Background and Objectives:Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV is one of the most common peripheral vesti- bular disorders. There have been some reports suggesting that directional changing positional nystagmus occurs due to canalolithiasis and cupulolithiasis of the horizontal semicircular canal (HC. The canalolithiasis theory of HC-BPPV is pres- ented with a transient geotropic direction changing horizontal nystagmus as the pathophysiologic mechanism of BPPV. The HC-BPPV cupulolithiasis is characterized by a positional nystagmus that does not fatigue, but persists as long as the position is held, and changes direction in different head positions. There is still a controversy relating to differentiating the lesion side and the otolith adherent sites on the cupula differentiation. The purpose of this study was to differentiate the lesion side and the otolith adherent site on the cupula, and propose a treatment through analyses of clinical features, electronystagmographic (ENG results, treatment maneuvers and its effectiveness. Subjects and Method:Fifteen patients who showed ageotropic direction changing horizontal nystagmus were included in this study. Supine head turning test was performed to induce positional nystagmus. Various findings of the nystagmus were recorded with ENG. Other ENG tests (visual tracking tests and bithermal caloric test and magnetic resonance imaging were checked to exclude the possibility of any central lesion. Cupulolith repositioning maneuver (CuRM was applied on the all patients and these patients were instructed to keep the healthy side at the lateral decubitus position while sleeping. Results:All patients showed significant differences between the intensity of each side nystagmus, and all of them showed stronger ageotropic direction changing horizontal nystagmus when the head was rotated to the unaffected side in a supine head turning test. The nystagmus had a short latency, no fatigability, and persis- tency in character. Typical nystagmus and spinning sensation in the supine head turning test had completely subsided after physical therapy. Conclusion:In the cupulolithiasis of horizontal semicircular canal, ageotropic nystagmus was stronger when the pathological ear was at the uppermost position, and this excitatory nystagmus beats to the lesion side. The proposed CuRM and post-treatment lateral decubitus position kept during the night (while sleeping on the day of treatment were effective in differentiating the otolith adherent site on the cupula and treating the cupulolithiasis of the horizontal semicircular canal. (Korean J Otolaryngol 2002;45:846-52


First-principles calculations have been carried out to study the electronic properties of A2Ti2O7 (A=Sm, Gd, Er) pyrochlores. It was found that f electrons have negligible effect on the structural and energetic properties, but have significant effect on the electronic properties. Density of state analysis shows that A-site 4f electrons do take part in the chemical bonding. Also, we found that ⟨Gd-O48f⟩ bond is less covalent than ⟨Sm-O48f⟩ and ⟨Er-O48f⟩ bonds, while ⟨Ti-O48f⟩ bond in Gd2Ti2O7 is more covalent. It was proposed that for A2Ti2O7 (A=Sm, Gd, Er) pyrochlores, ⟨Ti-O48f⟩ bonds may play more significant role in determining their radiation resistance to amorphization.


Of these factors such as sinter basicity,raw material structure,depth of bed,dosage of moisture and carbon in mixture,as well as mineral composition and structure of sinter,the influence on the sinter quality were analyzed. The technical measures adapt to high-iron low-silicon sintering were introduced. Practice has proved that the remarkable result was achieved by increasing the content of calcium ferrite binder in sinter,improving the sinter strength,to meet the need of BF smelting.


Objective To investigate the epidemiolugiood features of bacterial food poisonning in China for prevention and control efforts. Methods Data of 766 bacterial food poisoning events occurred from 1994 to 2003 was collected from the published Journals,and the correlative information(etiology,events,cases,deaths,date,concourse,region,vehicle and so on)was picked-up from the articles and analyzed. Results Among 766 events of bacterial food poisoning for which the etiology was determined,vibrio parahaemolyticus(20.2%)caused the largest percentage of events,Salmonella(20.4%)caused the largest number of cases,and Closteridium botulinum accounted for the largest percentage of deaths(70.5%)and mortality(16.5%).Majority events occurred from May to October,but the Clostridium botulinum was an exception occurred from January to February.24.4% of events were caused by vibrio parahaemolyticus in coastal areas,and 22.4% caused by salmonella in inland provinces.The highly risk concourse was different from special bacteria and 31.2% of events occurred in food services units.As the lack of relevant data,the vehicle of transmission is hard to determine. Conclusion Bacterial food poisoning has its own epidemic features,which is helpful to prevent and control the disease.


The properties of one- and two-dimensional solitons are discussed. Particular attention is paid to qualitative results obtained by computer simulation. Where possible, a brief description of the computational method is given.


T lymphocytes are essential for adaptive immune responses; most recognize peptides bound to cell-surface major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. The T cell receptor for antigen (TCR; on most T cells, a dimer of an α and a β chain associated with invariant signaling subunits) binds both peptide and MHC determinants (1⇓–3). Accordingly, for any given T cell, the TCR specificity is determined by both the antigenic peptide and the particular MHC molecule the peptide binds. This property, called MHC restriction, is a critical feature of T cell antigen recognition. It has major functional and clinical implications in settings such as organ transplantation and T cell-mediated therapies. MHC restriction results from, and is often used to refer to, the ability of TCRαβ complexes to interact with MHC molecules. A new study by Krovi et al. in PNAS (4) clarifies the controversial question of whether TCR gene sequences have been skewed during evolution toward MHC recognition.

The dominant constraint governing TCR interactions with peptide-MHC complexes (pMHC) is the diversity of both components (2). In addition to being clonotypic (one cell expressing a single TCR specificity), the mammalian TCR repertoire is highly diverse, with a potential for ∼1015 specificities (1). Such diversity is generated in developing T cells through rearrangement of genomic regions of similar organization for both α and β loci (Fig. 1). Rearrangement generates de novo diversity within both α and β chains in a segment called complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3), through both deletion and nontemplated addition of nucleotides. Two additional segments, CDR1 and CDR2, carry diversity among variable (V) domains of TCR chains. All 3 CDRs form loops protruding from the core Vα or Vβ domain and mediate pMHC binding. Mirroring TCR diversity, allelic diversification has made MHC molecules highly polymorphic both at the species …

[↵][1]1Email: bosselur{at}nih.gov.

 [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1


The antibiotics that have saved millions of life through decades are losing its effectiveness for treatment of many diseases, due to rapid emergence of resistant microorganisms. In this scenario, plants can be used as resources for isolation of novel moieties like antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which can be used or designed as drugs against multidrug-resistant. Indian subcontinent having large plant biodiversity gives an opportunity to explore for these moieties'. We isolated a novel AMP (MoCh I) from Momordica charantia (Karela) seeds having molecular weight of 3.7 kDa. This AMP had strong antimicrobial effect on Gram-positive bacteria ( Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus ) and showed non-hemolytic properties. MoCh I consisting of 34 amino acids (cysteine rich) was found to have sequence similarity with Trypsin inhibitor 1 of Momordica cochinchinensis . Circular Dichroism spectra indicated the presence of β -sheets and turn in the peptide structure. The in-silico analysis indicated that Putative Conserved Domain belongs to Plant Trypsin inhibitor super family. The minimum inhibitory concentration was found to be 65.2 µ g/mL on B. subtilis and 87.0 µ g/mL on B. licheniformis and S. aureus . The antimicrobial activity of this novel peptide might be due to the contact with lipid molecules present on bacterial surface and/or thus interacting with other targets in the cytoplasm.


Gullies and lobate deposits that commonly occur on the flanks of craters and dune foresets on Mars are often interpreted to have been formed by debris-flow processes. Debris-flow processes suggest the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, which is believed to have an extremely cold and dry environment. Debris flows occur when masses of poorly sorted sediment, agitated and saturated with water, surge down slopes in response to gravitational attraction. Thus, recent activities of debris flows imply the existence of liquid water phase materials on the Martian surface. However, the dry granular flow caused by a slope avalanche can also form gullies and lobate deposits, which resemble debris-flow deposits, so that there are still uncertainties over the occurrence and origins of liquid water on the modern Martian surface. This study proposes a method for estimating debris-flow properties, in order to distinguish debris-flow processes on Mars. In this method, one-phase bingham fluid model is employed here as the forward model, and flow parameters such as yield strength and flow viscosity required for the forward model are optimized to reconstruct geomorphological features of Martian lobate deposits. Genetic algorithm is used for this parametric optimization. Results of the inverse analysis suggested that a lobate deposit on Mars can be formed by a debris flow that shows flow properties similar to water-saturated debris flows on the Earth. If rheological parameters of the flows can be determined from the surface morphology of lobate deposits, it would be helpful for distinguishing debris-flow processes from dry-granular flows. The inverse analysis method proposed here with future field surveys and experimental studies will provide quantitative criteria for identifying debris flows from geomorphological features of lobate deposits.


s in conference The mechanism of action of Xinmailong, A proprietary Chinese Medicine Used in the Treatment of Heart Failure AC Cheung, KH Cheung, GPH Leung 18 th Research Postgraduate Symposium Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong December 11 th -12 th , 2013, Hong Kong SAR, China Study on the mechanism of action of a proprietary Chinese medicine, Xinmailong, in the treatment of chronic heart failure AC Cheung, KH Cheung, GPH Leung 8 th International Symposium on Healthy Aging Research Center of Heart, Brain, Hormone and Healthy Aging Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong March 8 th -9 th , 2014, Hong Kong SAR, China Investigation on Xinmailong, a proprietary Chinese Medicine used in the treatment of heart failure AC Cheung, KH Cheung, GPH Leung Physiology Symposium 2014 & Joint Scientific Conference of The Hong Kong Society of Neurosciences & The Biophysical Society of Hong Kong Department of Physiology Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong June 12 th -14 th 2014, Hong Kong SAR, China Mechanisms of action of Xinmailong, a Chinese medicine derived from Periplaneta americana, in treating heart failure AC Cheung, KH Cheung, GPH Leung The 17 th World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology IUPHAR and South African Society for Basic and Clinical Pharmacology July 13 th -18 th , 2014, Cape Town, South Africa


A data warehouse is essential for an organization to process and analyze data coming from the organization. Hence, a data warehouse together with a dashboard to visualize the processed data are built to accommodate the need of the church administrator to analyze a large set of church congregation data. The data warehouse is built using the Kimball principle. This Kimball principle emphasizes the implementation of a dimensional model in the data warehouse, not a relational model used in a regular transactional database. An ETL process that contains extract, transform and load processes is used to retrieve all data from the regular transactional database and transform the data so the data can be loaded into the data warehouse. A dashboard is then built to visualize the data from the data warehouse so the users can view the processed data easily. Users can also export the processed data into an excel file that can be downloaded from the dashboard. A web service is built to get data from the data warehouse and return it to the dashboard.


