As the most abundant catecholamine neurotransmitter in the brain, dopamine plays an important role in the normal physiological process, and its level in urine also changes during human pathological processes. In clinic, the detection of dopamine in urine is a potential marker for the diagnosis and the treatment of endocrine-related diseases. In this work, a copper metal organic framework with catecholase-like activity was prepared via the precipitation of Cu2+ and imidazole, simulating the N-Cu coordination environment in the active site of catecholase. Cu-MOF (the copper–metal organic framework) can catalyze the oxidation of DA (dopamine) to dopaquinone using O2 in the air. The oxidation product can further react with 1,3-dihydroxynaphthalene to produce a fluorophore product. Based on the above reaction, a multimodal sensing platform with three signal outputs, including ratio-metric fluorescence, absorbance and digital information extracted from smartphone images for simple and sensitive determination of DA, was proposed, with detection limits of 0.0679, 0.3206, and 0.3718 μM, respectively. This multimodal sensing platform was able to detect DA in body fluid in a self-correcting way, as demonstrated by the successful determination of DA in normal human urine samples, and samples with a high level of interference.


The concept of sustainable development is with us since about two decades. Declarations have been signed, strategies have been drafted, conferences and workshops have been held. It is fair to ask now: What has happened on the ground? How far has sustainable development been implemented? Therefore, the focus of this paper is to analyse the practical implications of sustainable development policy-making in Europe. In so doing, we will concentrate on one particular level of policy-making: the European regions.


Over the past 20 years,most domestic and international water industry and other enterprises have chosen frequency control technology to achieve energy-saving in process flow,which is the mainstream and also the theme. What functions inverter should have so that we can say it's safe and reliable environment-protecting driving device. How can a modern water industry network's integrated automation supervisory system,supervisor control functional standards and function safety standards be designed synchronously. This is the second theme that must be resolved in engineering construction today. The elementary countermeasures to the problem according to the solution ideas of the two themes are presented. It is helpful,that colleagues and intellects all come to study the scientific and Technical solutions of these two major themes,and complete the 11th Five-Year Plan construction tasks in all industries more,faster,better and cheaper.


The comparison of HPLC and spectrophotometry methods for detecting artesunate was carried out.The results showed that the linear rang of artemisinin was 5~50 μg/mL(R2=0.999 2) in HPLC,and 5~100 μg/mL(R2=0.996 7) in spectrophotometry.Both methods for determining the content in artesunate in artesunate-nanoemulsion showed no significant difference.Spectrophotometry was suitable for the detection of sample with low impurity,HPLC was used for complex sample.


Owing to their potential use as materials for strong optical rotation, circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence, the structure and energetic stability of novel closed- and open-circ ...


An accurate and economical eight-node quadrilateral membrane element based on stress assumptions is presented. It is shown that this element offers distinct advantages over other available membranes.


Abstract : This thesis seeks to determine if US Army Defense Artillery (ADA) units positioned in a belt defense perform better than the point defense that the US Army currently uses. It does this through a comparison of three ADA defense strategies: (1) Forward Concentration (belt defense); (2) Balanced Concentration (point defense); and (3) Rear Area Concentration (point defense). The Joint Theater Level Simulation, a computer combat simulation model, is used as a tool for analysis to compare the three strategies in a Fulda Gap scenario against a variety of Soviet attack options. The JTLS model is used because of its ability to simulate large forces and also to demonstrate the value of JTLS as an analytical tool, in addition to a training and evaluation tool. Using the following measures of effectiveness: Soviet airplanes shot down by US ADA, percentage of successful Soviet bombing missions, and number of US ground- targets destroyed, the forward concentration defense proves to have a significant advantage over the other two strategies, regardless of the weighting of the measures of effectiveness.


The aim of this study was to describe the clinical and computed tomography (CT) features of gastric inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour (IMT) in adult patients and provide a review of the literature.


Nurses as professionals of health, childhood education teachers, social workers and caregivers, join a group of "feminine professions" which grew through policies of a welfare state in postwar constructive period, or in times of postwar accords (Jones, 1983). These professions are under challenge because of neoliberal policies and practices in the 21st century. In the paper, we want to give lights to the contradictory situations nurses face, as workers and as care keepers. Nurses, suffer of a combination of public and private functions, at work, at home, and when caring family relatives. The way women feel about their role as professionals, and as women and workers, is illuminative, as we enquired in a funded research developed with nurses in the community of Navarra, Spain, first from 1993 to 1996, and next, checking a continuity each ten years, 2006 and next 2016.


It is shown that crystallization of the main phases in cast iron happens on the dendritic mechanism. The main phases when hardening cast iron are dendrites of austenite, graphite and a cementite. Thermodynamic it is established that spherical graphite represents strongly branched compact dendrite with a sectorial and layered structure.


Anemia is a common problem in patients with advanced cancer. While the etiology of anemia in cancer patients is often multifactorial, blunted erythropoietin response to anemia is considered one of the most important contributing factors in newly diagnosed cancer patients.2 Treatment with chemotherapy or radiotherapy or both contributes to the magnitude of anemia, which results in decreased functional capacity and quality of life. Because the efficacy of radiation therapy depends on adequate tissue oxygenation at the time of irradiation, there is continued interest in the relationship between anemia and the response to radiation therapy.


Short-time behavior of coupling Richards and Saint-Venant equations to describe the advance phase in border irrigation has been studied. Particularly, the evolution in time of the friction force has been established. At the same time, the hydraulic resistance power laws used to couple the above-mentioned equations are also analyzed. The fractal hydraulic resistance law developed by Fuentes (1992, 1994) and used by Fuentes and Vauclin (7994) in surface irrigation has been deeply analyzed. The main characteristic of this law is that the power of the friction slope (d) and the hydraulic radii (b) are related through b=3d-1 and d=D/3, where D is a mass fractal dimension (Mandelbrot, 1983). This law includes particular cases, such as the Poiseuille and Chezy extreme laws, the Hazen-Williams law, and the Prandtl-Blasius law. The very short time analysis lead to conclude that the hydraulic resistance fractal law can be adapted to a big family of irrigation flow functions imposed as boundary condition at the head of the border. Hydraulic resistance power  law with independent d and b, which includes the Manning-Strickler law, has also been studied. It has been shown that this law is only applicable to the coupling for a very limited family of irrigation flow functions; it is not applicable in the particular important case when irrigation flow is constant. If this law is applied, its parameters depend upon the boundary conditions, and implies that the evolution of the applied irrigation water depth in very short times depends on the  irrigation flow, which is opposite to the result obtained through the Richards equation, where this evolution is independent of the irrigation flow. This law should not be applied in the coupling of the Saint-Venant and Richards equations in surface irrigation. In others words, the power law to be used in the coupling of these equations is the hydraulic resistance fractal law.


