Simple Summary Umbilical hernia in swine is a congenital condition that may require surgical treatment. Locoregional anesthesia is commonly used in livestock to provide analgesia for surgery. However, the relatively low pH of inflamed tissue may reduce, slow down, or compromise the efficacy of local anesthetics. Phlegmon, ulcers, and dermatitis are very common lesions in livestock, that result in an inflammatory process with pH reduction of the tissues. Consequently, a locally effective opioid may replace or compliment the analgesic efficacy of local anesthetics. Tramadol is a weak opioid with good analgesic efficacy and few side effects. The results of the study showed that tramadol could be used for pain management in livestock. Abstract The aim of the study was to compare the analgesic efficacy of tramadol and lidocaine for local anesthesia during umbilical hernia repair in swine. The study was performed on 66 large white crossbred swine. The swine received a mixture of tiletamine/zolazepam at 5 mg/kg and romifidine at 80 µg/kg, administered intramuscularly. Then, they were divided into three groups (n = 22) that received different treatments with lidocaine at 4 mg/kg and tramadol at 4 mg/kg. The LL group received lidocaine both by infiltration of the surgical planes and intraperitoneally. The LT group received lidocaine by infiltration of the surgical planes and tramadol intraperitoneally. The TT group received tramadol both by infiltration of the surgical planes and intraperitoneally. In all groups, the infiltration of the surgical planes into the umbilical region involved both the skin and muscle planes. Heart rate, noninvasive arterial blood pressure, and respiratory frequency were recorded during surgery. The response to the surgical stimulus was evaluated using a cumulative pain scale (the cut-off point for rescue analgesia was set to 10). Postoperative pain was assessed using the UNESP-Botucatu pig composite acute pain scale (the cut-off point was set to 4). The trend of physiological variables was adequate for patients under anesthesia. No subject required intraoperative and postoperative rescue analgesia. Tramadol could therefore be used for pain management in livestock.


The optical properties of hybrid composite films based on poly [2-methoxy-5-(2-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4phenylene-vinylene] (MEH-PPV) and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles of various sizes (5–20 nm) and with different concentrations have been investigated. The steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy have been performed on nanocomposite films at room temperature. The PL results showed a significant enhancement in intensity in nanocomposites when using low nanoparticle concentrations (<5% ZnO). The particle size also impacts on the emission intensity by a larger emission efficiency


Abstract This study focuses on the synthesis of iron molybdate [Fe2(MoO4)3] nanoparticles (NPs) using simple co-precipitation process. The catalyst synthesized was characterized by advanced instrumental techniques such as XRD, SEM, EDX, TGA and FTIR, which confirmed the successful synthesis of NPs. Organic compound Rhodamine B (Rh. B) dye was selected for photo-degradation due to its complex structure and carcinogenic nature. Results exhibited that at neutral pH, the synthesized catalyst is highly effective for the degradation of Rh. B. For 20 mg/L initial concentration with an initial pH of 6.7, the degradation efficiency of Rh. B reaches 98  % within 180 min. Furthermore, the solution pH (1 to 11) affects the catalytic activity. This indicates that at neutral and/or alkaline pH, the usage of iron molybdate overwhelms the efficiency of Fenton-like reaction. It has been observed that Fe2(MoO4)3 showed excellent stability as after recycling it for 9 times its performance remained effective. Based on these data, the synthesized catalyst could be conveniently employed for degradation of toxic pollutants.


The force and strain on the cuttooth have been analyzed by using limited element method. And its conduction of heat also has been analyzed. The analysis shows that the biggest force is produced inside of it, and a heat pulse is formed during the cutting process. On this basis, the wear of cuttool has been posed. It shows that its main wear are abrading wear and fatigue wear. And the break of the cuttool is produced in the boot of the cuttool.


AtmmNGSIH, N .M .,B .PuRwANTARA, R .K.ACmADJ, and 1-K.SuTAMA .1996 .Effectofpregnant mare serum gonadotrophin injectionon litter sizein young Etawah-cross does.Jurnal Ilmu Ternak dan Veteriner2(l); The incidence of twins and/or multiplebirthsin20 heads of young Etawah-cross does was studiedfollowing oestrous synchronizationusing intravaginalsponges containing60 mg medroxyprogesterorle acetate(Repromap) for 15 days.Twenty fourhours priorto sponges withdrawal, the does were injectedwith pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin (PMSG) atdose ratesof 0 (Group A), 10 (Group B), 15 (Group C) and 20 iu/kg (Group D) body weight. A mature buck fittedwith an apron was used to detectthe onset of oestrusat every four hours. The oestrousdoe was naturallymated twice, 12 hours afteronset of oestrusand 10 hours later. About 3-5 days afteroestrus,alldoes were subjected to mid-ventral laparoscopy todetectovulation rate.Two months aftermating alldoes were subjectedtopregnancy testusing diagnosticultrasonography.Results showed thatalldoes exhibited clear sign of oestrus. The onset of oestrusoccurred 15-43 hours aftersponges withdrawal or 39-59 hours after PMSG injection.Does injectedwith PMSG (Groups B, C and D) showed oestrus 16-21 hours earlier(P 0 .05)than thatof control(Group A) .However, therewas no significantdifferencesamong thePMSG-treated groups.Ovulation ratesincreased from 1.0in Group A to 1.8 inGroup B and 2.6 inbah Groups C and D .Average littersizeinGroups A, B,C and D were 1.0,1.8,2.4and 1.0, respectively.Itwas concluded thatinjectionof 15 iu PMSG/kg body weight gave the bestresultforincreasinglittersizein young Etawah-cross does.


In this paper, the performance of turbo codes in speech transmission over AWGN channels is presented. Turbo codes of short block sizes suitable for real time communication systems have drawn attention recently. Embedded channel coding is used which means permitting rate variability using a single encoder/decoder. Puncturing patterns that minimize the BER were implemented and tested. The puncturing of systematic bits is completely excluded and thus puncturing is only done for parity bits. A comparison between the performances of different puncturing patterns shows that the puncturing patterns outperform other patterns.


PURPOSE
To analyze the structure of Korean nurse labor market and examine its effect on hospital nurse staffing.

METHODS
Secondary data were obtained from Statistics Korea, Education Statistics, and Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service and Patient Survey. Intensity of monopsony in the nurse labor market was measured by Herfindahl Hirshman Index (HHI). Hospital nurse staffing level was divided into high and low. While controlling for confounding factors such as inpatient days and severity mix of patients, effects of characteristics of nurse labor markets on nurse staffing levels were examined using multi-level logistic regressions.

RESULTS
For characteristics of nurse labor markets, metropolitan areas had high intensity of monopsony, while the capital area had competitive labor market and the unemployed nurse rate was higher than other areas. Among hospital characteristics, bed occupancy rate was significantly associated with nurse staffing levels. Among characteristics of nurse labor markets, the effect of HHI was indeterminable.

CONCLUSION
The Korean nurse labor market has different structure between the capital and other metropolitan areas. But the effect of the structure of nurse labor market on nurse staffing levels is indeterminable. Characteristics such as occupancy rate and number of beds are significantly associated with nurse staffing levels. Further study in support of the effect of nurse labor market is needed.


In demand of the practices of medical measurement, an active man-pack positive-negative pressure calibrator was developed, which the basic element is Precision Ball Float Manometer. Successful testing and calibration have been made on hundreds of precision sphygmomanometers, digital manometers, vacuum manometers and ordinary sphygmomanometers. This achievement is applying for the Chinese Patent.


The location security in current location-based services (LBS) meets threat where mobile users have to report their actual location knowledge to the LBS provider in order to get their desired POI, (Points of Interests). We consider location privacy techniques that work using obfuscation operators and provide different information services using different cloaking techniques without any trusted components other than the client's mobile device. The techniques are then covered according to the random category. It blurs the accurate user location (i.e., a point with coordinates) and replaces it with a well-shaped cloaked region (e.g. Circle, Rectangle, Pentagon etc.). We have recommended the technique where instead of exchanging cloaking data with peers, user queries directly to LBS. We have presented techniques where first technique which provides different privacy levels using obfuscation operators. The second technique for query processing generates the region of different shapes. Third demonstrates regional cloaking and two more new ideas are presented. We have shown effectiveness and performance of these techniques.


Chromatographic separation of the products formed on heating a mixture of the anomers of 2,3,4,6-tetra-O-acetyl-D-glucose and tri-O-acetyl-D-glucosan at 100 °C. afforded D-trehalose and the neo-D-trehalose of Haworth and Hickinbottom. Evidence was obtained to show that the latter compound is in fact α-D-glucopyranosyl β-D-glucopyranoside.


SUMMARY Vatican I continues to be one of the main stumbling blocks for Christian unity. For the Catholic Church the faithful adherence to the dogma of universal papal jurisdiction by divine right is simply a matter of conscience, since no dogma can be either dropped or weakened even in the interest of unity. The present study suggests that Vatican I, instead of being absolutized and isolated, be critically confronted with the results of contemporary biblical scholarship as well as with the teachings and underlying ecclesiology of the first five ecumenical Councils. The result of the enquiry is that Rome's traditional claim to universal jurisdiction by divine right lacks direct biblical support, has been rejected by the early Councils and is accepted today mainly on the basis of a non-ecumenical Council. Even if 'divine right' is understood as God's will for his Church manifested in the course of history, it cannot be predicated of primatial claims that are simultaneously juridical and universal. Hence the...


