Whispers are a common and necessary secondary vocal communications mechanism for natural human-to-human dialogue. They are also the primary communications mechanism for many suffering from aphonia, such as laryngectomees. For typical speakers, whispering is a predominantly contextual activity, prompted by either the sensitive nature of information being conveyed or in response to environmental considerations. Given the importance of whispers, especially for tonal languages like Chinese, and the fact that many communications systems assume vocalised speech, much work has been directed towards the conversion of whispers into natural sounding speech. Since pitch information is largely absent in whispers, it is this key f0 information which needs to be supplied during the regeneration process, and which is the focus of much research. GMM-based reconstruction techniques have proven effective at whisper reconstruction, and some recent work has proposed the use of artificial pitch derived from formant harmonics as an alternative. This paper describes a new formulation of the formant-harmonic f0 method, and compares this directly against a novel GMM-based f0 estimator, as well as known correct pitch excitation for parallel utterances.


This paper presents the concept and realisation of an e-learning tool that provides predefined or automatically generated exercises concerning logistics cost accounting. Students may practise where and whenever they like to via the Internet. Their solutions are marked automatically by the tool while considering consecutive faults and without any intervention of lecturers. Keywords—Automatic marking, e-learning environment, online practicing, randomly-generated exercises.


This research aims to make a dynamic comparative analysis of Raiffeisen Bank's credit portfolio and its associated risks over the years 2017-2019. Diversifying the structure of Raiffeisen Bank's credit portfolio, depending on the lending currency, areas of activity and maturity, allows the bank to reduce its risk exposure and to manage the risks efficiently. All seven risk categories managed by Raiffeisen Bank were identified and analyzed. The paper also presents the main categories of credits in the bank's portfolio, as well as their particularities. Banks are constantly looking to diversify the structure of their credit portfolio and improve its quality, in order to avoid systemic risk and the risk of


This paper presents a study of 10 English chalk streams in the River Thames Basin historically affected by abstraction of groundwater. Using macroinvertebrates, macrophytes and river discharge records from across 76 monitoring sites, and spanning the period 1992–2009 we assess how the communities change over time. River discharge is seen to be the most influential variable in biological community composition, and is used to calculate the annual average river discharge (in m3/s) needed to sustain different biological assemblages at each study site, from the lowest to the highest expression of fluvial aquatic community development. This represents a bottom‐up or site‐specific approach to the determination of ecological flow thresholds, from which more empirical trends may be inferred at regional level. The approach also provides a useful understanding of the timescales involved in the recovery of communities from drought.


A common surfactant solution system is investigated to demonstrate the characteristic and generic features observed in shear‐thickening self‐assembling fluids. Rheological and flow birefringence measurements on the aqueous CTAB/sodium‐salicylate solutions disclose a number of unusual flow behaviors under different flow conditions. All solutions with concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 5 mM exhibit shear thickening above certain critical shear rates, accompanied by an increase in flow birefringence over a range of temperature from T=14 to 36 °C. An extraordinarily long induction period, which is found to be inversely proportional to the applied shear rate, precedes the establishment of the shear‐thickening state. This dynamic state is highly flow birefringent, strongly nonlinear viscoelastic and possesses long relaxation times. We deduce that shear‐induced coagulation results in self‐assembling of surfactant molecules to form new micelles which are of exceedingly large sizes and which can survive against th...


All optical switching has been studied using the Optical Kerr Effect (OKE) configuration in a biopolymer matrix containing a photochromic molecule. The biopolymer system consisted of a deoxyribonucleic acid blended with cationic surfactant molecule cetyltrimethyl-ammonium chloride suitable for optical quality thin film fabrication. The excitation beams inducing birefringence were delivered from a continuous wave laser at 473 and chopped using a variable frequency chopper. Additionally auxiliary nanosecond pulses coming from Nd:YAG laser were used. The birefringence was instantaneously monitored by a weak non-absorbed light from a cw He-Ne laser working at 632.8 nm under crossed polarizer system. Excellent switching times in the range of microseconds and full reversibility of the studied processes have been observed.ïýïýïý


Wheeled robot owns rapid mobility on even terrains, while it cannot meet the adaptability of complex terrains. This paper proposes a foldable and reconfigurable all-terrain robot based on variable wheelbase design to address the issue. The robot is composed of one middle plate and two side plates, and they are connected to the same shaft. With the body configuration, the all-terrain robot can handle more challenge environments by changing the wheelbase, which is achieved by unfolding or folding the angle between the middle and side plates. Firstly, the structure of all-terrain robot is designed. Secondly, the kinematics analysis of all-terrain robot is carried out. Thirdly, according to the realization conditions of turning and folding of the vehicle body, such as the speed relation of the wheel, the speed and angle of the driving motor of the vehicle plate, a control scheme of all-terrain robot based on PID is proposed, containing the speed, yaw and wheelbase control. Finally, simulation results validate the feasibility and effectiveness of proposed methods of design and control.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the main cause of dementia in the elderly population. Over 30 million people worldwide are living with dementia and AD prevalence is projected to increase dramatically in the next two decades. In terms of neuropathology, AD is characterized by two major cerebral hallmarks: extracellular β‐amyloid (Aβ) plaques and intracellular Tau inclusions, which start accumulating in the brain 15‐20 years before the onset of symptoms. Within this context, the scientific community worldwide is undertaking a wide research effort to detect AD pathology at its earliest, before symptoms appear. Neuroimaging of Aβ by positron emission tomography (PET) is clinically available and is a promising modality for early detection of Aβ pathology and AD diagnosis. Substantive efforts are ongoing to develop advanced imaging techniques for early detection of Tau pathology. Here, we will briefly describe the key features of Tau pathology and its heterogeneity across various neurodegenerative diseases bearing cerebral Tau inclusions (i.e., tauopathies). We will outline the current status of research on Tau‐specific PET tracers and their clinical development. Finally, we will discuss the potential application of novel super‐resolution and label‐free techniques for investigating Tau pathology at the experimental level and their potential application for AD diagnosis. Microsc. Res. Tech. 79:677–683, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Conventional long baseline interferometer based Direction of Arrival (DOA) requires multi-group long baselines and short baselines to deblur. In this paper, only using the time difference of arrival (TDOA) data of long baseline interferometer can cancel the debluring shortage and achieve high-precision DOA estimation. Meanwhile iterative filtering algorithm is adopted to extract high-precision changing rate of phase difference from the fuzzy phase difference data of long baseline. Combined with the measured DF and the change rate of phase difference, particle filter algorithm is utilized to achieve high-precision single-station passive location. Parameter measurement and the distribution of location error are verified through theoretical simulations. And the simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the single-station location method based on long baseline interferometer.


Host-tumor relationship was discussed on the basis of the quantitative analysis of transplantability and survival curves in a series of transplantation experiments, in which various combinations of tumors and animals were examined. Acquired resistance against the growth of tumor could be increased in the hosts by various pretreatments such as heterotransplantation or BCG injection. The grade of resistance acquired was appreciated quantitatively.


The paper focuses on the θεραπευτα ί of Imperial Pergamum, the religious entrepreneurs who operated within the complex of the healing sanctuary of Asclepius and who are usually seen as an innocuous cultic formation of elite patients. By contrast, this chapter argues that this group was one of the most dynamic, prolific groups of religious and to an extent medical experts. Examining this particular group of religious entrepreneurs has wider implications for both the history of medicine and the history of religion in the Imperial Era. Claims to a direct line of communication with Asclepius were made by both physicians and patients: the physicians craved divine legitimation of their methods, while the elite patients defied the need for expert intermediaries between god and knowledge and reclaimed ownership of their bodies. so. But you have me here as a lis-tener. Then contend with all zeal. Strength will be the God ' s concern. How do you know whether your dream pertains to more than this? " And at the same time, he told me a mar-vellous deed of the god, how he commanded some sick man to compete in this way, and by causing him to perspire through the exercise, brought an end to the whole disease. It seemed necessary to do this. (18) And while we were talking and taking counsel, Maximus the Libyan, ⁵ ² entered in the third place, one of the long-standing worshippers, and in a way keen on oratory. It was he who proposed the problem ( κα ὶ λαλο νων , γους . ο ὗ τος προβαλ ώ ν· ). And the problem was as follows, for I remember it, since it was the first I received: " While Alexander " , he said, " is in India, Demosthenes advises that it is time to act " . I immediately accepted the omen of Demosthenes speaking again and of the subject, which was about empire. And pausing a little, I compet-ed, and my new strength was such as is of the god ' s devising, and the year seemed not to have passed in silence, but in training. ⁵ ³


China today is in the throes of momentous socioeconomic change. The post-Mao reforms have wreaked havoc on such socialist institutions as the household registration system that once enforced a strict separation between city and countryside. That division bespoke a gap between the standard of living in urban and mral China that favored city-dwellers by a ratio of at least three-to-one toward the end of the Maoist period. The superior living standard found in Chinese cities was largely due to the danwei system, a hierarchy of state-owned workplace units (schools, factories, hospitals, government agencies, and the like) whose employees were guaranteed a variety of perquisites denied to peasants in the countryside: secure jobs, affordable housing, inexpensive medical care, a range of subsidies for everything from transportation to nutrition, and generous retirement pensions. Along with these economic benefits went political controls; the party branch at the work unit closely monitored its employees' public and personal activities, wielding an assortment of rewards and sanctions to encourage politically acceptable behavior. Such incentives, in turn, contributed to a relatively high level of urban social order. Moreover, when popular protests did erupt, they were usually delimited by the confines of the danwei. The work unit was once so essential to daily life in urban China that people would say one could be without a job, but not without a danwei. Unless one gained the approval of one's danwei, a person could not freely transfer to a different unit. Until recently, one could not buy an airline ticket or check into a


Current economic growth can have an impact on the rise in Profitability in a government agency's or a company's Financial Statements. The purpose of accounting is to provide a method for calculating and reporting economic data for use in decision-making within an organization. Since the 1960s, people have been talking about the latest innovations in accounting, particularly in what is known as Human Resource Accounting (ASDM) or Human Resource Accounting (HRA). Accounting theory development gave rise to ASDM, with the difference being that ASDM's growth has continued to focus on human resources as both a source and a component of a company's success. Human Resource Accounting is defined as the process of identifying data about Human Resources and disseminating this data to relevant parties (Belkaoui, 1995). The definition of Belkaoui itself means Human Resource Accounting aims to identify the value of Human Resources, Measuring human costs and values contributed to the company, and assessing the influence of understanding this information and its impact on human behavior towards an organization and on the financial profitability of the Company. This study used a descriptive qualitative method of data analysis and was conducted at PT. Khatulistiwa Mulia Indonesia in Malang, East Java. In order for accurate bookkeeping and a clear presentation of all the information gathered, the firm must first establish a system for recording and organizing all of the data it collects.