This study briefly examined the process how the evaluative perspective of '5 · 4' developed in the discourse of Chinese Revolution and discussed how '5 · 4' and 'the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution(GPCR)' became a mutually regulating system of political symbolism for China's history of revolutions in the 20th Century and the underlying logic. The purpose of the study was to suggest why it is necessary to critically reconsider the logic underlying the narrative of China's revolutions in the 20th Century. The 'narrative of enlightenment' in the 80s where the complicated process of historical development was reenacted under an exclusively dualized structure of '5 · 4 vs. the GPCR' was a kind of symbolic reenactment of history. This 'narrative of enlightenment' attempted to arrange 'enlightenment' and 'the GPCR' in a row and resolve all ideological chances of the GPCR through the value of enlightenment. Considering the modernity of Chinese socialism, the GPCR implied a modern political factor of 'rebel of the masses (Zaofan, 造反)' which had not been found in the another socialist history. In a meaning, therefore, the GPCR was already the greatest enlightenment. Likewise, the radicalism of the GPCR attempted to remove the values of enlightenment and cultural innovation underlying the 5 · 4 Movement through 'the discourse of Youth Day,' but once they are removed, the modernity of Chinese socialism had to be an empty shell. The primary issue encountered by the study of Chinese contemporary literature today is the limitation of the 'narrative of enlightenment' in the 80s. However, the root of the 'narrative of the 80s' reaches out to the narrative of the time of the GPCR. Therefore, overcoming the narrative of the 80s can essentially be achieved only when the core issues of the GPCR are reinterpreted and reflected upon in the context of the present day. This is a more essential issue of the Chinese intellectual history. What is required first to resolve these ideological assignments would be a critical awareness and dissolution of the symbolism of '5 · 4 vs. the GPCR' that is secretly working in the isolated and exclusive description of the Great Cultural Revolution and the 80s.


Traditional approaches to validation and verification of KBS aim at investigating properties of a KBS which are independent of the particular task of the KBS, and are phrased in terms of the implementation language of the final system. In contrast to this, we propose an approach to validation and verification of KBS which exploits task-specific properties of a KBS, and which is based on an implementation-independent conceptual model of the system. We illustrate our approach by investigating the task-specific properties of a conceptual model for a wide class of diagnostic systems.


Probabilistic programing is an emerging field at the intersection of statistical learning and programming languages. An appealing property of probabilistic programming languages (PPL) is their support for constructing arbitrary probability distributions. This allows one to model many different domains and solve a variety of problems. We show the link between probabilistic planning and PPLs by introducing a translation that allows one to map probabilistic planning problems onto parameter learning in PPLs. The advantage of our approach is twofold. Firstly, having the expressivity of a programming language simplifies modeling compared to using existing planning languages such as PPDDL. Secondly, there exist effective general-purpose learning algorithms that - having the correct encoding - can readily be used to learn optimal policies. In this paper we use ProbLog - a probabilistic version of Prolog - as programming language, but our approach can be applied on any other PPL as well.


High biodiversity is the most remarkable characteristic of Lake Tanganyika including vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. A few protected areas have been created along the lake to protect its biodiversity. However, limited studies have been carried out to ascertain their effectiveness. The current study aimed at assessing and comparing fish diversity and abundance of Lake Tanganyika in a protected area (Mahale Mountains National Park (MMNP)) and unprotected areas surrounding it. The data were collected in the near shore zone at 5 m and 10 m depths using stationary visual census (SVC) technique. The protected area recorded higher fish richness and abundance than unprotected areas (). It was concluded that the protected area is effective in conserving the fish diversity and abundance of the lake. However, more studies should be carried out regularly to explore the efficacy of the protected area in conservation of aquatic biodiversity and abundance.


The promises offered by industrial product-service systems for lasting customer retention and long-term revenue streams are well known. Scientific research in this field is vital and new approaches are offered continuously. However, the industrial application of these approaches is still sparse. A reason for this is a lack of scientific work on bridging the gap between common understanding and the product-service paradigm shift. As a consequence the advantages of newly developed methods and models are underestimated by industry. This paper tries to bridge the aforementioned gap in the context of the early development of IPS. by using an industrial use-case for a comparison of traditional and new understanding of terms like concept, business model, service and product. As a result a system theoretical description of an IPS. in the early development stages is provided.


This paper suggests a simple newnumerical scheme for calculating the vertical velocity profile, turbulent shear stress distribution, and canopy deflection for flow in vegetated channels. The scheme is derived from the simplified, steady Reynolds equation (momentum balance) and its vertical integration. This study includes an experiment that compares and calibrates the numerical model to flume data. Fourteen runs were performed in a laboratory flume, of which nine involved natural grass (cultivated barley) and five involved plastic plants (PVC). Turbulent diffusion coefficient, mixing length, and a resistance equation (drag coefficient Cd vs. Reynolds number) were the input parameters for the numerical model. Parameters with physical meaning were calibrated. This scheme offers a low computation time and good estimation of plant deflection and velocity and stress profiles


Dualistic properties of a gradient flow on a manifold $M$ associated with a dualistic structure $(g, \nabla, \nabla^{*})$ is studied from an information geometrical viewpoint. Statistical significance of the gradient flow is also investigated.


Catch-up-Classes (CuCs) and Accelerated Learning Programmes (ALPs) are educational strategies aimed to compress years of formal education into a reduced span of time. These programmes are specifically targeted for young people (ages 10-24) who have had to abandon school due to situations of conflict or natural disasters and aim to "catch-up" students so that they may once again re-enter formal schooling. This article presents conclusions from an evaluation of a CuC programme implemented in Burundi by an International Non Governmental Organisation. It analyses three main constraints that were observed during the course of the study: 1) the lack of livelihood strategies for out-of-school youth; 2) the lack of a preliminary analysis of national educational needs in terms of demand (schools) and supply (students); and 3) the fragile economic and social sustainability of the CuC programme. Using these observations as a basis, the article calls for the debate to further identify the educational contexts in which CuC/ALP strategies can be most appropriate.


Abstract— Cyclosporin was administered (6 mg kg−1, i.v.) over 15 min, or (10 mg kg−1) by gavage, to two groups of 5 rats. Following i.v. infusion, cyclosporin exhibited triphasic behaviour with mean ± s.e.m. disposition half‐lives of 9·0 ± 1·3 min, 4·0 ± 0·5 h and 16·0 ± 1·7 h. Following oral administration, peak blood concentration (Cmax) of 1290 ± 93 ng mL−1 was reached after 5 h, when cyclosporin absorption essentially ceased. The absolute bioavailability (F) of cyclosporin was 24·0%. Standard laboratory rat chow consisting of 2% corn oil did not appear to alter cyclosporin absorption kinetics.


This paper presents a multi-offspring genetic algorithm (MGA) with two-point crossover in accordance with biology and mathematical ecological theory. For the MGA, the main existing problems are generation methods of multi-offsprings with different crossover methods, the best number of offsprings and the influence of the number of offsprings on the speed of computation. To solve these problems, the paper first studies the relationship between the number of offsprings and the computational speed of the MGA with two-point crossover. Furthermore, the relationship between the generation method of multi-offsprings, the number of offsprings and the computational speed is analyzed. The results with ten test functions show that when the number of offsprings generated by the MGA based on two-point crossover equals 6, the MGA with two-point crossover has significantly improved the computational speed and reduced the number of iterations as compared to the basic genetic algorithm (BGA) and the MGA of single-point crossover.


Health means ability of the individuals or communities to adapt and self-manage when facing physical, mental, psychological and social changes with environment. World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity". Generally, in context an individual lives are of great importance for both his health status and quality of their life. It is increasingly recognized that health is maintained and improved not only through the advancement and application of health science, but also through the efforts and intelligent lifestyle choices of the individual and society, The goal was identified the issues of acceptability and management issues of the scheme among stakeholders in an effort to make RSBY more efficient and effective for all the stakeholders involved. The performance of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and to measure the impact on the health status of the society in Kottayam with special reference to Kottayam Municipality. This study covers 120 beneficiaries of RSBY in Kottayam Municipality. The respondents have been selected among BPL families. The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana attempts to insure poor people against shocks from a low level of healthcare security. In the absence of any such security, the vulnerability of people living at the margins


The Grand Chinese Dictionary is affluent in gathering Chinese words and its high quality is widely recognized by academe.However,because of the vast and numerous lemma and the draggled compiling means,there are many shortages on explanations of words in it.For example,the incorrect explanation,the incomplete lexical item,losing the felicitousness on separating and uniting the items,overturning or making wrong on the headstream of word.