In this essay, the author presents the Martinican intellectual Edouard Glissant's Poétique de la Relation in a new frame by reading his text as it accomplishes a type of grand-scale theorizing. The notion of Relation in Glissant is followed in its various connections to a Marxian notion of dynamic totality. The Marxian/Hegelian subtext of Poétique is seen as productively revealing for reading Glissant both historically and theoretically. Glissant's theorizing of difference is shown to be an important contribution to contemporary revisions of Marxian-informed thought.


Introduction: Daptomycin is an antibiotic approved by FDA in 2003 with an excellent coverage for Gram positive cocci including methicillin resistant Staph. Aureus and vancomycin resistant Enterococci.Acute Eosinophilic Pneumonia(AEP) is a rare but potentially fatal complication of daptomycin is characterized by febrile illness, Hypoxemia,Diffuse Bilateral pulmonary infiltrates and BAL with >25% eosinophils. Case Report: 79 Y/O M with the CKD stage 4 and hypertension presented to the hospital with fever, dry cough and worsening shortness of breath after a recent hospital admission for MRSA bacteremia.Patient was admitted 1 week before presentation for symptoms of pyelonephritis and was found to have MRSA bacteremia for which he was discharged on IV daptomycin for 6 weeks. On admission,patient was febrile with hypoxic to 81%. Labs did show leukocytosis with mild peripheral eosinophilia.PCR for respiratory viruses including covid was negative.Chest X ray was done, which was consistent with multifocal Pneumonia which was followed by Chest CT scan which demonstrated new bilateral dense ground-glass and consolidative opacities.Given concerns for aspiration pneumonia, fungal infections or eosinophilic pneumonitis,pulmonology was consulted for possible bronchoscopy.Bronchoscopy with BAL was done the next day.BAL revealed a WBC of 260/μL with 45% eosinophilic predominance. Given the bronchoscopy results,his symptoms were attributed to Daptomycin related eosinophilic pneumonia.Patient was started on 40mg oral prednisone for a total of 4 weeks with rapid taper.Over the hospital course, his symptoms completely resolved. Discussion: The prosed mechanism involves presentation of drug or drug-hapten combination by the macrophages to the T helper cell results in interleukin-5 release which along with macrophage released eotaxin, results in eosinophilic migration to lungs.The criteria for to diagnose AEP due to daptomycin consist of 4 components which includes febrile illness,hypoxemia,diffuse bilateral pulmonary infiltrates and BAL with >25% eosinophils.Peripheral eosinophilia may not be present in all cases. It is also possible that daptomycin, a renally excreted drug, persists in the lungs of patients with renal dysfunction as seen in our patient and as such may lead to higher incidence of daptomycin induced AEP.In most cases, a short course of steroids(2-3 weeks)is sufficient for complete resolution of symptoms. Conclusion: Daptomycin induced AEP is increasingly seen in patients with high doses of drug and underlying renal dysfunction,and not related to therapy duration as it can occur as early as day 3 of treatment and as late as week 6 of treatment course. Bronchoscopy with BAL should be considered in all cases suspected. (Figure Presented).


i ABSTRAK iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v APPROVAL SHEET vii DECLARATION FORM viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ix LIST OF TABLES xii LIST OF FIGURES xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xvi LIST OF CHEMICAL USED xviii LIST OF APPARATUS AND MATERIAL USED xix LIST OF EQUIPMENT USED xx CHAPTER


Abstract A calculation of nematic liquid crystal-isotropic liquid transition temperature-composition curves of binary phase diagrams, in which one of the components is a non-liquid crystalline compound, has been examined by means of equal G analysis, one of the thermodynamic treatments reported by Van Hecke. Five liquid crystals, azoxybenzene derivatives, are used for the calculation and one of them is assumed to be a non-liquid crystalline compound. As a result, if the latent transition entropy of a non-liquid crystalline compound can be expected in advance, the latent nematic liquid crystal-isotropic liquid transition temperature can be obtained more precisely than by the extrapolation method used so far. Even if the latent transition entropy cannot be expected in advance, a comparison between calculations of the two binary systems in which a non-liquid crystalline compound is common, can give the precise latent transition temperatures and the transition entropies.


We consider an elliptic generalization of the Schlesinger system (ESS) with positions of marked points on an elliptic curve and its modular parameter as independent variables (the parameters in the moduli space of the complex structure). This system was originally discovered by Takasaki (hep-th/9711095) in the quasi-classical limit of the SL(N) vertex model. Our derivation is purely classical. ESS is defined as a symplectic quotient of the space of connections of bundles of degree 1 over the elliptic curves with marked points. The ESS is a non-autonomous Hamiltonian system with pairwise commuting Hamiltonians. The system is bi-Hamiltonian with respect to the linear and introduced here quadratic Poisson brackets. The latter are the multi-colour form of the Sklyanin–Feigin–Odesski classical algebras. The ESS is the monodromy independence condition on the complex structure for the linear systems related to the flat bundle. The case of four points for a special initial data is reduced to the Painleve VI equation in the form of the Zhukovsky–Volterra gyrostat, proposed in our previous paper.


Single crystals of RbOs2O6 have been grown from Rb2O and Os in sealed quartz ampoules. The crystal structure has been identified at room temperature as cubic with the lattice constant a = 10.1242(12) A. The anisotropy of the tetrahedral and octahedral networks is lower and the displacement parameters of alkali metal atoms are smaller than for KOs2O6, so the "rattling" of the alkali atoms in RbOs2O6 is less pronounced. Superconducting properties of RbOs2O6 in the mixed state have been well described within the London approach and the Ginzburg-Landau parameter kappa(0) = 31 has been derived from the reversible magnetization. This parameter is field dependent and changes at low temperatures from kappa = 22 (low fields) to kappa = 31 at H_{c2}. The thermodynamic critical field H_{c}(0) = 1.3 kOe and the superconducting gap 2delta/k_{B}T_{c} = 3.2 have been estimated. These results together with slightly different H_{c2}(T) dependence obtained for crystals and polycrystalline RbOs2O6 proof evidently that this compound is a weak-coupling BCS-type superconductor close to the dirty limit.


Objective: To develop a comprehensive post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) symptom lexicon from clinical notes to support PASC symptom identification and research. Methods: We identified 26,117 COVID-19 positive patients from the Mass General Brigham's electronic health records (EHR) and extracted 328,879 clinical notes from their post-acute infection period (day 51-110 from first positive COVID-19 test). The PASC symptom lexicon incorporated Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus concepts and synonyms based on selected semantic types. The MTERMS natural language processing (NLP) tool was used to automatically extract symptoms from a development dataset. The lexicon was iteratively revised with manual chart review, keyword search, concept consolidation, and evaluation of NLP output. We assessed the comprehensiveness of the lexicon and the NLP performance using a validation dataset and reported the symptom prevalence across the entire corpus. Results: The PASC symptom lexicon included 355 symptoms consolidated from 1,520 UMLS concepts. NLP achieved an averaged precision of 0.94 and an estimated recall of 0.84. Symptoms with the highest frequency included pain (43.1%), anxiety (25.8%), depression (24.0%), fatigue (23.4%), joint pain (21.0%), shortness of breath (20.8%), headache (20.0%), nausea and/or vomiting (19.9%), myalgia (19.0%), and gastroesophageal reflux (18.6%). Discussion and Conclusion: PASC symptoms are diverse. A comprehensive PASC symptom lexicon can be derived using a data-driven, ontology-driven and NLP-assisted approach. By using unstructured data, this approach may improve identification and analysis of patient symptoms in the EHR, and inform prospective study design, preventative care strategies, and therapeutic interventions for patient care.


11598 Background: The NF-kappa B transcription factors family is responsible for the expression of genes including some related with proliferation, apoptosis and angiogenesis and has been associated with development of tumors and malignancy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate if NFKB is a predictive factor in breast cancer women treated with adjuvant chemotherapy (anthracyclines). Also, we would like to characterize if the inhibition of IKK/NF-KB can sensibilize breast cancer cells to anthracyclines therapy. Methods: We have studied 50 cases of frozen tissues from biopsies of patients with breast cancer (39.4% negatives and 60.6% positives lymph nodes) who were treated with anthracyclines (whole clinical follow-up). We have analyzed the expression of the subunits p65, c-Rel, RelB, p50 y p52 of the NF-KB family by ELISA and confirmed results by western blot. We have characterized the relationship between the different members and the clinical-pathological standard factors. Results: The samples of...


e13080 Background: BAI therapy in lung cancer is of interest due to several advantages over systemic chemotherapy, including delivery of a large dose of drug directly to the tumor and less systemic...


The linning structure of the subsea tunnel suffers the effect of the stress field coupled with seepage field.The primary support should sustain all the lord during the construction period.Considering Xiamen Xiang'an Subsea Tunnel as the engineering background,the security of the primary support and the distribution of the water pressure is analyzed using fluid-solid interaction numerical simulation method.And the distribution of water pressure on the primary support in the coupled field is obtained.The result shows that the primary support has a perfect security during the construction period.


Abstract : This report reviews the key issues associated with defense technology to provide a basis for the examination of R/D policy and the formulation of program plans. The issue papers examine the concepts of technological superiority, balance, and surprise; discuss technology in negotiations and international cooperation in R/D; and assesses selected R/D aspects of military strategy and planning.


Neuromorphic systems benefit from quasi-delay-insensitive (QDI) asynchronous interconnection networks, which offer low power consumption, improved robustness, and scalability. However, when designing Networks-on-Chip (NoC) routers with standard multiplexer cell-based switches, asynchronous circuits suffer from area overhead and power consumption. To address this issue, we propose a transistor-level asynchronous switch design that reduces the number of control signals, resulting decrease in transistor count by 36%. By decomposing those control signals, we achieved a power consumption reduction of 77% and improved delay by 18%. The transistor-level switch was designed using the Sense Amplifier Half-Buffer (SAHB) logic family, and its performance was simulated using models for 65-nanometer CMOS technology.


