Electro-generated borneol using camphor as a starting material was studied.The aluminum anode and the graphite cathode were used in a diaphragmless cell.Effects of the reaction time,temperature and the quantity of conduction salt on the experimental results were discussed.The result showed that the yield of borneol was 40.0%,of which,borneol and isoborneol were 31.3% and 8.7%,respectively at 40 ℃ for 8 h,and the mass ratio of borneol to isoborneol in the product was 3.6 ∶1.


There is a constant need for the safe operation and reliability of antifalling safety device (AFSD) of an elevator. This paper reports an experimental study on rotation speed and catching torque monitoring and fault diagnosis of an antifalling safety device in a construction elevator. Denoising the signal using wavelet transform is presented in this paper. Based on the denoising effects for several types of wavelets, the sym8 wavelet basis, which introduces the high order approximation and an adaptive threshold, is employed for denoising the signal. The experimental result shows a maximum data error reduction of 7.5% is obtained and SNRs (signal-to-noise ratio) of rotation speed and catching torque are improved for 3.9% and 6.4%, respectively.


The histology of the paracloacal 'musk' glands of adult American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) is described. The gland is a single secretory sac with a single duct and a central lumen partially occluded by a central, cylindrical conglomerate of cells and secretion product. The capsule of the gland consists of an outer layer of smooth muscle and an inner layer of connective tissue containing collagen and elastin fibres. Septa carrying blood vessels radiate from the connective tissue layer of the capsule to the border of the central conglomerate. Parenchymal cells containing lipid droplets enlarge from the periphery to the centre of the gland. Secretions formed by degeneration of cells in the central cylinder are concentrated near the secretory duct. Histochemical tests indicate lipids but not mucopolysaccharides in the glandular exudate.


Introduction: Acute kidney injury is frequent in patients with COVID-19 and is associated with a higher mortality than in patients without acute kidney injury. Therefore we aimed to compare the creatinine and cystatin C initial values and trend in COVID-19 patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), in order to understand how renal dysfunction affects the prognosis. Methods: Longitudinal retrospective, single-center study of COVID-19 patients admitted to a tertiary care hospital ICU, between April 2020 and April of 2021. Demographic variables comorbidities, serum urea, creatinine, cystatin C values, as well as outcome were studied. Statistical analysis performed in SPSS 27. Results: The sample consists of 207 ICU patients, with mean age of 68 years, 68.6% male. Had chronic kidney disease, 11.5% (n=25) and the most prevalent comorbidities were hypertension, dyslipidemia and obesity. The median (interquartile range) length of stay at the ICU was 11 (6 - 19) days. The values of creatinine, cystatin C, urea adjusted for age and sex, at the time of hospital admission, were not significant for mortality. However, the variation in marker values between the first and second evaluation moments showed that a 5% increase in creatinine values increased, on average, the risk of death by about 2.3 times and a 5% increase in cystatin C values, increased, on average, the risk of death by about 2 times. Conclusion: The decline in renal function has a significant prognostic impact in patients with COVID-19. Therefore, an early detection of renal dysfunction in these patients is essential.


Guided Bone Regeneration (GBR) is a method for bone tissue regeneration. In this method, membranes are used to cover bone defects and to block the invasion of the surrounding soft tissues. It would provide sufficient time for the osteogenic cells from bone marrow to proliferate and form new bony tissues. In spite of the potential usefulness of this method, no appropriate materials for the GBR membrane have been developed. Here we design the ideal mechanical properties of the GBR membranes and created novel materials, which is the composite of β-tricalcium phosphate and block copolymer of L-lactide, glycolide and e-caplolactone. In the animal experiments with the use of the trial products, we observed significant enhancement in the bone regeneration and proved the effectiveness of the materials.


A thesis submitted to the University of Luton in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy


OBJECTIVE:To observe the effect of Bilobalide on ischemical reperfusion injury in orthotopic liver transplantation model rats and to discuss its protective effect on ischemical reperfusion injury of rats undergoing liver transplantation.METHODS:The model of orthotopic liver transplantation was established by in rats by setting up the bridge between portal vein and left renal vein and building blood bypass by inlaying of canal in the inferior vena,after modeling,the rats were treated with Bilobalide,then levels of NO(active medium of blood vessel)and ET1 before ischemia and at 10 min,30min and 2h after reperfusion were determined by nitratase reduction method;serum levels of ALT,AST,ALP,LDH enzymology,ATP and MDA in the liver tissues were determined as well.The hepatic tissue sample was taken at 2h and fixed with formalin to be made into specimen for observation of the ultrastructure of liver cells and hepatic lobules under electron microscope.RESULTS:After being treated by Bilobalide,serum NO level was elevated and the pathological elevated levels of ALT,AST and LDH were brought down,the microcirculation in ischemical reperfusion injury rats was improved and the extent of damage in the ultrastructure of liver cells was lessened in rats.CONCLUSION:Bypass of portal vein and inferior vena cava prior liver transplantation is helpful for the prevention of ischemical reperfusion injury of liver.The balance of NO/ET1 is possibly a factor influencing the blood flow in the microcirculation of transplanted liver.Bilobalide was proved to be of protective effect on ischemical reperfusion injury in rats.


Abstract Background Deep prosthetic joint infection (PJI) is a devastating complication of joint replacement surgery. It is difficult to treat, and patients often require multiple major revision surgeries to eradicate the infection. Treatment can have negative and long‐term impact on patients' quality of life. Understanding current service provision provides valuable information needed to design and evaluate support interventions for patients. Aim This survey aimed to identify usual care pathways and support in UK National Health Service (NHS) orthopaedic centres for patients receiving revision surgery for PJI after hip or knee replacement. Methods The 20 highest volume NHS orthopaedic centres treating prosthetic joint infection after hip or knee replacement were approached. Consultant orthopaedic surgeons specializing in treating PJI were invited to participate in a telephone or email survey about usual care provision and support for PJI. Findings Sixteen centres completed the survey. Findings showed a high degree of variation nationally in follow‐up time‐points after revision surgery. Multidisciplinary approaches to care focused more on clinical care and physical rehabilitation than social and psychological care. Patient management and referral to support services also varied and barriers to referrals included lack of availability or access to services, lack of knowledge of services, shortage of staff, and complexities of referring outside of the hospital catchment area. Conclusions Our findings suggest that future development of interventions should focus on more inclusive and patient‐centred multidisciplinary approaches to care. Such interventions could more completely address psychological and social as well as physical aspects of patients' recovery.


The screen pipe completion is the predominated method for heavy oil horizontal well in Liaohe Oilfield, accounting for 83.4% of the total completions. General steam injection has been used for the horizontal wells, resulting in a better exploitation percentage in heel part but a poorer exploitation percentage beyond 1/3 of the distance from the tiptoe to heel in horizontal well. As the concentric dual-tube steam injection technique for horizontal well has just been developed in Liaohe Oilfield, the related supporting technique is not enough. In this paper, researchers consider achieving horizontal wells concentric dual-tube steam injection optimized design as main goal so that the physical model will be established, and also the calculation methods for pressure, the calculation models for quality, heat loss and tapered string parameters along the wellbore will be provided during the concentric dual-tube steam injection for horizontal wells.


Contemporary secular culture despises chastity. This is reflected in the soft-pornography of many films and t.v."sit-coms," tv ads for contraceptives, college dorms dispensing condoms in the restrooms, and the hard porn instantly accessible via the internet. Adolescents are urged to masturbate in order "to get in touch with their own bodies," and a college graduate who is still a virgin is considered a troglodyte. It is thus imperative for a new generation to discover, with mind and heart, that this is a lie and that chastity is a wonderful virtue, necessary for a full and happy life. And the sanctuary of chastity is the home built on a marriage between one man and one woman who are committed to be chaste and to help their children become chaste men and women.


With exponential increases in digital camera resolution, the last 15 years have witnessed major advances in the use of image analysis in geotechnical engineering. This paper highlights the history of photography and image analysis. It includes a d atabase of 100 recent references describing the use of image analysis in four geotechnical areas: site characterization; earth mass characterization; particle characterization; motion and deformation. Also described are the authors' development of image analysis systems for particle size and shape characterization. They include the Translucent Segregation Table (TST), Sedimaging, the Vision Cone Penetrometer (VisCPT), Stereophotography and In-situ Particle Tracking. Future research will lead to the estimation of intrinsic soil properties based on detailed assessment of particle size and shape distributions from images of both non- contacting and three-dimensional assemblies of particles.


Decision support applications are growing in popularity as more business data is kept on-line. Such applications typically include complex SQL queries that can test a query optimizer's ability to produce an efficient access plan. Many access plan strategies exploit the physical ordering of data provided by indexes or sorting. Sorting is an expensive operation, however. Therefore, it is imperative that sorting is optimized in some way or avoided all together. Toward that goal, this paper describes novel optimization techniques for pushing down sorts in joins, minimizing the number of sorting columns, and detecting when sorting can be avoided because of predicates, keys, or indexes. A set of fundamental operations is described that provide the foundation for implementing such techniques. The operations exploit data properties that arise from predicate application, uniqueness, and functional dependencies. These operations and techniques have been implemented in IBM's DB2/CS.


Richard Gordon,1 Hedy J. Kling,2 and Frithjof A. S. Sterrenburg3 1Departments of Radiology and Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Room GA216, Health Sciences Centre, 820 Sherbrook Street, Winnipeg, MB R3A 1R9 Canada 2Freshwater Institute, Room 156, 501 University Crescent, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N6 Canada 3Research Associate, National Natural History Museum "Naturalis," Leiden, The Netherlands,


On the basis of the knowledge about the road network, an integrated approach(using) heuristic techniques and an efficient search algorithm for route finding,which improves the performance of the hierarchical routing algorithm with acceptable loss of accuracy,are presented.This technique not only substantially reduces the time and space required in computation,but also produces human oriented and personalized solutions.


