separation in local time presents some excellent opportunities to examine the favoured transport mechanisms for CDPS formation.


A new combinatorial 3-coordinate system for cells in the face centered cubic grid is presented, and some of its properties are detailed. Three independent coordinates are used to address the voxels (rhombic dodecahedra), their faces (rhombs), their edges and the points at their corners. The incidence (boundary and co-boundary) and adjacency relations between the cells can easily be captured by these coordinate values. The new coordinate system can effectively by applied in various image processing morphological and topological operations.


We study the existence, uniqueness and limit behavior of solutions to parabolic boundary-value problems with equivalued surface on a domain with a thin layer.


The exact impulse response of field parameters for any field point on or off axis for the case where a circular disc radiator face is subjected to a displacement step corresponding to a velocity impulse is reviewed. By convolution, the transient field pattern for any arbitrary motion of the disc can be obtained. The exact response for a half-sine monopulse is computed. An approximate representation of the transient pressure response to the velocity impulse input at the disc is derived, and it is shown to correspond to the replica pulses described previously. The regions of validity of the approximation are quite limited and the replica pulses are displaced in time from the positions formerly attributed to them. The displaced replica approximation is applied to an examination of the structure of the near field for continuous sinusoidal excitation and a plot of positions of extrema is produced. It is shown that this approximation gives good agreement with the exact values and is superior to the previous published approach in this regard. For short sinusoidal pulses the effect of pulse length on the field pattern, and of field point on the time history of a transient wave are shown. When the excitation is a short sinusoidal pulse the effect of the pulse length and field point position on the field pattern and wave shape are demonstrated.


Quite often real-world networks can be thought of as being symmetric, in the abstract sense that vertices can be found to have similar or equivalent structural roles. However, traditional measures of symmetry in graphs are based on their automorphism groups, which do not account for the similarity of local structures. We introduce the concept of <italic>local symmetry</italic>, which reflects the structural equivalence of the vertices' egonets. We study the emergence of asymmetry in the Erdõs-Rényi random graph model and identify regimes of both asymptotic local symmetry and asymptotic local asymmetry. We find that local symmetry persists at least to an average degree of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n^{2/5}$</tex-math></inline-formula> and local asymmetry emerges at an average degree not greater than <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n^{1/2}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, which are regimes of much larger average degree than for traditional, global asymmetry.


A series of novel 6-aryl-3-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydroxybutanol-1-yl)-7H-1,2,4-triazolo[3,4-b][1,3 ,4]thiadiazines were easily synthesized in high yields by means of the reactions of 4-amino-5-(1,2,3,4-tetrahydroxybutyl)-2,4-dihydro-3H-1,2,4-triazole-3-th ione (1) with substituted omega-bromoacetophenones or omega-chloroacetophenone. Nearly all of the title compounds possess plant growth-promoting activities.


The beta regression models are commonly used by practitioners to model variables that assume values in the standard unit interval (0, 1). In this paper, we consider the issue of variable selection for beta regression models with varying dispersion (VBRM), in which both the mean and the dispersion depend upon predictor variables. Based on a penalized likelihood method, the consistency and the oracle property of the penalized estimators are established. Following the coordinate descent algorithm idea of generalized linear models, we develop new variable selection procedure for the VBRM, which can efficiently simultaneously estimate and select important variables in both mean model and dispersion model. Simulation studies and body fat data analysis are presented to illustrate the proposed methods.


We performed magnetohydrodynamic simulations of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and associated giant arcade formations, and the results suggest new interpretations of observations of CMEs. We performed two cases of the simulation: with and without heat conduction. Comparing between the results of the two cases, we found that the reconnection rate in the conductive case is a little higher than that in the adiabatic case and that the temperature of the loop top is consistent with the theoretical value predicted by the Yokoyama-Shibata scaling law. The dynamical properties such as velocity and magnetic field are similar in the two cases, whereas thermal properties such as temperature and density are very different. In both cases, slow shocks associated with magnetic reconnection propagate from the reconnection region along the magnetic field lines around the flux rope, and the shock fronts form spiral patterns. Just outside the slow shocks, the plasma density decreases greatly. The soft X-ray images synthesized from the numerical results are compared with the soft X-ray images of a giant arcade observed with the Soft X-Ray Telescope aboard Yohkoh; it is confirmed that the effect of heat conduction is significant for the detailed comparison between simulation and observation. The comparison between synthesized and observed soft X-ray images provides new interpretations of various features associated with CMEs and giant arcades. (1) It is likely that the Y-shaped ejecting structure, observed in the giant arcade on 1992 January 24, corresponds to slow and fast shocks associated with magnetic reconnection. (2) Soft X-ray twin dimming corresponds to the rarefaction induced by reconnection. (3) The inner boundary of the dimming region corresponds to the slow shocks. (4) The "three-part structure" of a CME can be explained by our numerical results. (5) The numerical results also suggest that a backbone feature of a flare/giant arcade may correspond to the fast shock formed by the collision of the downward reconnection outflow.


This article attempts to use the ideas from the field of complexity sciences to revisit the classical field of fluid mechanics. For almost a century, the mathematical self-consistency of Navier-Stokes equations has remained elusive to the community of functional analysts, who posed the Navier-Stokes problem as one of the seven millennium problems in the dawn of 21st century. This article attempts to trace back the historical developments of fluid mechanics as a discipline and explain the consequences of not rationalising one of the commonly agreed upon tenets - continuum hypothesis - in the community. The article argues that 'fluids' can be treated as 'emergent' in nature, in that the atoms and molecules in the nanometre length scale can likely be correlated with the continuum physics at the microscale. If this is the case, then one might start trying to find a theoretical framework that models the emergence of fluids from atoms, effectively solving the multi-scale problem using a single abstract framework. Cantor set with layers $N$ (N can have up to two orders of magnitude) is presented as a potential contender (analytical framework) for connecting the energy in molecular level $C_{1}$ at length scale $l_{cut}$ to the energy at continuum level $C_N$ with length scale $L$. Apart from fluid mechanics, Cantor set is shown to represent the conceptual understanding of VLSI hardware design ($N=5$). Apart from Cantor set, an experimental technique of architecting metafluids is also shown to solve emergence experimentally (i.e. connect physics at specific lower scales to higher scales).


AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of different aging temperatures on the performance of asphalt binders through a comprehensive experimental procedure. Two kinds of asphalt binders with t...


A total of 500 days-old Ross chicks with an average live weight of 53 g were used p to evaluate the effects of (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) backer yeast (BY) with or without Oxytetracycline (OTC) on the performance and nutrient digestibility of growing broiler chicks given contaminated aflatoxin (AFB1) basal diet. Birds were equally divided into five dietary treatment groups. Each group had 100 birds in five replicates (cages) and was assigned to one of the five dietary treatments in a randomized complete block design experiment. Treatments consisted of a control group maize-soybean meal basal diet and four test groups with aflatoxin AFB1(1% of moldy rice), AFB1 + baker yeast BY (0.003g/kg), AFB1+OTC ( 2.4g/Kg), and AFB1+BY+OTC respectively. Feed and water were provided ad libitum.  Supplementation of BY and OTC or both BY+OTC was not statistically significant on feed intake between treatments during the 42 days experiment however, feed intake tended to be the lowest for the control group. Baker yeast and oxytetracycline added to the aflatoxin-containing diet significantly improved gain body weight; feed conversion ratio and digestibility of protein, fat and nitrogen-free extract efficiency, no significant differences were observed for fiber digestibility. Results of this research revealed that baker yeast as well oxytetracycline added to the aflatoxin containing diet improved the performance as well the digestibility of nutrients in broiler chickens.  In general, The principal finding from this research is that the baker yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) added to the aflatoxin contaminated diet in broiler diets could significantly relieve the negative effect of AFB1 on chicken's production performance and nutrient digestibility.


Social Networking Service is rapidly becoming popular for all ages nowadays. Users communicate by posting messages in SNS. On the other hand, posting messages through SNS increases invasion of privacy. One of the reasons is SNS users themselves often leak their sensitive data unintentionally. In this paper, to confirm leakage of sensitive information by unintentional posts, we evaluate the abundance ratio of sensitive data in Twitter archive. As a result, we define and evaluate a classification table of invasion of privacy for SNS that is based on classification according to contents of information which should be kept private, and disclosure level as the first step to detect privacy leaks automatically. We also propose a system that provides automatic configuration of disclosure target based on SNS egocentric network.


Abstract : Oscillations of weakly nonlinear autonomous multiple degree of freedom dynamical systems are studied. The analysis includes nonlinear effects arising from the potential as well as the kinetic energies of the systems and the systems include elements that produce nonlinear dissipative forces. The method of averaging is applied to a suitably transformed set of equations. In several important cases nonperiodic solutions for arbitrary initial conditions are obtained by quadratures. (Author)


Heerfordt's syndrome is an unusual manifestation of sarcoidosis consisting of parotitis with chronic or subacute uveitis and often complicated by cranial nerve pareses, usually of the facial nerve. Originally described in 1909,1 it was not recognised as a manifestation of sarcoidosis until 1937. The complete picture is rare. Scadding2 had no cases of the complete syndrome in his series, and Greenberg et al,3 reviewing 388 cases of sarcoidosis, reported only 8 with uveoparotitis and only one with a facial palsy. Familial association in sarcoidosis is well recognised.4 In 13 instances of sarcoidosis affecting identical twins the manifestations of the disease in each twin pair tended to be similar.5 This seems to be true of less closely related subjects. Interestingly, both our cases presented almost simultaneously with a most uncommon form of sarcoidosis and followed very similar courses.


Objective
To analyze the mRNA expression level of lymphoid enhance factor 1 (LEF-1), and to investigate its clinical significance in bone marrow mononuclear cells of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia chronic-phase (CML-CP) after initial diagnosis and chemotherapy, and to analyze its clinical significance.

Methods
The real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to measure the expression level of LEF-1 gene in 38 CML-CP patients after initial diagnosis and chemotherapy and 20 persons without blood system diseases and neoplastic diseases as normal control. The difference of LEF-1 expression level between the patients and healthy control was compared, and the effect of imatinib on the main molecular response (MMR) was analyzed.

Results
The expression of LEF-1 mRNA in 38 newly diagnosed patients [0.002 14 (0.000 20-0.021 20)] was significantly higher than that in normal controls [0.001 01 (0.000 09-0.002 33)] (U= 163.0, P 0.05). The level of LEF-1 mRNA expression of non-MMR group was also higher than that of the normal control group (U= 14.0, P < 0.01). The rate of acquiring MMR was significantly higher in high LEF-1 mRNA expression group [84.2 % (16/19)] than that in low expression group [47.4 % (9/19)] (χ 2 = 4.209, P < 0.01). The time of acquiring MMR was significantly shorter in the high LEF-1 mRNA expression group [(10.0 ± 4.5) months] than that in the low expression group [(14.6 ± 3.8) months] (t = 2.705, P < 0.01).

Conclusions
LEF-1 may be involved in the occurrence and development of CML, and reflects the tumor burden. It may be one of the indicators to predict the efficacy of imatinib.

Key words:
Leukemia, myeloid, chronic; Polymerase chain reaction; Lymphoid enhance factor 1; Prognosis


Mill inherited Bacon's thought of methods of elimination.He proposed the famous five methods of experimental inquiry,and gave the definition of causality whose core was the law of universal causality.Mill must justify the law of universal causality on the basis of empiricism since he didn't accept Kant's transcendental theory.Mill put the law of universal causality on the basis of the method of simple enumeration,and it is unsuccessful in general.With regard to causality,Mill added a restriction of 'unconditional'on Hume's 'constant conjunction between two kinds of event'.There are two serious consequences following the restriction.One of them is that the order of time between the cause and effect become unnecessary,and another is that the carrier of causality changes into entities and their attributes from phenomena or events.


