Background: This study attempted to test the effectiveness of digital nerve block (DNB) in active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) joints with respect to local disease control. Methods: The study included 83 RA patients aged 18 years or above and diagnosed, after American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism criteria 2010, with bilateral proximal interphalangeal (PIP) arthritis. PIPs were examined by European League Against Rheumatism-outcome measures in rheumatoid arthritis clinical trials scoring system at 0, 2, and 8 weeks. Visual analog scales for each hand were also done at the same intervals. DNBs of the second and third PIPs were performed to the dominant hand in 50% of participants. The other hand was used as a control, and saline was injected in the same level at the control side. Results: At 2 weeks and 8 weeks intervals, the active side showed significantly less clinical and ultrasound scores when compared to the control side and the baseline values. The mean OMERACT score for the active hand dropped from 3.37±1.43 at 0 time to 2.31±1.66 after 2 weeks and 2.55±1.43 at 8 weeks (P<0.001). Also, visual analog scale decreased from 59 at 0 time to 41 at 2 weeks and 43 at 8 weeks (P<0.001). The amelioration was greater when the active side was the dominant one. The injected PIPs showed maximum improvement at 2 weeks. Improvement was more significant in the second PIP. Early patients achieved better outcomes. Conclusion: DNB is a new promising therapy for RA. It can control pain and inflammation of the PIPs. It has relatively short-term effect, yet it could limit escalation of systemic treatment plans.


A lid for a plastic container, which container is particularly useful for containing paint, includes a sealing flange which engages the inner surface of a rim defining the opening of the container. The sealing flange is held in engagement with the rim by a plurality of locking tabs which are integral with the lid and fit beneath an inwardly projecting lip on the flange. The flange has a generally convex configuration while the rim has a concave configuration so that the lid is prevented from moving axially out of or into the container once it is locked in place by the tabs.


This article emphasizes the need for an alternative index which considers sustainability of human development and formulates an index based on strong sustainability. The strong sustainability notion underlines the need for sustaining natural capital resembling ecological footprints and is superior to a weak sustainability criterion since natural capital cannot be substitutable to a wider extent for fostering sustainable human development. The Ecological Footprint Biocapacity Index (EFBI) constructed is used in formulating Sustainable Human Development Index (SHDI) along with the other components of UNDP HDI. A comparative analysis has been made to justify the Sustainability Assessment Index as an appropriate index than other available indices. Statistics applied on the UNDP HDI and the Sustainable HDI shows significant difference between the two. The goal is to logically justify the need for a suitable index which can capture human development in terms of its sustainability.


The synthetic use of tertiary amines for the esterification of equimolar amounts of carboxylic acids involves an sp3 C—N bond cleavage.


The problem of microbiological pollution in the Baltic Sea and its lagoons is of great importance. The main sources of the pollution in the south-eastern part of the Baltic Sea are the effluent of industrial and domestic waste water and polluted water of rivers. Bacterioplankton data of the Curonian Lagoon were obtained during the period 1995-2003 at 8-9 ecological monitoring stations once a month from April to November. In the spring (May), summer (August) and autumn (October or November) of 1993-2003 sanitary-microbiological researches were performed in 11 stations of the Lithuanian coastal water. During the period of investigations a tendency of decrease in number of coliform bacteria was observed in the area influenced by the water of the Curonian Lagoon. It could be due to the fact that in December 1998 the treatment facility of Klaipeda started to work. The other, though less polluted with relatively pathogenic microflora zone was observed near Šventoji. The area of the sea between Juodkrante and Nida is to the least degree influenced by waste water and the water quality there may be evaluated in general as bacteriologically clean.


Cassuto, Leonard. (2015). The graduate school mess: What caused it and how we can fix it. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pages: 309. Price: $29.95 USD (hardcover).There are several problems currently facing graduate schools in Canada and the United States. Lack of future academic positions, slow student progress, tightening university budgets, and mental wellness concerns challenge graduate students, their supervisors, and their institutions of higher learning (Allum, Kent, & McCarthy, 2014; Bok, 2015; Charbonneau, 2013). It is in this turbulent atmosphere that Cassuto (2015) has written his timely book calling for reform of graduate school systems. Knowing his audience of tenured professors can not be coerced into reform, Cassuto appeals to the reader's sense of decency: advocating for humane treatment of graduate students, with a focus on meeting students' needs, respecting their time, their financial concerns, and their need to prepare for careers that might lie outside of academia.Cassuto is a professor of English at Fordham University. While he has edited books and written journal articles, his main qualification for writing this book may be his column for the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "The Graduate Adviser" where he explores many of the issues encountered with graduate education. It is these explorations that led to the writing of The Graduate School Mess.Cassuto begins the book by laying out some of the problems with the current state of graduate schools. Historically graduate programs, particularly at the Ph.D. level, have been training for an academic career. The availability of these positions has dwindled, however, and graduate schools are not necessarily meeting the needs of students who wish to seek work outside of academia. Given the breadth and depth of skills typically developed during the Ph.D. process, Cassuto argues that with appropriate advisement and training, this set of transferrable skills can be identified and honed.Chapter one describes the gatekeeping role played by the admissions process. This chapter takes a historic look at the traditional bias towards knowledge production over teaching, the bias towards research institutions, and the focus on placing the needs of researchers over the needs of their students. To address this imbalance, Cassuto suggests, faculty need to take a broader view of scholarship that includes more than publishing, admissions to graduate programs should be reduced, and a diverse range of goals for students should be promoted.The classwork chapter suggests responsibilities that professors should take on in their role of teaching graduate students. While teaching graduate school is considered the pinnacle of teaching, not enough thought is given to the needs of graduate students where their learning and professional futures are concerned; too often students are left to learn on their own and from each other. To improve the current situation, Cassuto suggests that graduate schools need to prepare students for jobs outside of academia, include explicit writing instruction, and focus on skills.The third chapter focusses on the comprehensive exam. Again, based on a historic review, Cassuto considers the role of the comprehensive in identifying students who should or should not carry on with their current studies. Cassuto argues the exam format does not lend itself to retention and transfer of information and suggests a more developmental process with more authentic assessment as a more useful format. Exams based on a student and committee developed reading list, a synthesis paper based on the student's research, a portfolio, or a dissertation proposal, are presented as more meaningful comprehensive projects.The next chapter covers the complexities of advisor-student relationships, noting advisors must now prepare themselves to be able to support students who are likely to choose a job outside of academia. …


The applicability of a simplified energy surface, similar to the one used to explain the Hall coefficient of beryllium in a previous paper (Shiozaki 1975), to the other hexagonal close packed metals, zinc and cadmium, has been examined. A simplified Fermi surface has been constructed of the doughnut-like ring and ellipsoid pieces, its overall dimensions being chosen to resemble those of the experimentally determined surface. Good agreement is obtained with the simple model for the anisotropy and the sign of the Hall coefficients. It is found that the contribution from the second zone hole 'monster' is very considerable and it appears that the results are further improved only if the author improves the approximation for the 'monster'. It is concluded that the anisotropy of the relaxation time plays no important role.


The clock‐drawing test (CDT) is a widely used screening tool for detecting cognitive decline. However, normative data for Chinese individuals are scarce. Our study aimed to provide standardized values for the three quantitative CDT scoring methods that were tailored for Chinese‐speaking adults in Shijiazhuang City and explore the discriminant validity of the CDT scores in patients with acute ischemic stroke.


Presents a particle filter-based algorithm for IR target-tracking.In this algorithm,sampling particles are optimized and selected,and the re-sampling phase is improved.It solves the problems of massive computation in traditional particle filter.And this method is adopted in tracking pupil,which has better precision and higher efficiency.The paper also applied Hough transform to locate the edge of pupil and achieved very good results.


This article surveys the data attached to OpenID identifiers, as a means to learn the formats and semantics of information currently shared by OpenID users. Identifiers have been harvested from websites that support OpenID authentication and publicly display them. They were subsequently analyzed and the results of the analysis show that half of the identifiers belong to custom domains while a quarter rely on their own OpenID provider. Attached information is related to blogging activities principally, in a HTML embedded format. Most common semantics include tagging, personal details and social relationships.


