Rough set theory has been one of the most successful methods used for feature selection. However, this method is still not able to find optimal subsets. But it can be made to be optimal using different optimization techniques. This paper proposes a new feature selection method based on Rough Set theory with Teaching learning based optimization (TLBO). The proposed method is experimentally compared with other hybrid Rough Set methods such as Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE) and the empirical results reveal that the proposed approach could be used for feature selection as this performs better in terms of finding optimal features and doing so in quick time.


By means of content analysis, this study examines 2,500 employment advertisements for academic librarian positions in 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, and 1994 to investigate patterns and trends in the demand for computer-related skills for academic librarians over a period of two decades. The study identifies basic computer-related qualifications required for different types of positions, and tracks changes in the demand for these qualifications over time. It also tests the relationship among size of library, type of position, and degree of demand for computer-related skills. Using a quantitative approach, the study measures the changes brought by computer applications in terms of what qualifies an individual to be an academic librarian.


In this work we report a technique for the preparation of AuxNi1–x alloy nanoparticles based on pulsed laser irradiation in liquid of Au and Ni@NiO colloidal mixtures. The structural and compositional characterization of the obtained materials, performed through X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, has shown a correlation between the final alloy composition and the different Au to Ni@NiO ratio in the irradiated mixture. With the support of theoretical calculations, we propose as possible mechanism for the formation of the alloy structures a temperature increase, enhanced by the strong absorption of gold surface plasmon resonance at resonant wavelength, and a subsequent melting of the structures. Optical characterization through UV–vis spectroscopy and magnetic characterization through SQUID magnetometry confirm a coexistence of the plasmonic and magnetic behaviors in the hybrid systems. In view of such results, AuxNi1–x alloy nanoparticl...


In the wake of building a pedestrian bridge, the municipality of Vienna thought about the reuse of nearby old public transit structure as a bicycle path and asked for an estimation of future user numbers. The estimation was done by means of a small-scale survey of cycling structures and their users and an analysis of the survey's results. Furthermore, conclusions and needs for future cycling-related forecasting methods are drawn


Previous studies on aging have shown impairments in hand strength and dexterity in elderly people which arise from finger force flexion tests. However, aging related changes in finger extension is not well known. This study aimed to investigate age-related changes of finger interactions indices during isometric finger extension tasks. Sixteen young adults and sixteen elderly adults, gender matched subjects, produced maximum voluntary force (MVF) using either a single finger or all four-finger fingers in flexion and extension. The data were used to calculate three different variables: (1) the maximum force produced in the MVF task, (2) force sharing (the percent contributions of individual fingers relative to the sum of individual finger forces during four-finger MVF task), and (3) enslaving (the non-task finger forces during a task finger MVF task). Enslaving is inversely proportional to finger independency. Our results show that force enslaving during finger extension was greater than flexion. Also, the flexion-extension difference in enslaving was greater in elderly than young adults. The greater changes during the flexion condition could be explained by flexion dominated everyday manipulation tasks. The force sharing pattern was constant between different age groups, and non-task fingers proximal to a task finger produced a greater enslaving force than non-task fingers distal to the task finger. The decrease in force enslaving from young adults to elderly adults found in previous studies, as well as our current study, may appear counterintuitive because the impaired finger dexterity, in the elderly, reported in previous studies would suggest an aging-related increase in finger inter-dependency. Furthermore, developmental changes of the neuromuscular system due to everyday finger practice also appear to be an important aspect to account for the force enslaving differences between flexion and extension.


Prepared for the Riverview Economic Development Association and the West Side Employment Network. Sponsored by Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota.


Deltamethrin is a broad spectrum and widely used pyrethroid insecticide, with a well-known toxicological profile, but whose non-target impact in tropical ant assemblages has yet to be investigated. The recent expansion of no-tillage cultivation of maize fields in Brazil associated with the frequent need of insecticide use against the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)) provides an opportunityto correct this deficiency since deltamethrin is one of the main compounds used for this insect-pest control. The ant assemblage was assessed using pitfall traps in conventional and no-tillage maize fields sprayed or not with deltamethrin. Sampling was carried out before and after the insecticide spraying throughout the crop cycle. Among the 49 ant species collected, there were significant differences among treatments with the cultivation system showing higher impact on the ant assemblages than the insecticide spraying. Further analysis considering the time effect reinforced such result, but indicated that the trend was determined mainly by a single species - Mycocepurus smithi Forel, which exhibited lower abundance under the no-tillage cultivation and was more drastically affected by deltamethrin spraying. The differences observed in the other species were comparatively negligible suggesting that insecticide impact on soil arthropods in tropical fields can be lower than expected and the cultivation system imposes more drastic effects than the insecticide spraying under such conditions.


Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a global health problem, for which the pathophysiological mechanism remains to be fully elucidated. The loss of extracellular matrix protein has been considered to be the most important molecular basis facilitating the development of POP. Oxidative stress (OS) is a well-recognized mechanism involved in fiber metabolic disorders. The present study aimed to clarify whether OS exists in the uterosacral ligament (USL) with POP, and to investigate the precise role of OS in collagen metabolism in human USL fibroblasts (hUSLFs). In the present study, 8-hydroxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and 4 hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), as oxidative biomarkers, were examined by immunohistochemistry to evaluate oxidative injury in USL sections in POP (n=20) and non-POP (n=20) groups. The primary cultured hUSLFs were treated with exogenous H2O2 to establish an original OS cell model, in which the expression levels of collagen, type 1, α1 (COL1A1), matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-2 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 were evaluated by western blot and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses. The results showed that the expression levels of 8-OHdG and 4-HNE in the POP group were significantly higher, compared with those in the control group. Collagen metabolism was regulated by H2O2 exposure in a concentration-dependent manner, in which lower concentrations of H2O2 (0.1–0.2 mM) stimulated the anabolism of COL1A1, whereas a higher concentration (0.4 mM) promoted catabolism. The expression levels of MMP-2, TIMP-2 and TGF-β1 exhibited corresponding changes with the OS levels. These results suggested that OS may be involved in the pathophysiology of POP by contributing to collagen metabolic disorder in a severity-dependent manner in hUSLFs, possibly through the regulation of MMPs, TIMPs and TGF-β1 indirectly.


The Wacker process, which is widely used to convert monosubstituted alkenes into the corresponding methyl ketones, is thought to proceed through a PdII/Pd0 catalytic cycle involving a β-hydride elimination step. This mechanistic scenario is inapplicable to the synthesis of ketones from the 1,1-disubstituted alkenes. Current approaches based on semi-pinacol rearrangement of PdII intermediates are limited to the ring expansion of highly strained methylene cyclobutane derivatives. Herein, we report a solution to this synthetic challenge by designing a PdII/PdIV catalytic cycle incorporating a 1,2-alkyl/PdIV dyotropic rearrangement as a key step. This reaction, compatible with a broad range of functional groups, is applicable to both linear olefins and methylene cycloalkanes, including macrocycles. Regioselectivity favors the migration of the more substituted carbon, and a strong directing effect of the β-carboxyl group was also observed. Description Elevating Wacker to a higher state Wacker oxidation uses palladium catalysis to produce aldehydes or ketones from olefins and water. The generally accepted mechanism relies on a hydride migration, which is not possible in geminally disubstituted olefins, which lack the requisite hydrogen. Feng et al. report a method to promote carbon migration in this class of substrates by oxidizing a catalyst intermediate to the PdIV state. The resulting pathway converts a wide variety of alkyl and aryl olefins into ketones. —JSY Palladium oxidation promotes a Wacker reaction variant with substrates that require migration of carbon rather than hydrogen.


The steamboat was the first great American contribution to modern technology. First developed to the point of practical commercial success in this country, the steamboat was quickly incorporated into the economic structure of the nation and within a few years became the principal vehicle of transportation on the main channels of inland commerce. Eventually the influence of the American steamboat was felt all over the globe, and there were few great river systems that in time did not feel the beat of the paddlewheels by which it was propelled.


When South African stock farmers read this edition of Stockfarm, I am sure everybody will be quite exhausted after three intense months of networking. The number and impact of all of the livestock events that have taken place since March this year, are almost overpowering and I take my hat off to the breeders whom I saw at each of the three large shows!


Background Central aortic pressures(CAP) is defined as the pressure of ascending aorta root. CAP has been shown closely related with end-point events of cardio-cerebrovascular diseases.Objective To evalu- ate the consistency and reproducibility of measuring CAP by non-invasive technique and catheterization.Methods One hundred and five cardiovascular and 32 non-cardiovascular in-patients were recruited.CAP were determined by non-invasive radial artery pulse wave measurement device and invasive catheterization,respectively.Results Bland-Airman plots showed the difference values of CAP in two groups were mostly(98%,97%) located at 95% co- herence interval;Intra class coefficient(ICC)of two groups both were 0.99,simple correlation coefficient were 0.98, 0.99 respectively;Bland-Alrman plots showed difference values of two groups mostly(98%,94%) located at 95% coherence interval;ICC of radial augment index (rAI)both were 0.99,simple correlation coefficient were 0.97,0.99 respectively for different times measuring.Bland-Altman plots showed differences in rAI mostly(95%,97%) loca- ted at 95% coherence interval.Conclusion Good consistency of measuring CAP was found between non-invasive device and catheterization.The reproducibility of CAP and rAI are good by non-invasive radial artery pulse wave measurement device.


