Objective: The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of vitamin E due to its potent antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties by assessing Vitamin E levels and Visual analogue scale. Methods: This prospective randomized study was carried out for a period of 4 months in private hospital, Chennai. A total of 30 patients were enrolled based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were randomized into 2 groups Group A (standard treatment) and Group B (standard treatment plus vitamin E oral supplement).The effectiveness was observed by assessing vitamin E levels and VAS score at baseline, 1st, 3rd and 5th week after the start of oral vitamin E supplementation. Results: In total, 30 patients were randomized into Group A and Group B with 15 patients each. Among 30 patients 18 patients were males and 12 patients were females. In that 7 patients in age group 18-25 years, 13 patients in age group 26-35 years, 8 patients in age group 36-45 years and 2 patients were above 45 years of age At baseline, the average range of intensity of pain was 6, at 1st week the VAS score was 6 in Group A and 4 in Group B, at 3rd week 5 in Group A and 3 in Group B and at 5th week 4 in Group A and 1 in Group B. Based on Vitamin E levels, the average level at base line was 5 in Group A and 4.1 in Group B, followed by 5 in Group A and 4.5 in Group B at 1st week, 4.8 in Group A and 5.6 in Group B at 3rd week, and 4.7 in Group A and 7 in Group B at 5th week. Conclusion: Our study concluded that the vitamin E levels increased and the intensity of pain has reduced after receiving vitamin E oral supplementation along with standard treatment which was a good sign for its effectiveness in haemorrhoids Keywords: Haemorrhoids, Vitamin E, alpha-tocopherol, oxidative stress, antioxidant


The delivery of knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diverse groups to the students is important for societies and nations. To deliver this knowledge to students, multicultural education has a pivotal role. Particularly, in Muslim populated countries such as Indonesia, the role of multicultural education along with Islamic values has major importance for students. In this way, this study examined the role of content integration, equality pedagogy, empowering culture, prejudice reduction and knowledge construction examined in relation to multicultural equation by considering Islamic perspective. Furthermore, this study examined the role of Islamic values as moderating variable. To examine this relationship, data was collected from the schools in Indonesia. Data collection was made through questionnaire survey in which 5-point Likert scale was used. Data analysis was carried out by using Partial Least Square (PLS). Results of the study shows that; content integration, equality pedagogy


The bound-state-plus-two-phonon resonances in scattering of atoms by surface phonons including phonon-assisted parallel momentum transfer are reconsidered using improved energy resolution and the phonon state basis. Our results agree qualitatively concerning the general dimensional trends but differ in physical conclusions. (1) The peak height of resonances above the exponentiated Born approximation) is two to four times bigger in our results. (2) Besides the peaks in the Debye Waller factor (DWF) we consider the corresponding dips in inelastic scattering intensities. In contrast to the peaks in the DWF these dips may be observable for He and will be so for Ne.


During inflammation, expression of various P450 genes is modulated differentially. Both the downregulation of some P450s and the induction of others may be the result of a complex interaction involving inflammatory cytokines, stress hormones, and metabolic perturbations. Our results suggest that NO is not an important mediator for the downregulation of CYP2C11 in rat liver.


This study, focusing on cultivating intercultural communication awareness through a non-formal education of office personnel in Bangkok, aims to highlight the prominent influence of an Intercultural Communication (IC) training program in promoting business workers to have some extent of Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) applied at their workplace. The concurrent mixed-method study comprised three approaches employed for collecting data. Two sets of self-reflection questions before and after the training program and the semi-structured interview were the main research instruments to assess the participants' intercultural communication competence after the six-hour training. The data analysis and interpretation stage entailed transforming quantitative data into qualitative themes or codes, then relating them to quantitative outcomes for interpretation and integration. The findings suggested that the business workers had a low to moderate intercultural communication competence with particular areas to be developed prior to the training program. Nevertheless, the results drawn from the study concluded that the participants gained IC awareness from the six-hour training in a relatively high manner. The outcomes of this study could be used as a guideline for educational institutions to prepare graduates with intercultural communication competence ready for the labor market, along with human resource departments and corporations to equip their employees with IC assets by designing or offering training programs to enhance productivity at the workplace.


AbstractThis study evaluates the impact resistance and mechanical properties of a number of developed self-consolidating rubberized concrete (SCRC) mixtures reinforced with steel fibers (SFs). In this research, SFs were used to compensate for the reduction in tensile and flexural strength that resulted from adding high volumes of crumb rubber (CR). SFs were also used to exploit the beneficial interaction between SFs and CR to develop low-density concrete with higher impact resistance. The experimental variables were different replacement levels of fine aggregate volume by CR (0–40%), binder content (550–600  kg/m3), SF volume fractions (0, 0.35, 0.5, 0.75, and 1%), and size of SFs. Tests included fresh properties, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength (STS), flexural strength (FS), and impact loading (drop-weight on cylindrical specimens and flexural impact loading on small-scale beams). The results indicated that adding CR to concrete improved the impact energy absorption and ductility, wherea...


Islam strongly supports Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) because it cannot be denied that business causes many social problems, and companies are responsible for solving them. Businesses need various natural resources for business continuity, so companies are responsible for maintaining them. Companies create many social problems, Islam strongly supports corporate social responsibility (CSR), and companies have a responsibility to solve them. This study aims to explain what corporate social responsibility (CSR) is in the perspective of Islamic law. This type of research is normative, namely research that begins with the process of obtaining legal certainty. Islam strongly supports corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on the research results, it cannot be denied that companies cause many social problems and companies are responsible for solving them. Companies need and are responsible for maintaining various natural resources to continue their business.


The management of traumatized permanent teeth can present as a significant challenge to the dental practitioner. Calcific metamorphosis occurs commonly in young adults as an end result of trauma. It is usually evident in the anterior region of the mouth and can partially or totally obliterate the pulp space radiographically. Most of the studies and case reports suggest that endodontic therapy is not intervened unless a periapical pathology is detected and/or when the concerned tooth becomes symptomatic. This case report presents the anterior teeth with calcific metamorphosis treated with porcelain veneers.


Objective A retrospective study of clinicopathologic features of epithelial tumors of the lacrimal gland was performed to investigate the relationship between pathological classification and clinical features of these tumors.Methods Clinical and histologic material from 298 cases of lacrimal gland tumors from Ophthalmic Pathology Laboratory,Beijing Tongren Hospital(1961 to Jan.2005)was analyzed.Results Among 298 cases,pleomorphic adenomas was the most common,followed by adenoid cystic carcinoma,pleomorphic adenocarcinoma,adenocarcinoma and other type.Besides the duration of symptoms,no significant difference was found on age,sex and laterality among these epithelial tumors of the lacrimal gland.Conclusions It is possible for primary clinical diagnosis with a combination of imaging,clinical appearance.


Abdel K Tahari, Guido Motolese, and Enrico Gratton. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy in turbid media: detection of somatic cells and bacteria in bodily fluids. 47th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, San Antonio, Texas, 2003. Biophys J. 2003; 84(2), 1400-Pos/B654. Abstract We are continuing in our quest to find a simpler and cheaper alternative to detect and quantify cells, bacteria, and even viruses in bodily fluids for clinical and biotechnological applications. We built a dedicated confocal FCS instrument which consists of a home-built microscope that focuses about 200 microns inside a cylindrical cuvette. The cuvette is rotated and moved vertically up and down to effectively scan a large volume enabling us to measure very small concentrations of fluorescently-labeled particles. The diffusion time of the large structures in the volume of observation is negligible with respect to the time of observation of a single volume. We have been able to measure the somatic cell count in milk and bacteria down to a few thousand per ml. We are working on digital data processing and filtering techniques to achieve better sensitivity and higher dynamic range and to compensate for the mechanical fluctuations of the system.


Becoming philosophy of Kim Kuong-Tag obtains a full appreciation of its value by grasping the Tao of Lao-Zi as Becoming. The thesis indicates the limitation his Becoming philosophical interpretation on the Tao. That is, this interpretation produces an outcome of the study which get out of ontologica...


Using a spatial hedonic growth model, this paper empirically examines the relative roles of natural amenities and urban agglomeration economies as determinants of U.S. regional growth patterns from 2000 to 2010. Natural amenities and urban agglomeration are measured using the USDA Economic Research Service county classification codes. The general finding is that natural amenities and urban agglomeration both influenced regional growth. However, the natural amenity ranking is estimated to be positively related to increased productivity over the period rather than increased attractiveness to households. Urban agglomeration is positively related to increased amenity attractiveness to households. Within Census regional analysis revealed a stronger role for household natural amenity demand in nonmetropolitan areas.


This hydraulic working device is provided with: a tool unit (10) having a tool that works by means of hydraulic pressure generated by a hydraulic pump (40); a drive unit (60) that generates rotation torque; and a torque transmission coupling (70) for transmitting the rotation torque generated by the drive unit (60) to a rotation member (41) of the tool unit (10), one end of the torque transmission coupling being detachably coupled to the tool unit (10) and the other end thereof being detachably coupled to the drive unit (60).


In order to optimize the ultrasonic-assisted extraction process of resveratrol from grape skin dreg,response surface methodology(RSM) based on a two-level and five-factor experiment was applied to analyze the effects of different process parameters combination of extraction temperature-time-ultrasonic power on extraction yields of resveratrol from grape skin dreg.The results exhibited that the highest extraction yields of resveratrol(48.72μg/gFW) were achieved by a process combination of a ethanol concentration of 50 %,temperature of 35.6 ℃,extraction duration of 34.8 min,liquid-to-solid ratio of 9∶ 1(mL/g) and ultrasonic power of 231 W.Moreover,the relative error of the established model for extraction efficiency was 0.73 % compared to the predicted value,which had high prediction accuracy.The data obtained provided the foundation for application of the ultrasonic-assisted process in extraction of resveratrol from grape skin dreg.