JOHNSON'S message to Congress proposed no major new legislation. Instead, II was a pep talk aimed at speeding con· gressional acLion on long·pending criminal legislation, and reshapIng public attitudes toward crime. .' IOiiIfIWo' .. "",* "The need Is not new. We have simply falled to meet it," Johnson I8icL BESIDES STANDING IN LINE .nd p ..... ntl'" theIr Identification cards lit thI. pol11", baeth lit


One of the main targets of artificial intelligence is to solve the complex control problems which have high-dimensional observation spaces. Recently, the combination of deep learning and reinforcement learning has made remarkable progress, including the high-level performance in the video and board games, 3D navigations and robotic control. In this thesis, deep reinforcement learning algorithms are studied to perform some robotic tasks with continuous action spaces. Firstly, we use deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) and hindsight experience replay (HER) with a simple binary reward to achieve a multi-goal reinforcement learning task, making the redundant manipulator learn the policy of reaching any given position. Then we use DDPG with a shaped reward to train the redundant manipulator to complete the same task. By referring to the idea of HER, we propose a future and random strategy to obtain some additional goals combined with the shaped reward to generate some new transitions, which can help to improve the sample efficiency. After that, we use DDPG with prioritized experience replay to realize the trajectory tracking task of a SCARA robot and a mobile robot. Two training strategies, random referenced state initialization and early termination, are introduced to enable the robots to learn effectively from the referenced trajectories. Secondly, we focus on the distributed deep reinforcement learning. We use asynchronous advantage actor-critic (A3C) and synchronous advantage actorcritic (A2C) algorithms, both of which have multiple workers to collect the transitions and compute the gradients, to train the redundant manipulator to complete the multi-goal task. We propose a new reward function to optimize the reaching path of the end-effector. The performances of agents trained by different algorithms and reward functions are compared. Next, we propose a distributed framework of DDPG, where the synchronous workers generate transitions and compute gradients for the global network and the collecting workers only produce transitions for the shared replay memory with different policies and exploration noises. We use this proposed distributed DDPG with prioritized experience replay to train the SCARA robot and mobile robot to track the same trajectories, which presents a faster learning speed and smaller tracking errors compared with the single-worker DDPG. Next, we study on the proximal policy optimization algorithm (PPO) with generalized advantage estimation (GAE). We propose a distributed framework of PPO by running multiple workers to collect transitions for the global network at the same time. Then we use this distributed PPO with GAE to train the redundant manipulator to achieve the multi-goal task and make comparison with the previous methods. After that, we use distributed PPO with GAE and the improved training strategies to train the mobile robot to track the trajectories. In order to improve the training and sample efficiency, a two-stage training strategy which consists of the supervised pre-training and fine-training by distributed PPO is proposed. This two-stage training strategy can also obtain a better tracking performance. Then we introduce LSTM to represent the actor and critic, and use buffers to store the cell state and hidden state of LSTM used for the initialization of each episode to solve the problem of inaccurate initial LSTM states. By introducing LSTM, the tracking performance of mobile robot can be improved compared with distributed PPO with fully-connected networks. Finally, we utilize deep reinforcement learning to train a autonomous vehicle to learn the driving behaviors. Deep reinforcement learning provides an end-to-end method for the autonomous driving by directly mapping the high-dimensional raw sensory input to the control command output. We design a reward function which encourages the vehicle to drive along the road smoothly and overtake other vehicles. We adopt a two-stage training strategy which consists of the imitation learning stage and deep reinforcement learning stage. The imitation


As consumers pay more and more attention to food safety, organic foods are also gradually being taken more seriously as a priority purchasing consideration. There are many types of organic foods at various prices, so selecting organic foods can be difficult for consumers, and this study is intended to determine whether the rise in online shopping has caused changes in the purchasing habits of consumers. The purpose of the study is to explore the correlation of product knowledge, channel selection and organic certification of organic foods to perceived value of the consumer, and the influence of perceived value of the consumer to purchase intention using existing and potential consumers of organic foods in Southern Taiwan as the object of the study. The study methods include the use of convenience sampling using a paper questionnaire at an organic food store as well as an Internet questionnaire. A descriptive statistics analysis, a factor and reliability analysis, a t-test and ANOVA, and a regression analysis are used to analyze the data and verify the validity of the responses. At the conclusion of this analysis, it was determined that multiple channels have no effects on channel selection and perceived value. There was very little mediation effect from perceived value, which fell between channel selection and purchase intention, and there was very little nediation effect between organic certification and purchase intention. Most importantly, the main factor influencing consumer value perception and purchanse intention was found to be product knowledge.


The article presents scientific study and analysis of the articles published during the independence about Mangit rulers of Bukhara and ther social and political activity


In a naturally occurring model of congestive cardiomyopathy (CCM) of turkeys, alterations of Ca++ transport in isolated cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) were documented in the young CCM turkey at 1, 10, and 28 days of age; prior to the development of cardiac dilatation. Ca++ binding in CCM birds was reduced to 55-75% of values measured in age-matched commercial control turkeys (p<0.05 to <0.01)and Ca++ uptake was reduced to 52-87% of control values (p<0.05 to <0.01). Ca++ stimulated ATPase values at 1, 10, and 28 days of age were similar in CCM and control turkeys. However, at 56 days of age when all CCM birds showed marked to moderate left ventricular dilatation, Ca++ stimulated ATPase was reduced to 75% of control values (p<0.05). Cyclophosphamide immunosuppression of newly hatched CCM turkeys significantly elevated Ca++ binding and Ca++ uptake in isolated cardiac SR from 10-day-old birds by 73% and 58% respectively (p<0.05 and <0.01) over values measured in untreated CCM birds. These results were not significantly different from values obtained in 10-day-old control turkeys. In summary this unique depression of SR Ca++ uptake and Ca++ binding, prior to the onset of cardiac dilatation, and which is reversed by immunosuppression, provides an experimental link between this animal model and a proposed mechanism for the pathogenesis of congestive cardiomyopathy in man.


Cellular systems provide two-way voice and data communication with regional, national, or international coverage. Cellular systems were initially designed for mobile terminals inside vehicles with antennas mounted on the vehicle roof. Today these systems have evolved to support lightweight handled mobile terminals operating inside and outside buildings at both pedestrian and vehicle speeds. The basic premise behind cellular systems design is frequency reuse, which exploits the fact that signal power falls off with distance to reuse the same frequency spectrum at spatially separated locations. Specifically, the coverage area of a cellular system is divided into nonoverlappping cells, where some set of channels is assigned to each cell. This same channel set is used in another cell some distance away. Operation within a cell is controlled by a centralized base station, as described in more detail below. The interference caused by users in different cells operating on the same channel set is called intercell interference. The spatial separation of cells that reuse the same channel set, the reuse distance, should be as small as possible so that frequencies are reused as often as possible, thereby maximizing spectral efficiency. However, as the reuse distance decreases, intercell interference increases owing to the smaller propagation distance between interfering cells. Since intercell interference must remain below a given threshold for acceptable systems performance, reuse distance cannot be reduced below some minimum value. In practice it is quite difficult to determine this minimum value, since both the transmitting and interfering signals experience random power variations due to the characteristics of wireless signal propagation. In order to determine the best reuse distance and base station placement, an accurate model is needed. Initial cellular system designs were mainly driven by the high cost of base stations. For this reason, early cellular systems used a relatively small number of cells to cover an entire city or region. The cell base stations were placed on tall buildings or mountains and transmitted


National Academy of Agricultural Science, RDAABSTRACT: This study discusses developing historical trails and ecological trails in rural area. Since the leisure time and interests in environment and health have been increasing, the number of hikers who enjoy the beautiful landscape and regional culture through the exploration of natural regions has been growing. However, these various road haven't been related to the rural village in many cases, so it is necessary to make some alternatives for revitalizing the region and improving incomes of non farm. Therefore this study suggested the applications of rural trail plan that fits for a scale of the rural village and local characteristics. This research divided forms of the rural village road into type of the natural landscape resource (Gangreung Anbandegi Village) and that of the historical culture resource (Yongin Hakil Village) according to amenity resources of objective village. The plan for village road basically made by the best of valuable resources of village unit, connected existing 'Trail' of other departments to the village and suggested a case of plan applied to the field so as to emphasize characteristics of rural area. It should be possible to induce hikers to rural area and be suggested as a measure for improvement of village image, regional vitalization and incomes of non farm.Key words: Rural Identity, Rural Amenity, Rural Road, Trail Planning in Rural Area


Migration, as the displacement of peoples, triggered throughout the centuries by wars, natural disasters, political oppression, poverty and famine, religious persecution is a profound human experience and an intimate part of the biblical saga from the beginning, along with the social, anthropological and spiritual issues it raises. The history of Israel is rooted in migration and the Jewish Diaspora is the most extensive and well documented migrations in antiquity. The wandering of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the exile, the dispersion and the return to Jerusalem are embedded in the consciousness of the people of Israel and helped define their character as a people and the nature of their relationship to God. For the Christian Church, migration was a phenomenon that configured its history and forced it to define itself and to specify the eschatological goal of its missionary. The patristic writings of the first centuries indicate that Christians have always considered themselves pilgrims to the heavenly homeland, not having a particular homeland here on earth, although they have always managed to adapt to the social and political conditions of the times. Starting from these historical, social and spiritual premises, the present study proposes a reflection both from a biblical and patristic perspective on the migration phenomenon, trying to offer the premises of a debate in the space of orthodox theology on this current topic.


Although it is commonly acknowledged that homophobia and racial marginalization influence queer African American male youth, there is very little research to back up this belief. Due to the paucity of information for clinicians, families, and communities on the relational dynamics of queer African American male youth and their parents, queer African American male youth were interviewed to explore the ways in which they understand their experience of the disclosure process, paying particular attention to the interface between race and sexual orientation and relational dynamics. This exploratory, qualitative study examined data gathered in interviews with individual male youth that identified themselves as African American and queer. Eleven participants were interviewed in semi-structured interviews for the purpose of exploring participant's experience of the disclosure process with specific emphasis on their racial identity. Data analysis revealed essential structures which underlay the interpersonal and intrapersonal disclosure experience. In addition, a preliminary stage model, including pre-disclosure, disclosure and experience after disclosure was found. Implications for clinicians working with queer, African American male youth and their families are discussed as are suggestions for future research. Growing Up Gay in Black America: An exploration of the coming out process of Queer African American Youth


This essay attempts, from personal conversations as well as from the foregoing papers, to collate and contrast the multifaceted situations and challenges being faced by clinical pharmacologists in various portions of the world and therefrom to delineate and contrast the logiC and approaches utilized, not only among the areas represented but also with regard to the United States. An effort is made to provide a brief overview of academia, government, and industry.


The formation of n (Znx – Cd1-x)S-PSI neterojunction solar cell under various heat treatments is investigated in order to optimize their behaviour. The results obtained indicate that substantial improvement can be made in the conversion and quantum efficiency of cells witn x about 0.75 , deposited at substrate temperature of 370oc , after annealing in H2/N2 atmosphere at 600oc. Under these conditions , minimum density of interface states good lattice maton , and maximum electron mobility are achieved.