Cancer drugs are commonly administered in the clinic in the form of mixtures, also called cocktails or combinations. Assessment of synergistic and antagonistic interactions between drugs is therefore an important aspect of cancer research. Numerous methods have been proposed to assess drug interactions, each one based on a null (or additive) model. In this paper, the Loewe additivity index is used as a basis. Parameters of concentration–response curves, used as input to the Loewe equation, are estimated with a nonlinear mixed‐effects model. The use of a nonlinear mixed‐effects model, in combination with the Loewe index and a procedure to calculate confidence intervals of the index, is referred to as the 'MixLow' method. Simulations of a sham mixture of a drug with itself show that the MixLow method provides parameter estimators that are more precise than those produced by the Median‐Effect method, a popular approach that uses log linearization of the concentration–response curves. Coverage of confidence intervals for the interaction index is acceptable for the MixLow method but poor for the Median‐Effect method. This is the first comparison report of coverage of confidence intervals for the Loewe interaction index. A mixture of vincristine and topotecan is also analyzed by the MixLow method and the results are compared with those previously published. The MixLow method can be used to quantify drug interactions in any fixed‐ratio drug combination study that includes within‐group and between‐group replicates, and where responses follow a sigmoidal pattern. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract Planets and their moons are constantly subjected to irradiation from both their respective planetary magnetospheres and the solar wind. Energetic particles (electrons, protons and ions) in such radiation may induce complex chemistry within the icy mantles of such bodies, producing many organic compounds. Such processes can be simulated in laboratory experiments. In this report we present recent results from experiments exploring both molecular synthesis and the morphology of such ices. The morphology of any ice may be characterised by IR and Vacuum Ultra-Violet (VUV) spectroscopy. The latter is particularly useful for studying ices in which infrared inactive molecules like oxygen (O2) are common. We have shown that oxygen forms dimers in typical planetary ices and that, in contrast to previous analysis, many of the chemical reactions within the ice involve such dimer (and larger cluster) chemistry. We also present the results of a series of experiments that explore electron, proton and ion irradiation on Solar System relevant ices such as carbon dioxide (CO2) at different temperatures. Infrared spectra recorded before and after irradiation are used to identify and quantify molecules formed in such irradiation, e. g. ozone. These experiments show that the morphology of the ice plays a critical role in the chemistry.


In this report, we provide an x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) study for 100nm thick epitaxial magnetite (Fe3O4) films on MgO (001) and Al2O3 (0001) substrates. For XMCD, we recorded the surface sensitive total electron yield and the bulk sensitive transmission spectra. From the analysis of the XMCD data, we find an increased Fe spin moment (10% larger) at the surface of the film on MgO (100) with respect to the corresponding bulk value of the film. Surface and bulk spin moments of the film on Al2O3(0001) are almost equal. For both films, the bulk orbital to spin moments ratio increases from zero at 70K to 0.03–0.04 at 300K. For Fe3O4∕MgO (001), the surface orbital to spin moment ratio behaves similarly to the bulk value, while the orbital to spin moments ratio is increased at the Fe3O4∕Al2O3 (0001) surface to 0.06. The observed differences between films grown on MgO and Al2O3 are explained within the framework of differences in mismatch strain experienced by the films.


In an effort to obtain biologically active tyrosine analogs of the octadecapeptide pigment-dispersing hormone (β-PDH) of the fiddler crab Uca pugilator, we have synthesized [Tyr15]- and [Nle18]-β-PDH, as well as eight tyrosine analogs of [Nle15]-β-PDH by the solid-phase method. Each analog was purified to homogeneity by gel filtration, ion-exchange chromatography, and partition chromatography. When tested for melanophore pigment-dispersing activity in destalked Uca, [Nle15, Tyr16]-β-PDH and [Nle15]-β-PDH were found to be 31-fold and 16-fold more potent, respectively, than β-PDH. Somewhat reduced potency was displayed by [N-Tyr,Nle15]-β-PDH (81%) and [Nle15, Tyr17]-β-PDH (26%). All other analogs, including [Nle15, Tyr19]-β-PDH and the four derivatives of [Nle15]-β-PDH obtained through substitution for nonpolar amino acid residues at positions 4, 5, 8, and 11 in the primary structure, showed marked decrease in biological activity (0.01 to 2% potency).


A method of logging a first user in to an computing device includes receiving a an image of the first user via a camera operably coupled with the computing device and determining an identity of the first user based on the received image. If the determined identity matches a predetermined identity, then, based at least on the identity of the first user matching the predetermined identity, the first user is logged in to the computing device.


Single source precursors which contain preformed gallium-nitrogen and aluminum-nitrogen bonds are being considered for the growth of gallium and aluminum nitride because of their potential for overcoming problems associated with conventional precursors. Presented is the evaluation of dimethylgallium azide, Me 2 GaN 3 (1) , bisdimethylamidogallium azide, (Me 2 N) 2 GaN 3 (2) , and bisdimethylamidoaluminum azide, (Me 2 N) 2 AlN 3 (3) as potential precursors for A1N and GaN film growth. The compounds were evaluated for stability, ease of transport, temperature of decomposition and quality of film deposited. Amorphous thin films of GaN with a band gap of 3.4 eV were deposited with 2 at 250 °C. Increasing the substrate temperature to 580 °C resulted in the deposition of epitaxial GaN films. Polycrystalline A1N films were grown with 3 at 600 °C.


The invention relates to a preparation method of a gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film with high jelly strength, and belongs to the field of preservative film preparation. The preparation method comprises following steps: pig skin is subjected to smashing, degreasing, impure protein removing, salting out, and high-speed centrifugal separation so as to obtain crude pig skin gelatin, and gelatin with high jelly strength is obtained via dialysis; the gelatin is mixed with a chitosan-acetic acid solution, an obtained mixture is delivered into a mould, and the gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film with high jelly strength is obtained via film forming and drying. Fresh keeping time of the gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film is long; the gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film is edible; biodegradation of the gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film can be realized automatically; strength of the gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film prepared from gelatin with high jelly strength is high; and pressure resistance of the gelatin/chitosan edible preservative film is obviously higher than that of common edible films.


In textile industries, after large production of textiles like t-shirts, tracks etc., a vast amount of fabrics waste is produced along with it. These waste are called as pre-production waste in industrial terms. The fabrics waste is collected as bundle and moved further to recycling process or sometimes ends up as landfill. The bundle consist of various materials, colors and patterns of textile fabrics. It is then separated by people manually into individual bundles without any machines and then separated bundles are collected back by industries and recycled to raw material. This segregation process is a tedious and time consuming work and our motive is to automate the segregation process easier and rapidly. Our proposed solution for waste fabrics segregation consist of several levels of process. First, the waste bundle must be separated into smaller units and separation is done using mechanical setup. After dividing into smaller units, selection of particular color or pattern is done using color and image recognition sensors. The part of selection and identification process of the particular color or pattern is pre-programmed with an algorithm in the controller of the system. Finally, the respective response for separation of a particular unit is sent to the controller which is interfaced with segregating mechanical setup. Here the waste will be sorted based on color and the rest of waste which is not separated is recycled back. This way, the process of segregation is increased rapidly and done easily


Accumulating evidence justifies an early aggressive intervention for acute ischemic stroke, for it has been so aptly observed, 'Stroke treatment: time is brain' [1]. The latest advances in stroke management including thrombolytic therapy highlight a de facto mandate for early stroke presentation. Increasing public awareness of stroke warning signs since 1995 has been demonstrated in a recently published contemporary American study [2]. Little is known, nonetheless, whether improved patient knowledge translated into shortened hospital arrival time, which is in turn fundamental to the success of treatment given the limited therapeutic window (when the neurons are ischemic but viable). We therefore undertook a survey of the secular trend of acute ischemic stroke presentation time, using the same methods and survey instrument within the same hospital as 10 years ago. Patients presenting with acute ischemic stroke (of less than 7 days' duration from symptom onset) to our hospital in a 4-month period in 2002 were compared with a similar cohort during 1989 [3]. The diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke was verified by a neurologist on clinical and radiological grounds. Stroke onset after hospitalization and in-hospital transfer for ischemic strokes were excluded. The symptom onset is defined by the time of neurological deficit first noticed by the patient or any available witness. The exact timing of arrival at the hospital was validated from the computerized registration system at the Emergency Department. Stroke presentation time was determined by subtracting the former from the arrival time. Because delayed presentation to a neurologist for more than 6 h significantly predicted worse stroke outcomes [4], a cutoff of 4 h was thus designated as late arrival to allow for hypothetical treatment within 6 h of onset. During 1989, 501 patients (mean age 70 B 12 years) were admitted with acute ischemic stroke. 29% of patients arrived at the hospital within 4 h. By 8 h, 45% of the patients had arrived at the hospital. During a 4-month period in 2002, 321 cases of acute ischemic stroke presentation (mean age 71 B 11 years) were documented, in which 36% had an arrival time less than 4 h. Forty-seven percent of patients arrived within 8 h of stroke onset. The median presentation time was 9 h after stroke onset. Figure 1 shows the relative proportion of stroke patients presenting at successive time intervals. In particular, in 2002 a significantly greater proportion of patients presented within 4 h of stroke symptoms. The excess in patient proportion arrival within an a priori defined cutoff of 4 h in 2002 as compared to year 1989 was 6.7% (95% confidence interval 0.1–13.3%). Our observational study showed a temporal trend of improved hospital arrival time after acute ischemic stroke. The geographical compactness of our catchment area (with establishment of new hosFig. 1. Proportion of patients presenting at successive time intervals after acute ischemic stroke onset with respect to two periods.


Radiative output has been observed from unbiased, optically-pumped interband cascade lasers. Results are presented for two different samples with emission wavelengths in the 3.2-3.8 µm range. The threshold pump intensity is reduced and the slope efficiency enhanced for longer optical pumping wavelengths, with a maximum achieved operating temperature of 200 K. Optically-pumped samples exhibit a blue shift of 80–150 nm when compared to electrically-injected devices fabricated from the same wafer.