Farmland birds within arable land are of conservation concern in Europe, but little is known about their ecology in the oceanic islands of the Mediterranean Basin (Macaronesia). We report here that, during two consecutive winters and within the entire arable land area of the Canary Islands, increasing area of bare soil is associated with higher occurrences of the resident granivorous species Corn Bunting (Emberiza calandra), Atlantic Canary (Serinuscanaria) and Linnet (Cardueliscannabinameadowaldoi). However, such a relationship was not found for wintering Skylarks (Alauda arvensis) probably because of its different diet. We recommend that local authorities, the Cabildo de Tenerife, purchase and manage these lands to improve conditions for granivorous farmland birds. We suggest that providing suitable foraging habitat will support the recovery of farmland birds on this island.


The position operator (defined within Schrodinger representation as usual) becomes meaningless when the usual Born-von Karman periodic boundary conditions are adopted: this fact is at the root of the polarization problem. I show how to define the position expectation value by means of rather peculiar many-body (multiplicative) operator acting on the wavefunction of the extended system. This definition can be regarded as the generalization of a precursor work, apparently unrelated to the polarization problem. For uncorrelated electrons, the present finding coincides with the so-called "single-point Berry phase" formula, which can hardly be regarded as the approximation of a continuum integral, and is computationally very useful for disordered systems. Simulations which are based on this concept are being performed by several groups.


The academic community is all too familiar with the problems regarding assessment and feedback in higher education. Even preliminary research reveals a swarm of articles dedicated to the issues regarding student failure to understand performance criteria, lack of student engagement with feedback, and general dissatisfaction with feedback systems and processes. This article considers these well-reported problems, and explores academic opinion as to what constitutes a good feedback system. It is observed that while ideal models have been postulated, there is a lack of research into how these models can be practically put into effect, with particular emphasis here on the discipline of law. The focus of the article then shifts to this agenda, by reporting on a project developed in the University of Greenwich Law School designed to encourage both student understanding of performance criteria and engagement with feedback. The results reveal an encouraging effect on both, and a positive impact on academic performance.


To obtain preliminary data for environmental monitoring of PGE with respect to their accumulation, screening of Pt, Pd, and Rh was carried out along the highway D1 between cities Prague and Brno, and in the city of Prague, Czech Republic (CR) in 2009.


Organic/inorganic hybrid perovskite of CH3NH3PbBr3 as a light emitting diode (LED) is investigated in this report. The synthesize method of the perovskite as well as the UV/visible absorption, and electroluminescence characteristics of the perovskite are studied. Also, the I-V characteristic of the synthesized thin film is obtained. We report on remarkably high electroluminescence (EL), and absorption spectra of the CH3NH3PbBr3 thin film perovskite which is promising for future light emitting diodes and panels.


Current data on tax competition present a puzzle: On the one hand, they indicate that effective corporate tax rates in most countries have been declining, and that the worldwide effective tax rate on multinational enterprises (MNEs) has been going down as well. On the other hand, macroeconomic revenue data show no significant decline in corporate tax revenues collected by OECD member countries. This paper suggests that one key to this puzzle may lie in the slow development of e-commerce. On the basis of discussions with informed tax planners, it turns out that in the current market conditions, it may be harder for MNEs to avoid having a "permanent establishment" in market countries than previously supposed. Thus, MNEs are still subject to tax in those countries even if their production takes place in low-tax jurisdictions. The paper then explores the implications of this suggestion for developed and developing countries, and what data are needed to further explore this hypothesis.


The study included the isolation and diagnosis of some Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial species from the Neonate Intensive Care Unit in Ibn Al-Atheer Teaching hospital for children from August 2019 to February 2020.A total of 90 swabs were obtained from various sites of the ICU from Ibn Al-Atheer hospital environment. The swabs were inoculated on culture media including blood agar, mannitol salt agar and MacConkey agar. The growth showed different bacterial colonies which had been tested for their morphological and biochemical characteristics. 80 pure isolates, 76 of them were Gram positive bacteria, and 4 isolates were Gram negative bacteria. The highest rate of bacterial contamination was found in the couch and the incubator sites. The most prevalent bacteria isolated from inanimate surfaces were Staphylococcus aureus, coagulase negative staphylococci, Bacillus spp. in addition to Diphtheroids, Lactobacillus spp. Streptococcus pneumoniae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and E, coli. Antibiotic susceptibility testing for all isolates was performed using 8 types of commonly used antibiotics in NICU. Taken all together, Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria showed high resistance against streptomycin, erythromycin, and ampicillin respectively. Notably, resistance to ampicillin and gentamicin were commonly demonstrated to be given as the first line of treatment in NICUs.


Abstract : An equivalent circuit model is presented for a helical compressed magnetic field generator. The emphasis has been placed on producing a model which has a short computer run time. Magnetic energy losses due to non-linear field diffusion are taken into account, together with the effects of magnetically-induced conductor motion. Examples of the computer code results are given, together with a comparison with experimental data.


A proposal was written to begin R&D on the use of MgB2, a high-Tc superconducting material that can be deposited onto metallic surfaces, for radiofrequency (RF) cavities. Materials Science Divisions at Argonne have been studying deposition techniques, including atomic layer deposition (ALD) to coat MgB2 on sample 2" coupons. A FabryPerot open resonator is suggested as a cavity to test the quality of the coupons, while simulation software, Microwave Studios (MWS), is used to design and validate an open resonator model based on a previously reported cavity The MWS simulation will be used to scale open resonator designs to differentoperating frequencies in the search for an optimal test structure. The results of the simulation are presented.


the two most disturbing aspects of modem society. There are to-day, Carstairs points out, nearly three times as many men in our prisons as there were in 1940, and nearly half of all indictable offences are committed by youths under the age of 21. Sexual promiscuity among adolescents goes hand in hand with the increase in adolescent delinquency. " Popular morality," Carstairs says in a picturesque phrase, " is now a waste land, littered with the debris of broken convictions." These manifestations among teenagers are pointers, he says, to "areas of uncertainty, of confused values, in contemporary adult life." It does not appear that these are the outcome of infant training or of changes in it. Faulty toilet training and breast-feeding, or lack of it, must of course take their fair share of the blame. This after all is de rigueur. It is only in the fifth talk that the Reith lecturer touches on what many believe to be the root cause of the prevailing malaise or sickness in western society-the decay of faith. Carstairs asks, " Why is it that grown men and women, no less than teenagers, are registering this unmistakable vote of no confidence in a society which has in so many ways improved their physical and material conditions of life ?" He finds the answer in a " loss of conviction in any supra-personal system of values." It is a pity, we think, that he did not dwell more on the evidence provided by men like Rivers of the effect on the wellbeing of so-called primitive societies of the disappearance or destruction of the faith which made them cohere. In this context it is perhaps not surprising that in reply to a recent questionary " a number of working-class fathers expressed the view that children should be taught discipline by the State.,, On the safe assumption that the environment is always exerting its steady pressure on the life contained within it, it may not be altogether surprising that the current increase of violence has " reversed the trend of the previous 100 years." One all-pervading conditioning and new factor of modem life since Hiroshima has been the threat of nuclear annihilation. All who can run and read hear day in and day out of the hundreds of millions who could be obliterated if one of the K's got impatient. And the cartoonist's favourite butt is the leader of one country after another who wants to have a finger on the trigger. All this may or may not be related to toilet training, but certainly adds up to the hard and disintegrating facts of modem life. In the midst of this gloom a ray of light shone through in the fourth Reith lecture-on the changing role of women. Carstairs notes their improved status, the changed relations of husbands and wives, earlier marriage, and greater social and political emancipation. He condemns Victorian attitudes to sex as having been responsible for frigidity in women; but finds to-day a healthier and happier acceptance by women of their sexual nature. " This is a time," he writes, " when women are taking a lead in re-exploring and rediscovering their own nature.. And so the analysis goes on into the causes of the malaise of society and of the neurosis of the individual. Diagnosis is the first step. And whatever the diagnoses made on all hands the voice of the physician comes out clear in Professor Carstairs's final formula for treatment: "I suggest that the ultimate value behind attempts to remedy the diverse patterns of social failure is simply this: a belief in the individual worth, and dignity, of every human being. This is a value to which both humanists and Christians subscribe."


The well-known relaxed theoretical minimum emittance (TME) cell is commonly used in the design of multi-bend achromat (MBA) lattices for the new generation of diffraction limited storage rings. But significantly lower emittance at moderate focusing properties can be achieved by combining longitudinal gradient bends (LGB) and reverse bends (RB) in a periodic lattice unit cell. LGBs alone, however, are of rather limited gain.
We investigate the emittance achievable for different unit cell classes as a function of the cell phase advance in a most general framework, i.e. with a minimum of assumptions on the particular cell optics. Each case is illustrated with a practical example of a realistic lattice cell, eventually leading to the LGB/RB unit cell of the baseline lattice for the upgrade of the Swiss Light Source.