Fishing in Sri Lanka has been carried on largely with the use of traditional methods and in recent years there has been a marked increase in the use of mechanized craft for fishing. Although some effort has been made in the sphere of deep-sea fishing both by trawlers and long line tuna boats, such efforts have not made a significant contribution towards improving the industry. The progress of deep-sea fishing in Sri Lanka has been hindered due to a number of reasons described by the author.


The purpose of this paper is to give an overview on pebble automata which can be encountered in di erent domains as gures families recognition complexity theory and labyrinths theory It gives de nitions examples and some basic theorems with their proofs


OmniPCX Office is a new generation communication server that enables SMEs to benefit from the convergence of their voice, data and Internet communications.


Results from the 2007 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimate that, among adults in the United States, 68% are either overweight or obese (body mass index [BMI] 25 kg m ), with the prevalence having increased significantly over the past 20 years. The associated health problems mean that this population is presenting for surgery in ever greater numbers. The challenges regarding the perioperative management of obese patients are well known, with the effects of obesity on the airway and the respiratory, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal systems being of most concern to anesthetists. In 1987, Strandberg and colleagues found a correlation between obesity and the area of lung densities seen immediately after induction of anesthesia. A more recent study showed that during general anesthesia, morbidly obese patients suffer more atelectasis than did the nonobese, and unlike the normal population, this atelectasis can persist for 24 hours. Atelectasis may result in arterial hypoxemia and marked alterations in respiratory mechanics, which can be alleviated by the use of positive end-expiratory pressure during anesthesia. Applying 10 cm H2O of positive endexpiratory pressure increases oxygenation in obese patients, and this improvement is directly related to the amount of alveolar recruitment achieved. However, lung recruitment maneuvers do not improve postoperative oxygenation, and thus rapid recovery from general anesthesia is desirable to minimize postoperative respiratory complications. Agents of choice for rapid emergence and recovery in recent times have been IV propofol, owing to its large volume of distribution at steady state and high metabolic clearance, or the less-soluble volatile anesthetic, desflurane. However, confusion persists regarding drug dosing in the obese, largely because of inadequate knowledge of pharmacokinetic parameters with altered body composition. Volume of distribution, clearance, and protein binding may each be affected by obesity. Clinical studies have, so far, failed to define a universal size descriptor suitable for use in the obese population; therefore, titration to clinical end-points or targeted, processed, electroencephalogram (EEG) values such as bispectral index (BIS) remain advisable. In this edition of Anesthesia & Analgesia, Zoremba and colleagues report on the effects of propofol and desflurane on postoperative lung function in overweight patients, concluding that maintenance of anesthesia with propofol impairs early postoperative lung function and pulse oximetry values to a greater extent than does maintenance with desflurane. Furthermore, the reduction in pulmonary function at 2 hours appeared to increase with increasing obesity after propofol but not with desflurane anesthesia. These findings, on the face of it, seem somewhat surprising, given what is known of the pharmacokinetics of propofol. However, previous work has suggested that desflurane may have a better recovery profile than does propofol in morbidly obese patients with regard to early recovery parameters including eye opening, orientation, postextubation Spo2 values, and sedation up to 2 hours after surgery. 8


Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) are regarded as one of the most promising materials for next-generation nano-electronics. However, there are still several challenges limiting its wide applications, including the inability in controlled growth of SWNT connections. In this study, we developed a laser-based in-situ growth approach to simultaneously fabricate SWNT-bridge arrays on a single silicon substrate with precise control. Localized thermal enhancement induced by optical near-field effects and an external electric field enabled the SWNT growth with precise control of growth sites and directions. Furthermore, laser polarization also shows significant influence on the control of growth site for SWNTs. Simultaneous growth of SWNT-bridge arrays in various patterns was achieved. Raman spectroscopy and I-V analysis demonstrated the successful growth of SWNT bridge structures. The laser-based growth method suggests a promising solution for the fabrication of SWNT-based systems in nano-electronics.Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) are regarded as one of the most promising materials for next-generation nano-electronics. However, there are still several challenges limiting its wide applications, including the inability in controlled growth of SWNT connections. In this study, we developed a laser-based in-situ growth approach to simultaneously fabricate SWNT-bridge arrays on a single silicon substrate with precise control. Localized thermal enhancement induced by optical near-field effects and an external electric field enabled the SWNT growth with precise control of growth sites and directions. Furthermore, laser polarization also shows significant influence on the control of growth site for SWNTs. Simultaneous growth of SWNT-bridge arrays in various patterns was achieved. Raman spectroscopy and I-V analysis demonstrated the successful growth of SWNT bridge structures. The laser-based growth method suggests a promising solution for the fabrication of SWNT-based systems in nano-electronics.


Background. Cannabidiol (CBD), found in Cannabis sativa (hemp), is a non-psychoactive phytochemical substance that has gained considerable popularity over the past decade. Cannabidiol is the main phytocannabinoid, its share in the plant extract can reach 40%. Cannabidiol does not have any of the psychoactive properties that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and has a significant advantage for clinical use. Studies of cannabidiol involve studies of cognitive, anxiety and movement disorders, and chronic pain, but there is a lack of high-quality evidence that cannabidiol is effective for these conditions, such as safety and precise dose ranges for each disorder.
Aim: to analyze the main achievements in the development of experimental and clinical use of cannabidiol.
Materials and methods. We conducted a search for scientific studies related to the therapeutic use of cannabidiol. The included studies were selected based on a search of the online databases PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar for documents related to the history of research and use of cannabidiol (cannabis, cannabidiol, tetrahydrocannabinol, endocannabinoid system, cannabinoid receptors were used as keywords). The search was carried out by two independent authors and 158 sources were selected for analysis, of which 61 were used that met the search criteria.
Results. Based on the analysis of experimental and clinical studies, it was established that cannabidiol has various properties, including antiapoptotic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antipsychotic and neuroprotective. In addition, basic and clinical studies of the effects of cannabidiol have been conducted in the context of many other health conditions, including its potential use in epilepsy, depression, neurodystrophic diseases, schizophrenia, and social phobia.
Conclusion. Therefore, cannabidiol is a non-psychoactive phytochemical compound that can help patients with a different clinical condition. Despite the achievements, further studies are needed to determine the administration regimen and dose, likely side effects with long-term use, particularly in clinical settings.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the environmental effects of contemporary groups (CG), Julian birth date (JBD), age of dam at calving (AD) and age of calf at weaning (AC) on pre-weaning performance traits: birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW) and 205 days adjusted weaning gain (WG) of Devon cattle raised in Rio Grande do Sul. A total of 23,369 records on animals, born from 1980 to 2000, collected by PROMEBO – beef cattle improvement program of Associação Nacional de Criadores Herd Book Collares were used. Analyses were performed by PROC MIXED of SAS, using a model that included CG, JBD and AD as fixed effects and sire and residual error as random effects. Average BW of animals that were born in Oct-Nov was 3.15% higher than BW of animals that were born in Jul, which were respectively for WW and WG 11.51% and 9.99% heavier than animals that were born in Nov. Age of dam showed a quadratic effect with maximal response on all traits around eight years,. The age of calf effect was quadratic on WG and linear on WW. These results indicate environmental effects should be included in models used for genetic evaluations of pre-weaning performance traits in order to improve their precision and reliability.


In the presence of iodine, a functional group compatible method for the deprotection of tert-butanesulfinyl and p-toluenesulfinyl units was developed.


Water samples in Qingshuiquan underground river were collected to investigate the composition,distribution and sources of 16 priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons( PAHs).PAHs were measured by GC / MS. The results showed that the total concentration of 16 PAHs ranged from 162. 13 ng·L-1to 224. 99 ng·L-1in underground river,with an average concentration of191.71 ng·L-1. The PAHs profiles were dominated by 4 ring PAHs,which accounted for 47.14% of16 PAHs. The PAHs levels increased from upstream to downstream reaches of the river. The ratios of2 to 3 rings PAHs first increased then decreased. The PAHs in upstream area mainly came from the combustion of grass, wood and coal. The PAHs in the middle and downstream areas mainly originated from petroleum in Ganhuai village. And the PAHs in the outlet of the underground river mainly came from both petroleum and combustion.


Abstract— In the background of retail side's marketability reform, the method of choosing high-quality users of the power distribution company based on multidimension characteristics mining is studied. First, the evaluation model concerning the user's multidimensional feature is established, and the user's feature mining is carried out from five different aspects, including curve type, response ability, economic value, credit rating and predictability of electricity. The improved k-mean clustering algorithm is used to classify the user's curves, and the curves are evaluated and quantified through the load index. The other four indexes' quantitative values are obtained by analytic hierarchy process. After the quantization of indexes, the user's characteristic index vector is obtained. Then the optimized combination model of premium users is set up to make the combination performs better in many different aspects. The actual user data in Baoding is used to validate the results, demonstrating that the proposed model is practical and effective.


The Brownian motor with time delay was investigated. The expression of its current was analytically derived by exploiting the adiabatic approximation in the small time delay. By means of numerical calculations, we found that the time delay can not only make the current be maximum but also induce current inversion, and there is a critical phenomenon about current inversion. Mechanisms of the current inversion were explored from the point of view of modified potential.