Long ago, Secretary Langley induced Congress to support the study of solar radiation at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He pointed out that all life and all weather depend on it. He held out the possibility and hope that a sufficient knowledge of solar radiation, and of its behavior in our atmosphere, might even enable meteorologists to forecast long in advance the fat years and the lean years as Joseph is said to have done in Egypt. After 40 years of research, we have results which seem to us to justify in some degree Langley's hope. We have not yet, it is true, tried the bold venture of long-range forecasting, but we have evidence to present to the Academy today that the sun's output of radiation is variable; that its variation is periodic; that the United States weather departures from normal are periodic; and that a considerable part of the ranges of weather departures from normal are comprised in a series of periodicities which are identical with those found in the sun. For more than 25 years the staff of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has been measuring the intensity of solar radiation. At first, in Washington, we further developed the method devised by Langley and used by him about 50 years ago at Allegheny and at Mount Whitney. We devised the silver-disc pyrheliometer for ordinary daily measurements of the total intensity of solar radiation at the station. We also devised the water-flow and the water-stir standard pyrheliometers, whereby we reduced the scale of measurement to standard calories per square centimeter per minute. We improved the recording spectrobolometer of Langley so that in less than 10 minutes it could furnish an excellent record of the intensities in the solar spectrum between wave-lengths about 0.35 microns in the ultra-violet and 2.5 microns in the infra-red. We devised graphical methods operated by instrumental appliances whereby we were able to compute the intensity and distribution in the spectrum of the solar radiation as it is outside the atmosphere, whenever we determined the intensity and distribution of it as it reached the surface observatory at different solar altitudes. We devised an instrument for measuring the brightness of the sky about the sun which we named the pyranometer. By its aid we have devised a brief empirical method for estimating the atmospheric transparency in all observed wave-lengths. We have also devised a spectroscopic method for estimating the quantity of precipitable water held in the form of vapor in the atmosphere. From our determinations of atmospheric transparency we have checked exactly with other.methods VOL. 19, 1933 361


Althout, scientific interest in the informal economy is from a recent date, there are already serious analyzes that define its forms, as well as standardized methods that measure its scope. In this text we will point out some theoretical dilemmas concerning informal economy as a sector emebeded deeply in the society as a whole. The informal economy sector can be understood as a rational response by people to the way of life, the environment, the way in which the institutions work, the economic development of society or the culture itself - despite the fact that some consequences have an irrational character (exploitation, discrimination, violation of human rights and freedoms). Special attention is paid to political clientelism and corruption as forms of informal economy with a special focus on the situation in R. of Macedonia.


The district heating system in Serbia, with an installed capacity of 6600 MW, currently supplies 58 towns with thermal energy. As a candidate country for accession to the European Union, Serbia faces the obligation to reduce the level of its GHG emissions as part of environmental reforms. This paper presents a basic scenario and three alternatives for final energy consumption in the district heating sector for the years 2015, 2020, and 2025. It is suggested that demand for heating will increase 10% up to 2020 and by 15% up to 2025, in relation to 2015 levels, while the share of each energy carrier will not change. Changing the structure of energy sources for heat supply assumes a decrease in the share of coal and liquid fuel, and increases in the use of biomass and natural gas. The results obtained were compared to the General Index of Sustainability which is a measure of the complexity of the proposed energy scenario. The paper considers the formation of related energy indicators as quantitative tools for the analysis of changes. It also proposes a methodology for multi-criteria analysis in the sustainability assessment of complex energy systems based on the stochastic evaluation of criteria (sets of indicators and sub-indicators). In this way, the results of the multi-criteria assessment can help in the decision-making process in cases where economic, social and ecological criteria are considered to be influential.


Under the condition of the Lewis acid,diacetone-glucose was prepared by condensation using α-D-Glucose and acetone.The product was obtained via Michael addition reaction that the diacetone-glucose as chiral building block was added to the chiral 5-(L-menthyloxy)-3-bromo-2(5H0-furanone under mild conitions.Structure of the target product was preliminary confirmed by IR,~1H NMR,and elemental analysis.


I. European Papers has decided to open a debate on the Achmea case, in which the Court of Justice (CJ) found an inconsistency between provisions of a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) containing an agreement to arbitrate and provisions of the TFEU.1 In its groundbreaking judgment of 6 March 2018, in Slowakische Republik v. Achmea BV, the CJ, sitting in Grand Chamber, ruled on the compatibility with Arts 18, 267, 344 TFEU of the arbitration clause contained in Art. 8 of the BIT concluded in 1991 between the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, and still applicable to Slovakia after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 (hereafter NL-SK BIT). The clause enabled an investor from a State Party to bring proceedings before an ad hoc arbitral tribunal in the event of a dispute concerning investments in the other State Party. In spite of the opinion given by the AG Mr Wathelet,2 the Court declared such an Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) provided by a BIT between two Member States (so-called intra-EU BIT) incompatible with EU law, due to the adverse effect it has on the autonomy of the EU legal system. According to the Court, therefore, the arbitral tribunal lacked jurisdiction in the case. Scholars from different disciplines have been invited to comment upon this ruling in the present Special Section. They have been asked to examine the judgment, to evaluate its scope and to identify, as much as possible, its potential consequences. In so doing, European Papers aims to participate in the understanding of a ruling whose brevity contrasts with the importance of the effects it may have on international investment law and its relationships with EU law. One thus needs to engage in a dialogue with in-


We investigate the impact of high-statistics Drell-Yan (DY) measurements at the LHC on the study of non-perturbative QCD effects from parton distribution functions (PDF). We present the results of a PDF profiling analysis based on the neutral-current DY forward-backward asymmetry, using the open source fit platform xFitter.


Chemical, electrochemical, and photochemical methods all had been utilized to explore proton reduction catalysis by cobaloxime complexes. It was postulated in these studies that the initial step toward making H2 was protonation of CoI to form a CoIII hydride intermediate. However, in the following steps, different results from electrochemical studies had led to both monometallic and bimetallic pathways. In this article, theoretical computation method (BP86/6-31G*) was firstly performed on possible cobalt hydride intermediates involved in the reactive pathway of cobaloxime-catalyzed H2 evolution. The monometallic pathway B was excluded, both monometallic pathway A and bimetallic pathway were the possible process. However, the Gibbs free energy change for generation of H2 following monometallic pathway A was much more negative than that following bimetallic pathway. The calculation on monometallic pathway A indicated that the main driving force of the reaction (i) came from the step of the reduction of 11. The proton transfer steps were also studied in detail. The protonation of cobalt hydride intermediates could directly happen on the dimethylglyoximate part. All the results refer to gas-phase calculations, not considering the solution. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011


Simulated annealing is no doubt one of the most popular optimisation methods. Like similar methods it is based on natural phenomena. In the paper two examples of how to use this method in medical applications are presented. In the first example the successfulness of simulated annealing is compared to a genetic algorithm on the problem of the optimal coefficients determination for cellular neural networks, when used for segmentation of ovarian ultrasound images. In this field the latter method produced better results. The second example discusses the usage of simulated annealing for optimisation of signal classification.


We report on a unique observation of the early and rapid acceleration of a fast CME in the low solar corona. The coronal disturbance associated with a LASCO CME and concurrent X1.2 flare on 1998 April 23 was well‐observed by the Yohkoh Soft X‐ray Telescope. The X‐ray observations clearly show an accelerating structure, reaching 800–1100 km/s in ∼500s at a de‐projected height of only 280 Mm, indicating an acceleration well in excess of 1700 m/s2. The soft X‐ray observations are coincident with the onset of the CME, which ultimately attained a velocity of 1390 km/s and generated a number of interplanetary radio signatures, frequently associated with fast events. Assuming a constant acceleration, a0, throughout the duration of the X‐ray observations, we determine a best‐fit value of a0 = 1756 m/s2, while application of a power‐law acceleration model yields a better fit to the data with a peak acceleration of ∼4865 m/s2 within the first 280 Mm of the solar corona.


An imaging device includes an illumination module comprising at least one emitter for emitting at least one excitation beam; a scanning and injection module comprising an image guide, a proximal end and a distal end of which are linked by a plurality of optical fibers; a scanning and injection optical system configured to alternately inject the at least one excitation beam into an optical fiber of the image guide from the proximal end of the image guide; a detection module comprising a detector for detecting a luminous flux collected at the distal end of the image guide, wherein at least one of the illumination module and the detection module is optically conjugated with the scanning and injection module using a conjugating optical fiber.


Nowadays, flexi-coil springs are commonly used in the secondary suspension stage of railway vehicles. Lateral stiffness of these springs is influenced by means of their design parameters (number of coils, height, mean diameter of coils, wire diameter etc.) and it is often suitable to modify this stiffness in such way, that the suspension shows various lateral stiffness in different directions (i.e., longitudinally vs. laterally in the vehicle-related coordinate system). Therefore, these springs are often supplemented with some kind of rubber-metal pads. This paper deals with modelling of the flexi-coil springs supplemented with tilting rubber-metal tilting pads applied in running gear of an electric locomotive as well as with consequences of application of that solution of the secondary suspension from the point of view of the vehicle running performance. This analysis is performed by means of multi-body simulations and the description of lateral stiffness characteristics of the springs is based on results of experimental measurements of these characteristics performed in heavy laboratories of the Jan Perner Transport Faculty of the University of Pardubice.


Modular supports for instruments in a sterilization tray having a bottom and a cover each containing an array of apertures, and each support comprising an integrally molded rectangular instrument support base with downward projecting longitudinally split buttons to be inserted in the tray bottom apertures. Each instrument support base has upstanding members with a slot therebetween to receive and hold selected strips notched on their upper edges to cradle and support instruments for sterilization.