Abstract The paper analyzes Mozambique's political trajectory through the prism of the relationship between state and society. It argues that a political culture deeply rooted in millennial thinking – based on the eschatological belief that political intervention settles societal problems once and for all – has fostered a deep hostility towards citizenship rights and, for this reason, has regularly brought democracy to the brink of collapse. Thus, the paper is an attempt at identifying a conceptual framework on the basis of which empirically grounded descriptions of Mozambique's recent political history can be conducted.


Introduction: Pregnancy is a physiological process that almost every woman goes through. Pregnant women must have their pregnancies checked on a regular basis and receive integrated antenatal care. A laboratory examination, one of them is a triple elimination examination, as one of the minimum integrated antenatal service standards. Blood is drawn during the examination, which often causes anxiety in patients. Rose aromatherapy and hypnotherapy are non-pharmacological methods that can help patients relax and reduce anxiety. This study aimed at determining the effect of combining between rose aromatherapy and hypnotherapy on anxiety of pregnant women during triple elimination examination. Methods: This study was carried out at the UPTD. Kuta II Public Health Centre in November - December 2022, employing a pre-experimental research design with a one-group pretest-posttest design. Non-probability sampling was used, along with accidental sampling. The STAI (State Trait Anxiety Inventory) sheet was used to assess anxiety, and the Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test was used to analyze the data. Result: According to the study's findings of 28 pregnant women, the average anxiety level before the intervention was 54.04, while the average anxiety level after the intervention was 26.50. Anxiety level analysis with Wilcoxon yielded a p-value (p-value = 0.000, α = 0.05), so H0 was rejected and Ha was accepted, indicating that there was an effect of combining between rose aromatherapy and hypnotherapy on anxiety of pregnant women during triple elimination examination at UPTD. Kuta II Public Health Centre. Suggestion: According to the findings of this study, the administration of a combination between rose aromatherapy and hypnotherapy can be used as a consideration in providing midwifery care to pregnant women, particularly those who will undergo blood tests.

Keywords: aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, pregnant women, anxiety


Nowadays, in modern molecular discovery systems, a large number of compounds are tested and optimized in order to identify a molecule or group of molecules that act favorably in some desired circumstances. Sometimes, the key limiting factor in identifying new candidates is the availability of diverse collections of chemical compounds. When collections of chemical compounds are available, they tend to be enough large and unstructured (file format, chemical information, molecular properties, etc) to limit considerably the "human" treatment of these data.


A novel method of improving the SO2 absorption performance of sodium citrate (Ci-Na) using sodium humate (HA–Na) as an additive was put forward. The influence of different Ci-Na concentration, inlet SO2 concentration and gas flow rate on desulfurization performance were studied. The synergistic mechanism of SO2 absorption by HA–Na and Ci-Na was also analyzed. The consequence shows that the efficiency of SO2 absorption by Ci-Na is above 90% and the desulfurization time added with the Ci-Na concentration rising from 0.01 to 0.1 mol/L. Both the desulfurization efficiency and time may increase with the adding of HA–Na quality in Ci-Na solution. Due to adding HA–Na, the desulfurization efficiency of Ci-Na increased from 90% to 99% and the desulfurization time increased from 40 to 55 min. Under the optimum conditions, the desulfurization time of Ci-Na can exceed 70 min because of adding HA–Na, which is nearly doubled. The growth of inlet SO2 concentration has little effect on the desulfurization efficiency. The SO2 adsorption efficiency decreases with the increase of inlet flow gas. The presence of O2 improves the SO2 removal efficiency and prolongs the desulfurization time. Therefore, HA–Na plays a key role during SO2 absorption and can dramatically enhance the SO2 adsorption performance of Ci-Na solution.


For there is only one serial port in one microprocessor,so we must use several microprocessors to communicate with several serial ports. Microprocessors in a distributed microprocessor system can run in parallel, hence its characteristic is highly improved and it can do such tasks that one microprocessor can not achieve. In this paper we use the tree like distributed microprocessor system combined with several microprocessors to communicate with several serial ports to of voyage path reconding realize data communication and data processing. The distributed microprocessor system described in this paper has worked effectively in practice.


Abstract : Information was obtained by conducting a series of representative fire modeling experiments of aircraft cabin window systems employing salvaged segments of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft. Experiments were performed in which a thermally improved window system was installed adjacent to a standard window configuration and exposed to flame impingement from a JP-4 fuel fire. The results of test 1 indicated that the thermally improved Dc-10 window configuration, employing the stretched acrylic pressure pane and the new EX 112 fail-safe pane, provided an overall improvement in flame resistivity over the standard all acrylic window system of at least 79 seconds (1.3 minutes). During this experiment, the silicone rubber window gasket provided adequate thermal and mechanical stability toward preventing flame penetration into the cabin through the improved fail-safe (EX 112) window system for 225 seconds (3.75 minutes), which was the duration of fire exposure. The average failure time of the stretched acrylic and thermally improved (EX 112) fail-safe window panes in tests 2, 3, and 4 was 198 seconds (3.3 minutes) and 249 seconds (4.15 minutes), respectively, after fuel ignition. These data indicated that, on average, an improvement in fire resistivity of 51 seconds (0.85 minute) was obtained by the improved (EX 112) window configuration over the standard stretched acrylic window system.


The results of a population survey of the causes of spontaneous abortion are reported. A total of 328 female residents of the Cheremushki district in Moscow were investigated, using a retrospective epidemiologic method and 2 kinds of specifically-elaborated questionnaires. Mathematical analysis of the data has identified meaningful risk factors of spontaneous abortion.


This chapter finds that there are a variety of concerning rules and procedures for patent application review and enforcement of patent rights in China that hamper patent quality. These range from inadequate review systems to requirements and practices that generally weaken the efficiency and effectiveness of the patent enforcement environment, which in-turn ultimately somewhat discourage building of quality patents and related innovation in China.


This video addresses the NASA Dryden and X-31 International Test Organization (ITO) testbed provided for the Pentagon's 'tailless' and quasi-tailless vehicle configuration testing.


The properties of the hulls of directed percolation clusters are studied. The scaling and finite-size scaling of many quantities around the percolation threshold pc are derived and a novel Monte Carlo algorithm, which is more than twice as fast as the standard algorithm at pc, has been formulated to study these properties. Simulations have been conducted that enable an estimation of all the exponents involved. In particular, the central exponent, x, relating the average hull length of clusters to their mass, has been estimated to be 0:773.4/ at the percolation threshold. This same exponent is estimated to be 0:905.5/ for p


The endocytic protein EHD1 controls primary ciliogenesis by facilitating fusion of the ciliary vesicle and by removal of CP110 from the mother centriole. EHD3, the closest EHD1 paralog, has a similar regulatory role, but initial evidence suggested that the other two more distal paralogs, EHD2 and EHD4 may be dispensable for ciliogenesis. Herein, we define a novel role for EHD4, but not EHD2, in regulating primary ciliogenesis. To better understand the mechanisms and differential functions of the EHD proteins in ciliogenesis, we first demonstrated a requirement for EHD1 ATP‐binding to promote ciliogenesis. We then identified two sequence motifs that are entirely conserved between EH domains of EHD1, EHD3 and EHD4, but display key amino acid differences within the EHD2 EH domain. Substitution of either P446 or E470 in EHD1 with the aligning S451 or W475 residues from EHD2 was sufficient to prevent rescue of ciliogenesis in EHD1‐depleted cells upon reintroduction of EHD1. Overall, our data enhance the current understanding of the EHD paralogs in ciliogenesis, demonstrate a need for ATP‐binding and identify conserved sequences in the EH domains of EHD1, EHD3 and EHD4 that regulate EHD1 binding to proteins and its ability to rescue ciliogenesis in EHD1‐depleted cells.


Aerodynamic pure tone generated from the cross-flow over grooves are studied experimentally. The Strouhal number of the tone frequency is found to be nearly unity based on the free stream velocity and the groove width. Coherence between the generated sound and the velocity turbulence over the two-dimensional groove are analysed by FFT analyser and Personal-Computer for making sources of this pure tone clear. It is found that the center of the source region is in the shear flow layer over the groove, near the downstream edge of the groove.


This study provides multifaceted empirical data from interviews with engineering and Industrial designers about professional product development processes in German industry. The study aims to describe differences and consistencies in general proceeding


Filial cannibalism was directly verified in the laboratory. All test males (n = 43) ate some or all of their own 125I labelled eggs. Eight males successfully reared some eggs to hatching. This success rate is comparable to those in the literature for other Gasterosteid species. Parental males and their nests were removed individually from a dugout. Differences in the importance of eggs in diet and the frequency of egg-consumption between trap-caught fish and parental males offered indirect evidence for the occurrence of filial cannibalism. Of 22 egg-guarding males which cannibalized eggs, 21 contained eggs at the same stage as eggs in their nest. In cases where the nearest neighbouring nest contained eggs of a different age, filial cannibalism (rather than egg-robbery) could be assumed in at least seven of 13 parental males which ate eggs.