In this paper, we investigate restrictions on multiplicities and num- bers of branches for G-simple multigerms (G = A or L).


InAs-On-Insulator structures are fabricated by the Smart Cut process and reusability of the donor InAs wafer without the degradation of film quality is also demonstrated. The effects of thermal annealing, which is expected to recover the damage induced by the implantation process, on the InAs-OI quality are studied. It is shown that annealing at 500 °C is effective to recover the crystallinity in terms of the Raman spectra and the electron mobility. No difference between InAs-OI fabricated with the original InAs wafer and the reused InAs wafer is observed. As a result, 140-nm-thick (111) InAs-OI fabricated by the reusing process is shown to have the electron Hall mobility of 6500 cm2/Vs and the carrier density of 6 × 1017 cm−3.


Abstract : Recent published similarity solutions for spherically and cylindrically symmetric gas expansions in rarefied atmospheres are extended to include the influence of ambient pressure. The former solutions and extended solutions are then compared with exact numerical calculations for the same gas expansions. Limits of applicability of each solution are discussed, and results compared with observations for typical barium gas release in the upper atmosphere. The extended similarity solutions have a range of validity up to an order of magnitude greater than that of the previous solutions. However, all of the similarty solutions are rendered inapplicable by the early onset of diffusion as the dominate expansion mechanism. Apparent agreement at later times is due to the similar growth rates for diffusion about t to the 0.5 power and similarity about t to the 0.4 power. (Author)


Alkyl ketene Dimer( AKD) and Alkenyl succinic Anhydride( ASA) are easily hydrolyzed in water,and the anionic trash was formed by their hydrolysis product. Beyond that,AKD has the problem of sizing hysteresis and ASA need to be emulsified on the spot. Stearylamidoethyl epoxypropyl ammonium chloride( SEAC) is a stable cationic sizing agent without sizing hysteresis. Firstly,diethylenetriamine can form fattymide through amidation reaction with stearic acid. The secondary amine can further form quaternary ammonium after ring open reaction of epichlorohydrin. This paper mainly discussed the material ratio and the reaction kinetics parameters. The molecular structures and composition were identified and examined by IR and C113NMR. Experimental results showed the melting point of stearamide was lower than 105 ℃ when diethylenetriamine / stearic acid ratio was 1. 5∶ 1 at 160 ℃ for 3. 5 h reaction time. SEAC whose melting point was about 70 ℃ had good sizing when cationic temperature was at 70 ℃ for 2. 5 h. Experimental results demonstrated that SEAC overcamed the disadvantages of AKD and was one kind of great potential sizing agent.


Nanosize crystalline cathode materials of LiNiyMn2 −
 yO4
 (0 < y
 ≤ 0.5) composition and spinel-type structure have been obtained by a single-step sucrose-aided self-combustion method. The as-prepared samples contained some amorphous organic impurities that were removed after a short period of heating at 500 °C. The pure single-phase spinels have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, chemical analysis, and nitrogen sorption isotherms. The samples consist of particles (ca. 24 nm size) that are aggregated in clusters (ca. 1 µm size) in which mesopores (10–80 nm size) appear among the particles. Additional heating at 800° and 1000 °C produces a slight increase in the cubic lattice parameter and a pronounced increase in particle size (>100 nm). Electrical conductivity decreases as the Ni content increases in accordance with an electron hopping mechanism between Mn3+ and Mn4+ ions. The 500 °C- and 800 °C-heated LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 samples show good electrochemical behaviour at 4.7 V as cathode materials. The capacity (132.7 mA h g−1) found is close to the nominal capacity (146.7 mA h g−1) and remains constant for current densities in the range C/24–2C
 (where C
 = 2.6 mA cm−2). At higher current densities (2C–10C) the capacity decreases progressively. The cyclability at the C current density is ca. 99.7% for both samples.


In the current trend, deep neural network (DNN) models that use only one type of convolution filters (mostly 3×3 convolution) are widely adopted for the hardware implementation. However, inception-type convolutional neural network (CNN) model such as GoogLeNet showed that by combining different types of convolutions like 1 × 1, 3× 3, 7×7 etc., higher level of accuracy is achievable at the lower computational cost. This paper proposes first VLSI-architecture of a hardware accelerator for such GoogLeNet CNN models and a versatile CNN accelerator-architecture that is capable of performing three different types of convolution tasks with approximately equal hardware-efficiencies. This design of hardware accelerator has been synthesized and implemented on ZYNQ-102 Ultra-Scale+ FPGA-board with 16-bit brain-float quantization that consumes only 13.7k LUTs and delivers a throughput of 13.5 GFLOPS that makes our accelerator 16.45% more hardware efficient than the state-of-the-art implementations.


This manual is part of FAO's effort to promote sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production. It has been developed from experiences with farmer field schools in four African countries. It provides background information on the farmer field school approach and a compilation of field exercises as they are used in cassava farmer field schools. The guide is intended for use by farmer field facilitators during training of facilitators or during the farmer field school itself.


In the years since Daniel Schwartz's publication of "Law and Truth: On Qumran-Sadducean and Rabbinic Views of Law" in 1992 and my response "Nominalism and Realism in Qumranic and Rabbinic Law: A Reassessment" in 1999,1 scholars seem to have reached a consensus of sorts that revises the rigid divide between a Sadducean-Priestly realism and a Pharisaic-rabbinic nominalism: Sadducean or "priestly" law is predominantly realist whereas Pharisaic law exhibits both realist and nominalist tendencies. Schwartz now agrees that "it is clear that realism is to be found in rabbinic law"2; Christine


This paper discusses guaranteed annual income (GAI) as a mean of income redistribution and an alternative to current income security programs, with an emphasis on some basic facts commonly overlooked in recent debates.