An optical receiver front-end circuit with low input noise for a 100GBaud optical link to support 100Gbps data rate on a single wavelength is reported. The optical receiver front-end is consisted of a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) , a main amplifier (MA) , and an improved output buffer (OB) . The optical receiver front-end circuit is designed in 90nm SiGe BiCMOS process, and can realize 67GHz bandwidth. The input-referred noise density is 11.34pA/√Hz. The transimpedance gain is 63.4dBΩ, the maximum maximum input current is 500uApp and the maximum differential output swing is 350mVpp. The receiver front-end circuit consumes 130mW.


Background The diagnosis of thyroid cancer and distinguishing benign from malignant thyroid nodules by junior radiologists can be challenging. This study aimed to develop a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system based on the Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (TI-RADS) to distinguish benign from malignant thyroid nodules by analyzing ultrasound images to improve the diagnostic performance of junior radiologists. Material/Methods A modified TI-RADS based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) was used to develop the CAD system. This retrospective study reviewed 789 thyroid nodules from 695 patients and included radiologists with different diagnostic experience. Five study groups included the CAD group, the junior radiologist group, the intermediate-level radiologist group, the senior radiologist group, and the group in which the junior radiologist used the CAD system. The ultrasound findings were reviewed and compared with the histopathology diagnosis. Results The CAD system for the diagnosis of thyroid cancer showed an accuracy of 80.35%, a sensitivity of 80.64%, a specificity of 80.13%, a positive predictive value (PPV) of 76.02%, a negative predictive value (NPV) of 84.12%, and an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) of 0.87. The accuracy of the junior radiologists in diagnosing thyroid cancer using CAD was similar to that of intermediate-level radiologists (79.21% vs. 77.57%; P=0.427). Conclusions The use of ultrasound CAD based on the TI-RADS showed potential for distinguishing between benign and malignant thyroid nodules and improved the diagnostic performance of junior radiologists.


The image of backpacking has changed over recent decades. The original backpackers, members of the Baby Boomer generation, were not regarded by some commentators as legitimate tourists and were seen by elements of the tourism establishment as cheap, beer swilling, drug taking travellers who added little to destinations. Over the past decade however young budget travellers have emerged as a significant tourist market, and have begun to attract substantial investment both in specialist backpacker facilities and in marketing dollars at destinations. The use of the term backpacker as a self descriptive term however has weakened. To identify the implications of this change in attitude towards this travel subseti¦s views of themselves as travellers a convenience survey of 312 backpackers was conducted in Cairns over the summer of 2004-2005. Findings of this research indicate that a significant shift has occurred in the in the image that young travellers have of themselves. If the term i¥backpackeri¦ is outdated, what term can be used to replace it? Should marketers look for a different term? How similar are the activities desired by this group to those of the past? This paper examines these issues and finds that while the term i¥backpackeri¦ still has currency, there is an emerging trend in low cost travel that requires a new as yet undefined label.


The best method to repair the facial nerve is to perform the primary repair soon after the injury, without any tension in the nerve ends. We present a case of patient who had a full-thickness facial nerve cut at two different levels. The patient underwent primary repair, recovered almost completely in the fourth postoperative month, and had full movement in mimic muscles. Despite lower success rates in double-level cuts, performing appropriate primary repair at an appropriate time can reverse functional losses at early stages, and lead to recovery without any complications.


University College London, Institute of Ophthalmology, London, United Kingdom Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, United Kingdom Department of Ophthalmology, University of Helsinki, and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, Cardiff University Cardiff, and Cardiff Eye Unit, University Hospital Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom Ophthalmology Department, University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, United States Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research, Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University and Newcastle Eye Centre, Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom


With a background in research on type 2 diabetes, prediabetic conditions and cardiovascular risk factors, which are all lifestyle-induced diseases, a more and more clear statement becomes apparent. It must be much easier to prevent lifestyle diseases and induce changes in lifestyle when doing it early in life instead of waiting until the habits are rooted or risk factors and diseases have become present. It is perhaps wishful thinking that the problems seen in the surgery every day and several times a day could be prevented by doing a more intense and focused effort against our patients at their earlier age. But seen from a human perspective it makes more sense, however, to prevent disease than to relieve the patient's symptoms – "relieve" because "cure" is most often not an alternative in these conditions.

The challenge of preventing lifestyle diseases is a fairly new task in our society, a product of a more sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits. In Scandinavia as well as the rest of Europe and USA more and more people are getting fat and thus more people suffer from cardiovascular diseases [1–3]. It has, however, been shown that obesity in adolescence can be predicted at a very early life-stage [4] and a study from Sweden has shown that obese 15-year-old boys differed from overweight and normal weight boys in lifestyle and in the frequency of somatic and psychological symptoms [5]. A study from Finland has shown strong associations between predictors of coronary heart disease (CHD) and offspring with a family history of premature CHD when investigating children and adolescents (from 7 to 16 years) [6]. It is therefore reasonable to put more focus on the challenge of preventing overweight earlier in life.

The role of general practitioners in this challenge has been discussed; opinions about benefits and inconveniences of enlightening health habits and conditions, time to do it and how to do it are topics in this discussion. Moreover it has been discussed who has the responsibility of teaching children a better lifestyle; should this be placed with institutions like schools and the local communities or in the families' own settings? I see no conflict in these opinions, however. No doubt that a lot of effort has to be made everywhere the children are during daytime [7], but the GP and the GP staff can be key figures in identifying the children and adolescents who need help to avoid developing fatness/obesity and related health and social problems. From the Danish College of General Practitioners (DSAM) guidelines on how to spot these children have been produced and distributed to all members of the College [8]. These guidelines have been adapted to Danish culture on the basis of an Australian Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of overweight children and adolescents [9].


The construction of a learning style society asks for a rapid development of adult education.In the vital historical period of national revival and strengthening through education,on the basis of universities and colleges,this article analyzes the current affairs of adult education mode and the features of the demand of adult high education under the circumstances of national life-long education.With reference to successful experiences of foreign advanced countries,researching the transitional mode of the adult education in universities and colleges is conducive to the correction cognition of the relationship between adult education and high education so as to provide guidance upon the development of adult education in universities and colleges,to promote its harmonious sustainable development.


The computation time required by standard finite difference methods with fixed timesteps for solving fractional diffusion equations is usually very large because the number of operations required to find the solution scales as the square of the number of timesteps. Besides, the solutions of these problems usually involve markedly different time scales, which leads to quite inhomogeneous numerical errors. A natural way to address these difficulties is by resorting to adaptive numerical methods where the size of the timesteps is chosen according to the behaviour of the solution. A key feature of these methods is then the efficiency of the adaptive algorithm employed to dynamically set the size of every timestep. Here we discuss two adaptive methods based on the step-doubling technique. These methods are, in many cases, immensely faster than the corresponding standard method with fixed timesteps and they allow a tolerance level to be set for the numerical errors that turns out to be a good indicator of the actual errors.


In recent years the microwave remote sensing using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has immerged as a great technique for snow and glacier related studies. Due to the penetration power of the microwave inside the dry snow cover, and property of interacting with it dielectrically, focuses the researcher's attention in developing a SAR based robust method for retrieval of various snow parameters. Snow cover regions are mostly covered with clouds and hazy weather. SAR provides all weather, day-night space borne data in the nearly meter range resolution, even for those areas which are mostly covered with clouds and haze whole year operating in the long wavelength region. Various studies based on different backscatter based models like IEM and Small perturbation model have been done for the calculating the snow properties. Different semi-empirical model based techniques [1] also been implemented in the past which are region dependent and provides good accuracy for a given area only. This study focuses on developing a PolInSAR based technique for finding various snow parameters, mainly snow depth and snow water equivalent. The high resolution X-band spaceborne data has been used for this study. The Polarimetric SAR Interferometric technique provides us opportunity to utilize both polarimetric and interferometric properties of the SAR data for snow parameter retrieval with high accuracy. The coherence amplitude method is used for snow depth retrieval. The ground data was acquired by the ground station of SASE, DRDO in the Dhundi region of Manali, Himachal Pradesh for the same dates of Space borne TerraSAR-X acquisitions


The politics of leisure policy political ideology and central government leisure policy leisure the state and policy - New Labour in the new Millennium local government and leisure policy - from the Thatcher era to the modernization agenda the leisure professionals the commercial and voluntary sectors social regulation and the governance of leisure leisure politics and policy - strategic relations in the global context.


Because focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) is a benign lesion generally found in women of childbearing age, it has been speculated that endogenous


Wet air oxidation – Present-day technology. Wet air oxidation is a process of flameless "incineration", especially of organic compounds, in an aqueous phase with air or other oxidants at relatively high temperatures and pressures. Existing applications such as the sanitizing of sewage sludge, processing of sludges from pulp production, and regeneration of activated charcoal are described. At present, waste water purification by wet air oxidation is being propagated. Difficult degradation of some pollutants enforces the use of temperatures up to 330°C and pressures up to 250 bar. The high investment costs for such plants, which require materials like titanium or hastelloy to handle corrosive wastes, often result in higher operating costs than with other methods, in spite of low energy consumption. Once the effectiveness of existing plants has been proved, especially regarding corrosion problems, rising demands for waste water purification may render wet air oxidation increasingly important.


The rank-sum test is a non-parametric hypothesis test that can be used to determine if there is a statistically significant association between categorical survey responses provided for two different survey questions. The use of this test is appropriate even when survey sample size is small. The rank-sum test is most useful when the goal is to determine whether two groups of respondents differ in their average response to a particular survey question for which response categories are logically ordered according to magnitude (e.g., Likert-scale responses).