In this paper, we introduce a new ATM switch architecture. Buffer access speeds of the proposed architecture match the port speeds, and the buffer acts, in effect, as a multiport memory. The input buffers are implemented as a group of parallel shift registers. This approach overcomes the head-of-the-line (HOL) and low-throughput problems of input buffers. Shift-register buffers allow operating speeds much higher than are possible using RAM buffers. Furthermore, switch speed is independent of buffer size. This is a very important feature for ATM networks that require storage of large amounts of cells in the switching nodes. The parallel nature of the input queues allows for multicast functions. In addition, the modularity of the proposed architecture facilitates its scalability. A dispatching mechanism for cell selection in ATM switches with multiple priorities is also introduced. The proposed switching scheme satisfies real-time and nonreal-time quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. Simulations of the switch with the new dispatching mechanism are performed under a diversity of bursty traffic loads.


Aim This paper focuses on the Native-PAGE analysis of LDH isoenzyme in gill, muscle, heart and heapatopancrea of Eriocheir sinensis and Sinopotamon Yangtsekiense Bott to provide biochemical indexes to analyze the population genetic structures and breed planned species of system of the two species. Methods The method of Native-PAGE electrophore and the scanning system of GDS-9000 are adopted. Results and Conclusions LDH in Eriocheir sinensis presents six isoenzyme bands while the two isoenzy-me bands near to the positive and weaker than that of sinopotamon Yangtsekiense Bott. The favorable isoenzyme in the corresponding tissues of the two species has both similarities and differences between them.


If wave energy technology is to mature to commercial success, array optimization could play a key role in that process. This paper outlines physical and numerical modeling of an array of five oscillating water column wave energy converters. Numerical model simulations are compared with experimental tank test data for a non-optimal and optimal array layout. Results show a max increase of 12% in average power for regular waves, and 7% for irregular waves between the non-optimized and optimized layouts. The numerical model matches well under many conditions; however, improvement is needed to adjust for phase errors. This paper outlines the process of numerical and physical array testing, providing methodology and results helpful for researchers and developers working with wave energy converter arrays. Keywords—Oscillating water column, Wave energy converter array, Numerical modeling, Physical modeling Paper ID: 1387 Track: Wave device development and testing This paper is based upon work supported by the United States Department of Energy under Award Number DE-EE0006816. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe upon privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of the authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. B. Bosma is with the O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 U.S.A (e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com). T. Brekken is with the school of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University 3025 Corvallis, OR 97331 U.S.A (e-mail: email@example.com). P. Lomonaco is with the O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 U.S.A (email: firstname.lastname@example.com). B. DuPont is with the school of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 U.S.A (e-mail: email@example.com). C.Sharp was at the Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC), Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA. He is now at the College of Engineering, George Fox University, Newberg, OR, USA (email: firstname.lastname@example.com) B. Batten is with the College of Engineering, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 U.S.A (e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com).


This paper analyses the identity politics of the US Patriot Movement and how it addresses the anxieties its primary constituency–working-class whites–have with globalization. White workers find themselves straddling an identity fault under globalization. By virtue of their class, they suffer exploitation within a capitalist system. By virtue of their race, they find themselves the beneficiaries of racial privileges. To analyse how a patriot politic addresses this dual positionality, a poststructuralist identity theory is employed, focusing on a subset of this literature known as whiteness studies. It is argued that discourses of patriotism keep patriots from addressing the economic basis of many of their grievances while buttressing notions of cultural/racial superiority through 'safe' nationalistic coding. The Patriot Movement in Central Kentucky is examined as a case study–in particular, its deployment of a patriot politic around two issues: calls to legalize industrial hemp and efforts to stop the designation of a biosphere reserve in the state. This paper's conclusions are situated within a current debate in whiteness studies between those calling for the abolition of whiteness and those calling for its reconstruction. The paper contends that disidentification is not a viable option without alternative categories to replace it. The willingness of Kentucky patriots to galvanize around a patriot politics despite realizing goals through it indicates that working-class whites are anxious for political categories of action in the new global era. Given that working-class whites are mobilizing around categories that code their race-based anxieties, however, reconstruction paradigms must also consider the reconstruction of categories–such as 'patriot'–that currently work to divide workers along racial lines.


QPS Online Services is a secure online portal that you can use to access and manage your QPS account information.


To become compliant with changing and stricter regulatory demands in the world, banks are focused on undertaking preventive measures for effective credit risk management. One of its drivers is to strengthen existing models to increase their predictive powers and help detect future defaults in advance. In this paper, we propose a new evaluation method to improve the overall performance of learning algorithms in the field of over-indebtedness prediction by using feature selection. Our objective is to find the most relevant subset of features related to the customer banking history for use in prediction model construction. Experimental results have shown that the proposed evaluation method is very useful to build a good predictor.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to provide community practitioners with the theoretical background to recognize and work in the interplay of global and local forces. This paper reviews globalization as a contested term and presents several globalization paradigms. It introduces critical glocalization as a guiding approach that sensitizes social workers to power dynamics. With this approach, social workers are encouraged to look for innovations that arise in the glocal sphere. They will understand the broader political, economic, structural, policy, and discursive contexts in which they are working, and intentionally look for the marginalized voices in our complex, interconnected world.


LIKE the camera the computer cannot lie. The age of impressionistic and dilettante Biblical scholarship is now over and has given place to the age of scientific precision. That at least is the thesis of the two new books-The Structure of Luke and Acts by the Rev. A. Q. Morton and Professor G. H. C. Macgregor (Hodder and Stoughton ; 2IS. net) and Claristianity and the Computer, by the Rev. A. Q. Morton and the Rev. James McLeman (Hodder and Stoughton; 5s. net). The first is concerned with the standard length of a papyrus scroll and the problems of calculation which an author had to face when he tried, without numerals, to estimate how much material he could fit into the available space. If he made the attempt at all, it must have been done by simple proportion, and this should tell us something about his methods of compilation. If we suppose the validity of the Proto-Luke hypothesis, and that the autograph had two hundred and forty columns of approximately three hundred and seventy-four letters each, we get the remarkable result that all the main paragraph divisions of the Third Gospel coincide with the bottom of a column. A similar treatment of Acts proves that there must have been a Proto-Acts as well as a Proto-Luke. It is all as simple and straightforward as a conjuring-trick at a children's party. But, like the children, we begin to wonder. We cannot help wondering whether, in view of the mathematical difficulties, Luke did not just begin at the beginning, go on till he came to the end, and then stop ; especially since Mr. Morton himself believes that this hit-or-miss method accounts for the unsatisfactory ' ends of other New Testament books. We wonder whether, if the mathematical model had been drawn from the actual length of columns in one of the most ancient New Testament papyri, the result would have been quite as neat. But above all we wonder, seeing that the paragraph divisions are the same for any conceivable theory of compilation, why the computer's figures should not work just as well for the Marcan Hypothesis as for Proto-Luke. The other book is concerned with the authorship of the Pauline epistles. The computer has concluded that the incidence of ka.i (and) per sentence in a number of Greek authors is sufficiently constant to be a reliable test of authorship. By this test Paul wrote only Romans, i and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians (with Philemon thrown in for good measure). For example, the kais per sentence are 242/578 for Romans and 107/102 for Philippians. It is tempting to reply that any computer which decides that Paul did not write Philippians has achieved a reductio ad absurdum. But if we hesitate to face a mechanized opponent with the weapons of Euclid, we may at least ask questions. Let us begin by asking, How long is a sentence ? For it does not require a computer to tell us that, other things being equal, kai will occur


Since the adult heart lacks the capacity to restudies using allogenic cardiac myocytes were successful but over time, the transplanted cells were generate itself, patients surviving a myocardial infarction are left with an area of irreversibly damaged progressively lost, presumably secondary to immunorejection, which led to concerns over the longmyocardium. To compensate for the increased hemodynamic stress resulting from this damage, term stability of engrafted cells. This prompted speculation that long-term cell transplantation the left ventricle (LV) undergoes hypertrophy and dilation. Unfortunately, this compensatory response would require autologous cells. Since performing autologous cardiac myocyte transplantation in adis ultimately detrimental and leads to progressive LV dysfunction. Present day therapies are aimed at ults is not feasible, skeletal myoblasts have been the primary cell type studied. Skeletal myoblasts slowing the rate of LV remodeling by blocking the actions of neurohumoral factors; however, despite (also known as satellite or skeletal muscle stem cells) are easily isolated and cultured even from this pharmacological intervention the disease remains progressive and the mortality of patients adult skeletal muscle. They engraft stably and differentiate into adult skeletal myotubes within damwith congestive heart failure (CHF) remains unacceptably high. Options when pharmacological aged myocardium. More importantly, myoblasts have been repeatedly demonstrated to improve therapy fails are limited but include heart transplantation or insertion of mechanical assist devices. ventricular function in several models of myocardial injury and across species. Autologous skeletal However, these approaches are invasive and not without significant morbidity and mortality themmyoblasts hold several advantages over other cell types for myocardial repair. Since they are easily selves. In response to these shortfalls, several investigators have been developing techniques to obtained in adult subjects they circumvent the need for immunosuppression and are not associated with transplant cells into the area of damaged myocardium to prevent the progression of CHF. the ethical concerns that surround the use of fetal or embryonic cell types. Their limited proliferative Many cell types have been successfully transplanted into damaged myocardium, including fetal potential, although a theoretical concern when attempting to expand myoblast populations to obcardiomyocytes, skeletal myoblasts, smooth muscle cells, embryonic stem cells, and bone martain adequate cells for transplantation, means there is less likelihood of tumor formation after transrow derived stromal and hematopoietic stem cells. While these studies have documented the feasibility plantation. Consequently, skeletal myoblasts were chosen as the first cell type for human studies. of engrafting cells into the myocardium, each cell type has unique properties particularly with respect Autologous skeletal myoblasts have been successfully and safely injected into damaged human to availability and differentiation potential. Initial


: This study aims to know how much the influence of cooperative learning method "Make a Match" on the mastery of Chinese language vocabulary of the pupils at Dr. Wahidin Sudirohusodo primary school. This study uses quantitative research method, a type of quasi experimental design, with pretest and posttest. The research sample consisted of 40 pupils for the experimental class and another 40 pupils for the control class. The hypothesis proposed of this study is that there is a significant influence on the mastery of Chinese language vocabulary. The data is collected through pretest, posttest, and learning outcomes test instrument from the book of Chinese language "lai xue xi hua wen". The result of the uncorrelated sample t-test showed that the cooperative learning method "Make a match" had a significant influence on the mastery of Chinese language vocabulary. Data analysis using t-test shows the result of the experimental class posttest learning is 89,00 while the control class is 64,75. Thus the cooperative learning method "Make a Match" has a significant influence on the mastery of Chinese language vocabulary of the pupils at Dr. Wahidin Sudirohusodo primary school.