FIELD: cosmetics. SUBSTANCE: invention provides composition for oxidative dyeing of keratin fibers, in particular hair, containing, in a dyeing acceptable medium, self-oxidizable dye, and two-electron-type oxidoreductase enzyme in presence of enzyme donor. EFFECT: reduced selectivity and increased resistance against corrosive effects. 23 cl, 2 ex


The utility model provides a rubber ring cutting machine, which comprises a frame, a motor and a rotating shaft, wherein the rotating shaft is arranged on the frame; the motor drives and is connected with the rotating shaft through a belt, so that the rotating shaft rotates; one pair of saw bits is arranged on the rotating shaft; and a rubber ring cutting head is arranged on the frame at the outer sides of the saw bits. The rubber ring cutting machine is simple and practical, is convenient to use, and is high in work efficiency; lots of labor force can be saved; moreover, a subsidiary lug on a rubber ring can be cut off quite easily; and a subsequent crushing operation is convenient.


Diffusion coefficient of copper in barrier coating is a considerable parameter for evaluating barrier ability. Diffusion coefficient can be deduced from matano method using electronic microprobe. Diffusion characteristics of copper in lamellar and columnar nickel deposit are also determined.


Synesthesia has been widely used in teaching and study,but they are mostly confined to their respective fields,such as Chinese teaching,geography teaching,aesthetic education and so on,and don′t form a system.The issue tries to find out the universal law through in-depth study of this subject,in order to enrich the quality of higher vocational education in humanities teaching methods.According to the actual teaching examples,the thesis fully analyzes a teaching method where synesthesia is used,defines the synaesthetic teaching and researches the effects of synesthesia in teaching,including how to wake the sensory organs,develop the ability of overall perception and achieve the unity of perception,feeling,will and action.


[1] Using the semivariogram approach from geostatistics, we characterize for the first time the global patterns of mesoscale (approximately 10–200 km and days to a few weeks) ocean biological variability. The magnitude of the variability and spatial length scale fields are reported for a full year of Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) ocean color data. The analysis shows a number of coherent geographical patterns across a wide range of biological and physical environments. Submonthly, small spatial scale variance dominates ocean color variability in oligotrophic regimes and is about a third of the total variance even in regions with strong seasonality. When normalized to the mean chlorophyll as a coefficient of variation, the resolved mesoscale variance (relative sill) is approximately uniform in the open-ocean tropics and subtropics (0.1–0.2), increasing to 0.3–1.0 in western boundary current, upwelling (Equatorial Pacific, coastal) and subpolar/polar regions, approximately scaling with the mean chlorophyll concentration. The unresolved variance (nugget), which includes submesoscale geophysical variability as well as instrument/algorithm noise, is inversely correlated with mean chlorophyll concentration in the oligotrophic subtropical gyres, reducing to a low background value (0.1) elsewhere. The high fraction of unresolved variance in the subtropics is consistent with other studies showing substantial speckling due to noise in the atmospheric correction methods. The mesoscale spatial scale (range) is approximately zonal, with values of 200–350 km near the Equator to less than 50 km close to the poles similar to the physical scales estimated from altimeter sea surface height variability data and the first baroclinic Rossby deformation radius. Our results demonstrate the global generality of previous local and regional findings that small-scale variability in ocean biology and physics occurs on comparable spatial length scales. Regional deviations from these large-scale variance and spatial length scales trends, for example, lower range and higher resolved variance in coastal upwelling regimes, are explicable by the characteristics of the biological-physical interaction in those environments.


THE INVENTION CONCERNS A PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF THE FIRST CONSTITUTING CATALYST CATALYST FOR OLEFIN POLYMERIZATION, CATALYST CONSISTING CONSTITUENT CONTAINING TITANIUM AND COMPOUND ORGANO ALUMINUM. CATALYST FORMING THE FIRST PRODUCT CAN BE EASILY BY PUTTING IN CONTACT (A) SALT FATTY ACID MAGNESIUM (B) DONOR COMPOUND ELECTRON AND (C) A TITANIUM hALIDE. IN THE POLYMERIZATION OF oLEFINS USING THE FIRST CONSTITUTING CATALYST, THE CATALYST RESIDUE QUANTITIES IN POLYMER PRODUCT AND CONTENT HALOGENE IN POLYMER ARE GREATLY REDUCED AND THIS IS aSSOCIATED ACTIVITY POLYMERIZATION UNIT OF WEIGHT OF FIRST CONSTITUTING CATALYST HIGH AND YIELD IN HIGH stereoregular polymer.


Anatomical and physiological deadspace increased significantly following intravenous administration of 0.6 mg atropine in healthy volunteers. Small increases in respiratory minute volume maintained constant values for alveolar ventilation and arterial Pco2. Atropine did not alter the arterial Po2 or the magnitude of the alveolar-arterial Pco2 gradients during breathing of air, 100 per cent oxygen or 11 per cent oxygen. It is concluded that atropine increases the degree of regional relative overventilation, but not the degree of regional relative overperfusion.


Association rule mining is one of the important fields in Data mining,the most current association rules mining algorithms went less into deep analysis of association rules which meet minimum support and minimum confidence.This classification association rule mining algorithm i.e CAR-Apriori algorithm was analyzed,and based on the multiple minimum support and support difference constraint,an enhanced classification association rule mining algorithm MSCAR-Apriori algorithm was proposed.Experimental results expatiates that the improved algorithm can not only mine out the association rules to meet the given requirement,but also can keep the rule items rare,however,interested by users and also possibly implicates the rule item of huge profit.


The physical and mental health of youngsters reflects a nation's full vitality. It marks the progress of social civilization and is of pivotal importance in building a strong country. Compared to the role of competitive sports, the youngsters' fi tness has more direct signifi cance toward the building of a strong nation. During the deep reform in China today, the reform and innovation of the competitive sports need comprehensive understanding of the social value of competitive sports so as to develop competitive sports from earning honor for the country only to serving sports for all. The development of the competitive sports should conform with the improvement of the youngsters' health. Competitive sports should be regarded as an important means of bringing up all-round talents.


17 The present study was conducted to investigate the stimbiotic mechanism of xylo-18 oligosaccharide (XOS) in degrading the complex polysaccharides by the caecal bacteria of the 19 chicken, by applying a proteomic approach. A total of 800 as-hatched Ross 308 broiler chicks 20 were equally divided into 4 experimental pens (200 chicks per pen) at a commercial barn, 21 allocating 2 pens per treatment. Birds were fed ad libitum with 2 dietary treatments; CON 22 (without XOS) and XOS (with 0.1g XOS/kg diet) from days 0 to 35. Individual birds were 23 weighed weekly whereas caecal content was obtained on day 35 from 10 of the individually 24 weighed and cervically dislocated birds. The caecal bacteria were lysed and their proteins 25 were quantified using label-free quantitative proteomic mass spectrometry. The results 26 showed that XOS significantly increased (P<0.05) bird weight on days 7, 14, 21 and 28, and 27 body weight gain on days 7, 14, 21 and 35 compared to CON. However, no difference 28 (P>0.05) in body weight gain was observed from days 0 to 35 between CON and XOS. The 29 proteomic analysis of caecal bacteria revealed that 29 proteins were expressed differently 30 between the CON and the XOS group. Out of 29, 20 proteins were significantly increased in 31 the XOS group compared to CON and 9 of those proteins belonged to the Starch Utilising 32 System (Sus)-like system of the gram-negative Bacteroidetes.


The issue of protecting migrant workers' rights and benefits is a hot and difficult problem of the work of agriculture,countryside and farmers.The most serious lacking of migrant workers' rights and interests is the rights and interests of labor which mainly involve the right of freely choosing jobs,the right of equal employment,the right of obtaining reward from work,the right for vacations,the right for labor protection and the right of social security.China should thoroughly reform the household registration system to create a equal systematic environment for protecting migrant workers' rights and interests;establish and improve laws and regulations of labor protections as well as strengthen enforcement and supervision of labor law to earnestly safeguard migrant workers' legal rights and interests;vigorously strengthen the training of migrant workers in mining areas to comprehensively enhance their quality;upgrade the organization degree of migrant workers in mining areas,face squarely and guide the positive functions of informal organizations in protecting migrant workers' rights and interests;construct social insurance system for migrant workers.


Seed et al ([2007][1]) demonstrated that very few psychiatric trainees include evidence of reflective learning in their portfolio. It is worth exploring the reasons behind these results.

As Bouch ([2003][2]) highlights, reflecting on our experiences at work is of central importance to learning.


Conventional root canal treatment despite having a reported high success rate may not invariably lead to the desired healing response in clinical practice because of shortcoming in the treatment. Different criteria have been used to define success and failure; mostly dependent on both clinical and radio-graphic findings and therefore sometimes there is a need to re-treat the root canal treated teeth.This study was done on twenty single rooted teeth, which divided equally and randomly into two groups depending on the solvent used, the first group was tested with the use of chloroform and the second group was tested with the use of eucalyptol oil.The chloroform showed the lowest mean of penetration time and was more efficient in softening the gutta-percha than the eucalyptol oil.Chloroform softened gutta-percha and ZOE sealer more statistically efficient than the eucalyptol oil.


The study of boron structure is fascinating because boron has various allotropes containing boron icosahedrons under pressure. Here, we propose a new boron structure (space group Fm3¯m ) that is dynamically stable at 1.4 tera-Pascal (TPa) using density functional theory and an evolutionary algorithm. The unit cell of this structure can be viewed as a structure with a boron atom embedded in the icosahedron. This structure behaves as a metal, and cannot be stable under ambient pressure. Furthermore, we found electrons gather in lattice interstices, which is similar to that of the semiconductor Na or Ca2N-II under high pressure. The discovery of this new structure expands our comprehension of high-pressure condensed matter and contributes to the further development of high-pressure science.