Causal effects are usually studied in terms of the means of counterfactual distributions, which may be insufficient in many scenarios. Given a class of densities known up to normalizing constants, we propose to model counterfactual distributions by minimizing kernel Stein discrepancies in a doubly robust manner. This enables the estimation of counterfactuals over large classes of distributions while exploiting the desired double robustness. We present a theoretical analysis of the proposed estimator, providing sufficient conditions for consistency and asymptotic normality, as well as an examination of its empirical performance.


This article illuminates the relation among Engineering Thermodynamics , Heat transference, and Engineering Fluid Mechanics, which are three basic technical courses for thermal power engineering specialty in technical colleges. Also, the integration of teaching content is propounded for the three basic courses.


An on-chip dual-polarized antenna consisting of a combination of a fractal and a slot bowtie antenna is presented. Therefore, a fractal bowtie antenna is extended by two symmetrically placed slot antennas. This antenna is designed for the frequency range from 145GHz to 165GHz. It has been taped out successfully in the IHP SG13 process.


Introduction: Rates of tPA administration remain low nationally and globally despite its demonstrated efficacy. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions to increase the rate of tPA administration.

Methods: We searched PubMed and EMBASE to identify all studies (excluding case reports) published between 1995 and January 8, 2015 documenting interventions to increase the utilization of tPA. We screened each study with pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Design elements and study data were extracted from eligible studies. The principal summary measure was the percentage change in rate of tPA administration. Fixed and random effects meta-analytic models were built to summarize the effect of intervention compared to control as well as intervention subtypes.

Results: Our search yielded 1457 results of which 25 met eligibility criteria. We identified 13 pre-post studies and 11 randomized or quasi-experimental studies. Included studies utilized EMS (n=14), telemedicine (n=6), and public education (n=5). Intervention settings included urban (n=13), rural (n=4), and combined (n=4). In a fixed effect model, tPA administration was significantly higher in the intervention arm across all studies that limited enrollment to ischemic stroke patients (n=14) with a risk ratio (RR) of 1.71. Interventions involving EMS were associated with an increased rate of tPA administration with a RR of 1.51, (95% CI: 1.43-1.59, p<0.0001); promoting public education RR = 2.62, (95% CI: 1.54-4.43, p<0.01); and utilizing telemedicine RR = 2.97, (95% CI: 2.61-3.39, p<0.0001).

Conclusions: Interventions to increase tPA use appear to have considerable efficacy. Comparative inferences between intervention types are limited by small sample size and intervention heterogeneity.

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In Dr Pierre Kalck's valuable attempt to reassess the Gaoga references in Leo Africanus, there are several points that can perhaps be commented on. As we understand Dr Kalck's thesis, Gaoga is to be located in the Dar Fur/Chad region, being a kingdom established there by Christian Nubian refugees, with whom the present-day Kouka of Chad are to be connected, in the fifteenth century. Leo passed through this kingdom of Gaoga about 1512-14 on his way to Egypt via the famous darb al-arbaHn. The traditions on the history of Dar Fur, as collected by the nineteenthcentury travellers and by Sudan Condominium government officials in the twentieth century, assert that three dynasties, Daju, Tunjur and Keira (Fur) ruled successively in Dar Fur. These traditions, admittedly late, provide no support for the location of Gaoga in Dar Fur. The evidence for a Christian Nubian presence in Dar Fur is ambiguous. Two groups in Dar Fur, the Meidob in the north-east and the Birged in the southeast, speak or spoke in recent times languages of the Nubian language group, and the Meidob maintain traditions of migration from the Nile valley, but the linguistic evidence, although scanty, seems to be sufficient to establish that the division between Meidob and Nile Nubian long antedated the sixteenth century. Nor is the archaeological evidence as secure as it might appear from Dr Kalck's article, since there is some doubt as to whether the crucial Christian Nubian potsherds actually came from Ayn Farah. A more recent examination of Ayn Farah in 1963 revealed no more such potsherds and a plan then made of the 'mosque' strongly suggests that it is a mosque and not a church. In fact, more certain evidence for a Christian Nubian connexion with the west may be found in the discovery of Christian Nubian potsherds, dated roughly to A.D. iooo, at sites in the Chad Bahr al-Ghazal. Leo is said to have travelled to Egypt from Gaoga via the darb al-arbaHn, but the first certain reference to this difficult route known to the present writers,


A formulation based on the method of moments (MoM) is presented for active and parasitic wire radiators in the presence of dielectric bodies of revolution (DBOR/Wire). The formulation is general in that the wire radiators may be interior or exterior to the dielectric body of revolution (DBOR). This work is in essence an extension of techniques presented for the MoM solution of wire radiators in the presence of conducting bodies of revolution. The utility of the MoM has been expanded in the sense that the antenna engineer now has at his disposal a design tool which may accurately predict the input impedance of DBOR/Wire radiators. The validity of this technique is established by analyzing a dielectric resonator antenna and comparing the results of the DBOR/Wire formulation with those obtained by other techniques.<<ETX>>


The work of converting the undeveloped forest resources of the Lake States into usable forms absorbed the energies of thousands of individual entrepreneurs. Their combined activity was scarcely able to meet the insatiable demand from the growing number of settlements that dotted the Midwestern prairies and from villages throughout the nation that were growing into towns or mushrooming into major cities. A universal building material was indispensable during a time of rapid economic expansion. Moreover, in the prevailing Age of Wood, white pine lumber, of the finest quality and incredibly low in price, was fortuitously available in abundance.


The present invention relates generally to new binding molecules to cell activation antigen and the bispecific t redirect to specific target cells. Furthermore, the present invention relates to polynucleotides encoding such binding molecules bispecific antigen, and vectors and host cells comprising such polynucleotides. the invention further relates to methods for the production of bispecific binding molecules of the antigen of the invention, and methods of using such bispecific binding molecules to the antigen in the treatment of diseases.


Scholars generally assume that Olympian 1, 1 – 7 and Bacchylides 3, 85 – 87 contain priamels. I argue that these passages do not contain priamels. I suggest that we have thought that these passages contain priamels because we have not recognized Pindar's and Bacchylides' metaphorical language. At Bacchylides 3, 85 – 87, Bacchylides caps Olympian 1, 1 – 7, while making the argument with Hieron, the patron of both Olympian 1 and Bacchylides 3, that Bacchylides is a better poet than Pindar.


Data are presented on the inductance of various features used in superconductor digital integrated circuits: microstrip and stripline inductors with linewidths down to 120 nm and different combinations of ground plane layers, effect of perforations of various sizes in the ground planes and their distance to the inductors on inductance, inductance of vias of various sizes between adjacent layers, inductance of composite vias between distant superconducting layers. Test circuits used for the measurements were fabricated in a new 150 nm node of a fully planarized process with eight niobium layers developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory for superconductor electronics as well as in our standard SFQ5ee and SC1 fabrication processes with 250 nm minimum feature size. The new SC2 process utilizes 193 nm photolithography in combination with plasma etching and chemical mechanical planarization of interlayer dielectrics to define inductors with linewidth down to about 100 nm on critical layers. The standard processes use 248 nm photolithography. The measured data are compared with the results of inductance extraction using software packages InductEx and wxLC. Variations of circuit inductors caused by the fabrication processes are discussed. Magnetic flux trapping in ground plane moats and its coupling to nearby inductors are discussed for circuit cooling in a residual field of several configurations.