English is a part of international languages that used for communication, like as Mechanical Engineering students use English book to string engine instruction.For transferring English into Bahasa we need skill and specific ability. Mechanical Engineering students who are not studying english as their main subject, can do some mistakes in transalating. Making Mistakes are a natural and unavoidable part of the process of learning English.The writer did preliminary research at Mechanical Engineering students Department of Muria Kudus University, Mechanical Engineering students said that translating is hard to do, it is too difficult.
This research aimed to know how the ability of the Mechanical Engineering students in translating engine instruction and the analysis of the fifth semester students of mechanical engineering in translating engine instruction.
This research is a qualitative research which was conducted in Mechanical Engineering of Muria Kudus University. The subjects of this research were the students of the fifth student's Mechanical Engineering of Muria Kudus University in academic year 2016/2017, while the data source is the result of student's translation test.
After analyzing the result, the writer knows the ability and found the mistakes anlysis made by the fifth students of Mechanical Engineering Department of Muria Kudus University 2016/2017 academic year. The students translation are good, but there are some student who still have low score in translating. The ability of the students are classified in four ability, for the first is very good, good, fair and the last is poor. They also made some mistakes in translating engine instruction and classified in four types of mistakes, they are incorrect word, missing word, word order and unknown word.
 Based on the result above, the writer suggest to the students should not worry to making mistakes beacuse mistakes is human for everyone, they should use the mistakes as device to learn more about translation. And this research can give information for the students to know their ability and their mistakes in translating, so the students can understand about types of mistakes and the mistakes that have made by the students.


approaching people in disaster areas, and great strides have been made in disaster response by mental health professionals. Lastly, Ozawa-de Silva repeatedly emphasizes the importance of looking into the subjectivity of those under study. I found it somewhat surprising to see how constantly she tries to justify herself in this regard: to me, such an approach seems to be not only self-evident but also crucial when studying any human behavior in depth in either a clinical or nonclinical setting, at least in the beginning. Granted, I am a sociologist and clinician rather than an anthropologist, but I had been under the impression that the approach was fundamental in anthropology as well. If such emphasis is indeed now required, here too Anatomy of Loneliness makes a significant contribution to the field.


The composition dependence of the natural band alignment at the GaxIn1–xP/AlyIn1–yP alloy interface is investigated via hybrid functional based density functional theory. The direct–indirect crossover for the GaxIn1–xP and AlyIn1–yP alloys is calculated to occur for x = 0.9 and y = 0.43. The calculated GaxIn1–xP/AlyIn1–yP interface band alignment shows a crossover from type‐I to type‐II with increasing Ga content x. The valence band offset is essentially positive irrespective of the alloy compositions, and amounts up to 0.56 eV. The conduction band offset varies between −0.85 and 1.16 eV.


Over the last years, the rising capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) have improved human decision-making in many application areas. Teaming between AI and humans may even lead to complementary team performance (CTP), i.e., a level of performance beyond the ones that can be reached by AI or humans individually. Many researchers have proposed using explainable AI (XAI) to enable humans to rely on AI advice appropriately and thereby reach CTP. However, CTP is rarely demonstrated in previous work as often the focus is on the design of explainability, while a fundamental prerequisite -- the presence of complementarity potential between humans and AI -- is often neglected. Therefore, we focus on the existence of this potential for effective human-AI decision-making. Specifically, we identify information asymmetry as an essential source of complementarity potential, as in many real-world situations, humans have access to different contextual information. By conducting an online experiment, we demonstrate that humans can use such contextual information to adjust the AI's decision, finally resulting in CTP.


Blood flow throughout the cardiovascular system is driven by pressure differences generated by the contraction and relaxation of the heart, where blood accelerates from high to low pressure areas. ...


In this ground-breaking book, Trebeck and Williams challenge us to make ourselves at home with economic wealth, to ensure that everyone is included. They explore the possibility of 'Arrival', urging us to move from enlarging the economy to improving it, and the benefits this would bring for all.


There are above 48 species of Cerasus distributing in China,among which 10 species(including 2 varieties,3 forms)are in Shandong Province with 9 species in Laoshan,which nearly cover all the species of Cerasus in Shandong.In the paper ,all the species of Cerasus in Laoshan are examined,the garden character and use of them are elaborated.


This article discusses the issue of cinema screen commercials and suggests that it should be considered within the context of movie theatre intermission time utilization, where the other alternatives are short, commercially sponsored films or illuminated theatres. A two-stage attitudinal survey of movie goers shows that the majority prefer to have something on the screen during intermission time. Respondents expressed negative attitudes towards cinema screen commercials, resulting in short, commercially sponsored films being the most preferred alternative. Negative attitudes do not imply agreement with the banning of commercials, nor a willingness to share its costs. The relative ranking of illuminated theatres over cinema screen commercials changed after respondents were exposed to the economic implications of their choice.


Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems provide a second opinion to health professionals about the possible existence of an anomaly. Evaluation of CAD systems is a challenge and most of the traditional metrics requires the constant participation of experts. This paper presents an approach for evaluating CAD systems using concepts of Content-Based Image Retrieval and graphical oracles. After implementing feature descriptors and selecting three similarity functions, two metrics are proposed to measure the efficiency of CAD systems. A case study was conducted considering three simulated CAD systems to detect masses and calcifications in mammographic images. The results indicated that the our approach is as robust as traditional metrics with respect to performance evaluation. However, our approach is more flexible than traditional metrics because evaluators can choose the more adequate features to assess a particular CAD system.


Improving soil-water relations by amending soil with biochar might play a significant role in increasing water availability for agricultural crops as well as decreasing water loss through drainage or runoff. While the effects of biochar on the hydrological properties on coarse-textured soils are generally positive and well-documented in the literature, studies on biochar effects on fine-textured soils are rather scarce and even contradictory. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to investigate the impact of biochar on the bulk density, water retention curve (together with several water capacitive indicators) and water infiltration rate in a clay loam soil. A pot experiment was carried out under lab conditions in which biochar was mixed with soil at rates of 0 (B0 or control), 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10% dw (B2, B4, B6, B8 and B10, respectively). Water retention of soil–biochar mixtures at different matrix potentials was determined using a pressure plate apparatus. From these measurements, a series of capacitive indicators was derived and the fitting of the van Genuchten model was also performed. Water infiltration into soil–biochar mixtures was measured by means of a mini-disk infiltrometer and the obtained data were analyzed both directly and by fitting the Philip's model. Biochar significantly affected the considered soil properties. As the biochar rate increased, the bulk density decreased and water retention increased (B6, B8 and B10 > B2, B4 and B0), while the infiltration rate decreased (B0 > B2, B4, B6, B8 and B10). Although the experiment was performed on sieved and repacked soil samples under lab conditions, the results confirmed that biochar has the potential to increase plant-available water, while possibly reducing drainage water in a clay loam soil by lowering the infiltration rate.


Objective:To observe the effect of baicalin on DNA synthesi s of Candida albicans.Methods:The minimum inhibitory concentration(MICs) of baic a lin against Candida albicans were determined by Test-tube dilution method;By mea ns of incorporation experiment of 3H-TdR,the inhibitory effect of various concen tration of baicalin on DNA synthesis of Candida albicans were observed.Results:M I C of baicalin against Candida albicans was 1.0mg/ml;Baicalin could obviously inh ibit on DNA synthesis of Candida albicans,and with the concentration of drug inc reasing,DNA synthesis of Candida albican was declining. Conclusion:the anti-Cand ida albicans mechanism of baicalin l may be involved with the inhibition of DNA synthesis.


While the econometric literature on the impact of immigration on labour markets is well developed, there is a striking gap with regards to the impact of emigration on sending countries. Departing from the established literature measuring the impact of immigration and building on Borjas (2003) and Mishra (2007), this paper attempts to narrow that gap by investigating whether the large and intense emigration period from 2001 to 2007 to the US increased wages in Honduras, by exploiting the variation of labour supply by skill group in the labour market. Using an instrumental variable approach, the estimates show that a 10% increase in emigration from Honduras increased wages in Honduras by as much as 11%, an increase which is higher than previous findings in other countries. These findings are driven by women and by urban regions.


A frequency domain electromagnetic induction sounding survey (FDEM) was conducted on a landfill in northern Illinois to determine the depth of fill, locate areas of drum disposal, and locate areas of heavy metal sludge disposal. Sketchy information obtained from interviews of the site personnel identified specific exploration targets and areas of concern. The results of the geophysical survey verified much of the reported disposal history and identified areas suspected to contain hazardous waste.

Based on the results of the survey, the thickness of fill was estimated and two areas with highly conductive fill were located. These areas could represent leachate pockets or sludge disposal areas. An area in which the fill appears to be thicker than expected was identified. This area is thought to represent industrial sludge disposal in trenches excavated into the existing fill and underlying soils. An area with several linear in-phase, quadrature, and conductivity highs was detected. A subsequent magnetometer survey detected linear magnetic anomalies that are believed to be caused by parallel trenches filled with steel drums. This area is believed to be a previously unreported hazardous waste drum disposal cell excavated into the native soil.

As of this writing, the results of this survey have not been verified by traditional intrusive methods. When these investigations begin, we expect that information provided by the FDEM survey will reduce project costs by directing subsequent investigations, thereby reducing the number of borings and test pits required to characterize the site. While there is an unavoidable margin of error and uncertainty in remote sensing methods, the subsurface coverage provided by this geophysical survey could not have been reproduced by traditional methods without substantial expense. This paper presents the results of the survey and discusses application of the FDEM method on landfills.