The concept of Health-related Quality of Life is used profusely, but there is not an agreed and satisfactory definition. We have carried out a historical overview of this concept that enabled us to put in into a context, emphasizing the circumstances that have allowed its development: changes in the concept of health, distinction between quantity and quality of life, and limitations of traditional health indicators. We have analyzed the different domains in which the concept 1s divided, and revised the problems its evaluation faces. Furthermore, we have proposed a continuum in which these concept definitions would be gathered, going across a wide range from an objective and naturalistic focus to an hermeneutic and subjective one. Finally, we think it is necessary to continue progressing in terns of its conceptual delimitation and to keep a higher rigour in its use


It is important to evaluate the performance of government websites. The core of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation on the performance of government websites is membership degree transformation. But the existing transformation methods should be questioned, because redundant data in index membership degree is also used to compute object membership degree, which is not useful for object classification. The paper eliminated the redundant data in index membership for object classification by defining distinguishable weight and extracted valid values to compute object membership. The new algorithm of membership degree transformation includes three calculation steps which can be summarized as "effective, comparison and composition", which is denoted as M(1,2,3). The paper applied the new algorithm in fuzzy comprehensive evaluation on the performance of government websites.


Over the last decade extensive research has been on the way to provide textile structures with electro-conductive properties that are applied in smart textiles. Their potential use is diverse and ranges from rather passive sensors to active components, such as heating elements.
For these applications textiles need to offer excellent electro-conductive properties combined with a high flexibility and drapability. This can be achieved by coating textile structures with a thin metallic layer or by combining pure metallic yarns or filaments with conventional yarns during spinning.
In this dissertation, targeting on the development of different electro-conductive yarns, these two technologies are drawn on. The chemical deposition of non-conductive yarns with copper and gold was explored before the resulting metal layers were characterized. Furthermore, hollow spindle spinning was applied to produce yarns consisting of an elastic core yarn and conductive winded yarns. The yarn's electro-conductive properties were examined under different use-oriented scenarios. Finally, a framework was set for the two different yarn types for their later application in smart textiles.


ERNEST-SAUNDERS, RACHEL ALYSSA. Surface Modifications of Microfibrillated and Bacterial Cellulose with Acetylation and Biosynthesized Hygroscopic Polyamide to Study Bonding and Material Property Augmentation. (Under the direction of Dr. Joel J. Pawlak). Cellulose has traditionally been studied for its use in paper products. However, recent research has focused on both microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) and on cellulose synthesized by bacterial species (BC). These areas offer the possibility for advances in biomedical and packaging applications that traditional paper-making cellulosic fibers could not accomplish. To study the bonding characteristics of MFC in thin films, surface acetylation of the MFC was carried out at 100 o C with acetic anhydride and acetic acid. The acetylated MFC was then formed into thin films via a vacuum-dewatering method followed by restrain-drying. MFC can form more inter-fibril hydrogen bonds than traditional paper-making fibers due to their increased surface area, which allows MFC films to carry a higher applied load. Even when the MFC is acetylated, it has enough remaining hydrogen bonds to maintain load carrying capacity. However, the amorphous regions of the fibrils are acetylated first and combined with the reduction of hydrogen bonds, the films have a more uniform structure that can only absorb energy as well as traditional paper fibers. To further examine how modification of fibrils changed the material properties of resultant films, a hydrophilic polyamide called poly(gamma-glutamic acid) (γ-PGA) was combined with MFC films and bacterial cellulose pellicles. This polymer has a high molecular weight and is highly hygroscopic due to its pendant carboxyl groups. In this work, aqueous γ-PGA was applied to MFC films. After air-drying, the films were disintegrated and re-formed. The addition of γ-PGA allowed for a 96% recovery of tensile strength as compared to only 75% recovery when no γ-PGA was applied. A second set of films were heat treated after γ-PGA entrainment at 150 o C for 30 minutes. Thermal analysis showed a possible interaction between the polymers, but spectral analysis was not conclusive. Material properties, though, revealed that heat treatment alone improved the tensile strength and hydrophilicity of the MFC films. Entraining γ-PGA further altered the material properties, including an increase in hydrophilicity, as well as water absorption and vapor transmission rate. Heat treatment to films entrained with γ-PGA, though, reduced the latter water interaction properties. The γ-PGA used in the blending study was commercially-fermented, but γ-PGA was also fermented in-house. Bacterial isolates from soybeans were identified as Bacilli. When grown on complex media solid-substrate plates, the bacteria produced γ-PGA. The solidsubstrate method was chosen so that less acetone was necessary to precipitate the polymer. To further study the formation of strong, hygroscopic materials, carbodiimide chemistry was used with BC and γ-PGA. The BC was carboxymethylated, and ethylenediamine was the cross-linker for the amidization. Carbodiimide chemistry is performed in an aqueous media, and the reaction was successful in that di-amine was attached to the carboxymethylated cellulose surface. However, the second stage of the cross-linking did not seem to result in the γ-PGA linked to the cross-linker. The molecular weight, charge, and conformation of the γ-PGA are suspected as the cause for the steric hindrance and the lack of amidization. Surface Modifications of Microfibrillated and Bacterial Cellulose with Acetylation and Biosynthesized Hygroscopic Polyamide to Study Bonding and Material Property Augmentation by Rachel Alyssa Ernest-Saunders A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science


Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is a promising treatment in regenerative medicine for androgenetic alopecia (AGA). PRP, derived from the patient's blood, contains a concentrated platelet fraction rich in growth factors and bioactive molecules that aid in tissue repair and wound healing. When PRP is administered, these factors are released, stimulating hair growth and regeneration. PRP's mechanism of action involves the release of growth factors like PDGF, TGF-β, VEGF, and IGF, which promote cell proliferation, activate dormant hair follicles, and induce hair cycle growth. PRP also reduces inammation, promotes angiogenesis, and may inhibit 5-alpha reductase activity, which contributes to AGA. By understanding these mechanisms, PRP can be optimized for effective hair restoration therapies in AGA