-31Edward Krick was born in 1945 in India. In 1968 he graduated from Puna University. He worked on probation in Cambridge (England) by invitation of the Nobel Prize winner P.Krick, in the University of the Sussex shire (England) by invitation of B. Goodwin, in Nagasaki University and many other places. In 1978 he was awarded in Stanford University (USA) with PhD degree. He is a member of the American Physical Society. Nowadays Edward Krick is the head of department of psychophysical researches in International Stanford Research Institute. His scientific researches are focused on a frontier subject between psychophysics and sociology – study of anticorrelation behavior of thermal fields during social crises and military conflicts. Edward Krick is a live person keen on different exotics: he likes rafting and has got a pilot license. He scientific works have been published in the most prestigious magazines of the world (Nature, Scientific American, Physics today etc.), he has three scientific monographs published. His youthful wife Simla Jarmapuri introduces a spirit of Oriental wisdom in his books.


Drawing on data from teachers using various elementary mathematics curriculum programs, this study highlights prevalent decisions teachers make to enact the task from the written curriculum and the potential of such decisions for student learning. In doing so, we examine teachers' instructional design decisions, especially those that teachers make when they face things that are not specified in the curriculum and when they see the need to fill in a gap in the teacher's guide in order to enact the task in their classrooms. We also examine whether such decisions can actually create opportunities for students to learn.


It is well known that, in some industrial process identification situations, measurements can be collected from closed-loop experiments for several reasons such as stability, safety, and performance constraints. In this paper, we investigate the problem of identifying continuous-time fractional closed-loop linear parameter varying systems. The simplified refined instrumental variable method is developed to estimate both coefficients and differentiation orders. This method is established to provide consistent estimates when the output and the scheduling variable are contaminated by additive measurements noise. The proposed scheme is evaluated in comparison with other approaches in terms of a simulation example.


Integrating sensor networks with general purpose IT infrastructure has been confirmed as a complex problem in the development and management of industrial sensor applications. This integration is complex because a single general purpose application queries multiple sensor networks and a single sensor network has to serve multiple applications. This paper identifies three challenges that need to be addressed by middleware in order to enable this integration: federated management, interoperability and adaptability across the whole infrastructure. The paper presents a taxonomy of middleware solutions and positions the identified challenges in a survey of state-of-the-art middleware research we conducted earlier. By looking at sensor network middleware from an application (business) perspective, we come to the conclusion that time may have come to consolidate middleware efforts presented during the past years.


A glass-ceramics based on blast-furnace slag, with some additives to the theoretical diopside composition in order to control properties of mother glass and the heat treatment conditions, has been investigated. The raw materials in this study were blast-furnace slag, serpentine, feldspar and quartz as mother glass ingredients. Titanium dioxide and chromite were used as the nucleating agents. Batch compositions of the prepared glasses and ceraming conditions were found by trial and error method. The optimum conditions were confirmed by analyzing several measured physical properties such as density change during heat treatment, microhardness of slag-ceramics prepared, viscosity change of glass at heat treatment temperature, nucleation density change, dilatometric properties, differential thermal analysis, identification of the grown crystal and crystal sizes. The batch composition feasible to prepare slag-ceramics was 40% of blast-furnace slag, 25% of serpentine, 18% of feldspar and 17% of silica sand. Three percent titanium dioxide and 1% chromite of the mother glass were added as nucleating agents. The ceraming conditions under which the slag-ceramics having considerably good properties can be developed found as: "The glass was heated at 750℃ for 2 hours for nucleation, and the temperature was raised up to 1,000℃ with a rate of 0.75℃/min for crystal growth."


The afebrile type (1) of acute infectious nonbacterial gastroenteritis seems to be an extremely common diarrhea in the Northeastern United States. It occurs yearly in some families and communities (2, 3). Whether the recurrences are due to the early waning of immunity or to the existence of immunologically distinct agents has not been determined. Following an attack of gastroenteritis evoked by the Marcy strain (4), which is presumably a virus, an effective immunity develops in volunteers (1, 4-6), and in an earlier report the opinion was expressed that immunity probably does not persist for long (5). The present study shows that individuals who recovered from experimental Marcy gastroenteritis more than a year before were fully resistant to reinfection. It may well be, therefore, that the second explanation of the recurrences is the correct one and more than one antigenically distinct agent exists.


The Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica is a new National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center formed to explore and exploit the unique advantages of the Antarctic Plateau for astrophysical observations.


Mesocarnivore responses to changes in habitat and resource availability in California by Allison Lynn Bidlack Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, Policy and Management University of California, Berkeley Professor Wayne M. Getz, Co-Chair Professor Adina M. Merenlender, Co-Chair Effective conservation of mammalian carnivores requires knowledge of their ecologies in both natural and altered habitats, especially in regions experiencing substantial human population growth. The research presented in this dissertation addresses the relationship between carnivores and habitat change, and investigates the magnitude of temporal and spatial population fluctuations and the processes behind them in both natural and urbanizing systems. To examine these fluctuations in carnivore populations, and the contribution of long-term studies to our understanding of these changes over time, I compared San Joaquin kit fox population numbers with rainfall and prey data collected over 35 years on the Carrizo Plain, California. Seasonal rainfall levels were a poor predictor of interannual kit fox numbers, although I did find a correlation between fox numbers and jackrabbit numbers over time. A spatial congruence between giant kangaroo rat distribution and kit fox distribution was also evident, and both species appeared to be expanding their ranges northward within the portion of the park that had previously been cultivated. Urbanization can also lead to distributional changes and increases in invasive species, threatening native biodiversity. Given this risk, I focused on the relationship between invasive red fox and habitat correlates in the San Francisco Bay area. I found that red foxes were widespread but not locally abundant, and were strongly correlated with urban development and high road densities. No correlation between red fox distribution and other native canids was apparent. Other common mesocarnivores are also responding to urbanization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Coyotes, bobcats and gray foxes were detected at different densities along an urban-to-rural gradient. Both total carnivore abundance and number of species detected were highly negatively correlated with levels of urban development and road density, and coyotes and bobcats tended to avoid urban areas. Coyotes were detected more often in open habitats such as grasslands, while gray foxes strongly preferred hardwood forest. The extent of habitat at different landscape scales was also important, with coyotes reacting at the largest scale, and gray foxes at the smallest.


Light outcoupling for the top-emitting organic light-emitting device (TEOLED) with the structure of Si∕SiO2∕Ag∕Ag2O∕4,4′, 4″-tris(3-methylphenylphenylamino)triphenylamine/4, 4′-bis[N-(1-naphthyl-1-)-N-phenyl-amino]-biphenyl/tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3)∕LiF∕Al∕Ag is improved by optimizing the semitransparent Al∕Ag cathode and employing a ZnS top-capping layer. To both provide a fine electron injection and reduce Al absorption in the visible area, Al thickness is adjusted to 0.3nm. With another 32-nm-thick ZnS film as a refractive index-matching layer onto the optimized Al (0.3nm)∕Ag (18nm) electrode, the maximum luminance and efficiency for the TEOLED based on Alq3 emission reach 145474cd∕m2 (13V) and 12.2cd∕A (5V), respectively.


Reading is a fundamental activity for the development of linguistic comprehension. To the aim of investigating the relationship between reading practice and comprehension, a systematic review of the literature was conducted, taking into account empirical research studies. The totality of the studies found positive effects on comprehension. The results also revealed that this area of study is mostly focused on the primary school age group. Indeed, it is nearly always related to other aspects of language development but also to the promotion of a positive attitude towards reading, motivation, socialization, emotional skills and understanding of reality. Little heed seems to be paid to the optimal way of reading. The results suggest the need for a greater reflection on this practice and a more precise identification of how to implement reading aloud in order to identify concrete actions to support reading, both in scholastic and extra-scholastic contexts.


In this paper, a hypersingular integral equation for curved cracks in plane elasticity is formulated and presented. This paper describes a new numerical technique for solution of deep curved cracks in plane elasticity. In this method, the crack curve length is taken as the co-ordinate in the hypersingular integral equation of the curved crack problems. The curved crack configuration maps on the real axis with interval (-a,a), where '2a' is the arc length of the crack. The original hypersingular integral equation is converted into other hypersingular integral equation which is formulated on the curve length co-ordinate, or on (-a,a). The hypersingular integral equation is solved numerically. Numerical examples prove that higher efficiency has been achieved in the suggested method. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In this paper, we suggest and analyze two new iterative methods for solving nonlinear scalar equations namely: the modified generalized Newton Raphson's method and generalized Newton Raphson's method free from second derivative are having convergence of order six and five respectively. We also give several examples to illustrate the efficiency of these methods. c ©2016 All rights reserved.


Chloris divaricata R. Br. and its variety C. divaricata cynodontoides (Bal.) Lazarides (Poaceae) have become naturalized in Taiwan. Chloris divaricata, which was misidentified as Chloris divaricata var. cynodontoides, was annotated. Chloris divaricata var. cynodontoides was discovered in the Penghu archipelago in a recent botanical survey. Descriptions, color photos, an illustration, and a distribution map of Chloris divaricata and its variety cynodontoides are offered.