A 21-year-old man presented to the emergency department complaining of ill-defined anterior chest wall pain and discomfort for two days, after a drinking spree. The pain was aggravated by deep breathing. There was no history of recent trauma. There was no other symptom. He was healthy all along. His blood pressure was 123/60 mmHg, pulse rate 95 beats/ minute, respiratory rate 16 breaths/minute and oral temperature 36.4°C. The physical examination was essentially normal. There was no local tenderness of the chest wall. Chest X-ray was taken (Figure 1).


The paper relates to flexible gateway diversity and dynamic resource allocation for high throughput multi-spot beam satellite systems, including a plurality of cooperative gateways; a software-defined networking (SDN) terrestrial infrastructure connecting through a plurality of SDN switches; a SDN controller in charge of dynamically setting up different routing paths for different traffic priority classes through flexible gateways and sending the forwarding rules to the SDN switches; and a cluster of autonomous gateway agents endowed with situational awareness measurements, predictive traffic estimates and resource allocation techniques. In clear sky conditions, the design and implementation of an adaptive architecture with a feedback control loop judiciously allocates gateway resources shared by the said queues such that the network-side discontent; e.g., unmet throughput per traffic class, is minimized. In contrast with ad-hoc approaches that often rely on laborious tuning and design iterations, the use of coordination and control supported by local gateway agents is further investigated to systematically design feedback-based gateway switching mechanisms with proven performance guarantees when subject to degradation of one or more feeder links in potential outage events. Properties of the gateway switching as proposed herein include robust relative handover guarantees and resource utilization efficiency.


(57) pharmaceutically acceptable salts of the compounds and the compound [Summary] Formula (I) are disclosed. R Pharmaceutical compositions and methods of treatment are also included. The compounds are useful for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). [Formula 1]


We propose a novel method for logo inserted encoding using long-term reference, which is featured in H.264. We confirmed that our method improves the picture quality of the logo-inserted region compared to conventional methods.


OF THESIS ETHNICITY AND MOBILITY ORIENTATIONS: A STUDY OF THE MEXICAN-AMERICANS OF SOUTHERN COLORADO Data analyzed in this study are from questionnaire responses of 645 Mexican American high school students from schools in southern Colorado. The sample included both males and females at the junior and senior levels. The literature review includes theories which attempt to explain differential acculturation on the one hand and theories which attempt to explain differentials in mobility orientations in terms of differ,ntial acculturation on the other. In the first instance, hypotheses were derived which included: 1) the existence of a positive relationship between geographic isolation and ethnic cultural retention; and 2) the existence of a positive relationship between ethnic dominance and ethnic cultural retention. Ethnic cultural retention was measured by a scale developed for that purpose. The hypotheses were supported by low but significant relationships in each case. In the second instance, hypotheses included: 1) a negative relationship between ethnic cultural retention and prestige level of occupational aspirations; 2) a negative relationship between ethnic cultural retention and self concept of ability; and 3) a positive relationship between ethnic cultural retention and Shannon's World View Scale. A significant relationship was found only in the case of the first hypothesis and even this was extremely low (r In .09).


Introduction: Optimal cellular immunity following allogeneic HPC transplant is a tenuous balance between effective anti-tumor immunity and the avoidance of life threatening GvHD. The events necessary for potentially curative GvL are related to tumor burden, T-cell content, NK cell content, and dendritic cell content. Our group previously demonstrated that DC content following allogeneic BMT can impact EFS (Waller et al, Blood 2001), and that cytokines used during mobilization impact DC content of the autologous graft (Lonial et al, BBMT 2004). The current trial was designed with the hypothesis that the use of G + GM-CSF will result in fewer tolerogenic DC2 cells within the graft, and increased Th1 phenotype among the mobilized T-cells. Methods: 40 normal donors were randomized to receive G-CSF alone (7.5 mcg/kg BID) or G-CSF (7.5mcg/kg qd) and GM-CSF (7.5 mcg/kg qd) for 5 days or longer if additional apheresis were necessary. Side effects between the 2 cytokine regimens were documented using a questionnaire that was administered within 2 weeks of successful collection. Graft content was evaluated using multi-color flow cytometry, and pre-mobilization blood was collected to test for T-cell and DC content as well as T-cell function. T-cell proliferation was assessed using thymidine incorporation assays following mitogen exposure, and T-cell activation profile was assessed using ELISA assays of secreted cytokines following mitogen stimulation. DC1 (myeloid DC) were defined as Lin-/HLA-DR+/CD11C+/CD123−, while DC2 (lymphoid DC) were defined as Lin-/HLA-DR+/CD11C−/CD123+. Results: 18 patients received G+GM-CSF and 22 patients received G-CSF alone. All 40 donors were successfully mobilized, though more patients in the G-CSF arm required multiple days of collection (mean number of collections 1.5 G-CSF vs 1.0 G+GM-CSF, p=0.01). Donors mobilized with G-CSF alone had a higher overall cell count (765e8/ml compared with 615e8/ml for G+GM-CSF, p=0.04), though the CD34 content of the grafts were comparable. Again, there was a significant reduction in delivered DC2 content of graft mobilized with G+GM-CSF when compared with G-CSF alone (5.1e6/kg compared with 2.85e6/kg, p=0.001), with a trend towards fewer DC1 cells as well (2.6e6/kg vs 1.7e6/kg, p=0.05). Overall, the DC1:DC2 ratio favors DC1 among donors mobilized with G+GM-CSF. Additionally, grafts collected with G-CSF alone had nearly twice the total T-cell content of grafts mobilized with G+GM-CSF (420e6/kg vs 220e6/kg, p=0.0001). The reduction in total T-cells was evenly distributed between CD4 and CD8 cells with similar magnitude of reduction in both subsets amongst those receiving G+GM-CSF. Interestingly, grafts collected from the recipients of G+GM-CSF produced more IL-2 at rest, and secreted significantly more IL-12 in response to mitogen. Toxicity between the 2 arms were similar with 1 patient in the G+GM-CSF arm having to stop growth factors due to bone pain and fever. Conclusion: The combination of G+GM-CSF mobilizes fewer DC2 cells as well as 40–50% fewer T-cells, and is more likely to result in a successful single PBSC collection than the use of G-CSF alone. Preliminary data suggests that the combination of G+GM-CSF shifts T-cells towards a Th1 phenotype, despite fewer overall T-cells. Further laboratory evaluation of the graft, survival, and GvHD data following transplant will also be presented.


Machine learning (ML) models are now widely used in digital twins of water treatment facilities. These models are commonly trained based on historical datasets, and their predictions serve various important objectives, such as anomaly detection and optimization. While predictions from the trained models are being made continuously for the digital twin, model updating using newly available real-time data is also necessary so that the twin can mimic the changes in the physical system dynamically. Thus, a synchronicity framework needs to be established in the digital twin, which has not been addressed in the literature so far. In this study, a novel framework with new coverage-based algorithms is proposed to determine the necessity and timing for model updating during real-time data transfers to improve the ML performance over time. The framework is tested in a prototype water treatment facility called the secure water treatment (SWaT) system. The results show that the framework performs well in general to synchronize the model updates and predictions, with a significant reduction in errors of up to 97%. The good performance can be attributed particularly to the coverage-based updating algorithms which control the size of training datasets to accelerate the ML model updating during synchronization.


We examined the effect of organic matter released by four different algal species on the hygroscopic growth and droplet activation behaviour of laboratory-generated marine aerosol particles. Hygroscopic growth factors and dry diameters for activation were reduced by less than 10%, compared to that of sodium chloride or of artificial seawater that was devoid of marine surfactants. Concentration-dependent nonideal behaviour was observed for the artificial seawater. But within measurement uncertainty, the measured hygroscopic growth and droplet activation behaviour for the samples that contained organic matter were consistent with a hygroscopicity parameter that was constant between the sub- and supersaturated measurement points. Also, the hygroscopic growth measured for hydrated particles after 3 and after 10 seconds was similar, which implies that in this time range no kinetic effects were detected.


Jugular phlebectasia is rare condition presenting as an isolated fusiform dilatation of the jugular vein [1]. It is most commonly seen in the internal jugular vein, followed by the external jugular, anterior jugular and then the superficial communicating veins [2]. It usually presents on the right side [3] and in children as an intermittent neck swelling which increases in size on coughing, straining, sneezing and Valsalva manoeuvre. External jugular phlebectasia is rarely seen, rarer still in adults and frequently misdiagnosed or managed inappropriately. It differs from varices, due to the lack of tortuosity and from aneurysms which are segmental, saccular and secondarily acquired. Differential diagnosis of this condition may include laryngocele, branchial cyst, or superior mediastinal cysts [2]. The treatment is controversial however conservative treatment is preferred in asymptomatic masses and regular follow up is recommended. Surgery is advised in the presence of complications or for cosmetic reasons. In our report we present a case of external jugular phlebectasia in an adult, on the left side (Figure 1). Due to the rarity of this condition, its unique presentation on the left side, especially in adults, a high index of suspicion is required to recognise it and differentiate it from other swellings or a cardiovascular condition. We also highlight the importance of avoiding over-investigations and invasive investigations which could be catastrophic. Figure 1: Enlarged left jugular vein.


