To determine the influence of chronic ethanol intake on the central nervous system, we studied 40 asymptomatic, well‐nourished, chronic alcoholics (mean age, 42.6 ± 9.1 years) and 20 age‐, sex‐, and education‐matched control subjects. Studies included neuropsychological testing, visual and short‐latency auditory evoked potentials, and morphometric analysis of computed tomography scans. The mean daily ethanol consumption of the alcoholics was 204 gm over an average of 26.4 years. Compared to control subjects, chronic alcoholics exhibited a significant prolongation of the P100 latency of visual evoked potentials, and a prolongation and reduction in the amplitude of the latency of the V wave of short‐latency auditory evoked potentials. These abnormalities were related to the lifetime dose of ethanol consumed. Brain morphometric analysis showed that alcoholics had a significantly greater degree of brain shrikage with age, compared to control subjects. The cortical atrophy index correlated significantly with the lifetime ethanol consumption. Neuropsychological testing in alcoholics compared to controls revealed a significant impairment of frontal skills that was related to age, degree of scholarship, and the presence of frontal atrophy. In conclusion, well‐nourished chronic alcoholics exhibited a significant brain impairment, as demonstrated by neuropsychological testing, evoked potentials, and brain morphometric analysis, which was correlated with the lifetime dose of ethanol consumed.


A database log is the primary resource for damage assessment and recovery after an electronic attack. The log is a sequential file stored in the secondary storage and it can grow to humongous proportions in course of time. To make the process of damage assessment and recovery more efficient, segmenting the log based on different criteria has been proposed before. But the trade off is that, either segmenting the log involves a lot of computation or damage assessment is a complicated process. In this research we propose to strike a balance through hybrid log segmentation. Our method will reduce the time taken to perform damage assessment while still segmenting the log fast enough so that no intricate computation is necessary. We build our model from a log that was previously segmented based on number of transactions, a time window for transactions to commit or space occupied by committed transactions. While performing damage assessment, we re-segment the log based on transaction dependency. Thus during repeated damage assessment procedures, we create new segments with dependent transactions in them so that the process of damage assessment becomes faster when there are repeated attacks on the system. We have discussed various cases that are applicable and also presented algorithms for each of the cases discussed.


Our work reveals that TiNb2O7 (TNO) powder-based photoanodes demonstrate remarkable water oxidation properties - composed of nearly ideal charge transfer and charge injection efficiencies. Furthermore, our simplified photoanode construction and careful survey of structural and morphological characteristics, using oriented and polycrystalline thin films and powder-based samples, indicate that TNO water splitting kinetics is negligibly effected by surface morphology; rather, internal grain boundaries likely play a driving role. Our TNO powder-based photoanodes exhibit ideal water oxidation kinetics and oxidize water at minimal applied biases while under illumination; consequently, it exhibits an early onset photocurrent voltage (0.4V vs RHE) which rivals that of other state-of-the-art photoanode materials.


Applied information technology (IT) is credited with ushering in a new era - the information era - delivered by specialized information technology labour. In spite of industry reports of information technology labour market shortages over the past 15 years, some Canadian government reports give no evidence of an IT labour shortage now or in the near future. This paper examines these conflicting reports by discussing them in the context of labour economic theory. The results support the notion of a national IT labour shortage relative to the general Canadian labour market and they highlight deficiencies in IT labour market information. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.


Many applications using Virtual Reality (VR) require free hand navigation control. This forbids the use of devices such as Joystick, 3D mouse, ... That is generally because hand-based gesture interaction must be dedicated to specific tasks: sculpting or grasping the objects, which compose a virtual scene. With this aim, we present a polyvalent display approach, which allows the system to determine the desired focus and the moving intention of the user for virtual navigations. After we point out the limits of the classical solutions used to control virtual navigations, we describe the conceptual and mathematical implementation of our approach. Some of our considerations depend on physiological and ergonomic constraints. We conclude on the first applications of our fully head tracking navigation controller.


Phosphorus‐31 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra were determined from intact erythrocytes of a patient with homozygous β‐thalassemia and from three patients with pyruvate kinase (PK) deficiency.


To determine the gross structural alterations of the nailed bone (femur or tibia) after the removal of an intramedullary nail (IMN). Eighteen patients (14 femoral and 4 tibia nail) underwent an IMN removal from their femur or tibia. Every patient had a spiral computed tomography scan and a plain X-ray study, immediately after the nail removal and also at their latest follow-up (24–30 months). The 4 patients with a tibia nail were additionally examined using a peripheral quantitative computed tomography study at their latest follow-up. All patients were asymptomatic. An intramedullary shell of compact bone was demonstrated around the nail track. This new bone was apparent on plain radiographs in all of the patients. Peripheral quantitative computed tomography study revealed that the density of the bony ring was similar to that of subcortical bone. The histologic examination of the intra-medullary shell of one of our patients suggested that the bony ring was made of cortical bone. Intramedullary nailing may enhance new cortical bone formation within the bone marrow cavity. This "cortical bone" still exists more than 2 years after implant removal. Nail insertion also causes thickening of the normal cortex at the sites of nail–cortex contact where loads are transferred from the nail to the cortex. This new finding could probably lead the research of intramedullary nailing biomechanics toward new directions as to understand the body's reaction to IMNs.


We propose to establish "#data-showcase" system to display the various geophysical data in one frame. Data-showcase is a system not to provide data but to show various types of the geophysical data in intuitable way. The newly developed Dagik, Daily geospace data in kml, is the first data-showcase system for the geospace data. It contains several types of data by ground-based and satellite measurements in addition to numerical models. We expect Dagik would make the combination and comparison of the geospace data easier, and foster new inter-disciplinary scientific researches.


To directly image and characterize exoplanets, starlight suppression systems rely on coronagraphs to optically remove starlight while preserving planet light for spectroscopy. The Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization Complex Mask Coronagraph (PIAACMC) is an attractive coronagraph option for the next generation of large space telescopes optimized for habitable exoplanet imaging: PIAACMC offers high throughput, small inner working angle (IWA) with little loss in image quality. PIAACMC is also compatible with segmented apertures, with little loss in performance compared to a full pupil. Coronagraph compatibility with segmented aperture is essential for the success of habitable planet characterization with future large apertures, such as the Large UV / Optical/ Infrared (LUVOIR) and HabEx telescope mission concepts currently under way to inform the 2020 decadal survey.


Under Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) current friction testing program, friction is measured annually on interstates but only once every three years on non-interstate roadways. The state's Pavement Management System, however, would require current data if friction were to be included in the PMS. During routine pavement condition monitoring for the PMS, texture data is collected annually. This study explored the feasibility of using this pavement texture data to estimate the friction during those years when friction is not measured directly. After multiple approaches and a wide variety of ways of examining the currently available data and texture measuring technologies, it was determined that it is not currently feasible to use the texture data as a surrogate for friction testing. This is likely because the lasers used at this time are not capable of capturing the small-scale pavement microtexture. This situation may change, however, with advances in laser or photo interpretation technologies and improved access to materials data throughout the INDOT pavement network.


Home Energy Management (HEM) is a vital component of smart grid, which can be considered as a distributed cyber physical system. HEM involves appropriate management of home appliance usage through deliberate efforts from the end-user. This can enable a stable operation of the grid as well as reduce energy usage and bills for the end-user. The installation of smart meter has led to a number of analytics and applications developed on top of its data. However, the algorithms are evaluated over a very small subset of experimental or open dataset. To mitigate this problem, a bottom-up data generation approach is proposed in this paper. The appliances are considered as combination of fundamental electrical components. The appliance characteristics and operations are modeled through stochastic parameters, which are available as prior information or through learning from existing meter data. Preliminary results of generating data for the application of Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring is presented.


We read with interest the article of Margot (2015) about our paper published 10 years ago (Roman, Soriano, Fuentes, Galvez, & Fernandez, 2004), and we wish to comment on some points.

First, our study arose simply from a perception among nurses and physicians at our Gastrointestinal Bleeding Unit that the number of admissions was higher on days with a full moon. When we designed the study in 1995, we found only one article, a paper by Perez-Cuadrado, Montero, and Bello (1986), addressing the issue and describing a higher number of admissions because of gastrointestinal bleeding in full moon. The aim of our study was therefore very simple: to determine whether the number of admissions to our bleeding unit was higher on full moon days than on non-full moon days. From the 738 days of the period studied (25 lunar cycles), there were 25 full moon days and 713 non-full moon days. We found the mean number of admissions on full moon days (M = 1.04, SD = 0.93) was higher than the mean on non-full moon days (M = 0.59, SD = 0.78, p = .007, using Mann–Whitney test). Margot states "Roman et al. suggested that the number of hospital admissions related to gastrointestinal bleeding was somehow influenced by the phases of the Earth's moon." This is not exact. Our conclusion in the abstract reads as follows: "The results of this study suggest an increase in the number of admissions related to gastrointestinal hemorrhage in our bleeding unit during the full moon, especially in men and in patients experiencing variceal hemorrhage. However, the wide variation in the number of admissions throughout the lunar cycle could limit interpretation of the results. Therefore, further studies are needed to clarify the possible influence of the moon on gastrointestinal hemorrhage."