Background: Kenya's healthcare devolution was introduced to enhance the quality of care, user satisfaction, equity, and efficiency in service delivery. However, it has since been facing plethora of challenges mostly because healthcare workers (HCWs), who play a significant role in achieving health objectives, were neglected during implementation. Objectives: This dissertation tries to identify the potential impact of devolution on motivation and satisfaction of HCWs in a politicised Kenyan context. In the end, it will aid in formulating policies and recommendations to the government that will enhance worker's job performance post-devolution. Methods: It uses media reports on Kenyan HCWs post-devolution and published academic research on Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) countries decentralisation experiences to aid in inferring the prospective outcomes to the Kenyan context. Analysis of the literature aggregates some components of Franco et al.'s framework with Principal-Agent (P-A) theory to aids in clarifying the black box of motivation and satisfaction post-devolution in four broad channels: principal-agent relationship, organisation structure, and power and culture. Conclusion: A well-coordinated leadership is an indispensable tool that if crystalized together with good supervision and proper power play, will influence the achievement the goals of the healthcare system. The government needs to improve the "motivation factors" such recognition and growth besides promoting professional identity and status of HCWs. Kenyan HCWs need value-added culture of monitoring, transparent training and educational opportunities, and equal participation opportunities into a new county health administration to be able to achieve healthcare devolution objectives. Key Words: Devolution, Health workers,  Motivation and satisfaction


A two-dimensional hydrogen-bonded cadmium(Ⅱ) compound [Cd(dapm)2-(CH3COO)2(H2O)2] (dapm=diaminodiphenylmethane) has been synthesized and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis.It crystallizes in monoclinic, space group C2/c with a=27.572(3), b=5.5064(5), c=23.310(2)A↑°,β=124.785(1)°,C15H19Cd0.5ON2O3,Mr=331.52,V=2906.6(5)A↑°^3,Z=4,Dc=1.515g/cm^3, F(000)=1368 and μ=0.801mm^-1.The final R=0.0403 and wR=0.1014 for 1795 observed reflections with I≥4σ(I).The centrosymmetric Cd(Ⅱ) is sixcoordinated in a distorted octahedral geometry, and the dapm in a trans mode acts as a monodentate ligand. The intermolecular hydrogen bonds among coordinated aqua molecules with coordinated acetate oxygen atoms and uncoordinated dapm nitrogen atoms form a two-dimensional supramolecular framework.


The partitioned scheduling of sporadic task systems on identical multiprocessors is considered. This is known to be intractable (NP-hard in the strong sense). A polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS) is proposed for sporadic task systems satisfying the additional constraint that for each of the three parameters -- worst-case execution time, relative deadline, and period -- that characterize sporadic tasks, the ratio of the largest value to the smallest value is bounded from above by a constant.


Provided is a technique for realizing allocation of pool areas to virtual volumes in accordance with the use environment of the user with proper cost, while improving the capacity efficiency of media. For this purpose, in the present invention, a pool is constituted by selecting or limiting combinations of tiers of media in the pool to be used (range of tiers that can be used in each pool) for each virtual volume set in a storage system (see FIG. 5).


CASES OF the International Court of Justice passing upon the validity of international arbitral awards have been few; precisely, two. The validity of an arbitral award made by the King of Spain in 1906 determining portions of the boundary between Honduras and Nicaragua was challenged by Nicaragua. Under the auspices of the Organization of American States, Honduras and Nicaragua concluded a Special Agreement submitting the dispute to the court. In 1960, the court held that Nicaragua had in fact freely accepted the designation of the King of Spain as arbitrator, had fully participated in the arbitral proceedings, and had thereafter accepted the award. The court consequently found that the award was binding and that Nicaragua was under an obligation to give effect to it – which it did.1

In 1991, the court gave judgment rejecting another challenge to the validity of an arbitral award, in the case concerning the Arbitral Award of 31 July 1989.2 It is that case on which I shall concentrate these remarks, for it has more than one aspect of high interest to the processes of international arbitration, both interstate and commercial.

But before doing so, I may note that the predecessor of the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of International Justice, also dealt with a few cases of appeal of arbitral awards from mixed arbitral tribunals. Perhaps that experience was what stimulated the Government of Finland in 1929 to propose that the court be generally endowed with the authority to determine the validity of arbitral awards. While that proposal was fruitless, when Professor Georges Scelle produced his Draft Code of Arbitral Procedure for the International Law Commission some 25 years later, it provided that arbitral awards that were challenged on certain specified grounds could be referred by either party to the …


Fossil-fuel-based power generation leads to higher energy costs and environmental impacts. Solar and wind energy are abundant important renewable energy sources (RES) that make the largest contribution to replacing fossil-fuel-based energy consumption. However, the uncertain solar radiation and highly fluctuating weather parameters of solar and wind energy require an accurate and reliable forecasting mechanism for effective and efficient load management, cost reduction, green environment, and grid stability. From the existing literature, artificial neural networks (ANN) are a better means for prediction, but the ANN-based renewable energy forecasting techniques lose prediction accuracy due to the high uncertainty of input data and random determination of initial weights among different layers of ANN. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a harmony search algorithm (HSA)-optimized ANN model for reliable and accurate prediction of solar and wind energy. In this study, we combined ANN with HSA and provided ANN feedback for its weights adjustment to HSA, instead of ANN. Then, the HSA optimized weights were assigned to the edges of ANN instead of random weights, and this completes the training of ANN. Extensive simulations were carried out and our proposed HSA-optimized ANN model for solar irradiation forecast achieved the values of MSE = 0.04754, MAE = 0.18546, MAPE = 0.32430%, and RMSE = 0.21805, whereas our proposed HSA-optimized ANN model for wind speed prediction achieved the values of MSE = 0.30944, MAE = 0.47172, MAPE = 0.12896%, and RMSE = 0.55627. Simulation results prove the supremacy of our proposed HSA-optimized ANN models compared to state-of-the-art solar and wind energy forecasting techniques.


The antimicrobial activities of locally available plant extract (leaves, fruit, seeds, and barks) which are easily found around the surrounding of fields or some which are already being tested in the lab condition on some fungi are being used. Ten different plants were selected for testing; these plants are Artocarpus heterophyllus, Aegle marmelos, Citrus bergamia, Cannabis sativa, Epipremnum aureum, Albizia lebbeck, Callistemon, Tecoma stans, Plumeria rubra and Bombax ceiba. These plants have shown antifungal as well as antimicrobial property against Alternaria solani and Meloidogyne incognita. These plant extracts have shown inhibition activity against A. solani. Among all the plants Plumeria rubra and Aegle marmelos were observed to show the most effective results against A. solani. While Cannabis sativa and Epipremnum aureum were observed to show the most effective results against M. incognita. The above mentioned plants can be utilized against the management of disease caused by A. solani as well as against M. incognita (J2).


The paper deals with the progress of our laboratories in development of objective methodology of assessment of possibly dangerous drivers, who suffer from Parkinson disease in different state and/or different phase of medication. In the beginning there are main theoretical principles and models of driver-car control described. Further, in following chapters two experiments performed on Parkinson disease suffering drivers (and control group of healthy drivers for comparison) are described. The first type of measurements were done with use of a simple trajectory following simulator composed from a steering wheel and PC set, meanwhile the second type of experiment was performed with use of a light car driving simulator. These two approaches had to lead both to an objective methodology which should tell us whether the driver is capable of safe and reliable driving.


Lai Q, Avolio AW, Manzia TM, Sorge R, Agnes S, Tisone G, Berloco PB, Rossi M. Combination of biological and morphological parameters for the selection of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma waiting for liver transplantation.
Clin Transplant 2011 DOI: 10.1111/j.1399‐0012.2011.01572.x.
© 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.


A case of Hodgkin's disease with amyloidosis in various organs in a 68‐year‐old Japanese man is reported. The initial sign was dysuria followed by diarrhea, melena, and ileus. There was no history of pulmonary tuberculosis or rheumatoid arthritis. Autopsy findings suggested that Hodgkin's disease may have been the initial disease in development of secondary systemic amyloidosis, fallowed by dysuria and paralytic ileus.


Asynchronous IO (AIO) allows a process to continue to do other work while an IO operation initiated earlier completes. AIO allows a large number of random IO operations to be issued at once, allowing the disk subsystem to order access to data on disk, reducing average seek times considerably, as well as allowing much better utilization of disks in a multi-disk RAID environments where reads can be done in parallel across disks. In this paper we address the issue of how to extend a database query execution engine to exploit asynchronous IO. To best exploit AIO, we propose a new iterator model called the Asynchronous Iterator Model, where a getnext() call on an operator can return a status LATER instead of blocking on an IO, permitting other actions to be initiated while an IO is pending. We show how to modify the implementation of Index Nested Loop (INL) join by issuing asynchronous requests to a batch of tuple ids. We have prototyped the asynchronous iterator model for INL joins on the PostgreSQL database system, and present performance results that clearly indicate the benefits to be had from exploiting AIO.


In this paper, we present two methods which find optimal bass guitar fingerings. Generally, bass guitar scores contain tablatures but have no fingering. Therefore, a bass guitar player has to find the optimal fingering to perform a piece of music. This task is not easy and sometimes the bass guitar player must try out a variety of different fingerings. Both of these methods are based on dynamic programming. The first method gives an optimal fingering which is easier physically. Then, the second method proposes another optimal fingering based on the preference of bass guitar players. Thanks to this novel method, a bass guitar player will be able to perform quickly a piece of music. Many other research papers can result from this paper. Therefore, this paper opens more research on music and bass guitar.