Summary
Infants born very preterm - before 32 weeks gestation and ≤1500 grams birthweight - are at risk of developmental problems. Gross motor development is an early marker in the first year of life to identify developmental delay. As in other developmental domains, gross motor development is characterized by variability between infants known to be related to both infant and environmental factors. This variability makes predicting infant motor development difficult and with that clinical decision-making on initiating early intervention. Repeatedly, within the same child, measuring gross motor development over time makes discrimination of typical or atypical development and developmental progress possible.
The Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) is an observational instrument frequently used by paediatric physiotherapists worldwide to measure infant gross motor development. Among other things, this dissertation describes cross-cultural research to examine the validity of the Canadian norm values of the AIMS for the Dutch population of infants from birth to independent walking. Next, a longitudinal study was conducted to explore the variation in course and speed of gross motor development of Dutch very preterm infants until independent walking and influencing factors. Parents made multiple home video recordings of their infant (corrected age 3.5 to 17.5 months), from which gross motor development was assessed with AIMS. Lastly, parental beliefs about their child's motor development and experiences with the home-video method were examined.
Main outcomes of the studies are 1) Dutch infants develop at a slower pace than Canadian infants from birth until independent walking, 2) there is strong evidence for the association of birthweight and moderate evidence for gestational age and sleeping position with infant gross motor development, 3) gross motor growth curves showed that three profiles, comparable to profiles observed among term born infants, can be distinguished: early developers, gradual developers and late bloomers and, 4) parents of very preterm infants believed stimulating motor development to be more important than parents of term born infants.


Herbal cosmetics are formulated by using different cosmetic ingredients to form the base in which one or more herbal ingredients
are wont to cure various skin ailment. The name suggests that herbal cosmetics are natural and free from all the harmful synthetic
chemicals which otherwise may convince be toxic to the skin. Compared to other beauty products, natural cosmetics are safe to use.
They are hypo-allergenic and tested and proven by dermatologists to be safe to use anytime, anywhere. Cosmeceuticals are cosmeticpharmaceutical hybrid products intended to enhance the health and wonder of the skin by providing a selected result, starting from
acne-control and anti-wrinkle effects to sun protection. Cosmeceuticals have medicinal benefits which affect the biological
functioning of skin depending upon the sort of functional ingredients they contain. These are cosmetic products that aren't just used
for beautification but for different skin ailments. These products improve the functioning/texture of the skin by boosting collagen
growth by eradicating harmful effects of free radicals, maintain keratin structure in good condition, and making the skin healthier.
There are numerous herbs available naturally having different uses in cosmetic preparations for skin care, hair care, and as
antioxidants. The current review highlights the importance of herbal cosmetics, the herbs used in them, and their advantages over their synthetic counterparts.


Silver nanoparticles of diameters in the range of 4.2–46nm have been used to grow nanoshells of lithium niobate with thicknesses in the range of 2.2–22nm in a silicate glass matrix. The lithium niobate shells form a percolative network and show electronic conduction. This has been explained as due to Mott's variable range hopping conduction mechanism. The hopping is interparticle because the density of localized states is found to be in reasonable agreement with the density of nanoparticles with a core-shell structure. The ac conductivity is shown to be dependent on frequency with the exponent having a value around 0.5. This arises due to the charge motion's being operative in a two-dimensional structure with one of these dimensions involved in such motion. Optical absorption of the core-shell structured nanoparticles exhibits two peaks—one around 350nm is ascribed to plasmon resonance of silver nanoparticles which are not covered by a niobate shell, and the other in the range of 550–650nm is caused by li...


The article describes the experience of assessing the readiness of bachelors to practical work in the field of programming in the 1C system within the framework of the competence approach. The employers' requests are analyzed, the requirements for specialists in information systems and programmers working with information systems on the 1C: Enterprise platform are highlighted. On the basis of the Federal State Educational Standards of Higher Education, professional standards, labor market requirements, the necessary content of readiness to solve professional problems in the field of programming in the 1C system is determined and detailed. The basic components of readiness that need to be formed and evaluated in all students (congative, technological, integrative activity, personal) are identified. Methods for evaluating components and building on their basis an integrated assessment of the level of preparedness for solving professional problems in the field of programming in the 1C system are proposed. The results of pedagogical measurements are given and analyzed.


The importance of Blockchain and IoT technology have been highlighted in various fields. These are not unaccustomed words anymore in our lives. Although the technologies are in the infancy step and are still many remaining technical challenges, there is no doubt that it will be one of the major parts of the future Internet. The efficiency and security of data transmission scheme have always been major issues in the legacy Internet, and a data transmission scheme for the future Internet, including 5G and IoT environment should also provide and support these issues. Consequently, we propose a new data transmission scheme to successfully support the future Internet environment. The proposed scheme, which is named as S-DTS (Secure Data Transmission Scheme), supports a distributed transmission and decentralized access control. The S-DTS utilizes 4 synchronization zones, which are IoT network zone, aggregation zone, mining zone, and management zone, and these zones are operated by the DPN (Delegated Proof of Node) mechanism. Furthermore, all nodes are categorized to the 3 node groups, LDTG (Low Delay Tolerance Group), MDTG (Medium Delay Tolerance Group), HDTG (High Delay Tolerance Group), to provide an efficient data transmission, and the data in each group will be transmitted in accordance with their own traffic attributes. The evaluation results of this scheme show that it is very suitable for massive IoT environment scenarios, and IoT devices can take advantage of safe and efficient transmission by using the delegated proof of node technique. In addition, the S-DTS might be adaptable for various computing and networking environment with big data, edge cloud and cloud computing, and autonomous networking.


Truth commissions have emerged as popular devices for countries which are trying to move from a past of mass human rights violations to a stable and democratic future. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was by no means the first official commission to inquire into and report on a fraught past, yet it has attracted more interest, including philosophical interest, than any of its predecessors.


The objective of this study is to find out empirical evidence of the effect of ownership structures and financial performance on earnings management and the impact on stocks return study on manufacturing companies listed  at Indonesia Stock Exchange. The population of the study are listed manufacturing companies at Indonesia stock Exchange, and the sample used in this study is based on the annual financial reports ended 31 December, information on the ownership stock and financial highlights over 2001 - 2005. The conclusions of the study are as follows : (1) if the size, leverage and profitability become bigger so the earnings management become bigger too, while if the institutional ownership structures and managerial ownership structures become bigger, so the earnings management become smaller; (2) if the institutional ownership structures, size and profitability become bigger so stocks return become bigger too, while if the managerial ownership structures, leverage and earnings management become bigger so stocks return become smaller.


Additive manufacturing (AM) of highly complex metal structures using selective laser melting (SLM) is increasingly gaining interest. In the aerospace industry, metal alloys with a high strength to weight ratio play an important role. Although several Ti‐ and Al‐alloys have been SLM‐processed successfully, the high‐strength aluminium alloy EN AW 7075 remains a challenge. The high sensitivity to hot cracks caused by process related temperature gradients and rapid solidification represents the major challenge. Preheating is a promising approach to reduce temperature gradients and minimize shrinking between the layers. Livia Zumofen, Andreas Kirchheim Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW – School of Engineering Centre for Product and Process Development ZPP, Winterthur


This paper describes effectiveness of energy conservation in the industrial enterprises in the third quarter of 2009 in Changzhi City,Shanxi Province,The author points out existing problems of energy saving targets in the future,then proposes countermeasures.


The job shop scheduling problem with minimizing make-span is discussed. A basic quasi-physics and quasi-human algorithm (BQ&Q) that is a new method for the problem is proposed. The algorithm is based on an elastic model of the problem and the schedule is created by the strategy of quasi-physics and quasi-human. A theorem about the feasibility of BQ&Q is proved, which guarantees that BQ&Q can be used as a very useful basic procedure to design much more effective and efficient heuristic algorithm for the problem.


Household survey data and family histories from three highland Philippine communities are analyzed in terms of the contributions adult children living apart from parents make to parents. Differentials among the contributions of adult children are related to developmental variation within sibling sets and to occupational diversity promoted by differential educational attainment. This diversity within the sibling set is treated as a reflection of family and household strategies to reduce economic risk. These household and family strategies can be expected to vary among communities and may run counter to the aims of national educational and family planning policies. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA) (EXCERPT)


This research paper is a cross-cultural study of demographic variables and their role on emotional intelligence and work values among 437 purposively selected call center representatives (CSRs) from the Middle East, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, India, and the Philippines. The paper aims to establish a baseline literature on the link between demographic variables (such as gender, civil status, work time schedule, and nationality) on emotional intelligence and work values that leads to the appropriate conceptualization of organizational change programs. The descriptive, comparative-correlational methods were employed as this paper also threshes out whether CSRs differ on emotional intelligence and work values based on demographic characteristics. The researchers utilized three instruments such as Demographic Profile Sheet, Emotional Competence Inventory, and Work Values Inventory. The general findings confirm that there is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence (particularly on the clusters of self- management, social awareness and relationship management) and work values (specifically in the areas of management, achievement, supervisory relations, way of life, and independence). In line with the results, the organizational change programs with emphasis on diversity management have been introduced to set future directions for organizations in call center organizations involved in the study.


Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) may provide a novel way to bypass the transistor paradigm to form ultrasmall computing elements. In the QCA paradigm information is represented in the charge configuration of a QCA cell, which maps naturally to a binary model. Molecular QCA implementations are being explored where the quantum dots in the cell take the form of redox centers in a molecule. Clocking has proved important in QCA cells synthesized so far. Here we examine a method to clock molecular QCA cells which are assembled at an interface. The clocking signals in this scheme originate from wires buried below the QCA surface. We present a simplified model of this clocking method and examine its behavior as a molecular shift register.


62 Abstract: This paper sketches the debate between Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Alain Badiou concerning Richard Wagner''s idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Following in part the account of the Gesamtkunstwerk that was developed in Theodor W. Adorno''s pivotal text In Search of Wagner, Lacoue-Labarthe regards the notion of Gesamtkunstwerk as the central key for unlocking the implications of Wagner''s theory and practice of music drama. That is to say, Lacoue-Labarthe claims that the fusion of art and politics characterizing the Gesamtkunstwerk can only be grasped by unearthing the conception of (romantic) aesthetics that underlies Wagner''s staging of the relationship between art and politics. Lacoue-Labarthe identifies Wagnerian aesthetics as the anticipation of national-aestheticism (a term that Lacoue-Labarthe elaborates in the context of his reading of Heidegger''s deconstruction of aesthetics) that finds its completion in National Socialism. Consequently, Wagner''s art taking figure in the Gesamtkunstwerk engenders totalitarian politics. In critical opposition to Lacoue-Labarthe, Alain Badiou both relegates the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk to the realm of mere ideology and demonstrates that the former obscures the complex relationship between art and politics that is actually engendered in Wagner''s music dramas. Once the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk is dismissed as the central category of Wagnerian artistic production, one can return to Wagner''s music dramas as sites both for a ""music of the future"" and a different conception of politics.


The combination of ultrasound-assisted dispersive micro-solid phase extraction (USA DMSPE) and high-resolution continuum source graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (HR-CS GFAAS) was developed for the sequential determination of cadmium and lead in water samples. During the preconcentration step, dendrimer modified halloysite nanotubes (HNTs-G3) were used as a solid sorbent. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to characterize HNTs during the modification steps. HNTs-G3 were dispersed in water samples containing trace elements to be determined. After the sorption, the aqueous samples were separated by centrifugation. Then, the metal loaded HNTs-G3 were suspended using a small volume of deionized water and introduced into an atomizer. The main extraction and detection parameters were investigated. The concentration limits of detection were 0.5 and 10 ng L−1 for Cd and Pb, respectively. The preconcentration factors achieved for Cd and Pb were 46 and 41, respectively. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) were 4% and 5% for Cd and Pb, respectively. The accuracy of this method was validated by analyses of NIST SRM 1643e (Trace Elements in Water), TMRAIN-04 (Rainwater) and ERM – CA011b (Hard Drinking Water). The measured element contents in these reference materials were in satisfactory agreement with the certified values according to the t-test for a 95% confidence level. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of cadmium and lead in six different water samples (seawater, lake water, river water, stream water, mine water and tap water).


This paper uses Monte-Carlo simulation on the silicon lattice to investigate vacancy-mediated dopant diffusion. By considering vacancy/dopant interaction potentials which extend out to third-nearest-neighbor distances as required for pair diffusion theories, we observe the very rapid increase in dopant diffusivity at concentrations above 2/spl times/10/sup 20/ cm/sup -3/ that has been observed experimentally for group IV and V atoms in silicon. We also derive an improved analytic expression for dopant diffusivity at low and moderate doping levels as a function of interaction potential that agrees with the simulation results. Further simulations verify the central role of third-nearest-neighbor interactions to vacancy-mediated diffusion in silicon.<<ETX>>


When transmitted over error-prone networks, compressed video sequences may be received with errors. In this paper, we propose a priority-ranked region-matching algorithm to recover the "lost" area of the decoded frames, in which both temporal and spatial correlations of the video sequence are exploited. In the proposed scheme, we first calculate the priorities of all edge pixels of the "lost" area and generate a priority-ranked region group. Then according to their priorities, the regions in the group will search their best matching regions temporally and spatially. Finally, the "lost" area is recovered progressively by the corresponding pixels in the matching regions. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves higher PSNR as well as better video quality in comparison with the method adopted in H.264.


Purpose: The ability to reach a high running velocity over a short period of time is essential for sprinters. Sprinting requires appropriate muscle recruitment for an athlete to perform. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the sprint specific plyometric training on electromyographic (EMG) changes in sprinters. Methodology: 40 university sprinters volunteered and were randomly assigned into two groups, group 1 (G1; n=20) sprint specific plyometric training group(mean age 18.65±0.875; mean height 164.10±11.30 cm; mean mass 59.20±10.74 kg) and group 2 (G2; n= 20) control group (mean age 18.95±1.19; mean height 166.60±9.80 cm; mean mass 61.60±9.24 kg ). Both sprint specific plyometric training group and control group were assessed for neuromuscular activity of lower limb muscles by telemetric Noraxon TELEMYO U.S.A., Inc.v3.1.10 machine. Subjects in training group performed six weeks sprint specific plyometric protocol thrice a week. The EMG activities in the tibialis anterior (TA), vastus lateralis (VL), rectus femoris (RF), medial gastrocnemius (MG) and semitendinosis muscle (ST) were assessed pre and post training. Results: The results showed significant changes (p<0.05) in the EMG activities for the mean amplitude of RF(rt), MG(lt), ST(rt) muscles and maximum periods of TA(rt), VL(rt), MG(lt) and ST(rt) muscles. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that the neuromuscular training program can increase the muscle recruitment to perform high intensity activities hence, can be recommended to coaches for athletes or individual. Article visualizations:


Governors' Messages, 1927. Why should a summary of the contents of the governors' messages be of any interest to readers of the REVIEW? If the governors have expressed their own thoughts on state government, in their own ways, the messages should afford a means of estimating the attitudes and characters of the persons elevated by popular suffrage to the chief magistracies of the states. If these governors, as candidates, expressed similar opinions, then the messages may perhaps be assumed to represent the ideas which the candidates thought the people would approve. And if the citizens voted for the candidates because of the opinions which they expressed during the campaign, then the governors' recommendations may be regarded as the wishes of the people with respect to the conduct of state government. If the governors' recommendations are really popular in character, would it be too much to expect a considerable acquiescence on the part of the legislatures in the governors' programs? Would a study of the degree to which the gover-


The engineering mechanicl properties of "red-layer" in Anqing City are tested in field(heavy dynamic penetration test and loading test),indoor test(ultimate compressive strength test of the single axial and triaxial of natural rock) and geological survey of highway engineering etc.With reference to relevant specifications and engineering experience,the bearing capacity of "red-layer" in Anqing city is analyzed and evaluated.


In the mathematical modelling of gear vibrations it is found that there is
a gap between the transient models developed in academia and the steady state
models frequently used in industry. It is seen that the academic models are adept at
modelling the nonlinear phenomena seen during gear contact for system with only
a few degrees-of-freedom, whereas the industrial models are capable of solving the
linear steady state response of more complex transmission systems.
The work presented in this thesis attempts to bridge the gap between the
two models, through the development of a transient nonlinear model of a gear pair
with increased degrees-of-freedom. An understanding of the gear contact is achieved
through the use of advanced static finite element analysis with nonlinear gear contact.
Through FEA the effects of gear misalignment on these contact conditions is
also investigated.
The findings from the FEA are then used in a mathematical model of a single
stage spur gear transmission, which is developed as part of the thesis, to determine
the system accelerations. The mathematical model includes the time varying mesh
stiffness and the time varying and nonlinear bearing stiffness's and frictional forces.
The effects of lateral misalignment seen in the FEA results are also included into
the model to investigate their effects.
The model parameters are then varied to determine their effects and the simulated
accelerations are compared against experimental results. It is found from this
comparison that although some similarities between the simulated and experimental
results are achieved for the aligned case, insufficient corroboration is found for the
axially and radially misaligned results to confirm the validity of the mathematical
model for modelling misalignment.
From this, further experimental results were requested to gain a better con-
fidence in the effects of lateral misalignment.


An overview is provided of LADWP's (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) distribution system, past jointing techniques, the investigation and evaluation of alternative approaches, and the field experience with the joint selected for use. The satisfying of the required test sequences of IEEE 404-1986 and the positive results of further testing showed that the heat-shrinkable joint method provides an acceptable means of splicing 35 kV class CLP (cross-linked polyethylene) power distribution cables. A comparison of installed cost, time, and required joint spacing shows that the heat-shrinkable joint is the best splice for LADWP's large conductor 35 kV cross-linked polyethylene splicing. >


This paper presents our synthesis of actual works about planning as satisfiability. We detail the improvements we brought to classical state-space, plan-space and graphplan-based encodings. They are essentially based on the introduction of parallelism and the use of the authorization relation instead of independence. We present our planner TSP (Tunable SAT Planner) which includes a translator that automatizes all these resolution methods. Each of these encodings can thus be used to solve a given planning problem : the base of clauses computed by the translator is given to a SAT solver, which returns, after an inverse translation, the solution plan. This tool allows us to show the impact of our improvements on classical planning benchmarks.


In this paper we prove the Hopf-Rinow theorem for CAT(0) spaces and show that the ideal boundaries of complete CAT(0) manifolds of dimension 2 or 3 with some additional conditions are homeomorphic to the circle or 2-sphere by the characterization of the local shadows around the branch points.


A variation on the Hough technique for the detection of lines in digital imagery is presented. The proposed parameterization of the Hough space fully exploits the available image resolution. Results are presented illustrating the utility of the approach for finding roads in aerial FLIR (forward-looking infrared) imagery. Finally, a parallel implementation of the algorithm is outlined.