Second, Margot considers the number of days included in the study is not clear and criticizes our "assignment of hospital admissions to one of the 29 days" of the lunar cycle. We will try to clarify these aspects. The study period included 25 complete lunar cycles (a total of 738 days). Full moon days were the days so-named on the local lunar calendar, and non-full moon days were the remaining days. Therefore, there was a total of 25 full moon days (considered day number 29 of the lunar cycle in our study), and the remaining 713 days were non-full moon days. As Margot states, the lunar cycle has a variable duration with a mean of 29.53 days and some cycles of 30 instead of 29 days. During the study period, 13 cycles had 30 days, and these 13 "extra" days explain the difference between the 25 cycles × 29 days = 725 days and the 738 days finally included in the study. There were no admissions on these 13 "extra" non-full moon days. Moreover, in no case were the admissions of two consecutive days assigned to one full-moon day, as Margot suggests. We omitted day 30 in the figure, showing the cumulative total number of admissions per day of the lunar cycle to avoid confusion, because there were only 13 Day 30s, compared to 25 days in each of the remaining days, 1 to 29. This design was chosen to express the results in a way as close as possible to clinical practice, but we acknowledge that it could make analysis of the data difficult if someone wanted to compare each day of the lunar cycle. We emphasize, however, that our aim was not to do this but to compare number of admissions on full moon days with all the non-full moon days, and we consider that this analysis was performed reliably. We disagree about the long series of shortcomings that Margot suggests and consider our data were correctly managed for the purpose of the article.

The third issue refers to our statistical analysis. We used the nonparametric Mann–Whitney test instead of Student's t test because of the nonnormal distribution of the data as evaluated by the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. Margot states the use of Mann–Whitney test was incorrect, because the dependent variable (number of admissions per day) was not continuous or ordinal. Indeed, it was not continuous, but it was ordinal. Moreover, rank ordering was performed automatically by the SPSS program, and the mean rank was 470.04 in full moon days and 365.95 in non-full moon days. These data were not provided in our article because they are not usually specified in clinical research and are not easy to understand. We consider Margot's statement that "when the probability distributions of the two groups are not identical, the Mann–Whitney test cannot be used" is too restrictive and not shared by other authors (Conover, 1980). Moreover, Levene's test did not detect significant differences in the variances of the number of admissions between the full moon and non-full moon days. We also conducted other statistical evaluations, such as the Student's t test, regression analyses, and the median test, and the differences between the two groups were also statistically significant in all of them. Margot's analysis using a Poisson process can be an interesting method to explore variability in the number of admissions along the lunar cycle, but we emphasize again that this was not the objective of our study.

Fourth, Margot states that the day of the week is a confounding factor not accounted for in our study that could explain the differences observed between full moon days and non-full moon days. As commented by Margot, in studies analyzing traffic accidents, "what the authors had initially observed and incorrectly ascribed to a lunar influence was merely day-of-week variability." However, we consider that, if an increase in traffic accidents during the weekends could have been expected, there is no apparent reason to explain a possible relationship between the day of the week and the number of admissions because of an event such as gastrointestinal bleeding. Moreover, we have reanalyzed our data, and we did not find significant differences in the number of admissions between the different days of the week.

Fifth, Margot argues against our speculation concerning the possible effect of the full moon on splanchnic hemodynamics. We wish to emphasize that this was only speculation and was presented as such in the Discussion. Margot also writes that the absence of an increase in hospital admissions at new moon further invalidates this interpretation. However, we ourselves made the same comment in our article. We underscore the descriptive nature of our study. We did not state that a higher number of admissions on the days with a full moon was a consequence of a moon effect. Furthermore, this higher number of admissions does not mean that patients bled more frequently on full moon days, as the time between the first symptom of bleeding and the hospital admission is highly variable, as reported in other articles from our bleeding unit (Villanueva et al., 2006) and from other groups (Ingrand et al., 2006). Moreover, we did not pretend at any time to determine the mechanisms by which the moon could have affected the number of admissions for gastrointestinal bleeding.

Sixth, the author points out the need for "reproducibility and predictability" of studies evaluating the lunar effects. We, of course, agree on this point, but we have only found two other studies evaluating the possible relationship between full moon and gastrointestinal bleeding, and their findings were contradictory (Perez-Cuadrado et al., 1986; Tahri, Amouri, Fekih, El-Euch, & Krichen, 2003). Margot reviews a high number of studies demonstrating the absence of a correlation with lunar phases in a different setting, in relation to birth rates. However, although it seems clear that deliveries show no relationship with lunar phases, this does not necessarily mean that the full moon does not have any relationship with any other physiological or pathological situations, such as gastrointestinal bleeding.

Finally, we agree with Margot regarding the value of interdisciplinary approaches, to investigate not only possible effects of the lunar cycle but also in any area of research in health sciences. However, if our objective is to contribute to improvements in the healthcare of our patients, it is essential that the clinical environment in which a hypothesis is set and the exact question that clinical researchers pretend to answer are carefully taken into account.


E-learning has arisen as a promising solution to lifelong learning and job training. It changed the way people learn and gain knowledge. Moreover, it has been embedded in many information systems as user guides to help and support them in their workplaces. Yet, these guides have been designed in a "one-size-fits-all" fashion that serves generic learners irrespective of their individual contexts. The developers of Scientific Data Management Systems (SDMSs) provide all scientists with a textual guide regardless of their contexts such as learning styles and expertise levels. In this paper, we propose a proactive context-aware approach for recommending personalized scientific data management e-learning objects. The proposed approach improves the learning process of the scientific data management depending on the scientist profile and his or her environmental context. The proposed approach includes two phases. First, the approach semantically detects the scientist's context. Secondly, a hybrid recommendation technique is introduced to provide the scientist with an adapted list of learning objects. To create a generic approach, the web service-based methodology is exploited to facilitate the integration with any SDMS.


We show in this methodological article how formative joint displays can be used to integrate multiple data facets. Joint displays in the published literature are intended to be polished research products that illustrate the connections between quantitative and qualitative inferences. However, we contend using joint displays formatively during analysis can yield more comprehensive metainferences. Accordingly, we introduce a process called joint display coding to formalize the process toward these metainferences. Our approach draws upon the "text-in-context" coding approach and intersects it with a crossover analysis. We showcase an example of joint display coding using a descriptive study of U.S. institutional webpages in higher education. Integrated themes were developed by blending the structural and textual facets of webpage data.


A novel benchmark, WSBen, for testing Web services discovery and composition is presented. WSBen includes: (1) a collection of synthetic Web services (WSDL) files with diverse characteristics and sizes; (2) test discovery and composition queries and solutions; and (3) external files for statistical analysis and AI planners. Users can fine-tune the generated WSDL files using various parameters such as skewness or matching type. It is our hope that WSBen provides useful insights for researchers evaluating the performance of Web services discovery and composition algorithms and software


ABSTRACT Recent works on the categorisation of ancient Judaism have begun to call into question the division between Judaism and Hellenism, often reified as two distinct cultural spheres, even as scholars seek to explain texts and artefacts which show elements traditionally ascribed either to Judaism or Hellenism. These theoretical formulations have made some impact in the discussion of ancient Jewish texts but have so far failed to be fully appreciated in archaeological and architectural scholarship. This article will present the Magdala bathhouse (Galilee) as an example which forces us to re-evaluate the construction of Judaism and Hellenism. It proposes that we should view Judaism as an integral part of Hellenism, and any cultural output of ancient Judaism should be interpreted as a full participant in any definition of Hellenism.


This paper reviews the theoretical analysis of light propagation we have carried out on multimode multi‐step index (MSI) optical fibres. Starting from the Eikonal equation, we derive the analytical expressions that allow calculating the ray trajectories inside these fibres. We also analyse the effects of leaky rays on the transmission properties of MSI fibres. For this purpose, a single analytical expression for the evaluation of the ray power transmission coefficient is calculated. Afterwards, we investigate the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic coupling losses on the performance of MSI fibres, providing analytical expressions to calculate the coupling loss and, also, determining the most critical parameters. Finally, we carry out a comprehensive numerical analysis of the fibre bandwidth under different source configurations.


The used of agroindustrial wastewaters are not maximum yet in Lampung Province, althought it can be used as an acid solvent because of its acidic properties. This study was aimed to explore the most potential agroindustrial wastewaters in dissolving phosphate rock through acidulation in the laboratory scale. The experiment was arranged in a factorial. The first factor was origined of phosphate rock (Sukabumi, west Java and Selagailingga, central Lampung) and the second factor was solvent types (agroindustrial wastewaters which were pineapple, tapioca, tofu industry, and palm oil as well as conventional acid solvents which were HCl, H 2 SO 4 , and CH 3 COOH). The incubation processes were 0, 1, 2, and 3 months. The results showed that agroindustrial wastewaters that have the highest potency to solubize phosphate rock was industrial tofu wastewaters and followed by industrial wastewaters of tapioca, palm oil, and pineapple. Both the conventional acid and agroindustrial wastewaters solvent had a big potency to solubilize phosphate rock, however, its highest soluble P-value did not match with the ISO criteria for phosphate fertilizers Quality I (SNI) because it did not reach the solubility of 80% of its total P 2 O 5 , but it has been qualified as a fertilizer both the quality phosphate A, B, and C (SNI).


This research aims to obtain a new way based on the directional long borehole layout to investigate the gas migration behavior of coal bed methane. In view of the study of the oil-type gas reservoir and the influence range of mining on the working face in the surrounding rock, the paper puts forward the optimization method of the directional long borehole layout of the surrounding rock and the method of the borehole layout with comprehensive consideration of the influence of mining on the failure of the roof and floor and the distribution of surrounding rock gas-bearing reservoirs. The test results showed that the layout horizon of the directional long boreholes is determined, and the layout was within the height range of 20–40 meters, clarified the relationship between the drainage data and the exposure level of the borehole and the layout of the borehole, compared the gas concentration in the upper corner of the working face before and after the drainage, and constructed a three-dimensional comprehensive drainage mode for the high-gassy working face, which provided a worth-promoting method that supports surrounding rock oil-type gas and gas treatment in the high-gas mining area.


In situ and real-time observation of 2-dimensional grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (2D-GIXD) during growth of pentacene thin films were carried out using a newly home-built portable vacuum deposition chamber using synchrotron radiation at SPring-8. Crystal growth and successive polymorphic transformation from thin film phase to bulk phase are clearly observed at room temperature and 75°C. A distinct orientation of bulk phase characterized by tilted (001) plane is found in the grown thin films at room temperature.