A new genus and species of single-tooth-rowed captorhinid, Rhiodenticulatus heatoni, is based on two skulls and partial postcranial skeletons collected from the Lower Permian Cutler Formation near Arroyo de Agua, north-central New Mexico. A cladistic analysis of its relationships to other single-tooth-rowed captorhinids suggests that it is a primitive sister taxon to Labidosaurus and Eocaptorhinus. The dentition of R. heatoni, however, exhibits several unique derived features which are interpreted as representing an adaptation to a specialized diet. Puercosaurus obtiisidens Williston, 1916, the only previously described captorhinid from New Mexico, is declared a nomen dubium because the holotypic left dentary is indeterminate, and there is no basis for accepting that it and the two poorly preserved captorhinid skulls found at a different locality and referred to the species by Williston (1916) are conspecific. Additional captorhinid remains have been collected recently from the Lower Permian Cutler, Abo, and Sangre de Cristo formations at widely scattered localities in central and northern New Mexico. Though these specimens, as well as the skulls referred to ^''Puercosaurus obtusidens,"'' are too poorly preserved to be assigned to existing or new taxa, they do indicate that the Captorhinidae was diverse and widely distributed in the Lower Permian of New Mexico. ' Address: Department of Biology, Erindale Campus, Univer Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada. Submitted 2 August 1985. ! i I M


Despite major advances in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment and the improved outcomes that have been associated with the expanding number of advanced therapies available, a substantial number of patients are refractory to multiple biologics. To understand the mechanisms behind refractory RA (reRA) and ultimately improve therapies tailored to individuals, a better understanding of associated factors is necessary. The shared epitope (SE) is an amino acid sequence motif coded by several HLA-DRB1 alleles that are overrepresented among people with RA and is associated with the production of anti-citrullinated protein antibodies.To characterize the relationship between SE status and risk of developing refractory RA.Participants in FORWARD, The National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases, with RA, high-resolution HLA-DRB1 typing, no history of biologic use at study entry, and subsequent exposure to one or more biologics were included. The reRA group included participants with exposure to at least three biologics while under observation. Those who used a single biologic with continued use for at least two years during observation comprised the comparison non-refractory group. Descriptive statistics for each group were calculated at initiation of first biologic. Significance was assessed with Fisher's exact tests and Mann-Whitney U tests (p<0.05), as appropriate. Logistic regression was used to determine the relationship between shared epitope status and baseline odds of becoming refractory.Characteristics of the 70 participants that met inclusion criteria are presented in Table 1. Several covariates varied significantly by refractory group, but these differences were attenuated in adjusted models. SE positive individuals had significantly lower odds of becoming refractory, a relationship that remained consistent with varying model complexity (Figure 1; OR [95% CI] 0.16 [0.05, 0.49] in univariate model; p=0.001). HLA-DRB1*04:01 was the only SE positive allele independently associated with nonrefractory status (p=0.036; data for other alleles not shown).In this cohort, individuals with RA who are SE positive were less likely to be refractory to multiple biologics. This relationship appears to be primarily the result of the HLA-DRB1*04:01 allele rather than any other alleles associated with SE positivity. These findings suggest that SE positive individuals with RA are more likely to find success with their first biologic, while SE negative individuals may be more likely to cycle through multiple biologics. Ongoing and future work will investigate this relationship further and assess whether these results remain consistent when using varying definitions of reRA.Table 1.Baseline (initiation of first biologic) characteristics of study participants. Values are mean (SD) unless otherwise noted.Non-RefractoryRefractoryn=48n=22pSE positive, %81.340.90.002≥1 copy of HLA-DRB1*04:01, %52.122.70.036Age, years57.2 (12.6)55.0 (9.7)0.266Female sex, %93.886.40.370White race, %95.785.70.167Time since symptom onset, years11.3 (11.3)7.3 (7.1)0.132Observation time, years6.9 (4.4)11.6 (5.5)<0.001Hx smoking, %184.108.40.2065BMI, kg/m227.0 (5.5)32.4 (7.8)0.011Hx cancer, %220.127.116.119Hx pulmonary disorder, %18.827.30.532Hx GI disorder, %35.459.10.074Concomitant steroid use, %25.050.00.055Concomitant csDMARD use, %89.681.80.448Pain VAS, 0-102.5 (2.3)4.1 (2.8)0.011Global severity VAS, 0-102.7 (2.4)4.4 (2.5)0.013HAQ-II, 0-30.69 (0.56)1.01 (0.52)0.023Figure 1.Odds of becoming refractory by SE status. Odds ratios for becoming refractory when SE positive are shown for 9 unique models of increasing complexity. Each model includes a new covariate and all previously listed covariates. P-values for the SE positive covariate are displayed to the right of each associated OR and 95% CI.NIL.NIL.Kristin Wipfler: None declared, Sofia Pedro: None declared, Urbano Sbarigia Shareholder of: Johnson & Johnson, Employee of: Janssen, Federico Zazzetti Shareholder of: Johnson & Johnson, Employee of: Janssen, Anna Sheahan Employee of: Janssen, Iris Lin Shareholder of: Johnson & Johnson, Employee of: Janssen, Evo Alemao Shareholder of: Johnson & Johnson, Employee of: Janssen, Kaleb Michaud: None declared.


Objective To investigate the effect and security of small incision fenestration nucleus surgery in treating lumbar disc herniation.Methods One hundred and twelve lumbar disc herniation patients were selected and randomly divided into minimally invasive group and the conventional surgery group,compared clinical efficacy,operative time,blood loss and stay length of the two groups.Results The clinical efficacy of minimally invasive group was significantly better than conventional surgery group,the difference was statistically significant(P 0.05);operative time,blood loss and stay length of minimally invasive group were significantly less than conventional surgery group.Conclusion Small incision fenestration nucleus surgery for lumbar disc herniation is effective,safe and reliable.


Experimental analysis was performed to evaluate the performances of hard-chrome plated stainless steel and TiAlSiN and TiCrAlSiN hard coatings deposited on cast stainless steel based on wear experimental data. The wear tests were carried out using a reciprocating wear tester modified from ASTM G133-05.The analysis of variance and other statistical tools were used to explore the influences of coating type, applied load and workpiece surface roughness on the average weight loss values of the workpiece materials. The results showed that coating type, applied load, and workpiece surface roughness and the interactions between coating type and applied load as well as between coating type and workpiece surface roughness were statistically significant at the level of significance of 0.05. Furthermore, the TiCrAlSiN coating had the highest wear resistance followed by the TiAlSiN and the hard-chrome plated stainless steel, respectively.


In wireless sensor networks energy scarcity is a major concern on energy consumption, and by properly designing on the node network architecture or selecting efficient protocols of the networks, the maximum energy can be reduced significantly thereby increasing the network lifetime. However, in most of the cases, the sensor nodes are either powered by non-replaceable batteries, or there will be a considerable replacement cost. Thus a self-rechargeable sensor node design is necessary: the sensor node should be able to harvest energy from the environment. Among the existing techniques, harvesting energy from the radio frequency (RF) waves gives the lowest system design. Previous research on RF energy harvesting is based on the model that the radio energy is omnidirectional in the air. In this paper, a directional transmission/receiving model is proposed which can further overcome the path loss of the RF signals. On the node level, a virtual floating gate based CMOS biasing is used for the energy conversion circuit. With the proposed technique, the sensor node is able to harvest the energy from base station up to 30 meters.


As part of Blizzard Challenge 2015, text-to-speech synthesisers have been developed for Indian languages. This paper presents the work done by the DONLab team, IIT Madras for the Challenge. With the provided speech data for six Indian languages, Hidden Markov Model based speech synthesis systems and STRAIGHT voices have been built. Various modules involved in system building have been described. While some modules are language-specific, systems have been built mostly languageindependently. Of interest, is the novel hybrid segmentation algorithm to obtain accurate labels at the phone level. Monolingual and multilingual synthesised speech output for the given test sentences have been submitted. In the results of evaluation, "D" is the identifying letter of our systems. Modifications to the training process, post-submission of the synthetic sentences, have also been briefly described.


A simple , selective, precise, sensitive and stability indicating reverse phase high performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method was developed and validated for the analysis of sildenafil citrate in pure form. Chromatographic separation achieved isocratically on Inertsil ODS-3V (4.6 x 250) mm, 5µ column utilizing a mobile phase of water: acetonitrile (40:60)%v/v with flow rate of 1ml/min with UV detection at 214 nm at ambient temperature. The retention time was 6.91 min. The method is accurate (100.32 ± 0.84), precise (100.4 ± 1.04) and linear (R2=0.999) within the range of 20% - 150% of standard drug concentration. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) was found to be 0.0177µg/ml and 0.0535 µg/ml respectively. Stress studies were carried out as per recommendations of ICH guidelines. The method was proved to be robust with respect to change in flow rate, mobile phase composition and column oven temperature. Solution stability was found to be more than 8 hrs.


That no artificial food can take the place of breast-milk has always been admitted, even by those who have had the most success with artificial feeding, men like Holt1and Rotch.2In some parts of this country, however, it is uncommon to see any attempt made to induce a mother to nurse her child, even when her breast-milk has not been examined to see whether it was abnormal or not. Is this not chiefly our fault—that is, the fault of the physicians? Not only are no efforts made three to four days after birth, but later, when the child is between three and six months old, breast-feeding is often stopped for no apparent cause, here again without examination of the milk to find out its composition. Would it not be more just to the infant


Motor vehicle crashes have an annual societal cost of $230 billion, and one way to reduce this cost is to incorporate safety directly into the long-range transportation planning process. This resource guide presents some ways through which safety and planning may be integrated and is targeted toward Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) district planners, metropolitan planning organizations, and planning district commissions. The guide does not constitute a VDOT policy or regulation; rather, it is a set of best practices designed to accompany, rather than duplicate, the regional transportation planning process. The guide describes eight independent steps for integrating safety into the regional transportation planning process and provides one or more Virginia-specific examples for each step. The steps are as follows: 1. Develop a vision statement, goals, and objectives that directly incorporate safety. 2. Use diverse stakeholders to identify alternatives and evaluate their utility. 3. Use safety-related performance measures to assess deficiencies. 4. Acquire data within the time constraints faced by the planner. 5. Analyze data with available resources and thus select higher impact projects. 6. Prioritize projects to determine the largest expected crash avoidance given limited funds. 7. Identify alternative funding sources for safety-related projects. 8. Monitor the safety impacts of implemented projects. This guide constitutes Volume II of the two-volume report Incorporating Safety Into the Regional Planning Process in Virginia. Volume I describes how the guide was developed.