Computer science incorporates information theory that is a fundamental element in project management. Achieving the conservation of the current resources for future generations has become an increasingly important and urgent challenge for our society. Thus, the sustainability topic becomes more valid on the agenda of governments and organizations. This cross-section empirical study presents partial results of the perception of a representative sample of engineering project managers in Colombia about the implementation of sustainability elements in the management of these projects, established in the sustainable project management maturity model. The results applying information science, indicate a greater orientation towards the aspects of product sustainability than the project process and in general that in the studied context, the economic dimension significantly predominates over social and environmental aspects.


Neural networks trained on tasks sequentially tend to degrade in performance, on the average, the more tasks they see, as the representations learned for one task get progressively modified while learning subsequent tasks. This phenomenon— known as catastrophic forgetting—is a major obstacle on the road toward designing agents that can continually learn new concepts and tasks the way, say, humans do. A common approach to containing catastrophic forgetting is to use regularization to slow down learning on weights deemed important to previously learned tasks. We argue in this paper that, on their own, such post hoc measures to safeguard what has been learned can, even in their more sophisticated variants, paralyze the network and degrade its capacity to learn and counter forgetting as the number of tasks learned increases. We propose instead— or possibly in conjunction—that, in anticipation of future tasks, regularization be applied to drive the optimization of network weights toward reusable solutions. We show that one way to achieve this is through an auxiliary unsupervised reconstruction loss that encourages the learned representations not only to be useful for solving, say, the current classification task, but also to reflect the content of the data being processed—content that is generally richer than it is discriminative for any one task. We compare our approach to the recent elastic weight consolidation regularization approach, and show that, although we do not explicitly try to preserve important weights or pass on any information about the data distribution of learned tasks, our model is comparable in performance, and in some cases better.


and ad hoc cooperation. Hentz concentrates on the domestic arena, but also takes into account the influences emanating from the international political economy, which, according to him, "created a powerful undercurrent" (139) in favor of market integration/cooperation. He initially presents a succinct background review of South Africa's approach to Southern Africa from 1948 to 1999, and then examines the main groupings engaged in the domestic debate, their interests and positions, and how these affected Pretoria's regional policy. The six chapters are organized thematically rather than chronologically. This organization contributes to some of the difficulties occasionally encountered in this work, namely the need to contextualize developments. In addition, the various groupings, as well as their viewpoints and goals, are not always sufficiently introduced or investigated in an in-depth manner. Furthermore, at times, the text does not succeed in penetrating the complexities of and the links among developments. A case in point is the government's replacement of the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) with the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) plan during 1996. Hentz parallels this policy shift—a key turning point in Pretoria's macroeconomic approach—with the government's stance toward the region at the time moving from the developmental to the market integration/cooperation model. Finally, the impact on South Africa's domestic debate of developments in the region itself, both economic and politico-military in nature, is neglected. This concerns, inter alia, the tensions in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) over the appropriate policy to pursue toward Zimbabwe and its economic outlook. One would assume that this also strengthened the position of those favoring the market integration/cooperation concept with less involvement from the state.


Consider a linear space-invariant (LSI) system as shown: The two separate inputs to the LSI system, x 1 (m) and x 2 (m), and their corresponding outputs are given as x 1 (m) → y 1 (m) and x 2 (m) → y 2 (m) Thus, an LSI system has the following properties: • Superposition property A linear system follows linear superposition. Consider the following LSI system with two inputs x 1 (m, n) and x 2 (m, n), and their corresponding outputs y 1 (m, n) and y 2 (m, n). • Space invariance property Consider that if the input x(m) to a linear system is shifted by M, then the corresponding output is also shifted by the same amount of space, as follows: x(m − M) → y(m − M).); the system is defined as LSI or as linear time invariant (LTI). • Impulse response property A linear space-invariant system is completely specified by its impulse response. Since any input function can be decomposed into a sum of time-delayed weighted impulses, the output of a linear system can be calculated by superposing the sum of the impulse responses. For impulse at the origin, the output is h(m, n; 0,0) ∼ = T r[δ(m − 0, n − 0)].


Partial squeeze die casting is a special die casting process which combines squeeze technique to conventional die casting. The influence of squeeze pressure and time-lags(0.5-2.0sec) on defect control, density and microstructure of ADC12 alloy die casts has been studied by appling partial squeeze die casting to air compressure front housing production. Defect free, maximum density of with sound microstructure of ADC12 alloy die cast has been obtained by partial squeeze die casting technique at the pressure of and time-lags of 1.0-2.0sec.


The devise is to help individuals to improve constantly by cell or by having the vessel to maintain a constant body temperature in long-term drift by, it does not expose the body of water of the victim in the maritime upon distress so you can extend the lifesaving and survival probability It relates to a device for nine people in distress, The nine people apparatus 30 includes top plate 38 and the lower plate 39 provided to the inner surface of the ring tube (36) having a cylindrical air passage 35 so that air can be injected connected to the protection film (37); The upper and lower plates (38,39) has a 40 to the air passage so that air can be injected to the phase at regular intervals hardness air pole are arranged in the 41, 42 and; The hardness of an air pole (41, 42) latitude and connected while maintaining the shape of the phase hardness air pole (41, 42) have a life device 30 and the air passage to maintain the rigidity of the whole 40, an air pole (43 , 44); The hardness of an air pole (41, 42) latitude and an air pole (43, 44) attached to the blocking space (S) formed in the interphase wall (45) and; And the victim 31 is provided to allow access door 47 which is opened and closed by the zipper 46 to the upper panel (38); The lower plate is connected integrally to 39 victim 31, the leg tube 50 which is provided can be inserted into the leg to allow movement during and after retrieving the available; Protection film 37 of the lower plate 39, the core material contains 51 further comprising for the reinforcement; Nine people inside of the device 30 is further provided with a ring tube 36 and the hardness of the air pole 41, 42 and a conventional expansion means capable of injecting air to the air pole latitude (43, 44, 55) And that is characterized.