As the first step of application of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to agriculture, an expert system was constructed. This system makes diagnoses of disease and insect damage of satsuma mandarin and also suggests control methods for better growth. The system was constructed on 'NEC PC-9801' personal computer, using 'Sogen' which is a Japanese expert shell. Knowledge on disease and insect damage was rearranged and expressed in production rules, composing knowledge base.The expert system works well and makes correct diagnoses. In the future, such applications of AI would be more important in agriculture.


With Oceaneering looking to corner the drill support market by swallowing both Subsea 7's and Stolt Offshore's drill rig ROV fleets back-to-back, mid-size sector players such as Aberdeen's Rovtech are working hard to prove that there is still a place for smaller fish in the big offshore pond. Darius Snieckus caught up with Rovtech managing director Andrew Beveridge.


Background: Increasing beds for COVID-19 patients is not a simple matter for hospitals because hospitals cannot directly increase the number of existing beds due to limited facilities, infrastructure, equipment, and resources. Careful calculations are needed in terms of preparing the room and treating COVID patients, especially the estimated costs needed to treat COVID patients in the hospital. This expenditure is important so that it can be an illustration of the hospital how much expenditure is needed. This study aimed to determine the number of costs incurred for treating COVID19 patients in hospitals and the factors that influence these costs. Methods: This study was conducted by systematic literature review using the PRISMA statement conducted May-June 2021. An article search was conducted on Pubmed, Scopus, Proquest, and Google Scholar with the inclusion criteria, namely research related to the cost of treating COVID-19 patients in hospitals and the factors that influence the amount of these costs. Results: A systematic search obtained six articles. Studies vary greatly in study design and perspective included in the cost category. Estimated costs for COVID-19 care range from $63/day to $2,990/day. Factors that affect the cost of care include age, previous medical history, degree of infection or severity of COVID-19, length of stay, place of care, and need for a ventilator. Conclusion: There is a considerable economic burden associated with the incident of COVID-19. Several factors affect the cost of COVID-19, namely the length of the treatment period and the need for intensive rooms and ventilators.


Purpose: Youth living in the urban slums in Uganda have many unmet needs. The purpose of the current study is to briefly examine the associations between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and alcohol use patterns, an understudied area among urban vulnerable youth, in order to provide guidance and insight for service provision for youth. Methods: The current data analysis is based on a cross-sectional survey conducted in June 2011 which consisted of a convenience sample of youth living in the slums (ages 14-24) attending a drop-in center, Uganda Youth Development Link (UYDEL). Descriptive statistics were computed. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to determine psychosocial correlates with being an orphan. Results: Factors associated with alcohol use varied by sex (p<.05) (alcohol use was more common among girls), age (p<.000), (alcohol use more common among youth 18 years of age and older) and alcohol use were also more common among youth who reported the following ACEs; parents hitting each other (p<.000) , parental use of alcohol (p<.000), being hungry (p<.000), having ever lived on the street (p<.000) and having been raped (p<.000). Conclusions: The prevalence of ACEs were high in this study population which is a great concern. Moreover ACEs were associated with earlier age of alcohol use initiation, frequent and heavy drinking underscoring the need for additional support for past childhood trauma as well as alcohol prevention efforts for these vulnerable youth.


This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levesl of dietary soybean oil and acidulated sunflower oil soapstock on performance, egg quality and fatty acid profile of egg yolk in laying hens, . A total of 75, 44-week-old Hy-Line W36 laying hens were distributed into five treatments according to a completely randomized experimental design, consisting of soybean oil, acidulated sunflower oil soapstock (ASS) dietary inclusion levels (25, 50, 75 and 100 %), with five replicates of three birds each. The experiment was lasted in 84 days. Dietary treatments had no significant effect on body weight change, egg production, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg weight and egg mass. The dietary inclusion of ASS i had no significant effect on egg specific gravity, egg shell breaking strength, egg shell weight and egg shell thickness, egg shape index, albumen index, yolk index, albumen pH, yolk pH but haugh unit L, a, b color value. . The inclusion of different levels of soybean oil and ASS in the diet of laying hens had no significant effect on palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acid contents of egg yolk. It is concluded that the soybean oil can be replaced by ASS without any adverse effect on performance and egg quality in laying hen diets.


Reported topics include: a model to compute CFC-114 inventory in the cooling systems at the GDP`s, an analysis of Paducah recycle cooler performance test data operating with C{sub 4}F{sub 10}, estimation of Portsmouth in-process test cell coolant system performance, cascade equipment reliability, separation measurements in the single stage separation system, SOLGAS user`s manual, conversion of waste gases, recycling of HF, replacement coolants containing iodine, various aspects of UF{sub 6} coolant mixtures.


This paper discusses the use of lattice rules to evaluate low and medium dimensional integrals. Lattice rules are based on the use of deterministic sequences rather than random sequences. They are a special type of so-called low discrepancy sequences. We find that as long as the integral is sufficiently regular, lattice rules generally outperform not only basic Monte Carlo but also other types of low discrepancy sequences. We implement a specific lattice rule known as good lattice points and apply this approach to two problems of practical interest. The first application is to the valuation of the certain types of financial options known as lookback options. The second application is to the valuation of the embedded option in certain equity-indexed annuities. In the case of these examples we show that the good lattice points are dramatically more efficient than competing methods. Acknowledgments: Phelim P. Boyle thanks the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for research support. Yongzeng Lai acknowledges the Post-doctorate support from NSERC and Royal Bank. Ken Seng Tan acknowledges research support from the NSERC. Phelim P. Boyle and Ken Seng Tan are also grateful to the Committee for Knowledge Extension and Research of the Society of Actuaries for financial support.


Grandmother's Grandchild: My Crow Indian Life. Alma Hogan Snell and Becky Matthews. eds.; foreword by Peter Nabokov. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. 213 pp.


By using small doses and very low dose rates, it is shown that in the γ-irradiation of water ~ 8 × 10−5M nitrous oxide completely scavenges eaq− in the absence of other additives and gives a yield G(eaq−) = 2.45 ± 0.1. When used at concentrations of ~ 15 mM, N2O scavenges a second species having a yield G = 0.65 ± 0.1, which can probably be attributed to a hydrated hydrogen atom species resulting from the reaction of eaq– with H3O+ within the spur. Previous studies on the competition between N2O and Haq+ for eaq− have been conducted at concentrations of N2O much too high for simple competition to be valid, which probably accounts for the erratic results obtained. This paper reports on the competition studied at ~ 10−4 M. The results cannot be interpreted either in terms of a simple competition or by one, or both, of the immediate products reacting with either of the additives. The data can only be rationalized by assuming that in acid solution N2O is converted to a species, tentatively suggested to be H2N...


Objective: To explore the knowledge of abortion medications and abortion service provision practices among pharmacy workers in a restrictive country in Southeast Asia. Methods: Between June and July 2012, 170 pharmacy workers operating in the capital city were interviewed about their misoprostol and abortion knowledge and provision practices. To investigate actual provision practices, 193 pharmacies were subsequently visited by fieldworkers posing as abortion clients. After each visit, the 'mystery clients' used a standard form to record the information and services they were offered. Results: During interviews, 87.1% of pharmacy workers reported that they receive clients requesting abortion medications. One third (32.5%) of pharmacy workers had heard of misoprostol and 93.9% of these knew it was indicated for abortion. Only 1.8% of pharmacy workers reported that they offer abortion medications, however 49.2% offered medications to mystery clients. Just 9.3% offered misoprostol but none offered the WHO's recommended regimen. Conclusion: Pharmacy workers in a restrictive capital city in Southeast Asia are providing medical abortion ineffectively and large differences exist between their reported and actual abortion provision practices. Interventions to increase pharmacy worker knowledge of misoprostol use for abortion could be an effective way to improve access to safer termination options.


This pilot study sought to determine whether or not inversion perception conformity is enhanced by Antarctic isolation. The inversion perception stimuli consisted of 12 figure pairs. The task was to indicate one figure of each pair as appearing upside down. Subjects (N = 10) exposed to long-term Antarctic winter-over isolation demonstrated significantly greater focal point dependency than comparable control subjects (N = 10). Subjects (N = 7) exposed to short-term summer Antarctic isolation showed a tendency toward greater focal point dependency immediately following isolation and at later follow-up testing. Implications of this important adaptation to Antarctic living are discussed.


