A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of sepiolite and calcium magnesium phosphate fertilizer at application levels of 400 and 800 g/m2 on available Cd content in tobacco planting soil,soil pH value,Cd contents in tobacco and agronomic characters of tobacco.Both sepiolite and calcium magnesium phosphate proved to reduce available Cd content in soil and Cd uptake by tobacco,and the reduction effects was improved with increasing application levels of the 2 materials.However,there was no significant difference in reduction effect between sepiolite and calcium magnesium phosphate fertilizer.At the same time,the 2 materials resulted in increasing soil pH value.Decrease in available Cd in soil and in Cd uptake by tobacco could be partially attributed to the increase in soil pH value,but the 2 materials could not be applied excessively because an appropriate soil pH value was necessary for the growth of tobacco.At the application level of 400 g/m2,calcium magnesium phosphate fertilizer increased fresh weight of tobacco leaf.In application level of 800 g/m2,sepiolite and calcium magnesium phosphate fertilizer showed no significant effect on fresh weight,plant height and effective leaf number of tobacco.


An integrated design tool for optimization of a floating wind turbine support structure of the spar buoy type, including mooring system and power takeoff cable, is described in this paper. The program utilizes efficient design tools for analysis of mooring system forces and vessel motions, and combines this with a gradient method for solution of non-linear optimization problems with arbitrary constraints. The objective function to be minimized is the spar buoy cost, and the mooring line and cable costs. Typical design requirements that may be included as constraints are: mooring line load limitations and minimum fatigue life, cable curvature radius, cable tension, tower top acceleration, and vessel motion and inclination. The spar buoy is modelled as composed of a set of cylindrical sections with different mass, buoyancy and cost properties, where each section is assumed to have a uniform mass distribution. It is assumed that a representative initial cost figure is available, and that it can be scaled in proportion with material mass. A simple relationship between mass and geometrical properties is proposed for both massive and thin walled tubular sections. Examples are included to demonstrate the various aspects of the optimization approach, including different parameterizations of the spar buoy.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


The phospholipid, cardiolipin, has pleiotropic structural and functional roles that are collectively essential for mitochondrial biology. Yet, the molecular details of how this lipid supports the structure and function of proteins and protein complexes is poorly understood. To address this property of cardiolipin, we use the mitochondrial ATP/ATP carrier as a model. Here, we have determined that cardiolipin is critical for both the tertiary and quaternary assembly of the major yeast Aac isoform, Aac2, as well as its conformation. Notably, these structural roles provided by cardiolipin are separable. Additionally, we show that multiple copies of Aac2 engage in shared complexes that are largely dependent on the presence of assembled respiratory complexes III, IV, or respiratory supercomplexes. Intriguingly, the assembly state of Aac2 is sensitive to its transport‐related conformation. Collectively, these results significantly expand our understanding of the numerous structural roles provided by cardiolipin for mitochondrial membrane proteins.


PLC hybrid integration technology allows the construction of a highly functional large-scale optical subsystem that is compact and inexpensive. This paper reviews recent advances in the hybrid integration of DFB-LDs, LiNbO3 waveguides, and electronic ICs, with PLCs.


The impact of offshore wind power and conventional generation outages on the dynamic performance of multi terminal DC interfaced AC systems is ascertained in this paper. In addition, the paper addresses the share of primary frequency reserves as well as synthetic inertia response between MTDC connected AC systems focusing on the interactions between the direct voltage control loop and the dedicated primary and synthetic inertia response control loops. The classical single machine modeling approach is used for the AC systems extended by common dynamic models of MTDC grids in a so called simple AC-DC model adequate for frequency stability studies. The results of this paper can be used as reference for grid code design and optimization of MTDC grid control loops operating next to AC power systems.


In this paper uniform contractible Geometry on Euclidean space is mod k ,we also construct a pair uniformly contractible Riemannian metrics on n R so that the resulting manifolds M and M  are bounded is close to a homeomorphism and a proof the Laplace operator on compact Riemannian manifolds.


Introduction: Angiopoietin-like protein 3 (ANGPTL3), which is primarily expressed in the liver, is associated with an altered serum lipoprotein profile due to its inhibitory effects on lipoprotein lipase as well as endothelial cell lipase activity. Hypothesis: We investigated whether increased serum ANGPTL3 contributes to the progression of atherosclerosis by examining its association with adverse events in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), a population at very high risk for cardiovascular events. Methods: We measured serum ANGPTL3 levels in 326 PAD patients in an observational study, at baseline and at a follow-up visit five years later. Adverse outcome was defined as the composite of death, myocardial infarction or stroke (MACE) during the same period. The changes between the ANGPTL3 values of the two visits (Δ) were calculated and correlated with the changes in other risk factors. Results: At baseline, ANGPTL3 (46.7 [34.1 - 59.3] ng/ml) correlated with total cholesterol (R=0.304, p<0.001...


OBJECTIVE: To provide reference for the improvement of higher pharmaceutical professional teaching quality evaluation system. METHODS: The principal, method and index of higher pharmaceutical professional teaching quality evaluation were studied in terms of mathematical economics. Mathematical model was established through indicators system quantitative and qualitative analysis. RESULTS CONCLUSION: Through the multiple linear equations matrix of mathematical economics, the comprehensive evaluation results will be more scientific, standardized, fair, and reasonable, and can accurately quantify the teaching standard of pharmacy teachers in higher vocational school. It is conducive to education authorities to identify the problems and gaps, and to help teachers improve the teaching level and teaching quality.