Thirty-seven patients with risk factors for the development of cerebrovascular diseases had sudden onset isolated third nerve palsy and abnormal masseter reflex and/or electro-oculographic findings indicating a causative midbrain lesion. Improvement or recovery of the third nerve palsies was accompanied by improvement or recovery of the abnormal electrophysiologic findings pointing to their functional significance. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 29 of these patients demonstrated corresponding ischemic midbrain lesions in eight, ipsilateral in five patients, bilateral in three. In another three patients with MRI proven midbrain lesions (ipsilateral in two, bilateral in one) electrophysiological examinations were normal. Computer assisted tomography in 27 patients showed no brainstem lesion.


On 5 August 2015, the United States (US) Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented rules which state that in future US companies will be required to disclose the pay ratio between the Chief Executive Officer's (CEO) total compensation and the median of all other employees' total compensation (SEC Press Release 2015-160). This new requirement has been met with mixed views with some pundits saying that this will ultimately lead to a lowering of the wage gap whereas others believe that it is a number which means nothing without context.


This paper analyzes the potential impact of social entrepreneurship, and especially microfinance, on development in Africa. Social entrepreneurship could play an important role in development. However, social entrepreneurship has limited potential for structural transformation and poverty alleviation, which calls into question the recent prioritization of social entrepreneurship. Furthermore, social entrepreneurship can undermine support for state-led development and democratic reforms that are the preconditions necessary for structural transformation and long-term, large-scale development. Thus, social entrepreneurship is best seen as a useful microeconomic strategy that can contribute to development in small ways, but that cannot possibly replace a democratic developmental state.


The most rational distribution of the net income of society and the money accumulations of the socialist economy as a whole is essential for successful fulfillment of the new five-year plan. In the five-year period the accumulations will increase more than 50%, as compared to a 30% increase in the preceding five years. It is characteristic that money accumulations increase faster than the national income. This is quite natural when labor productivity rises faster than wages, and social consumption funds occupy an increasingly important place in satisfying the requirements of the members of society.


Variable bit rate (VBR) video traffic makes crucial impact on ATM network performance, design and management due to its wide bandwidth, high burstiness and strong correlation. Previous studies focus on the bandwidth distribution and autocorrelation of VBR video sources. We investigate the importance of the multiple correlation of VBR video traffic in ATM buffering systems. We choose two models to generate VBR video traffic, one is auto-regressive (AR) model, and the other is discrete auto-regressive (DAR) model. The two models have same bandwidth distribution and auto-correlation but different multiple correlation. Numerical experiments are taken to compare the queuing performance of a finite ATM buffer loaded with AR, DAR sources. Results show (1) cell loss rate (CLR) of those two input sources are very closely when CLR is large; (2) the error between them becomes more evident as CLR decreases; (3) this error becomes non- negligible when CLR less than 10-5 (occurs in ATM practice). Our study shows that the multiple correlation of VBR video traffic take an important impact on queuing performance in realistic network applications, which must be taken account of to model VBR video sources and perform more reliable queuing analysis.


Agile software development is known by focusing on interaction among team members to share knowledge. However, little guidance is provided to encourage interaction across agile teams. Based on a preliminary conceptual model, this paper examines influencing factors, such as organizational strategy, and communication flow and channels, regarding inter-team knowledge sharing (KS) effectiveness in agile environments. We analyze the characteristics and the influence of the mentioned factors through a survey research method. Data was gathered from seven Brazilian agile software organizations. We employed statistical analysis techniques, e.g., structural equation modeling and cross-table analysis, to analyze the results. Within the surveyed companies, organizational strategy reflects on moderate commitment towards knowledge. KS practices are carried out to an acceptable standard. Extensive communication flow and the use of several channels denote that agile companies are also fostering interaction across teams. We found strong relationship between these factors and the companies' experience on agile methods. As companies continue on an agile adoption program, they growingly focus on long-term goals and consider knowledge as strategic resource. However, they still need to improve strategy alignment to all organization levels. Thus, we recommend that agile companies consider these factors when striving on this endeavor.


Extracted from text ... 4
SA Fam Pract 2006:48(5)
Letters to the Edit
Letters to the Editor
Percentage and profile of hypertensives among people aged 20 to 40 years attending a medical clinic in Pudimoe
To the editor: The increase in hypertensive patients in black South Africans has partly been attributed to urbanization and informal settlement.1 Recently one study has found an association between low birth weight and fetal growth retardation with the risk of elevated blood pressure and hypertension in adulthood, with particular reference to Africa.2, 3
Hypertension as a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases need proper treatment and control to lessen conditions ..


This study examined the determinants of trust in artificial intelligence (AI) in the area of asset management. Many studies of risk perception have found that value similarity determines trust in risk managers. Some studies have demonstrated that value similarity also influences trust in AI. AI is currently employed in a diverse range of domains, including asset management. However, little is known about the factors that influence trust in asset management-related AI. We developed an investment game and examined whether shared investing strategy with an AI advisor increased the participants' trust in the AI. In this study, questionnaire data were analyzed (n=101), and it was revealed that shared investing strategy had no significant effect on the participants' trust in AI. In addition, it had no effect on behavioral trust. Perceived ability had significantly positive effects on both subjective and behavioral trust. This paper also discusses the empirical implications of the findings.


OBJECTIVE To investigate the drug resistance of extended-spectrum β-lactamases(ESBLs) producing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae,providing evidence for the clinical rational administration of antimicrobial drugs.METHODS Using Microscan WalkAway40 S1 system and special plate NC21,ESBLs-producing E.coli and K.pneumoniae were detected from clinic specimens and drug sensitivity tests were carried out.RESULTS Among 341 isolates,150 strains(43.99%) were isolated producing ESBLs,with 49.79%(118/237) of E.coli and 30.77%(32/104) of K.pneumoniae.ESBLs-producing bacteria showed high resistance to a great number of antimicrobial drugs,and relatively low resistance to imipenem,piperacillin/tazobactam,amikacin and cefoxitin.CONCLUSIONS Detection of ESBLs prodution and susceptibility to antibiotics,in time can provide guidance to rational clinical administration of drugs.The imipenem,piperacillin/tazobactam,amikacin and cefoxitin could be effectively used in treatment of ESBLs-producing bacteria infectioons cases.


Recent reports have suggested that elevations of serum dopamine-B-hydroxylase (DBH) activity may correlate with diagnosis in neuroblastoma patients excreting vanillylmandelic acid (VMA). We have serially studied serum DBH and urinary homovanillic acid (HVA) and VMA excretion during the disease course of five patients with neuroblastoma. DBH activities did not indicate clinical course, therapies, or prognosis. Dilution studies revealed an age-related alteration in DBH effectors and they suggest that these may be different in neuroblastoma.


Abstract A simulation model of enforcement of the federal new source fly ash standard for coal-fired power plants indicates the standard is likely to be frequently violated. This is partly due to a pollution control device certification test which allows the average of as few as three tests to be used as an indicator of compliance. In accordance with the central limit theorem, this can lead to selection of inadequate control devices. Enforcement systems must account for the stochastic properties of pollution control devices and the implications of certification test sampling procedures for firm behavior if effective enforcement is to be achieved.


Child advertising regulations, including both self-regulation and co-regulation, have been presented as possible interventions to improve the food environment at home, thus helping to curb the increasing occurrence of food-related diseases, especially those related to obesity. In this research, we explore the effect of TV advertising regulations on the interaction between household members, specifically, on pocket money allocations. Using a time series approach, we find that co-regulation, as opposed to self-regulation, leads to significant reductions in pocket money allocations. However, through quantile regression, we show that the actual policy effect highly depends on the extent of a household's pocket money allocations.