The mitigation of Interference and Multipath is of paramount importance for the GNSS reference stations since they potentially introduce significant errors on the measurements provided by these stations. The solution that has been used up to now in order to reduce the effect of multipath consists of using a small choke-ring ground plane, but unfortunately this solution results to be effective only to a very limited extent. The solution proposed in this paper, named "Interference and Multipath Protector" (IMLP), consists instead of adding an external structure able to deterministically change the antenna coverage. The general - effect of the IMLP structure is: - to reduce the unwanted gain at low elevation angles; - to leave the original pattern as much as possible unchanged for the high elevation angles. The paper summarizes recent simulation analyses and measurements results deriving from the study (design and development) of the IMLP structure solution.


Genetic Algorithms (GAs) have been gradually identified as an optimization-problem solver for certain classes of real-world applications. As GAs are increasingly utilized, a foundational study on how well GAs can perform with respect to varying problem domains becomes crucial. Yet, none of the prevalent theoretical studies are built upon the linkage between the theory and application of GAs. This dissertation introduces a methodology for estimating the applicability of a GA configuration for an arbitrary optimization problem based on run-time data. More specifically, this work analyzes the convergence behavior within a finite number of generations for each GA run through the estimation of the trace of the transition matrix of the corresponding Markov chain from run-time data. The analytical and empirical results show that the methodology is helpful for evaluating the applicability of GAs to optimization problems. Through the methodology, the number of generations needed for empirical convergence with respect to a fitness function (or a problem) can be estimated. The proposed methodology entails an evaluation metric and connects theory to application of GAs, for estimating the applicability of a GA to a problem. The methodology is demonstrated through a case study on evolutionary testing.


Hydroenergetic works represent the major climate and ventilation problems in the rooms where they are made. The air temperature of these rooms is determined by two elements: the warmth that emanates from the massif, especially in great depths, and the humidity of air, which is seldom close to saturation. This paper studies these two elements solving the problem of parameter interaction (temperature - humidity) from an analytical point of view. The analytically obtained equations are experimentally validated through a case study.


This study was carried out to evaluate the use of viscosity measurements as a method of assessing the optimum use of organic polymers as conditioning agents in sludge dewatering. The study focused on sludge from the clarifiers of a water‐treatment works. In addition to viscosity measurements, the programme included an appraisal of other techniques for specifying dewater‐ability, e.g. the specific resistance to filtration, the capillary suction time and the electrical charge status via streaming‐current measurements.


This article discusses perspectives, and principles of R. Buckminster Fuller´s philosophy and possible implications on the future role of industrial design. The article is aimed at professional designers and students of design, looking to challenge their philosophical basis for design practice. The point of departure is an existentialistic question for the design profession. What one should design towards in general terms and what rationale can back up designing in general? The background is a review of texts by R. Buckminster Fuller, including also ideas from Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek. The following discussion is inspired by concepts from the book "Open Design Now" by van Abel, Evers, Klaassen and Troxler. Current trends in design and technology; digital fabrication, open source, open design and blockchain technology increase the freedom of the designer, but also the responsibility. These may be seen as potential remedies for humanity's shortcomings in sustainably operating Spaceship Earth. Finally we can conclude with the fact that we are collectively going to design our future. What we want this future to be is up to us; we should consider truthfully what is important, and what is not. We should also in our pursuit of constructive practice, allow ourselves the privileged of letting go of "lovingly administered nonsense


Re-gaining the fine motor skills of hand is the ultimate goal of the rehabilitation for the stroke survivors and traumatic brain injured patients with chronic hemiparesis. The clinical outcomes with the traditional passive rehabilitation approaches are often limited and slow for impaired hand-function recovery. It is well known that actively involving the conscious efforts of patients into hand-function training would be critical for improving cerebral functional reorganization according to the brain plasticity theory. In this study, a training system for the rehabilitation of fine hand functions was developed based on a flexible data glove system and validated in able-bodied subjects. The real-time performance of the training system was assessed with a measure, motion completion rate, in seven healthy subjects. The results of this study showed that using the kinematic signals a high average offline classification accuracy (98.67%±1.51%) and sound real-time completion rate (89.17%±5.49%) could be achieved in able-bodied subjects, which suggested a promise of applying kinematic signals in hand-function rehabilitation training. The future works will be conducted in stroke patients to further validate the performance of the proposed system.


OF all the problems currently facing the surgeon and pathologist, none is more controversial than the pathogenesis and proper treatment of adenomatous polyps of the colon. Until a few years ago the...


Effect of water injection on hydrogen generation during severe accident in a 1000 MWe pressurized water reactor was studied. The analyses were carried out with different water injection rates at different core damage stages. The core can be quenched and accident progression can be terminated by water injection at the time before cohesive core debris is formed at lower core region. Hydrogen generation rate decreases with water injection into the core at the peak core temperature of 1700 K, because the core is quenched and reflooded quickly. The water injection at the peak core temperature of 1900 K, the hydrogen generation rate increases at low injection rates of the water, as the core is quenched slowly and the core remains in uncovered condition at high temperatures for a longer time than the situation of high injection rate. At peak core temperature of 2100–2300 K, the Hydrogen generation rate increases by water injection because of the steam serving to the high temperature steam-starved core. Hydrogen generation rate increases significantly after water injection into the core at peak core temperature of 2500 K because of the steam serving to the relocating Zr-U-O mixture. Almost no hydrogen generation can be seen in base case after formation of the molten pool at the lower core region. However, hydrogen is generated if water is injected into the molten pool, because steam serves to the crust supporting the molten pool. Reactor coolant system (RCS) depressurization by opening power operated relief valves has important effect on hydrogen generation. Special attention should be paid to hydrogen generation enhancement caused by RCS depressurization.


Supply chain management clusters are geographic concentrations of three or more companies directly involved in the upstream and downstream flows of products, services, finances and/or information from a source to a customer. Clusters extend downstream to channels and customers, as well as laterally to manufacturers of complementary products. They also extend to companies in industries related by skills, technologies or common inputs.


In the paper,the authors introduce the development and application of the different types of moulds for thin slab continuous casting and the development of China's continuous casting technology.


Landslides are affected not only by their own environmental factors, but also by the neighborhood environmental factors and the landslide clustering effect, which are represented as the neighborhood characteristics of modelling spatial datasets in landslide susceptibility prediction (LSP). This study aims to innovatively explore the neighborhood characteristics of landslide spatial datasets for reducing the LSP uncertainty. Neighborhood environmental factors were acquired and managed by remote sensing (RS) and the geographic information system (GIS), then used to represent the influence of landslide neighborhood environmental factors. The landslide aggregation index (LAI) was proposed to represent the landslide clustering effect in GIS. Taking Chongyi County, China, as example, and using the hydrological slope unit as the mapping unit, 12 environmental factors including elevation, slope, aspect, profile curvature, plan curvature, topographic relief, lithology, gully density, annual average rainfall, NDVI, NDBI, and road density were selected. Next, the support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) were selected to perform LSP considering the neighborhood characteristics of landslide spatial datasets based on hydrologic slope units. Meanwhile, a grid-based model was also established for comparison. Finally, the LSP uncertainties were analyzed from the prediction accuracy and the distribution patterns of landslide susceptibility indexes (LSIs). Results showed that the improved frequency ratio method using LAI and neighborhood environmental factors can effectively ensure the LSP accuracy, and it was significantly higher than the LSP results without considering the neighborhood conditions. Furthermore, the Wilcoxon rank test in nonparametric test indicates that the neighborhood characteristics of spatial datasets had a great positive influence on the LSP performance.


Recent data suggest that the potentiated twitch is a more sensitive index of contractile fatigue than is the unpotentiated twitch. We hypothesized that after a potentially fatiguing load, the fall in twitch amplitude of the potentiated twitch would be significantly greater than that of an unpotentiated twitch. We compared the response of the potentiated and unpotentiated twitches to a series of potentially fatiguing loads using magnetic stimulation of the femoral nerve in 10 healthy subjects. The baseline unpotentiated quadriceps twitch force (TwQu), potentiated quadriceps twitch force (TwQp), and maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) were 129 ± 6 N, 198 ± 6 N, and 622 ± 25 N, respectively. During a fatigue protocol that was designed to induce a spectrum of fatigue from mild to marked, the percent fall in quadriceps twitch force was significantly greater for the potentiated method than for the unpotentiated method at all levels of fatigue (P < .005). The within‐subject within‐day coefficient of variation was 7.5 ± 0.5% for TwQu and 5.6 ± 0.9% for TwQp. Thus, TwQp is reproducible and is superior to TwQu for detecting early muscle fatigue. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Muscle Nerve 25: 000–000, 2002


The utility model relates to the technical field of sporting goods, in particular to a luminous billiard cue. A plurality of cues are connected to form the luminous billiard cue. One section of the cue on the tail end is a hollow transparent pipe body. A light-emitting device is arranged on the back end of the transparent pipe body. The transparent pipe body is arranged on the tail end of the cue and the light-emitting device is arranged on the back end of the pipe body, so the light-emitting device can send out shines at the process of playing billiards; the light-emitting device is matched with the transparent pipe body, which can create favorable visual effect. Thereby, many interests are increased at the process of playing.