Despite successful treatment, people living with HIV experience persisting and burdensome multidimensional problems. We aimed to assess the validity, reliability and responsiveness of Positive Outcomes, a patient‐reported outcome measure for use in clinical practice.


The room in which the insects are housed should be painted with light-coloured paint which is free of lead or any other component known to be poisonous to insects. No racks should be fixed to the walls; in fact, fixtures of any type should be avoided as far as possible since cracks in walls or fixtures may serve as hiding places for other insects liable to introduce disease into the breeding room. Uncluttered walls make for easier cleaning of the walls and ceiling. I designed a rack on wheels (Fig. 1). This rack is constructed of angle-iron and allows of easy removal for purposes of cleaning and sterilization. The cleaning and storing of breeding equipment and of the breeding rooms themselves should be separate from biological testing laboratories or other chemical laboratories to prevent the insects coming into contact with poisonous vapours, resulting in insect resistance. No baits or other chemicals should be used in the breeding rooms to control insects escaping from the cages, unless these chemicals are tested for fumigation effect. In the South African Bureau of Standards laboratories insects escaping from cages are controlled by physical means.


Abstract The following are notes taken during the discussion following the presentation. Judge Markey commented that in his experience to date he had found reports (including those of the social workers and Guardians ad Litem) to have been done to a high standard. He had no criticism save one, ie that reports sometimes contained regurgitation of information gathered over the years - this not helpful. The main report should give background, then as the situation changes, short addendums and summing up with recommendations are all that is required.


Organic fertilizers are generally made from plant and animal by-products and natural minerals that may originate from the farm itself (crop residue, livestock manure) and is thus a nutrient-saving technology, or they can be obtained from other sectors or from products manufactured elsewhere, and as such constitute a nutrient adding technology (Alimi et al., 2006). The effects of different organic fertilizers (cowdung manure, superbokashi, biocomposer and vermicompost) were carried out to investigate in sweet corn, Zea mays L. var. rugosa Bonaf. As a result, the application of organic fertilizers can promote higher yields of sweet corn than control. Among the organic fertilizers treatments, the application of biocomposer showed the best performance in their vegetative growth and yields.


General education,an indispensible way cultivating students' Chinese literacy,is of great significance for the integrity of Chinese course knowledge,bearing the mission of relating Chinese course and daily and learning of trans-disciplines.It is also a way enriching students' affect and value.Efforts are supposed to make to realized the general education in the course of Chinese including an appropriate system and capable teaching team.


hence about their reliability as the three basic texts of the Madhyamika in China, Korea, and Japan. The present inquiry will consider only the first two of these texts with respect to such questions as (1) what were their original titles? (2) from what language were they translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva? (3) why have the original texts not been found and why, apparently, are there no Tibetan translations of them? (4) are Kumarajiva's translations complete and reliable? (5) who were the authors of the original texts? (7) how can the authenticity of the Pai-lun, Shin-erh-men-lun, and even the Chung-lun (by Pingala) be determined when we have no Sanskrit or possibly Central Asian originals or comparable Tibetan translations or Chinese translations (other than those by Kumarajiva) with which to verify them? I First, with regard to the Pai-lun, what was its original title? Generally


This study extends the analysis of parliamentary free voting by examining a non-British example: Canadian MPs' voting behavior on Bill C-43, which attempted to establish a federal abortion law. As in most previous studies, we find that partisanship was by far the best predictor of voting behavior. Unlike previous research, however, we analyze free votes at every stage of the legislative process and find different voting dynamics at different stages. In general, Canadian MPs felt at greater liberty to vote as their consciences dictated when their votes mattered least. On the key roll calls leading to final disposition, however, when voting was most visible and outcomes most important, Canadian MPs re-coalesced around their parties.


Data set used for the analysis consists of two parts a graph, describing biological interactions between genes/proteins/probes and a set of node attributes providing additional information about the genes. Gene interactions include protein-protein interactions (PPI) and co-expression. Due to this variety of the interaction's nature, the origin from various databases and experimental sources, there is a lack of unified node identifiers. To overcome this problem the identifiers of the proteins, SNPs, probes and gene names originating from various databases were mapped to one unique Ensembl name space [1], i.e every node in the network has identifier starting with ENSG.


Thrombin at low doses is an endogenous mediator of protection in ischaemic and haemorrhagic models of stroke. However, the mechanism of thrombin‐induced protection remains unclear. Recently accumulating evidence has shown that astrocytes play an important role in the brain after injury. We report that thrombin and thrombin receptor agonist peptide (TRag) up‐regulated secretion of the chemokine growth‐regulated oncogene/cytokine‐induced neutrophil chemoattractant‐1 (GRO/CINC‐1) in primary rat astrocytes in a concentration‐dependent manner. However, we found no increase of interleukin (IL)‐6, IL‐1β and tumour necrosis factor‐α secretion. Protease‐activated receptor 1 (PAR‐1)‐induced GRO/CINC‐1 release was mainly mediated by c‐Jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK) activation. Extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 might be partially involved, but not p38 mitogen‐activated protein kinase. Further studies demonstrated that PAR‐1 activation, as well as application of recombinant GRO/CINC‐1, protected astrocytes from C2‐ceramide‐induced cell death. Protection occurred with suppression of cytochrome c release from mitochondria. The inhibition of cytochrome c release was largely reduced by the antagonist of chemokine receptor CXCR2, SB‐332235. Importantly, a specific JNK inhibitor significantly abolished the protective action of PAR‐1. These results demonstrate for the first time that PAR‐1 plays an important role in anti‐apoptosis in the brain by regulating the release of chemokine GRO/CINC‐1, which gives a feedback through its receptor CXCR2 to preserve astrocytes from toxic insults.


Equilibrium phase transitions may be defined as nonanalytic points of thermodynamic functions, e.g., of the canonical free energy. Given a certain physical system, it is of interest to understand which properties of the system account for the presence of a phase transition, and an understanding of these properties may lead to a deeper understanding of the physical phenomenon. One possible approach of this issue, reviewed and discussed in the present paper, is the study of topology changes in configuration space which, remarkably, are found to be related to equilibrium phase transitions in classical statistical mechanical systems. For the study of configuration space topology, one considers the subsets M_v, consisting of all points from configuration space with a potential energy per particle equal to or less than a given v. For finite systems, topology changes of M_v are intimately related to nonanalytic points of the microcanonical entropy (which, as a surprise to many, do exist). In the thermodynamic limit, a more complex relation between nonanalytic points of thermodynamic functions (i.e., phase transitions) and topology changes is observed. For some class of short-range systems, a topology change of the M_v at v=v_t was proved to be necessary for a phase transition to take place at a potential energy v_t. In contrast, phase transitions in systems with long-range interactions or in systems with non-confining potentials need not be accompanied by such a topology change. Instead, for such systems the nonanalytic point in a thermodynamic function is found to have some maximization procedure at its origin. These results may foster insight into the mechanisms which lead to the occurrence of a phase transition, and thus may help to explore the origin of this physical phenomenon.


Brunnstrom stage is widely used to evaluate the movement function of stroke patients during rehabilitation by physicians. In this paper, a new method, which is based on extreme learning machine (ELM) and the Internet technology, is proposed to realize intelligent Brunnstrom stages evaluation for upper limb movement function of stroke patients. Preliminary experiment has been conducted with movement data collected from 23 stroke patients and 4 healthy people. The experiment results show that, compared with the experienced physicians evaluation results, the accuracy of the established ELM model can reach 92.1%, which means the proposed method is helpful for physicians to remotely evaluate those stroke patients who finish rehabilitation exercises at home or community, and is helpful to solving the problem of the lack of medical resource and the high cost of inpatient rehabilitation.


The invention provides a method for detecting the sealability of a cochlear implant. The method comprises the steps of a precise leak test and an overall leak test. The precise leak test is carried out after the overall leak test. The precise leak test comprises the operation steps of punching, purification and leak detection. The overall leak test comprises the operation steps of vacuuming, purification, warming, and leak detection. Through the above method, the sealing property of products in industrial production can be simply and easily detected with low cost, and the method has the characteristics of high sensitivity, simple operation, and environmental protection.


Backstepping design is a powerful method for stabilization and tracking of strict feedback nonlinear systems which find applications in practical fields like robotics, aerospace, process control, etc. However the presence of uncertainties in system dynamics complicates the control design procedure. In recent past, high gain disturbance observer based backstepping design has received considerable attention. Due to the use of large observer gains, the closed loop system possess a time scale separation between the system dynamics and the observer dynamics. This paper analyzes the performance of high gain disturbance observer based backstepping controller using contraction framework. In doing so the steady state error bounds are obtained in terms of design parameters which can be exploited to tune the closed loop system performance. Unlike the quadratic Lyapunov based methods, the stability analysis does not require any interconnection conditions. Furthermore the convergence results are shown to hold for less conservative choice of observer gain. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is verified through simulation example.


Three MADS-box genes isolated from Monterey pine (Pinus radiata), PrMADS1, PrMADS2, and PrMADS3, are orthologs to members of the AGL2 and AGL6 gene subfamilies in Arabidopsis. These genes were expressed during early stages of pine shoot development in differentiating seed- and pollen-cone buds. Their transcripts were found within a group of cells that formed ovuliferous scale and microsporophyll primordia. Expression of PrMADS3 was also detected in a group of cells giving rise to needle primordia within differentiated vegetative buds, and in needle primordia.