This essay explores a mode of performativity in Victorian fiction that viewed class dualistically—as a regulative hierarchy constituted by self-fashioning actors. "Reverse slumming" designates a mode of middle- or lower-middle-class performance that mimics upper-class behaviors so as to reaffirm social hierarchy in the very process of denaturalizing it. This cross-class performativity reconciled politically progressive mid-century notions about social circulation and inclusiveness with ideals of organic community. Critics tend to assume that organicism was a reactionary appeal to pre-industrial paternalism, but by examining reverse slumming in works by Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, this essay argues that performative conceptions of class enabled Victorian novelists to transform organicism into a moderately progressive vision.


The multipactor (MP) is a well-known phenomenon. The existence of resonant trajectories can lead to electron avalanche under certain field levels and surface conditions, and can limit the performance of high power superconducting (SC) radio-frequency (RF) devices. In this paper we describe features of the ANALYST particle tracking code PT3P developed for MP simulations in real 3D RF structures, such as cavities, couplers, RF windows etc. Also we present the results of MP simulations in HOM couplers of TESLA, SNS and FNAL 3rd harmonic cavities. We discuss the comparison of simulations with experimental results.


The manuscript presents measurements of refractory black carbon (rBC) mass and number loadings along with derived rBC mixing state properties (e.g., fraction of thickly coated rBC particles and coating thickness) for three events (air masses) that were encountered at a sampling station located Catalina Island (CA). The measurement campaign itself can best be described as a measurement opportunity. Emission sources were identified using HYSPLIT backtrajectory analysis coupled with inputs from the GDAS (Global Data Assimilation System) and HRRR (High-resolution Rapid Refresh) meteorological databases. Analysis was further augmented with data from local weather stations, local news reports, NASA MODIS (Aqua/Terra) imagery, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for spatial and temporal ex-C1 tents of sampled wildfire plumes. Armed with these datastreams the authors report on the correlation of rBC mass/number loadings and derived mixing state properties with emission source and estimated plume age. Examples of findings include the wildfire named "Camp Fire" that was ascribed as being responsible for a sample plume made of up thickly-coated rBC particles that were nominally a week old and slightly thinner coated particles (i.e., 36 nm and less) were ascribed to urban Los Angeles emissions. The authors also attribute biomass burning as a contributing source to rBC particles that were found to have a coating thickness ∼ 10 nm and were about a day old. While this work is highly-focused, it contains useful observations on rBC mass loading and mixing state that are of value to the community and thus should be published. How-ever, this reviewer has profound reservations regarding three areas in this manuscript: (i) source attribution and estimated plume age; (ii) the research team's use of


Ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphate and treble superphosphate fertilizers placed in a band with seeds of wheat, oats, barley, flax and rape were found to delay and/or reduce emergence. Order of tolerance of these crops was oats > barley > wheat >> rape > flax. The nitrogen fertilizer was more injurious than the two phosphate fertilizers, when applied on the basis of N and P2O5 content, respectively. Injury to emergence increased with lower soil temperature. This effect was greatest with treble superphosphate and was only slight with ammonium nitrate. Injury to emergence increased with lower soil moisture content. This effect was very marked with ammonium nitrate but was less with treble superphosphate. For wheat, oats and barley, delay in emergence was more pronounced than reduction. However, for flax and rape relatively light applications of fertilizers both delayed and reduced emergence and exposure of seeds to fertilizer in soils of low moisture content rapidly reduced ability to germinate. Damage to ...


Recently developed buckling-guided assembly methods provide a unique route to the design and manufacture of 3D mesostructures and microelectronic devices with superior performances and unusual functions. Combined with loading-path controlled strategies and/or active materials designs, reconfigurable 3D mesostructures with multiple stable 3D geometries can be formed, with promising applications in tunable antennas and multimodal actuators. The existing strategies are, however, limited by the applicable range of material types or requirements for switching between various complicated loading paths. Here, we present an electroadhesion-mediated strategy to achieve controlled adhesion of the 3D mesostructure to the substrate during the buckling-guided assembly. This strategy allows an active control of the delamination behavior in the film/substrate system, such that a variety of reconfigurable 3D mesostructures can be accessed by designing the electrode layout and strain-dependent voltage. An electromechanical model is developed to capture the delamination behavior of the film/substrate system under combined compression and voltage loadings, which is in excellent agreements with experimental measurements. Based on this model, an equivalent interface energy is proposed to quantify the contributions of the electroadhesion and van der Waals' interactions, which also facilitates simulations of the interface delamination with cohesive models in finite element analyses (FEA). Furthermore, a variety of reconfigurable 3D mesostructures are demonstrated experimentally, which agree well with FEA predictions using the concept of equivalent interface energy.


In densely built-up area, the wind in the canopy layer is very weak, that causes the discomfort condition at the pedestrian level. In this paper, the possibility to improve the ventilation rate by changing the building height locally was investigated using the wind tunnel experiments. The ventilation rate in the narrow street was estimated by the mass transfer velocity in canyon wall that was measured by the originally devised water evaporation technique using filter paper. It was found that only small height change of wing-end building leads to the remarkable increase of ventilation rate over the whole traverse path.


Autumn 2011 both in terms of what resources they begin with and by the ways in which they redirect their own energy and the energy of others in the giant engine of this novel. the idea that the novel works like an engine is one of Gold's central claims: "Anything that uses energy to do something—work—is an engine" (202), she explains, and all engines behave according to specific laws. Converting energy to work always involves yielding some "waste heat . . . which just warms up the cold spot or sink" (203). the efficiency of engines (including in this case the likes of mrs. Jellyby, Esther, and Bucket) depends on how well they direct energy, and work always requires distinction, whether it involves heat flowing from a hot spot to a cold spot or water falling from a high level to a lower one. Gold's interest in the novel as an engine is linked to Herbert Spencer's fascination with the similarity between systems at every scale. Spencer, who appears first in a chapter on grand unified theories and Bulwer-Lytton, uses physics terms to articulate a model of evolution that "accounts for the presence of everything from the solar system to the functioning of individuals and the production and sustenance of advanced societies" (156). this interconnected universe fuels the application of thermodynamics to social systems and the individual, stressing a similarity between "all systems—personal, historical, and material" (230). ThermoPoetics moves between memorable insights that illuminate specific texts—such as seeing the actual painting of Dorian Gray as a "heat sink" (230), a localized site where used energy is deposited—and much larger claims that will inspire literary scholars to see the economies of energy and work in the novel with new eyes. Anna Henchman Boston University


Pseudo cross-variograms appear naturally in the context of multivariate Brown–Resnick processes, and are a useful tool for analysis and prediction of multivariate random fields. We give a necessary and sufficient criterion for a matrix-valued function to be a pseudo cross-variogram, and further provide a Schoenberg-type result connecting pseudo cross-variograms and multivariate correlation functions. By means of these characterizations, we provide extensions of the popular univariate space–time covariance model of Gneiting to the multivariate case.


We present a promising method for the fabrication of high-quality InAs site-controlled quantum dots (QDs) by combining electron beam lithography with wet chemical etching and metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) in situ patterning. The (100) GaAs substrate is patterned with nanoholes by thermal etching and the dots are directly grown inside. This method should avoid the introduction of the surface defects that occurs usually with standard lithography techniques. The thermal etching time is a new growth parameter used to control the shape and size of the QDs. The optical characterization at low temperatures reveals QDs with a small linewidth down to 63 µeV.