Objective To understand the status and cognition of contagion occupational protection among the nurses in the center of blood decontamination. Methods Self-designed questionnaire about contagion occupational protection knowledge was used to understand the basic situation, laws and regulation on contagions, the routines to obtain the protective knowledge, common protective methods, demands for protection knowledge, post-training reflections and protective measures among 78 nurses in the centers of blood decontamination of 6 hospitals in Guangdong Provincial. Results The nurses in the centers of blood decontamination understood less concerning the laws and regulations on contagions. Their main knowledge on contagion protection came from clinical practice. The demands focused on the training of occupational protection theory. The protective measures the nurses took were associated to their roles,positive answer of nurse was better than that of assistant nurse. Conclusion Pertinent to the status quo of and demand for the contagion occupational protection among the nurses in the center of blood decontamination, the nursing administration should provide training on occupational protective knowledge and technique and psychological supports.


A computer program, P-RISCON, has been designed with the aim of finding the location and orientation of one or more independent fragments of known geometry in the unit cell from low-angle X-ray powder diffraction data only, provided that lattice parameters, space group and a set of integrated intensities are known. A three-dimensional translational search is performed and, if required, rotations of each model about three orthogonal axes are applied, seeking the best match between observed and calculated data. No arbitrary partitioning of the intensity of severely overlapping reflections is required as the integrated intensity of a multiplet can be used as a single observation, thereby introducing very little error in its estimated value. A number of (known) test structures have been solved by this method.


To assess the efficacy & safety of Nilin™ SR tablet s in the management of osteoarthritis of knee. 32 s ubjects from the age group 40-65 years having osteoarthritis of the knee, with no other rheumatologic condition wer e enrolled. Subjects were judged to have osteoarthritis with cl inical diagnostic features; Knee pain for most days of the month, Morning stiffness of less than 30 minute duration, stiffness while resting the affected joint and age over 40 years. The primary outcome was self-reported pain, stiffne ss and physical function scores as measured with th e Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis In dex (WOMAC), 6-minute walk distance and VAS scale measured at 0hr and 1, 2 and 4hrs respectively. Sec ondary outcomes included laboratory investigations and serological biomarker, i.e. Hs-CRP. A significant i mprovement in the clinical and biochemical endpoints along with excellent tolerability indicates that Nilin TM SR can be used for the long term management of Osteoarthritis. Of the 32 subjects 30 subjects completed the study. Wilcoxon paired sample test indicated WOMAC Score significantly reduced from baseline to final visit for all the th ree parameters; Pain (P<0.0001) Stiffness (P<0.0001 ) and Physical disability (P<0.0001).A significant reduction was a lso noted in the visual analogue scale over the cou rse of 4 hours after ingestion of medication. A significant improv ement in the 6-minute walk distance ( P < 0.05) and decrease in Hs-CRP levels was observed. No adverse events were reported in the trial.


Ultraviolet irradiation of crystalline molecular inclusion complexes of deoxycholic acid with di-tert-butyl thioketone results in no reaction. The structure of the above complex has been determined via X-ray diffraction. The absence of expected photoreactions. namely, photoreduction and photooxidation, is rationalized on the basis of the X-ray structure analysis of the complex.


This paper presented a modified piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (pMUT) with an adjustable large and flat frequency band in liquid-coupled operation, which is named as Cr-pMUT. A cavity in the center of the pMUT and released holes are formed by the same fabrication step, the cavity size and relative position between cavity and pMUT (wall thickness) determine the width and flatness of the frequency band. In this work, an equivalent circuit model of the Cr-pMUT is introduced to express the crosstalk behavior which is reason of the broadband performance. By theoretically analyzing and parameters optimizing, a broad and flat frequency band can be achieved, and it provides a simple method to tune the bandwidth. Compared to the r-pMUT and traditional pMUT, the Cr-pMUT achieve wider −3dB frequency band by 6% and 537% respectively with the same diaphragm size in FC-84.


Comparisons have been made between thermal maturity of wells and stratigraphically correlatable surface sections in the Buat and Saka Kanan synclines in the thrust-belt area of the Sanga-Sanga block in the Kutai Basin. The study shows that the rocks in the synclinal axis (represented by well maturity trends) have a different burial history from the rocks in the flank sections (represented by surface maturity trend). The synclinal axis rocks are more mature than the time-equivalent flank's sections, which indicate that the synclinal axis rocks have been buried deeper than the synclinal-flank rocks. This phenomenon supports the theory that in the Kutai Basin thrust-belt area, the synclinal axes are paleodepocenters, which were subsided deeper than the synclinal flanks. The study also reveals that in Buat syncline, the west-flank section has been buried deeper than the east-flank section, implying that the structural inversion has uplifted the west-flank section higher than the east-flank section. Any migration or generated hydrocarbon prior to the uplift may have been preferentially from the [open quotes]Hydrocarbon Kitchen[close quotes] (paleodepocenter) toward the east flank of the syncline. The relationships between synclinal axis and flank maturity established in this study may refine further prediction of subsurface thermal maturity using surface-sectionmore » data in the thrust-belt area of the Kutai Basin.« less


The utility model relates to a chopstick with a strippable film, and a layered structure formed by a plastic film sleeve is compound on the surface of a chopstick body. The chopstick is heated in hot water to conveniently remove the softened plastic film sleeve from the chopstick body after use, the plastic film sleeve can be treated through reclamation, and another plastic film sleeve can cover the chopstick body to form the chopstick with the strippable film. Employing the trippable plastic film sleeve, the chopstick body can be repetitively used, thereby saving precious wood sources.


The corrosion protective poly(aniline-co-o-toluidine) (PAOT) coatings were synthesized on copper (Cu) by the electrochemical copolymerization of aniline with o-toluidine under cyclic voltammetry conditions. Aqueous oxalate solutions were used as the supporting electrolytes for the synthesis of PAOT coatings on Cu. The resulting coatings were characterized by different spectroscopic techniques, cyclic voltammetry, ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and scanning electron microscopy. The Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) spectroscopy and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy studies reveal that the copolymerization of aniline and o-toluidine takes place on Cu substrates from an aqueous oxalate solutions and resulting in PAOT copolymer, there are more o-toluidine units than aniline units.


Social housing policy in the UK mirrors wider processes associated with shifts in broad welfare regimes. Social housing has moved from dominance by state housing provision to the funding of new investment through voluntary sector housing associations to what is now a greater focus on the regulation and private financing of these not-for-profit bodies. If these trends run their course, we are likely to see a range of not-for-profit bodies providing non-market housing in a highly regulated quasi-market. This paper examines these issues through the lens of new institutional economics, which it is believed can provide important insights into the fundamental contractual and regulatory relationships that are coming to dominate social housing from the perspective of the key actors in the sector (not-for-profit housing organisations, their tenants, private lenders and the regulatory state). The paper draws on evidence recently collected from a study evaluating more than 100 stock transfer organisations that inherited ex-public housing in Scotland, including 12 detailed case studies. The paper concludes that social housing stakeholders need to be aware of the risks (and their management) faced across the sector and that the state needs to have clear objectives for social housing and coherent policy instruments to achieve those ends.


The geometrical structures and electronic properties of P66 fullerene‐polymer sheets areinvestigated using semiempirical tight‐binding calculations and first‐principles calculationsbased on the density functional theory. Our results indicate that the sheet becomes metallic when the [2 + 2] cycloadditional bond between the two neighboring P66 polymer chains is stretched. We also examine the electronic structure of the sheet sandwiched between electrodes and found that the sheet exhibits metallic behavior. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Frost tends to be detrimental to the growth and development of horticultural crops, leading to yield or quality reduction with sizable economic losses. Therefore, it is very important to develop frost protection technology for horticultural crops. In this study, the development of frost protection technology is reviewed, and the research of mechanized frost protection technology in recent years is analyzed. In view of the poor frost protection effect of some single mechanized frost protection technology, the combination frost protection technology is put forward. The combination frost protection technology with airflow disturbance and sprinkler irrigation is discussed and analyzed.


—With the rapid development of biotechnology and experimental conditions, people can obtainhigh-throughput gene expression data in a short time, which lays a foundation for studying and revealing therelationship between genes and their products, especially the regulation mechanism of gene expression.According to geometric patterns, the potential regulators and regulatory delays are determined, and theregulatory relationships among genes are discovered by reasoning the correlation between these geometricpatterns. This method solves the problem of mining trend-related gene regulatory relationships, simplifiesthe problem of network construction in scale, shortens the learning time and makes the network structuremore stable. It can estimate and predict the state of observed values at multiple times, and can show theinteraction of gene regulation process. It provides an effective tool for revealing gene regulatory network


A variety of scientific models and computational tools have been developed to improve human safety and comfort in built environments. In this work we discuss the use of crowd simulation to reproduce and to evaluate egress performance in specific scenarios. We present CrowdSim, a crowd simulation tool designed to automatically reproduce crowd behaviors during building egress. Associated with this kind of software, that aims to be used in real life events, are critical validation questions. Here we present quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate our CrowdSim software, but that can be extended to any crowd simulator. To ground these methods a case study in a real night club evacuation was performed and results are discussed in the paper.


PURPOSE: A distribution cable tray for an apartment house is provided to control a cable distribution direction within a preset range by rotating the cable tray under a slab and early extinguish a fire on a cable with extinguishing powder. CONSTITUTION: A cable tray(10) includes a receiving groove which receives a cable(2) and a flange and supports a plurality of cables. A buried anchor is comprised of a disk and a rod shaped bolt unit. A connection unit connects the cable tray to the buried anchor. A fire extinguishing block(40) distributes extinguishing powder to the lower side when a fire occurs in the cable.