Dear Editor: At Delft University we have been working on timetable instruction in a project similar to that described in the Research timetable problem asks for the combination of teachers, subjects , classes, rooms and hours to meet the primary requirements of the curriculum. The difficulty of the problem is increased considerably by secondary conditions of various nature, mainly concerning the distribution and succession of hours for individual teachers and classes, and the assignment of rooms with special facilities. If taken absolutely, these conditions may restrict the possibility of a solution in such a way that it becomes necessary to ask for their relative importance, and to try finding a solution with optimal "weighted approximation" of the conditions, resulting in a full solution if existent. This objective has been basic for research at Delft University, started in 1960 with the main purpose of developing a twuristic computer model for the University timetable. Intending to simulate manual timetable construction, this (in)human procedure was analyzed as a kind of game, for which every move consists of one combination of problem elements. In the simplest case the sequence of moves is laid down roughly before the game starts, thus giving a static sequence. In most cases however, after every move an evaluation of the game situation is made, on which the next nmve is based; this results in a dynamic sequence. In the evaluation the consequences of the preceding moves are taken into account, which are strongly dependent upon the secondary conditions. It has been possible to distinguish these conditions, notwithstanding their variety, into two fundamental types, one requiring preventive action, the other only coming into force after relevant moves; the first type appears to be by far the most difficult to handle. The entire procedure of administration of consequences has been systematized by the use of decision tables. To generalize application possibilities, full consideration has been given to specific restrictions of school types other than universities. Differences turn out not to be of a fundamental nature; thus, it has been made possible to incorporate arbitrary requirements and conditions with the described system by substitution of corresponding data and decision tables. The main practical difficulty is the huge amount of input data, coming from a large number of informants. Thus it is necessary, in standardizing this information, to retain its redundant verbal character. This asks for a separate input program, coding the data, …


Fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) is a key regulator of systemic phosphate homeostasis, but also an interplay with glucose metabolism has been suggested. Several studies implicate a function of FGF23 in the brain, and indeed we have recently identified FGF23 protein in several brain areas in rats, such as the hypothalamus, third ventricle and choroid plexus. In the current study, we aimed to determine the effect of an intracerebroventricular (icv) injection of FGF23 in the third ventricle of rats on hypothalamic genes involved in glucose regulation. In addition, we assessed whether glycerol can be used safely for icv injections as glycerol is used as a stabilizing compound for FGF23 protein. Adult Wistar rats received an icv injection of recombinant rat FGF23 or vehicle. Dose dependent behavioral changes, suggestive of stress, were observed directly after infusion of FGF23. After 60 min animals were sacrificed and the arcuate nucleus, lateral hypothalamus and choroid plexus were isolated. In these brain regions gene expression was determined of the FGF23 receptor complex (FGFR1, αKlotho), NPY, POMC, phosphate transporters (SLC20 and SLC34 families) and markers of cellular ER stress (ATF4 and the ratio of spliced/unspliced XBP1). We showed that glycerol is well tolerated as stabilizer for icv injections. In FGF23-treated animals, cellular ER stress markers were increased in the arcuate nucleus. FGF23 injection did not affect expression of its receptor complex, NPY, POMC, or phosphate transporters. Future studies are warranted to investigate the effect of FGF23 in the brain on the protein level and on neuronal activation.


The article is devoted to the ethical grounds of cross-cultural communications. Nowadays this is the topical question in our globalized society. The author focuses upon such concepts as «the dialog of cultures» and «moral and ethic values». They are very important because we should make a model of intercultural communications and the only proper grounds for it are cultural values, moral principles of different nations and various cultures. The author also reveals the problems and difficulties we can face up on the way of building the model of intercultural communications. According to her opinion, every culture has its own ethics and moral principles and we should not forget about it. The conservation of our own cultural identity is proved to be important as it is the way of saving the cultural diversity in the whole world.


Memory loss and dementia states are devastating illnesses, the prevalence of which only threatens to increase as the world's population grows older. Most studies regarding Alzheimer's-type dementia and the accompanying prodromal cognitive impairments have illustrated the centrality of the hippocampus in the process of memory formation, with patients with Alzheimer's disease showing a marked reduction in hippocampal activity. On the other hand, it has recently been observed that in the prodromal states of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), a condition where a person displays memory loss greater than would be expected for their age, there may actually be a paradoxical increase in hippocampal activity. However, the significance of the increased activity is controversial, with some theorizing that it may represent a compensatory mechanism for an otherwise failing hippocampus, and others positing that the excess activation may itself be a factor driving memory impairment.


PURPOSE: To provide the novel monoclonal antibody useful for producing an antitumor agent by bonding the antibody to a liposome in which a carcinostatic agent is emcapsuled. CONSTITUTION: The human type monoclonal antibody, e.g. GAH antibody (IgG), is produced by the cell fusion of a cancer patient-originated lymphocyte with a mouse myeloma cell, and specifically binds to the membrane surface antigen of a cancer cell. An example of antigen is produced by culturing a hybridoma GAH prepared by fusing the mouse myeloma cell with the lymphocyte originated from a lymph node belonging to the cancer site of the cancer patient. COPYRIGHT: (C)1993,JPO&Japio


Human trafficking has raised a deep concern among the society of Indonesian. There are many cases reported on the media and discussed in the researches on the case of children exploitation. Human trafficking, especially towards women and children are often aimed for commercial purposes. The problem becomes more complex and phenomenal both in local and regional area. This research aims to find out the factors which cause human trafficking especially sexual exploitation by means of the electronic media in Semarang, Central Java and the human trafficking crime in the context of sexual exploitation settled by LRCKJ HAM Semarang. This research used sociological-juridical method of approach specifying on the analytical descriptive research. Both primary and secondary data were collected by using the technique of free guided interview, literature study, and documentation. The respondents were selected by using purposive sampling method. The primary data was acquired through the interview method towards the female victims assisted by the staff of Law Division in Legal Resource Center for Gender and Human Rights Justice or LRC-KJ HAM. The data were analyzed using interactive model of analysis to generate qualified result and accurate data. The results of this research are: 1) The factors which cause human trafficking in the context of sexual exploitation consist of economic factor, gender stratification, and law enforcement; 2) the case of human trafficking, especially in the context of sexual exploitation in LRC-KJ HAM consists of deception in job recruitment which leads to prostitution, migrant workers deception which causes sexual violence and sexual abuse towards the victims and human smuggling which lead to physical, psychological and sexual violence.


In the context of major changes, it is likely that the National Cancer Institute's Cooperative Groups will not have the resources to perform many of the traditional, definitive, randomized phase III trials of the past; industry will have to play a greater role in refining drug sequences or combinations. The new National Clinical Trials Network will have an opportunity to produce results with a major impact on cancer drug development.


This paper reported the result of chemical analysis of ten wood species from north Sulawesi. The result shows that holocelluloce content ranges from 55,64 to 65,42 percent, cellulose from 41,89 to 52,44 percent. Cellulose content of serianthes minahassae, pangium edule, lophopetalum javanicum, aglaia versteeghii and bischoffia javanica are higher than other species. Lignin content varies from 22,59 to 31,36 percent , pentosan from 16,92 to 19,61 percent. Lignin and pentosan content of all wood species examined are moderate and low. Ash content varies from 0,05 to 1,83 percent, silica from 0,04 to 0,4 percent. The solubility in cold water ranges 1,80 to 4,79 percent, in hot water from 2,91 to 5,16 percent, in sodium hydroxide from 11,06 to 19,21 percent and in alcohol benzene (1 : 2) from 6,08 to 9,08 percent, The axtractive contents, especially those soluble in alcohol benzene, of all wood species are in high extractives component class. Based on the cellulose and pentosan content all 10 wood species from north Sulawesi are suitable as raw material for pulp and paper industry.


An interacting quantum dot inserted in an Aharonov-Bohm ring is investigated.The explicit expression of the ground-state energy and the persistent current of the system are obtained by a second-order variational perturbation approximation method.The numerical results of the Kondo temperature and the ground-state persistent current of the system are also given under the condition that the Coulomb repulsion is infinite.


Background & Aims: Allergic diseases have increased in the last decade worldwide and researchers have been trying to introduce new strategies and drugs to treat these types of diseases. Nicotine shows anti-inflammatory properties and the studies have revealed that it can reduce the inflammation and the allergic responses. The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a multifunctional protein kinase that forms two complexes in the signaling pathway. It has been shown that mTOR Complex 2 (mTORC2) tends to promote the immune response toward Th2. Also, the studies have indicated that the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is an essential transcription factor in anti-inflammatory responses and nicotine exert its anti-inflammatory effects using the STAT3 signaling pathway Materials & Methods: In this experimental Study, we investigated the effects of nicotine on the expression RICTOR-mTORC2 and STAT3 genes in a mouse model of allergic asthma. The mice were sensitized using ovalbumin and alum and 2 weeks later treated tree times with nicotine in the concentration of 10 mg/kg every other day. The mice were challenged with ovalbumin aerosols on days 35, 38 and 41 and sacrificed the next day Results: Our results showed that nicotine treatment resulted in down-regulation of RICTOR-mTORC2 expression. Also, the results indicated that nicotine could up-regulate the expression of STAT3 Conclusion: Such data proposed that nicotine administration may decrease allergic responses and the inflammation in the airways of the allergic mice by down-regulating the expression of RICTOR-mTORC2 and up-regulating the expression of STAT3 genes.


'Henry RL, Mellis CM, Benjamin B. Pseudomembranous croup. Arch Dis Child 1983;58:180-3. 2 Welch DB, Price DG. Acute epiglottitis and severe croup. Experience in two English regions. Anaesthesia 1983;38:754-9. 3 Philpott-Howard J, Williams JD. Increase in antibiotic resistance in Haemophilus influenzae in the United Kingdom since 1977: report of study group. Br Medj7 1982;284:1597-9. Phelan PD, Mullins GC, Laundau LI, Duncan AW. The period of nasotracheal intubation in acute epiglottitis. Anaesth Intenisive Care 1980;8 :402-3. Henry R. Moist air in the treatment of laryngotracheitis. Arch Dis Child 1983 ;58 :577. 6 Fogel JM, Berg IJ, Gerber MA, Sherter CB. Racemic epinephrine in the treatment of croup: nebulization alone versus nebulization with intermittent positive pressure breathing. 7 Pediatr 1982;101:1028-31. Lenney W, Milner AD. Treatment of acute viral croup. Arch Dis Child 1978 ;53 :704-6. Koren G, Frand M, Barzilay Z, MacLeod SM. Corticosteroid treatment of laryngotracheitis v spasmodic croup in children. Amn 7 Dis Child 1983 ;137 :941-4. 4Zach M, Erben A, Olinsky A. Croup, recurrent croup, allergy, and airways hyper-reactivity. Arch Dis Child 1981 ;56:336-41.


We have calculated the radiative corrections to the Dalitz plot of baryon semileptonic decays with angular correlation between polarized emitted baryons and charged leptons. This work covers both charged and neutral decaying baryons and is restricted to the so-called three-body region of the Dalitz plot. Also it is specialized at the center-of-mass frame of the emitted baryon. We have considered terms up to order ({alpha}/{pi})(q/M{sub 1}){sup 0}, where q is the momentum transfer and M{sub 1} is the mass of the decaying baryon, and neglected terms of order ({alpha}/{pi})(q/M{sub 1}){sup n} for n{>=}1. The expressions displayed are ready to obtain numerical results, suitable for model-independent experimental analyses.