Simple Summary Solid cancers are surrounded by a network of non-cancerous cells comprising different cell types, including fibroblasts, and acellular protein structures. This entire network is called the tumor microenvironment (TME) and it provides a physical barrier to the tumor shielding it from infiltrating immune cells, such as lymphocytes, or therapeutic agents. In addition, the TME has been shown to dampen efficient immune responses of infiltrated immune cells, which are key in eliminating cancer cells from the organism. In this review, we will discuss how TME proteins in particular are involved in this dampening effect, known as immunosuppression. We will focus on three different types of digestive cancers: pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, and gastric cancer. Moreover, we will discuss current therapeutic approaches using TME proteins as targets to reverse their immunosuppressive effects. Abstract The stromal tumor microenvironment (TME) consists of immune cells, vascular and neural structures, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), as well as extracellular matrix (ECM), and favors immune escape mechanisms promoting the initiation and progression of digestive cancers. Numerous ECM proteins released by stromal and tumor cells are crucial in providing physical rigidity to the TME, though they are also key regulators of the immune response against cancer cells by interacting directly with immune cells or engaging with immune regulatory molecules. Here, we discuss current knowledge of stromal proteins in digestive cancers including pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, and gastric cancer, focusing on their functions in inhibiting tumor immunity and enabling drug resistance. Moreover, we will discuss the implication of stromal proteins as therapeutic targets to unleash efficient immunotherapy-based treatments.


The ExPRES code simulates exoplanetary and planetary auroral radio emissions. It could be used to predict and interpret Jupiter's radio emissions in the hectometric and decametric range. In this study, we model the occultations of the Jovian auroral radio emissions during the Galilean moons flybys by the Galileo spacecraft. In this study, we focus on auroral radio emissions, configuring the ExPRES simulations runs with typical radio source physical parameters. We compare the simulations run results with the actual Galileo/PWS observations, and show that we accurately model the temporal occurrence of the occultations in the whole spectral range observed by Galileo. We can then predict auroral radio emission occultations by the Galilean moons for the Juno and JUICE missions. ExPRES will be used by the JUICE/RPWI (Radio Plasma Waves Investigation) team to prepare its operation planning during the Galilean moon flybys for, e.g., the Galilean moon ionosphere characterization science objective, with passive ionospheric sounding during ingress and egress of Jovian radio source occultations.


AbstractBackground: Adolescence is a transition from children to adulthood. In adolescence menarche will occur, menarche is the first menstruation in young women which occurs between 1.5 to 3 years after thelarche. The average menarche occurs at the age of 12 and 13 years. When Menarche happens, many changes occur, one of which is psychological change. Changes in the level of knowledge of adolescents about the level of knowledge of adolescents about menarche. Knowledge about menarche can be obtained through families, print media, electronics, or health workers (midwives, doctors, nurses). Examining the relationship of knowledge level with prepubertal adolescent girls psychological responses in menarche conversation. Method: This study was an observational analytic study with a cross sectional study design. The number of samples was 41 students with total sampling techniques. To find out the relationship between variables, the data test with the chi-square test. Results: The results showed that most teenagers' knowledge in the knowledge category was 70.73%. While the psychological response is mostly in the negative category (68.3%). Contingency coefficient results showed a p value of 0.270 (p <0.05). Conclusion: These data indicate that there is no correlation between knowledge and psychological responses of pre-puberty teenage girls in the face menarche.


The size distribution function derived by Kuczynski for the case of a system of pores in a solid matrix may be satisfactorily applied to the case of particles in a matrix as well. A wide variety of properties of this function are presented for the situation of sufficiently large average particle size for which case the function may be approximated by setting one of its terms equal to unity. For the more general situation, however, four parameters, lambda(t), n(T), A(t) and ..beta..(T), where t = time and T = temperature, are required to fit theory and experiment, for which several examples are presented. A variety of techniques for extracting these parameters from an empirical size distribution are being investigated.


Detection of significant biomarker has been a major issue in the pathological study of cancerous tissue. The microscopic observation of H&E stained histopathological slides involves the study of various tissue objects and their significant traits influencing the cancer grading. The change in shape and size of the nuclei objects (nuclear pleomorphism) contributes much significantly in grading the cancer. With the advent of various imaging studies over a digitized Histopathological image, Active contour based segmentation approaches are considered to be much potential scheme in detecting the nuclei within occlusions and extracting their irregular boundaries. In this research, a novel approach of driving the contours of distance regularized level sets using an improved watershed transformation, has been presented. An Expectation Maximization based morphologically precomputed shape prior is used to extract the foreground markers, which controls the watershed transformation. The result of watershed transformation is used compute the centroid of nuclei to serve the initialization of the contour and the proposed gradient to drive the same efficiently. The study performed over the Benign and Malignant tissue images from BreakHis dataset has shown the efficacy of the methodology in terms of object detection accuracy and overlap resolution. The segmentation accuracy is compared to that of Geodesic active contours, based on the ground truth generated by expert pathologist.


Objective To explore the effects of hyperlipidemia in high-fat diet rat on expression of src suppressed C kinase substrates(SSeCKS) in heart tissue.Methods SD rats fed with a high-fat diet were taken as high-fat diet group(n=8,high-fat diet group) and those fed with a normal diet as the control(n=8,normal diet group).Sixteen weeks later,serum lipid profiles including totoal cholesterol(TC),triglyceride(TG),high density lipoprotein(HDL) and low density lipoprotein(LDL) were detected.Heart was stained with HE.SSeCKS expression was measured by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence.Results Compared with the control group,the model group showed elevated TC and TG(both P0.05).Further immunohistochemistry analysis revealed SSeCKS expression was significantly increased in heart in the model group whereas in the group little or no immuno-detectable SSeCKS expression was showed.Immunofluorescence detected SSeCKS colabled with endothelial cell marker CD31.Conclusion High-fat diet may lead to hyperlipidemia in rats,which may up-regulate SSeCKS expression in heart tissue.


First used in humans in 1980, the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) was designed to recognize and treat malignant ventricular arrhythmias and thus prevent arrhythmic death.[1][1] Among patients with an aborted episode of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) due to ventricular arrhythmias without a


Secondary electron emission spectroscopy is used to examine the emission characteristics of diamond films as a function of the bulk and surface properties. We find significant variation in the secondary electron yields measured from diamond surfaces even when energy distribution measurements indicate that a low or negative electron affinity is present. In particular, we observe that the material properties, such as bulk and surface uniformity, surface composition, and impurity and defect concentrations, have a strong affect on the secondary electron yield measurements. Furthermore, the energy distribution of the emitted electrons is found to vary with adsorbate species. In certain cases, the energy distribution changes with adsorbate coverage even though the measured electron intensity remains unchanged. From an analysis of the data, we identify bulk and surface properties needed to optimize the emission characteristics.


461 Background: HD IL-2, an immunotherapy, is a standard of care for a select group of patients (pts) with mRCC. Generally objective response (OR) rates, i.e. complete response (CR) + partial response (PR), of 16-20% are discussed with pts, but not disease stabilization (SD). Recent data suggest that cancer immunotherapy may improve survival without inducing OR. Thus, treatment with HD IL-2 may provide survival benefit to an additional group of pts not experiencing OR, but only SD as the best response. Here we report CB ( OR+SD), and specifically report outcomes of cc mRCC pts experiencing SD as the best response, on treatment with HD IL-2. Methods: All sequential cc mRCC pts treated with HD IL-2 at the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute from 2000-2012 were included. Pts were evaluated for best response, progression-free survival (PFS), time to next treatment (TNT) and overall survival (OS). Two practitioners independently reviewed HD IL-2 response with discrepancies adjudicated by a third revie...


The present invention relates to a preparation method and applications of a composite metal oxide antibacterial masterbatch, and belongs to the field of plastic modification, wherein a nanometer composite oxide is prepared by calcining hydrotalcite, and the nanometer composite oxide, maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene, a compatilizer, a nucleating agent, a lubricant, a dispersant, an antioxidant and other raw materials are blended to prepare the antibacterial masterbatch. According to the present invention, the nanometer composite oxide has characteristics of good thermal stability, processing discoloration resistance and the like, and assigns the broad-spectrum and lasting antibacterial effect to the material, and the antibacterial effect is not affected by illumination and other external influence; and the antibacterial masterbatch material production process is simple, and the composite metal oxide antibacterial masterbatch has good compatibility and good dispersity in the material matrix, and is suitable for home appliances, furniture, wood-plastic composites, stone-plastic composites, acrylic plates and other products.


We systematically investigate the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of one-dimensional bimetallic naphethalene sandwich nanowires, [Np2V2TM2]∞ (TM = Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Np = C10H8, naphethalene) by employing ab initio calculations. Three structures with different alignments of TM atoms (isomer-I, -II, -III) are considered, and they are all of high stability with exceptions of [Np2V2Mn2]∞ (isomer-II, -III) and [Np2V2Fe2]∞ (isomer-III). Furthermore, the electronic and magnetic properties of [Np2V2TM2]∞ show clear dependence on chemical component and geometries. Most sandwich wires favor ferromagnetic coupling, while [Np2V2Ti2]∞ (isomer-I, -III) shows antiferromagnetic ground states. Interestingly, [Np2V2Cr2]∞ (isomer-II, -III), [Np2V2Mn2]∞ (isomer-I), and [Np2V2Fe2]∞ (isomer-I) are found to be robust ferromagnetic half-metals, and [Np2V2Cr2]∞ (isomer-I) is a ferromagnetic quasi-half metal.