In an economic area, the national economy is operated to create prosperity of the society equally. To reach the purpose, it is needed supporting facilities such as "legal order" to encourage, to drive, and to control all development activities in the economic area. Basically, the first law of PT was the Law No. 1of 1995 Concerning Limited Liability Companies. It has been changed to the Law No. 40 of 2007 Concerning Limited Liability Companies. The protection of the rights of the shareholders minority can be found in article 61 (1) (2), article 62 (1) (2), article 138 (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), and article 146 (1), (2), (6) of the Law No. 40 of 2007 on PT, as well as in various regulation. The purpose of it indeed is to protect the shareholders minority from the action of the shareholders majority or the company. The result of the research showed that some variables (indicators) of the rights of the shareholders minority showed that the indicators can been seen in the forms of the rights of the shareholders minority are  the rights of the company's operating, the rights of accessing information of the company, the rights of a fair price, and the personal rights. Keywords : the Rights of the Shareholders Minority and the Company


The dry sliding behaviors of titanium silicon carbide (Ti3SiC2) against Ni–Cr and Ni–Cr–Ti alloys from ambient temperature up to 600 C were investigated. The tribological performance of Ti3SiC2 depends largely on counterface materials. Fracture and pullout of Ti3SiC2 grains followed by mechanical mix led to poor tribological property for Ti3SiC2/Ni–Cr alloy tribo-pair. However, for Ti3SiC2/Ni–Cr–Ti alloy tribo-pair, the oxides film of Ti on Ni–Cr–Ti alloy was effective to reduce friction coefficient and enhance wear resistance.


'What do you need to know to be a GP?'

It's a question that I find difficult to answer. We might agree that a knowledge of physiology, anatomy, and pathology are relevant. I'm still pleased that I can remember that the recurrent laryngeal nerve hooks around the arch of the aorta, and when, one day, I see a hoarse patient after thyroid surgery, I might accidentally do an inappropriate little dance of joy. Chemistry is still useful to me, when I'm remembering about stomach acid and medications. Physics helps me out with the lens of the eye and the risks of radiology. We all know about statistics …


The considered questions that connected with the analysis and preparation of the entrance information received under production conditions of food manufactures, in particular, in sugar manufactures, for the organisation of effective actions in control systems of technological processes. These problems are carried out within the limits of subsystems of technological monitoring which provides an establishment of situationally meaning events according to management scenarios. The problem of a filtration of time numbers on the basis of wavelet-transformations and methods of nonlinear dynamics and chaos dares


Many factors affect the suitability of an out-the-window simulator visual system. Contrast, brightness, resolution, field-of-view, update rate, scene content and a number of other criteria are common factors often used to define requirements for simulator visual systems. For the past several years, NASA has worked with the United States Air Force (USAF) on the Operational Based Vision Assessment Program (OBVA). The purpose of this program has been to provide the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) with a scientific testing laboratory to study human vision and testing standards in an operationally relevant environment (i.e., a research simulator). Requirements for the visual system include high luminance, a large field-of-view, a large color gamut capable of reproducing aviation red, green, and blue, a limited development budget, and a flexible design to support future technology insertion and upgrades. One of the more challenging requirements in designing the reconfigurable image generator was the resolution requirement – approximately 0.5 arc-minutes per pixel, roughly equivalent to 20/10 visual acuity. In addition to static resolution, dynamic resolution (i.e., the perceived resolution of moving imagery) was also investigated to determine how best to minimize motion artifacts in the visual system. In this paper, we will describe how the simulator specifications were developed in order to meet the vision research objectives of USAFSAM, the various design considerations, and the resulting architecture. In particular, we will discuss the image generator architecture and describe the latest performance results along with the unique challenges of developing a visual system that provides eye limited resolution.


Objective : To determine risk factors for birth asphyxia Methods : The 567 pregnancy women who had delivery between 1 October 2012 to 30 September 2013 were randomized by consecutive selection. Cases were 189 women who had delivery newborn with 1-minute APGAR score of 7 or less. Control were 389 women who delivery newborn with 1-minute APGAR score more than 7. The risk factors for birth asphyxia were determined. Result: The most associated risk factors with birth asphyxia were prolonged second stage of labor (OR 4.81, 95%CI 1.07-21.65, p=0.041), maternal hypertension (OR 3.48, 95%CI 1.57-7.72, p = 0.002), delivered by medical trainee (OR 2.69, 95%CI 1.35-5.37, p=0.005), moderate to thick meconium stained amniotic fluid (OR 2.31, 95%CI 1.05-5.07, p = 0.038), refer for birth (OR 1.69, 95%CI 1.02-2.78, p = 0.041) Conclusion: Most of risk factors associated with birth asphyxia could be protected. Early detection and appropriate care will decrease birth asphyxia.


The Taiwan Area Mesoscale Experiment (TAMEX) is a research program conducted jointly by scientists of Taiwan, the Republic of China, and the United States to improve, through better understanding, the forecasting of heavy precipitation events that lead to flash floods. In order to achieve this objective the field phase of TAMEX was launched to collect the data necessary to study the mesoscale circulation associated with the Mei-Yu front; the evolution of the mesoscale convective systems in the vicinity of the Mei-Yu front; and the effects of orography on the Mei-Yu front and on mesoscale convective systems. The field phase extended from 1 May to 29 June 1987, covering 13 operational missions. In addition, soundings were taken every 6 h within the special network for a 1-month period from 15 May to 15 June. Meteorological phenomena on which special observations were collected include the Mei-Yu front, low-level jet, prefrontal squall lines, open-ocean mesoscale convective systems, mountain convection, terr...


The purpose of this study is to make decisions on the right time to buy and sell shares on IDX 30 by using technical analysis including MACD, moving average, and stochastic oscillator. This research is a descriptive qualitative research. The population of this study is companies listed on IDX30 for the 2017-2019 period. Sampling was done by using purposive sampling technique. Research locations on stocks listed on IDX30 using the AmiBroket Chart software. Data analysis uses technical analysis using three indicators, namely MACD, moving average, and stochastic oscillator. Based on the research results of the three indicators, MACD generates the greatest profit. The right moment (giving a buy signal) in using MACD is when the MACD line crosses the signal line from the bottom up or Golden Cross as a bullish trend. A condition that gives a sell signal if the MACD line crosses the signal line from up to down or Death Cross is a bearish trend.


The shelving phenomenon of quantum optics, originally observed by Dehmelt, is analyzed in terms of the qRules that are given in another paper. The heuristic value of these rules is apparent because they not only describe the dark period during shelving, but they reveal the mechanism that enforces the suppression of fluorescence during that time.


Red dragon fruit (Hylocereus lemairei Britton and Rose) is one of the the plants that potentially as natural antioxidant. Red dragon fruit peel which consists approximately 22% of the whole fruit weight is known to have antioxidant activity at the level of extract but has not been tested at the level of fraction. The purpose of this study is to determine the antioxidant activity of red dragon fruit peel at the level of fraction using DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) method. The extraction was done by maceration using chloroform and then fractionated liquid-liquid by n-hexane, chloroform, and methanol. Chloroform fraction was obtained was tested phytochemical. Preliminary test of antioxidant activity performed using thin layer chromatography (TLC) with stasionary phase of silica gel 60 F254 and mobile phase of chloroform:methanol (1,9:0,1) with reactant DPPH 0,2%. The Antioxidant activity was measured using UV-Vis spectrophotometer and was expressed as value of IC50. Based on the result of phytochemical screening were known that chloroform fraction contains flavonoid and triterpenoid compounds. Preliminary test result of antioxidant activity with TLC showed of whitish yellow spots on the Rf value of 0,60; 0,84; 0,90; and 0,96. Result of spectrophotometric measurement showed that chloroform fraction had very weak antioxidant activity with IC50 at 3349,936 μg/mL, whereas vitamin C as positif control had very powerful antioxidant activity with IC50 at 2,973 μg/mL.


Learning the continuous equations of motion from discrete observations is a common task in all areas of physics. However, not any discretization of a Gaussian continuous-time stochastic process can be adopted in parametric inference. We show that discretizations yielding consistent estimators have the property of `invariance under coarse-graining', and correspond to fixed points of a renormalization group map on the space of autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models (for linear processes). This result explains why combining differencing schemes for derivatives reconstruction and local-in-time inference approaches does not work for time series analysis of second or higher order stochastic differential equations, even if the corresponding integration schemes may be acceptably good for numerical simulations.


Abstract There is a certain ambiguity in the definition of regions and this can be seen in the relationship between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Timor-Leste. This article discusses how regional actors have adopted and re-shaped the externally-imposed geographic and political definitions of Southeast Asia. These definitions were stabilized through the institutionalization of policies and practices of exclusion and inclusion which have affirmed the legitimacy of certain entities in the organization (i.e. being ASEAN), the acceptability of certain behaviours (i.e. acting as ASEAN), and the appropriate interpretive frames with which to solve problems (i.e. seeing as ASEAN). This enabled ASEAN to present a modicum of cohesion even while it facilitated the exclusion of East Timor as a 'legitimate' political actor in Southeast Asia. Over time, however, these definitions were destabilized by a convergence of external crises and increasing inconsistencies within ASEAN. As ASEAN embarks on redefining the Southeast Asian 'community', Timor-Leste is trying to demonstrate its bona fides by 'becoming' an ASEAN state with the requisite institutional capabilities, and 'acting' and 'seeing' as an ASEAN state in order to generate a positive consensus on its membership.


 Dexamethasone is a potent synthetic member of the glucocorticoid class of steroid drugs. It acts as an antiinflammatory and immunosuppressant. It is 20 to 30 times more potent than the naturally occurring hormone cortisol and 4 to 5 times more potent than prednisone.  Like other corticosteroids, dexamethasone exerts its manifold effects on cells involved in immune and inflammatory responses primarily by modulating the transcription of a large number of genes. However it is also able to influence the translational and post-translational mechanisms by which proteins are synthesized, processed and exported from cells.  Ophthalmic formulations containing 0.025% to 0.1% dexamethasone formulated in DuraSite have been developed containing BAK (benzalkonium chloride) and buffers.  DuraSite is a polymeric drug delivery system that prolongs drug residence time on the eye.  DuraSite formulations of dexamethasone have been used in Phase II and Phase III clinical trials with excellent safety and efficacy profiles.