In this work, the influence of a non‐uniform magnetic field on the self‐focusing of relativistic q‐Gaussian (QG) laser pulse propagating in magnetized plasma is studied. Utilizing the non‐linear Schrodinger equation with higher‐order paraxial approximation, the higher‐order terms of the dielectric function and the eikonal in the presence of a non‐uniform magnetic field have been obtained. Numerical results reveal that while the non‐uniform magnetized field decreases, the pulse width parameter (g) decreases, and subsequently the spot‐size of the laser declines too. As a consequence, the QG laser pulse will be more focused. Besides, it is shown that increasing the values of q‐parameter leads to a decline in self‐focusing qualities and, at lower values of q‐parameter, sharp self‐focusing of QG laser pulse is observed. Furthermore, it is found that when the QG laser pulse is propagated in the magnetized plasma, the amplitude of the pulse width decreases with decreasing the δ‐parameter, and consequently, the laser pulse becomes more compressed. Moreover, it is observed that the application of a non‐uniform magnetic field improves the self‐focusing of the QG laser pulse propagated through magnetized plasma.


We report the discovery of a detached 20 min orbital period binary white dwarf. WD 0931+444 (SDSS J093506.93+441106.9) was previously classified as a WD + M dwarf system based on its optical spectrum. Our time-resolved optical spectroscopy observations obtained at the 8m Gemini and 6.5m MMT reveal peak-to-peak radial velocity variations of ≈400 km s 1 every 20 min for the WD, but no velocity variations for the M dwarf. In addition, high-speed photometry from the McDonald 2.1m telescope shows no evidence of variability nor evidence of a reflection effect. An M dwarf companion is physically too large to fit into a 20 min orbit. Thus, the orbital motion of the WD is almost certainly due to an invisible WD companion. The M dwarf must be either an unrelated background object or the tertiary component of a hiearchical triple system. WD 0931+444 contains a pair of WDs, a 0.32 M ⊙ primary and a > 0.14 M ⊙ secondary, at a separation of > 0.19 R ⊙ . After J0651+2844, WD 0931+444 becomes the second-shortest period detached binary WD currently known. The two WDs will lose angular momentum through gravitational wave radiation and merge in 6 9 Myr. The logh ≃ −22 gravitational wave strain from WD 0931+444 is strong enough to make it a verification source for gravitational wave missions in the milli-Hertz frequency range, e.g. the evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA), bringing the total number of known eLISA verification sources to nine.


To determine whether the biophysical profile would be a valuable intrapartum addition to fetal heart rate monitoring in predicting umbilical arterial acid-base status at delivery, 95 patients at term had serial studies during labor and umbilical artery blood gas analysis. There was no significant association between biophysical profile score and cord blood pH, nor was there a difference in scores between the acidemic and nonacidemic groups. Of the five components of the initial biophysical profile, only a nonreactive non-stress test (NST) was associated with both pH 7.20 or less (P=.019) and metabolic acidemia (P=.016). None of the individual variables of the final examination correlated with a pH of 7.20 or less. However, a nonreactive NST was associated with metabolic acidemia (P=.03), as was the presence of breathing (P=.03). Of the ten infants with pH 7.20 or less, eight had an initial and five had a final biophysical profile score of 8 or higher. Of the five whose pH was less than 7.15, four had an initial and three a final score of 8 or more. Finally, of the five with metabolic acidemia, four had an initial and two a final score of 8 or higher. Half of the acidemic fetuses had final biophysical profile scores of 8 or higher, suggesting that this score in labor is not reliable to rule out acidemia at delivery. This contrasts with other studies showing that the biophysical profile in the antepartum period predicts acid-base status at delivery, and suggests that the regulation of fetal breathing, movement, and tone in the acidemic fetus in labor may differ from the regulation of these functions antepartum.


French missionary Dallet (1874) wrote in his book that Korean language is truly different from Chinese language. This time, the present researcher tried to translate the several Persian words into Korean words. The present researcher selected several Persian words randomly, and the researcher compared those Persian words with Korean words with same or similar pronunciation, then the researcher tried to find out same or similar words in Korean language. The researcher used a dictionary of Persian/French and French/Persian (Bau, 2008). The title of this work is 'Are they similar or are they same origin, Persian language and Korean language? (0062-0074)'. This work is to know if there were some common things between Persian language and Korean language. < number Persian word (its meaning) Korean word (its meaning)> 0062 Dastgah e nasaji (the place of making tissue or cloth) Ddaseun got e nasazi (On the place where it is warm, there is tissue or cloth) 0063 Amalyat (military operation) Himeul yat (Let's do it with force, hey!) 0064 Kam zuri (without vigor) Gamtchuri (I want to hide myself!) 0065 Pars kardan (Someone cries for help) Beol-seugi hada (Someone was punished because of his or her mistake.) 0066 Kam (insufficient) Ggang tong (vacant can) 0067 Amal (act) Him-eul (with an act) 0068 Amal kardan (do act, proceed) Him sseu-da (to work vigorously) 0069 Didan (to see it, to regard) Dida-boda (I visit the place in order to see the thing well.) 0070 Dorog (lie, not truth, mistake) Deo-reo-un (dirty, not clean) 0071 Waxt (It is early, It has been already done.) Wass-eo (Do you have already come? Did you come here earlier than the time fixed?) 0072 Zarfiyat (capacity, quantity) Ssal-eul peo-ya (You must take the rice into the sac or the bag!) 0073 Har waxt (always) Ha-reo wass-eo (Do you come here in order to do the thing?) 0074 Alaf (plant, herbage, forage) Pul (plant, grass, herbage). From this research, it was known that some parts of Persian words are same to Korean words, and that other parts of Persian words are similar to Korean words.


The European Energy Road Map 2050 and the Spanish Renewable Energies Plan for 2011-2020 are promoting the use of renewable energies as a necessary path to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction target necessary to avoid the rising global warming, and in particular, the use of Ocean Energy. Within the different types of on-shore wave-based energy devices, Oscillating Water Column (OWC) converters are one of the more widely used ones. An OWC plant is basically composed by a capture chamber coupled to a turbo-generator module. This paper deals with the model implementation of on-shore OWC wave energy power devices. The model is parameterised and validated for the particular case of Nereida MOWC wave power system using ad-hoc real data from Mutriku's power plant.


This article develops theoretical and practical motivations for studying the functional distribution of income in the past. Italy is adopted as a case study, because of the availability of long-run estimates on personal inequality and of the long-lasting incidence of self-employment. New labor shares for 1895–1970 show Italian workers accruing a low share of income until 1945; by the end of the 1950s, they rapidly converged to the European average. Italian history shows that functional income distribution deepens our understanding of long- and short-run distributional trends and makes a compelling case for approaching inequality by combining diverse sources and methodologies.


Submicron p-channel (Al,Ga)As/(In,Ga)As HIGFETs have been optimized for application to high-performance complementary GaAs circuits. Major issues with submicron and deep submicron (L/sub g//spl les/0.5-/spl mu/m) P-channel HIGFETs have been the severe short-channel effects, such as high subthreshold leakage currents and high output conductances. With optimization of the p-type self-aligned implant schedule, control of impurity contamination at the substrate/buffer interfaces and increase of the resistivity of the unintentionally-doped GaAs buffers, high-performance submicron devices have been realized. Typically, 0.5-/spl mu/m P-HIGFETs yielded room temperature transconductances of 90 mS/mm, drain currents at V/sub gs/=V/sub ds/=-1.5 V of 63 mA/mm, and subthreshold leakage currents near 1 nA. Subthreshold slope of 90 mV/decade and output conductances under 5 mS/mm were realized.


We present an AdS black hole solution with Ricci flat horizon in Einstein-phantom scalar theory. The phantom scalar fields just depend on the transverse coordinates and , which are parameterized by the parameter . We study the thermodynamics of the AdS phantom black hole. Although its horizon is a Ricci flat Euclidean space, we find that the thermodynamical properties of the black hole solution are qualitatively the same as those of AdS Schwarzschild black hole. Namely, there exists a minimal temperature and the large black hole is thermodynamically stable, while the smaller one is unstable, so there is a so-called Hawking-Page phase transition between the large black hole and the thermal gas solution in the AdS space-time in Poincare coordinates. We also calculate the entanglement entropy for a strip geometry dual to the AdS phantom black holes and find that the behavior of the entanglement entropy is qualitatively the same as that of the black hole thermodynamical entropy.


Thirty species of fungi (filamentous and yeast) and bacteria were tested for their ability to remove C.I. Reactive Black 5, Reactive Blue 19 and Leuco Sulfur Black 1 textile dyes from simulated plant waste effluents. Both dead and live forms of each of the species were tested. Species were ranked according to dye binding efficiencies (unit weight of dye bound per unit weight of biomass) and predicted biomass cost to completely decolorize a unit volume of dyecontaining effluent. The results describe a potential biomass-based industrial process for recovering and reusing textile dyes.


The present invention discloses a three-dimensional fabric. The present invention includes a plurality of surface portions of projections and a plurality of concave portions, convex portions and concave portions spaced from each other, and the concave portion and convex portion of the substrate coincide, each portion of 20 to 100% of the projection area contact angle with water greater than 70 °, the contact angle of each of the recessed portions 20 to 100% of the area of the water is less than 70 °. Three-dimensional nonwoven fabric of the present invention having dry and comfortable effects.