A model is introduced to treat the dynamics of coexistence between a physically cross-linked network with temporary junctions and unbound chains. Focusing on unentangled networks in which the molecular weight between neighboring cross-links a smaller than the entanglement molecular weight, three types of chains are introduced in a network-forming system: the elastically effective chains in the network that undergo affine deformation, dangling chains with one and sticking to junctions that experience deformation only through viscous interactions, and unbound free chains. Kinetic exchange between these chains is described by deriving three rate equations


The invention provides a simple and cheap weaving edge forming device. In terms of the weaving part with carded weft density, the weaving edge forming device can stably form an arc weaving edge through the end of the weft cooperating with the density of the weft, and a rubber strengthening textile weaving loom of a rubber strengthening textile (1) having the weaving part with carded weft density (1a) is generated. The air spray type weaving edge forming device comprises over one weaving nozzles (32) which are disposed at the side of warp for weaving the end part (2a) of the lead-in weft. In the rubber strengthening textile weaving loom, the weaving edge forming device comprises a limiting device (20) which is disposed near the most front position (5) of a reed along the warp direction, and limits the opening of the warp (3) in a part of the warp array having warps at the most external side in the direction of weaving width.


Set of polyaromatic sulfonates for tracer analysis of oil field as a result of fluorescent spectra study is recommended. Simultaneous determination of fluorescent polyaromatic sulfonates is confirmed by the applicability and reproducibility of the fluorescent method.


Objective To study the feasibility and clinical effect of preoperative traumatic corneal astigmatism was corrected during cataract extraction and IOL implantation.Methods Sixty cases (60 eyes )with traumatic cataract and traumatic corneal astigmatism were divided into A?B groups randomly.Under instruction of corneal topography,the position,shape of incision was chosen in group A according to the astigmatism axis and degree,the preoperation corneal astigmatism was corrected by incision suture.In group B,routine 5 5~6 mm tunnel incision were performed on supertemproal (right eye )or superior nasal (left eye) without suture.The two groups were followed up at one week and 1,3?6 months postoperatively by corneal topography and skiascopic dioptometry.Results Group A,the astigmatism was corrected entirely in 76.7%(23/30),reduced in 23.3% (7/30).The visual acuity was 0.5 or better in 100%(30/30),1.0 or better in 76 7%(23/30),and the difference was significant compared with group B( P 0 01).Conclusion Preoperative traumatic corneal astigmatism can be corrected during the cataract extraction and IOL implantation,It is a effective,simple,practical and satisfied method.


each a of the of pigs, ancient authors mentioned fever, throat swelling, vomiting, pneumonia, coma-like condition or spleen pain. Some of the symptoms can be associated with currently known diseases. The ancients also tried to cure the observed diseases, but in most cases the treatments they offered had no chance of success. To date, some pig diseases are not treatable. One of the most effective methods of preventing them was to maintain appropriate zoohygienic conditions of which they were aware in ancient Rome. Many contemporary authors drew attention to this issue.


The present invention is a refractive multifocal intraocular lens with aspheric geometry on both sides, the map of the local optical intensity of the lens, is the cornea and union, the intermediate optical intensity surrounded by a ring of maximum optical intensity has a central region, there is a smooth transition between the central region and the ring, smoothly alternates between the variable intensity ring subsequently.


Human lactoferrin (hLF) cDNA fragment about 2 259 bp nucleotide acids in length was obtained through RT-PCR from human mammary cancer tissue. The PCR product was cloned into pMD 18-T vector. The fragment was sequenced and analyzed. The gene homology of the fragment obtained in this study was 99. 73%,82. 19%,81. 79%,and 87. 28% respectively comparable to that of the reported lactoferrin cDNA sequence of human, mouse, cow, and goat in GenBank. The Sequence was aligned with human lactoferrin cDNA in GenBank,and the result suggested there were five allele mutation sites and one unrecognized mutation site. So the human lactoferrin cDNA was cloned successfully,and the sequence number in GenBank was AY165046.


A new version of the Proportional Navigation guidance law is derived where integral action is included to compensate for target maneuvers while avoiding the need to estimating these maneuvers. The new guidance law is derived also for situations where the Line of Sight is rotating, and can be, therefore used also for mechanizing command to line of sight guidance. The new guidance law can be applied in a variety of applications where mobile robots or aerial robotic vehicles are required to intercept moving objects or to avoid a collision with such objects. The new guidance law is demonstrated using a simplified guidance scenario simulation to such an object.


The purpose of this article is to examine the meaning, main contents of economic article in the Foundation of Constitution and the second amendment of Constitution. It is necessary to analyze the ideological basis in the Economic Constitution that our founding fathers established in the first time and in the second amendment after the korean war. This examination of economic article includes a historical view of the Korean Economic Constitution. Our founding fathers had established the first Economic Constitution for the achievement of economic equality, social justice, the balanced improvement of the national economic in the capital system, and had strong inclination to maintain the capital of state on harmony of the capital system. But, the pursue of social justice, economic equality had the limit because of the poor national economic, the korean war, pressure of U.S.A. Eventually, the second amendment of the Constitution caused the change of the economic order in the first step to enforce market economic by elimination of the article about the capital of state and so on. Since then, the second amendment of the Economic Constitution led to the existing Constitution.


Treebank creation is a very labor-consuming task, especially if the applications intended include machine learning, gold standard parser evaluation or teaching, since only a manually checked syntactically annotated corpus can provide optimal support for these purposes. There are, however, possibilities to make the annotation process (partly) automatic, saving (manual) annotation time and/or allowing the creation of larger corpora. Whenever possible, existing resources – both corpora and grammars – should be reused.


«Batrachomyomachia» is a noticeably triadie pocm, both in its structure and its contents. Its composition proves so. it consists of thrcc vesy balanced parts, from whicb the central one •——as well as the rest of it—-- shows a perfectly tripartite and proportioned struct'are. Nevertheless. this formal eharacteristie does not appear unfoundedly, but ir, close connection with its contcnts. On correlating each one of tbe thrcc sections from the central part with the three groups of main characters, the importance of the third charaes:er, the god. --—appai-ently svith a iamor role in dic plot—- iii underlined. Besides, tbe eharacte,- of thc god is overcmphasized by means of such strueiural resources as «Ringkompositions>. which contribute to highlight the two brief seenes wherc the immortal beings appear.


* Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Michigan; Professor Emeritus of Law, University of San Diego School of Law. 1 William T. Pizzi, Revisiting the Mansions and Gatehouses of Criminal Procedure: Reflections on Yale Kamisar's Famous Essay,12 OHIO ST. J. CRIM. L. 633 (2015), commenting on YALE KAMISAR, FRED E. INBAU & THURMAN ARNOLD, CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN OUR TIME (1965). I should point out that eleven years ago, on my retirement from the University of Michigan Law School, Professor Tracey Maclin also had some nice things to say about my "Gatehouses and Mansions" article. See Tracey Maclin, Is Yale Kamisar as Good as Joe Namath?: A Look Back at Kamisar's "Prediction" of Miranda v. Arizona, 2 OHIO ST. J. CRIM. L. 33 (2004). 2 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Miranda has suffered many blows since 1969, when Chief Justice Burger replaced Chief Justice Warren. For a discussion of these "blows," see generally Yale Kamisar, The Rise, Decline and Fall (?) of Miranda, 87 WASH. L. REV. 965 (2012). However, I am inclined to agree with Professor Pizzi and his co-author when they say that Miranda "keeps on, oblivious to the fact that the same disease that keeps it weak also keeps it alive." William T. Pizzi & Morris B. Hoffman, Taking Miranda's Pulse, 58 VAND. L. REV. 813, 849 (2005). 3 GEORGE C. THOMAS III & RICHARD A. LEO, CONFESSIONS OF GUILT: FROM TORTURE TO MIRANDA AND BEYOND 151 (2012). 4 322 U.S. 143 (1944). As Catherine Hancock, Due Process Before Miranda, 70 TUL. L. REV. 2195, 2226 (1996), has observed, "Ashcraft was a milestone because it prefigured Miranda's recognition of the coercion inherent in all custodial interrogation." Ashcraft was not the first time the Supreme Court contrasted the proceedings in the police station with those in the courtroom. Consider Lisenba v. California, 314 U.S. 219, 237 (1941): The concept of due process would void a trial in which, by threats or promises in the presence of court and jury, a defendant was induced to testify against himself. The case can stand no better if, by resort to the same means, the defendant is induced to confess and his confession is given in evidence.


City sculpture, as a city's master concept of public art, is a complete system.The task of urban systematic planning of sculpture is to design the sculpture system in urban master planning and to make the specific planning control and management measures in themes and subjects, body mass scale, the background of space, line of sight control and land demand.For the issue of non-standard in planning and management, we discusses the mission and principles in urban sculptures system plan and conducted an in-depth exploration from early research, content of planning and technical route of preparation, the procedures of examination and approval and planning requirements.


Metabolism of ethyl 2-(4-chlorophenyl)-5-(2-furyl)-oxazole-4-acetate (TA-1801), a new hypolipidemic agent, was studied in the rat, rabbit, and dog. Animals were given a single oral dose of 50 mg/kg TA-1801 labeled with 14C. The first metabolic reaction for TA-1801 was hydrolysis of the ester linkage. The resulting metabolite M1 was found to undergo further biotransformations, i.e. glucuronidation at the carboxyl group and ring cleavage of the furan group. These metabolic pathways were observed in all the species examined, although species differences were seen in the amount of metabolites.


New model-independent constraints on possible modifications of Newtonian gravity over solar-system distance scales are presented, and their implications discussed. The constraints arise from the analysis of various planetary astrometric data sets. The results of the model-independent analysis are then applied to set limits on a variation in the l/r-squared behavior of gravity, on possible Yukawa-type interactions with ranges of the order of planetary distance scales, and on a deviation from Newtonian gravity of the type discussed by Milgrom (1983).