Charm and beauty quark production measurement represents a fundamental means to access the initial stage of hadronic collisions. Being produced almost exclusively in initial hard partonic scatterings due to their large masses, $m_{\text{c}}=$ 1.3 $ \text{GeV}/c^2$ and $m_{\text{b}} =$ 4.1 $ \text{GeV}/c^2$, charm and beauty quarks are ideal tools to investigate various QCD aspects. In addition, the corresponding measurements in pp collisions represent a baseline for cold nuclear matter studies in p--A collisions as well as for the characterization of the hot and dense interacting nuclear matter, the quark--gluon plasma (QGP), formed in A--A interactions. An analysis technique that was little investigated until now at LHC energies to measure $\text{c}\bar{\text{c}}$ and $\text{b}\bar{\text{b}}$ cross sections consists in exploring the high-mass regions of the dilepton invariant mass spectrum, more precisely the two continuum regions between charmonium and bottomonium resonances $\text{(4}$ 11 $ \text{GeV}/c^2$). Indeed, these regions are significantly populated by the semileptonic decays of hadron pairs containing charm and beauty quarks. In these proceedings, the status of this study is shown, discussing the details of the analysis procedure foreseen to measure the charm and beauty cross sections. In particular, the results of PYTHIA8 simulations for pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV in the rapidity region 2.5<\textit{y}<4 covered by the ALICE muon spectrometer, crucial to address the different components to the dimuon yield, are presented.


Summary: T cells belong to two mutually exclusive lineages expressing either αβ orγδ T‐cell receptors (TCR). Although αβ and γδ cells are known to share a common precursor the role of TCR rearrangement and specificity in the lineage commitment process is controversial. Instructive lineage commitment models endow the αβ or γδ TCR with a deterministic role in lineage choice, whereas separate lineage models invoke TCR‐independent lineage commitment followed by TCR‐dependent selection and maturation of αβ and γδ cells. Here we review the published data pertaining to the role of the TCR in αβ/γδ lineage commitment and provide some additional information obtained from recent intracellular TCR staining studies. We conclude that a variant of the separate lineage model is best able to accommodate all of the available experimental results.


The 2105 Tl(n, 2ny) reaction was used to populate excited states in 204 Tl. The γ-ray detection was accomplished with the GEANIE spectrometer, a Compton suppressed array of 26 Ge detectors. An energetic beam of neutrons was provided by the pulsed neutron source of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center's WNR facility. The time-of-flight technique was used to determine the incident neutron energies. γ-ray excitation functions were determined from incident neutron energy of 1 MeV up to E n = 25 MeV. The level scheme of 204 Tl was enriched and the partial level scheme and nuclear structure above the previously known 7 + isomer at 1104-keV excitation energy were established for the first time up to E x ∼ 2.3 MeV. The high-spin part of the level scheme exhibits striking similarities to that of the neighboring 202 Tl isotope, suggesting similarities in the underlying nuclear structure. The half-life of the 7 + isomer was measured with a more precise result (T½ = 60.7 ±1.2 μs), in agreement with literature values. A lower limit for the excitation energy of the πh 11/2 νi 13/2 structure with J π = 12 - is proposed.


In-pile thermal behavior of vibratory compacted UO2 fuel was simulated by centerline heating method. Main results are as follows:(1) The micro-structure of vibratory compacts, while retaining the as-compacted state in the peripheral region, assumed an aspect more and more similar to pressed and sintered pellets toward the fuel center, due to sintering.(2) Lenticular voids, larger than those found in pressed and sintered pellets, were found in the columnar grain region.(3) Circumferential cracking produced by rapidly rising center temperature was found to occur in short discontinuous stretches, unlike the very distinct cracks seen in sintered pellets and swaged compacts.


Isotopic atropisomers based on CH 3 /CD 3 discrimination. The left and right hands indicate the inherent chirality in the system. A new study conducted by researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology is one of the first to lead to the successful preparation of isotopic atropisomers with high rotational stability and slight optical rotation, based on ortho-CH 3 /CD 3 discrimination.


The aim of the research is to develop an algorithm for calculating the combined closed drainage and humidification network as part of the drainage and humidification systems. The technical literature was used as the main source material for the calculation of closed collectors of drainage systems and closed pressure pipelines. The construction of the algorithm was carried out in accordance with the provisions of GOST 19.701-90 (ISO 5807-85). To develop a general algorithm for calculating a combined closed drainage and humidification network, a procedure was drawn up for calculating the lengths of collector sections according to the ac-cepted diameters and a procedure for calculating the diameters of humidifying pipelines in the form of an algorithm, while the calculated dependencies were used from publicly available sources. A calculation scheme for a combined closed drainage and humidification network and a form for outputting the calculation results have been developed. The developed algorithm includes the calculation of the diameters of the collectors for the drainage drainage and the diameters of the humidification pipelines for supplying water for humidification, as well as the coordination of the diameters of the drainage collectors and humidification pipelines


This book investigates the implications of digital technologies on the industrial and business dynamics of modern economies. In-depth studies analyse how deep-rooted work practices of the Old Economy have been dramatically challenged when confronted with the entrepreneurial wave of the New Economy.


We develop a real options model of R&D valuation that takes into account the uncertainty in the quality (or efficacy) of the research output, the time and cost to completion, and the market demand for the R&D output. The model is then applied to study the problem of pharmaceutical under-investment in R&D for vaccines to treat diseases affecting the developing regions of the world. To address this issue, world organizations and private foundations are willing to sponsor vaccine R&D, but there is no consensus on how to administer the sponsorship effectively. Different research incentive contracts are examined using our valuation model. Their effectiveness is measured in the following five dimensions: expected cost to the sponsor, probability of development success, consumer surplus generated, expected number of successful vaccinations and expected cost per person successfully vaccinated. We find that, in general, purchase commitment plans (pull subsidies) are more effective than cost subsidy plans (push subsidies). Moreover, we find that a hybrid subsidy plan constructed from a purchase commitment combined with a sponsor research cost-sharing subsidy is the most effective.