There are many aspects that make a da'i popular among mad'u, one of which is rhetoric. Rhetoric is a style of conveying messages conveyed by da'i to mad'u. By conveying a good message, it will raise the dignity and degree of the da'i. This study aims to determine Ustadz Felix Siauw's rhetorical style including language style, voice style, and gesture style. The method used in this study uses a qualitative research method with a content analysis approach. The data collection technique is observing or watching videos that have been uploaded on the "Felix Siauw" YouTube channel. Then analyze the words that contain the application of language style, sound, and gestures. While the data source is the YouTube channel "Felix Siauw" itself and supporting knowledge such as books, journals, the internet or other references that discuss rhetorical style. From this study, the results showed that Ustadz Felix Siauw applied the rhetorical style very well in his lectures. First, the style of language used is more inclined to use words that are gentle, polite, do not provoke provocation, and create a peaceful atmosphere. On the other hand, the language used is firm and straightforward. Second, the rhythmic style of voice, found a flat tone when explaining history with moderate vocals so that it touches the listeners. Third, apart from the style of language and style of voice, Felix also uses the style of gestures such as the style of the body and eye gaze, the style of dress that is polite and neat, the style of facial expressions and hand movements. The results obtained from the research can be a reference for preachers to preach in spreading Islamic teachings.


This paper presents detailed description of a novel CFD procedure and comparison of its solution results to that obtained by other available CFD codes as well as actual flight and wind tunnel test data pertaining to the GIII aircraft, currently undergoing flight testing at AFRC.


BACKGROUND
Prediction of sudden cardiac death remains a significant challenge. There is some evidence that ventricular ectopic activity could be regarded as a predictive marker.

OBJECTIVES
We carried out an analysis to explore whether premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) are a risk factor in implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) interventions.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The study method was a RR interval series analysis (n = 184) of arrhythmic events and controls from the ICD. Study group consisted of patients with a mean age of 55 ±27 years; 74% of them were male, 85% were secondary prevention patients, 62% had coronary artery disease (CAD), 15% hypertropic cardiomyopathy (HCM), 15% dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and 8% diseases of other etiology. The mean follow-up time was 64 months (range: 3-126 months). The study population was divide into patients with at least 1 appropriate intervention ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation (VT/VF) (group A, n = 101) and controls without interventions (group B, n = 83). The number of PVC/4000 RR cycles, the shortest coupling intervals between a PVC and preceding R as well as the number of PVCs of very short (180-220 ms), short (220-280 ms) and different cycle lengths (CL) as well as the incidence of short-long-short (SLS) sequences were compared.

RESULTS
The number of PVCs/4000 RR cycles was significantly higher in group A (263 ±32 compared to 43 ±17, p < 0.0001). The mean shortest PVC CL was significantly shorter in group A (320 ±13 compared to 400 ±38, p = 0.029). The number of PVCs with a very short CL was 1 ±0.4 compared to 0.1 ±0.1 (p = 0.028). The number of PVCs with a short CL was 5 ±1.2 compared to 0.6 ±0.4 (p = 0.0007) in groups A and B, respectively. The incidence of SLS sequences was significantly higher in group A than in group B (67 (94% of patients) and 4 (33% of patients) respectively (p < 0.0001)).

CONCLUSIONS
Significant differences were found in the characteristics of PVCs and SLS sequences between patients with appropriate ICD interventions and controls. A newly developed basic computer program called PCRR was applied for RR interval analysis. This simple method could be a predictor of PVC burden and life-threatening arrhythmias in different populations.


Introduction: Over half of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in sustained deep molecular remission do not lose the major molecular response (MMR) after stopping treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). This strategy is safe in controlled clinical trials, but there is scarce information on its applicability in the real-life setting. We aimed to assess if treatment cessation was feasible in clinical practice in a large nationwide series of CML patients from Spain.
 Methods: This retrospective study comprised a series of 236 patients in chronic-phase CML who discontinued TKI treatment outside of clinical trials between April 2009 and February 2018 in 33 Spanish institutions. Inclusion criteria were: a) TKI treatment duration >3 years; b) sustained MR4.5 in >4 consecutive determinations (one single point in MR4 was acceptable) during >2 years; c) molecular monitoring in a reference laboratory expressing the results on the International Scale (IS). Patients who had undergone allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation were excluded. Molecular relapse was defined as consecutively detectable BCR-ABL1 transcripts showing a ≥1 log increase or loss of MMR in any single sample. Treatment-free remission (TFR) was estimated by the method of Kaplan-Meier and defined as the time from TKI discontinuation to the date of restarting therapy for any reason or, if treatment was not restarted, the date of last contact. Incidence of molecular relapse was calculated using the cumulative incidence function with resumption of TKI treatment in the absence of molecular relapse and death in MMR as competing events. Analysis of factors predicting molecular relapse was done by the method of Fine and Gray.
 Results: Table 1 shows the main characteristics of the series. Median follow-up from treatment discontinuation was 21.5 months, and 5 patients died in MMR due to CML unrelated causes. TKI therapy was reinitiated due to molecular relapse (MMR loss: n=52, increase >1 log in BCR-ABL transcript level at two consecutive assessments without losing MMR: n=12), patient preference (n=2), and severe withdrawal syndrome (n=1). One additional patient lost MMR after 20 months from treatment cessation but decided not to be retreated, with spontaneous recovery of MMR. The probability of TFR at 4 years was 64% (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 55%-72%)(Figure 1). The cumulative incidence of molecular recurrence was 33% (95% CI: 26%-38%) at 3 years (Figure 2). Forty-nine relapses (75% of total) occurred in the first 6 months. The latest MMR loss was detected 30 months after treatment stop. One patient restarted treatment 44 months after TKI discontinuation due to ≥1 log increase in BCR-ABL1 transcripts in two consecutive samples without losing MMR. In univariate analysis, duration of TKI treatment of less than 5 years (P=0.005) and time in RM4.5 shorter than 4 years before TKI discontinuation (P=0.003) were both significantly associated with a higher incidence of molecular recurrence.
 No patient progressed to the advanced phases of CML. At the time of restarting treatment, the median BCR-ABL1 IS was 0.3%, with this value being >5% in only 7 instances. Most patients (81%) received the same TKI that they were taking before the trial of treatment cessation. Median follow-up after treatment resumption was 20 months. Among the 64 patients who restarted treatment due to molecular relapse, 46 of 52 cases regained MMR after a median time of 3 months, and 47 of 64 regained MR4.5 after a median time of 5 months. Response status at last control was: MR4.5 (n=196), MR4 (n=15), MMR (n=14), complete cytogenetic response (n=10), and other (n=1).
 Fifty-one patients (22%) developed musculoskeletal or joint pain after treatment cessation. In patients stopping imatinib, a significant increase in Hb levels, leukocyte counts, total lymphocyte counts, platelet counts, and cholesterol levels was observed. At 6 months, an increase in Hb level >2 g/dL was observed in 47% of patients with anemia. By contrast, nilotinib discontinuation was not followed by any relevant change in laboratory values.
 Conclusions: Our results confirm that treatment discontinuation is feasible and safe in clinical practice in Spain. Duration of TKI treatment of less than 5 years and a time in RM4.5 shorter than 4 years before TKI discontinuation were significantly associated with a higher incidence of molecular recurrence.

 Hernandez Boluda: Incyte: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy. García Gutiérrez:Incyte: Honoraria, Research Funding; Pfizer: Honoraria, Research Funding; BMS: Honoraria, Research Funding; Novartis: Honoraria, Research Funding. Ferrer Marin:Incyte: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy, Research Funding. Cervantes:Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novartis: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau; Hospital Clinic Barcelona: Employment.


Big Data is on the horizon for many industries and the automotive is no different. Therefore is the aim of this project to explore Big Data opportunities and barriers for an automotive company, focusing on knowledge-driven product development and new services. It does so by looking at it from a Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) perspective, where opportunities and barriers are examined and compared between different divisions of the company. These three divisions are R&D, Operations and Aftermarket. The project also aims to obtain a holistic view, and discuss how these divisions interconnects and what requirements this puts on Big Data solutions. The approaches used are interviews and observations presented as case studies, where people with connection to Big Data and the automotive company gives their view on the subject. It also includes a data mining experiment where a large set of data is examined in order to get a deeper understanding of requirements and barriers for working with Big Data analytics. The project concludes that the potential for knowledge-driven product development powered by Big Data is huge. Actual data on product and user behavior can be used to make decisions on product design, errors can be detected live and shorten feedback-loops and software updates can be done wirelessly. Barriers for this are capabilities in terms of personnel skills, data quality, automatic analytic tools and traceability. Other Big Data opportunities in automotive are new services such as predictive maintenance in Operations and Aftermarket, leading to quicker identification of quality problems enabling better customer services and less quality issues in production.