The effect of dry milling on the carbothermic reduction of celestite was investigated. Mixtures of celestite concentrate (98% SrSO4) and activated carbon (99% carbon) was milled for 1 and 24 hours in a planetary ball mill. Un-milled and milled mixtures and their products after carbothermic reduction were studied by a combination of XRD and TGA/DTA experiments. The thermogravimetric analyses and XRD results showed that by milling celestite-carbon mixtures for one hour, the formation temperature of strontium sulfide decreased from about 720°C (in un-milled sample) to about 600°C, after 24 hours milling it decreased to 530°C. It was concluded that milling induces increasingly thorough mixing of the reactants to reduction occurring at lower temperatures Keywords—Activated carbon, Celestite, Ball milling, Carbothermic reduction, Strontium sulfide.


Though E-business application integration is becoming the focus,it is hard to execute it in the real business.Therefore,the paper probes into building a functional module in the integration experiment platform with integration,cooperativeness,practicability and system security.It also provides an elaborative explanation to the crucial encryption technology and the application of the security encryption technique.


In this paper we define fuzzy sequential topology on a non empty set X which is a collection of fuzzy sequential sets satisfying certain conditions given in its definition and many pleasant properties of a countable number of fuzzy topologies on X associated as components of a FST are investigated.


On the basis of the data of the traffic police in the city of Mozyr dependences of total number of accidents on certain reasons by the comparative analysis of data for 2006-2007 according to road and transport incidents are investigated. The traffic accidents which occurred at various time of the day with participation of guilty persons (drivers, pedestrians) have been analysed, their grouping by kinds of accidents has been made. The analysis of accidents with participation of departmental transport of the enterprises of a city as directly connected with transportations has been made separately. As a great number of traffic accidents occurs at stops the conformity of public transport stops with the established standards is important. The carried out detailed research has shown that the majority of stops don't conform to the established norms.


Objective:To explore the relationship between job burnout and physical health,mental health and job satisfaction.Method:MBI-GS, physical health subscale, mental health subscale and job satisfaction subscale of OSI-2 were administrate to 135 bank employees.Result:(1)Emotional exhaustion had a significant positive correlation with the physical health(r=0.607,P.001)and mental health(r=0.599,P.001), and had a significant negative correlation with job satisfaction(r=-0.267,P.01).Cynicism had a significant positive correlation with the physical health(r=0.188,P.05)and mental health(r=0.412,P.001), and had a significant negative correlation with job satisfaction(r=-0.541,P.001). Professional efficacy had a significant negative correlation with the mental health(r=-0.198,P.05) and had a significant positive correlation with job satisfaction(r=0.242,P.01). Professional efficacy had no significant correlation with physical health(r=-0.002,P.05).(2)Stepwise regression analysis showed that employees' physical health related to emotional exhaustion. Employees' mental health related to emotional exhaustion and cynicism.Conclusion:Burnout had influenced employees' physical health, mental health and job satisfaction greatly.


A simulation exercise was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a new Army force structure called Objective Force. This paper will describe how shared and team situation awareness (SA) were measured and analyzed in this experiment with regards to how well the new force structure supports both SA at the individual officer level, within teams and across teams. Shared and Team SA were measured using the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT).


Borda's social choice method and Condorcet's social choice method are shown to satisfy different monotonicities and it is shown that it is impossible for any social choice method to satisfy them both. Results of a Monte Carlo simulation are presented which estimate the probability of each of the following social choice methods being manipulable: plurality (first past the post), Borda count, instant runoff, Kemeny-Young, Schulze, and majority Borda. The Kemeny-Young and Schulze methods exhibit the strongest resistance to random manipulability. Two variations of the majority judgment method, with different tiebreaking rules, are compared for continuity. A new variation is proposed which minimizes discontinuity. A framework for social choice methods based on grades is presented. It is based on the Balinski-Laraki framework, but doesn't require aggregation functions to be strictly monotone. By relaxing this restriction, strategy-proof aggregation functions can better handle a polarized electorate, can give a societal grade closer to the input grades, and can partially avoid certain voting paradoxes. A new cardinal voting method, called the linear median is presented, and is shown to have several very valuable properties. Range voting, the majority judgment, and the linear median are also simulated to compare their manipulability against that of the ordinal methods.


1 Reliable estimates of future health impacts due to climate change are needed to inform 2 and contribute to the design of efficient adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, 3 projecting health burdens associated to specific environmental stressors is a challenging 4 task, due to the complex risk patterns and inherent uncertainty of future climate 5 scenarios. These assessments involve multi-disciplinary knowledge, requiring expertise 6 in epidemiology, statistics, and climate science, among other subjects. Here, we present 7 a methodological framework to estimate future health impacts under climate change 8 scenarios based on a defined set of assumptions and advanced statistical techniques 9 developed in time-series analysis in environmental epidemiology. The proposed 10 methodology is illustrated through a step-by-step hands-on tutorial structured in well11 defined sections that cover the main methodological steps and essential elements. Each 12 section provides a thorough description of each step, along with a discussion on 13 available analytical options and the rationale on the choices made in the proposed 14 framework. The illustration is complemented with a practical example of study using real15 world data and a series of R scripts included as Supplementary Digital Content, which 16 facilitates its replication and extension on other environmental stressors, outcomes, 17 study settings, and projection scenarios. Users should critically assess the potential 18 modelling alternatives and modify the framework and R code to adapt them to their 19 research on health impact projections. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Background 33 Climate change is one of the most important environmental challenges that humanity will 34 face in the coming decades. Quantifying future health burdens associated to global 35 warming is therefore a major priority for the scientific community, as attested by the 36 increasing number of publications on health impact projections. Several studies have 37 focused on direct impacts of environmental stressors, such as non-optimal temperature 38 and air pollution.1–5 Generally, these projection studies follow a common methodological 39 scheme. The basic idea consists in applying risk functions on simulated future exposure 40 distributions generated by climate change models under specific emissions scenarios. 41 However, this scheme entails important methodological challenges due, for instance, to 42 the complex patterns of health risks associated with environmental stressors, the 43 inherent uncertainty of potential future climate change processes, and the set of (rarely 44 stated) assumptions.6 A wide variety of data sources, statistical approaches and 45 assumptions have been applied so far, as summarized and discussed in previous 46 reviews.6–8 However, a structured illustration that covers the important steps and discuss 47 the most recent statistical developments is still lacking. 48 Here, we illustrate a methodological framework to estimate health impact projections 49 under climate change scenarios, built on clearly defined assumptions and state-of-the50 art statistical methodologies developed in time-series analysis in environmental 51 epidemiology. This contribution extends a methodology previously presented to project 52 temperature-related excess mortality in climate change scenarios.5,9 The proposed 53 framework is illustrated through a hands-on tutorial, structured in well-differentiated steps 54 that cover each of the methodological issues and the essential elements. Each section 55 provides a detailed description of the methodology and a discussion on the potential 56 assumptions and limitations, compared to other available choices. The text is 57 complemented with a practical illustration of a projection study using real-world data, and 58 a series of R scripts included as Supplementary Digital Content, with updated versions 59 available in the personal website and GitHub repository of the last author. The 60 methodological framework and R code can be modified and adapted to a broad range of 61 health impact projection studies, optionally assessing different environmental stressors 62 and health outcomes, and with different study settings. 63 64 Illustrative example 65 The practical example consists of a projection study on temperature-related mortality 66 impacts in the city of London, United Kingdom. The dataset includes observed daily 67 mean temperature and total number of deaths in London between 1990 and 2012. This 68 is part of the large database collected within the Multi-City Multi-Country (MCC) network 69 (http://mccstudy.lshtm.ac.uk/), and has been previously used as example in other 70 manuscripts.10 We complement these observed data with daily-modelled temperature 71 series for historical (1950-2005) and future (2006-2100) periods, projected under 72 scenarios defined within the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 of 73 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).11 Climate data was obtained, 74 processed and made available by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison 75 Project (ISI-MIP, https://www.isimip.org/).12 Further details on the modelled data is 76 provided in the Section 2 of the tutorial. 77 78 Tutorial on the modelling framework 79 1. Estimation of exposure-response associations 80 One critical step in health impact projection studies is to appropriately define the 81 relationship between the exposure to the environmental stressor of interest and the 82 health outcome. While this information can be based on association estimates reported 83 in the literature,13,14 this often requires strong assumptions due to extrapolation across 84 geographical areas, and simplification of usually complex relationships. 85 A more appropriate approach is to directly estimate the relationship using actual 86 epidemiological data, for which several statistical methods are available.15,16 Among 87 these, time series analysis using aggregated data has been shown to be ideal to assess 88 short-term associations in environmental epidemiology,17 and often applied in climate 89 change projection studies.1,18,19 90 A representation of the standard time series regression model is provided by the 91 following equation: 92 log[ ( )] = + ( ; ) + ( ; ) + ∑ h ( ; ) (1) 93 where typically the outcome corresponds to daily counts assumed to follow a Poisson 94 distribution with overdispersion, the function ( ; ) specifies the association with the 95 environmental exposure of interest at time , ( ; ) represents the baseline trend 96 which captures the effect of confounders changing slowly over time (i.e., seasonal and 97 long-term trends), and h ( ; ) models the contribution of other confounders varying 98 on a daily basis. 99 The exposure-response association can be modelled using different types of function , 100 ranging from simple indicators for extreme exposure events, to linear or linear-threshold 101 shapes, to distributed lag non-linear models (DLNMs) representing complex exposure102 lag-response surfaces.20 The selection of the function depends on the environmental 103 stressor, for instance measured as a continuous exposure (e.g., temperature, rain fall) 104 or defined extreme event (e.g., heat wave, floods), and the assumed dependency with 105 the health outcome. As shown below, wrong assumptions on the shape of the 106 dependency can introduce important biases in estimates and projections. 107 In our example, the environmental stressor and the outcome corresponds to historical 108 series of daily mean temperature and death counts ( !" and # !"). Our main choice for 109 the exposure-response function ( ) is represented by a DLNM through a bi110 dimensional cross-basis term, using flexible natural cubic spline functions to model both 111 exposure-response and lagged-response dimensions, accounting for 21 days of lag, 112 following previous work.10 As further described in Section 4 of this tutorial, the choice of 113 natural splines allows the log-linear extrapolation of the function beyond the boundaries 114 of the observed series, a step needed to project the risk using the modelled temperature. 115 Figure 1A shows the resulting 3-D plot of the estimated exposure-lag-response 116 association, and Figure 1B represents the overall cumulative exposure-response 117 association across up to 21 days of lag. As expected, we observe a non-linear 118 temperature-mortality relationship, with increases in relative risk (RR) above and below 119 the minimum mortality temperature ( $$) that correspond to heat and cold associations, 120 respectively. At the same time, risks are distributed differently across time, with 121 immediate heat-mortality and more delayed cold-mortality associations (Figure 1A). 122 Alternative models with different specifications of the exposure-response association, 123 such as linear or double-threshold parameterizations, are shown in Figure 1C. While 124 simpler, however these choices seem less ideal for modelling the mortality risk of non125 optimal temperature, highlighting the importance of the selection of suitable functions to 126 represent the association of interest, and the potential bias of inappropriate 127 simplifications. 128 129 2. Projected temperature and mortality series 130 Two additional essential elements needed in health impact projection studies are the 131 information on future climatic and population scenarios. 132 Data on future distribution of the environmental stressor (e.g., temperature, precipitation, 133 air pollution levels) are commonly based on specific scenarios that account for changes 134 in multiple and often inter-related factors. For instance, socioeconomic and technological 135 changes, population growth and land use changes can affect pathways of greenhouse 136 gases emissions or atmospheric concentrations of other pollutants, which in turn will 137 determine trends in global warmin