A multi-channel high voltage electrohydrodynamic (EHD) driver which can realize drive-per-nozzle (DPN) that can compensate the deviation of each nozzle is presented. The proposed driver features the use of a serial peripheral interface and a serial-to-parallel converter to realize DPN by generating high voltage pulse-width-modulation (PWM) signals with different widths and delays for each nozzle. In order to achieve a uniform ink state in the nozzle, these high voltage pulse can be adjusted for each nozzle and control the electric field applied to the nozzle. In this way, driving according to the state of each nozzle can be realized. We successfully design and implement the proposed EHD driver through 1um single-poly 3-metal high voltage technology using BCD-on-SOI process.


[Objective] The aim of the study was to confirm suitable planting density of high-yield cultivation for rice with different growth periods. [Method] 6 planting densities of 90 000, 135 000, 172 500, 225 000, 256 500 and 321 000 nests/hm2 were set up to study the tillering dynamics and yields of Yixiang 481 (P1) with long growth period and 101A/R1007 (P2) with short growth period. [Result] Along with the decrease of density, the rice tiller quantity per nest increased correspondingly in tillering peak stage of P1. The tiller quantity of P2 planted thinly was more and that of P2 planted thickly was less. Along with the increase of density, the highest tillering periods of the 2 varieties advanced. Their available ear number per plant decreased and showed simple linear correlation. P1 got highest available ear number (241 200 0/hm2) and highest yield (10 281.6 kg/hm2) at 172 500 nests/hm2. P2 got highest available ear number (277 050 0/hm2) and highest yield (9 631.5 kg/hm2) at 225 000 nests/hm2. The full grain number per ear had biggest influence on the yield of P1 and available ear number was secondary. Increasing available ear number could increase the yield of P2 significantly. [Conclusion] The variety with long growth period can get perfect available ear number under relatively thin planting. Properly increasing planting density for the variety with short growth period was in favor of enhancing available ear number.


One of the most common anxiety disorders is the Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) which is characterized by intolerable anxiety and self-consciousness in daily social situations. Although a large body of study is conducted on the treatment for this disorder, further studies are required on new psychological therapies. The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on patients with SAD. The present randomized controlled trial (RCT) study is done along with pre-test, post-test and follow-up with control group. Based on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID), the 34 subjects who were prone to social anxiety disorder on the basis of DSM-5but had no other severe psychiatric disorders were distributed randomly and equally into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was treated with 12 weekly CFT sessions whereas the control group did not receive any treatment. In the initial phase of the research work especially after 12 weeks and after a followup period of 8 weeks, all subjects were evaluated with AAQ-II, MAAS, LOSC, SCS, WHOQOL-BREF and LSAS instruments. In addition to descriptive statistics, repeated measure analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) was used in order to analyze the findings.Byusing SPSS-21 software, all analyses were conducted. Based on the RM-ANOVA, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy was found more effective than the control group in all of the studied variables in posttest and follow-up. All the observed differences between the two groups were significant (P < 0.01). Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) seems to play an essential role in reducing symptoms and in improving the quality of the life of patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD).


This is a Special Edition on a special theme, one of enormous contemporary signiŽ cance. While some aspects of globalisation have come under criticism, it could be argued that the spread of democracy and human rights is one of the more beneŽ cial features of the modern interdependent world. This may be no more than a rhetorical gesture in some parts, but it enables pressure to be brought for transparency. Similarly, the international concern about citizenship and hence citizenship education is generating valuable exchange and a challenge to old orthodoxies. When there are climates of con ict and violence, especially, the crucial importance is underlined of an education for critical questioning and for active participation in an open society. This volume brings together papers from a range of geographical and educational contexts to explore some major themes in democracy and citizenship. The contributions arose out of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) millennium conference on 'Learning Democracy and Citizenship', held in Birmingham. While the contexts in this edition include Latin America, Europe, South Africa and Taiwan, all the papers in different ways revolve around circumstances of change. Such change entails surfacing the contestations over the meanings of democracy and citizenship themselves, as well as analysing how  uid political contexts impact on their operation or implementation. First comes the whole notion of globalisation itself, which Peter Jarvis explores in his paper on the education of adults. Such globalisation and shifts in the nature of the state relate to the changing nature of citizenship, with a concern about social exclusion and the passivity of citizens. Jarvis' distinction between the public and private spheres is also picked up in Julia Preece's scrutiny of the gender perspective in the learning of citizenship and governance. Preece is also concerned about exclusion, in this sense of women from conventional notions of citizenship and governance; she argues for a new kind of citizenship education as an 'ethical social practice' which acknowledges power differentials. The question of power is obviously a recurrent theme in many papers, and is perhaps central to Yusuf Sayed's discussion of democratising education in a decentralised South Africa. This paper raises the fundamental dilemma between the right of schools to decide their own functioning and a government's concern with equity. What occurs with the attempts to democratise educational governance is the displacement of con ict from central to local level, with con ict becoming 'legalised' in the sense of the courts interpreting the essence of the contestation. Differing interpretations of democracy (grassroots, participative, corporate, legal) also surface in Rosalind Pritchard's discussion of German uniŽ cation. She challenges particularly the 'colonisation' thesis, that the former East Germany was simply colonised by the West, and is concerned that this


The purpose of this study was to investigate the heat transfer and friction characteristics of 7㎜ louver finned-tube exchangers. Evaporators used to the present study were the finned-tube type. Tested finned-tube evaporators was changed configuration parameters such as fin type, row number, tube diameter. To control the temperature, velocity and humidity of inlet air flow, a heat wind tunnel was used. The experimental results show that the heat transfer and friction of 7㎜ evaporator(3 row) are more higher above 30% than those of 9.52㎜ evaporator. And it is observed that the heat transfer and friction performance of the evaporator with louver fin was higher above 5%, compared with those of slit fin.


This paper develops the theory for solving piecewise-linear optimal control problems and then employs this theory to obtain suboptimal solutions for controlling non-linear systems. The non-linear system is first approximated by a piecewise-linear model. A jump condition on the adjoint variables and a continuity condition on the Hamiltonian are derived and utilized to obtain the optimal solution to the piecewise-linear model. This control is then considered as a suboptimal solution to the non-linear problem. The piecewise-linear modelling technique provides a means of decoupling the system and adjoint equations and hence provides a simple means of calculating the suboptimal control. A variable mass, minimum-energy problem is solved to illustrate the technique. A feedback scheme is introduced to minimize the boundary and cost errors.


The Dirac scotogenic model provides an elegant mechanism which explains small Dirac neutrino masses and neutrino mixing, with a single symmetry simultaneously protecting the "Diracness" of the neutrinos and the stability of the dark matter candidate. Here, we explore the phenomenological implications of the recent CDF-II measurement of the W boson mass in the Dirac scotogenic framework. We show that, in the scenario where the dark matter is mainly a [Formula: see text] scalar doublet, it can satisfy all the theoretical and experimental constraints along with the CDF-II W boson mass for the mass range of 58–86 GeV. However, unlike the Majorana scotogenic model, the Dirac version also has a "dark sector" SU(2)L singlet scalar. We show that if the singlet scalar is the lightest dark sector particle, i.e. the dark matter then all neutrino physics and dark matter constraints along with the constraints from oblique S, T and U parameters can be concurrently satisfied for W boson mass in the CDF-II mass range, where the singlet dark matter mass is constrained up to around 500 GeV.


Abstract: This experiment investigated the effect the structure of a WWW document has on the amount of information retained by a reader. Three structures common on the Internet were tested: one long page; a table of contents leading to individual sections; and short sections of text on separate pages with revision questions. Participants read information structured in one of these ways and were then tested on recall of that information. A further experiment investigated the effect that 'browsing' moving between pages has on retrieval. There was no difference between the structures for overall amount of information retained. The single page version was best for recall of facts, while the short sections of text with revision questions led to the most accurate inferences from the material. Browsing on its own had no significant impact on information retrieval. Revision questions rather than structure per se were therefore the key factor. Reviewers: John Errington (U. Northumbria at Newcastle, UK), Xiufeng Liu (St. Francis Xavier U., CA), Sandra Wills (U. Wollongong, AU)
 Interactive elements: The three Web document designs contrasted in the experiments are provided.
 Interactive demonstrations: The websites contrasted in the experiments are explained in Sections 1.1.1 - 1.1.3 (Expt. 1), and 3.2 (Expt. 2), with links to the respective websites


A new species of Neobartsia endemic to the eastern Andes of Colombia is described, illustrated, and compared with related species. This species belongs to section Orthocarpiflorae and morphologically it is characterized by having floral bracts light green with glandular hairs, corolla yellowish green, the galea cucullate, longer than the lip, retrorsely glandularpuberulous, the lip three-lobed, glabrous and the corolla tube decurved. Currently, it is only known from two localities in the Colombian department of Boyacá, where it grows in the páramo ecosystem between 3528 and 3639 meters above sea level on rocky soil with grassy vegetation.


We investigated the local regularities of disability incidence due to cardiovascular diseases in Zhytomyr oblast over 1999-2008 by strip-split-plot design. By using geographical mixed model we ascertained the peculiarities of disability distribution among cohorts, age groups and time periods (APC). Data analysis was carried out on the base of hierarchical nonlinear mixed model. Results bear witness to enhanced local heterogeneity in disability rates due to irregularity in distribution of APC factors. Each APC factor rendered significant modification to geographical distribution of disability rates.


In this paper we have described the field applications of a low-cost tap changer condition monitor to a type of old distribution tap changer. Monitoring systems have been applied to the on-line assessment of tap changers in a distribution network for over three years. From the results from long-term monitoring and subsequent plant inspection, we illustrate the ways in which the condition of a tap changer deteriorates. In some cases the deterioration is gradual, but in others there are sudden shifts in the condition. The monitoring system presented in this paper can accurately detect and track either type of degradation. The on-line condition monitoring can be applied to the optimisation of tap changer maintenance programs. Probabilities of rate of degradation, determined from long-term monitoring and results of short-term tests, can be used to establish a monitoring program that will minimise maintenance costs and maximise reliability.