Abstract This article presents an empirical investigation into the role of peer groups on the intention to continue on to further study by students in full-time education at the age of 16. Estimates are derived via random effects nominal logit regression analysis and data from the Bradford Youth Cohort. Our results suggest that peer groups have a strong and significant impact on whether boys intend to stay on to post-compulsory education, but this is not so for girls. Furthermore, an array of factors appear to influence the intention decision for boys, whereas girls only appear to be influenced by their perceived ability.


The present invention provides methods for enriching fetal nucleic acid in a biological sample from a maternal host. Also provided are methods for detecting the presence or absence of markers in fetal, tumor, or neoplastic nucleic acid. The methods can include treating the biological sample with DNase and, optionally, performing whole genome amplification on the treated samples. The biological sample can be, for example, a blood sample.


In order to effectively deal with uncertainties in supply chain and to improve operability of emergency management,a theoretical framework is made to describe evolutionary modeling,emergency plan management,response decision-making,decision evaluation and practice,and simulation in supply chain.Emergency response decision-making is respectively discussed and reviewed from the five models of emergency modeling,emergency plan searching and matching,response decision-making,decision evaluation and practice and simulation.And then,key methods and further research in emergency modeling,emergency plan and corresponding context analysis,response decision-making methods,decision evaluation and simulation are made.


Part 1 Poverty, social exclusion and homelessness: weakening and breaking of social ties - analysis of explanatory factors free markets, poverty and social exclusion theoretical uses and misuses of the notion of exclusion homelessness and the housing factor - learning from the debate on homelessness and poverty conclusion and policy implications. Part 2 The research of homelessness - data and methodology: data sources on homelessness and data necessary for needs-based research annual survey on homelessness in Finland - definitions and methodological aspects existing and proposed data gathering systems in the Netherlands concerning the homeless living in the streets of Vienna - the methodology of the 1993 ICCR study the homeless in Paris -a representative sample survey of users of services for the homeless using "capture-recapture" to estimate the size of the homeless population US homeless research during the 1980s and early 1990s - approaches, lessons learned and methodologcial options conclusions and policy implications. Part 3 Value and policies in relation to homelessness: regimes of social policy in Europe and the patterning of homelessness different policy and homelessness - the Danish case housing policy and homelessness in Finland conclusions and policy implications. Part 4 Services for homeless people - needs and provisions: social emergency -between myth and reality the heterogeneity of homelessness and the consequences for service provision temporary accommodation for homeless people in Germany with special focus on the provision for immigrants and assylum seekers urgent accommodation shelters for homeless people in Greece - who provides services and who uses them? reflections on homelessness as seen from an institution for the homeless in Copenhagen conclusions and policy implications. Part 5 The research agenda: reflections on needs for future research.


Objective: A comparative study between two methods of open and laparoscopic partial hepatectomy. Method: 64 cases of patients with partial hepatectomy were choosing from our hospital from January 2014 to December 2014. Two groups were assigned according to the principle of random allocation of the open group and laparoscopic group, respectively and were observed its operation index, post-operative recovery indicators and other indicators. Results: Abdominal incision length, intra-operative bleeding volume, post-operative advanced liquid time, and hospitalization time were significantly better in Laparoscopic than laparotomy group ( p 0.05). Conclusion: Laparoscopic partial hepatectomy is obviously superior to open liver resection where it is worth promoting in clinical practice.


Pollen germination capacity and viability of two species viz., Caesalpinia gellisii (Hook.) Dietr. and Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Swartz. of the family Fabaceae were examined up to 48 weeks. Viability was determined on the basis of germination ability of pollen on sucrose medium with boric acid solution. Fresh pollen were stored at different storage conditions including refrigerator (4°C), freezer (-20°C, -30°C), freeze drier (-60°C), vacuum chamber and organic solvents. Pollen stored at low temperature -60°C showed better germination as compared to pollen stored at 4°C and fresh. C. pulcherrima showed much better germination percentage at -60°C (61.00%) whereas, C. gellisii, showed 30.80% germination after 48 weeks of storage. Pollen stored over silica gel in vacuum of both the species showed good germination as compared to organic solvents. Freezer (-20oC & -30oC) and freeze dryer (-60oC) maintained pollen germination capacity and viability for a longer period as compared to fresh, refrigerated, pollen treated in vacuum over silica gel and organic solvents. Conclusively both low temperature and RH humidity are the most influential factors in controlling germination and viability of pollen grains.


PART I: OVERVIEW CHAPTERS 1. The Practice of International Philanthropy 2. Motivational Factors in International Philanthropy 3. The Role of Tax Treaties in International Philanthropy 4. Tax Harmonization in the EU 5. Issues Relating to Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing 6. The Role of the Offshore Charity PART II: LEGAL SYSTEMS 7. Belgium 8. Bermuda 9. Canada 10. England and Wales 11. France 12. Germany 13. Hong Kong 14. Ireland 15. Israel 16. The Netherlands 17. Scotland 18. Switzerland 19. United States of America 20. Islamic Law


Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by depressed mood along with excessive fatigability, psychomotor agitation or retardation, weight loss or gain,patients diagnosed with MDD decreased interest in pleasurable activities and feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness for a minimum period of 2 weeks. Guidelines like NICE guidelines, Indian Psychiatric Association guidelines that are available might not be specific for all patients. Therefore, department of Psychiatry SBKSMI&RC designed Evidence Based Treatment Protocols for the same. Hence, patients attending psychiatry OPD are treated with this protocol. Our aim was study of outcome of Major Depressive Disorder treatment as per evidence based treatment protocol devised by Department of Psychiatry. Methodology: Treatment naïve 50 MDD subjects were recruited. The severity was assessed using Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). All subjects were given antidepressant monotherapy from the following group-Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI), Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRI), Norepinephrine Dopamine Reuptake Inhibitors (NDRI) & Noradrenergic & specific Serotonergic Antagonist (NaSSA) at optimal dosage for 8 weeks after which MADRS was repeated. Subjects still symptomatic (score>6) were augmented with another antidepressant at optimal doses from group other than what was given at baseline for next 8 weeks after which the outcome was assessed. Results: 72% of patients became asymptomatic (MADRS score <6) after 8 weeks of treatment. Majority of improvement was seen in mild category. 80% became asymptomatic after 8 weeks of augmentation & this was most effective in severe category. Conclusion: 80% of subjects became asymptomatic who received adequate drug trial at optimal doses according to stage-1 of our treatment protocol for MDD which implies that evidence based protocol that we designed for MDD is efficacious.