The total intake in one year (N = 262) of two junior schools was intensively and extensively studied over a four-year period by means of a large variety of psychological and educational tests. One school practised a markedly 'traditional' approach to education, the other an equally definite progressive approach.

The present paper considers the incidence of deviant behaviour (subdivided into withdrawn and aggressive) in the two schools, as reported by teachers when the children (N = 231) were aged 11 years; and the relationship of such reported behaviour to measured intelligence at 9 and 11; progress in school subjects over a three-year period; perseverance on a simple cognitive task at 8 and 11; sociometric ratings at 8 and 11; and assessments of behaviour given four years earlier by other teachers.

The reported incidence of 'maladjustment' in the progressive school was significantly lower than in the traditional school. The number of deviant children reported by the progressive school was in fact too small to permit reliable comparisons with the traditional school. Detailed investigation was therefore made of the latter sample only.

The main findings in respect of the children studied were as follows. Measured I.Q. had no association with reported deviance. Results on the perseverance test were equally negative. In terms of academic progress, significant differences were shown between the deviant and normal groups, and between the sexes. All deviant groups were shown in the sociometric rating to be significantly less popular than the normal groups. Finally, teacher ratings of the children at 7 and 11 years showed appreciable agreement, reaching statistical significance.


Abstract : A recoil proton telescope has been designed, built, and tested at the Radiation Laboratory, BRL. This device is capable of absolute fast-neutron flux measurement in the energy range 2-20 MeV to an accuracy of better than 3%. Measurements of the telescope efficiencies at 2.60 and 14.30 MeV agree with several calculations to well within the estimated uncertainties. Thus, absolute flux measurements can be provided for the monitoring of irradiations and cross-section measurements. (Author)


To the Editor.— Recently one of us had occasion to embark on a protein-supplemented fast. While on the way to a noon meeting that promised to be particularly dull, and while suffering moderate hunger, this person purchased a package of 12 mints advertised as being sugar-free. Paying no attention to the label, he proceeded to consume all of the 12 mints during the two-hour meeting. Thirty minutes after the last mint was consumed, he began to experience marked abdominal distention, passed extremely large amounts of flatus, and experienced abdominal cramping. This was followed shortly by the development of profuse, watery diarrhea that persisted for the next 30 minutes and amounted to an estimated 1 to 1.5 L of fluid. Five hours after consuming the mints, the subject ate his evening meal, which consisted of 180 g (6 oz) of steak, and noted persistent vague abdominal distress with considerable flatus. Thirty


We present new determinations of the local submillimetre (submm) luminosity functions, solving the `submm Olbers' paradox'. We also present predictions of source counts and luminosity functions in current and future far-infrared to submm surveys. Using the submm colour temperature relations from the Submillimetre Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) Local Universe Galaxy Survey, and the discovery of 450-mum excess emission in these galaxies, we interpolate and extrapolate the IRAS detections to make predictions of the spectral energy distributions of all 15411 PSCz galaxies from 50 to 1300 mum. Despite the long extrapolations, we find excellent agreement with (i) the 90-mum luminosity function of Serjeant et al., (ii) the 850-mum luminosity function of Dunne et al., (iii) the millimetre-wave photometry of Andreani and Franceschini, and (iv) the asymptotic differential and integral source count predictions at 50-1300 mum by Rowan-Robinson. We find that the local 850-mum submm luminosity density converges to 7.3 +/- 0.2 × 1019h65 W Hz-1 Mpc-3. Remarkably, the local spectral luminosity density and the extragalactic background light together strongly constrain the cosmic star formation history for a wide class of evolutionary assumptions. We find that the extragalactic background light, the 850-mum 8-mJy source counts and the Omega* constraints all independently point to a decline in the comoving star formation rate at z > 1. In order to reconcile this with direct determinations, we suggest that either there is a top-heavy initial mass function at high redshifts, and/or there is stronger evolution in the more luminous far-infrared galaxies than seen in the population as a whole.


The fate of hazardous organic pollutants, such as pesticides, discharged into conventional biological wastewater treatment processes is not well understood. These compounds may be re moved from the wastewater stream by biod?gradation, volatil ization (air stripping), sorption by the biomass, or other processes. Of these processes, sorption would accumulate pollutants in the sludge and create potential environmental hazards associated with ultimate sludge disposal. This biological adsorption process, however, may provide a cost-effective treatment method for biorefractory organic pollutants. Also, because many hazardous compounds are present in discharges to municipal wastewater treatment plants, a better understanding of the fate of these pol lutants is needed. Accumulation of some hazardous pollutants by selected live and dead microorganisms has been investigated by various


A major fluorescent compound (FL-C) was generated in a butylamine–glucose or 3-deoxyglucosone (3DG) reaction system under physiological conditions of 37°C at pH 7.4. FL-C was purified from the butylamine-3DG reaction system and identified as 6,8-dibutyl-3,3a,8,8a-tetrahydro-3a-hydroxy-2-(l,2-dihydroxyethyl)-5-hydroxymethyl-2H-furo[3′,2′:4,5]pyrrolo-[2,3-c]pyridinium. The compound was formed by the loss of five molecules of water from the reaction between 2 molecules of butylamine and 2 molecules of 3DG.


A series-fed beam-scanning array employing a MUlti-Stage Configured microstrip Antenna with Tunable reactance devices (MUSCAT) is proposed. The proposed antenna significantly expands the beam scanning range and achieves high efficiency. This antenna comprises unit element groups, whose elements are placed close to each other and employ tunable reactance devices. Analyses and experiments on the unit element groups show that their multi-stage configuration extends the phase shift range and increases the radiation efficiency, e.g., a 120° phase shift and the radiation efficiency of more than 50% are achieved, when three stages are employed. The radiation pattern of the fabricated MUSCAT array antenna comprising eight unit element groups is measured. A beam scanning range of 27°, which is greater than twice the beam scanning range of a non-multi-stage configuration, is achieved.


Recently senior technological university students are asked whether they are going to choose an internship course or not. What is the key determinant considered by them? Do the incentives provided by the enterprise and school work? The aim of the paper is to propose an internship evaluation model by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, from the technological university students' view in Taiwan. The results indicate that the incentives provided by the enterprise and school do matter. Such an internship evaluation model could serve as a decision-making mechanism for the schools, students and enterprises.


(57) Abstract: describes a method of treating disorders such as DHA levels are affected. The method comprises administering a DHA therapeutically effective amount to a subject suffering from a disorder. This method is a disorder characterized by loss of the CF gene, e.g.,? Cystic fibrosis, or chronic inflammatory disorders, for example, suffering from ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, chronic pancreatitis, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis or chronic gastritis it is particularly useful for the treatment of a subject. Method of increasing surfactant levels in the process as well as fetuses improve the effect of? Cystic fibrosis in newborn also described.


Our purpose in this paper is to determine how the degree of polyphagy of different herbivorous insect species affects their yearly population variability. We assembled data from three studies on herbivorous insects: on British aphids, British moths, and Canadian Macrolepidoptera. Within each data set, we compared estimates of population variability across species, and related these differences to estimates of the degree of polyph- agy. The degree of polyphagy was negatively correlated or uncorrelated with population variability, i.e., highly polyphagous species have a weak tendency to be less variable than host specialists. This result lends some support to MacArthur's (1955) argument that polyphagous species may be less susceptible to fluctuating resource levels. Population variability in monophagous or oligophagous herbivorous insects may, in part, reflect vari- ation in resource levels. However, we have not yet evaluated the possibility that the levels of predation and parasitism suffered may affect variability even more strongly.