The authors propose a method for computing the interframe optical flow (OF) of digitized X-ray image sequence of the heart injected with radio-opaque dye. An OF equation which allows for brightness change is presented, and it is shown that it can be solved by the theory of projections onto convex sets by assuming that: (1) the OF field varies smoothly; (2) the rate of change of brightness is proportional to the image brightness; and (3) the OF is locally linear. This approach makes it possible to determine both the interframe OF and the brightness changes due to heart motion perpendicular to the image plane. The local linearity constraint makes it possible to measure the translational, rotational, divergent, and shear components of regional wall motions. These components are measured from the flow parameters of the linear equations and an be used as a feature set to characterize normal and abnormal motion.<<ETX>>


An identification guide is provided to most of the immature stages of six mealybug species (Hemiptera: Coccoidea: Pseudococcidae) that might be collected from citrus (Rutaceae) in Australia. This information is important for foreign quarantine inspections because mealybugs intercepted on Australian citrus exports are often nymphs. A key and a table, based on microscopic features, allow separation of the first-, second- and third-instar nymphs and identification to species for second- and third-instar females. Selected diagnostic features of second-instar females are illustrated. Second-instar male nymphs also can be identified as they resemble the second-instar females of their species except for the possession of dorsal ducts that secrete the wax of the male cocoon. Immatures stages are diagnosed for the pink hibiscus mealybug Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green), the spherical mealybug Nipaecoccus viridis (Newstead), the citrus mealybug Planococcus citri (Risso), the citrophilous mealybug Pseudococcus calceolariae (Maskell), the longtailed mealybug Pseudococcus longispinus (Targioni Tozzetti), and the tuber mealybug Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret) [formerly Pseudococcus affinis (Maskell)].


Drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) is characterized by a severe multiorgan hypersensitivity reaction that usually appears after a 3–6-week exposure to certain drugs, including anticonvulsants. Many reports have revealed that human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) reactivation contributes to the development of DRESS. In addition, recent articles have shown that reactivation of other herpesviruses such as human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) might be also implicated in development of DRESS. Here we report development of the DRESS syndrome and concurrent presence of CMV viral load in a 2-year-old girl who was on phenytoin prophylaxis for febrile seizure.


This study is an examination of the impacts of affect, selfrelevant thoughts, and product attribute thoughts for high-involved and low-involved participants in positive and negative affective conditions. Results indicate that context-induced emotions exert a direct impact on brand evaluations when participants are both in positive affective states and not highly involved with the advertised product category. On the other hand, context-induced emotions, either positive or negative, exert an indirect impact on participants' brand evaluations via priming affect-congruent attribute-related thoughts when participants are highly involved with the product category. Self-relevant thoughts determine brand evaluations under all conditions except the condition in which participants are both highly involved and their affective states are negative. In addition, product attribute thoughts affect brand evaluations only when participants are highly involved. Finally, this study also shows that an interaction between context-induced emotions and self-referencing emerges under all conditions except the condition in which participants are relatively less involved and their affective states are negative. Theoretical bases for these findings were also provided.


Comparisons of surface fluxes and mean measurements are made between the EBBR, ECOR, and CO2FLX4m systems at the SGP CF from January through July 2005. The comparisons were performed for periods when wind directions generated similar flux footprints over similar land cover. Comparisons of the ECOR and EBBR systems were made for north winds (natural grass surface); comparisons of the ECOR and CO2FLX4m systems were made for south winds (nearly bare ground or corn crop). For north winds, ECOR and EBBR sensible heat flux agreed very well and ECOR latent heat flux was 30% smaller than the EBBR during daytime. For south winds, ECOR sensible heat flux was 30% larger than the CO2FLX4m and ECOR latent heat flux was 16% smaller than the CO2FLX4m during daytime. Friction velocity measured by the ECOR and CO2FLX4m was nearly identical, suggesting that similar vegetation structure was present in the fetch seen by both systems. Daytime energy balance closure was 100% for the EBBR (by definition of the technique) and was 90% for the ECOR for north winds. Daytime energy balance closure was 111% for the ECOR and 99% for the CO2FLX4m for south winds (excluding one unusual day). CO2 flux for the ECOR was slightly smaller than for the CO2FLX4m. Since the CO2 concentrations measured by the ECOR and CO2FLX4m were very similar, differences in CO2 flux may have been caused by spatial heterogeneity in the flux footprint. The ECOR system had a substantial water vapor density offset, but this did not affect the measured latent heat flux. Temperature varied significantly among the three systems. Explanations for the observed differences in the measurements by the three systems are given. The value of having tools (comparison plots on HandS) to detect data differences and to diagnose instrument problems is clearly shown by this study.


Cutoff frequency, breakdown voltage, and the transconductance of wurtzite and zincblende phase GaN MESFETs have been calculated using a self-consistent, full band Monte Carlo simulation. The effect of interface states on the device performance is modeled by including uniformly depleted regions at the device surface under the passivation layers. It is found that the drain current increases gradually with increasing drain-source voltage at the onset of breakdown for both phases. The calculated breakdown voltage for the wurtzite device is considerably higher than the breakdown voltage calculated for the zincblende device. On the other hand, the zincblende device is calculated to have higher transconductance and cutoff frequency than the wurtzite device. The higher breakdown voltage of the wurtzite phase device is attributed to the higher density of electronic states for this phase compared to the zincblende phase. The higher cutoff frequency and transconductance of the zincblende phase device is apparently due to the greater electron velocity overshoot for this phase compared to that for the wurtzite phase. The maximum cutoff frequency and transconductance of a 0.1 /spl mu/m gate-length zincblende GaN MESFET are calculated to be 220 GHz and 210 mS/mm, respectively. The corresponding quantities for the wurtzite GaN device are calculated to be 160 GHz and 158 mS/mm.


For decades, ARIES has been the standard for logging and recovery in database systems. ARIES offers important features like support for arbitrary workloads, fuzzy checkpoints, and transparent index recovery. Nevertheless, many modern in-memory database systems use more lightweight approaches that have less overhead and better multi-core scalability but only work well for the in-memory setting. Recently, a new class of high-performance storage engines has emerged, which exploit fast SSDs to achieve performance close to pure in-memory systems but also allow out-of-memory workloads. For these systems, ARIES is too slow whereas in-memory logging proposals are not applicable. In this work, we propose a new logging and recovery design that supports incremental and fuzzy checkpointing, index recovery, out-of-memory workloads, and low-latency transaction commits. Our continuous checkpointing algorithm guarantees bounded recovery time. Using per-thread logging with minimal synchronization, our implementation achieves near-linear scalability on multi-core CPUs. We implemented and evaluated these techniques in our LeanStore storage engine. For working sets that fit in main memory, we achieve performance close to that of an in-memory approach, even with logging, checkpointing, and dirty page writing enabled. For the out-of-memory scenario, we outperform a state-of-the-art ARIES implementation by a factor of two.


The spectral sensitivity exhibited by a geometrically divided differential chamber was utilized for recording the composition and purity of gamma -emitting isotopes. (R.V.J.)


OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. SERIES COVER DESIGN: Aerial view of Ulawun Volcano, New Britain. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Chalmers, Robert Oliver Occurrence, distribution, and age of Australian tektites. (Smithsonian contributions to the earth sciences ; No. 17) Supt. of Docs, no.: SI 1.26:17 Bibliography: p. 1. Tektite—Australia. I. Henderson, Edward P., joint author. II. Mason, Brian Harold, 1917— joint author. III. Title. IV. Series: Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian contributions to the earth sciences ; no. 17. no. \1 [QE399] 550'.8s [523.5'1] 75-619432


These days a significant number of research works have been carried out on various issues relating to customer relationship management. However, limited empirical studies on market orientation and performance have been established in banking sector of Ethiopia. In an effort to contribute to the existing customer relationship marketing works, a study of selected Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in Jimma Zone was conducted. A framework of customer relationship marketing was designed to guide the study and quantitative research techniques and semi-structured questionnaire were designed. In order to collect primary data, a self-completed questionnaire was designed and distributed to the customers of the banks. For the purpose of analysis, SPSS 20.0 version was used to carry out descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. Additionally, regression analysis was carried out to examine the influence or contribution of independent variables.


An optical flip‐flop with two nonlinear etalons as inverter gates was investigated. The results show that the device works well for a large coupling constant, large detuning (which lead to a high contrast and stable operation), and short feedback delay. Based on calculated results, an optical flip‐flop was constructed by coupling two optical triode switches using a nonlinear etalon and gradient‐index lenses, and successful operation was demonstrated.


This paper examines how variation in the supply of government debt affects corporate acquisition activity. Using data from 50 countries from 1991 to 2017, the paper finds that government debt issuance is strongly negatively associated with acquisition activity at the firm and aggregate levels. In response to increases in government borrowing, firms appear to make better quality deals. Importantly, these effects are stronger for cash-financed deals and for more creditworthy firms whose debt is closer substitute for government bonds. Collectively, these findings suggest that rising government debt leads to "real crowding out" by affecting firm ability to make large investments.


Background and Objective: Determining sleep quality in hemodialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients can provide valuable clinical information for planning treatment and care in this group of patients. Thus, we compared sleep quality between hemodialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 60 transplant patients and 60 hemodialysis patients were selected using convenience sampling method. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) with 89% validity and 86% reliability was used to assess patients' sleep quality.
Results: The mean PSQI score was higher in the hemodialysis group (7.78) than the kidney transplantation group (6.15). This indicates that the sleep quality in hemodialysis patients is worse than in patients after kidney transplantation (P = 0.028). The frequency of poor sleep quality in hemodialysis patients was higher than in kidney transplant patients [50(83.3%) vs. 37(61.7%)].
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that kidney transplant recipients have better sleep quality than hemodialysis patients.


Distributed Generation units are anticipated to penetrate the distribution system within the next decade. Despite the many benefits a DG can provide, there are still a lot of challenges that need to be addressed in order to fully deploy DG into the system. One of these challenges is islanding protection. Before a DG can be connected to the distribution system, it must be tested for islanded operation. The paper highlights the benefits of installing distributed generation in the distribution system and focuses on islanding operation. Simulation results describing the performance of different inverter-based DG interfacing on islanding detection are presented. It is concluded that islanding might not be possible to detect in some operational scenarios.