This paper focuses on the observer-based <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H_\infty $ </tex-math></inline-formula> control issue for large-scale systems under denial-of-service attacks. Due to the security vulnerability of communication networks, adversaries have the capability to hamper the system normal operation by blocking the signal exchange in both sensor-to-observer channels and the observer-to-observer channels. Under this scenario, a decentralized proportional-derivative-like controller is employed to realize the predetermined <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H_\infty $ </tex-math></inline-formula> performance while considering the improvement of dynamic response of closed-loop systems. By using the Lyapunov stability theory, a sufficient condition dependent on the attack occurring probability is established to realize the desired control performance. Furthermore, in light of the established condition, the desired controller and observer gains are formalized by resorting to the orthogonal decomposition of control matrix. Finally, the effectiveness and practicability of the control scheme are illustrated by resorting to the numerical simulation of a four area power system.


In a nuclear-magnetic-resonance gyroscope (NMRG), the polarization of nuclear spins and the detection of motional
information are usually achieved by utilizing the atomic spins of alkali atoms. The parameters of the atomic spins are
mainly evaluated by the relaxation time. Relaxation time is very important and can influence signal-to-noise ratio,
dynamic range, start time, and other gyroscope parameters. Therefore, its accurate measurement is critical in the study of
NMRG performance. In this study, we evaluate a variety of methods to measure the transverse and longitudinal
relaxation times. First we examine the free-induction-decay method, which is the industry standard for measuring spin
relaxation time. Second we investigate the improved free-induction-decay, fitting-ratio, and magnetic-resonance-broadening-
fitting methods for measuring the transverse relaxation time, and the flipped polarization method for
measuring the longitudinal relaxation time. By changing the experimental conditions, we obtain the longitudinal
relaxation time using the flipped polarization method under a variety of conditions. Finally, by comparing these
measurement methods, we propose the best measurement methods under different conditions.


Acoustic propagation in shallow water is influenced by the characteristics of the ocean bottom sediments and substrata. Hence accurate estimation of bottom properties is vital for accurate modeling of the acoustic field. The acoustic properties of the sediments (compressional and shear wave speeds and attenuation) have been estimated either by measuring the physical properties (porosity, grain size, bulk density etc.), using in-situ sound velocity probes, or via geoacoustic inversions. The sediment physical properties are usually measured by the analysis of sediment cores (gravity, piston or vibro cores). Geoacoustic models such as Grain Shearing (GS) model1 can provide estimates of the geo-acoustic parameters (compressional and shear speeds and attenuations) using the sediment parameters as inputs. Sediment disturbance is possible during the coring process and the extent of this disturbance will depend on the type of sediment (silt, sand or clay/mud). The in situ probes uses acoustic sources and receivers in the coring devises to measure acoustic speeds and attenuation in situ. Another popular approach to characterize the sediments is via geoacoustic inversions. Acoustic field measured at a receiver (or an array of receivers) or other observables derived from the field (reflection coefficient, mode or ray arrival times, modal phase, etc.) is used to estimate the bottom properties (unknown model parameters) via an inversion scheme. In this study, sound speeds of sediments are estimated through an inversion scheme using acoustic normal mode dispersion data. Broadband data collected during the Asian Seas International Acoustics Experiment (ASIAEX) were used for the inversions. Prior inversions and core data from the location were used to constrain the parameter search bounds. The geo-acoustic parameters are also calculated from the physical parameters using viscous grain shearing model for comparison with the inversions.


The paper introduces a new technique that can accurately evaluate magnitudes of instantaneous and RMS values of current and voltage. Existing AC RMS measuring methods require a number of successive measurements and an averaging technique to evaluate current and voltage magnitudes, with reduced accuracy for faster evaluations. A new transform has been devised which allows successive measurements at intervals of one millisecond or less to be evaluated between measurements. In spite of the fast measurement intervals, accurate values of currents and voltages can be made and derived quantities such as power can be computed between measurements. The paper describes problems that were overcome for practical implementation.


Knitting machine settings and their effect on fabric distortion are examined, and this information is related to finishing procedures involving heat setting and chemical finishing systems. Experiments with a cotton/polyester double knit show that acceptable shrinkage values can be achieved by a combination of careful yarn selection and controlled knitting and finishing procedures.


decline of AD patients. Social support and assistance with activities of daily living form the mainstay of nonpharmacological therapies, and include home nursing, support groups, personal care, community care, education about the condition and nursing home care. A novel, once-daily rivastigmine transdermal patch has recently been approved in the US for the treatment of mild-to-moderate AD and Parkinson's disease dementia, and in the EU for the treatment of mild-to-moderate AD. The rivastigmine patch provides comparable exposure to the highest doses of capsules (12 mg/day) with improved tolerability, allowing easier access to optimal therapeutic doses. This in turn has the potential to improve treatment outcomes. Within the UK, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) was established to provide clinical guidance, and guidance on the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of new and existing clinical interventions, to the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales. This analysis aimed to evaluate the cost-utility of the rivastigmine transdermal patch from the perspective of the UK NHS, and to provide evidence to support NHS funding of the rivastigmine patch in the treatment of AD. Objective The aim of this analysis was to model the incremental costs and benefits associated with the rivastigmine transdermal patch versus best supportive care (BSC) in the management of AD, from the perspective of the UK NHS. Methods The cost-utility of the rivastigmine patch was assessed using an economic evaluation model developed to compare incremental costs and Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) associated with treatment. The findings of the IDEAL study1 (Investigation of transDermal Exelon in ALzheimer's disease), a 24-week randomised clinical trial with a 28-week open label extension, provided the efficacy data for the modelling analysis (focusing on 9.5 mg/24 h patch treatment groups). The clinical pathway was populated based on 12-month follow-up data from patients who received the rivastigmine patch in the IDEAL trial (n = 383), and 6-month follow-up data (n = 282) from patients who received placebo. To model the patients' clinical pathway (Figure 1) two assumptions were made: (a) that a certain number of patients discontinue treatment, and (b) that some of these patients die. In the IDEAL trial, discontinuation rates of 19‐21% were reported1. These rates were applied for the entire 5-year economic analysis, with adjustments to correct for any dropout-bias resulting from discontinuations of rivastigmine treatment. Mortality rates reported in the IDEAL trial were substantially lower than those published in epidemiological studies. The cost-utility model incorporated the greater mortality rates from epidemiological studies, and not those from the IDEAL trial, to reflect the application of the model to real-world clinical practice. Disease progression was modelled using Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores extrapolated over a 5-year period by fitting Mendiondo curves2 to the IDEAL data to obtain a suitable algorithm (Figure 2). Utility gains were calculated using prior evidence correlating health-related quality of life (HRQoL) directly to MMSE score. Data obtained from clinical trials were mapped onto health status, as measured by the Health Utilities Index Version 3 (HUI3)3, to derive the following regression function indicating that a 1-point deterioration in MMSE score is equivalent to a reduction of approximately 0.03 utility:


Purpose – The basic aim of present study was to test the construct of brand credibility and its impact on purchase intentions with moderation effect of brand image in service sector of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach – for the sake of data collection, A questionnaire was used from the customers of fast food users from the city of Lahore Pakistan.  Regression and correlation analysis along with others were used for data analysis and hypothesis testing.  Findings – Based of the statistical evidences of present study it is found that brand credibility and purchase intentions are positively related whereas brand image moderates this relationship. Practical implications – This study will help survey marketers and mangers to understand the importance of brand credibility for enhancing customer purchase intentions, furthermore it will guide them to incorporate the brand image in crafting different marketing and branding strategies to increase brand royalty. Originality/value – According to researcher, this is a pioneer study to propose the impact of service-brand-credibility and its impact on customer purchase intentions with moderating effect of brand image in the context of Pakistan. Keywords: Brand credibility, Purchase intentions, Brand image, Brands, Pakistan. Paper type : Research paper


The discovery of nuclear fission by Hahn and Strassmann was based on a very rare microanalytical result what initially could not indicate the very complicate details of this most important process. A similarity is discussed for the low energy nuclear reactions LENR being proved from analogies of measurements of the uranium fission. The distribution of the elements at uranium fission has a similarity with the element distribution at LENR measured repeatedly in a reproduced way, what was observed at high density deuteron concentration in palladium. This is specifically focussed to the Maruhn-Greiner local maximum of the distribution within the large-scale minimum if the fission nuclei are excited. Consequences of the complications in uranium fission are discussed in comparison with LENR with respect to the studies of a hypothetical fissioning compound nuclear reaction via a concluded element X126 with double magic numbers. Some observations are reported which specifically refer to these results and comparison. PACS: 21.10.-k; 21.10.Gv; 52.58.-z; 52.77.-j


the Ethical Value of Human Being is Excluded from the Constitution of Personality, That is, the Integrity of Roman Law Based on Property and Region. the Fun of "Property" is the Symbol of the Fun of "Personality". under the Influence of the Doctrines of Classical Natural Law and Reasonable Ideological Tendency, the Rationality and Value of Human Beings Can Be Based on the Actual Law, While the Elements of Assets Can Be Removed According to the Personality. Compared with the "Property Ability" or "Property Right Ability" of French National Civil Law Property Which Does Not Give Up the Strong Personality Ethics, the Right Ability of German Civil Law Promotes the Importance of the Right Carrier of Personality Completely, and It is the Development of Civil Law. This Article Believes That the Continuous Separation of Property and Ethical Factors of Personality is the Historical Process of Personality Equality. the Understanding of Property as a Factor of Personality is the Cost of Denying the Basic Value of Modern Law of Personality Equality.