Simple Summary The EU-funded Welfare Quality® project generated species-specific assessment protocols to evaluate the welfare of pigs, poultry, and cattle. With the implementation to be used for certification purposes, it is important that the protocols show consistency over time, which describes the extent to which equal results are achieved if the assessment is performed repetitively. The protocols should not be sensitive to slight changes in the on-farm situation but mirror the long-term welfare situation on-farm. The present study aimed at testing this consistency over time of the indicators included in the 'Welfare Quality® animal welfare assessment protocol for sows and piglets'. Thereby, the study focused on the indicators to assess the welfare principle 'appropriate behavior'. As a result, the indicators applied to assess the animals' 'appropriate behavior' did not represent consistency over time. Thus, further investigation is needed before implementation on-farm. Conclusively, the present study contributes to the development of generally accepted and objective assessment protocols for animal welfare and thereby to the improvement of farm animals' welfare overall. Abstract The present study's aim was to assess the test−retest reliability (TRR) of the 'Welfare Quality® animal welfare assessment protocol for sows and piglets' focusing on the welfare principle 'appropriate behavior'. TRR was calculated using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (RS), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), smallest detectable change (SDC), and limits of agreement (LoA). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used for deeper analysis of the Qualitative Behavior Assessment (QBA). The study was conducted on thirteen farms in Northern Germany, which were visited five times by the same observer. Farm visits 1 (F1; day 0) were compared to farm visits 2 to 5 (F2–F5). The QBA indicated no TRR when applying the statistical parameters introduced above (e.g., 'playful' (F1–F4) RS 0.08 ICC 0.00 SDC 0.50 LoA [−0.62, 0.38]). The PCA detected contradictory TRR. Acceptable TRR could be found for parts of the instantaneous scan sampling (e.g., negative social behavior (F1–F3) RS 0.45 ICC 0.37 SDC 0.02 LoA [−0.03, 0.02]). The human−animal relationship test solely achieved poor TRR, whereas scans for stereotypies showed sufficient TRR (e.g., floor licking (F1–F4) RS 0.63 ICC 0.52 SDC 0.05 LoA [−0.08, 0.04]). Concluding, the principle 'appropriate behavior' does not represent TRR and further investigation is needed before implementation on-farm.


In the music world, the oldest instrument is known as the singing voice that plays an important role in musical recordings. The singer's identity serves as a primary aid for people to organize, browse, and retrieve music recordings. In this thesis, we focus on the problem of singer identification based on the acoustic features of singing voice. An automatic singer identification system is constructed and has achieved a very high identification accuracy. This system consists of three crucial parts: singing voice detection, background music removal and pattern recognition. These parts are introduced and explored in great details in this thesis. To be specific, in terms of the singing voice detection, we firstly study a traditional method, double GMM. Then an improved method, namely single GMM, is proposed. The experimental result shows that the detection accuracy of single GMM can be achieved as high as 96.42%. In terms of the background music removal, Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and Robust Principal Component Analysis (RPCA) are demonstrated. The evaluation result shows that RPCA outperforms NMF. In terms of pattern recognition, we explore the algorithms of Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). Based on the experimental results, it turns out that the prediction accuracy of GMM classifier is about 16% higher than SVM.


Taking the standard zero-curvature approach we derive an infinite set of integrable equations, which taken together form the negative Volterra hierarchy. The resulting equations turn out to be nonlocal, which is usual for the negative flows. However, in some cases the nonlocality can be eliminated. Studying the combined action of both positive (classical) and negative Volterra flows, i.e. considering the differential consequences of equations of the extended Volterra hierarchy, we deduce local equations which seem to be promising from the viewpoint of applications. The presented results give answers to some questions related to the classification of integrable differential-difference equations. We also obtain dark solitons of the negative Volterra hierarchy using an elementary approach.


Traffic sign recognition (TSR) has been a rising and lucrative field for researchers during the last decades. The high improvement of ADAS (autonomic driving autonomous system) has led researchers worldwide to concentrate on the development of TSR systems. As such, a novel automated multiclass TSR system is proposed. The architecture uses wavelet descriptors to extract the high information density and the traffic signs' edges and curves. The LL band image is directly fed into the classifier to avoid normalization. Three classifiers, CNN, CNN ensemble, and LSTM, are deployed for recognition. The architecture is implemented on IRSDBv1.0, the first available Indian traffic sign database. The architecture is also implemented on the standard traffic sign database GTSRB to investigate its effectiveness. An efficiency of 71.57% and 96.76% are recorded on IRSDBv1.0, and GTSRB, respectively. A list of comparative results is also provided to prove the competence of the architecture. The reasons behind the difference in the achieved accuracy are also discussed.


IN A PREVIOUS paper 1 we described the occurrence of homogeneous masses in the wall of a semicircular canal removed at operation from a patient with Meniere's disease. The presence of such substances in the semicircular canals of patients with Meniere's disease has previously been observed by others, 2-6 and some of these authors have considered this finding pathognomonic. However, these substances have also been found in the ears of patients without Meniere's disease, but who suffered from other aural disorders. 7-12 Lastly, they have been found in persons with otherwise normal ears. 2,13-17 However, a major series of semicircular canals from patients with Meniere's disease as well as normal subjects studied by the same author has not been reported so far, and histochemical studies of the substance have been rare. Therefore, having material of semicircular canals removed at operation from 23 Meniere patients, we have supplemented it with data


Addition of latex to a clay suspension can disrupt the platelet platelet association, also raises the polydipersity of a coating, at the meantime increases coating pigment stability. The main function of latex is to bond pigment particles, then to build up the film strength. The properties of latex such as diameter, shape, stability, and glass temperature and so forth influence coating pigment properties such as the viscosity of coating and rehology and so on. In the first coating, a carboxyl styrene/butadiene(SBR), which is polymerized with high styrene, is chosen to raise the coating film strength, gloss, smoothness, and is useful for the second coating.