An investigation was made of the influence of a light-reflecting polymer cladding (made of a fluoroplastic F-42) on the optical losses in fiber waveguides made of chalcogenide glasses belonging to the As–Se, Ge–As–Se, and Ge–As–S systems. Deposition of a light-reflecting polymer cladding on fibers 300–500μ in diameter increased the optical losses in the wavelength range 2–7μ by 0.2–0.8 dB/m and by more than 2 dB/m in the range 7–12μ.


The robust fault-tolerant control for linear uncertain systems with multi-time delay was discussed;and based on Lyapunov stability and linear matrix inequality,a design method of state feedback and robust fault-tolerant controller was presented for uncertain multi-time delay systems.The closed-loop control system based on this design method can have asymptotical stability against actuator failures and robustness against parameter uncertainties.Both design examples and simulation results verify the feasibility and the effectiveness of this proposed method.


This thesis examines the role of social enterprises in regional development and is based on comparative case studies of two regions in NSW. With a specific focus on 10 social enterprises, including both Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations, 63 interviews were conducted with a wide range of community stakeholders. Utilising a decolonising methodological approach, the study examined the social and financial needs of these organisations, as well as their contributions as regional development actors.


In entity name disambiguation, performance evaluation of any approach is difficult. This is due to the fact that correct or actual results are often not known. Generally for evaluation purpose, three measures namely precision, recall and f-measure are used. They all are external validity indices because they need golden standard data. But in Bibliographic databases like DBLP, Arnetminer, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, etc., gold standard data is not easily available and it is very difficult to obtain this due to the overlapping nature of data. So, there is a need to use some other matrices for evaluation purpose. In this paper, some internal cluster validity index based schemes are proposed for evaluating entity name disambiguation algorithms when applied on bibliographic data without using any gold standard datasets. Two new internal validity indices are also proposed in the current paper for this purpose. Experimental results shown on seven bibliographic datasets reveal that proposed internal cluster validity indices are able to compare the results obtained by different methods without prior/gold standard. Thus the present paper demonstrates a novel way of evaluating any entity matching algorithm for bibliographic datasets without using any prior/gold standard information.


In this paper we introduce a new methodology to determine an optimal coefficient for a positive finite measure of batting average, strike rate, and bowling average of a player in order to get an optimal score of a team under dynamic modeling using a path integral method. We also introduce new run dynamics modeled as a stochastic differential equation in order to incorporate the average weather conditions at the cricket ground, the weather condition on the day of the match including sudden deterioration which leads to a partial or complete stop of the game, total attendance, and home field advantage.


This guide emphasizes materials in Arabic or materials relevant to the Arab world that require explanations. Links to information on special topics


Introducing the design of circuit, the circuit is used as data collection and result display of analog signals, it uses MAX144 to make up of ADC and MAX7219 to make up of controller of LED display, a basic circuit and two correlation subprogram are given in the article.


Type of funding sources: None.

 Surgical and thrombolytic therapy (TT) are used as effective treatment methods to treat obstructive Prosthetic valve thrombosis (PVT). However, TT is usually contraindicated in patients who suffer PVT in the early postoperative period (first three weeks) or those who present with an acute cerebral thromboembolism. Unfractionated heparin (UFH) infusion seems to be one of the appropriate treatment options in such patients.

 In this single-center study, we aimed to investigate the efficacy of UFH therapy in patients with PVT.

 This retrospective, observational, single center study included 136 PVT patients (mean age: 50.3 ± 14.6 years; female: 81, male: 55) who did meet the following criteria: (i) PVT with >10 mm thrombus lenght; (ii) a thrombus with embolic risk despite no thrombolytic indication, accompanied with clinical entities such as gradient increase on the valve, acute coronary syndrome, infective endocarditis, and TIA.The success criteria of the treatment was defined as a 75% reduction in the thrombus burden in the absence of major non-fatal complications. Patients with a 50 75% reduction in the thrombus burden were considered as partially successful. The development of major complications indicated treatment failure.

 The study included 16 (11.8%) aortic, 97 (71.3%) mitral, 19 (14%) aortic and mitral, 4 (2.9%) tricuspid prosthesis, with 27 (19.9%) obstructive and 109 (80.1%) non-obstructive thrombosis. During the follow-up, 66 (48,5%) patients showed a regression > 50% in the thrombus burden without facing death or major non-fatal complications; therefore the UFH therapy was considered successful in these patients. Fifty-six patients had a < 50% reduction in thrombus load despite the UFH treatment. Furthermore, 14 (10.3 %) patients suffered major complications. UFH treatment was assumed unsuccessful in these 70 patients (51.5%). Nature of the thrombus (27.1% vs. 12.1%; p = 0.028), thrombus area (1.1 (in a range of 0.7-1.6) cm2 vs. 0.8 (in a range of 0.6-1.2) cm2; p = 0.005] and the duration of UFH treatment (15.1 ± 6.7 days vs. 11.8 ± 7.2 days; p = 0.005) were significantly higher in the unsuccessful UFH group. The parameters that were found to be significantly different in the univariate analyses between patients with successful and unsuccessful UFH treatment were further evaluated in multivariate regression analysis. As a result, the obstructive nature of the thrombus (RR: 3.088, 95% CI: 1.191-8.006; p = 0.020), increased thrombus area (RR: 2.400, 95% CI: 1.184-4.864; p = 0.015), and increased duration of UFH therapy (RR: 1.073 95% CI: 1.016-1.133; p = 0.012) were identified as independent predictive parameters for a failed UFH therapy.

 In this study, we have demonstrated that UFH treatment may be beneficial in patients with PVT that are unsuitable for surgical and TT. Our findings have revealed that the most significant factor affecting the success of UFH treatment is the thrombus burden. Abstract table 1  Abstract table 2


In this paper, we address the problem of the trade-off between the compact memory representation of graphs and their amount of randomness. We design a representation (abbreviated as DBP representation) which does not use information on the structure of graphs, hence it is generally usable. Based on our theoretical lower bound on graph space representation, we define a compression ratio for a given graph with respect to the DBP representation. Based on experimental results, we derive the empirical relationship between the amount of randomness and the compression ratio.


Azathioprine (AZA) is the preferred immunosuppressant for treating pemphigus vulgaris (PV), with discontinuation mainly attributed to hematological adverse events (AE). Reportedly, nucleoside diphosphate‐linked moiety X‐type motif 15 (NUDT15) polymorphisms have been strongly associated with thiopurine‐induced leukopenia. To investigate hematological AE of low‐dose AZA based on NUDT15 genotypes among patients with PV, a prospective cohort study was conducted in patients with PV, followed‐up for the first 8 weeks after AZA administration. All patients were divided into wild homozygous and heterozygous NUDT15 groups. Both groups initiated AZA at low dose (50 mg/day) and continued with different dose‐escalating approaches. Bone marrow suppression was considered the principal outcome. Overall, 62 patients with PV were enrolled (48 in the wild homozygous NUDT15 group vs. 14 in the heterozygous NUDT15 group). Except for median maintenance doses of AZA, no statistically significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of age, sex, white blood cells, neutrophil count, platelet count, hemoglobin level, median final doses of corticosteroids (mg prednisone equivalent), pemphigus disease area index, and anti‐desmoglein 1/3 autoantibodies. In both groups, patients presented similar hematological AE and treatment responses after administration of different low‐dose AZA treatment strategies. Low‐dose AZA based on NUDT15 genotypes can reduce the risk of early hematological AE among patients with PV.


Citation: Mourad MW, Moubayed SP, Shin E, Mourad Y (2018) Buccal Space Giant Cell Angiofibroma: Case Report and Review of Head and Neck Occurrences. J Otolaryngol Rhinol 4:038. doi. org/10.23937/2572-4193.1510038 Accepted: May 22, 2018: Published: May 24, 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Mourad MW, 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. Journal of Otolaryngology and Rhinology


The study was to generate the IBSQ evaluation guidelines and to describe: (1) the criteria of good evaluation model for the Islamic Boarding School management; (2) the effectiveness of using the evaluation model for the Islamic Boarding School management; and (3) the management of Islamic Boarding School. The method that was used was the research and development (RD (b) meeting the substances of an evaluation model; (c) having reliable level of construct validity; and (d) having high level of reliability; (2) the IBSQ evaluation model had a good level of effectiveness; (3) there had been actual differences in each Islamic boarding school: (a) the management in the Al Falah Islamic Boarding School was still very traditional. It was indicated by manual administration; (b) the management in Assalaam Islamic Boarding School had benefitted the information technology as the tools in performing managerial tasks; and (c) the management in the Al Muayyad Islamic Boarding School used a combination between the manual and the computer-based way. Keyword: evaluation model, management, Islamic boarding school


M ENTAL health workers have participated in the planning of mental health programmes since Salmon's work during World War I and Meyer's work with the mental hygiene movement in the early years of this century.l2 Since World War II, many members of the psychiatric professions have collaborated in programme planning for schools, public health departments, government bureaus, social agencies, and core-city areas.3-9 Many of these endeavours can be classified according to Caplan's scheme as &dquo;programme-centred administrative consultation&dquo;; that is, they have consisted of brief, problem solving endeavours to meet an institutional crisis.10 Others have involved creative programme planning and innovation rather than ad hoc responses to pleas-for-help. The literature regarding such consultations in the cross-cultural context is


2 Abstract: This study adds the body of knowledge that relates Porter's cost leadership strategy and competitor orientation to organizational performance in context of hotel industry in Malaysia. The existing literatures show that there were limited empirical studies, which considers the alignment between cost leadership and competitor orientation and its impact on organizational performance. A total 475 sets of questionnaires distributed to three to five star rating hotel's managers in Malaysia and only 24% of it, which is 114 returned. Of these 114 respondents, only 54 hotels implementing cost leadership and the rest follows differentiation strategy. For this paper, the researcher focused on those 54 hotels which implementing cost leadership strategy. The findings show that cost leadership strategy has significant effect on organizational performance and competitor orientation. In addition, competitor orientation has positive impact on performance. Present study found that competitor orientation mediates the nexus of cost leadership and organizational performance. This study is bridging the gap and presenting the significance of aligning cost leadership and competitor orientation in hotel industry. It also provides some practical implications for the decision making process that relates with alignment of cost leadership, competitor orientation and organizational performance nexus.