Objective

To determine complication rates and patient satisfaction with closure techniques following laparoscopic surgery.

Design

Prospective observational study.

Setting

Day Surgery Centre, Rotherham District General Hospital, Rotherham, England.

Materials and methods

187 patients undergoing elective laparoscopic surgery were recruited. Various wound closure techniques were used. The degree of wound bleeding, discomfort and discharge occurring 1, 2 and 6 weeks following surgery was assessed. A subsequent study identified the exact location of the scar by means of photograph and sought a final assessment of patient satisfaction with cosmesis. The distance of the scar from the centre of the umbilicus was correlated with the patient satisfaction score on an analogue scale.

Results

Significant complications were associated with wound closure at laparoscopy. The highest rate of discomfort was associated with a subcuticular method. Umbilical discharge was seen with both the subcuticular and interrupted method when the sutures were left in situ. This was present even 6 weeks following the procedure. The lowest complication rate was associated with those cases where the wound was left unsutured. Patient satisfaction with the laparoscopic incision was greatest when the incision was made totally within the umbilicus.

Conclusion

Careful consideration should be given to the suture technique employed, to reduce wound complication following laparoscopy. Leaving the wound unsutured should be considered as an acceptable alternative. Interrupted sutures should be removed within a week of surgery to reduce the incidence of discharge. To achieve the best cosmetic result, a vertical incision, made as central to the umbilicus as possible, should be employed.


8-Chlorodibenzothiepin-10(11H)-one,a key synthetic intermediate of Zotepine,was synthesized by metal-catalyzed coupling reaction,Willgerodt-Kindler rearrangement,hydrolysis and intermolecular cyclization reaction.The coupling reaction was catalyzed by CuI/L-proline,so that the reaction temperature could be cooled down to 100 ℃ with a higher yield of 85%.Willgerodt-Kindler rearrangement and hydrolysis was carried out in a one-pot-reaction.The mole yield of all four steps was 40%.The product structure was identified by means of IR,MS,and 1HNMR.


Objective: The objective of the study was to determine whether women with pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia have different circulating levels of asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA). Patients and methods: The study was carried out on 60 preeclamptic patients (group PRE) and 36 healthy normotensive pregnant women without renal and cardiac diseases. The maternal serum ADMA concentrations were determined using a sandwich ELISA assay. Results: There were no statistically significant differences in gravidity, parity, maternal age and height and BMI in patient profiles between groups. Maternal weight was lower in the control group of patients than in the group of preeclamptic patients. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure and mean arterial blood pressure were significantly higher in the study group of preeclamptic pregnant women than in the control group. Our study revealed the elevated levels of ADMA in serum of women with pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia. The mean values were 0.588 ± 0.179 μmol/l in preeclamptic patients and 0.502 ± 0.107 μmol/l in the healthy controls (p = 0.010097). Conclusions: Preeclampsia is associated with higher maternal levels of circulating ADMA than in normal pregnancy. Our findings may be an important implication for therapy reversing this asymmetric dimethylarginine activity in the serum of preeclamptic women.


The occurrence of tensile stresses in the underhead region as a result of localised vertical and lateral head bending on the web is significant, and can potentially contribute to fatigue cracking. Field measurements under heavy haul conditions have shown that these stresses occur as a tension spike when the instrumented location is directly beneath the wheel. The aim of this study was to evaluate the stress state of the rail underhead region with respect to changes of the rail profile due to wear. The study was undertaken using the finite element method (FEM) involving a static stress analysis. The analysis revealed that the longitudinal stress at the rail gauge corner of the outer rail in curved track is highly dependent on several operational parameters including the offset of the contact patch location from the rail centreline, the ratio of lateral (L) to vertical (V) loads (L/V ratio), the direction of lateral traction, foundation stiffness and the head wear (HW). The magnitude of the tension spike at the surface of the rail in the underhead region is increased, but the depth below the contact surface at which the stresses become tensile is reduced when increasing the offset of contact patch location, the L/V ratio, the foundation stiffness and the HW. Both residual (RS) and thermally induced stresses increase the value of the stress in this region. The tensile stresses could potentially cause fatigue crack initiation at the rail underhead region and, in particular, could cause rolling contact fatigue (RCF) cracks on the gauge corner of the rail to turn downwards into transverse defects (TDs).


Although it is easier to acquire knowledge from structured or unstructured data with NLP (Nature Language Processing) and Machine Learning techniques, it is still difficult to exclude logic errors using reinforcement learning on ontology construction. Ontology reduction is a key step when a learner agent removes the knowledge from the existing ontology in the process ontology learning. This proposal designs and validates the method of ontology reduction based on the axiomatic cognitive model, which include the ontology reduction postulates, axioms and operations of the learning construction. It is proved these operators subject to the established axiom system.ng model. Our approach aims at improving the efficiency and accuracy of the ontology.


of (cid:222) ve laser diodes (LD) as a light source, one photo diode as a receiver, and a 1 mm-length absorption cell. Each of the (cid:222) ve LDs operated one of the (cid:222) ve wavelengths in turn. Oil identi (cid:222) cation, which distinguished between inedible and edible oil, was clearly shown on a two-dimension map. Our results con (cid:222) rmed the feasibility of a LD-based sensor-type identi (cid:222) cation system that has many advantages such as compactness, low power and easy to use.


At present, water treatment and distribution is of high priority to ensure that communities have access to safe and affordable drinking water. To achieve the desired outcomes for the drinking water distribution system, every aspect of the system must be designed to the water quality and drainage characteristics, and the nature and conditions of the infrastructure. Due to these design requirements, it can be considerably difficult to implement goals relating to the provision of safe drinking water.

This study aimed to quantify key water quality parameters, such as chlorine concentration, flow velocity, pH, and biofilm growth, and evaluate the influence of these parameters on corrosion and iron release in a tropical drinking water distribution system.

The approach of this study was split into three (3) components:

• Conduct a pilot study on a distribution system in the tropics and assemble, calibrate and validate a network model, based on this water distribution system;

• Design, construct and install an economic Biofilm Corrosion Reactor (BCR), to allow monitoring and evaluation of water quality parameters found within the distribution system;

• Perform accelerated corrosion tests to investigate the effect of water quality parameters on corrosion rate.

The outcomes of the study components provided knowledge and understanding on the performance of the drinking water distribution system. This understanding, combined with the observed relationships found during this research, allowed the development of corrosion management strategies relevant to the Ingham Water Supply Scheme.

In general, the following relationships were observed during this research and were consistent with compared literature sources:

• Corrosion rate increased significant with chlorine concentration above 1 mg/L;

• During the initial phase of corrosion higher velocity results in higher corrosion rate;

• During the final phase of corrosion lower velocity results in higher corrosion rate;

• Corrosion rate increased with a decrease in pH;

• Higher velocity results in increased iron release and therefore increased corrosion rate; and

• Corrosion rate increased with increase in microorganisms/biofilm.

Overall, the combination of the simulated network model for the Ingham Water Supply Scheme and the observed results and relationships during this research, resulted in the development of the Corrosion Hotspot Tool for Hinchinbrook Shire Council. The aim of the tool is to improve the management of the distribution system operationally and financially and also indicated some key aspects to monitor, in regards to corrosion such as chlorine residual levels.

Furthermore, the research techniques and outcomes can be replicated with other water supply authorities, to assist in developing management strategies to improve drinking water quality and the operation of water treatment and distribution systems.


Alumina filtration membranes and catalyst substrates are commercially available. For technically important applications requiring pore size ≤50 nm, however, existing materials are composed of transitional alumina phases (γ-, δ-, or θ-Al 2 O 3 ). With regard to the limited chemical and thermal stability of these phases compared with α-Al 2 O 3 it was the objective of this work to provide pure corundum materials with the required porosity.


Whilst marine-terminating glaciers in Greenland are significant contributors to global sea level rise, their thermodynamics are poorly constrained by observations. Conventional discrete thermistor borehole sensing studies go some way to addressing this but lack the spatial resolution to effectively resolve key processes. Here, we detail results from fibre optic distributed temperature sensing equipment installed in a 1040 m hot water drilled borehole 28 km inland of the calving front of Store Glacier, Greenland. Surface ice velocity at the borehole is 550 m a-1 with convergent ice flow into a bedrock trough. Spatial resolution of 0.25 m, temperature differences of 0.03 °C, and an absolute temperature accuracy of 0.15 °C were achieved. 0.5 °C warm anomalies were observed between 0-30 and 220-45 m depth with a central cold section down to -22 °C . We interpret the former anomaly to be a result of cryo-hydrologic warming, although of lower magnitude than in slow-flowing sectors of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The latter is theorised to be strain heating, supported by deformation observed in the cable at this point. The record also reveals a 75 m thick section of temperate basal ice and the nature of the cold-temperate transition as a sharp temperature drop of 0.45 °C over 1.5 m at the top of the temperate layer, with notable temperature changes in the vicinity of the transition. Warming of 0.06 °C is observed over the basal 6 m of the profile. The cable lasted 6 weeks before failure, demonstrating the feasibility of using  fibre optic sensing to study thermal processes in a glacier environment with high deformation rates.