Previous studies have reported variation in BRCA1 breast and ovarian cancer risks with mutation position, suggesting that mutations toward the 3 end of the gene are associated with lower ovarian cancer risks. We evaluated the evidence for genotype-phenotype correlations in 356 families with protein-truncating BRCA1 mutations. In contrast to previous reports, the ovarian:breast cancer ratio associated with mutations in a central region of the gene (nucleotides 2401–4190) was significantly higher than for other mutations [odds ratio, 1.70 (P 0.017) compared with nucleotides 1–2400; odds ratio, 1.89 (P 0.02) compared with nucleotides 4191– end]. The risks of breast and ovarian cancer conferred by mutations in different regions of the gene were estimated separately by conditional maximum likelihood. According to the best fitting model, the breast cancer risk associated with mutations in the central region was found to be significantly lower than for other mutations (relative risk, 0.71; 95% confidence interval, 0.58–0.86; P 0.0002), whereas the ovarian cancer risk associated with mutations 3 to nucleotide 4191 was significantly reduced relative to the rest of the gene (relative risk, 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.66–1.00; P 0.044). The cancer risks associated with missense mutations in the RING domain in exon 5 appear to be similar to those associated with protein-truncating mutations toward the 3 end of BRCA1, based on nine additional families. Introduction BRCA1 (MIM 113705) is a breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility gene located on chromosome 17q (1, 2). BRCA1 is not completely penetrant, and since its isolation in 1994, there have been numerous attempts to estimate the risks of cancer conferred by different germ-line mutations. Published cumulative risk estimates by age 70 vary between 45 and 87% for breast cancer and between 36 and 66% for ovarian cancer (3–5). More than 400 distinct cancer-associated BRCA1 mutations have been reported (according to the BIC database), prompting discussion as to whether different mutations confer different cancer risks. The first formal evidence of a genotype-phenotype correlation came from a study of 33 families, which identified a significantly lower ovarian:breast cancer ratio in families with mutations 3 to exon 12 (6). A further study of 134 patients with truncating BRCA1 mutations found the that frequency of ovarian cancer relative to breast cancer associated with mutations 3 to the granin motif (nucleotides 3760–3787) was significantly lower than for other mutations (P 0.004; Ref. 7). However, an analysis of six recurrent BRCA1 mutations found only a marginally significant difference in the proportion of cases affected by ovarian cancer relative to breast cancer between specific mutations (P 0.07; Ref. 8). In an attempt to confirm or refute these genotype-phenotype correlations in BRCA1, we studied a much larger group of 356 families with PT BRCA1 mutations. We used these data to estimate separately the risks of breast and ovarian cancer associated with mutations in different regions of BRCA1. Using nine additional families, we also estimated the cancer risks conferred by MS mutations in the BRCA1 RING domain. Materials and Methods Subjects. The study was based on information from 369 families collected by the Breast Cancer Linkage Consortium from 20 centers in eight Western European and North American countries. For entry into the study, each family was required to contain at least one affected individual known to carry a germline BRCA1 mutation believed to be disease causing (i.e., frameshift and nonsense mutations, large deletions and insertions, splice site mutations, and MS mutations categorized as disease causing by BIC). The main analysis was restricted to the 356 families with PT mutations. (Although categorization by BIC as a MS mutation, rather than as a polymorphism or unknown variant, does not guarantee that a mutation is associated with disease, it is an indication that there is compelling evidence of disease association). The nine families with MS mutations in the RING domain were considered separately (five Received 6/15/01; revised 12/7/01; accepted 1/17/02. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. 1 The coordination and analysis of this study were supported by the Cancer Research Campaign and by a Concerted Action from the European Union. Data collection was supported by the Cancer Research Campaign, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, The Swedish Cancer Society, Foundation de France, Biomed2 BMH4-CT96-1133, SAF 96/0192, the Nordic Cancer Union, The Cancer Society and Cancer Registry of Finland, the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative, NIH Grant RO1 CA77415 (to S. L. Neuhausen), American Cancer Society Grant 35 RPG-99-181-01-CCE (to S. L. Neuhausen), and the Utah Cancer Registry (supported by NCI Grant NO1-CN-67000, with additional support from the Utah State Department of Health and the University of Utah). 2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at CRC Genetic Epidemiology Unit, Strangeways Research Laboratory, Worts Causeway, Cambridge, CB1 8RN, United Kingdom. Phone: (44) 1223 740160/740157; Fax: (44) 1223 740159; E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com. 3 Consortium members who contributed families are listed fully at the end of the report. 4 Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov [for inherited breast cancer type 1 (MM 113705)]. 5 The abbreviations used are: BIC, Breast Cancer Information Core; PT, protein truncating; MS, missense; CRC, Cancer Research Campaign; OR, odds ratio; RR, relative risk; CI, confidence interval; OCCR, ovarian cancer cluster region. 6 http://www.nchgr.nih.gov/Intramural_research/Lab-transfer/Bic. 329 Vol. 11, 329–336, April 2002 Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention Research. on September 30, 2017. © 2002 American Association for Cancer cebp.aacrjournals.org Downloaded from families with Cys61Gly, two families with Cys64Gly, one family with Cys47Tyr, and one with Cys64Tyr). The three families with MS mutations elsewhere in BRCA1 (Met1Ile, Arg1751Gln, and Met1775Arg were each seen once) were excluded from all analyses because there were insufficient data to allow a separate analysis of this group. A single family in which both 185delAG and 5382insC were found was also excluded from all analyses. For the purposes of this study, the family members included were restricted to the tested mutation carriers, women with breast cancer diagnosed below age 60, women with ovarian cancer at any age, men with breast cancer at any age, and the first-degree relatives of individuals in any of these four categories, regardless of their own carrier status. The families included in the analysis contained 7627 individuals (median individuals per family, 17). There were 1174 women with a first breast cancer diagnosed below age 60 and 679 women with ovarian cancer. Thirty-eight percent of these cancer diagnoses (including 34% of breast cancers and 46% of ovarian cancers) were confirmed by pathological review, pathologist's report, cancer registry record, clinical record, or death certificate. The median number of female breast cancers before age 60 and ovarian cancers per family was four; 66 families had less than three cases, and 126 had six or more. Seven families contained one case of male breast cancer. A total of 162 distinct mutations were observed in the families analyzed, 158 of which were PT. The number of distinct nucleotides at which PT mutations were observed was 147. The 356 families with PT mutations included 31 that had been studied previously (6); the information on these families has since been updated. These families are referred to as the "original CRC set." Seventy-nine families carried one of the BRCA1 Ashkenazi Jewish founder mutations, 185delAG or 5382insC. The comparatively high frequency of these mutations, together with the BRCA2 6174delT mutation, in the Ashkenazi population (estimated combined population frequency of 2–2.5%; Ref. (9) has led to some Ashkenazi families being offered mutation screening on the basis of a lower-risk family history of cancer than would be required of a non-Ashkenazi family. This could lead to underestimation of the risks associated with these mutations compared with other mutations. To avoid this possible bias, Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi families within a given center were considered as separate strata. Eleven of the 20 ascertainment centers recruited one or more families with an Ashkenazi mutation; therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we used 31 distinct strata. Although some families with these mutations may not be of Ashkenazi origin, they were classified as such for the purposes of this analysis. Statistical Methods. Variations in the incidence of breast and ovarian cancer associated with mutations in different parts of BRCA1 were initially tested for by splitting the gene into two, using the exon 12–13 breakpoint suggested by Gayther et al. (6), and computing an OR for the ratio of ovarian to breast cancer cases in the 5 versus the 3 region of BRCA1. For the purpose of these analyses, only breast cancers diagnosed in women before age 60 years were considered. For women with bilateral breast cancer, only the first cancer was included. The OR was adjusted for ascertainment center/strata, using logistic regression in Splus (version 3.4). The significance was estimated by simulation, permuting mutations among families within center, as described by Gayther et al. (6) and Thompson et al. (10). This procedure accounts for the nonindependence of risks within each family. The ORs were similarly computed for every possible breakpoint along the gene to identify the optimal two-way division for maximizing the deviance. In this case, because the optim


Contents: Preface Introduction: Happiness, Economics and Politics Amitava Krishna Dutt and Benjamin Radcliff PART I: HAPPINESS 1. The History of Happiness and Contemporary Happiness Studies Darrin McMahon 2. On the Measurement and Mis-measurement of Happiness: Contemporary Theories and Methodological Directions Anthony Ong 3. How Do We Assess How Happy We Are? Tenets, Implications and Tenability of Three Theories Ruut Veenhoven 4. Happiness and Domain Satisfaction: New Directions for the Economics of Happiness Richard Easterlin and Onnicha Sawangfa PART II: HAPPINESS AND ECONOMICS 5. Happiness when Temptation Overwhelms Willpower Alois Stutzer 6. Happiness and the Relative Consumption Hypothesis Amitava Krishna Dutt 7. The Easterlin Paradox Revisited Robert Frank 8. Does Inequality Matter to Individual Welfare? An Initial Exploration Based on Happiness Surveys from Latin America Carol Graham and Graham Felton 9. Perceptions of Discrimination, Effort to Obtain Psychological Balance and Relative Wages: Can we Infer a Happiness Gradient? Arthur Goldsmith, Darrick Hamilton and William A Darity, Jr. PART III: HAPPINESS AND POLITICS 10. Politics and Happiness: An Empirical Ledger Alexander C. Pacek 11. Democracy and Happiness: What Causes What? Ronald Inglehart 12. The Causal Link between Happiness and Democratic Welfare Regimes Charlotte Ridge, Tom Rice and Matthew Cherry 13. Labor Organization and the Quality of Life in the American States Suzanne M. Coshow and Benjamin Radcliff PART IV: WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 14. Should National Happiness be Maximized? Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer 15. Change your Actions, Not Your Circumstances: An Experimental Test of the Sustainable Happiness Model Kennon M. Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky 16. What is to be Done? Toward a 'Happier' World Amitava Krishna Dutt and Benjamin Radcliff


The basic proposition of the theory of the firm's finance is the capital structure theorem, which specifies the relationship between the firm's capital structure and its cost of capital. From this theorem follow the other propositions concerning the relationship between the firm's investment and dividend policy, and its cost of capital and market value. The capital structure theorem has been the subject of controversy ever since the publication in 1958 of Modigliani and Miller's classic paper [7]. While the traditional theory of finance claims that the cost of capital is a U-shaped function of the capital structure, the M & M version of the theorem asserts that in a world free of tax the cost of capital is independent of the firm's capital structure. In this paper we present the capital structure theorem within the framework of the theory of investors' behavior towards return and risk. Such an approach constitutes a first step towards integrating the theory of the firm's finance with the theory of investors' behavior. It may also help to clarify the controversy over the capital structure theorem. In Part I we make the assumption of a constant interest rate. This assumption facilitates the presentation of the technical aspects of the model, and constitutes an appropriate starting point for the main body of the analysis. In Part II we develop the application under the condition of variable interest rates, define the term efficient capital structure, formulate the cost-of-capital theorem and discuss its implications for the cost-of-capital curve in a world free of tax and under income tax. In Part III we summarize our conclusions.


This chapter attempts to chart the geographical and chronological distributions of the collegia centonariorum. It explains that the geographical and chronological diffusion of this type of collegium had particular patterns, distinct from those of other well attested Roman collegia, especially the collegia fabrum and the collegia dendrophorum. The investigation of both the distributions of the collegia centonariorum and the implication(s) of such distributions has significant bearing on a proper understanding of the origin(s), nature and functions of these collegia. The chapter lays the foundation for the rest of the book, especially Chapters 2-4. Van Nijf suggested that we should see these collegia as status groups in the Roman cities. But neither seeing them as purely fire brigades nor applying the paradigm of 'status-group' theory provides satisfactory answers to the individuality of these collegia. The chapter illustrates this point by a brief discussion of the case of the collegia dendrophorum.Keywords: 'status-group' theory; collegia dendrophorum; fire brigades; Roman cities


The customer-driven government was widespread in all the aspects in the public organizations, customer-driven government has made great contribution to the administrative reform, but in domestic the acknowledge on the customer-driven government of Local agriculture Governments is still at the subjective stage, this article attempts to discuss on the trends of the customer-driven government in Local agriculture governments, provided the basis for the comprehensive understanding and the operation of the customer-driven government in Local agriculture Governments.


Serratus Anterior fascial plane (SAP) block is a high-volume interfascial plane block that has been used in adult patients in cardiac surgery with good postoperative pain relief. We report a case of a 9 year old female child who underwent ostium secundum atrial septum defect closure and was given bilateral SAP block. The patient was extubated within 4 hours of surgery and was pain free in the postoperative period without the use of any opioids.


The multiple melting transformation of three samples of poly(e-caprolactone)(PCL) isothermally crystallized between-8℃ to 20℃ at different heating rate was investigated by means of differential scanning calori-metry(DSC) analysis.The effects on the multiple melting transformation of PCL crystals caused by the isothermal crystallization temperature(Tc) and the heating rate were studied.With the increasing of the molecular weight of PCL,or with the increasing of the DSC heating rate,or with the decreasing of the Tc,the multiple melting transformation became more and more obvious.