As an important influence factor of unban climate, unban water bodies take positive effect on the microclimate of surrounding area in summer. This paper firstly evaluated performances of five different models comparing with experimental results of windtunnel to find out which is most suitable for thermal prediction of micro-climate. Then, SKE model was selected to simulate four planning cases considering solar radiation and humidity transportation to predict wind and thermal-humidity environment. The results mainly discussed thermalhumidity distribution in full scale, finding the relevance between building distribution and moisure difussion on micro-climate around water body. INTRODUCTION The urban air temperatures of most large cities have increased gradually during the summer in recent years. It is understandable that the concern regarding on the methods of improving quality of urban thermal environment has increased dramatically, especially interested in natural underlying surface such as water body. Many studies have conducted on the interactions between water body and atmosphere. For instance, Badtinath et al. (2004) studied the effects of small water bodies on transportation of heat and water vapor between the water and atmosphere. However, most studies were limited to the viewpoint that atmospheric conditions was an important factor that influence thermal properties within rivers, they were not directly interested in the impact of river on surrounding climate. In recent years, due to various considerations of unban thermal environment, complex types of underlying surface and largescale urban construction, the numerical simulation methods take advantage of its flow analysis on optimal design comparing to other solutions(Akashi et al. 2008). Many reasearchers in china have used CFD to predict thermal envrionment by different purposes (Zhao et al. 2002), (Chen et al. 2007), however, few were involved in the relationships among water bodies, building distribution of waterfront and unban thermal climate. Fewer experiments, field and numerical studies have performed for this thermal effect because of many difficulties. Ken-ichi NARITA (1992) has conducted windtunnel experiment to model the thermal effect of water body on airflow around buildings. Hathway et al. (2012) took small area of urban river as object to investigate the "cooling power" on thermal climate and the results showed power of the cooling was related with wind speed, river's temperature and solar radiation. Besides, Ashie et al. (2006) used CFD to research the phenomenon of temperature increase in downwind area, finding the architectural layout was an important factor on reducing urban heat island. This paper firstly evaluated the performance of velocity and thermal-humidity distribution by five different modeling approaches comparing with the results of windtunnel tests. Then, the SKE model was selected to predict thermal-humidity environment considering solar radiation and humidity transportation. The purpose of this study is to investigate important influence factors on moisure difusion in micro-climate around water body. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF VARIOUS TURBULENCE MODELS Wind tunnel model The main purpose of this research is to discuss regularities of thermal envrioment distribution with differernt distric layouts. In order to get more accurate result of heat and moisture diffusion, firstly several turbulence models were discussed based on windtunnel test (Ken-ichi NARITA. 1992) to meet the simulation accuracy. The outline of the windtunnel workstation is shown as Figure 1. The size of cubic block was 0.03 metre. Building coverage rate was about 56%; the water body model for width was 0.2 m, 2 m long. Consider the embankment effect, the height between water and ground was about 0.005 m. the wind direction, water body and the relative position of the buildings were shown in Figure 2. The measuring points'   height from the ground was 0.01 m, 1.75 m away from starting reference point, which were illustrated as samplingsamplingsampling area in Figure 1. The reference point was shown in Figure 1 at the beginning of water channel. Wind speed was exponential distribution with index coefficient of 0.25. Building boundary layer thickness was about Proceedings of BS2013: 13th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association, Chambéry, France, August 26-28


Who developed these guidelines? The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is a group of health experts that reviews published research and makes recommendations about preventive health care. What is the problem and what is known about it so far? When diabetes, or abnormally high blood sugar, occurs during pregnancy, it is called gestational diabetes. Women with gestational diabetes are at risk for complications, such as very large babies, difficult labor and delivery, and stillbirth. Being overweight, being older than 25 years of age, or having family members with diabetes increases a woman's risk for gestational diabetes. The treatment of gestational diabetes includes special diet and possibly insulin injections. If a pregnant woman developed diabetes symptoms (increased thirst, frequent urination), she should be checked for gestational diabetes. But many women with gestational diabetes have no symptoms, so some doctors do tests to check for it around the 24th week of pregnancy, even if a woman has no symptoms. Testing people without symptoms is called screening. The USPSTF wanted to find out whether pregnancy outcomes are better for women who are screened for gestational diabetes than for women who are not screened. How did the USPSTF develop these recommendations? The authors reviewed published research to measure the benefits and harms of screening pregnant women for gestational diabetes. What did the authors find? The USPSTF found that there was not enough information to know whether there are any benefits to screening for gestational diabetes during pregnancy. Treatment of gestational diabetes does reduce a woman's risk for having a very large baby, but there is not enough information to know whether there are other health benefits. The USPSTF found information showing that screening can cause anxiety, but did not find that it causes long-term psychological problems. It also found that most positive screening results are false positive. False positive means that, on further testing, the person did not actually have gestational diabetes, so screening may cause unnecessary inconvenience, anxiety, testing, and treatment. What does the USPSTF suggest that patients and doctors do? The USPSTF recommends that the choice to screen should depend on how a woman and her doctor weigh the potential benefits (fewer very large babies and uncertain other benefits) and harms (anxiety, false-positive results). Pregnant women should eat a healthy diet and exercise so they do not gain more weight than their doctors recommend. What are the cautions related to these recommendations? Recommendations may change as new studies become available.


Nowadays,Qualitative research method has become the mainstream of comparative education research in the world.In China,literature method occupies great dominance in comparative education research,but which has a certain limitation in methodology.Applying the qualitative research method will show some new characteris- tics in this field.


............................................................................................................................ ii Résumé. ............................................................................................................................. iii Statement of contributions of collaborators .......................................................................... v Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ vii Table of contents .............................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ......................................................................................................................xii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. .xiii Nomenclature .................................................................................................................... xv Chapter


The influence of solvents, in particular benzyl alcohol, on the normal processes of wool dyeing and printing is reviewed in detail. The significance of the effect and the methods of utilising it are discussed. Consideration is given to the practical and commercial aspects of solvent-assisted techniques for dyeing and printing wool.


Psychological contracts are the beliefs an individual holds concerning terms of an agreement—which are implicit in nature—between the individual and the organization (Rousseau, 2000). The current study examined the effects of violation of the psychological contract on employee outcomes, and specifically how this effect may differ depending on the employee's organizational commitment profile, level of trust, and type of psychological contract. Violation of the psychological contract has been linked to negative workplace behaviours (Sturges, Conway, Guest & Liefooghe, 2005); however, limited research has investigated the role of moderators. Results indicated that trust and transactional contract type moderate the relationship between contract violation and employee outcomes and relational contract type moderates the relationship between contract fulfillment and employee outcomes. Further results indicated that the existence of moderators is dependent on the type of employee outcomes examined. Implications of these finding for employers and employees in the workplace are discussed.


The dissertation presents a design procedure for HMA mixes based on probabilistic and volumetric approaches, hereafter referred to as PAVDAM. Central to PAVDAM is the use of an analytical model for estimating the voids in the mineral aggregate (VMA) of asphalt mixes. Validation of the mix design procedure was done through accelerated pavement testing (APT) with the Model Mobile Load Simulator (MMLS3) at the National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) test track in Opelika, Alabama. In addition, the semi-circular bending (SCB) test was evaluated to serve as an analysis tool to augment the proposed mix design procedure. Non-linear finite element analyses using a quasi-isotropic material model were done using the CAPA-3D finite element system developed at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands to better characterise the tensile strength properties of specimens tested with the SCB. PAVDAM is partly based on performance related and analytical procedures such as the Stategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) Superpave and the Belgium Road Research Centre (BRRC) design method. The mix design system was developed based on gyratory compaction procedures. In this regard, the criteria relating gyratory compaction to design traffic as specified in Superpave are used. PAVDAM differs from other mix design methods in that a probabilistic approach is used to account for the variabilities associated with mixture components and properties during the manufacturing stage. It serves as a subset of the volumetric optimisation stage of the mix design process. The development of an analytical model to estimate the VMA of an asphalt mix was the central theme of the dissertation. The analytical model developed is based on modified Aim and Toufar (MAT) packing models developed under SHRP research and used in the concrete industry. The MAT packing models are based on the theory iii Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za


The invasive chestnut gall wasp Dryocosmus kuriphilus Yasumatsu (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) is a major pest species of Castanea spp. worldwide. It only arrived in Britain in 2015 and the parasitoid community associated with it was studied in 2019. Eight native species of
 chalcidoid, previously known to be associated with oak gall wasps, were identified. These results are compared to a similar study (2016–2019) in France where four parasitoids were reared. However, this community included the deliberately introduced Torymus sinensis Kamijo, a specific
 biological control agent of D. kuriphilus. The presence of T. sinensis and the differences between the two communities is discussed.