The standard method for water clarification in SAGD operations involved the injection of latex polymers to break produced reverse emulsions. Operationally, this resulted in large quantities of oil in the water downstream of the first oil and water separation vessel. Problems occurred because this generated large amounts of oily solids and emulsion. This slop material represented a significant additional expenditure. Champion developed a novel approach to treat these systems and reduce slop. This program has been very successful in removing oil from the water stream during primary separation, thus reducing costs associated with reprocessing slop oil, and resulting in greater oil recovery.


Deliberative politics offers a new and exiting way of overcoming the problems that the western democracy of today is facing. A lot of research in the most recent years have had the goal to replace the representative democracy with a decision-making frame built on decentralization and deliberation. The goal for this essay is to create a framework for local decision-making, based on deliberativ norms, that could work as a complement to the representative democracy instead of replacing it.

During the recent years the so-called "brukarrad"; councils for the most common users of one special public service, has been a new way for the local government to get in direct contact with those who are most affected by changes and developments in the specific area of the public administration. In this essay I argue for that these councils should be designed so that they could house deliberative processes.

After creating a model for the possible way of designing the "brukarrad" I compare the framework with the system that exists today. In this way there is a possibility to point out if there is a way to deepen the democracy within the already existing system.


When recipients of talk solve troubles of hearing or understanding during a conversation, they utilize other-initiation of repair (OIR), such as questions "what," "where," and "you mean x." These utterances are typically produced with delayed timing. Multimodal, bodily features are also typically included. Although troubles in hearing and understanding are common, there have been few studies comparing the timing of OIR of normally hearing individuals to individuals with hearing impairment, especially from a multimodal perspective. The current study examined video recordings of 14 dyads with normal hearing and with a mild-to-severe degree of hearing impairment. The research focused on verbal OIR sequences (N = 167) and adopted a multimodal approach. The research questions were presented as follows: (1) In relation to the trouble source turn, what is the timing of OIRs?; (2) What visual bodily resources does the recipient utilize during OIR sequences?; (3) Does the timing of OIRs and their visual bodily style of production differ between participants with normal hearing and different degrees of hearing impairment? Conversation analysis with ELAN software was utilized for qualitative and statistical inspection of the data. The results show that gaps preceding OIRs displayed variation and mean values for participants with normal hearing and mild-to-moderate hearing impairment were ~700 ms and with severe hearing impairment ~500 ms. In comparison to other participants in the data, participants with severely deteriorated hearing produced OIRs without delay and utilized more overt visual bodily actions. Especially, the ~200 ms mean gap for open OIRs with participants with severe hearing impairment indicated very fast turn-taking, occurring even in overlap with the trouble source turn. However, all participants took a long time to initiate restricted OIRs than open OIRs. In terms of visual bodily actions, the results showed some fundamental differences. Participants with severe hearing impairment held their gaze at the speaker more intensively than other participants. Other visual bodily actions, such as upper body leaning forward or changes in facial expressions, were found in all participant groups. However, their frequency, timing, and quality displayed variation.


The aim of this research is developing an integrated science learning module
of local content for seventh grade students of Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri
(Islamic Junior High School) in Pakem, Sleman, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta.
This developing is reviewed form content, language, and presentation aspects, and
influence of the using of this module in learning process.

This research based on Research and Development (R&D) followed the 4-D
model, i.e. Define, Design, Develop, and Disseminate. The define phase is need
assessment analysis thoroughly. The Design phase is characterized by the
development of the prototype of the module. The develop phase is the
development of the prototype of the module, include learning module
organization which is orientated to local content, Pondoh zalacca. This module
was guided by thesis supervisor and Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The quality
of this module is reviewed by five integrated science teachers and responded by
29 students. The disseminate phase was not be done because this is the whole
assessment.

This research shows that the module has a good quality, going the score
234, from the maximum score 280 and ideal percentage 83.57%. In addition, the
module has an excellent quality, going the score 27.45, from the maximum score
28 and ideal percentage 98.03%. There it can be used in integrated science
learning process in State Islamic Middle School, in Sleman, Daerah Istimewa
Yogyakarta.


Poster: "ECR 2018 / C-2916 / Cerebral atrophy and white matter lesions as biomarkers of premature ageing amongst homeless patients: A pilot study." by: "J. O'Mahony1, M. Durand2, C. Ni Cheallaigh2, J. F. Meaney2; 1Dublin 8/IE, 2Dublin/IE"


The Old Nineteen Poems,Su Li Poems and Jianan Poems are of the three-in-one relationship.It is rare to see the words and sentences that are similar with The Old Nineteen Poems before Jianan Poems.There occurr about thirteen sentences from Cao Pi,and more than thirty sentences in Cao Zhi's poems.More importantly,there are twelve words used firstly by Cao Zhi in his poems.Hence,most poems of The Old Nineteen Poems should be written by Cao Zhi.


Causal mediation analysis (CMA) requires measurement of an outcome with and without treatment, plus a set of mediator variables that constitute possible pathways for the treatment effect. There is no consensus on whether surveys should measure potentially mediating variables before or after the outcome variables. We use a replication exercise to demonstrate how the order of mediator and outcome items can be consequential for the results from CMA. Order can affect mediation conclusions, even if the treatment effect of interest is similar across instrument designs. Because survey design can affect conclusions, randomizing order is usually prudent, though best practice depends on the researcher's contextual knowledge about her particular application. (109 words) keywords: mediation, survey, causality.


survey of the species belonging to the genera Canoparmelia and Crespoa in the Parque Estadual da Cantareira and adjacencies revealed the respective occurrence of four and three species. The species are recognized by foliose thalli with narrow rounded or ±truncate lobes generally ≤ 0.5 cm wide, differing by the upper cortex morphology and anatomy as well as by the secondary metabolites, all species of the genus having eciliate margins. Medullary chemical constituents are diverse. A key for identification, descriptions, comments and illustrations are provided for the cited species.


The importance of arterial stiffening in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease has been gaining acceptance in recent years but is still widely overlooked, with the present preoccupation being atherothrombosis.1,2 Arteriosclerosis is a result of a combination of endothelial dysfunction and structural abnormalities of the media of conduit arteries (in contrast to atherosclerosis which is an intimal disease) including increased collagen content, calcification and hypertrophy of vascular smooth muscle cells.3,4 Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is known to confer an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease with an inverse graded relationship with glomerular filtration rates (GFR) independent of other risk factors.3 It is now widely accepted that the major driver of premature cardiovascular death and disease in CKD is left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and fibrosis rather than occlusive arterial disease.4

Arterial stiffening is best understood as a disturbance of one of the major functions of the arterial system, namely buffering of oscillatory changes in blood pressure that result from intermittent ventricular ejection. The highly distensible arterial system ensures that most tissues receive near steady flow with no exposure to peak systolic pressures. This mechanism is so efficient that there is almost no drop in diastolic pressure from ascending aorta to peripheral arteries.5 Loss of arterial distensibility results in a more rigid aorta that is less able to accommodate the volume of blood ejected by the left ventricle, resulting in greater pressure augmentation in systole and higher pulse pressures.6 As arterial stiffness increases, the myocardium, brain and kidneys are exposed to higher systolic pressures and greater pressure fluctuations resulting in microvascular damage.7 The increased impedance results in LVH. Furthermore, the effects on the left ventricle are exacerbated by lower diastolic pressure which reduces diastolic coronary perfusion, promoting subendocardial ischaemia and myocardial fibrosis.8 …


The aims of study were to discuss issues concerning the effect of the age, marital status, and education variable to earnings of women workers in simultaneously and partial in the informal sector of Marga village, and differences in the family income before and after the women working in the informal sector. This study was at Marga village. Number of sample was 100 people. The data analysis technique has been used were multiple linear regression and t test. The test results shows that the age, marital status, and education variable in simultaneous have significant effect on the informal sector women worker's income. There are differences in family income before and after the women working.


The British Thyroid Association (BTA) recommends ultrasound assessment of thyroid nodules using the U classification. The American College of Radiologists (ACR) recommend assessment with the Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (TIRADS). We conduct the first UK study to compare these two systems.


Nucleotide sequence and polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis of the 3'-portion of the mitochondrial 16S RNA gene (rDNA) coding sequence was used to authenticate flying fish paste in ago-noyaki. Flying fish paste in ago-noyaki samples was quantified using image analysis of the PCR-RFLP profile. PCR products from standard ago-noyaki samples were digested with AfaI and MunI restriction endonucleases and their electrophoresis patterns were analyzed to produce standard equations for digestion: AfaI digestion: y = 0.0084x + 0.0757, R2 = 0.977 and MunI digestion: y = 0.0091x + 0.0153, R2 = 0.974. This method was then applied to analyze five and two commercially available ago-noyaki and noyaki products, respectively. The results confirmed proper E-mark labeling of ago-noyaki.


With the acceleration of urban construction process,the output of construction waste in urban area is increasing year by year.In order to work out the countermeasures for construction waste disposal and comprehensive and scientific utilization of them,the paper builds,directed against the present vague situation of the waste output,an indicator system on the scientific,complete,representative and operable principles.This system may affect the output of urban construction waste,but through analysis of the main components,the main indicator system and main indicators for the output can be established.In consideration of the accumulated contribution rate of its characteristic roots,the calculation and prediction method of the output of urban construction waste is given,and the paper proposes a concrete skeleton for calculation and prediction method of the construction waste output,and provides a scientific basis for calculating and forecasting the construction waste output and developing trend.