In the form of material and beneficial incentives,the system of incentives for agriculture industrialization give full scope to the initiative of the main body of agriculture industrialization--farmer households and agriculture intermediaries,which will speed up agricultural industrialization.It is the source of the underlying forces for the development of agriculture industrialization.The author maintains that the system of incentives for agriculture industrialization is a kind of institutional innovation,it mainly include the innovation of agriculture land institution,economic organization,supporting system in technology,information and capital,and the government's supporting system.


This work reports the possibility of using fungal mycelium to form the highly porous surfaces of biocompatible substances by the example of calcium acetate. The main aim of the work was the search of conditions for forming of porous structures from the volatile molecules of calcium acetate on microscopic filaments of fungal mycelium and the study of the surfaces formed from calcium acetate. Highly porous surfaces were formed by the condensation of volatile calcium acetate molecules on the fungal mycelium during vegetative development under condition close to room temperature. Various conditions allow the mean pore size of the surface of calcium acetate to range from 25÷50 μm. Experiment shows that the using of the natural structure of fungal mycelium as the filamentous substratum for condensation of the solid highly porous formations of calcium acetate can change the porousness of our samples and vary the use of these biocompatible materials in different spheres.


A method according to the invention comprises: starting plasma discharge for forming the gas barrier layer in a film deposition chamber; and producing the gas barrier layer by using a plasma after a first predetermined period of time has elapsed from a start of the plasma discharge.


This paper presents a methodology for fast detection and identification of abnormal conditions in electrical systems. Modeling and simulation of most common operations of the system are simulated to create a database containing several patterns of performance under different abnormal operation conditions. The methodology has been tested to identify abnormal operating condition caused by sympathetic interaction of inrush currents in power transformers. Experimental validation of this method was allowing good current pattern identification and a good performance of the methodology was reached.


A surge flow model has been developed after extensive experimentation in TNAU campus with different practical combinations of furrow size, length and gradients coupled with non-erosive as well as non-silting ranges of furrow inflow discharges for selected surge cycle ratios and number of surges to complete irrigation to predict the water front advance time under automated surge flow. The model was validated in respect of water front advance times and water distribution efficiencies in order to optimize the dimensional combinations of long furrow layouts coupled with automatic surge mode of irrigation. A user friendly computer softwares also was developed based on the model for interactive use by the customer.


The main purposes of the present dissertation were the specification, implementation and application of an application manager for multimodular systems of cooperative work. Besides making available a basis for the development of computer cooperative work systems, the manager also pretends to use multimodularity as a means to promote support to the development of specific systems and/or for specific users. (...) keywords: cooperative work M.S., 1997 more info. http://opac.ua.pt/F/?func=find-b&find_code=SYS&REQUEST=000107223


The utility model discloses a mechanical protecting device of preventing pressing the accelerator mistakenly for automobile emergency braking. An accelerator pedal is connected with an accelerator rack via hinges, the accelerator rack is engaged with an accelerator gear, the accelerator gear is connected with an outwards extension end of a mandrel of a retractor via keys and a nut for axially locating is provided, an outer casing of the retractor is welded with a braking gear or as a fastener is connected with the braking gear, and the braking gear is engaged with a braking rack which is connected with a braking cylinder via a brake connecting rod. An overall linkage device which comprises the accelerator gear, the retractor and the braking gear is disposed in a cylindrical supporting frame composed of a case body, a case cover and a fixed frame, which is used to protect and recover for preventing pressing the accelerator mistakenly for automobile emergency braking. The utility model has simple structure and low cost, meets the conventional driving habits, and is reliable in brake effect when pressing the accelerator by mistake or in emergency braking and the like.


We present analytical solutions for transport with bimolecular reactions in a single fracture embedded within an infinite rock matrix. The fracture and matrix are initially assumed to contain one aqueous species (B) at a uniform concentration. A second aqueous species (A) is injected into the fracture and reacts with B and an additional immobile species (N) in the rock matrix. Under these conditions, moving reaction fronts form and propagate along the fracture and into the rock matrix. We employ a composite similarity variable involving two space variables to derive analytical solutions for all species concentrations and the geometry of reaction fronts in the fracture and matrix. The behavior of the reaction‐diffusion equations in the rock matrix is posed as a Stefan problem. For uniform advection in the fracture, our analytical solutions establish that the reaction fronts propagate as the square root of time in both the matrix and the fracture. Our analytical solutions agree very well with numerical simulations. We extend our analytical solutions to nonuniform flows in the fracture by invoking a travel‐time transformation. We present applications of our analytical solutions to in situ chemical oxidation of dense nonaqueous phase liquids in fractured rock, wherein an oxidant (A, e.g., permanganate) is injected through fractures and consumed by bimolecular reactions with dissolved dense nonaqueous phase liquids (B, e.g., trichloroethylene) and natural organic matter (N) in the fracture and rock matrix. Our analytical solutions are also relevant to a broad class of reactive transport problems in fracture‐matrix systems where moving reaction fronts occur.