The design of a broadband waveguide magic-T, covering the X-band frequencies from 8 GHz to 12 GHz is presented. In order to obtain such a large bandwidth, disk loaded pins for the feed, ridges and a tapered conical post are used in our design. Extensive optimizations were performed to achieve a return loss better than 17 dB over the frequency range from 8 GHz to 12 GHz. Spline interpolation, quasi Newton and pattern search methods of HFSS software were employed to perform the optimization of the tapered post. The proposed structure was fabricated and measured to verify the design. There is a good agreement between measured and simulated results.


We are interested in a specific combinatorial optimization problem solved by an exact dynamic programming algorithm (DPA), namely the matrix chain product problem (MCPP) with two of its variants i.e. the standard (ST) one where the matrices are rectangular and the variant were the matrices are square and either dense or triangular (DT). Solving the MCPP consists in first determining an optimal parenthesization (OP) minimizing the number of required operations then computing the product matrix (PM) according to the OP which may be represented by a binary in-tree (BiT) where each node corresponds to a matrix product and is weighted by the number of required operations. Our aim is to design an efficient parallel computing of the PM. It turns out that, given an OP and the associated BiT, the cost of a critical path (CCP) is equal to the minimal cost of a parallel computing of the PM and the width of the BiT corresponds to the parallelism degree i.e. the number of required processors. It is within this scope that we propose a modified DPA based on a heuristic approach aiming to deter-mining a particular OP by maximizing the width of the associated BiT which leads to minimize its height hence the CCP. Our contribution is validated by achieving a series of experiments following a preliminary phase were we check for each input chain the existence of several OPs. Each obtained OP exhibiting the maximal parallelism degree is compared with a set of other OPs obtained in the ST variant of the MCPP by a particular approach determining several OPs and in the DT variant by specific exact greedy algorithms.


The characteristics of nanocomposite titania/reduced graphene oxide (TiO2/rGO) deposited on a glass substrate with potential application in the energy harvesting device of perovskite solar cell has been examined. The active material TiO2 was deposited on top of a fluorine-doped tin oxide glass substrate via a spin coating method. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was then coated onto TiO2 layer to form a nanocomposite TiO2/rGO. Formation and crystal structure of the layer were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), whereas the surface morphology was examined using a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). A structural study from X-ray showed that the two phases of TiO2 and rGO are detected, whereas the morphological examination showed that the layer had been homogeneously deposited on the glass substrate. The performance of TiO2/rGO as an electron transport layer in the perovskite solar cell device fabricated with chloride modified perovskite (CH3NH3(Pb/Zn)Cl2I) showed different characteristics with different concentrations of TiO2 and rGO. The highest efficiency of 3.8% was obtained from the composition of 0.0325 M TiO2 and 0.5 vol.% rGO.


Summary

Length–weight (LWR) and length–length (LLR) relationships were estimated for four shad species of the genus Alosa, reported from along the southern Caspian Sea coast, north of Iran in a study from March 2014. Two of these species are endemic to the Caspian Sea. The length–weight parameter b for these species ranged from 2.99 to 3.24, with regression coefficients (r2) ranging from 0.91 to 0.99. All LLRs were highly significant (r2 > 0.96).


Complex systems are composed of elements or agents that are of many different types and that interact in different ways. Complex System Theory, originating in the fields of physics and mathematics, and also popularly known as Chaos Theory or Dynamic System Theory, attempts to describe the interactions of different elements and agents with the features of heterogeneity, dynamics, openness, adaptation, non-linearity, and sensitive dependence on initial conditions etc and supplies new perspectives to the researches of Applied Linguistics. This article tries to reveal the prospect of the application of Complex System Theory in College English Teaching of China with the purpose to explore effective approaches to its developments of the following elements: such as, needs analysis, teaching objectives, teaching materials, testing, teaching models and evaluations.


The paper investigates the effects of HRM practices on service quality, customer satisfaction and performance in the hotel industry. A conceptual model is developed and four research hypotheses are empirically examined using structural equation modelling. The data were collected via a survey of Indian based hotels. 52 hotels in India responded to questionnaires pooling 52 HR managers 260 employees (5 from each hotel) and 260 customers (5 from each hotel). The results indicate that HRM practices have a positive influence on the improvement of service quality as well as on customer satisfaction and hotel performance. The study further testified the relationship among them, and provides useful information for future hotel management needs. The findings indicate that creation of customer satisfaction∖value in the hotel can be achieved via increasing responsiveness to customers' needs and that the creation of customer value which have a positive impact in the firm's profitability. The results suggest that HRM practices improve hotel service effectiveness and in consequence firm performance replicates and extends in a HRM context research. The study also suggests that management should emphasis on the development of intra-departmental learning and relational capabilities. The findings of this study are important for the hotel industry as the sector is faced with increasing competitive pressures in a highly fragmented, high growth market, and challenges that threaten its viability as evidenced by recent consolidations, merger & acquisition, franchising and foreign collaboration, etc. Further, in terms of theoretical contributions, this research suggests that HRM improvements are as much an outcome of technical and operational measures as they are of managerial, organizational and inter-organizational capabilities. Finally, the study paves the way for further research that would integrate HRM practices and operational factors in the context of analysing improvements in service quality, retaining customers and hotel performance.


In this paper we discuss the role of organizations in the reinforcement of discriminatory practices, as well we reflect about the evolvement and reaction of minorities who suffer discrimination. Symbolic violence is one of the cruelest forms of segregation and discrimination, even more when it is masked through "good intentions". In this study we have analyzed the installation of LGBTs' bathrooms in a block of a samba school, in an agricultural fair, and in a high school. We based our discussion on Auge's concept of non-place (1994), as exclusive and neutral spaces, although this neutrality is not perceived in social dynamics. Conclusions suggest that non- places are just ideal places, where not even bathrooms elude of symbolic dynamics that are, also, surrounded and imbricated in social relations.


assume here what I have argued in my After the Demise of the Tradition, namely, that such an undermining has been achieved.1 I argued for it there but I also claimed, as others have as well, that it is a key lesson of the development of philosophy in the twentieth century. Moving away from Frege, Russell and Husserl, there has in contemporary philosophy been from philosophers otherwise very different a thorough-going rejection of foundationalism, an espousal of holism along with a rejection of metaphysics and of anything like a First Philosophy. In short, the grand tradition in philosophy, in all its varied forms, has been set aside. Such a turn was initiated by the classical pragmatista (Peirce, James, and Dewey - most consistently and thoroughly Dewey) and was carried on in different ways by neo-pragmatism with a linguistic turn in Quine, Davidson, Rorty and in Putnam in his recent work, in England with Ryle, Wittgenstein and Austin, and on the Continent with Otto Neurath among the positivists, with Heidegger, Lyotard, Foucault, Baudrillard and Derrida, with the Frankfurt School critical theorists, and with Habermas and Wellmar expanding and developing critical theory. And this has also been true of most feminist philosophy.2 Dewey and Davidson have done this


Objective To evaluate radiographic diagnosis in total anomalous pulmonary venous connection with right superior vena cava (RSVC TAPVC) and analyze the variant of its pulmonary venous connection and the influence on surgical operation. Methods In 11 patients who were diagnosed by angiocardiography and confirmed by surgical operation, all chest radiographs were studied retrospectively and compared with their angiocardiography and surgical results. The variant of pulmonary venous connection was analyzed and the influence on surgical operation was also discussed. Results 6 patients showed "right hemi snowman sign" in posteroanterior view and 4 showed a pretracheal density on the lateral view or other sign caused by drainage vein. 6 of 9 angiocardiographs showed pulmonary or drainage venous stenosis. There were 2, 4 and 3 cases respectively whose right pulmonary veins connected with common pulmonary or drainage veins in one, two, and three branches. 2 of 3 died cases were caused by mistaken ligation of right superior pulmonary vein during the operation. Conclusion About 82% cases of the RSVC TAPVC can be diagnosed by chest radiograph because of the "right hemi snowmen sign" and other supplementary signs. In about 78% cases, the right pulmonary veins join right drainage (or connecting) vein in two or more branches at separate levels and this variant has surgical implications.