Abstract The main objective of the study was to determine to what degree higher muscular activity, achieved by increased load in the extension phase (eccentric muscle action) of the vertical jump, affects the efficiency of the vertical jump. Sixteen elite biathletes participated in this investigation. The biathletes performed tests that consisted of five, single "maximal" vertical jumps (counter movement jump - CMJ) and five, single vertical jumps, in which the task was to touch a bar placed over the jumping biathletes (specific task counter movement jump - SCMJ). Then, they performed five, single drop jumps from an elevation of 0.4m (DJ). Ground reaction forces were registered using the KISTLER 9182C force platform. MVJ software was used for signal processing (Król, 1999) and enabling calculations for kinematic and kinetic parameters of the subject's jump movements (on-line system). The results indicate that only height of the jump (h) and mean power (Pmean) during the takeoff are statistically significant. Both h and Pmean are higher in the DJ. The results of this study may indicate that elite biathletes are well adapted to eccentric work of the lower limbs, thus reaching greater values of power during the drop jump. These neuromuscular adaptive changes may allow for a more dynamic and efficient running technique.


This letter proposes a new approach to design Proportional-Integral (PI) and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers. The main result is a constructive determination of the set <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathcal {S}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>(<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of stabilizing PI and PID controllers with closed loop poles having real parts less than <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$-\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The signature method is applied to obtain the set <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathcal {S}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>(<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula>) in the controller parameter space. Illustrative examples are included to describe the procedure of the proposed method and to find the maximum achievable <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma $ </tex-math></inline-formula> for a given plant.


reflektorischen Begleituveitis lokalen Therapiemaßnahmen Stadium der Stromareaktion: Fremdmaterial und Detritus entfernen, Keratolyse begrenzen, Infektion eliminieren, Mydriasis und Analgesie unterstützen die sekundäre Stromaheilung. Eine systemische Behandlung ist bei Vorliegen einer Begleituveitis oder bei drohender infektiö-ser Endophthalmitis indiziert. Chirurgische Maßnahmen bei verzögerter Heilung sind Debridement und lamellärer Keratektomie zur Entfernung von Detritus und losem Epithel, Konjunktivaplastik zur Neovaskularisation Indeed deep corneal ulceration can result from superficial erosions of the epithelium but they have to be distinguished thouroughly in dia-gnosis and therapy. Besides historic considerations and the examination of the ocular adnexa an extensive and detailed elevation of clini-cal findings on the margin and the base of the corneal ulcer is essential. Ulcer swaps has to be collected to determine microbial causes for corneal ulceration or secondary complications in the ulcer before other diagnostic methods are established. Finally the extend of secondary uveal changes have to be examined and treated. Local therapy of the ulcer depends on the stage of stromal damage and pathophy-siological reaction: removing of foreign material and detritus, reducing stromal melting (keratolysis), antimicrobial treatment, mydriasis and pain control support the secondary stromal wound healing. Systemic treatment is indicated in secondary reflex uveitis and microbial endophthalmitis. Surgical intervention is indicated in retracted stromal healing: debriding of the corneal ulcer and lamellary ceratectomy to remove excess necrotic tissue and epithelial layers, conjunctival grafting to provide an instant corneal blood supply and temporary ble-pharorrhaphy to protect the conjunctival graft and the bulb.


There are active self-renewal and differentiated capacities in spermatogonial stem cells.The continuous research in recent years about them such as culture in vitro,transplantation and transgenic modification technology has presented a new method to study the spermatogenesis mechanism,rebuilting spermiotelesis in infertile individual and producing transgenic animals.This review focuses on the advancement of the technology of the spermatogonial stem cells.


Temperature influences the successful application of steinernematids and heterorhabditids as biological control agents against soil dwelling insects (1,3). It affects also the maturation and growth rates of Steinernema feltiae strains on meridic diets (10), nematode reproduction (12), growth in Galleria mellonella (4) and Hylobius pales (12), dauerjuvenile infection potential and emergence time (11), migratory activity (3), sex ratios (4), and insect death rates (12). Studies of temperature effects on Heterorhabditis spp. are scarce. However, larvae of Choristoneura fumiferana parasitized by H. heliothidis died more slowly when incubated at 17 C than at 24 C (8). Adapting S. feltiae strains and H. heliothidis to selected soil temperatures would likely improve control of soil dwelling insects. Burman and Pye (3) acclimated S. feltiae dauer juveniles to soil temperatures of 15-25 C by culturing the nematodes at those temperatures, but the acclimation was transient. Our objectives were to test the potential of selecting for temperature adapted strains of S. feltiae and H. heliothidis by serial passaging the nematodes through G. mellonella larvae at specific temperatures and by prolonged culture of the nematodes on semi-defined diet in vitro at selected temperatures. Temperature adaptation was assessed by determining the yield of nematodes on artificial diet, monitoring changes in the concentration of dauerjuveniles required to kill 50% (LC50) of the larvae,


Routing algorithm of SDN controller has an important impact on the performance of SDN. An optimized routing algorithm for SDN based on reinforcement learning is designed in this paper for the communication requirements of low-delay services in electric power communication networks. The main work includes using a reinforcement learning framework to design state, action and reward, achieve optimal routing strategy selection. Simulation experiments using the 14-node NSFNET topology show effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.


Effects of a novel immunomodulator, Polyactin A (PAA) isolated from streptococcal cultures, on human natural killer (NK), lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) and killer (K) cell activities against NK-sensitive K562, NK-resistant LAK-sensitive RAJI as well as P815 target cells in vitro were investigated


The present research is a consequent step in an ongoing research of a novel approach for decision support, called InterCriteria Analysis, which aims at identification of specific correlations between criteria in a decision making processes, using the concepts of intuitionistic fuzziness and index matrices. The step made here is not a gradual improvement of previous results, but a new way of reading them. It is shown how the results produced by the InterCriteria Analysis approach can be interpreted within the specific triangular geometrical interpretation of IFSs, thus allowing us to order these results according simultaneously to the membership and the non-membership component of the intuitionistic fuzzy pairs.


Metal‐free catalysts combined with a persulfate‐based advanced oxidation process (PS‐AOP) are considered to be a promising purification technology. In this study, porous thin layers of g‐C3N4 with nitrogen defects are synthesized by a simple method. Multiple characterization methods demonstrate the porous thin layer structure and the N defects of P‐CNx‐1. Photoelectrochemistry tests show that the combination of morphological modulation and defect engineering produces an excellent photocurrent response. The P‐CNx‐1/PS/Vis system shows the best tetracycline (TC) removal efficiency degrading 74.2% of TC within 90 min, and the degradation kinetics are significantly improved. Optimal degradation conditions such as catalyst dosage, persulfate (PS) dosage, initial TC concentration, and initial pH are investigated. Cyclic and anionic experiments demonstrate the excellent stability of P‐CNx‐1 and its ability to treat complex aqueous bases. Mechanistic experiments show that ˙OH/SO4˙−/˙O2−/h+/1O2 are all involved in the degradation of TC. Liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC‐MS) suggests possible degradation pathways for TC. This work aims to provide new ideas for the application of metal‐free g‐C3N4 in PS activation.


There is an increasing awareness about the paramount importance of information technology within business in the context of large businesses. However, research about the investigation of the role of information technology resources in fostering collaborative communication, network governance and relationship longevity in the small and medium enterprise sector has remained scant. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the influence of information technology on collaborative communication, network governance and relationship longevity in Zimbabwe's SME sector. Five research hypotheses were posited and sample data from 162 small and medium enterprise suppliers were collected and used to empirically test the hypotheses. The results of this study showed that information technology resources positively influenced small and medium enterprise suppliers' collaborative communication, network governance and consequential relationship longevity with their buyers in a significant way. Overall, the current study findings provided tentative support to the proposition that information technology resources, collaborative communication and network governance should be recognised as significant antecedents for improved relationship longevity between suppliers and their buyers in the SME setting. Therefore, managers in the small and medium enterprise sector and small and medium enterprise owners need to pay attention to both collaborative communication and network governance in order to optimise information technology resource impact on their relationship longevity with their business counterparts. Limitations and future research directions were also indicated.


Background and Objective: Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) occurs in children of school age, with strong genetic predisposition in otherwise normal children. CAE is characterized by very frequent absences i.e. abrupt impairment of consciousness, with cessation of voluntary activity. The electroencephalograph (EEG) shows bilateral, synchronous spike-waves, usually 3 Hz, on a normal background activity, which is often precipitated by hyperventilation. The absence seizures of CAE may be difficult to be recognized by either the parents or teachers. However, the very frequent absence seizures and electroencephalographic discharges may potentially affect the child's learning and education in school. 1 The objective of this study was to determine the time period from the onset of absence seizures to diagnosis and treatment for children with CAE in Singapore. Methods: We reviewed the EEG and medical records of Singaporean children managed in our institution with the diagnosis of CAE from 1993 to 2003. The inclusion criteria were based on the definition by the ILAE 2 and the EEGs were verified to have findings consistent with CAE. We excluded the following which were incompatible with CAE: 1) Eyelid or perioral myoclonia, rhythmic massive limb jerking, and single or arrhythmic myoclonic jerks of the head, trunk, or limbs; 2) Mild or no impairment of consciousness during the 3-Hz discharges; 3) Photic and other sensory precipitation of clinical seizures; 4) Brief EEG 3-Hz spike-wave discharges of less than 4 seconds, multiple spikes (more than 3) or ictal discharge fragmentations Results: We had 23 patients, 15 girls and 8 boys, with onset of absence seizures between 4 to 11 years of age. All the patients had typical 3-Hz spike-and-wave discharges lasting at least 4 seconds in their routine EEGs, with activation seen in all 21 children who could perform hyperventilation adequately. The average time period between the onset of seizures and the diagnosis was 10.5 months, with 57% of the patients being diagnosed at least 6 months after the onset of absence seizures. All were treated with valproic acid (VPA) except for one who had a possible drug allergy. Seventeen patients (77%) were seizure-free on low dose VPA ( 30mg/ kg/day), and 4 patients required two anti-epileptic drugs (VPA and ethosuximide) to achieve clinical response.