This paper gives an introduction to the Antenna Software Initiative within the Antenna Center of Excellence, a Network of Excellence within the 6L Framework Program of the European Union. The Initiative tries to cope with several important prohlems observed within the European antenna modeling research community.


Over the past 17 years, leadless lead frame packages have been continuous advancements in density, thickness, reliability and performance. The vast majority of leadless lead frame packages have a single row of perimeter pads limiting their application to low pin count devices, typically below 100. This paper will introduce advancements UTAC has made in leadless lead frame assembly, materials and process technologies which enable QFN packages to address challenging application and device requirements through improved reliability and higher I/O densities. UTAC's new generation of leadframe package design called Grid Array QFN (GQFN) allows traces to be routed through etching process and providing higher I/O, reduction of package size up to 40%~60%, shorter wire length compared to QFN. Flip chip, stack die, multi-chip module and SiP options are also possible. GQFN package is also feasible for solder ball drop or solder coat option on terminal which offers alternative to ball grid array package. Unlike solder mask based lead insulation process, GQFN's insulation mold process eliminates complex multistep process flow which raises cost and manufacturing challenges. GQFN's Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) guidelines will be discussed in this paper. It will cover PCB design, Land Pattern, Component placement, Stencil design, Reflow Profiles (Eutectic and Pb-free) as well as Rework Process. Mobile applications require new package technologies to retain solder joint integrity over more stringent temperature cycle stress and drop shock use cases (board level reliability). GQFN's board level reliability will be assessed following PCBA guidelines. GQFN design reduces the package size by 60% compared to QFN, the increased die-to-package ratio poses concerns on board-level reliability(BLR) as the silicon is known to be a major source of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between package and PCB which add more impact on solder joints. Demanding handheld use cases are driving mechanical drop shock resistance targets up, with customers requiring data up to 1,000 drop cycles. GQFN package has good board level reliability results meeting the test requirement according to the IPC/JEDEC standards.


The article considers phenomenal geometry figures being the carriers of value spectra for the pairs of the remaining additive quantum numbers occurred in the nature of strongly and weakly interacting particles. The unusual feature of such figures is that during their building no data about particles are used at all but the data about the mentioned spectra though can be found in these figures and this can be discovered with the help of special coordinate systems.


The prototype of a machine tool for the fine machining of PVC window casings was recently developed and tested. Preliminary tests pointed out that excessive vibrations arise during the execution of some operative motion laws, possibly affecting the product quality. Some structural modification of the machine is thus needed in order to reduce the vibration level. In this context, modal analysis of the machine prototype can be useful to guide the design modifications. In order to excite the system consistently with the operative working conditions, the operational modal analysis was considered more suitable than the traditional experimental modal analysis. The excitation was provided by executing of an impulsive motion law of the machine part hosting the tools, which provides a flat spectrum in the bandwidth of interest. This paper illustrates the main practical aspects of the experimental tests and the results that were obtained by using a commercial software. 104 IOMAC'09 – 3 International Operational Modal Analysis Conference their own operation, seemed therefore particularly suitable. On the other hand, providing the excitation by means of an instrumented hammer or a shaker, as the traditional Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) requires, could not ensure a sufficient excitation of those modes particularly significant in the critical working conditions. In addition, impressing a high energy impact with a hammer was a problematic task since some machine parts of interest were not easily accessible or were delicate and liable to possible damages. Moreover, the use of a shaker entailed a complicate experimental set-up. OMA procedures ideally require an input loading having a flat spectrum in the bandwidth of interest. In order to provide such a kind of excitation, an impulsive motion law was chosen. In particular, a brief and quick displacement of the machine part that hosts the tools was imposed by the machine controller in the same direction of the operative motion laws that caused the undesired vibrations. Obviously, the actual input applied to the machine was not measurable thus enforcing the choice to use the OMA, which is based on output data only, as the employed modal testing technique. The impulsive excitation proved many good qualities, such as the absence of harmonics (that would significantly complicate the OMA application), the very good repeatability of the measurements and the possibility of well estimating the modal parameters by applying a straightforward procedure. The most common applications of OMA procedures documented in the literature are typically exploited for the modal parameter identification of civil engineering applications (e.g. bridges, tall buildings, Cantieni 2009) for which EMA laboratory tests is not feasible, for the identification of structures whose dynamic behaviour strictly depends on their operative conditions (e.g. aircrafts subject to aerodynamic loadings, Goursat et al. 2001, or ships and marine structures interacting with sea waves, Mariani and Dessi 2008), for the analysis of mechanical systems whose response to the operative loading is of primary interest (e.g. noise of running cars, Hermans et al. 1999, or subject to engine excitation, Brincker et al. 2000). In authors' knowledge, no studies relative to the application of OMA in the field of automatic machinery are reported in the literature. For the mentioned industrial case, this paper outlines the main practical aspects of the experimental tests and reports the results retrieved from the OMA performed by means of the commercial software LMS Test.Lab. 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1 The machine prototype The prototype of a new automatic cleaning machine was recently developed; it was conceived to clean the welding seams of PVC window casings present in the different parts of a given workpiece (inner and outer corner contours, upper and lower surfaces). The machine tool has two axes to provide the group that hosts the tools (element C in Fig. 1) with a translational planar motion along the Z and Y directions for machining the workpiece that is fixed to the frame. The element T can move in the vertical direction with respect to the supporting structure, dragging the element C; this last can then horizontally slide with respect to the element T. The two moving elements are actuated by brushless motors, which drive ball screw mechanisms via timing belts, and are borne by means of preloaded linear guides. The maximum performances are reported in Table 1. The supporting structure has overall size of about 2.1 by 1.0 by 2.1 m. Two "paired" columns directly sustain the moving parts, and a thick top plate and a third column form a gantry structure. 2.2 Input excitation As mentioned above, the execution of some operations causes an excessive level of vibration. In particular, when the element C is driven along Y with the severe motion laws to be implemented for the positioning phases, the arising inertia force induces high vibrations at low frequencies (in the bandwidth 0–20 Hz). On the other hand, neither the motions of the moving parts in the Z direction nor the actions due to machining operations of the tools entail significant vibratory phenomena. Therefore, for the modal testing the choice of an input loading consistent with the critical operative conditions (motion in the Y direction) seems reasonable.


In this paper, we analyze the performance of the generalized selection combining with Gaussian distributed weighting errors for physical-layer security of a wireless communication system. Exact closed-form expressions for the secrecy performance in terms of the secrecy outage probability and the probability of non-zero secrecy capacity are derived. Moreover, asymptotic expressions are obtained and provide insights on how the channel parameters affect the secrecy performance. Monte-Carlo simulations are conducted to assess the accuracy of our analytical framework.


Maize is one of model plants useful for genetic investigations and also very important for its agrotechnical utilizations. Here the genotoxic effects of low dose X-rays and accelerated electrons in maize caryopses was carried out with focus on the influence of water content at the moment of seed irradiation. X-ray photon beam as well as accelerated electrons were provided with 2.40 Gy min−1 dose rate. Pre-soaked and dry maize caryopses were irradiated with 0.5–3.0–6.0 Gy. Cytogenetic investigations were carried out based on microscope observations of chromosomes stained by Feulgen method. The mitotic index was found diminished in hydrated samples indicating the negative influence of indirect effects of water radicals. As known the water radiolysis release free radicals that attack biomolecules in addition to the directly absorbed radiation impact. Slight positive influence of 0.5 Gy radiation dose on cell division was evidenced. Chromosomal aberrations were identified like: vagrand chromosomes, C-metaphases, picnotic chromosomes, chromatide bridges. General tendency of aberrant mitoses enhancing was recorded in watered samples — with up to the twice increase for 6.0 Gy radiation dose. The results evidenced the hydration role in monitoring cytogenetic effects of low dose radiations in plant systems -with possible biotechnological applications.