Open Wireless System Cloud (OWSC) is a radio access network architecture for future wireless communication systems with remote radio heads, centralized wireless computation on open platforms, and cooperative wireless signal processing and management. With centralized wireless signal processing, system capacity can be increased using emerging wireless techniques, such as cognitive radio, or collaborative processing and coordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP). Centralized open computing platform provides greater flexibility as the system can simultaneously support multi-standards and services, such as 2G, 3G and 4G as well as multiple type wireless applications. With this open architecture, OWSC can serve as infrastructure for researchers and wireless resource provider and can be supplied by 3rd parties much like Amazon provides AWS today. The barrier to entry for new entrant wireless operator role is greatly reduced. This enables new business models for the future mobile networks and service providers.


Blocking dimerization and stimulating protein degradation are two mechanisms known to inhibit BRAF activity. The study reported by Wan and colleagues identifies BRAF as a substrate of the APC/CFZR1-ubiqutin-proteasome system. The interaction between FZR1 and BRAF also induces a conformational change that disrupts BRAF dimerization. These findings identify a dynamic interplay between FZR1 and BRAF with strong implications for cell-fate determination and the tumor suppressor role of FZR1. Cancer Discov; 7(4); 356-8. ©2017 AACRSee related article by Wan et al., p. 424.


Polyhydrazides are prepared by condensation of cyanuric chloride with dihydrazides of dibasic carboxylic acids and are sulfurized with phosphorus pentasulfide. Copolymers of acrylamide and dimethylacrylamide with divinylbenzene are also sulfurized with phosphorus pentasulfide. The sulfurized polymers adsorb mercuric ion. In order to incorporate thiocarbamide groups into a polymer matrix, methylolthioureas are condensed with polyethylenimine. The reactions are carried out in the solid state or in aqueous solution. In the former, water is distilled off from the solidified mixture of the reactants; in the latter, methylothiourea and polyethylenimine are allowed to react in the presence of sulfuric acid. The products are good mercuric ion adsorbents.


In this study, implantable polycaprolactone/fluorouracil tablets were additively manufactured by selective laser sintering using different laser power levels. PCL/FU tablets showed on SEM-EDS small particles of fluorouracil dispersed on the surface and into the porous PCL matrix. The crystallinity values for the PCL/FU tablets were lower than for the pure PCL tablets, probably due to interaction of the FU particles with the polymer chains during the solidification process. The PCL/FU tablets prepared using the higher laser power (7 W) had the highest flexural modulus, probably due to better PCL particle coalescence, higher sinter degree and the dispersion of FU particles in the co-continuous porous PCL matrix. Initially the PCL/FU tablets provided a rapid release of a high concentration of the drug at the site of the cancer cells and a subsequent controlled release sustaining levels of the chemotherapeutic agent in the region of the tumor. This 2-stage release of the drug can be a desirable profile in cartilage cancer treatment. Correspondence to: Salmoria GV, NIMMA, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, 88040-900 Florianópolis, SC, Brazil, E-mail: email@example.com


This high-tech technique is a boon to preparers and speeds client's refunds. Electronic filing - the paperless, computerized transmission of income tax information by tax preparers to the Internal Revenue Service - continues to grow in popularity. The IRS prefers it over paper returns, tax preparers say it's accurate and more efficient than using paper returns and taxpayers, if owed a refund, get the money sooner. This article explains the primary benefits of electronic filing for preparers and their clients, what every CPA who prepares tax returns should know about electronic filing, why the IRS prefers it to filing paper returns and how it can be implemented even by small tax preparation firms. OVERTAXED BY PAPER In the 1992 tax year, the IRS processed about 116 million income tax returns. About 104 million (almost 90%) of them were paper forms, which had to be sorted, typed into the IRS computers, processed and then stored. The IRS estimates the processing cost of paper tax returns is at least $3.28 and as much as $4.28 each. Electronic processing, however, costs about $2.53 per return. Electronic filing began in 1985, when IRS research found that one in five income tax returns was prepared on a personal computer (PC). In 1986, the IRS successfully tested computer-to-computer transmission of returns with five tax preparation firms. The program was expanded nationwide in 1990, and its growth since then has been rapid. From 1989 through 1993, the number of electronically filed returns increased tenfold - to 12.1 million from 1.2 million. Next year, the IRS expects more than 15 million returns to be filed electronically. The number of tax firms filing returns electronically has grown, too - from 38,000 in 1991 to about 55,000 in 1992. GETTING STARTED Electronic filing is relatively easy. For step-by-step guide, see exhibit 1, page 6 The IRS accepts electronic returns only from tax preparers, service bureaus or third-party transmitters with electronic filing identification numbers (EFINs), which can be obtained by filing IRS form 8633. The process takes up to 60 days. The list of federal tax forms and schedules that can be filed electronically is fairly long (see exhibit 2, page 70). Electronic filers must have an IBM-compatible PC with a modem as well as tax preparation, electronic filing and communications software. After completing computerized returns with the tax preparation software, preparers use the electronic filing software (which often is built into tax preparation packages) to format the returns for processing by the IRS computers. There are two ways of filing returns electronically with the IRS: directly or via a service bureau or third-party transmitter. Filing directly is cost-effective only for high-volume preparers (those who file 200 or more returns) because it requires a special high-speed modem and special software. The modem alone costs nearly $1,000. Indirect filing, via service bureaus or third-party transmitters, is easier and requires less costly hardware. No special equipment is necessary - only the type of modem that PCs use to connect to bulletin boards or to exchange data with other computers; such modems cost between $50 and $200. With indirect filing, service bureaus act as electronic transfer stations between preparers and the IRS, charging a $1 to $5 fee for each return. The return can be transmitted to the bureau or third-party transmitter via an ordinary modem. Some service bureaus also accommodate low-volume preparers, creating electronic returns using the preparers' paper forms. Keying charges generally range from $15 to $20 per return. Whether filing directly or indirectly, taxpayers still must mail a paper form - IRS form 8453, which must be signed by both the taxpayer and the preparer - to the IRS after the electronically filed return has been accepted. BENEFITS For preparers, electronic filing lowers processing costs. …


Solving roof management problem in sub-level caving mining,Zhengzhou coal group company gets breakthrough in mining craft,and finds out a high-output and effiency way for Yuxi coal field.


Recent advances towards video captioning mainly follow an encoder-decoder (sequence-to-sequence) framework and generate captions via a recurrent neural network (RNN). However, employing RNN as the decoder (generator) is prone to diluting long-term information, which weakens its ability to capture long-term dependencies. Recently, some work has demonstrated that the convolutional neural network (CNN) could be used to model sequential information. Though strengths in representation ability and computation efficiency, CNN has not been well exploited in video captioning. The reason partially comes from the difficulty of modeling multi-modal sequence with CNN. In this paper, we devise a novel CNN-based encoder-decoder framework for video captioning. Particularly, we first append inter-frame differences to each CNN-extracted frame feature to get a more discriminative representation; then with that as the input, we encode each frame to be a more compact feature by a one-layer convolutional mapping, which could be taken as a reconstruction network. In the decoding stage, we first fuse visual and lexical feature; then we stack multiple dilated convolutional layers to form a hierarchical decoder. As long-term dependencies could be captured by a shorter path along the hierarchical structure, the decoder could alleviate the loss of long-term information. Experiments on two benchmark datasets show that our method could obtain state-of-the-art performance.