The most favorable rocks for oil and gas in the south of the Siberian platform are the sub-salt clastics of the Mot and Ushakov Formations of Early Cambrian and Wendian-Riphean (?) age. It is characteristic that all pools in these sediments on the Nepa-Botuobinsk arch are oil-gas-condensate with a ring of light oil, whereas in the region of the Angaro-Lena step only gas and gas-condensate pools with no oil ring are present. The Nepa-Botuobinsk arch is a syn-sedimentary structure of ancient origin. Thickness of the clastic sediments here is sharply reduced toward the central part of the anticlize and particularly toward the crests of individual highs. A similar reduction in thickness is found also for the overlying halogen-carbonate sediments of the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian. In regions of the Nepa-Botuobinsk arch the clastic sediments contain gas, oil, and gas condensate, although these sediments never reached the gas condensate window, let alone the gas window. They reached only the oil window. Therefore, the large pools here are explained by lateral migration from adjacent downwarps, where the clastics are thick and were buried to great depths. During the elisional [connate, centrifugal] stage of development of the south of the platform (up through the Silurian), the Nepa-Botuobinsk arch and central regions of the Angaro-Lena step were zones of paleo-piezo-minimums, toward which the elisional waters containing considerable dissolved hydrocarbons streamed. Trapping was differential: Gas pools formed in the down-dip parts, and oil and gas condensate pools formed high on the structures. During the infiltrational (continental) stage, no new hydrocarbons were introduced, but there was re-formation


Thank you very much for downloading exotica series 4 international pictorial cyclopedia of exotic plants from tropical and near tropic regions. As you may know, people have search hundreds times for their favorite readings like this exotica series 4 international pictorial cyclopedia of exotic plants from tropical and near tropic regions, but end up in harmful downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they cope with some infectious bugs inside their laptop.


The occurrence and distribution of Heuchera americana in Texas are clarified and expanded with documentation for five counties: Bowie, Cass, Harri son, Red River, and San Augustine. A distribution map and photo of a specimen from Harrison Count y are included.


INTRODUCTION One of the most prestigious and historic thermal spas in Germany can be found in the southeastern part of the country. Located at the eastern border of the Upper Rhine Graben (Figure 1), the city is nestled between vineyards, forests and the plains of the Rhine valley; where, the River Oos leaves the mountains of the Black Forest. The hot springs are known at least since Roman times, and the spa was a social center for the European nobility in the 19th century (the "Belle Epoque"). Baden-Baden is still considered as a top place for balneological treatment and society events. Baden-Baden has an elevation of 161 m (528 ft) above sea level (city center); however, the lowest point in the city is 112 m (367 ft) a.s.l. in the Rhine Graben, and the highest 1003 m (3290 ft) a.s.l. on Badener Hoehe in the Black Forest. With this location at the foot of the Black Forest, 61.5 % of the area of the city comprise forest. Several hot springs supply thermal water to the spa facilities, with temperatures ranging from 52 to 67 EC (130153 EF) and a mineralization of 2680-3522 mg/kg (ppm). Most of the springs are natural; however, in the 1960s thermal water was also found in two drilled wells. The total thermal water production in Baden-Baden is 9.4 l/s (149 gpm). The water has an energy content of ca. 2 MW (ca. 6.8 million Btu/h), but the energy use is not yet complete.


Reunion Island stands out by its specific energy context due to its growing population and a strong economic development. The main objective of this French region is to ensure that its exceptional potential for renewable power generation could meet an increasing energy demand. Regarding the energy development, the Regional strategy is to reach the energy independence by 2030 (SPL "Energies Reunion") without using fossil fuels. In this context, the LE


This paper discusses the two kinds of jets which may be used for propelling bodies through the atmosphere: (a) Highly heated compressed atmospheric air admixed with products of combustion formed by burning a fuel in the air; the thermal energy of the fuel being employed to raise the air temperature. This type is known as a "thermal-jet engine." (b) A jet formed by generating large quantities of gases by chemical reaction. The equipment in which such a jet is produced is known as a "rocket motor." Operating principles and estimated performance characteristics of thermal-jet engines are treated, and certain unrestricted information on the use of rocket motors or "Jato" units for assisted take-off of aircraft is presented.


The design and control of a novel electromagnetic hybrid vibration isolator is presented in this paper. In the proposed hybrid vibration isolator configuration, an electromagnetic actuator and a rubber vibration isolator are configured in a parallel structure with the rubber vibration isolator installed inside the mover of the actuator. The magnetic force of the actuator is linearized by magnetic configuration design. Filtered-x least mean square (FxLMS) control algorithm is implemented for hybrid vibration isolation. Experimental results show that the vibration is suppressed significantly with the proposed hybrid vibration isolator and the FxLMS control algorithm.