Active development of the higher vocational education is an important characteristic of the higher education development in the world nowadays, and is an important approach of the higher education "massification", even "popularization" in many developed countries. This paper compares and analyses the general development situation and characteristics of the higher vocational education in six developed countries, and searches their available revelations and references to our higher vocational education.


This study assessed the use of 3‐dimensional (3D) speckle‐tracking echocardiography for noninvasive monitoring and diagnosis of acute rejection in heart transplant recipients.


Keywords:Classification,Dongba literature,Mutual information,Literature feature,SVM Abstract.With dongba culture researches increasing year by year, there needs to be a highly efficient classification method to classify research achievements creating conditions for further study. Aiming at the shortcomings of the traditional mutual information method, giving full consideration to the factors such as word frequency, concentration and dispersion, and using the difference between the maximum and the second large value as a global evaluation function, GMI feature selection algorithm is proposed. Use this algorithm to choose text feature after one dimension reduction, and then get classification feature combined with the literature feature on secondary dimension reduction,and finally utilize the SVM to classify dongba literature. The experimental results show that the average accuracy rate and recall rate in all categories are 83% and 82% respectively. Experimental results show the proposed method is feasible in the dongba literature classification.


ABSTRACT Six Leptolyngbya strains, isolated from the archaeological surfaces of hypogean sites, were phenotypically and genetically characterized by light and electron microscopy and 16S rRNA gene and 16S-23S internally transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing. Three phycoerythrin-rich (red) and three phycocyanin-rich (green) isolates were assigned to different operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Among the green isolates, one strain showed an OTU intraspecific variation due to differences in the ITS sequences and genomic polymorphism. Within the ITS sequence, variable regions, conserved domains and tRNAIle and tRNAAla genes showed high sequence identity among the phylotypes. Together, these data indicated a relatedness of the six strains to other Leptolyngbya from subaerophytic and geothermal environments and allowed the definition of novel Leptolyngbya OTUs.


The Great Yorkshire Run will celebrate its tenth anniversary in a new location for 2016. The 10K run takes place in Harrogate on Sunday 24 July, ...


The fiber optic gyro (FOG), which is currently one of the most widely used fiber optic sensors, has firmly occupied a considerable market share of inertial sensors and offers the benefits of high stability and easy integration. The resonant FOG, also known as the RFOG, is a sensor that identifies a rotation rate by employing the use of a fiber ring resonator. It possesses a higher application potential in terms of optical stability and system miniaturization because it is an FOG of the second generation. This review begins with an exploration of the RFOG principle and then moves on to concentrate on the two aspects of RFOG optical noises suppression and signal processing in order to examine the progression of RFOG in the most recent years. Several distinct types of RFOG schemes that have a high application potential are dissected individually; these are the types of schemes that are anticipated to become mainstream application schemes in the not-too-distant future. In the end, the prospect and research challenge of RFOG are presented to help researchers clarify research directions. This article presents an in-depth analysis of the current state of research regarding RFOG-related technologies and offers a forecast regarding the path that the inertial sensor will take in the foreseeable future.


The purpose of this contribution is to highlight how Biomimetics and Microfluidics can be used as tools for the in vitro creation of 3D systems to be employed as a valid alternative to animal models. Microfluidic bioreactors can be used for cell culture on biomimetic scaffolds as in vitro tissue and organ models with the aim to develop alternative methods to in vivo experiments. Several types of biomimetic scaffolds have been prepared using different techniques of production and functionalization. A microfluidic bioreactor was designed for perfusion culture of cardiomiocytes seeded onto biomimetic alginate/gelatin sponges and high viability of the resulting cardiac constructs, under dynamic flow culture, was observed.


Abstract:  Conventional population viability analysis (PVA) is often impractical because data are scarce for many threatened species. For this reason, simple count‐based models are being advocated. The simplest of these models requires nothing more than a time series of abundance estimates, from which variance and autocorrelation in growth rate are estimated and predictions of population persistence are generated. What remains unclear, however, is how many years of data are needed to generate reliable estimates of these parameters and hence reliable predictions of persistence. By analyzing published and simulated time series, we show that several decades of data are needed. Predictions based on short time series were very unreliable mainly because limited data yielded biased, unreliable estimates of variance in growth rate, especially when growth rate was strongly autocorrelated. More optimistically, our results suggest that count‐based PVA is sometimes useful for relative risk assessment (i.e., for ranking populations by extinction risk), even when time series are only a decade long. However, some conditions consistently lead to backward rankings. We explored the limited conditions under which simple count‐based PVA may be useful for relative risk assessment.


ABSTRACT One of the sector in effort develop one of the area is to develop build transportation facilities and basic facilities. Requirement of service activities and public transport will very affecting at its excelsior of ability number of is ownership of motor vehicle and also which motor vehicle and so on is and also supported by change of band road and public transport in town of Samarinda. Referring to the increasing of hour at road street in town of Samarinda resulted progressively increasing it of is ownership of vehicle, and also the limited fund for development in sector of transportation land result not yet functioned decently operation of traffic facility which have been owned. From result of calculation at intersection of Road A.W. Syahranie – Road Wahid Hasyim I – Road Wahid Hasyim II – Road P.M. Noor got by price Degree of Saturation ( DS) at - hour culminate mean above 0,99 where MKJI'97 give number definition of DS maximum is 0,85 will experience of stuck or access intention become is limited. From result which have been concluded by above that performance storey level intersection of Road A.W. Syahranie – Road Wahid Hasyim I – Road Wahid Hasyim II – Road P.M. Noor Samarinda is already can't to serve current capacities passing it, with factor- primary factor which is influence and have to overcome of with : Driver discipline require to be arranged in order. To arrange collision of conducted by traffic driver of police there must be waking up at hours culminate to observe and overcome the happening of hour and its relevant institution always control light traffic routinely.  Keyword : Lamp of Signal, saturation current, Time Saturation cycle, Capacities, Degree of Saturation, and Capacities.


1. The potency of PPD tuberculin made from AN 5, a bovine strain, was high when WR medium was used and low when BAI medium was used. PPD tuberculin made from strains of the human type grown on BAI medium was intermediate in potency between the two bovine PPDs. 2. The standard deviation of the difference between responses to duplicate injections of human type PPD at 2·0 mg./ml. concentration was 2·59 in the Islington and 1·84 in the Weybridge experiment on tuberculous animals, and 1·11 at Islington and 1·13 at Weybridge on tubercle-free animals. Differences greater than 1·5 mm. were relatively infrequent on tubercle-free animals. 3. The Elliott '401' electronic computer at Rothamsted was used to calculate discriminant functions and to estimate the discriminating power of different 'tests', each test involving an injection of a mammalian and an injection of avian tuberculin. 4. There were some differences between the mammalian preparations in their power to discriminate between tuberculous and tubercle-free animals, but these differences were closely allied to differences in potency. It seems probable that if concentrations of equivalent potency were used, there would be little if any difference in their discriminating power. 5. The contribution of avian tuberculin to the discrimination test was demonstrated; the greatest contribution came from a concentration of 0·25 mg./ml. used in the Islington experiment. The Weybridge results were quite consistent with the assumption that a maximum contribution is made by a concentration less than 0·5 mg./ml. 6. Methods for deducing rules for the interpretation of comparative tuberculin tests, using a mammalian and an avian tuberculin are illustrated and results given for the type of population sampled in these experiments. 7. The principle on which this rule might be modified where the population is believed to be free of infection, is outlined and discussed. We should like to acknowledge the advice and constructive criticisms during the planning of the experiments of Dr A. W. Stableforth and Dr H. H. Green of Weybridge, and also the care with which Miss C. N. Hebert carried out the preliminary arrangement of the large quantity of data. Thanks are also due to the staff of the Islington abattoir for their willing co-operation.


The article is devoted to primary prophylaxis of sudden cardiac death by influence on renninangiotensin-aldosterone and sympathetic systems. Results numerous trials with use beta-blockers, and ACE inhibitors are resulted. It is proved as early use of these groups of preparations at patients with myocardial infarction is possible.


— Drying experiments were conducted using direct sun drying and indirect passive solar dryer to simulate the drying processes of tomato slices, Tomato slices of 3mm thickness were placed on perforated stainless steel trays in a thin layer and dried to equilibrium moisture content. All samples were dried from an initial moisture content of 95.4 %wb to 10.2 %wb for sun dried samples and 8.5 %wb for solar dried samples. The drying data were fitted with ten published thin layer drying models. Selection of the best model was achieved by comparing the coefficient of determination (R 2 ), reduced chi- square (χ 2 ) and root mean square error (RMSE) between the experimental and predicted values. The diffusion coefficient and activation energy were determined using the Arrhenius equation. The results showed that the Page model was found to best describe both the sun and solar drying kinetics of tomato slices under the conditions tested. Effective moisture diffusivity was 5.07×10 -7 m 2 /s for sun dried and 2.32×10 -7 m 2 /s for solar dried tomato samples, while activation energy ranged from 32.38 to 33.53 kJ/mol for sun dried and 39.14 to 42.12kJ/mol for solar dried samples, respectively. It was concluded that the Page model is applicable to predict moisture content of tomato slices during direct sun and solar drying of tomato slices.