Background: In patients with acute ischemic strokes (AIS) and milder symptoms (NIHSS</=5) harboring a large vessel occlusion (LVO) best clinical management is unclear. To describe the safety and ef...


INTRODUCTION Along the years, the impressions dermal papilla have been object of studies of the medical area, mainly in relation to the identification of certain syndromes, establishment of the twins' zygosity and anthropological characteristics (genetics) of populations (Todd, Scott et al. ,2006; Velisavljev,Filipovic, 2006; Loesch, Huggins et al., 2002; Nikitiuk, Trofimova, 1992; Silva Dantas et al. ,2002). besides, the dermatoglyphics have been used thoroughly in the field of the legal identification due to its worldwide acceptance (Mulvihill,1969; Penrose, 1968). Several studies have approached the strong connection of the genotypical and phenotypical capacities related to the physical features of the individuals. (Abramova et al, 1995; Butova,Lisova,2001;Nikitiuk;1988). Among these studies Fernandes Filho, (1997) reports that the knowledge of the genotype aspect linked to the phenotype influences has contributed to the sporting formation and orientation. Strength is an indispensable physical quality to the human being, because it is directly related with the health, once, its training will provide the development of the muscular mass, the increase of the bony mass and the force of the conjunctive fabric, among other benefits; hence, having great relevance in the physical acting in several sports modalities, as well as in decreasing and preventing injuries when performing such activities (Schneider et al,2004; Dias et al. ,2005; American Academy of Pediatrics AAP, 2001; Fontoura et al. ,2004). Strength training with children and adolescents has presented good results, with the minimum of risks in its applicability, since its safety's criteria and the biological individuality are followed by AAP (2001). The use of the previous knowledge of the genetic qualities, allied to the phenotypic contribution, may significantly contribute to the physical development. Based on such presuppositions, this study aimed at identifying the dermatoglyphic features according to the different levels of muscular strength of students from 7 to 17 years.


Controlled density LiA10/sub 2/, Li/sub 2/Zr0/sub 3/, Li/sub 4/SiO/sub 4/ and Li/sub 2/O pellets were fabricated by hot pressing for irradiation testing as candidate tritium breeding materials. Pellet specifications, characterization data, and procedures for hot pressing, pellet grinding and halide removal are discussed.


Introduction: Uncemented humeral components rely heavily on initial stability and fixation as a function of the design of the implant. Concerns over initial torsional stability of humeral components have motivated the development of a variety of design concepts. Aim: To investigate the torsional stability of two types of cementless humeral shoulder prostheses. Methods: Twelve fresh-frozen cadaveric humeri were cleaned of all soft tissues and prepared for reconstruction with the two types of cementless humeral shoulder prostheses. The humeri were embedded in a low melting point alloy and tested in a servohydraulic-testing machine. The loading applied to the humeri was a controlled angle loading regime at ± 1.5 degrees for 150 cycles. Torque versus time was measured, and the exponential time constant was calculated. Results: The Z implant displayed overall a tightening effect, and a positive time constant. Whereas the G implant displayed a negative time constant, i.e. a loosening of the implant. Discussion: These differences reflect the initial stability achieved immediately following surgery and may have important implications for bone in-growth and long-term stability.


It is easy to blame this on the political system of relatively short 'tours of duty' for many ministers and civil servants, who feel the need to nurture their reputation by announcing new initiatives before moving on. But if researchers cannot provide cast-iron proof of the effect of alternative policies and programmes, there is room for this sort of game-playing. And this is where this book leaves one wanting more. There are no robust global studies here of cause and effect. The problem with a collection of (mainly) single country cases is that the context is not controlled for. For example, one "lesson offered by the British experience, for those seeking to develop SME advisory services" (Bennett, Chapter 13, p195) is that "centralised structures for government provision, covering a whole country, with simple and single branding, offer superior management of expectations, simpler means of quality control and much lower costs of provision". This might be true of England, but is it true of all countries? What about Switzerland, for example? This lack of control of context means that few overall conclusions can be drawn. Even where the editors do draw conclusions, some of them seem at odds with the contributors at times. For example, both Bennett in Chapter 13 (p.195) and Kantis and Frederico in Chapter 4 (p.57) seem wary of decentralised systems of delivery. The editors seem to draw the opposite conclusion (p.9). If the academics do not agree, officials might as well go with gut feel. The editors of this book rightly describe it as a work in progress, offering no "quick solutions or universal fixes to the challenge of effective policy" (p10). Personally, I think that unless we are able to control for context, it will be extremely difficult to draw useful conclusions in this area. One way to do this is to conduct comparative studies, with robust theoretical frameworks at their heart, across many countries. There are organisations that are capable of doing this, including the OECD, UNCTAD, and GEM. It will be interesting to see, if the editors try a second edition in say five years' time, whether they can include chapters of global entrepreneurship policy development and evaluation that really do control for context. A second approach is what Kania and Kramer (2011) have called "collective impact", where instead of policymakers decreeing a new policy – perhaps after listening to an academic 'courtier' whispering in their ear – there is a truly shared identification by all relevant stakeholders of issues and then shared commitment by these stakeholders to carry out a mutually agreed set of interventions. This "ecosystem management" approach is particularly relevant for deep-seated social issues, which were the subject of several chapters, including 6, 7 and 18. Here, context is controlled for in a different way, through the deep knowledge of embedded experts and concerted action of many stakeholders. This could well be one way of tackling difficult and complex issues like entrepreneurship policy, at least at the level of the small nation, region, or sector.


We have studied the thermal stability of thin (from 10 to 40 nm) sputter deposited Cr layers as a diffusion barrier in Cu/Cr/Si structure. Sheet resistance measurements, DLTS, X-Ray Diffraction analysis (XRD), Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS), Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) and adhesion tests were carried out in order to reveal the behaviour of Cu and Cr in the Cu/Cr/Si structures. It is shown that even the 10 nm thin Cr layer preserves the multilayer structure up to 400°C, and Cu silicide formation is observed only after annealing at 450°C for 30 min. DLTS measurements revealed the Cu migration into the structure at lower temperatures (in this case at 350°C) than the other characterization techniques.


'Prefigurative politics' has become a popular term for social movements' ethos of unity between means and ends, but its conceptual genealogy has escaped attention. This article disentangles two components: (a) an ethical revolutionary practice, chiefly indebted to the anarchist tradition, which fights domination while directly constructing alternatives and (b) prefiguration as a recursive temporal framing, unknowingly drawn from Christianity, in which a future radiates backwards on its past. Tracing prefiguration from the Church Fathers to politicised resurfacings in the Diggers and the New Left, I associate it with Koselleck's 'process of reassurance' in a pre-ordained historical path. Contrasted to recursive prefiguration are the generative temporal framings couching defences of means-ends unity in the anarchist tradition. These emphasised the path dependency of revolutionary social transformation and the ethical underpinnings of anti-authoritarian politics. Misplaced recursive terminology, I argue, today conveniently distracts from the generative framing of means-ends unity, as the promise of revolution is replaced by that of environmental and industrial collapse. Instead of prefiguration, I suggest conceiving of means-ends unity in terms of Bloch's 'concrete utopia', and associating it with 'anxious' and 'catastrophic' forms of hope.


Abstract : An experimental investigation has been made to evaluate an uncoated thin composite sheet material containing metallic chromium and magnesium oxide for aerospace applications in the temperature range where coated refractory metals also are being considered. The evaluation consisted of mechanical property tests both at room and elevated temperatures up to 2600F. The effect of preoxidation at various temperatures on the room-temperature properties is shown. Bend and tensile transition temperatures were also determined and static oxidation tests were performed up to 2800. The metallurgical study included identification of the oxide films by X-ray analysis and also a study of the solid-state reactions taking place between the chromium and the ceramic material by the use of light and electron microscopy. Fabrication of the composite is discussed briefly. A description of the equipment and procedures utilized in performing the evaluation tests is included.


Bis(hydroxy)telechic bisphenol A polycarbonate (PC) was prepared via melt polycondensation of bisphenol A (BPA) and diphenyl carbonate (DPC) using lanthanum(m) acetylacetonate as a catalyst for transesterification. Subsequently, the polycarbonate was converted to a bifunctional macroinitiator for atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) with the reagent, α-chlorophenylacetyl chloride. The macroinitiator was used for the polymerization of styrene (S) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) to give PS-block-PS and PMMA-block-PC-block-PMMA triblock copolymers. These block copolymers were characterized by NMR and GPC. When styrene and methyl methacrylate were used in large excess, significant shifts toward high molecular weights were observed with quantitative consumption of the macroinitiator. Several ligands were studied in combination with CuCl as the ATRP catalyst. Kinetic studies reveal the controlled nature of the polymerization reaction for all the ligands used.


With maintenance of the injection mould as an example, the frequent failure of the injection mould in use is stated concisely. Based on it ,the reason and dispeller method of the frequent failure are stated in detail. I hope that it has some help and guidance action for the correlative mould manager.


This paper addresses the economic dispatch problem in microgrids with multi-entities and uncertainties. A novel robust bilayer distributed optimization (BDO) method is put forward to coordinate the individual and collective profits. In the upper-layer of the BDO model, each entity in the microgrids develops a two-stage recourse-based robust dispatch model that minimizes the individual operation cost. This robust model determines the objectives and schemes in both the basic and worst-case scenarios, and provides more practical optimal schedules. According to the generation margin and load curtailment in each entity, a multi-objective bargain dispatch is conducted in the lower-layer coordinating center to co-optimize the tie-line plans, thus getting the lowest collective cost in a cooperative manner through regional power complementarity. An iterative descent algorithm is put forward for the efficient solution of the nonconvex BDO model. Therein a nested column and constraint generation algorithm with equilibrium constraints is developed to tackle the upper-layer robust optimization problems with binary recourses and non-independent uncertainties. The lower-layer bargain model is refined as a mixed-integer linear programming via a complementarity approach for the cooperation of multi-entities. Numerical results of case studies demonstrate the availability and superiority of the robust BDO method and the solution algorithm.