30% 20% 10% 0% error Figure 1: Visualization of a geodesic distance field with respect to an anisotropic metric (shown by tensor ellipses on the left; field source on top). Next to a reference solution, we show the results and approximation errors of various adapted known algorithms applied for the distance computation. Our novel Short-Term Vector Dijkstra on the far right shows the best results. Abstract The computation of intrinsic, geodesic distances and geodesic paths on surfaces is a fundamental low-level building block in countless Computer Graphics and Geometry Processing applications. This demand led to the development of numerous algorithms – some for the exact, others for the approximative computation, some focussing on speed, others providing strict guarantees. Most of these methods are designed for computing distances according to the standard Riemannian metric induced by the surface's embedding in Euclidean space. Generalization to other, especially anisotropic, metrics – which more recently gained interest in several application areas – is not rarely hampered by fundamental problems. We explore and discuss possibilities for the generalization and extension of well-known methods to the anisotropic case, evaluate their relative performance in terms of accuracy and speed, and propose a novel algorithm, the Short-Term Vector Dijkstra. This algorithm is strikingly simple to implement and proves to provide practical accuracy at a higher speed than generalized previous methods.


The industrial development's specificity is not only a matter of evolution and capacities of adaptation in the regions, but also it looks for taking advantage of local conditions and creating relationships between the territorial model and the environment. The purpose of this article is to recognize the structural determinants of Colombian firms' cycle of life, through a Panel that allows to build relationships among social, industrial, geographical variables and external sector, which interpret the cycle of life in 19 productive sectors and six Colombian regions.


SUMMARY The valuation of eco-assets should take into account the perceptions and judgments of the public. However, the value of eco-assets based on conventional calculations has often been unreliable as a result of differing situations and individuals involved. Therefore, a reasonable and efficient method for valuing eco-assets is needed. In this paper, a brief summary of the history of valuing eco-assets is provided, followed by a summary of conventional methods of valuation. This summary of the currently used methods revealed that they do not take into account the effect of the stage and development of the population determining the value of the eco-assets. Therefore, we have developed a social development stage coefficient (l), based on Engel's coefficient. A new valuation method was then created by integrating the development stage coefficient (l) with a conventional model. Finally, possible future strategies for valuing eco-assets are discussed.


This grant funded observations and data reduction on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The research project was successfully completed. New insights into the distribution of far infrared emission across star-forming galaxies was obtained, and student training was achieved. The efforts contributed towards new observing strategies that will impact future NASA missions. The results of the effort have been presented in several papers in the refereed literature, including: "Morphology of Far Infrared Emission in Galaxies". "Far Infrared Thermal Emission from the Inner Cooling Flow Region of NGC1275". "Distribution of Light in the'Dusty-Hand'Galaxy NGC2146". Presentations of the results of this program have also been given at the following meetings and symposia: "High Spatial Resolution Study of the Active Cooling Flow Galaxy NGC 1275" "The Extent of Far IR Emission in Luminous Galaxies".


background. Food intolerance (FI) is a common, complex, multi‑ disciplinary problem in pediatrics requiring additional search of criteria for the diagnosis, and study of risk factors. Methods. The adverse factors of ontogeny were studied; the co‑ efficient of relative and attributable risk of formation of FI in 50 children aged 10 to 15 years was calculated. The frequency of poly‑ morphisms CC, CT , TT MCM6 gene in 10 children with lactase de‑ ficiency was studied. Immunoreactive trypsin in the blood of 24305 newborns was studied. Results. Most of the studied factors were assigned to groups with low and increased susceptibility to the development of FI (88.6 %). The high level of attributable risk indicators had only 5 indexes (11.4 %). Preliminary data on the frequency of genotypes MCM6 are CC and TT (30 %) and CT (40 %). The diagnostic and prognostic value of determination of calprotectin in feces during gastrointestinal mani‑ festations of food allergy was proved. The high frequency of latent celiac disease dictates the need to intensify research HLA‑DQ2 and DQ8. High levels of immunoreactive trypsin was detected in 1.37 % of newborns, positive retest at 0.18 %. The incidence of cystic fibro‑ sis was 1 patient at 4861 newborns. Conclusions. In the process of verification of food intolerance it is important to use all available means, from assessing the relative and attributable risk of formation of this pathology to the confirmation of the genetic separate clinical entities. is an analysis of spatial rela‑ tions of gas‑transmitral neurons in the caudal portion of the brain stem of rats. Methods. The study was performed on 12 adult male rats Wistar weighing 200–240g. Immunopositive neurons groups were stud‑ ied with immunohistochemical methods for nitric oxide synthase, heme oxygen‑ase‑2, and cystathionine β‑synthase in the projection of the nucleus of the solitary tract, small‑cell and gi‑ant cell reticu‑ lar nucleus. Results. Dimensions, share and concentration of NO‑, CO‑ and H 2 S‑ of immunopositive neurons as well as their distribution in each of the investigated nuclei are exceptionally unique. Most of these cells were located in close proximity to each other, forming more or less distinct clusters of neurons of different me‑diator specificity. Conclusions. In the organization of vasomotor nuclei there are structural conditions for cooperation NO‑, CO‑ and H 2 S‑ of im‑ munopositive neurons and their integration into functional nerve centers of the brain that enhances the management of complex pro‑ cesses in the body. Keywords: nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, caudal nucleus of the brain stem.