The invention discloses a cloud computing platform server load balancing system and method, so as to overcome the defect that the current static load balancing technology cannot carry out dynamic adjustment according to the real-time condition of a load and the defect that a dynamic load balancing technology needs to additionally occupy system resources. According to the method, when a service request is received, a cloud computing platform selects a target server according to the number of requests which are processed and are being processed by each server in a cluster in recent preset unit time and the number of generated logs, and forwards the service request to the target server for processing. According to the embodiment of the invention, the load balancing can be effectively improved.


s of the four cases with coincident corpus cancer and cirrhosis of the liver follow. FIG. 1 . Case 1. Cirrhosis of the liver. FIG. 2. Case 1. Adenocarcinoma of !he endometrium. ENDOMETRIAL CANCER AND HEPATIC CIRRHOSIS Speert [599 Case 1. A 72-year-old white woman was admitted February 3,1946, because of thrombophlebitis of the right leg. She had had bleeding hemorrhoids for twenty-five years and hematemeses for the past four years, during which time she had lost 40 pounds. Her cephalin flocculation test was positive, the serum proteins 5.8 gm. per 100 cc. with an A/G ratio of 3.1/2.7. The patient died in coma ten days later following a massive hematemesis. At autopsy, the liver was shrunken and nodular, weighing 1180 gm. Microscopic sections showed heavy scarring in the portal areas (Fig. 1). The uterus was small but the endometrium was replaced by a large fungating mass, microscopic sections of which showed a well-differentiated adenocarcinoma (Fig. 2). Case 2. A 52-year-old white woman had a curettage in May, 1929, because of postmenopausal vaginal bleeding of two-months' duration* Intrauterine radium was inserted at the same time for a total dose of 2400 mg. hr. The pathological diagnosis was adenoFIG. 3. Case 2. Adenocarcinoma of the endometrium. FIG. 4. Case 2. Cirrhosis of the liver. 6001 CANCER j U i v 1949 carcinoma of the endometrium (Fig. 3). The patient was readmitted seven months later and died the following day with extensive metastases. At autopsy, the liver was grossly nodular but without evidence of metastatic invasion. Microscopically, it presented the typical appearance of atrophic cirrhosis (Fig. 4). Case 3. A 63-year-old single white woman complained of swollen abdomen and icterus, both of recent onset. She gave a history of rather heavy use of alcohol for the past fifteen years. Dilated blood vessels were present on the face and right forearm. The cephalin flocculation test was strongly positive. Death occurred two days after admission. The clinical diagnosis of Laennec's cirrhosis was confirmed at autopsy. The liver was finely nodular, weighing 1650 gm., and was cut with difficulty. Microscopically, it showed marked fatty degeneration and many islands of necrotic tumor cells, as well as the changes typical of cirrhosis, the portal areas being greatly increased in size by connective tissue that extended in among the cells and connected with other portal areas (Fig. 5). An incidental finding was carcinoma of the endometrium. The cavity of the uterus contained a mass of irregular, grayish-red tissue, the surface of which was ulcerated, attached to the fundus, and invading the myometrium. Microscopic section showed it to be an adenocarcinoma (Fig. 6). A 48-year-old white woman was admitted on January 28, 1945, with various complaints including vaginal bleeding of seven-months' duration, She received blood transfusion for a profound anemia but died the day after admission. Autopsy revealed an adenocarcinoma of the uterine fundus with extension to the rectum and walls of the pelvis, but the immediate cause of death was a perforated gastric ulcer with peritonitis. The liver was cirrhotic and greatly reduced in size, weighing only 800 gm. In addition to these four autopsied cases, records are available for four other patients who presented clinical evidence of the combination of cirrhosis of the liver and carcinoma of the uterine fundus. Case 4. Case 5. A 35-year-old white woman was admitted to the hospital with profuse vaginal bleeding of two-months' duration. She presented the picture of Banti's syndrome with greatly enlarged liver and spleen. Roentgen irradiation of the pel+ (without curettage) controlled the vaginal bleeding temporarily, but hysterectomy was performed three months later because of its recurrence. Pathological examination revealed adenocarcinoma of the endometrium (Fig. 7). A 36-year-old white woman complained of tarry stools in 1944 and was found to have Banti's syndrome with enlargement of the spleen and liver. Her cephalin flocculation test was strongly positive; serum proteins were 6.5 gm. per 100 cc., with an A/G ratio of 3.513.0. Bromsulfalein retention was 25 per cent in thirty minutes. Portal obstruction was relieved by a venous shunting operation two and a half years later, at which time biopsy ofthe liver confirmed the diagnosis of cirrhosis. A year later, at age 39, the patient complained ofmenorrhagia for four to five months, with continuous bleeding for the past twentyfive days. Curettage revealed an adenocarcinoma of the endometrium (Fig. 8). Case 7. A 48-year-old Italian woman, who complained of pain in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen in 1936, was found to have Banti's syndrome. The liver and spleen were greatly enlarged. Three and one-ha11 years later the cephalin flocculation test was positive and bromsulfalein retention was 30 per cent after thirty minutes. Splenectomy and cholecystectomy were performed at that time. In 1941, when the patient was 53 years old and five years beyond the menopause, she complained of vaginal bleeding of fourmonths' duration. Curettage produced necrotic semiliquid bits of tissue that were inadequate for histological examination, but a clinical diagnosis of carcinoma of the endometrium was made, and intrauterine radium was applied for a total dose of 4000 mg. hr. Unfortunately, the diagnosis could not be established with certainty, for when hysterectomy was performed six weeks later, the endometrium had been virtually completely destroyed by the radium. Case 8. A 51 -year-old white widow had an omentopexy performed because of cirrhosis of the liver. Two years later, six years after her menopause, she complained of pain in the lower abdomen and back and vaginal bleeding, all of a year's duration. Curettage revealed adenocarcinoma of the fundus, which was later confirmed by hysterectomy. The last four cases (5 to 8) were discovered in a cursory review of the hospital records 01 504 patients with primary carcinoma of the endometrium. The incidence of known preexisting hepatic cirrhosis in this group of Case 6.


The invention discloses a containment spray pump, which is used for the field of nuclear power equipment and comprises an inner cylinder, an outer cylinder, a pump seat, a pump shaft and a bearing. The inner cylinder comprises a flow guide section, a water outlet section, a flow guide shell section, a suction pipe and a suction pipe which are sequentially connected from top to bottom, wherein the flow guide shell section is formed by serially connecting a plurality of flow guide shells. A first flange and a second flange are arranged at the upper end and the lower end of the outer wall of the flow guide section respectively, a third flange and a fourth flange are arranged at the upper end and the lower end of the outer wall of the water outlet section respectively, an inner flange on the pump seat is connected to the first flange, the second flange is connected to the third flange, first rib plates connected with the first flange and the second flange are arranged on the outer wall of the flow guide section, second rib plates connected with the third flange and the fourth flange are arranged on the outer wall of the water outlet section, and the number of the first rib plates is as same as that of the second rib plates and is an even number larger than or equal to four.


In this paper we develop a robust controller based on sliding mode, neural network and fuzzy logic for the control of a class of under-actuated systems. The stability of the proposed controller is proved with the Lyapunov function method. Simulation results are made on an inverted pendulum.


Design and development of low cost flat mirror system that produce electricity and heat, and heat storage are described in this paper. Basically, the system is related with Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology. Electricity and heat are both produced by water that circulates in system. In this paper, it has been focused on reducing cost, providing wide range use and construct more light system when compared with Solarux CSP. For this purpose, computer aided design programs are used briefly.


This article addresses how far wage imbalances in the Eurozone can be imputable to intentional agency by collective bargaining organizations. Using Archer's morphogenetic approach, we explain the agentic role of social partners in core (Germany) and periphery (Spain) cases, in relation with the respective collective bargaining regimes. We show that the capacity of macro- and meso-level organizations to effect wage-setting practices can be constrained inadvertently by contextual influences with morphostatic properties, generating constrained modes of corporate agency. Yet wage moderation is best understood as a form of agency itself, functioning 'by being' rather than 'doing', which over time can become more innovative. We contrast this finding with the less constrained capacity of more institutionalized corporate agents, such as transnational business corporations and central state agencies.


ABSTRACf: Drawing from a semester-long ethnographic case study of three freshmen at Lehman College of the City University of New York, the author looks at the very difficult situation underprepared students encounter. To succeed in college, they must change nearly everything about themselvesparticularly their class and cultural identification. Resisting this change, the freshgirls fail . What teachers can try to do to help students relax and learn, this study suggests, is to exercise flexibility in their pedagogies.


Objective:To clone and identify the surface antigen BSR4 of Toxoplasma gondii(T.gondii) PRU strain,to match the homology of BSR4 among T.gondii PRU and ME49 strains,and to analyze the feature by bioinformatics. Methods:DNA of strain PRU of T.gondii was extracted,and a pair of specific primers were designed from sequence of T.gondii ME49 bradyzoite surface antigen BSR4 and used to amplify the BSR4 of T.gondii PRU strain by PCR,then cloned into vector pET28a(+) and sequencing.Predict the physical and chemical nature,structure and function of BSR4. Results:The target gene was amplified by PCR.The sequencing result showed that the fragment was 1 194 bp which encoded 398 amino acid.The deduce amino acid sequcence of PRU strain BSR4 gene showed a 100% homology with that of ME49 strain.The predicted BSR4 protein molecular weight is 42 344.75 Dalton which can form two functional domains with a signal peptide location before 40 amino acids.The N-terminal of BSR4 was a signal peptide and the C-terminal was a hydrophobic region which suggested it was a GPI-anchored surface protein.There were 18 potential antigenic epitopes and 2 conserved domains in BSR4. Conclusions:The sequence of bradyzoite-specific antigen BSR4 from T.gondii PRU strain was successfully cloned.


The US service export base is expanding rapidly as firms seek to penetrate international markets in search of growth opportunities. This article explores mechanisms that a sample of 67 US-based information technology (IT) firms use to export their services to one selected market, Mexico. A correlation analysis revealed that most firms adapt and extend existing IT services for the Mexican market, and consider cultural understanding imperative to successful operations in Mexico. The results also found that firms use a variety of business arrangements (joint ventures, licensing) and a wide array of contract vehicles (time and materials, firm fixed price). © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Structural weight reduction and high aspect ratio wings play a key role in improving the performance of modern transport aircraft. This leads to a highly flexible aircraft structure which is sensitive to external disturbances like gusts. To counteract this undesired effect, active control is a promising technology. In this paper, a gust load alleviation controller is designed for a wind tunnel model of a flexible wing with various trailing edge flaps and acceleration sensors. For a sophisticated model-based controller design, a detailed aeroelastic model is derived describing the coupling of structural dynamics and aerodynamics. Additionally, actuator dynamics and structural modes are identified and used to improve model accuracy. Subsequently, the weakly damped first wing bending mode, which causes high structural loads, is isolated via H2-optimal blending of control inputs andmeasurement outputs. In this way, a gain-scheduled single-input single-output controller can be designed to control the desired aeroelastic mode. Eventually, the great potential of the proposed control approach is verified by a wind tunnel test including different gust excitations and varying airspeeds.