Within the framework of this article, the problem of processing production and consumption waste is considered, which is so urgent today, both for our republic and for Russia as a whole. Recycling is necessary, firstly, because the resources of many materials on Earth are limited and cannot be replenished. Secondly, once released into the environment, materials most often become pollutants. Third, waste and end-of-life products are often a cheaper source of many substances and materials than natural sources


The contents such as wave-particle dualism,quantizatio,eigenstate,superposed state and basic postulates in quantum physics textbok are discussed.Proposal for improving them is proposed.


The problem of synthesizing the optimal sizes of training samples specific to each of the considered financial instruments is considered and tested in the article, using real examples. The sample size is selected according to the quality criterion which is based on the accuracy of the generated forecasts. The stated algorithm, which serves as the basis for the synthesis of widely diversified portfolios can significantly increase the efficiency of investment decisions. It is facilitated by, taking into account the characteristics of the markets under study.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the antifungal action of three single samples of South African honey (wasbessie, bluegum and fynbos) against Candida albicans. Various dilutions of honey were prepared in brain-heart infusion broth, ranging in concentration from 0 to 25% (w/w). This was inoculated with C. albicans, while a hypertonic sugar solution served as a control. All dilu- tions were incubated overnight and the optical density was measured in a spectrophotometer. The sugar control and the 3 honey samples stimulated the growth of C. albicans and was optimal between 2.5% and 5%. Increased honey concentrations resulted in reduced growth of C. albicans; wasbessie honey at a concentration of 25% demonstrated 29.4% inhibition on the growth of C. albicans, while the control, bluegum and fynbos honey produced only partial inhibition. honey / antifungal action / antimicrobial action / oral micro flora / Candida albicans


Injury from foreignbodies is awell-known cause of childhoodmorbidity and evenmortality (1,2). Sweets containing toys with small parts may present a serious choking and aspiration hazard to children under 3 years of age. In Germany and other European countries, small plastic toy components are often sold together with confectionery, e.g. contained in a chocolate shell. According to the European Community Directive concerning the safetyof toys, packaging containingedible items together with small toys which might be dangerous for children under three years of age must carry the warning ''Not suitable for children under three years.'' To assess the potential dangers of small toysmarketed with confectionery, we performed a national cross-sectional questionnaire survey, including 500 (90%) paediatric clinics, 1300 (25%) paediatricians in practice, and placed an advertisement with the questionnaire in the newsletter of the German Association of Paediatricians. The response rate of clinic and practicewas 39 and 25%, respectively.The advertisement lead to 5 returns. A total of 35 cases were reported. In all cases, the foreign body was a small toy or part of it. In 34 of the cases, the origin of the toys was a kinder surprise chocolate egg and in 1 case a magic bag. 3 (9%) of the small toys were located in the ear, 9 (26%) in the nose, 5 (14%) in the pharynx, seven (20%) in the lungs, and11 (31%) in the gastro-intestinal tract (Table1).The incorporation of toys wasmostly observedby parents.Overall 5 (14%) complications were reported: 4 children suiered from marked obstruction of the upper airways due to a small toy in the pharynx, while 1 child had a pneumonia because of intrabronchial localisation. There were no fatalities. The age of the affected children ranged from 8 months to10 years (med-


ncreased production rates of plastic and limited disposal methods have fed concerns regarding environmental degradation. Whilst most of the focus is on plastic litter and marine pollution, greenhouse gas emissions of plastic over its value chains are also of interest and non-trivial at the global scale. To quantify the global warming potential of the local plastics industry, a lifecycle-based carbon footprint is presented encompassing activities such as resource extraction, polymer production and conversion, recycling, and disposal stages. The South African plastics sector is estimated to have emitted 15.8 Mt CO2 eq in 2015, with the granulate production stage bearing the highest environmental load. The consumption of fossil fuel based electricity and the burning of plastic waste also contribute notably to the overall emissions. Additionally, the recycling process in 2015 saved approximately 1.4 Mt of greenhouse gas emissions.


We propose a multi-slope ADC with a Time to Digital Converter (TDC). In a single-slope ADC, when using a TDC that has resolution of n bits, the conversion time will be reduced by a factor of 2n. Applying the TDC that uses the multi-phase-clock signal reduced the circuit areas of TDC by half, achieved timing consistency, and realized robust meta-stability. We also apply multi-slope scheme for reducing the ADC-operation cycles. We designed and fabricated an 11-bit ADC, by using a TSMC 0.18-μm CMOS process. The ADC, at 100 kS/s, achieved SNDR of 59.6 dB (9.6 ENOB) and SFDR of 72.7 dB. Its INL and DNL were +1.32/-0.80LSB and +0.48/-0.37LSB, respectively. The entire ADC consumes 5.1μW from a 1-V supply.


It is common that text documents are characterized and classified by keywords, index terms, or headings. We have developed a new methodology based on prototype matching. The prototype is an interesting document or a part of an extracted, interesting text. This prototype is matched with the existing document database or with the monitored document flow. The claim is that the new methodology is capable of extracting the contents of the document. To verify this hypothesis, a test with the Bible was designed. Different translations in English, Latin, Greek, and Finnish were selected to test materials. Verification tests that included the search of the ten nearest books to every book of the Bible were performed with a designed prototype version of the software application. The test results are reported in this paper.


T H I S SECOND VOLUME (equals the second half of the first volume in the German original) continues on the lines of the first (see Inter p. 30:186-90 [April 1976]). This volume contains some important articles, such as those on baal, brith, brk. Baal is an example of the good attention to Ugaritic and other Near Eastern evidence shown in many articles. As is inevitable, there is some unevenness. For instance, the article on gäläh gives on page 477 a long list of the Greek equivalents used in the L X X : this list is too unselective and gives too much prominence to equivalents that are extremely rare, in comparison with those that are normal or common. Moreover, it does not at all demonstrate that "glh has a wide variety of nuances of meaning," since this is not at all a necessary implication of the variety of renderings used in the Greek. In any case, by contrast the article dealing with bat ah (p. 89) gives a note only of the normal L X X renderings, while the entry on bähar does not mention any at all. Gäläh illustrates another practical lexicographical problem: Are the two clearly distinct uses, meaning "reveal" and "go into exile," to be considered as two "different words"? The writer (Zobel) takes them as one. This agrees with the usage of the standard dictionaries. From a purely historical-philological viewpoint this may be justifiable, though even then it is difficult to construct a hypothetical path between the two meanings (one is not very convinced by the explanation that "emigration or exile can be understood as an uncovering of the land", p. 478) . But from a synchronic semantic point of view the word meant either one thing or the other and there is no reason to suppose that anyone was conscious of a sense bridge between the two. Thus it would have been less confusing if they were considered as two separate words: it is quite wrong to construct a common concept uniting them both. But decisions of this sort are difficult and to some extent unprecedented in the history of Hebrew lexicography. Since there have been some problems about the English, leading to the early issuing of a revised edition, we should assure the potential buyer that the English of the edition reviewed seems generally satisfactory.


Policing is a profession that with an extraordinary specialty.It requires specific profession awareness,professional qualification,professional skills and professional moral.Modern professional police should bear its specific professional state,which needs long-term professional training. The urgent affair at present is to start from the characteristics of the police,namely,to realize the professional construction,which is to meet the needs not only of development of the times,but also of the internal needs of the police field;there are available space and practical conditions for police professionalization construction at present.


Construction certification and claims relate to existence of a construction enterprise.The article expounds some issues that are needed to be paid attention to in them.Based on engineering practice,it also puts forward its own opinions about this work,for exchanging the views with the peers.


On 21 November 2015, in Beijing, more than one thousand people attended the funeral service for Dr Lu Wanzhen, a fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former Chief Engineer of the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing (RIPP), who passed away on 17 November 2015 at the age of 92. Among family members, friends and former students were scientists, engineers and other professionals from the near infrared (NIR) scientific field and instrumentation industry, who came in person to pay their final respects to the highly accomplished scientist and much admired mentor. Dr Lu had an inspiring life and career with many great accomplishments. Born in Tianjin, China, on 29 September 1924, she was among the few female scientists of that time with an advanced education, having obtained her BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the Chongqing Central University in 1946, her MS degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1948 and her PhD in Chemistry from Ohio State University in 1951. Following her post-doctoral research at Northwestern University, she worked at Corn Products Refining Company in USA as a senior research scientist from 1953 to 1955. Upon returning to China in 1955, she started what became her life-long career in the petroleum industry, where she pioneered the development of numerous analytical technologies in such areas as ultraviolet spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography, NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. An early example of her success in solving a critical developmental problem in China's petrochemical industry was her application of analytical investigative methods to raw materials and intermediate and finished Xiaoli Chu and Qian Wang, J. Near Infrared Spectrosc. 23, 267–268 (2015)


The small coal mine plays an positive role in developing national economg under spectified historical condition.But becacuse there are some reasons of producting condition,technology,equipments and manage level,so,auidents are always happened,the personnel injuries and deaths are very amazing.How to change the present,then analyse the problems of small mine and put forward some suggests of solving producting safty.