The paper presents a new scientonomic account of question dynamics. To explain the process of question acceptance and rejection, we begin by introducing the notion of epistemic presupposition and show how it's different from the notion of logical presupposition. With the notion of epistemic presupposition at hand, we formulate the law of question acceptance, a new scientonomic axiom, which states that a question becomes accepted only if all of its epistemic presuppositions are accepted, and it is accepted that the question is answerable. We then show how the process of question rejection can be explained by means of the question rejection theorem, which states that a question becomes rejected when other elements that are incompatible with the question become accepted. To deduce this theorem in the usual scientonomic fashion (from the first law and the compatibility corollary), we first ascertain that the notion of compatibility/incompatibility is applicable to questions and show that one can legitimately speak of both question-theory and question-question incompatibility. We conclude by providing a quick illustration of the historical applicability of this new framework and suggest a number of questions for future research.


The development of modern national identity in Northern Azerbaijan started from the second half of 19th century under the rule of czarism, the transition from the Islam community concept to the nation concept when the tsarist administration came to end. In this era, the concepts of being Turk and Azerbaijani came into prominence as two basic identity descriptions. With the foundation of Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan which is the first modern nation state of Azerbaijan history, the nation perception in the Northern Azerbaijan went into a phase of implementation, the name of the language and the motherland of Northern Azerbaijan people was determined. In the era of USSR there was effort to establish an identity of Azerbaijan supported by the socialist ideology and the Russian values. Despite all the efforts of USSR administration to russity, the Northern Azerbaijan people protected their own national identity and language till the state collapsed. The process of independence in 1991 and simultaneously the occupations of Nagomo Karabakh by the Armenians and the Bloody Yanvar events accelerated the independence process and the development of Turkish-Azerbaijan identify against the Armenian-Russian-USSR administration. To remove the impacts of soviet update and the russification policies in the era of Ebulfez Elcibey, in the era of USSR the national policies have been accelerated. After Haydar Aliyev became the president in 1993, the identity of secular Azerbaijan considered as the basic factor of Turkishness and Islamism was adopted as inclusive upper identity.


A terminal apparatus setting method is provided, comprising the steps of connecting a terminal apparatus to a setting server which is provided for registering with one or more Internet service providers associated with the setting server. The terminal apparatus receives information regarding the one or more Internet service providers associated with the setting server from the setting server, and a desired one of the one or more Internet service providers associated with the setting server is selected. Selection information indicative of the selected Internet service provider is sent to the setting server. An input request regarding registration items required by the selected Internet service provider is received from the setting server. Registration information is in response to the required registration items in the input request and sending the registration information to the setting server. Setting information is finally received from the setting server for setting up the terminal apparatus necessary to utilize the selected Internet service provider.


Singapore sad emo punk band THE CAULFIELD CULT are disbanding. In a statement issued throught social media, the members announced their plans to end the ...


Abstract : The thermodynamic equivalence between heat and electricity, when used uncritically and carelessly translated into a price equivalence, can effectively hide a very formidable economic 'trap' and the advantage it appears to indicate for heat production at relatively low temperatures is to be distrusted; in many cases, this advantage may be of little importance in comparison with the disadvantages of low temperatures for transportation and storage. (Author)


The involvement of emotions in intelligent human-machine interfaces has evolved to a recent field of research. This does not only include the handling of emotions in dialogue management but also the classification of emotions. In this paper we focus on emotion recognition from speech signals and moreover on how to improve recognition results using a post-processing approach. At first we give a short overview on emotion recognition and on corpus which we modified and used in our experiments. Then we describe Fiscus' ROVER system and the way of how to adapt it to emotion recognition. Finally we present upper and lower bounds for the system's recognition performance in selected experiments


Abstract Teacher education is a symbolic entry point into the teaching profession and the identification of specific teacher education aspects that enhance commitment to teaching is important. A thematic literature review was carried out to identify these themes within teacher education. The review included 22 peer-reviewed articles. Eleven themes were extracted that can influence student teachers' commitment to teaching, which were related to student teachers' campus-based experiences, their school-based experiences, and the connection between theory and practical components of the course. Conclusively, implications for teacher education emphasise student teachers' commitment enhancement.


OBJECTIVES
To determine (1) if the cricothyroid muscle had respiratory-related electromyographic (EMG) activity that increased with respiratory effort and (2) if bilateral cricothyroid myotomy resulted in vocal fold instability and collapse in exercising horses.

STUDY DESIGN
Experimental.

ANIMALS
Seven (3 EMG; 4 cricothyroid myotomy) Standardbred horses.

METHODS
Three horses exercised on a treadmill at speeds corresponding to the speed that produced maximum heart rate (HR(max)), 75% of maximum heart rate (HR(75%max)), and 50% of maximum heart rate (HR(50%max)) for 60 seconds at each speed while EMG activity of the cricothyroid muscle and nasopharyngeal pressures were measured. Another 4 normal horses were exercised on the treadmill at HR(max) and HR(75%max) for 60 seconds at each speed before and after bilateral cricothyroid myotomy. Upper airway pressures were measured and videoendoscopic examinations were performed and videotaped at each speed.

RESULTS
Peak phasic EMBG activity of the cricothyroid muscle was coincident with inspiration and increased with treadmill speed. Bilateral cricothyroid myotomy resulted in vocal fold collapse in all horses. Mean peak inspiratory pressures were significantly more negative compared with control values at both HR(max) and HR(75%max).