PURPOSE: To make roller coating parts more inexpensive and longer in service life by providing the bore surface of a ring with helical grooves for cooling and connecting these grooves into the connecting bores of a roller base at the beginning point and end point of winding. CONSTITUTION: The base body 1 is rotatably supported and the coating ring 4 is shrinkage fitted onto the sleeve surface 3 of the base body 1. Molds 5 of briquettes are formed on the outer surface of the coating ring 4. The iron sponge briquettes are molded by the molds 5. At the time of molding, a cooling medium is passed through a central cooling and supplying device 11, the connecting bores 9, a winding beginning point 7 of the cooling grooves 6, the cooling grooves 6, a winding end point 8 and the connecting bores 10, by which the molds 5 are cooled. For example, the surface temperature of the coating ring 4 is 150 deg.C in spite of the briquetting of the iron sponge of the iron sponge at 700 deg.C. The material of the coating ring 4 suffices with a chrome-nickel- molybdenum steel and is long in the service life.


Reason for posting: Fish is a healthy food choice. However, some predatory fish accumulate particularly high levels of mercury that can be toxic, particularly to developing fetuses.[1][1] Recent case reports of toxic exposure[2][2] and research suggesting that groups at risk may be unaware of past


We consider a classical (propositional) version, CBI, of O'Hearn and Pym's logic of bunched implications (BI) from a modeland prooftheoretic perspective. We present a class of classical models of BI which extend the usual BI-models, based on partial commutative monoids, with an algebraic notion of "resource negation". This class of models gives rise to natural definitions of multiplicative falsity, negation and disjunction. We demonstrate that a sequent calculus proof system for CBI is sound with respect to our classical models by translating CBI sequent proofs into proofs in BI, a sound extension of sequent calculus for BI.


Trace elements of Cu,Fe,Zn,Ca,Mg,Mn,Cd and Pb in Castanea molissima Blume were determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer(FAAS).The result showed that the content of calcium,magnesium,iron and zinc was abundant,while Cd and Pb were not found in the samples.The relative standard deviation of this measurement was 0.30%~3.92%,the recovery rate of samples was 96.8%~102.5%.The method has good precision and accuracy,and the results provided theoretical basis for the effect of Castanea molissima Blume medicine.


We propose a photonic crystal biosensor, operating at a single wavelength, based on analysis of resonant guided modes in the spatial Fourier domain. Sensitivities of 65 degrees per RIU and more have been simulated.


Sub-new stock price prediction, forecasting the price trends of stocks listed less than one year, is crucial for effective quantitative trading. While deep learning methods have demonstrated effectiveness in predicting old stock prices, they require large training datasets unavailable for sub-new stocks. In this paper, we propose Meta-Stock: a task-difficulty-adaptive meta-learning approach for sub-new stock price prediction. Leveraging prediction tasks formulated by old stocks, our meta-learning method aims to acquire the fast generalization ability that can be further adapted to sub-new stock price prediction tasks, thereby solving the data scarcity of sub-new stocks. Moreover, we enhance the meta-learning process by incorporating an adaptive learning strategy sensitive to varying task difficulties. Through wavelet transform, we extract high-frequency coefficients to manifest stock price volatility. This allows the meta-learning model to assign gradient weights based on volatility-quantified task difficulty. Extensive experiments on datasets collected from three stock markets spanning twenty-two years prove that our Meta-Stock significantly outperforms previous methods and manifests strong applicability in real-world stock trading. Besides, we evaluate the reasonability of the task difficulty quantification and the effectiveness of the adaptive learning strategy.


his hands. The Hanoverian response? Sir Thomas Robinson was ''hesitant'' to get involved, lest the Irish situation be used ''as a counter-pawn,'' and George II approved of this caution. Yet in British churches, fiery preaching on Thorn and Salzburg continued up to 1746. Mr. Thompson connects the decline of the ''protestant interest'' to the accession of Frederick the Great, a ''protestant prince'' who was, in Horace Walpole's phrase, a ''trampler of all treaties, religions, justice and interest but his own personal.'' With him the appreciation of the value ''of confessional considerations for the conduct of international relations'' vanished, and the ''protestant interest'' morphed into the ''common interest of Europe.'' What is missing in this informative work is a definition of protestant interest. It is never made clear what the religious content of protestant was in the thinking of George I and II and their Whig ministers. Was it the watereddown civil religion envisioned by Hoadly and Toland, but execrated by Swift? This is never discussed. Anne Barbeau Gardiner John Jay College, CUNY


/^ n August 28, zoo6, the sadly nwdefunct Veekly | |\VrldNews."TheVorldlOnlyReliableNewspaper," \./ as it bills itsclf, led with this headline: "Vampires Attack U.S. '[ioops: Amy of undead ta-king over mountains of Afghanistm" (Fig. r). 'fhe lVehly lVtld Neor is better knom for its placement at the checkout counters at supermarkets and its Bat Boy stories than it is for its geopolitical reportage. And needlcss to say the US. is not 6ghting vampires id Afghadstan. Yet the fea that the facetious papcr belies is real e nougl:''I'!rc WceHy 'Vrld Nrut, for all its frequent absurdity understands that, metaphorically we have been at wu with vampires all along. The "NewTerror in Middle East" thrt the subheading warns us of is not nw at all, but nther a sensationalized wy to describe the terror that is already there. In our curent post Septenber rr, zoor climate, the nw invasioo nmative of the terrcrisend, more rmently of the insurgent-follm the comentions of previous monster stories. For the nodw ope' randi of the tenonst is nearly the same as the vmpire's: both infiItmte, hide in plain sight, use capital against the capitalist, and eschw the light. The revision ofthis conflict has a name: the War on Terror H'I


Background: Patient-centered, culturally tailored cardiovascular health education has the potential to improve hypertension self-management. Despite the high prevalence of hypertension in Sub Sahara Africa, this type of health education is hardly available in this region. Objective: To describe how we developed and evaluated a culturally adapted Cardiovascular Health Education Program for insured hypertensive patients in rural Nigeria. Methods: Applying concepts of "cultural adaptation", we took a hypertension education program from Europe as a starting point for program-development. First, we collected information on socio-cultural perspectives on hypertension care through a literature review and qualitative interviews with 40 hypertensive patients and 15 healthcare professionals/insurance managers in Kwara State Nigeria. Second, we used this information to adapt the content (deep structure) and the form (surface structure) of the European program to the unique patient population and circumstances of a primary care clinic in Kwara. Third, we evaluated the adapted program among 149 hypertensive patients from this clinic. Results: The interviews offered insight into patient perspectives on hypertension, socio-cultural and environmental inhibitors and facilitators for medication/ behavioral self-management (e.g. exercise) and on healthcare professional perspectives on optimal education delivery platforms – group counseling, posters, audiovisuals. These insights were used to adapt elements (e.g., educational tools, content) of the existing educational program. The adapted program has been shown to strengthen medication adherence and consequently blood pressure control among the targeted population. Conclusion: A culturally tailored Cardiovascular Health Education Program, developed by using a qualitative research approach, offered an effective means for educating patients about blood pressure control in a rural primary care setting in Africa. Implications: Our description of the program and the process by which it was developed offers a practical framework for developing cardiovascular health education for other patient populations in Africa.


As a feature extraction method, PCA has been wildly used in biometrics. Recently research shows that removing the first 3 eigenvectors can enhance the system performance for face recognition. In this paper, we investigate the influence by removing the first i eigenvectors of eigenspace firstly, then weighted PCA method is proposed, which has stronger ability than PCA under the same term. Meanwhile, it takes the best performance with fewer components without removing any bigger eigenvectors. Palmprint identification based on our database validates the algorithm.


The aim of the research was to improve the understanding of parasite communities in a native fish species the Aegean chub Squalius fellowesii (Gunther, 1868) in of Doganbaba Creek (Yesilova-Burdur, Turkey). Lamproglena compacta (Copepoda: Lernaeidae) and Paradiplozoon bliccae (Monogenea: Diplozoidae) were recorded on the extremity of the filaments. Histopathological examination in areas of parasite attachment revealed inflammation, hyperaemia and haemorrhages in the gills and slight hyperplasia. Prevalence, intensity and seasonality of infection, length classes, ages and sex compositions of infected populations were monitored and compared with other studies.


James Thompson Bain, a Scottish-born trade unionist, became one of the most important figures in the white labour movement of early Johannesburg. His career culminated in his leadership of the 1913 general strike in that city, and his deportation by the Botha–Smuts government in the following year. The activities of the union movement led by Bain were crucial to the formation of segregated labour relations in South African industry. Bain's path to the 1913 strike ran through service in the British Army in his teens, conversion to the socialism of William Morris in Edinburgh during the 1880s and intelligence work and combat in the cause of the Boers' Transvaal Republic. The paper seeks to explore Bain's intellectual formation through an investigation of the impact that literary culture, and especially the writings of Thomas Carlyle, Morris, and Robert Blatchford, had on his politics. Carlyle's work quite inadvertently provided late nineteenth century British, and especially Scottish, labour activists with an intellectual bridge between a protestant world view and new secularist and socialist ideas. The anti-industrialism of Carlyle and Morris predisposed Bain to see the Boers' defence of their interests against the Randlords and the British government as compatible with socialist ideology. Carlyle's ideas fed into a vision of working class interests, held by Bain and many of his contemporaries, which stopped at the boundaries of Britishness, and which was therefore compatible with certain forms of colonial politics. The paper argues that the scholarship of Jonathan Rose and other historians has missed the global dimension of late nineteenth and early twentieth century British working class literary culture and the way in which its radicalism was entirely compatible with racial segregationism. The white labourism of men like Bain was not a specifically South African phenomenon, but part of the common politics of the labour movement in Britain and across its Empire.