It is shown that Kubo's statistical formula for the general transport coefficient of a classical system may be simply obtained by considering the result of a retarded measurement on a canonical non-equilibrium ensemble. It is further shown that if in a continuous system the entropy production takes the form then the coefficients lμv occurring in the linear equations are given by the general formula where the integrand is an average over the canonical ensemble and τ is a virtually infinite time. The usual transport equations will, however, break down if the correlation distances between the local fluxes are of macroscopic dimensions.


To compare the diagnostic accuracy of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO)‐enhanced fluid‐attenuated inversion‐recovery echo‐planar imaging (FLAIR EPI) for malignant liver tumors with that of T2‐weighted turbo spin‐echo (TSE), T2*‐weighted gradient‐echo (GRE), and diffusion‐weighted echo‐planar imaging (DW EPI).


Introduction: Psychological comorbidities such as anxiety and depression are common in COPD. Recent studies suggest a decrease in both anxiety and depression in patients with COPD who attended a pulmonary rehabilitation program (RP). However there is insufficient literature on changes in general psychopathology after RP. Aims and Objectives: To examine the changes in general psychopathology of patients with COPD after participating in a rehabilitation program. Methods: The participants were patients (80 men and 21 women) with pure COPD who attended a three month RP. The patients9 psychopathology was assessed, by the start and by the end of the PR, using the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R), which is a self-report questionnaire widely used in both normal and distressed populations. In order to determine COPD severity a spirometric evaluation before and after bronchodilation was performed. Results: Means of age and of FEV1 % of predicted were 64.15 ±8.13 and 43.51±21.53, respectively.Statistically significant changes (Paired t test) were observed at the end of the RP on the following scales: somatisation (0.70 VS 0.45, p 0.05). Conclusions: A pulmonary rehabilitation program may improve psychopathological symptoms, particularly those of the neurotic spectrum, of COPD patients.


ABSTRACT Aim. To evaluate the potential of a new cytogenetic technique in patients with primary myelofibrosis (PMF). Materials and methods. 48-hour blood cell cultures (accord-ing to Singh et al., 2013) were used for cytogenetic study in 11 PMF patients (5 female, 6 men, aged 32–60 years; median 48.6 years). GTG-banding and different types of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) techniques were used for identifica-tion of chromosomal aberrations. Results. The incidence of abnormal karyotypes in blood cul-tures was significantly higher than that in standard bone mar-row cultures (82 vs 27 %; p < 0.01). The polyploid clones were found in blood cultures of 45 % of patients. Structural chro-mosomal aberrations were found in chromosomes 6, 1, 3, as well as 16 and 17 (in 2 and 1 patients with each aberration, respectively). In all but one patients these abnormalities in dip-loid and polyploid metaphases were identical. Partial 1q tri-somy resulted from adding of additional (1q21–1q44) material translocated to the short arm of chromosome 5 to the material of 2 normal homologue of chromosome 1. It seems that 1q+, i(17q) and some others chromosomal abnormalities were sec-ondary, whereas 6p21 locus involvement may be a primary defect in PMF. The t(3;6)(q25;p21) translocation described for the first time and confirmed by FISH should be considered a variant of well-known translocation t(1;6). Allo-HSCT in 2 pa-tients with 1q+ was successful, whereas there were problems with engraftment in a female patient with prognostically unfa-vorable t(3;3)(q21;q26) translocation associated with the


Abstract Background In 2014, in the United Kingdom, the government made a commitment to spend £3.6 million on the introduction of Skype video calling consultations in general practice, however the efficacy of such technology has not yet been explored fully. Aim The study aimed to explore the views and attitudes of General Practitioners (GPs) towards video consultation in primary care; specifically, in three broad areas ∙ The benefits of video consultations to patients and healthcare professionals.∙ Potential problems with video consultation and its implementation.∙ The cost-effectiveness of video consultation in this setting. Method A convenience sample of the views of 12 general practitioners across two primary care centres in North London were identified using topic guide based semi-structured interviews. A thematic framework approach was used to analyse the data collected to isolate main and sub-themes. Findings Three main themes were identified 1. Technology – GPs expressed concerns about the ability of patients to use technology, the availability of technology and the quality of technology available.2. Utility – encompassing GP's ideas about the usefulness of video consultations to patients, practitioners and the doctor–patient relationship. GPs presented mixed views on the extent to which video consultation would be useful.3. Practicality – covering the views of GPs on implementation and effects on workload. GPs unanimously felt that it was not a practical substitute for face-to-face consultation. There were mixed feelings about it being used as an alternative to telephone consultation. Conclusion GPs did see potential benefits to using video consultations but also expressed concerns that need to be addressed if they are to have full confidence in the system. The views of those who are going to use video consultation as a means of increasing patient access are paramount if such tools are to be a core part of primary care.


This paper aims to study the weldment of duplex stainless steel (DSS) AISI 2205. Tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding is performed with controlled welding parameters. The effect of cooling rate on microstructural changes is analyzed by varying the heat input during welding. The results show that high heat input and excessive nickel content in the filler wire, leads to excessive formation of austenite phases in the fusion zone. Lower heat input nucleates lesser amount of austenite phases and also very low heat input causes lack of fusion in the weld joints. Microstructural variations due to welding are assessed by conducting the micro hardness test, impact toughness test and tensile test. To study the effect of shot peening, the samples are prepared from the DSS welded plate. The chloride induced stress corrosion cracking (SCC) test is conducted and the result shows a noticeable improvement in the corrosion resistance of the weld zone due to shot peening. The findings of this study can be used in marine applications.


treatment recommendations within an institution has not been addressed. The Center for Gait and Motion Analysis (CG) of Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare implemented a process to assess the consistency among interpreters of gait data. The purpose of this study is to describe the consistency of treatment recommendations among multiple interpreters of gait analysis data within a single institution. Study Design: Descriptive. Study Participants & Setting: 7 orthopedic physician interpreters of gait data within a tertiary care facility for children with disabilities. Materials/Methods: Quarterly assessment of consistency among physician interpreters was instituted. A checklist of 22 surgical interventions (2 neurosurgical, 20 orthopaedic procedures (10 bony, 10 soft tissue) and 4 non-surgical options) was created for treatment identification. A graphical user interface was used for direct entry. Data was electronically stored. Cases were selected to reflect the range of GMFCS levels [5] typically seen in the CG. Each case is presented to the interpreter in routine fashion with no other interpreters present. All data typically utilized in a case interpretation was available for review including medical records and imaging. Interpreters were not blinded to the fact that the case is the quarterly consistency case, nor to the referring physician of record. They were blinded to any images, medical records or treatment subsequent to the date of the study. Data chosen for analysis represent 4 consecutive quarters of data between 2015–2016 with 7 interpreters. The mode (majority choice) for each treatment option was chosen as the basis of comparison. The percent agreement with the mode was calculated for each interpreter for each of the 22 surgical treatments. A composite percent agreement was determined for each interpreter for each case. These were averaged across the 4 cases for each interpreter for final comparison. Results: The interpreters had an average of 20 years of gait lab interpretation experience (range 8–32 years). All cases were children with a diagnosis cerebral palsy (age: 9.7 2.4; 2M, 2F; one from each GMFCS level I-IV). Average percent agreement with the majority was 76% (range 73–79%). The range of variability within each interpreter was from 8–23% (Figure 1). No significant difference was noted between recommendations of bony vs. soft tissue procedures (89% and 88% respectfully). Non-surgical options were not included in this analysis. Conclusions/Significance: The results of this study demonstrate that among a group of experienced physician interpreters of gait data within a single institution, good agreement can be achieved for treatment recommendations. Within institution reliability of treatment recommendations is essential to the consistency care for patients referred for gait analysis and to establishing reliability of gait analysis as a tool for clinical decision-making. References: 1. Wright JG. G&P 2015; 2. Narayanan U. CurOpinPed 2007; 3. Skaggs DL. JPO 2000; 4. Vitale MG. JBJS 1999; 5. Palisano R. DMCN 1997 G9 The etiology of knee hyperextension in gait in children with cerebral palsy


Transcribed by G. Dooley from manuscript in Jane Austen's hand in Jane Austen's House Museum manuscript book (JAHM 7:25). Accompanying instrument not specified in MS.


An unprecedented highly enantioselective inverse-electron-demand oxo-Diels–Alder reaction of enolizable aliphatic aldehydes including aqueous acetaldehyde has been developed. Cyclic enones, rarely studied in oxo-IEDDA reactions previously, also demonstrated to be excellent diene acceptors. With this approach, various optically active, fused bicyclic dihydropyrans with different substituents and functionalities could be easily synthesized in the presence of water.


Distinct variability of WNA-wsf on all time scales is evident, while spectrum analysis reveals the decadal contribution to the total variance from interannual and lower frequencies to be in the order of 10-20%. After band pass filtering to eliminate other than decadal variabilities, principal component analysis of model SSTs yields the PDO as the first EOF, explaining 28.6% of the total decadal North Pacific SST variance. It can be shown that WNA-wsf is significantly influenced by the PDO on decadal time scales experiencing increased (decreased) wsf during positive (negative) phases of the PDO. However, it has to be considered that this influence is sensitive to changes in the oceanic current system. There is a significant overall correlation of 0.52 between the PDO times series and the decadal variability of WNAwsf. Running 35y-correlations reveal that this connection is even stronger for great sub-periods within the model simulation, except for two distinct phases of approximately 50 years with almost no correlation. The difference between the state of strong correlation between PDO and WNA-wsf and the state of weak correlation is to be found within the ocean, i.e. in the appearence of the PDO itself. During the phase of weak correlation compared to the usual state, the SST-anomalies of the Kuroshio Extension proceed further north and east into the Bering Sea and towards the Gulf of Alaska, which is assumed to be related to a stronger Kuroshio-Oyashio current system.