CONCLUSIONS
Cricothyroid muscle dysfunction may be implicated in vocal fold collapse and likely causes inspiratory airway obstruction in exercising horses.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Conditions compromising cricothyroid muscle function or motor innervation could result in vocal fold collapse.


As the main bearing stratum of pavement, the base mixture is equivalently subject to external shear stress when unevenly stressed, so the splitting performance is an important parameter to measure its engineering characteristics. The results of splitting and splitting rebound test showed that the strength and rebound modulus of cement stabilized macadam and cement stabilized recycled aggregate increased exponentially with age. Through comparative analysis, it was found that the splitting and tensile properties of cement stabilized recycled aggregate were slightly inferior to that of cement stabilized macadam. Finally, the strength calculation formula of the mixture was derived, which could provide reference for practical engineering.


This paper introduces OptimizedDP, a high-performance software library that solves time-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential equation (PDE), computes backward reachable sets with application in robotics, and contains value iterations algorithm implementation for continuous action-state space Markov Decision Process (MDP) while leveraging user-friendliness of Python for different problem specifications without sacrificing efficiency of the core computation. These algorithms are all based on dynamic programming, and hence can both be challenging to implement and have bad execution runtime due to the large high-dimensional tabular arrays. Although there are existing toolboxes for level set methods that are used to solve the HJ PDE, our toolbox makes solving the PDE at higher dimensions possible as well as having an order of magnitude improvement in execution times compared to other toolboxes while keeping the interface easy to specify different dynamical systems description. Our toolbox is available online at https://github.com/SFU-MARS/optimized_dp.


Crowd counting algorithm began to develop towards the combination of counting and localization. However, the existing methods pay little attention to the localization task, so we propose a crowd counting and localization network based on codec structure, named CALNet. At the end of encoding, the network efficiently fuses different scale information through Adaptive Feature Fusion (AFF) module, to weaken the influence of change of head scale and camera perspective. In the decoding part, we designed the Attention Enhancement Upsampling (AEU) module to obtain high-quality regression map, which uses high-level semantics to guide the model to fuse shallow features. In addition, due to the problem that the existing label maps can not give good consideration to the counting and localization tasks, we proposed a new label map generation method. The new label map not only ensures the simple counting mode, but also has excellent localization performance, and it can be easily migrated to the existing counting methods. The experimental results show that our approach can achieve good results in counting accuracy and localization accuracy.


Objective To observe the effect of sufentanl combined with dexmedetomidine on postoperative analgesia in patients undergoing gynecological laparoscopic surgeries.Methods Sixty patients with ASA physical status Ⅰ or Ⅱ undergoing elective gynecological laparoscopic surgeries were randomly divided into three groups with 20 each: group Ⅰ received sufentanil 1.5 μg·kg-1·d-1,group Ⅱ received sufentanil 1.0 μg·kg-1·d-1,group Ⅲ received sufentanil 1.0 μg·kg-1·d-1+ dexmedetomidine 1.0 μg·kg-1·d-1.The analgesic pump was set in the three groups as follows: continuous perfusion rate 2 ml/h,single bolus 2 ml,lockout time 15 min,total volume 100 ml.Pain intensity was assessed with visual analog scale(VAS) at the immediate time after operation(T1) and 6h(T2),12 h(T3),24 h(T4) and 48 h(T5) after operation.The number of patient-controlled press of the pump and the incidence of side effects were recorded.Results VAS scorings of the three groups at all the time points were less than 4,but group Ⅱ at T2-T5 displayed higher pain intensity than that of the groups Ⅰ and Ⅲ(P0.05),and the number of self-controlled press of the pump in group Ⅱ was markedly more than groups Ⅰ and Ⅲ at 0-6 h,6-12 h,12-24 h(P0.05).The incidence of nausea and vomiting in group Ⅰ was higher than groups Ⅱ and Ⅲ(P0.05).Conclusion Dexmedetomidine can reduce postoperative consumption of sufentanil in patients undergoing gynecological laparoscopic surgeries,and decrease the incidence of nausea and vomiting.


Fundamental questions of electron beam ion sources (EBIS) are studied using three different setups. Cryogenic classical EBIS: The limit of ion–ion cooling in EBIS devices operating near the space‐charge neutralization limit has been studied experimentally. To investigate different degrees of compensation of the electron beam by highly charged ions, a hemispherical analyzer has been constructed including a novel deceleration optic for high resolution. Using its energy definition we tested different modes of ion transportation in our multipassage magnetic spectrometer, which can be operated chromatically as well as extremely dispersively: up to 200 passages could be obtained. EBIS without magnetic field: First results on ion production in the short trap at the very dense crossover of an electron beam (XEBIS) confined only inertially without the use of magnetic fields are presented. Normal conducting short EBIS: Using a normal conducting field of 0.8 T of 25‐cm length an EBIS is under construction to study e...


Under the B3G vision, cellular operators construct a complementary environment - public WLAN to make up for the limited data access service to become cellular/PWLAN operators. In addition, confederating various PWLAN operators including PWLAN operators, Cellular/PWLAN operators and PWLAN roaming brokers under the PWLAN roaming agreements can intensify the PWLAN service coverage. To build a better PWLAN access service, the group formed by heterogeneous PWLAN roaming partners is markedly growing. Authentication process in such a cooperative service plays the foremost role for users and conducts lots of back-and-forth authentication messages transmitted among PWLAN partners. To better understand the nuts and bolts of the authentication operation in a cooperative B3G network, this article aims to analyze the authentication process empirically by some experiment results. We believe such an experience and concept can be referred to integrate the future advanced heterogeneous networks.


A submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor (SAMBR) combining anaerobic digestion and membrane separation has recently attracted attention, because of its potential to recover methane and reduce sludge production in wastewater treatment. In this study, a lab-scale SAMBR that treats suspended solids containing synthetic sewage was continuously operated for 106 days at room temperature (25 ℃ ) to investigate the effect of hydraulic retention time (HRT) on its treatment performance and microbial community. HRT was changed from 48 to 6 hours in 4 steps. At HRT of 12 hours, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand removal rates were 94%, and 95% respectively, and 64.6% of input COD was converted to methane. On the basis of the results of cloning analysis, Methanosaeta and Methanoregula were found to be the two dominant Archae a genera, in the reactor. In the clone library of Bacteria , many unclassi fi ed bacteria have been detected, and about 21% of facultative anaerobic bacteria have been detected among all the clones.


This study examines the moderating effects of performance measurement systems (PMS), i.e. PMS sophistication (i.e. BSC-like PMS), on the relationships between internal values drivers (internal efficiency, employee commitment, organizational flexibility) and performance outcomes (customer satisfaction, market performance, financial performance). Consistent with arguments of BSC proponents we argue that highly sophisticated PMS help managers to better manage the relationship between less straightforward value drivers and performance outcomes. We find that level of PMS sophistication moderates some of the relationships between internal value drivers and performance outcomes. Specifically, performance effects shift from more straightforward value drivers (internal efficiency), to less straightforward ones (employee commitment and organizational flexibility) when complexity and, thus, PMS sophistication are high. In line with our argumentation, we find a negative moderation effect of PMS sophistication on the relationship between internal efficiency and financial performance, and a positive moderation effect on the relationship between organizational flexibility and financial performance. Moreover, the relationship between employee commitment and market performance is positively moderated by PMS sophistication. Our empirical evidence is based on survey data from 331 electronic equipment-manufacturing companies.


We study the pricing of three exotic derivative securities (barrier, lookback, and passport options) which can be characterized by boundary value PDE problems in the context of popular Markovian SV models of stock prices. By extending the fast mean-reverting asymptotic analysis in [J.-P. Fouque, G. Papanicolaou, and K. R. Sircar, Derivatives in Financial Markets with Stochastic Volatility, Cambridge University Press, London, 2000], the usual "Greek" correction to the Black--Scholes prices of these contracts is further corrected by a boundary integral term that is rapidly computed numerically. In the case of the passport option, the asymptotic method is effective in accounting for SV effects in a simple and robust fashion even in the presence of a highly nonlinear embedded stochastic control problem.


A three dimensional baroclinic prognostic model on σ-coordinates was established on the basis of POM to simulate the East China Seas circulation in summer considering the topography, inflow and outflow at the open boundary, Changjiang runoff, heat flux and wind stress on the surface. This study showed that ① the Kuroshio flows along the contnental shelf slope of the East China Sea flowing in accordance with the slope topography and some eddies appear on its two sides;②the upper water of the Taiwan Warm Current comes mainly from the Taiwan Strait and that the bottom water comes mostly from Kuroshio sub-surface water flowing on the shelf and passing through the east of Taiwan Island;③ the Tsushima Warm Current in summer comes from multiple sources:the Taiwan Warm Current, one of the branches of the Kuroshio, mixed water of Changjiang Diluted Water with West Korea Coastal Current and Taiwan Warm Current;④ the Changjiang Diluted Water turns northwards rapidly after flowsing out the Changjiang River Mouth, affected by Zhejiang Coast Current, Taiwan Warm Current and southwest monsoon, and flows southeastwards after arriving at around 34°N;⑤ there is a meso-scale anticyclonic eddy in the northeast of the Changjiang River Mouth it was formed by the north branch of the Taiwan Warm Current and there is another cyclonic eddy in southwest of Chejudo Island;⑥ the circulation of the Huanghai Cold Water Mass in summer is divided into north and south parts and their current is strong in the upper layer and weak near the bottom layer;⑦ there is a meso-scale anticyclone eddy near the Qingdao-Shidao coast area.


As years of unreasonable farming practices in agriculture soil damaged seriously. The soil-borne disease and the chemical residue are two serious problems of soil pollution which affect the yield and quality of agricultural products. Ecological remediation of soil is an effective way to resolve these problems. In this paper, the agents' trichoderm and the Bacillus subtilis SY1 were used to improve the ecosystem function and reduce the disease occurrence.


I had just launched myself into the job market in 1975 when Erik Wright, a Berkeley graduate student but unknown to me at the time, called to tell me that a letter of defamation had arrived from a very prominent Chicago sociologist. It accused me of the worst sins of left sectarianism and, so Wright said, had ruined any chances of my getting a job at Berkeley. I had better put a stop to its circulation to other departments. We met three months later when he and a number of other Berkeley graduate students together with a select group of faculty and even the odd staff member organized an undercover interview to resurrect my candidacy. In the end they were successful. In those days students' sense of political efficacya dwindling legacy of the New Leftwas enhanced by the dramatic political split in the department. It was a time of Marxist renaissance, particularly in Berkeley around Socialist Revolution, Kapitalistate and the Berkeley Journal of Sociology. Since then Marxism has become a little more established within sociology and fifties style red-baiting and black-listing is more of an anachronism. But there is no room for complacency. The long struggle against Wright's appointment here last year might have succeeded had the department been less unified in his defence. The denial of tenure to radical thinkers or even their expulsion from academia are a continual reminder of the seamier side of life in the liberal university. Nevertheless, it is true that the political context, both within and outside the university, has changed over the last twelve years and we must ask what sort of Marxism it calls for.