Voltage dips are one of the major power quality concerns that customers and distributors have to face. Furthermore, the foreseen evolution of distribution networks, the impact of liberalized energy market and the diffusion of sensitive loads will increase the importance of predictive assessment of voltage dips. Considering that voltage dips are strongly dependent on network topology, in the paper the stochastic assessment of voltage dips has been implemented into a software package for the optimal network planning so that the research of the optimal network evolution is guided by power quality constraints. Some examples of application to a real world case study complete the paper, showing the impact of voltage dips in network planning.


Strominger-Yau-Zaslow (SYZ) [27] proposed that mirror symmetry can be understood in terms of duality of special Lagrangian torus fibrations. Namely, the mirror manifold can be constructed by taking fiberwise torus dual of the original manifold, and homological mirror symmetry can be understood by a real version of Fourier-Mukai transform. Fukaya [15] proposed that the mirror transform can be realized by family Lagrangian Floer theory of fibers of the SYZ fibration, which was further studied by Tu [28, 29] and Abouzaid [1, 2]. The SYZ program has led to a series of breakthroughs in geometric understanding of mirror symmetry. Based on Kontsevich-Soibelman's theory of wall-crossing [19], Gross-Siebert developed a general reconstruction program of mirror geometries using toric degenerations [18]. Auroux [4], Chan-Lau-Leung [8] and Abouzaid-Auroux-Katzarkov [3] realized the SYZ construction using symplecto-geometric methods and computed SYZ mirrors explicitly for local Calabi-Yau geometries. Moreover, Fukaya-Oh-Ohta-Ono [16] reconstructed the mirrors of toric manifolds based on the work of Cho-Oh [13] and proved close-string mirror symmetry for their geometrically constructed mirrors. Furthermore Aganagic-Vafa [5] proposed a generalized SYZ construction of mirror conifolds which uses non-compact Lagrangians constructed from knots in place of torus fibrations. Motivated from this and the works of Seidel [22, 23] and Sheridan [24, 25] on homological mirror symmetry, Cho-Hong-Lau [11, 12] developed a generalized SYZ program using Lagrangian immersions in place of torus fibrations.


Study Design A retrospective, cross-sectional study of 213 patients who presented for abdominal computed tomography (CT) scans to assess coccygeal morphology in the Indian population. Purpose There have been relatively few studies of coccygeal morphology in the normal population and none in the Indian population. We aimed to estimate coccygeal morphometric parameters in the Indian population. Overview of Literature Coccygeal morphology has been studied in European, American, Korean, and Egyptian populations, with few differences in morphology among populations. Methods A retrospective analysis of 213 abdominal CT scans (114 males and 99 females; age, 7–88 years; mean age, 47.3 years) was performed to evaluate the number of coccygeal segments, coccyx type, sacrococcygeal and intercoccygeal fusion and subluxation, coccygeal spicules, sacrococcygeal straight length, and sacrococcygeal and intercoccygeal curvature angles. Results were analyzed for differences in morphology with respect to sex and coccyx type. Results Types I and II coccyx were the most common. Most subjects had four coccygeal vertebrae; 93 subjects (43.66%) had partial or complete sacrococcygeal fusion. Intercoccygeal fusion was common, occurring in 193 subjects. Eighteen subjects had coccygeal spicules. The mean coccygeal straight length was 33.8 mm in males and 31.5 mm in females; the mean sacrococcygeal curvature angle was 116.6° in males and 111.6° in females; the mean intercoccygeal curvature angle was 140.94° in males and 145.10° in females. Conclusions Type I was the most common coccyx type in our study, as in Egyptian and Western populations. The number of coccygeal vertebrae and prevalence of sacrococcygeal and intercoccygeal fusion in the Indian population were similar to those in the Western population. The mean coccygeal straight length and mean sacrococcygeal curvature angle were higher in males, whereas the intercoccygeal curvature angle was higher in females. Information on similarities and differences in coccygeal morphology between different ethnic populations could be useful in imaging and treating patients presenting with coccydynia.


Objective To discuss the value of color Doppler ultrasound in the diagnosis of lower extremity phlebothrombosis in cerebral infarction patients.Methods Veins of lower extremity were examined with color Doppler ultrasound in 150 cerebral infarction patients. Results In 150 cerebral infarction patients,color Doppler ultrasound detected 45.3%(68/150)cases with phlebothrombosis in lower extremity veins.Among them,29.4%cases were in acute stage,23.5%cases were in subacute stage and 52.3%cases were in chronic stage.Conclusion Color Doppler ultrasound can be used to detect the location,and stage of phlebothrombosis in lower extremity veins in cerebral infarction patients,which is valuable in clinical diagnosing and treatment.


The paper studies the art and Practice of the Learning Organization,tries to connect the theory and practice,and discusses the meaning,essential and feasibility of building a learning library in the Internet age.


This document outlines the development of a high fidelity, best estimate nuclear power plant severe transient simulation capability that will complement or enhance the integral system codes historically used for licensing and analysis of severe accidents. As with other tools in the Risk Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) Toolkit, the ultimate user of Enhanced Severe Transient Analysis and Prevention (ESTAP) capability is the plant decision-maker; the deliverable to that customer is a modern, simulation-based safety analysis capability, applicable to a much broader class of safety issues than is traditional Light Water Reactor (LWR) licensing analysis. Currently, the RISMC pathway's major emphasis is placed on developing RELAP-7, a next-generation safety analysis code, and on showing how to use RELAP-7 to analyze margin from a modern point of view: that is, by characterizing margin in terms of the probabilistic spectra of the "loads" applied to systems, structures, and components (SSCs), and the "capacity" of those SSCs to resist those loads without failing. The first objective of the ESTAP task, and the focus of one task of this effort, is to augment RELAP-7 analyses with user-selected multi-dimensional, multi-phase models of specific plant components to simulate complex phenomena that may lead to, or exacerbate,more » severe transients and core damage. Such phenomena include: coolant crossflow between PWR assemblies during a severe reactivity transient, stratified single or two-phase coolant flow in primary coolant piping, inhomogeneous mixing of emergency coolant water or boric acid with hot primary coolant, and water hammer. These are well-documented phenomena associated with plant transients but that are generally not captured in system codes. They are, however, generally limited to specific components, structures, and operating conditions. The second ESTAP task is to similarly augment a severe (post-core damage) accident integral analyses code with high fidelity simulations that would allow investigation of multi-dimensional, multi-phase containment phenomena that are only treated approximately in established codes.« less


To maximize energy use, this paper designs a lithium bromide absorption refrigeration system that is used to recycle and use low-temperature energy and industrial residual heat. Firstly, the mathematical model of the system is established using the lithium bromide aqueous solution status equation and the equation of the state of water and steam to obtain the state parameters in the thermodynamic calculation process of the system. Secondly, according to the principle of mass economy, energy saving, and heat transfer, the thermodynamic parameters of each process of the system are obtained to assist the design of the system. Finally, the influence of some key parameters on the system is simulated and analyzed to obtain the optimal parameters which can make the system recovery efficiency the highest. The simulation results show that the system conceived in this article can efficiently recycle waste gas and achieve the purpose of refrigeration. Therefore, it has a certain value of popularization.


The suitability of sorghum as carrier for Newcastle Disease (ND) V4-UPM virus vaccine for vaccination of freerange chickens was assessed by standard methods. The grain was ground rough or broken, soaked in water for three days, washed, sun-dried, coated with the virus and finally dried at room temperature. The food vaccine which was supplied to chicken owners in two different locations was fed to the birds in their natural habitat. Blood for serum was collected two weeks after each feeding event for haemagglutination inhibition (HI) assays. Samples of vaccinated and unvaccinated chickens were bought back from owners and exposed to velogenic strain of ND virus. Results showed that out of 129 birds vaccinated, 87 (67.4%) propduced detectable HI antibody with only 13 (10.1%) attaining antibody level of log2 > 3.0 regarded as protective and geometric mean titre (GMT) of 3.1 after primary vaccination. After a booster dose on 116 birds in the same flock, 95 (81.9%) seroconverted with 67 (57.8%) attaining log2 > 3.0 and GMT of 11.8. Exposure of 34 vaccinated buy-back and 25 unvaccinated (control) chickens to velogenic challenge virus led to 26 (76.5%) chickens and 4 control birds (16.0%) surviving respectively. Sorghum, if adequately treated could be a suitable carrier for thermostable ND vaccines, and as dried food vaccine, it could have good shelf life at room temperature.


This paper investigates how the structure of the flow field and the vertical distribution of the pollutant concentration near the wall facades of street canyons are affected by the presence of some elements such as street level galleries. Numerical results are presented for various gallery geometries in combination with facade roughness elements (balconies) for a canyon of an aspect ratio equal to h/w=2.33. The results were obtained by a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation employing the ANSYS-FLUENT suite that incorporated the k-e turbulent (RNG) model. The simulation generated several flow structures inside the canyon (mainly vortices), whose characteristic properties (e.g. number, strength and size) are discussed in terms of the effect of the galleries on the flow field structure and the roughness generated by the building facade balconies. The results indicate a significant influence on both the flow field structure and the mass concentration distribution of the polluting particles.


future with traditions," was the slogan the indigenous movement popularized during " A. the 1992 Quincentennial, the 500th anniversary of Europe's discovery of the Americas. The slogan was a sign that even as indigenous peoples were turning to tradition, to the past, as a means of "re/membering" themselves as viable cultures and peoples, they were also looking to information technology--computers, e-mail and then-embryonic forms of the Internet-as a tool to help eliminate rampant racism, persistent injustice and the economic marginalization of indigenous peoples. The decentralized links and networks that could be forged via these technologies were seen as furthering democratization and the formation of new, less homogenized or essentialized indigenous identities. In 1994, Subcommandante Marcos issued the first messages about the Zapatista uprising via e-mail, and Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes dubbed it "the first postmodern revolution."l In the following years, indigenous peoples lobbied for technological aid in Europe, the United States and Canada. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) responded with dona-