The study of the steady laminar mixed convection boundary layer flow of an incompressible viscous fluid, with heat and mass transfer along vertical thin needles with variable heat flux has been considered. The governing boundary layer equations are first transformed into non dimensional form and then after using similarity transformations converted into set of ordinary differential equations. The set of ordinary differential equations are solved with the help Runge-Kutta method with shooting technique. The value of skin friction coefficient and the surface temperature, wall concentration, velocity profile as well as temperature profile are obtained for different values of dimensionless parameters with m=0, which is case for a blunt nosed needle. The magnitude of velocity decreases with increasing needle size and increases with increasing local buoyancy parameter. The graphical and tabulated results are presented.


This paper presents a design of serial communication for paperless recorder based on embedded Linux. Using the multi-thread programming,the design makes it possible that the RTU and ASCⅡ communication format in MODBUS protocol can coexist in one system. A new fast data conversion method is put forward in data exchange to improve the real time performance. The paper gives the whole design flow and the programme details. Also,the design is proved efficiently through practice.


The unusual temperature readings at Garforth and Wokingham, and later those of Mr. E. L. Hawke at Rickmansworth, suggested an examination of local records near Nottingham. The author has found that considerable variations occur in the Nottingham district, though the topography offers no unusual features. An area of relatively high land, with irregular spurs, stretches north-north-east from Nottingham Castle. The monthly values of three stations for the nine years 1928-1936, and those of five other stations for other periods, are analysed. It is found that local differences of 10°F. in the minima may occur, and the mean monthly minima may differ by over 4°F. Average differences are tabulated. A detailed daily analysis of four stations is made for the two years April, 1935, to March, 1937. It shows that variations tend to be greatest with winds from north-west through north to east, and least with south to west winds. Although fine weather, a rising barometer and a low humidity favour large variations, it appears that conditions producing low minima do not always give appreciable differences. Rainy, windy conditions bring the differences to a minimum. Differences of 6°F. in the maxima may occur on certain warm sunny days in summer, and variations of 8°F. in foggy conditions. Topographical features give Attenborough the most "continental" temperatures. The importance of uniformity in the hours of setting the thermometers is demonstrated, and positions are indicated where additional screens might give useful data.


Alexander Jones's edition of the astronomical papyri from Oxyrhynchus, Volumes 1 (introduction and commentaries) and 2 (texts, translations, and indexes), represents an important landmark in the continuing process of uncovering and analyzing the ancient history of astronomy, comparable, for example, to the publication by Otto Neugebauer of Astronomical Cuneiform Texts (ACT) in 1955.1 The papyri, edited with translation and commentaries (P. Oxy. LXI 4133-4300a), were selected from amongst the wealth of documents excavated by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt from 1896 to 1907 in the town of Oxyrhynchus in Upper Egypt. The Oxyrhynchus papyri date almost entirely to the Roman imperial period, roughly from the first to the fifth centuries A.D. Like Astronomical Cuneiform Texts, Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus is an edition of texts, the existence of which was heretofore known only to the few specialists in ancient Western astronomy. While such specialists can readily appreciate this tremendous new contribution to their field, all historians of science-ancient, medieval, and modern-should be aware of the profound historical implications of these sources and the extent to which our history of ancient astronomy is revised by Jones's volumes. From the largely quantitative contents of these papyri we gain a picture of the practice of technical astronomy of the late Greco-Roman period, the primary goals of which were the determination of geocentric longitudes of the sun, moon, and five classical planets for a certain date (for the production of horoscopes) and the determination of the dates of entry of the planets into the zodiacal signs (for the production of almanacs). The significance of these texts is impossible to overstate, as it is on the basis of this corpus that our knowledge and understanding of Greek astronomy in the era surrounding Ptolemy (second century A.D.) can now be augmented. What is new is the establishment of the nature and extent of the continuity between


The non-local terms previously disregarded in the Landau free energy expansion of a melt of polydisperse heteropolymers are shown to dramatically change the appearance of the phase diagram of a heteropolymer liquid.


The compounds Cs6M2X4 (M = Al, Ga; X = P, As) were synthesized from stoichiometric mixtures of Cs, M and Cs4X6 in sealed Nb ampoules at 950 K. They are isotypic and crystallize in the monoclinic space group P21/c (No. 14) with Z = 4 formula units per unit cell. The anion partial structure is characterized by isolated [M2X4]6- units with relatively short distances for the terminal d(M–X) bonds corresponding to a Pauling Bond Order PBO = 1.5. The distances d(M–X) of the four-membered M2X2 rings correspond to single bonds. The FIR spectra have been interpreted on the basis of the [M2X4]6- units with 2/m 2/m 2/m-D2h, symmetry by considering a factor group splitting. The assignment of the observed frequencies is supported by a normal coordinate analysis.


This study aims to examine the effect of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and performance measurementsystems on the intrinsic motivation of state-owned bank employees in Jayapura. This research data was obtained using primary data by distributing questionnaires onlinedue to the covid-19 outbreak in Indonesia globally to 105 employees of Bank X in Papua, out of 144people/employees. The analysis method used is the Structure Equation Model (SEM) withthe Partial Least Square (PLS) method. The sampling method used snowball sampling in which thesample was initially small in number, then the sample was asked to choose its friends as the sample.It's like a snowball rolling, getting bigger and bigger. The results of this research variable indicate that (1) Self Efficacy has a positive andinsignificant effect on Intrinsic Motivation with p-values (0, 148> 0, 05), (2) Self Esteem has apositive and significant effect on Intrinsic Motivation with p-values (<0, 001 <0, 05), and (3) thePerformance Measurement System has a positive and significant effect on Intrinsic Motivationwith p-values (<0, 001 <0, 05).


We report results of the first five observing campaigns for the open stellar cluster NGC 7243 in the frame of project Young Exoplanet Transit Initiative (YETI). The project focuses on the monitoring of young and nearby stellar clusters, with the aim to detect young transiting exoplanets and to study other variability phenomena on time-scales from minutes to years. After five observing campaigns and additional observations during 2013 and 2014, a clear and repeating transit-like signal was detected in the light curve of J221550.6+495611. Furthermore, we detected and analysed 37 new eclipsing binary stars in the studied region. The best fit parameters and light curves of all systems are given. Finally, we detected and analysed 26 new, presumably pulsating variable stars in the studied region. The follow-up investigation of these objects, including spectroscopic measurements of the exoplanet candidate, is currently planned. (© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


Based on vital contribution of the commercial banks to economic progression Kenya, this study endeavors to investigate the effect of macroeconomic variables on financial profitability of listed commercial banks in the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) for years 2001 to 2012. Panel data analysis using Fixed Effects model was applied on the data to examine the effects of three major macroeconomic variables which included: Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Exchange rates, and interest rates on profitability of the listed commercial banks. The study findings indicated that real GDP growth rate had positive but insignificant effect to profitability of commercial banks as measured through Return On Assets (ROA). Further, real interest rates had a significant negative influence on profitability of listed commercial banks in Kenya. While the exchange rate had a positive significant effect on the profitability of listed commercial banks on Nairobi Securities Exchange.


OVERVIEW SYNOPSIS Establishment of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) was a key provision of the Affordable Care Act. Creation of CMMI reflected from the outset that bold change and rapid learning would be required for the magnitude of improved effectiveness and efficiency needed in US health system performance. For the past 10 years, CMMI has sought to identify and assess how alternative payment strategies perform in improving outcomes without increasing costs. To date, nearly five dozen models have been implemented. Although a number have provided delivery improvements and cost saving insights, for example through shifting care to lower cost sites and strategies, most have not yet demonstrated the level of savings theoretically possible. There are several likely explanations for this: for example, the voluntary nature of participation leading to market distortions; system fragmentation and poorly aligned incentives blunting targeted impact; scope of health care services being too limited to address primary illness (and cost) drivers; ease of opting out when revenue prospects narrow. These issues speak not to the potential for better care at lower cost, nor to the prospects of using real-world experiments to identify better delivery strategies. Rather, they speak to the need for a bold and strategic pivot in the roles and activities of CMMI as a leader and change agent, internally and externally, in the context of broader CMS and Administration strategies for health system transformation.


As the existing system in NC call subroutine process,the main program and routines can not use the same type of coordinate system,the design of a new type of powerful coordinate system become a primary task of the current design.Through use of a QT C++ programming language designed based on QVector dynamic arrays of multiple coordinate systems for example,discusses in detail the basic coordinates of CNC machine tools coordinate system,the workpiece coordinate system,expanding coordinate system rotating coordinate system,Local coordinate system,polar coordinates,and coordinate system is closely related to the mirror function,the operator of the zoom feature,the convergence approach,focused on the design of multiple coordinate systems thinking and its working principles.Testing showed that the design of the multiple coordinate system is easy to use,intuitive image,high reliability,the NC system to meet the multiple subroutine call requirements.


This paper describes the rudder system dismounting,fixed position measuring and bearing installation in ultra-low tempreture in the repair of the rudder system on board NV pindos by the Ship Repair Division of Shanghai Shipyard Co.,Ltd.Research and analysis were carried out and proper repair technologies were put forward.Satisfactory results were achieved.