Weapon-target assignment problem (WTA) was described and its mathematic model was established. Ant colony algorithm (ACA) was introduced briefly; a novel and equivalence coding method to solve WTA based on ACA was proposed. Aiming at ACA's defects, the strategy to select the next node was improved; crossover and mutation in GAs were introduced in, so the search space was opened up. The steps to realize the proposed algorithm were described in details. The simulation in MATLAB program verified the validity, efficiency and simplicity to operate.


The absorption of single photons by coupled pairs of ions in rare-earth solids was first observed by Varsanyi and Dieke.1 They noticed that weak absorption of light occurred in PrCl3 at frequencies close to the sum of transition frequencies of individual Pr ions, giving rise to rare-earth fluorescence. This effect was explained by the perturbation theory of Dexter.2 He showed that weak multipole or exchange interactions between rare-earth ions permitted the simultaneous promotion of two ions to excited states by the action of one absorbed photon in an electric dipole allowed transition. Similarly, two ions initially in excited states could emit one sum frequency photon in a cooperative manner.


Combinations of 10-5 or 10-3 M diquat (6,7 dihydroxydipyrido [1,2-a:2',1'-c] = pyrazidiinium salt)- and 01% or 10% Tween 20 (nonionic surfactant containing polyoxyethylene sorbitan monolaurate) increased the efflux of betanin from root-tissue discs of red beet (Beta vulgaris L) Tween 20 alone, at concentrations of 0.1%, 1.0%, and 10% also increased membrane permeability slightly, after an incubation period Diquat alone was without effect and combinations of diquat and Tween 20 were fully additive, if not synergistic Two cationic surfactants, Hyamine 1622 (diisobutyl phenoxy ethoxy dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride monohydrate) and Aerosol C-61 (ethanolated alkyl quanidineamine complex), and the anionic surfactant Vatsol OT (sodium dioctylsulfosuccinate), at concentrations from 0 001% to 10%, caused a rapid release of betanin Apparently, alteration of electrostatic stability of the membrane by the ionic surfactants resulted in rapid deterioration of membrane integrity The nonionic surfactant effect may be due to its combined hydrophilic properties and specific structure, with consequent alteration of energy relations at membrane surfaces


Coherent states play an important role in quantum mechanics because of their unique properties under time evolution. Here we explore this concept for one-dimensional repulsive nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations, which describe weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensates or light propagation in a nonlinear medium. It is shown that the dynamics of phase-space translations of the ground state of a harmonic potential is quite simple: the centre follows a classical trajectory whereas its shape does not vary in time. The parabolic potential is the only one that satis?fies this property. We study the time evolution of these nonlinear coherent states under perturbations of their shape, or of the confi?ning potential. A rich variety of e?ects emerges. In particular, in the presence of anharmonicities, we observe that the packet splits into two distinct components. A fraction of the condensate is transferred towards uncoherent high-energy modes, while the amplitude of oscillation of the remaining coherent component is damped towards the bottom of the well.


The article deals with the problem of interaction of the decorative and applied art, artwork and design; the problems of traditions in culture, about the relation to cultural heritage and development of culture are considered. The analysis of notions of original and professional art is carried out. The conditions of cultural values creation, the essence of national tradition are investigated, the statements of design culture and the possibility of its modern expression are studied. The commercial and value-conscious essence of the design is determined. (Mazina J.I. The problem of interaction of decorative and applied art, artwork and design. Life Sci J 2014;11(11s):613-616) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 139


Basically, every human being needs a service that could not be separated from eachindividual. The desire to get a good service is not only limited to rich or poor, young or old.All people want to get the best service. This is the basic reason of society at Koto KamparHulu District to do development. Society feel the services that was provided by the previousdistricts were no longer able to provide services as the society hope such as responsivenessto the needs of society. Too wide scope of work areas create district officials have been slowto respond the wishes of society who came to the district to do a variety of purposes. Most ofthem feel ignore due to long waiting queues but their problem could not be resolved quicklyby district officials. Therefore, by several communities societies who are now incorporated atKoto Kampar Hulu District who want to apply the proposal to do district development withhope the service in this area will be better after this developement are done.Then, the basic problem on this thesis is how the effect of district development toeffectiveness of public services at Koto Kampar Hulu District Kampar with the aim todetermine there are any influence of district development on the effectiveness of services, todetermine how much influence the district development of public services at Koto KamparHulu District Office, as well as to know how the influence of district development to publicservices at Koto Kampar Hulu District.The research found that there is a positive and significant effect betwen district developmentwith the effectiveness of public services at Koto Kampar Hulu District. It could be seen fromthe results obtained by calculating the correlation coefficient r count equal to 0.603 whichmeans that there is a relationship between the variable district development (X) with variableeffectiveness of public services (Y), and the degree of relationship is strong. Based ondetermination calculation, there is known that the influence of the district developement ofthe effectiveness of public services amounted to 60.3%. The Effect of district development toeffectiveness of public services is positive that can be tested by the formula Y = 511.49 +4,25X. This means that if the value of the variable X (district developement) increased by oneunit, then the value of the variable Y (the effectiveness of public services) will increase aswell.Keywords: District Developement, Services, and Influence


Optical invisibility, which started in the pages of fiction before becoming an intriguing quest of humankind for over a century, has blossomed into a remarkable scientific journey toward reality over the last two decades. Perfect optical cloaking requires the total scattering of electromagnetic waves around an object at all angles, all polarizations, over a wide frequency range, irrespective of the medium. Such a device is still far-fetched, requiring the transformation of space around a cloaked region such that the phase velocity is faster than other areas to preserve the phase relationships. However, by simplifying the invisibility requirements, pioneering work on spherical transformation cloaks, carpet cloaks, plasmonic cloaks, and mantle cloaks has been realized in narrowband microwave, infrared, and even optical wavelengths. In this Tutorial, we review the theoretical basis for invisibility cloaking, from spherical transformational optics to non-Euclidian cases, and discuss their limitations. Subsequently, we highlight the recent trends in realizing reconfigurable intelligent cloaks to overcome the traditional limitations of wideband operation and parallel efforts in unidirectional cloaking. Because the human eye is insensitive to the phase and polarization of visible light, a class of ray optics cloaking devices has been recently developed by eliminating phase preservation requirements. Notably, we focus on the recent progress achieved on invisibility cloaks that function in natural incoherent light and can be realized using standard optical components. We conclude this Tutorial with a prospective of potential applications and the practicality of optical cloaks in everyday life.


This invention relates to glycosaminoglycan (GAGs) polysaccharides, and oligosaccharides derived from GAGs, suitably sulphated heparosan saccharide wherein the SO 3 - / COO- ratio of the sulphated heparosan is in the range 1 to 3.8, which have been determined to inhibit keratinocyte inflammatory activation, for use in the treatment of inflammatory disorders of the skin, in particular psoriasis, eczema and atopic dermatitis.


Objective To establish methods for the identification of 4-methyl-N-ethylcathinone(4-MEC) by FTIR, GC-MS and NMR techniques. Method The suspicious unknown samples were analyzed by FTIR and GC-MS. 4-MMC was used as the internal standard. The analytes were diluted in CD3 OD for the identification of structure using1 H and13C NMR. Results The infrared spectrum of 4-MEC has characteristic absorption peaks at 1688, 1606, 1459, 1440, 1385, 1306, 1241, 1190, 1128,1106, 1038, 976, 851, 832, 799, 752, 737 and 684 cm-1. The mass fragment ion peaks(m/z) are 72.1(base), 44.1, 91.1, 119.0and146.0. The results are consistent with the information in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spectra library. Further confirmed by1 H and13C NMR spectrum, the sample was identified as the new designer drug 4-MEC. Conclusion The method is suitable for the identification of new designer drugs.


In one aspect, the multi-there is a layer absorbent body is disclosed, the multi-layer absorber radiation tuned to receive electromagnetic radiation - even when the transmission through the proximal layer and a proximal layer having a receiving surface, at least a portion of the received radiation a reception hagekkeum comprising the distal layer disposed adjacent the proximal layer, the proximal layer has a smaller real part than the real part of the refractive index of the distal layer to the at least one frequency of electromagnetic radiation in the range of approximately 1GHz to about 110GHz It represents a refractive index.


Introduction. In about one-third of the patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid
 bleeding, multiple intracranial aneurysms are confirmed. Risk factors such
 as female gender, smoking, hypertension, and age over 60 tend to be
 associated with multiple aneurysms. In this paper, we also discuss family
 predisposition and the treatment approach for multiple cerebral aneurysms.
 Case outline. Here, we present a case of a female patient, 64-year-old, with
 spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage that had nine intracranial aneurysms.
 The patient was treated for hypertension for a longer period, excessive
 smoker, and two of her nearest members of the family died from intracranial
 bleeding. The patient was fully conscious, without any neurological
 impairment. Subarachnoid bleeding was diffuse and nor brain-computer
 tomography finding nor digital subtraction angiography couldn't suggest the
 source or location of bleeding among nine presented aneurisms. Magnet
 resonance imaging had to be done, and the T1W fast spin-echo sequence showed
 a 9 mm large ruptured an aneurysm at the basilar tip, after contrast
 application, beside others. Three days after insult endovascular
 embolization was done and two basilar aneurysms were excluded from the
 circulation, including the one that bled. Conclusion. The patient had the
 majority of risk factors for multiple intracranial aneurysms. Knowledge of
 the family predisposition of multiple intracranial aneurysms allowed us to
 make proper diagnostics of a patient's descendant and reveal a new patient.


The genus Forticulcita was established solely for F. glabra sp. n. from Valamugil seheli (Forsskål) in the Gulf of Aqaba. Most closely related to Haploporus, it is diagnosed primarily by having a species with an acetabulum being conspicuously robust, prepharynx measuring shorter than the pharynx, ceca terminating at the testicular level, muscular hermaphroditic ejaculatory organ lacking accessory structures, and vitellarium consisting of a single mass.