Citation: Khanbhai M, Borgen R, Dobrashian R (2017) Ultrasound Can Accurately Diagnose Fibroadenomas in Women Less Than 35 Years. Int J Radiol Imaging Technol 3:026. doi.org/10.23937/2572-3235.1510026 Received: May 04, 2017: Accepted: August 30, 2017: Published: September 01, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Khanbhai M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


The trade-off between aggregate wealth and individual wealth inequality is a societal conundrum. At the individual level, a common framework to assess this trade-off is by the ranking of alternative societal wealth distributions in which one does not know their own position in the distribution but rather that she will equally likely assume any position in the distribution. When she chooses a distribution from a set of possible distributions, her pure preference with respect to the aggregate wealth inequity trade off is confounded by her aversion to risk her selection generates over the marginal distribution of her own wealth. We introduce a new experimental procedure to control for this risk aversion. Individuals are presented a series of paired choice tasks: one is the consumer problem of choosing a portfolio of Arrow-Debreu contigent claim assets over two equally likely states, one good and one bad, and the other is choosing the wealth profile of a two-person economy in which they are equally likely to be the rich or poor individual. "Income" and "prices" are the same within a paired set of tasks, thus the sets of marginal distribution over one's own wealth is the same for both tasks. We find roughly equal numbers of experiment subjects allocate more to the poor state than the bad state revealing inequity aversion, equal allocations in the two tasks revealing social indifference, and allocating less to the poor state than the good state revealing inefficeincy aversion. Revealed preference analysis indicates that most subjects choices are consistent with the maximization of non homothetic quasi-concave utility functions for each setting. Further revealed preference analysis reveals clusters of individuals who indifference curve are more/less concave in the risk setting versus the distribution one.


The basis for obtaining high and stable yields of agricultural crops is the provision of the root layer with all the elements necessary for their optimal development. The most important of which, along with nutritional, include thermal and water regimes. In the conditions of the arid zone of Northern Kazakhstan, with significant thermal resources, the relevance of natural water availability of agricultural crops comes to the fore. In the article, according to the data of meteorological stations located within the study area, the resources of heat and moisture availability of the growing season, as well as the limits of their changes over the past decades, are determined. The obtained values of heat and moisture resources were compared with the characteristics of optimal conditions. Based on the method of hydrological and climatic calculations, moisture deficiencies are calculated and recommendations are given to increase crop yields.


Negative power deposition in low pressure inductively coupled plasmas (ICPs) is investigated by means of an analytical model which couples Boltzmann's equation and the quasi-stationary Maxwell's equations. Exploiting standard Hilbert space methods an explicit solution for both, the electric field and the distribution function of the electrons for a bounded discharge configuration subject to an unsymmetrical excitation is found for the first time. The model is applied to a low pressure ICP discharge. In this context particularly the anomalous skin effect and the effect of phase mixing is discussed. The analytical solution is compared with results from electromagnetic full wave particle in cell simulations. Excellent agreement between the analytical and the numerical results is found.


Castleman disease is a rare lymphoproliferative disorder of unknown etiology. The localized form, which usually presents as a slow-growing mass, is most commonly located in the mediastinum. Invasion of the vena anonyma by a mass has rarely been reported. We herein describe a case of initially misdiagnosed invasive thymoma in a 72-year-old woman, but postoperatively proven to have anterior mediastinal Castleman disease with invasion of the vena anonyma.


Dimilin WP and Sevin XLR were applied to a rangeland site in Platte County, WY. Treatments were randomly assigned to 16, 40-acre plots, with 4 replicates of: untreated, 1.0, and 3.0 oz per acre of Dimilin, and 24.0 oz per acre of Sevin. Treatments were aerially applied on 19 Jun, in 60 ft swaths. Grasshopper densities were estimated in each plot by using 27, visualized ft2 samples; species and age composition were determined by taking 100 sweeps with a 12 in diam sweep net. These samplings procedures were conducted immediately prior to treatment and 7, 14, and 21 d after treatment. Fisher's protected LSD post-ANOVA test was used to evaluate differences in grasshopper densities at each sampling time. Mortality rates were calculated after correcting for mortality and development in the untreated plots. Due to initial differences in community structure between plots, it was not possible to statistically analyze the effects of treatment on the frequency distributions of species and developmental stages.


ABSTRACT: The Law 11.340/2006, known as Maria da Penha Law, is the result of international treaties signed by Brazil. It was edited with the primary goal of creating mechanisms to combat domestic and family violence against women. This work has the objective to analyze the possibility of its application to transsexuals when placed in the context of homoafetivas relations in our times recognized as a family entity. Thus, they will discuss some conceptsbrought by law, such as the fields of application and types of violence in order to enable the reader to understand the chances of incidence. They will be presented, instead, the concepts of gender, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. The literary research base has fulcrum
reasoning performed by Maria Berenice Dias, which states that the law protects women and female, as well as country case law and the guiding principles of Brazilian law.


The cost of employee turnover is from 40 --100% of an employee's annual salary, when we consider lo st productivity, recruiting costs, training costs, reduced efficiency in transition and time. Employee's shortages continue to escalate. Each and every day good employees quit their employers for better jobs elsewhere. Today's managerial force is different. Top Management must take responsibility for their own employee retention. If they don't, they could be left without enough good managers. A wise employer will learn how to attract and keep good employees, because in the long run, these will mak e or break a company's reputation. What's Different? Managers must be trained and prepared to be collaborative, supportive, and nurturing of their people and make them understand what it really takes to retain employees. Manager's turnover involves being sensitive to people's needs and demonstrating the various strategies. Managerial turnover is running wild in today's tight employee market; however, the companies that keep their employees have found that what matters most is not the pay, benefits, or perks, but the quality of the relationship between employees and their direct superiors.


The supercapacitor has gotten a lot of attention as a high-performance energy storage device because of its high power density, good energy density, long life cycle, and extensive application in various electronic applications. To effectively assess its performance, the electrode material composition was optimized with a blend of activated carbon (AC), multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT), and graphene (GR). The synergistic effect of AC, CNT, and GR supports the usage of AC/MWCNT/GR as a viable supercapacitor electrode. Furthermore, the surrounding MWCNT enhances AC and GR electronic conductivity, while AC efficiently suppresses GR re-stacking sheets and aggregates MWCNT particles. For supercapacitor electrodes, the optimal composite mixtures of AC, MWCNT, and GR were 71.7%, 20%, and 8.3% wt, respectively. Meanwhile, an outstanding capacitance value of 33.5 F g-1 in 6 M KOH electrolyte was obtained at 2 mV s-1.


Solid biomass as a biorefinery feedstock is physically and chemically heterogeneous which stress the need for rapid and accurate methods for characterization and classification. This is especially the case when considering the inorganic content of potential biomass materials suitable for the biorefinery process. It would be desirable to identify, and potentially classify, the incoming biomaterial to obtain tailored fractions of raw material supply streams for downstream manufacturing of high added-value products. Furthermore, information of the biomaterials ash related properties can be important in thermal conversion processes into heat and power. Several types of biomass material, including softwoods, hardwoods and agricultural waste, were used to acquire energy-dispersed (ED) XRF spectra in order to explore their usefulness for characterization and classification purposes. Subsequent multivariate modelling detected large variations in organic contents among the different biomass types. Several cases of separation of biomass materials were obtained by principal component analysis (PCA), classifying the materials with regard to their inorganic composition, thus providing a fingerprinting tool for biomaterial identification. Furthermore, individual inorganic compounds related to ash problems, such as silica, phosphor and potassium was classified and their content could be accurately predicted by multivariate calibration modelling using partial least square regression (PLS). One potential valuable aspect of the multivariate calibration approach is that non-detectable, by the ED-XRF instrument used in this study, compounds could be accurately predicted by utilising covariation between individual inorganic compounds. One example, from a calibration model (PLS) consisting of wood and several types of agricultural waste, was that the alumina content could be accurately predicted primarily based on the iron content of the ingoing biomass materials. Attempts were made to predict more complex variables, such as total ash content and melting behaviour of the biomaterials ash, with varying success. This study illustrates the possibility of combining ED-XRF spectral data with multivariate statistics to classify and predict chemical properties in biomass materials and show great potential for on-line, or at least at-line, applications in a biorefinery.


Despite the diversity of subjects and formal solutions, the poems of A rosa do povo, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, are brought together under the theme of war. In this context, our attention is drawn by the sequence, in the order of work, between the poems "Residuo" and "Caso do vestido," which, apart from being antagonistic in formal terms, seem to depart from the central subject. However, despite the differences, we can observe that both have in common the theme of memory and the crisis of the narrative. This study aims to analyze the relationship between memory and the loss of the ability to narrate under the backdrop of war hinged to the specificities of the local context.


The factors constraining successful development of fresh-water fish breeding are diseases of various etiology of fishes. By means of the developed system of primers highly sensitive methods of detection the pathogenic microorganisms of sorts Aeromonas and Flavobacterium in carp aquaculture are approved. In cankers of external covers at fishes microorganisms Flavobacterium psychrophilum and Aeromonas sp. are identified. Possible paths of emergence the complex epizootiya and expediency of application of the developed diagnostic systems at fish-breeding plants for monitoring microbiota in fishes aquaculture and well-timed correction of the schedule of carrying out sanitary epizootic actions are discussed.


An improved combined rectifier and current regulator circuit for use in glow discharge electrolysis is described. Initiation of electrolysis will be obtained normally by switching on the primary high voltage supply and restricting the initial discharge current to less than 750 μA. As soon as this current is indicated, the required preset stabilised current can be switched on and accurately timed. Precise stabilisation of the current enabled the quantity of electricity passed in very short electrolyses to be measured with accuracy.