To the invention is in particular to deliver fuel to the vehicle heater, relates to a method for operating a metering pump 12, the metering pump is a piston, and which can move back and forth between the start position and end position for the supply and then the studies: in order to pass the piston into the end position from the starting position, and a driving unit 18 which can be excited electrically by applying a voltage, having a control and / or regulation of the voltage for generating the effective voltage, effective voltage is lower than the first maximum in the start phase (t According to the invention, in end stage followed by an intermediate phase (t Effective voltage during the start phase and / or intermediate and / or end stage, for example, may be defined by a constant or a step function in each case. The invention also relates to a device having a metering pump 12 and the control / regulating unit 20, is adapted to control the voltage applied to the drive unit 18 of the metering pump.


Objective To study the relationship between calcitonin receptor ( CTR) and the aged hip fracture,explore the pathogenesis ofosteoporosis (OP) at the gene level. Methods 105 aged hip fractures served as the cases,and 107 nonfracture persons served as the controls. The ages and sexes between them were all matched. CTR gene were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Results 212 subjects were all involved in the result analysis. The distribution of CTR were:CC genotype 187 (88. 21% ),CT 25 (11. 79% ). There was no significant difference in control group and case group and in different sexes. Age showed significant negative correlation with bone mineral density,and body mass index had significant positive correlation with bone mineral density. Subjects with presence of CT genotype group had higher BMD only at lumbar spine( L2-L4 ) and Ward's triangle (Ward's) sites than subjects in CC genotype group. The mean BMD was of no significant differenceat the other sites. Conclusion CTR genotype may not be used as genetic marker in predicting the risk of developing osteoporosis.


Construction has been most important human activity since ancient time. Concrete is widely used and reliable material for construction. Some of challenges in industry are global warming and insufficiency of construction material. One of the methods for replacing concrete constituents is the use of geo-polymer which helps in using very less quantity of cement in concrete. This project represents study on the mechanical properties of geopolymer concrete with various mixes. In this study, Geopolymer concrete is produced with fly ash and sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate is used as a binder. Fly ash is replaced by GGBS in proportions of 25%, 50% and 75% to enhance various properties of concrete. For this project, the mix design is carried out for 11M and 13M concentration of sodium hydroxide. Alkaline activator solution ratio of 2.5 and alkaline liquid to fly ash ratio 0.40 is selected for this investigation. The specimen of size 150x150x150mm cubes, 150x300mm cylinders and 500x100x100mm prisms were casted and the specimens of geo-polymer concrete are cured at ambient temperature for 7 days and 28 days. The cured specimens were then tested for compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength respectively. KeywordsFly Ash, Ground Granulated Blast Slag, Geopolymer concrete, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Silicate, Molarity ________________________________________________________________________________________________________


To investigate the point prevalence of SAD, degrees of anxiety/depression/sleep disturbance, and characteristics of tinnitus in patients with chronic tinnitus.


The Tenancy system originated in Han Dynasty and spread widely in Song Dynasty.Using the theory and method of institutional economics,the author ,analyzes characteristics of the tenancy system,reasons for its development and its impact upon the society and economy in south part of China in period of Song and Yuan.


Introduction: Several studies have evaluated the incidence and clinical relevance of cytogenetic abnormalities in primary myelofibrosis (PMF). However, little is known about the clinical correlation of these abnormalities in patients with post-essential thrombocythemia/polycythemia vera myelofibrosis (PET/PPV-MF). Objective: We aimed to measure the frequency of cytogenetic abnormalities (Abn) and describe their clinical significance in patients with PMF and PET/PPV-MF seen at our center. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 1100 patients with MF (766 PMF, 354 PET/PV-MF) who were referred to our institution between 1984 and 2013. Diagnoses were made according to 2008 WHO criteria. Cytogenetic analysis done at the time of referral was reported according to the International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature. Statistical analysis considered parameters at the time of cytogenetic studies. Complex karyotype (CK) was defined as 3 or more unrelated abnormalities (Abn) and monosomal karyotype (MK) was defined as 2 autosomal monosomies or a single monosomy with at least one additional structural abnormality. Fisher9s exact, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used for comparisons of categorical and continuous variables, respectively. The Kaplan-Meier analysis with log rank test were used for OS comparisons. Results: Cytogenetic data with > 10 analyzable metaphases were obtained in 981 (89%) patients. Overall, 360 (37%) patients had an abnormal karyotype. Frequency and types of cytogenetic Abn were similar between PMF and PET/PPV-MF (Table 1). Sixty one percent of patients (n=220) had a single Abn, 25% (n=89) had two, and 15% (n=52) had 3 or more Abn, including 6% with MK (n=26). Proportional distribution was similar between PMF and PET/PPV-MF patients. Comparison of patients with one, two, or ≥3 Abn (i.e. CK) revealed that patients with CK were more likely to be anemic (hemoglobin Estimated OS was 48 months (range, 43-52) for both patients with PMF and PET/PPV-MF. Among all patients, OS was shorter among those with CK (median 14 months, range 7-21) than in those with one (median 48, range 37-60) or two (median 58, range 43-73) Abn (p=0.000, chi-sq 26.6). Overall median follow up from the time of referral was 29 months (range, 0.5-251) and 61% (n=220) of patients had died. Among all patients, median survival from date of referral was 19 months (range, 0.5-251). During an observation period of 1105 persons-years, progression to AML occurred in 44 (12%) patients after a median time of 13 months (range, 0.5-175). The incidence of AML was higher among those with CK (23% vs 15% vs 13% with CK, two or one Abn, respectively; p=0.014, chi-sq 8.7). Among the known causes of death (in 109 patients), progression of MF/AML was the most common (24%, n=53). Conclusion: The frequency of cytogenetic abnormalities in patients with PMF and PET/PPV-MF and their clinical relevance appear to be similar. Patients with CK have shorter OS and a higher incidence of AML in both PMF and PET/PPV-MF. Disclosures Cortes: ARIAD: Consultancy, Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squib: Consultancy, Research Funding; Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding; Pfizer: Consultancy, Research Funding; Teva: Research Funding.


The Spanwise Adaptive Wing project intends to obtain a wide spectrum of aerodynamic benefits in flight by folding wings through the use of an innovative and lightweight shape memory alloy.