In November 2010, in a Statement to the United Nations Security Council, Yves Daccord, the Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), noted that '[w]hile there may still be divergent views as to what protection actually is, there can be little doubt about what happens when there is no protection'.1 The sad reality of our world is that we see the results of failures to protect civilians everyday on our nightly news. In 2013 we can point, most notably, to Syria to see civilians in besieged areas in urgent need of protection and relief. However, there are also many other conflicts, less likely to attract the attention of the nightly news bulletin, where civilian lives and livelihoods are the greatest casualties of conflict.


In this paper, we describe a load distribution technique that employs web workers. We have been implementing a web-based MORPG as an interactive, real-time web application; previously, the web server alone was responsible for manipulating the behavior of all the game characters. As more users logged in, the workload on the server was increased. Hence, we have implemented a technique whereby the CPU load of the server is distributed among the clients; a performance evaluation reveals that our technique plays a role in decreasing the CGI latency of low-end servers and can decrease the CPU load of high-end servers when many users are logged in.


Naevus lipomatosis cutaneous superficialis (NLCS) is a rare benign hamartoma of adipose tissue of the skin characterized by the presence of clusters of mature ectopic fat cells among the collagen bundles of the dermis. Usually, the number of adnexal structures is reduced in NLCS with preserved morphology. NLCS is also recognized as "Naevus lipomatosis of Hoffman and Zurhelle". NLCS is presented as a group of soft ivory-skin coloured nodules mostly on the lower back, buttock, and abdomen. The nodules can be sessile and single, or grouped and pedunculated with smooth, wrinkled surface. They could present early in life or develop later between the second and sixth decade. The histopathological structure illustrates strands of mature fat cells in the dermis with intersecting collagen bundles. I am presenting a rare case of adult-onset classical NLCS, where the patient was emotionally distressed, depressed and mentally unstable as a result of its physical appearance.


Data compression is a promising approach for meeting the increasing memory capacity demands expected in future systems. Unfortunately, existing compression algorithms do not translate well when directly applied to main memory because they require the memory controller to perform non-trivial computation to locate a cache line within a compressed memory page, thereby increasing access latency and degrading system performance. Prior proposals for addressing this performance degradation problem are either costly or energy inefficient. By leveraging the key insight that all cache lines within a page should be compressed to the same size, this paper proposes a new approach to main memory compression — Linearly Compressed Pages (LCP) — that avoids the performance degradation problem without requiring costly or energy-inefficient hardware. We show that any compression algorithm can be adapted to fit the requirements of LCP, and we specifically adapt two previously-proposed compression algorithms to LCP: Frequent Pattern Compression and Base-Delta-Immediate Compression. Evaluations using benchmarks from SPEC CPU2006 and five server benchmarks show that our approach can significantly increase the effective memory capacity (by 69% on average). In addition to the capacity gains, we evaluate the benefit of transferring consecutive compressed cache lines between the memory controller and main memory. Our new mechanism considerably reduces the memory bandwidth requirements of most of the evaluated benchmarks (by 24% on average), and improves overall performance (by 6.1%/13.9%/10.7% for single-/two-/four-core workloads on average) compared to a baseline system that does not employ main memory compression. LCP also decreases energy consumed by the main memory subsystem (by 9.5% on average over the best prior mechanism).


A nonparametric geostatistical method has been used to treat geochemical data. This method is the indicator kriging and is based on the topoprobabilistic behavior of geochemical variables. The indicator kriging has the great advantage of working with indicator variables. This kind of treatment does not trim the information and allows to separate raw variables in the way that the more interesting part of the information is only considered. Moreover, this methodology produces very clear graphic presentations. Therefore, this technique has the disadvantage that it is not able to distinguish between anomalous high values and high values belonging to background. In this work, the results of the application of indicator kriging to a set of mineral exploration data carried out in NW Spain are presented. This area is characterized by presence of gold mineralizations. The specific application has been done over As, considered as a pathfinder of Au in this area, since this one allows no numerical treatment. Gold presents a great number of values equal to detection Iimit, and a series of extreme values. These characteristics bring out indicator variograms with no structure. The results of the application of indicator kriging over As allow locate a series of high values place along a N-S shear zone, considered as a structure related to presence of gold. Specifically, these points are located in relation to a kind of cataclastic rocks, where gold mineralizations appear, due to fluid circulation through these rocks.


We report on the structural and electrical properties of Sn-doped Ga2O3 (GTO) thin films on c-sapphire substrates grown by mist chemical deposition (mist CVD). Gallium(III) acerylacetonate (Ga(acac)3) and either Sn(acac)2 or tin(II) chloride dehydrate were used as source materials of Ga and Sn, respectively. Each solution of Ga (SGa) and Sn (SSn), which the source materials are solved in deionized water and a small amount of hydrochloric acid, was prepared at the concentration of 0.05 mol/L, and the solutions mixed with different ratio were used for the growth. With increasing the ratio of Sn solution (SSn/(SGa+SSn)), the concentration of Sn incorporated into the film was increased. The electrical conductivity was obtained in the films with the Sn concentration of less than 0.34 %. The crystal structure was maintained to $\alpha$-Ga2O3 in this Sn concentration range, while the crystal quality rapidly deteriorates when the concentration of Sn was over 0.34 %.


The present invention provides an image forming apparatus and the application license management method, even if the user is using the application process for a job in the license expires, the device automatically access the license server can be formed by the image , update your license, making the users do not need to restart the application will be able to continue operations. When the application is detected during the execution of the application's license has become invalid, the notification to the license application is invalid. In response to the notification, temporarily stop the execution of the application.


The provision of mobility is an essential feature of Vehicular Ad-hoc network (VANET) environments. In order to leverage mobility for wireless users, other researchers proposed an extension of MIPv6 which has been proven capable of supporting network mobility (NEMO). However, the Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) mobility protocol does not support seamless inter-domain vehicles handover and global mobility functionality. As a result, vehicles suffer from high handover latency and packet loss. Thus, there is a need to develop efficient inter-intra domain PMIPv6 techniques that consider the vehicular network environment for a seamless interdomain handover. This thesis introduces an enhancement of the PMIPv6 protocol based on Media Independent Handover (MIH) known as inter-domain PMIPv6 techniques that provide seamless inter-domain handover for vehicles. Next, a handover Estimation Engine (EE) is proposed to improve the handover process, followed by an intra-domain technique to support continuous connection for vehicles crossing inter-intra domains. A series of experiments to test handover latency, communication overhead, and packet loss were conducted using highway vehicular scenarios. The findings were compared with results from other inter-intra PMIPv6 schemes. The comparison showed that the proposed techniques reduced approximately 18% of the inter-domain and 27% of the intra-domain handover latency time besides supporting continuous connection. The proposed techniques have been proven to be capable of providing inter-domain connections to resolve the global mobility support problem.


Abstract : The uniqueness of the similar solution of the problem of spherically symmetric thermally controlled bubble growth is demonstrated using a generalized group-theoretic analysis. The inability of similar solution methods to account for viscous dissipation is also shown. (Author)


Bending is involved in the forming of many sheet parts and it is important to understand the phenomena involved. In this paper the basic equations describing bending on a global scale are compared with strain measurements of bent sheet. The development of strain on a local, microstructural scale is also investigated, as is the general aspects of plasticity and the failure process. It is shown that the global equations can be used to estimate the strains involved and the local strains can be attributed to various aspects of the plasticity. The bendability can be related to the fracture strain of the sheet and the ability of a sheet alloy to accommodate the necessary bending to form the part can be assessed.


The taxonomic status of the species of Necromys Ameghino, 1889 (= Bolomys Thomas, part), inhabiting the pampean region of Argentina and southern Uruguay is not clear. The two most recent systematic hypotheses both distinguish two species. Massoia and Fornes (1967) recognized Necromys obscurus (Waterhouse, 1837) with allopatric populations in southern Uruguay and southeastern Buenos Aires Province (Argentina), and N. benefactus (Thomas, 1919) distributed in a strip across northwestern -southwestern Buenos Aires Province. Reig (1987) argued that the populations of Uruguay and northwestern Buenos Aires Province belong to N. obscurus (including N. benef actus as a subspecies), while those of the southeast and southwest are referred to an unnamed taxon. To solve this problem, 152 specimens from Argentina and Uruguay were studied using morphometric data and qualitative characters. Craniodental variables were measured in 97 adult specimens of both sexes. Discriminant-function analysis among preestablished geographic groups and cluster analysis using Mahalanobis distances revealed the presence of two groups with contrasting morphological characteristics. The first group, which corresponds to N. benefactus, includes the populations from northern La Pampa, southern Santa Fe, and northwestern, centralwest, and southwestern Buenos Aires Province (Argentina). The second group, N. obscurus, includes the populations from Uruguay (N. obscurus obscurus) and from southeastern Buenos Aires Province (a new subspecies).


In today's globalized world, the use of the latest technologies
is playing an increasingly important role in education,
including corporate education. This contribution compares the
difference between the normative and positive state of the use
of such technologies, including video conferencing, mobile
media, multimedia and computer-based applications within the
sphere of corporate education. The analysis is made on the
basis of the results of a questionnaire survey that was
conducted in the second half of 2016 among 607 companies in the
Czech Republic. The normative state was determined according to
the responses to the question of to what extent the latest
technologies are being used, whereas the positive state is
according to the responses to the question of to what extent
the latest technologies should be used to make education more
effective. For the purposes of recording the responses of the
individual companies, a 4-point fully anchored rating scale was
used. All the necessary calculations and graphs were carried
out and prepared using a combination of Rsoftware, SPSS, MS
Excel, MySQL Workbench and MS PowerShell ISE. The results of
the research show that most human resource departments believe
that more extensive use of the latest technologies for employee
training would increase the effectiveness of this training.
This result is fully in line with current global trends in
corporate education.