Distributed Brillouin sensing Technique represents a new physical approach for temperature and strain measurements, which is based on optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR), and seems extremely promising for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and being received most attention. Due to the intrinsic distributed sensing capability, Brillouin can measure the temperature and strain using a single-mode fiber, which retains other typical advantages of Fiber Optic Sensors (FOS). This paper stated the current situation and prospect of distributed Brillouin sensing.


Observations of the land surface energy balance were made in the Gobi desert and at two mountain sites in northern Colorado. The Gobi study included 12 days of observations in spring (April 8 to 20, 1984) and 31 days in summer at the same site (June 17 to July 18, 1984). The Colorado study included 126 days (March 13 to July 17, 1984) at a valley site and 34 days (July 31 to September 3, 1984) at a mountain top location. The data for each study included continuous observations of upward and downward radiative fluxes in three wave bands, soil temperature and moisture at four levels, air temperature and humidity at four levels and UVW wind components at three levels. Analyses of the Gobi data include definition of the impact of variable atmospheric moisture on the surface energy balance between spring and summer. In addition, diurnal wind circulations forced by heating of the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau were observed during both periods.


Fasting blood levels of cholesterol, triglyceride, glucose, insulin and fibrinogen were measured preoperatively in 44 patients who had reconstructive operations for occlusive disease in the femoral and popliteal arteries. Comparison of these preoperative biochemical measurements with the results of surgery over a 4‐year period indicated that failure was associated with significantly higher mean preoperative levels of both glucose (P < 0.01) and fibrinogen (P < 0.01). High fasting blood glucose was associated with early failure (occlusion between 3 and 12 months) and high plasma fibrinogen was associated with late failure (occlusion between 1 and 4 years). The results of operation were not influenced significantly by preoperative blood levels of cholesterol, triglyceride or insulin.


In delay tolerant network, message delivery can be inspired by biological communication models in realizing encountering and delivering. One way of communications can be through "thrown box" where the messages can be left and collected by different nodes in mimicking pheromone-based communications. In thrown box based model, the box is viewed as message relay and the delivery rate is enhanced by spreading a message at as many boxes as possible. Both the life time of message left at the boxes and message leaving preference will have a significant influence on the latency and delivery ratio in message dissemination. In this paper, we model the latency problem as discrete time Markov Chain and further derive the time distribution of first contact between the message and collector. By varying the parameters of message leaving probability and initial environment condition, the latency related results are studied.


Texture deals with the orientational aspects of the crystal lattice in polycrystalline aggregates. This comprises the classical orientation distribution function ODF as well as higher-order textural quantities. The quantitative treatment of these quantities requires a good deal of mathematical methods. This concerns particularly the representation of orientation data including all kinds of symmetries, the transformation of experimentally measured raw data into the required distribution functions, as well as mathematical models of texture formation by physical processes and of the texture-property relationship.


The allergic rhinitis (AR) is common in children. Symptoms of AR may result in daytime inattention, irritability, and hyperactivity, which are similar to symptoms of ADHD. The goal of this study was to examine the associations between AR and ADHD. The study subjects included 469 patients who received psychiatric care for ADHD in 2005 and the general population (n = 220,599). Distributions of age, gender, and living areas as well as AR in the general population and in the ADHD group were examined by x -tests. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to analyze the risk factors associated with AR. The prevalence of AR in ADHD group and the general population was 28.4% and 15.2%, respectively, which was significantly higher in ADHD group than the general population (p<0.001). The multivariate logistic regression analysis 2 showed that ADHD was associated with a significantly higher rate of AR than the general population ([OR]=2.10; 95%CI=1.37-3.22; p<0.0001). In a conclusion our data showed that ADHD was significantly associated with the diagnosis of AR. Therefore, psychiatrists should be more aware of the comorbidity of AR when treating ADHD patients.


The parametric decay of an extraordinary electron cyclotron pump wave to electron Bernstein (EB) wave and ion Bernstein wave leading to anomalous absorption in 2nd-harmonic electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) experiments is analyzed. It is shown that in an axisymmetric system, like tokamak, excitation of the low-threshold absolute parametric decay instability (PDI) is possible in the case of non-monotonic behaviour of plasma density in radial direction and due to poloidal magnetic-field inhomogeneity. The threshold of the absolute PDI instability determined by linear dissipation of the EB wave is shown to be substantially exceeded in nowadays 2nd-harmonic ECRH experiments in tokamaks that provide an explanation for the mysterious ion acceleration effect observed there.


A simple, quick and convenient method has been developed for the micro estimation of S- containing amino acids. The sample 1-5 mg is allowed to react with 2 ml of 0.3N ammonium metavanadate (v) reagent and 10 ml of 10N H2SO4 was added, before the reaction helps in detecting the end point. The unconsumed reagent can be accurately titrate with 0.025 N ferrous ammonium sulphate solution using N-phenyl anthranilic acid as indicator. Standard deviation as well as coefficient of variation was calculated for reproducible and accurate result. The accuracy of the method in within + 1%


The virtual enterprise alliance body is composed of core company and leaguer company.The third and the fourth party logistics are the trend of modern logistics.Their histomorphology in the virtual enterprise alliance body lies in whether the provided terminal product is logistics one or not.The logistics enterprise is leaguer company in the virtual enterprise alliance body consisting of logistics enterprise and manufacturing,while the fourth party logistics is core company when it is the organizer in the virtual enterprise alliance body.


In order to present a comprehensible view of the history of hadith, besides the studies on methodology, biography works and hadith commentary, the issues in the isnads and the end-of-text information should be evaluated. The information contained in the isnads can give a great deal of insight into the history of hadith, especially the issues discussed in the gatherings of hadith lessons. On the other hand, the information and notes at the end of the narrations with the isnad are also very valuable in terms of seeing the hidden parts of the history of hadith. In our research, which was written in this context, almost most of the narrations in al-Ḥumaydî's Musnad written by Sufyân b. ʿUyayna's notes were examined and it was aimed to contribute to the hadithism of Sufyān, who lived in a critical time in terms of hadith history. These notes, which contain signs about Sufyan's hadithism, of which taʿdīl expressions are usually included in the ṭabaqāt's works, were first identified, then classified and the boundaries of the subject were tried to be determined . In this context, it has been seen that the end-of-text notes can be divided into five main headings. Three of these titles are not included in our study because they have similarities with the works of the period with similar content in using the same methods and process, as well as not presenting a different appearance from their contemporaries.


8520Erlangen, WestGermany Received forpublication 17August1976 TheH-immobilization testofLeMinorfordetermining flagellar (H)antigens was evaluated andcompared withtubeandslide H-agglutination tests. Thetest provedspecific andeasy toperform, andtitration endpoints were clearly discernible. Thedegree ofserological cross-reactivity between H antigen reference strains ofSerratia marcescens was low.Consequently, thistestwas adopted forroutine serological analysis ofH antigens, using unabsorbed rabbit immuneanti-H sera.Asa result ofusing this procedure, three new provisional


OBJECTIVE
To explore the meaning of nurses' caring for mothers experiencing postpartum depression.

DESIGN
Phenomenological research design; in depth, unstructured interviews were conducted.

SETTING
The interviews were conducted in the mothers' homes.

PARTICIPANTS
A purposive sample of 10 mothers who had experienced postpartum depression.

RESULTS
Using Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological method, the transcriptions of these interviews were analyzed. Seven themes emerged that illustrated nurses' caring for mothers experiencing postpartum depression: having sufficient knowledge about postpartum depression; using astute observation and intuition to make quick, correct diagnoses; providing hope that the mothers' living nightmares will come to an end; readily sharing their time; making appropriate referrals for the right path to recovery; providing continuity of care; and understanding what the mothers were experiencing.

CONCLUSIONS
The exhaustive description of caring that emerged from this phenomenological study will help sensitize nurses to issues to consider in caring for mothers experiencing postpartum depression.


The aim of this study was to assess the performance of virtual noncalcium images from dual-energy computed tomography (DECT), using dual-source CT (DSCT). Forty-one patients suspected of having traumatic vertebral fractures who underwent DSCT with virtual non-calcium imaging were included in this study. For comparison, radiation exposure was measured in 11 patients receiving DSCT with a radiation exposure reduction system, and in 14 patients receiving conventional multi-detector-row CT scans. Radiation exposure, detectability of fractures and visual image quality were assessed and compared between the groups. Radiation exposure was less with the non-calcium image than with the other methods. The CT number (x-ray absorption coef cient of a pixel in a CT) for the affected vertebrae was signi cantly higher than for normal vertebrae. When the threshold of the CT number was determined as -25.6 HU, the sensitivity was 100% and speci city was 92.6% . In most cases, the quality of the virtual non-calcium image was inferior to the fat-suppressed T2-weighted magnetic resonance images. The virtual noncalcium image technique obtained using DSCT can be a useful part of the clinical diagnosis of vertebral fractures.


Most contributions to the police civil liability literature have described trends in the incidence of suits, the outcomes of actual cases, or the impact litigation has on police departments. This article outlines a predictive model of administrative determinants of civil litigation against police. Specifically, it asks: Do police administrators influence trends in litigation? Data drawn from the 1993 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey and from a 1996 survey of 248 police departments suggest that interest in minority recruitment, method of civilian review, and commitment to community-oriented policing affect the incidence of suits. Potential problems with research in this area are discussed.


Data management features of SIR, SAS, and SPSS were applied to a sample hierarchical data base. For each package, the areas investigated included the logical definition of the data base, data entry, data retrieval, data integrity, security, reporting, and updating.