The evolution of small, angular dependent velocity disturbances in laminar pipe flow is studied. In particular, streamwise independent perturbations are considered. To fully describe the flow field, two equations are required, one for the radial and the other for the streamwise velocity perturbation. Whereas the former is homogeneous, the latter has the radial velocity component as a forcing term. First, the normal modes of the system are determined and analytical solutions for eigenfunctions, damping rates, and phase velocities are calculated. As the azimuthal wave number (n) increases, the damping rate increases and the phase velocities decrease. Particularly interesting are results showing that the phase velocities associated with the streamwise eigenfunctions are independent of the radial mode index when n = 1, and when n = 5 the same is obtained for phase velocities associated with the eigenfunctions of the radial component. Then, the initial value problem is treated and the time development of the disturbances is determined. The radial and the azimuthal velocity components always decay but, owing to the forcing, the streamwise component shows an initial algebraic growth, followed by a decay. The kinetic energy density is used to characterize the induced streamwise disturbance. Its dependence on the Reynolds number, the radial mode, and the azimuthal wave number is investigated. With a normalized initial disturbance, n = 1 gives the largest amplification, followed by n = 2 etc. However, for small times, higher values of n are associated with the largest energy density. As n increases, the distribution of the streamwise velocity perturbation becomes more concentrated to the region near the pipe wall.


The genetical effects of the subdivision of a population into partially isolated subgroups are considered in two part.icular cases. In the first a probability model is studied in which the subpopulations are of finite size with migration between them. In the absence of selection the asymptotic rate of progress to homozygosity is shown to be very little affected by the subdivision. In the second case a deter. ministic model is studied in which there are two subpopulations in which selective forces are equal and opposite. A stable dimorphism is then shown to exist if there is any small amount of intermigration.


A magnetic-field vector measurement method based on optical-pumping magnetic probe was proposed in view of the problem that it was difficult to achieve high resolution and precision magnetic-field vector measurements by a triaxial flux-gate magnetometer.High precision optical-pumping magnetometers were used for sensitive devices in this method,whose working mode was feedback measurements with the addition of triaxial coils.The magnetic-field three-component model caiculation by magnetometer reading was given.Simulation results show that this method's error and long-term stability of zero is 1nT,and the resolution is 0.01 nT.The vector measurement precision is 1~2magnitude order higher than the flux-gate magnetometer in geomagnetic background field.


With an aim to grasp the damage progress on porous asphalt pavement, those data has been measured every other month using the high-accuracy pavement-condition measuring vehicle at the sites. Afterwards, it is confirmed that the cracks have progressed to potholes in a short time at the concerned place. Such the damages could not be detected and forecasted at their early stage with the traditional evaluation indicators (cracks, rutting, and surface roughness) and the conventional frequency of investigations. This paper is to propose (i) the new evaluation factors, the partial settlement values specific to porous asphalt pavement, based on the analysis of the high-accuracy surface profile, and (ii) the forecasting method of potholes occurrence, introducing the growth curve models for the damage progresses specific to the damage factors. 排水性舗装の損傷進行の把握を目的として,高精度な路面性状車両で,同一箇所の隔月計測を実施した結果,この場所では短期間でひび割れ発生からポットホールへ進展する事象を確認した.この様な損傷は従来の評価(ひび割れ,わだち,平坦性)指標や調査頻度では早期に発見,予測できない.本論文は,高精度で取得した路面の高さ情報を解析することで,排水性舗装特有の局所沈下量という新たな評価指標を提案するとともに,損傷要因に応じた損傷進行における成長曲線モデルを導くことで,ポットホール発生予測を提案するものである.


ABSTRACT
The present investigation has been conducted in the city of Trujillo with the objective to establish a formal and necessary attainability between the mypes and the use of information systems, taking into account that in the past years, the new information and communication technologies have been converted in key factors for a sustainable economic development. The purpose of the present investigation consisted of the realization of the use of information systems that optimize the administration of the mypes. To do this it was necessary to consider the present situation of the mypes, later on implement SI in them and finally evaluate the application of the SI in the mypes.
In this way it was demonstrated that these technologies allow the acces to a global information net and speed up the economic development through new business offers between businesses and final consumers and also between t businesses. The rapid access and the right use of relevant information for business decisions in the company could significantly contribute to the competitive increase of the businesses of which nowadays, the most important factor for it's development, in this sense, is to count on timely information and valued use is of vital importance for all businesses in general (small, medium and large), each time differences between them is generated and as a consequence thereof competitiveness.
The mayor contribution of the present work lies in the identification and delimitation of spaces for innovation or improvements of the actual information systems that the mypes use. In a company, the capacity of response, the rapid access to information is determinant; nevertheless, one of the big problems with the mypes in our city and in Peru is the lack of information or the accessibility to it in a trustful and timely manner. This situation gets worse when the entrepreneur does not use or has limited access to available information on internet or other new information technologies.


The mid-point incremental method was used to carry out 3D FEM analysis for a CRFD project called Miaojiaba based on Duncan-Chang(E-B) nonlinear constitutive model and the filling construction and retaining water process of the dam was also considered.As a result,a corresponding general law of the dam's stress and deformation distribution during construction and storage period were obtained.Judging from the view of the dam structure,the rockfill dam body works reliably.In order to get more accurate results of the face and its joints' stress and deformation,the developed 3D sub-model method was applied to the calculation with the coupling thin-layer element to simulate the specific boundary between face and cushion.According to the results of engineering example,the stress and deformation distribution of the dam conforms to the general law.The concrete face also has a normal stress and deformation law that distribution of larger tensile stress is restricted to blanket protected area.The deformation of transverse joints and peripheral joints is small,which indicates that the concrete face works well and safely.At the same time,it is further proved that the sub-modeling method with the coupling thin-layer element to simulate the contact face is feasible and believable.


The invention relates to a windscreen wiper drive mechanism in which an output lever (10) can be fixed on a gearwheel (3) at a predetermined angle, said gear wheel adopting a position at a defined angle. Before assembly, the output shaft (5) should be connected to the output lever (10) in such a way that it cannot be detached. The invention also relates to a method for assembling a drive system of this type. The inventive method consists essentially of the following steps: moving the gear wheel (3) into the defined end position (parked position) independently of engagement with the output shaft (5) and then connecting the output shaft (5) to which the output lever was previously undetachably fixed to the gear wheel (3), with a press fit. Advantageous embodiments describe appropriate bearing possibilities for the gear wheel (3) and suitable steps for facilitating the pressing-in process.


The following paper examines the use of /aʊ/ variation by high school age speakers in Industrial Cape Breton, on Canada's east coast - a community undergoing rapid social change and for which there exists a stigmatized local vernacular. I suggest that these high school students construct their individual and group identities with reference to local norms and broader archetypes from popular culture. Through an qualitative ethnographic and quantitative sociophonetic investigation of Riverview Rural High School, this paper examines the sociolinguistic realities of archetypal social groups like "jocks" (i.e. keepers of the institution), "burnouts" (i.e. rebels against the institution), and "nerds" (i.e those that define themselves as neither of the two), which appear consistently in both sociolinguistic enquiries and public/popular representations of high school culture. -- In Cape Breton, the standard Canadian pronunciation of /aw/ before tautosyllabic voiceless consonants (i.e. with a mid-central nucleus) competes with both a traditional and an incoming form (with a mid-back and a mid-front nucleus, respectively) (cf. Chambers, 1973; 2006; Hung et al. 1993; Boberg, 2008). My hypothesis marks self-identified "cafeteria people", similar to Eckert's (1989; 2000) "jocks", as the leaders in the use of the incoming or the standard /aw/ pronunciation. "Cafeteria people" and "smokers" (similar to Eckert's "burnouts") are the most significant and numerous of the various social groups at Riverview. They also represent the two extremities of the social spectrum at the school. A small group of "nerds" (cf. Bucholtz, 1999) at the school are the self-professed "gamers", who brag about their enjoyment of non-mainstream culture and disinterest in broad or mainstream cultural practices. -- A multivariate analysis of data (N=1080) taken from sociolinguistic interviews with 18 students, stratified by gender and three social groups, and coded for both social and linguistic factors, shows the "gamers" leading the use of the standard Canadian form and "smokers" and males leading the use of the incoming non-standard form, while the "cafeteria people" and women defy sociolinguistic expectations and lead the use of the traditional nonstandard form.


This paper presents the capabilities of a new computer program called the Queen's Energy Management Model (QEMM). This new program performs simultaneous calculation of multi-train and network performance characteristics by solving a dynamic power system in which the train loads move as time is incremented. The magnitudes of the loads also vary as the trains traverse the route. Performance characteristics of AC, DC, or combined AC/DC networks can be computed by this program. Results of different simulations performed on the Scarborough ALRT system using different propulsion system models are presented and discussed.<<ETX>>


State-owned enterprises (SOEs) account for a substantial proportion of gross domestic product, employment, and assets in many countries. Based on a review of the theory and empirical evidence, we develop a novel five-step framework that can guide policymakers and economic advisors in making decisions about maintaining and/or creating SOEs. The framework suggests that the use of SOEs should be limited to circumstances in which a market failure exists, less invasive forms of intervention such as regulation/taxes/subsidies and private-sector contracting are ineffective or not possible, and the welfare loss of the market failure exceeds the costs, distortions, and inefficiencies of SOEs.


Omani students were introduced to Independent Learning Tools, such as MyELT, Moodle, and MS Teams, during the Covid-19 pandemic. They used these tools for their study throughout the pandemic. Hence, this research investigated how satisfied were Omani students with independent learning tools during Covid-19. This study is significant because it has pedagogical implications for all the stakeholders, such as teachers, students, and policymakers. This study adopted a quantitative research method. A self-prepared questionnaire was distributed to students for data collection. Study participants were students from Level one, Level two, Level three, and Level four of the General Foundation Program in the English Language Center at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Ibra, Oman. About 227 (N=227) students participated in the survey. Study findings suggest that students' satisfaction with independent learning tools is above average. Conducting similar research studies in other Higher Educational Institutions in Oman will help make and sustain policy decisions.