A 60-year-old woman presented with a two-year history of progressive asymmetric painless weakness. In the first year, symptoms were limited to the left leg, and the clinical findings were felt to be consistent with a focal upper motor neuron disorder. In the second year, similar weakness appeared in the right leg, then to both arms. The patient also reported increasing dysarthria and dysphagia. There was no history of trauma or family history of neurological disease. When examined in 2010 (at the time of MRI), the patient had a normal mental status. The only cranial nerve dysfunction was a spastic dysarthria and increased gag reflex. There was mild atrophy of the left leg. Infrequent fasciculations were noted in both arms and both legs. There was a spastic quadriparesis that was more pronounced on the left side. Weakness was graded as more severe in the legs (Medical Research Council grades in the range of 4/5 proximally, 2-3/5 distally) than in the arms (mostly Medical Research Council grade 4-/5). There was diffuse hyperreflexia, with bilateral ankle clonus, although plantar responses were bilaterally flexor on repeated assessments. The sensory examination was normal. Motor and sensory nerve conduction studies were within normal limits, with the exception of reduced median nerve compound muscle action potential amplitude. Monopolar electromyelograph showed patchy abnormalities in keeping with active denervation (positive sharp waves, fibrillations, reduced recruitment) in the biceps, triceps, and tibialis anterior muscles. In the gastrocnemius and first dorsal interosseus, there were abnormalities suggesting chronic reinnervation (large amplitude, long duration motor unit potentials). Other muscles showed decreased voluntary activation. Fasciculation potentials were noted in three muscles. The following blood tests were normal or negative: complete blood count, electrolytes, renal and liver function studies, Venereal Disease Research Laboratory, antinuclear antibodies, and HIV serology. Visual evoked potential latencies, ordered when demyelinating disease was an initial consideration, were also normal. MRI of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine showed no significant central stenosis or abnormal cord signal. At the time of her 2010 MRI study, the patient was felt to have motor neuron disease with a predominantly upper motor neuron clinical picture. She was classified as clinically probable ALS according to Revised El Escorial criteria. 6 The patient was still alive four years after her 2010 MRI, though she had progressed to anarthria and marked quadriparesis, requiring a wheelchair for ambulation and support for all activities of daily life.


Earth's rotation rate and the evolution of the Earth–Moon system have been controlled by tidal dissipation in Earth's ocean. Attempts to model the tidal history have shown incomplete compatibility with observations and unclear isolation of the most important controlling factors. Here it is shown that a relatively simple model with no explicit description of the continents (their effects are instead parameterized) can accurately reproduce the available observations (lunar distance and month, Earth's rotation and deceleration rates) describing the tidal evolution over the past 2.5 billion yr and also evade the paradox of an early Moon falling within the Roche limit. Notably, the model reproduces an observed dissipation peak 400 million yr ago. The model involves fitting two input parameters (the effective ocean depth h and the nondimensional dissipation timescale T˜ , the latter of which can be related to the more typically used quality factor Q). The best-fit values (h = 2.3 km and T˜=40 , corresponding to Q ≈ 20–28) derived empirically from the model correspond well with the plausibly expected values (h ≈ 2.5 km and Q ≈ 20) derived using independent reasoning and observations. The model shows very clearly that the tidal evolution has been primarily controlled by the rate of resonance in the ocean response, not the evolving amplitude of the tidal forces or forcing frequency. More closely, it also shows that the effect of Earth's rotation on the Lamb parameter (or nondimensional wave speed) has driven the evolution, and that changes in frequency or other parameters have been much less important.


The regicide of 30 January 1649 combined event and text in a rhetorical manner, for the events of the trial and execution could be 'read' in a variety of ways, from a second crucifixion to a victory over popery and arbitrary govenment. This essay argues that, in Eikon Basilike, contemporaries were provided with the record of a man and a king struggling to reconcile the demands of his conscience with the hard facts of the political events surrounding him. Here they could read of a man who had tried to discern the truth and act upon it, and in this they were presented with a pattern and example for their own discernment of right action and the achieving of a quiet conscience. In other words, the Eikon and its author were casuistical texts – teachers of holy living and holy dying – striking a deep chord with people struggling to make sense of their duty and follow their consciences in extraordinary times. In a society steeped in biblical and classical imagery and patterns of thought, the Eikon Basilike combines a number of familiar rhetorical and generic traditions in a manner that helps to account for the text's success throughout the period of the Long Restoration.


Objective: To compare the post-operative analgesic efficacy of penile block vs caudal block following hypospadias repair.
Study Design: Quasi-experimental study.
Place and Duration of Study: Pediatric and Plastic Surgery Departments, Combined Military Hospital, Multan Pakistan, from Jul 2019 to Jul 2021.
Methodology: The total of 34 patients undergoing hypospadias operation was booked for this study after approval of the ethical committee. All patients were operated on under General anaesthesia. The booked patients were randomly divided into Groups 1 and 2. For post-operative analgesia, the first group got penile block while the latter was given caudal epidural block.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 3.99±2.68 years. These patients were split into two groups. Group-1 (n=17)underwent a Penile block, and Group-2 (n=17) underwent a Caudal block. There were no serious complications after a penile block or caudal block. A substantial decline in pain scores was noted, more in the penile block group.
Conclusion: For patients being treated for Hypospadias, the penile block is a more effective and simple method of pain control post-operatively. This can be performed by the surgeon.


X-ray contraband detection plays an important role in the field of public safety. To solve the multi-scale and obscuration problem in X-ray contraband detection, we propose a material-aware path aggregation network to detect and classify contraband in X-ray baggage images. Based on YoloX, our network integrates two new modules: multi-scale smoothed atrous convolution (SCA) and material-aware coordinate attention modules (MCA). In SAC, an improved receptive field-enhanced network structure is proposed by combining smoothed atrous convolution, using separate shared convolution, with a parallel branching structure, which allows for the acquisition of multi-scale receptive fields while reducing grid effects. In the MCA, we incorporate a spatial coordinate separation material perception module with a coordinated attention mechanism. A material perception module can extract the material information features in X and Y dimensions, respectively, which alleviates the obscuring problem by focusing on the distinctive material characteristics. Finally, we design the shape-decoupled SIoU loss function (SD-SIoU) for the shape characteristics of the X-ray contraband. The category decoupling module and the long–short side decoupling module are integrated to the shape loss. It can effectively balance the effect of the long–short side. We evaluate our approach on the public X-ray contraband SIXray and OPIXray datasets, and the results show that our approach is competitive with other X-ray baggage inspection approaches.


FinTech is innovation, and it is developing rapidly as part of current human need dealing with financial transactions in daily life, embracing the banking industry as convenience instruments to the consumers. Adapting FinTech in Islamic banking is challenges in terms of Shariah-compliant as the essential elements of riba',maysir, and gharar prohibited from forming part of the FinTech component. Islamic finance institutions in the world face problem in dealing with financial transactions as well as saviour during pandemic COVID-19, where most countries in the world are affected and declared lockdown as an emergency solution to cut the chain of COVID 19. Concerning the pandemic crisis, problems on the operation of Islamic banking adopted Islamic Fintech need to explore, which also concerning the conduct of legal firms in managing Islamic banking documentation. The objective of this paper is to identify the application of Islamic fintech in Islamic banking, the legal framework of Islamic fintech, issues in managing the operation and Islamic banking documentation at legal firms, and analyse the suitability of Islamic fintech in the service of Islamic banking during the Movement Control Order. The methodology used in attaining the objectives is qualitative by utilizing the library as the data centre, review the journals and articles, including collecting data from books and available reports. As a result of the study, the paper suggested new norms need a new approach by Islamic finance and any legal institution since the operation heavily relies on the adherence to Syariah requirements and guidelines issued by Bank Negara Malaysia and Security Commission. The support from the government in providing an adequate legal framework for fintech's instrument to operate needs attention, and consultation among the experts is much welcome by the fintech community.


In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the visual navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). In contrast to most available methods, a single perspective camera is used to estimate the complete set of 3D motion parameters undergone by the UAV. We establish robust point correspondences between consecutive image frames captured by the flying vehicle. Based on the estimated motion parameters as well as the reconstructed relative scene depth, a visual steering algorithm has been realized so that the UAV is capable of avoiding obstacles during navigation. The advantage of our approach lies in the fact that decision for collision avoidance is made immediately, by using purely visual information extracted from the live video sequence. Furthermore, it eliminates the time-consuming steps of explicit obstacle recognition and global reconstruction of the environment. Experimental evaluation has been carried out based on computer simulation as well as using a commercially available flying drone. It has been shown that the UAV is capable of autonomous navigation in unknown environments with arbitrary configuration of obstacles.


(2-(pyrazin-2-yl)aminmethylenehydrazono)-thiazolidin-4-one, HPzAm4DHotaz, and (2-(pyrazin-2-yl)aminmethylenehydrazono)-3-methylthiazolidin-4-one, PzAm4Motaz have been prepared by the reaction of thiosemicarbazones with chloroacetic acid in presence of triethylamine in toluene using a microwave assisted synthesis and a conventional method, at reflux temperature. While the conventional method carried out other side products as triazoles and thiadiazoles, the cyclization of the thiosemicarbazones using microwave irradiation favours the obtaining of the tiazolidinones as only product and gave better yields, shorter times and any side products were formed


RBAC(role-based access control) has been generally accepted as one of the most promising access control policies,and it has become a hot research topic in information security area.However,traditional RBAC model is not completely fit for the access control in grid environment.In this paper,trust management technology was introduced on the basis of traditional access control model and a new dynamic access control scheme to improve scalability and to restrain malicious behavior was proposed.This new scheme could adjust a user's role by his trust level.For trust calculation,a loyaltybased trust calculation method was proposed.Simulations show that this scheme can easily restrict malicious behavior of entities,and improve the scalability.