There are books that require much time for reading. In contrast to most of the research published in our fast-paced world of academia, there are studies that demand their reader's attention, pondering, reflection, and perhaps even meditation. Using Nietzsche's terms, those texts and their authors are "friends of lento". The book under review here – Tang Junyi: Confucian Philosophy and the Challenge of Modernity by Thomas Fröhlich – is such a book: a masterpiece slowly written (almost fifteen years) that invites us "to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow." The book is primarily concerned with Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), a Hong Kong-based Chinese philosopher, often considered as a key representative of New Confucianism. Despite the title, the reader expecting an intellectual biography of the man will be unmistakably wrong. What Thomas Fröhlich has produced with this text assembling years of research and several articles previously published here and there in English and German, is a genuine work on political philosophy and an acute entry into the intellectual history of Modern China, and perhaps a reflection on political modernity as a whole. First, Tang is not the only protagonist studied; Fröhlich discusses in depth and sometimes at length some elements of other modern Chinese contemporary thinkers and activists, notably Zhang Junmai 張君勱 (1887– 1969), Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1903–1982) and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995). In so doing, he takes seriously the claims of Confucianism to global significance and engages with the political philosophies of those authors as constitutive sources of knowledge and debates. Furthermore, the study elaborates with much precision the intellectual and historical conditions under which they produced their works. Thomas Fröhlich does so without falling into the trap of arbitrating between their Confucian background and supposed Western philosophical influences. In fact, in my opinion, Fröhlich


As the annual winter flu vaccination season continues much publicity is being given to the potential for a worldwide pandemic of avian flu. As I write, it has just been confirmed that a bird in quarantine in the UK has been diagnosed with the H5N1 influenza strain, but because this bird was in quarantine, the UK remains officially free of avian flu.


Objective: To compare the short- and long-term outcomes of robot-assisted (RALR), laparoscopic (LLR), or open liver resection (OLR) in the treatment of Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage 0-A hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Summary Background Data: Following the Balliol IDEAL classification, long-term oncological outcomes can be used to evaluate the value of minimally invasive techniques in the treatment of HCC, and to assess whether they should become a standard practice. Methods: Data from prospective cohorts of patients with BCLC stage 0-A HCC who underwent curative liver resection using OLR, LLR, or RALR at Tongji Hospital were reviewed. The short-term and long-term oncological outcomes of these 3 different surgical approaches after adequate follow-up were compared using propensity score matching to reduce selection bias. Results: Of 369 patients included in this study (71, RALR; 141, LLR; and 157, OLR), 56 patients in each of the 3 groups were chosen for further comparison, after propensity score matching. In the minimally invasive group (RALR+LLR), both the operative time and duration of Pringle's maneuver were significantly longer than those in the OLR group; however, the length of hospital stay was significantly shorter. There were no significant differences in the other intraoperative parameters and the incidence of postoperative complications among the 3 groups. HCC recurrence in the minimally invasive group when compared with the OLR group was characterized by a significantly higher proportion of single lesion or early-stage HCC. However, there were no significant differences in the 5-year disease-free survival (63.8%, 54.4%, and 50.6%) or overall survival rates (80.8%, 78.6%, and 75.7%, respectively) among the 3 groups. Clinically significant portal hypertension was the only risk factor that negatively affected the 5-year disease-free survival rate. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that clinically significant portal hypertension, serum alpha-fetoprotein level (≥400 ng/mL), and Edmondson-Steiner grading (III+IV) were independent risk factors for poor long-term survival. Conclusion: Both robotic and laparoscopic hepatectomies were safe and effective for patients with BCLC stage 0-A HCC when compared with open hepatectomy.


A 59-year-old male visited our department for examination of positive fecal occult blood test. The patient was scheduled for colonoscopy. However, he was admitted to our hospital urgently for rupture of left internal iliac artery aneurysm (IIAA) (Fig. 1). IIAA was managed by coil embolization and stent graft. Two weeks after the discharge, the patient visited our department because of intermittent hematochezia. Colonoscopy revealed a submucosal tumor-like protrusion with a fistulous tract in the sigmoid colon (Fig. 2a). Computed tomography demonstrated an iliac aneurysm with thrombus and air bubbles, fistulizing to the sigmoid colon (Fig. 2b). The patient was treated by an iliac artery aneurysm resection, stent graft removal, right common femoral artery–left common femoral artery bypass, and colostomy. Although iliac aneurysmo-colonic fistula is a rare condition, it can cause acute and massive lower gastrointestinal bleeding. In addition to arterial intervention such as endovascular therapy, abdominal or pelvic surgery, pelvic malignancy, and infection are also known causes of fistula formation. For the secondary aneurysmo-colonic fistula that occurs after endovascular therapy, as in our case, surgical treatment is often selected instead of repeat endovascular treatment. Our case suggests that aneurysmo-colonic fistula should be considered as one of the differential diagnoses among acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding, in patients with a history of recent endovascular therapy in large vessels in proximity to the colon.