Due to the relative independence among the project participants in the engineering project,the traditional project organization and management mode is unfavorable to the knowledge communication and accumulation among the participants,however,the knowledge management is the important way to improve the construction and operation management level of whole engineering project field.Therefore,it seems especially important to discuss the knowledge management methods and strategies in accordance with the engineering project characteristics.The characteristics of project and project organization as well as the integration objects of project knowledge management are discussed in this dissertation and the knowledge is refined through the flow analysis with the project management flow as the object,which is integrated into the work flow.The knowledge management system of engineering project is constructed based on this.


Dermatomyositis (DM) and sarcoidosis are two idiopathic systemic disorders. Reports of patients with both conditions are extremely rare. Here we describe two patients who presented with DM and DM-associated antibodies, and later developed biopsy-proven sarcoidosis. There are increasing reports of the occurrence of sarcoidosis in the context of autoimmune diseases. These observations might imply similarities in the pathogenetic mechanisms. LEARNING POINTS Sarcoidosis should be considered in patients with dermatomyositis (DM) presenting with enlarged lymph nodes. Contrary to the principle of Occam's razor, in this case one diagnosis does not rule out the other. The pathophysiology of sarcoidosis and DM involves both Th1 and Th17 inflammatory responses, which may explain the overlap of these two diseases


Through the introduction of Nida's Theory of Equivalence and the characteristics of Business English, this essay mainly discusses the difficulties involved inevitably in realizing equivalence in Business English translation, e.g. terminology, cultural barriers etc., it also provides some useful methods and techniques which can be applied to maximizing equivalence in Business English translation.


The ground-based frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system has achieved good results in deformation monitoring with its high precision, high resolution, flexible viewing angle and other outstanding technical advantages. When performing deformation monitoring, ground-based synthetic aperture radar (GB-SAR) requires high precision that should reach millimeter or sub-millimeter level. Therefore, high phase stability is not only the basis of interferometry but also the guarantee of high precision measurement. However, ground-based FMCW SAR system, like other continuous wave radar systems, is also limited by the limitations of the continuous wave system. The inherent leakage signal enters the radar echo, which affects radar imaging and interferometric deformation measurement. In this paper, the combination of theory and simulation is used to analyze and verify the influence of the coupling signal on the deformation accuracy.


The accounting practices of SMEs do not supply complete and relevant financial information needed to improve economic decisions made by entrepreneurs. It has been noted that the majority of SMEs do not keep complete accounting records because of lack of accounting knowledge. Most SMEs do not prepare financial reports at all. Financial analysis is not done as a result. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the accounting practices of SMEs at Meikles Park in Mutare, so that recommendations can be made to entrepreneurs on effective strategies that can be adopted to improve their financial accounting practices. The research was guided by the following objectives, examine the types of accounting records maintained by informal traders, examine the types of financial reports being generated by informal traders and evaluate the extent to which by informal traders are engaged in financial performance measurement. The researcher used survey method making use of questionnaires supplemented by follow-up face to face interview. The study used descriptive statistics tables. A population of 127 and a sample of 57 respondents were used in this research. The findings on how books are kept revealed most of the informal traders use single entry bookkeeping systems and most of it is paper work as few of them have no computers, most of them don't have qualified bookkeepers. Most informal traders do not produce any financial reports neither do they measure their financial performance. Findings on the growth of SMEs reveals that there is still slow and stunted growth, most of these enterprises have existed between 1-2 years and few of them go above 5years. The researcher recommends that present informal business owners/employees to use the accruals basis of accounting to make sure that they produce the complete picture of the firm's activities. SMEs are also recommended to use the double entry system to enable them to maintain adequate records for the preparation of financial statements. Lastly, the government should provide training programs in financial accounting skills for the owners of SMEs. The government should organize free seminars that will teach entrepreneurs on how to keep proper written records. Findings on accounting practices could be used as the basis for specific and detailed research into every separate aspect of accounting practices in Zimbabwe such as financial reporting and analysis, usefulness of cash flows and ratio analysis, outsourcing accounting services and the role of professional bodies in enhancing accounting practice in the country.


District, Tamil Nadu. Four Lessons from two Units of IX standard Samacheer kalvi Syllabus was taught in 9.30 hours to these students. The investigator constructed and validated the Achievement in chemistry. It consisted of 100 multiple choice questions (50 from each Unit) these were selected on the basis of higher values of discrimination indices above 0.20 and difficulty indices between 25% to 75%. After the experimental treatment, a post-test was given to the samples. The statistical techniques used in this study was 't' - test. Results and Discussion: Differential Studies: Hypothesis 01: Girls have better Achievement through Demonstration than Boys at Secondary Level in Theni District. Due to and Girls) common interest in provides a The present investigation was intended to study the Gender Difference on Achievement in Chemistry at Secondary level through Demonstration Teaching. The sample consisted of 70 students from Standard IX, Palaniyappa Memorial Higher Secondary School in Theni District, Tamil Nadu. It was found that Demonstration Teaching has significant gain in Achievement and there was no significant difference between boys and girls on their Achievement in chemistry in Unit 1 and Unit 2.


The author of the article has analyzed rare Tajik words borrowed by old Russian, proceeding from the rich factological material she determined the ways of their penetration into the new language. Having analyzed the Old Russian texts the author came to the conclusion that at this stage the new forms of words occupied the place of the bulk of borrowed lexical units from Tajik; the latters penetrated into the Russian language during the XIth XVIIth centuries. Canvassing the borrowings in question the author comes to one conclusion more: the number of certain compound units exceeds simple ones.


We propose a hybrid quasicontinuum model which captures both long and short-wave instabilities of crystal lattices and combines the advantages of weakly non-local (higher gradient) and strongly non-local (integral) continuum models. To illustrate the idea, we study the simplest one-dimensional lattice exhibiting commensurate and incommensurate short-wave instabilities. We explicitly compute stability limits of the homogeneous states using both discrete and quasicontinuum models. The new quasicontinuum approximation is shown to be capable of reproducing a detailed structure of the discrete stability diagram.


The number of sites and territories in Latvia and across the world that need different kinds of real-time health monitoring (roads, bridges, dams, railways, buildings, and other structures) is constantly growing. Since monitoring often should be conducted at long distances across many locations simultaneously, in corrosive environments under electromagnetic interference or in environments without power supply, FBG can be applied in such types of monitoring. The aim of the Doctoral Thesis is to integrate an optical FBG sensor network in optical fiber communication systems and to evaluate application of FBG sensors in real-time road monitoring solutions.


To reduce the computational burden of a conventional model predictive torque controller (MPTC), a reference voltage vector based MPTC strategy is proposed. The reference voltage vector is obtained from the reference stator flux vector and the reference torque. According to the location of the reference voltage vector, a first optimal vector can be determined in a quite straightforward way, improving the system dynamic performance. Furthermore, in order to decrease the torque and flux ripple, a root mean square (RMS) based solution is employed to generate the reference voltage vector and calculate the duty ratio. This method aims at minimizing the RMS error of flux and torque during the whole control period. Then, the steady state performance is improved. Besides, since the new cost function contains only the reference voltage vector, the weighting factor in conventional MPTC is eliminated. In addition, to keep a balance between the steady state performance and switching frequency, the candidates for the second optimal vector are restricted to a certain scope. Simulations were carried out and the results verified the validation of the proposed MPTC strategy.


ABSTRACT Ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) is a kind of electroactive intelligent material. The dendritically interfacial electrodes (DIEs) is very important to the performance of IPMC. Herein, the copper–platinum composite electrode (Pt-Cu-IPMC) with a high specific area DIEs was prepared by combining impregnation-reduction plating platinum (IRP-Pt), autocatalytic plating platinum (ACP-Pt) and chemical reduction plating copper (CRP-Cu). The effects of DIEs and the cycles of ACP-Pt have been systematically investigated on the electrode's thickness, micro-morphology and electromechanical response characteristics of all samples. Importantly, when the cycles of ACP-Pt increases, the platinum and copper particles in the ionomer membrane are highly dispersed. For example, when the cycles of ACP-Pt is 4, the penetration depth of the DIEs reaches 31.98 µm. Thus, copper and platinum dendrites were clearly observed in the samples. Combined with the analysis of the strain energy density, it showed that the presence of DIEs has some impact on the driving performance of the IPMC, the tip displacement, and blocking force of 67.27 mm and 27.21 mN have been achieved in the Pt-Cu-IPMC after three cycles of ACP-Pt. Graphical abstract


API calls present in Windows operating system are used as an important tool of communication by the application programs. These API calls provide meaningful information about program's behaviour. Further, this information helps in the identification and categorization of these programs into malware or benign. Therefore, this paper uses the API calls information retrieved from the dynamic analysis of malware and benign samples as important features for malware detection. This information is utilized in three different feature sets: (i) API calls usage, (ii) API calls frequency, and (iii) API calls sequences. Additionally, these three feature sets are combined to form another feature set called Integrated API calls feature set. Thereafter, Term-Frequency and Inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) method is applied for determining the importance of each feature present in these feature sets, and the feature sets are then represented in TF-IDF format. Performance of all the aforementioned feature sets is evaluated using machine learning algorithms such as Decision Tree, Support Vector Machine, Logistic Regression and k-Nearest Neighbour. The experimentation results showed that TF-IDF enriched feature sets obtained better performance than API calls feature sets. The TF-IDF enriched integrated API calls feature set reported maximum 99.91% accuracy for Support Vector Machine and Logistic Regression algorithms.