Testis is a valuable byproduct in quality chicken production in our country. Heritability for testis weight at 77 days of age was estimated in a pure line N414 from Guangdong Wen′s southern poultry breeding company in this study,and genetic correlation between testis weight at 77 days of age and comb height and wattle length at 35 days of age,45 days of age,77 days of age were also estimated. The results showed that estimates of heritability for testis weight at 77 days of age was 0.197. Testis weight at 77 days of age and wattles length at 45 days of age were most closely correlated and the genetic correlation was 0.288. It suggests that wattle length at 45 days of age can be used as an indirect selection index for testis weight at 77 days of age.


In this article, we investigate associations between ego development and emotion communication during adolescence, using a newly constructed coding system for scoring these affect dimensions from clinical research interviews with early adolescent subjects. One overarching question frames our inquiry: How does an adolescent's ego development influence his or her communication of emotional experience? To follow special combinations of emotion communications, diversity of communication and conflict within communication were operationally defined. Findings revealed that both these more complex combinations were present in a higher number of speeches for adolescents at higher levels of ego development. In terms of specific emotions, Pearson correlation analyses indicated that enthusiasm, affection, anxiety, and neutrality were directly associated with higher stages, whereas sadness and anger were inversely correlated with ego development. These associations were similar for both genders. The findings are discu...


From October 2011 to May 2012,the resources and ornamental characteristics of Ranunculus japonicus were investigated in Wulian Mountain Area in Rizhao City,Shandong Province by field investigation and introduction and cultivation.The results showed that Wulian Mountain Area possessed rich resources of Ranunculus japonicus that grew well and distributed in every investigating quadrats with various accompanying plant species including Geranium tsingtauense,Thalictrum aquilegifolium,Potentilla chinensis,Setaria viridis,Pteridophyta and so on.Ranunculus japonicus was vigorous and beautiful.The simple,radially symmetric flowers of Ranunculus japonicus were yellow and had five petals with lustrous surface.It produced a rosette of basal leaves from which appeared a dense,upright inflorescence and had long flowering period.


Piecewise Linear Approximation (PLA) is one of the most widely used approaches for representing a time series with a set of approximated line segments. With this compressed form of representation, many large complicated time series can be efficiently stored, transmitted and analyzed. In this article, with the introduced concept of "semi-connection" that allowing two representation lines to be connected at a point between two consecutive time stamps, we propose a new optimal linear-time PLA algorithm SemiOptConnAlg for generating the least number of semi-connected line segments with guaranteed maximum error bound. With extended experimental tests, we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is very efficient in execution time and achieves better performances than the state-of-art solutions.


We assessed the expediency of using pressure energy of the natural gas entering water-heating boiler. A technological scheme of heating natural gas delivered for expansion into an expander-generator unit using flue gas heat proposed. Additional electrical capacity attains 0.7 - 0.8 MW, whereas the use of of flue gas heat increases the efficiency of boilers.


The paper describes theoretically with some empirical evidences the decision and result of strategic alliance as a relationship between people or as a love affair and a commitment to marriage which ...


Introduction The interest of physicians in focal ischemic cerebrovascular disease has expanded rapidly in the past decade. This is in part due to a better definition of the individual syndromes,1a more thorough understanding of the pathologic processes involved, particularly the fact that many instances of cerebral ischemia are due to obstruction of the extracranial circulation,2,3and the often dramatic response to therapy, either medical or surgical.4-6 The ophthalmic aspects of vascular insufficiency are common and widely recognized.1,7,8While the diagnosis may be strongly suspected by a careful study of the history and clinical findings, the reintroduction of ophthalmodynamometry has provided the ophthalmologist with objective findings which are quite useful in the support of the clinical impression. However, the value of the ophthalmodynamometric test has been noted to vary with different observers. The accuracy of ophthalmodynamometry in large series of patients with carotid occlusive disease has


There is a knowledge gap in designing so-called "non-inferiority trials", which aim to show whether the effect of a new drug is not unacceptably worse (i.e., non-inferior) than a drug already used to treat the targeted disease. This thesis focuses on issues related to a main source of this knowledge gap: the choice of the non-inferiority margin (the maximal acceptable size of the difference between the two drugs). Studies in this thesis indicate that the choice of the margin is not mentioned in more than half of the published non-inferiority trials and that there is no consensus among stakeholders about the preferred approach. We also found that different approaches used to choose the margin could lead to a different judgement of non-inferiority. Additionally, we provided an investigation of the design of these trials from a regulatory perspective and we showed how regulators (dis)agree on the margin and what the impact is on approval decisions. Finally, we investigated whether non-inferiority of a new drug that was demonstrated in a clinical trial could also be demonstrated in daily clinical practice with recommendations on how to perform such an assessment. Based on these studies, the conclusion of this thesis is that reporting of non-inferiority margins in scientific articles should improve and that stakeholders should reach consensus on the approach of choosing this margin. Further research in assessing the non-inferiority of drugs in daily clinical practice is important for optimal decision making in daily healthcare.


I first wish to thank Prof. Nunes, Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and the Law and Moderator of this panel, for the opportunity to serve on this distinguished panel. I serve as General Counsel of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. Benjamin Mead, its Chairman, was originally to have served on this panel, but was unable to because of a conflict. I represent an extraordinary group of people Survivors of the Holocaust. They have two imperatives, one to bear witness and the other to preserve memory. The murder of an individual is, of course, a crime. The murder of a people under the euphemisms of "Final Solution" or "ethnic cleansing" should elicit broader accountability, prosecution and punishment. Survivors, more than others, recognize that while the murder of an individual is a crime against family and state, the murder of a people is, what we have come to refer to as, a "crime against humanity." If the Final Solution was not sufficiently unfathomable, at the end of the war, Survivors, trying to return to their homes, continued to be killed by the thousands. The "final" solution was not quite that final, while the suffering and losses continued. Prof. Peter Longerich of the Holocaust Educational Trust in London suggests that "a dispute over the genesis of the Final Solution involves finding answers, not only to questions of when and where, but also ultimately, why?" These questions are integral to the judicial process. But they are questions that the survivors alone live with each and every day of their lives. What likewise comes to mind is Eichman's statement, also expressed by Josef Stalin, that "the death of an individual is a tragedy the death of a million ...a statistic." Add that to Hitler's statement in the early 30's that "after all, who now speaks of the Armenians?" and the Final Solution and later genocides become more foreseeable. 0


We showed in a previous study that the intranasal (i.n) delivery of bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) to BP2 mice (H‐2q) inhibits eosinophilia and bronchial hyperreactivity in a mouse model of asthma. The present work has been performed to characterize the leucocyte lineages recruited to the lungs of mice after i.n. delivery of BCG and potentially involved in the polarization of T lymphocytes. The different antigen‐presenting cells (APC) recruited to bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and to lung tissue of mice shortly after the delivery of BCG were analysed in parallel as well as their capacity to drive the immune response towards a T helper type 1 cytokine production. Alveolar macrophages (AM) from the BAL were CD11c+, F4/80+ and CD11b−, and in the lung tissue two major populations of potential APC were detected: one CD11c−, F4/80+, CD11b+ and I‐Aq− was identified as interstitial macrophages (IM) and a second expressing CD11c+ and I‐Aq+ antigens, negative for CD11b and F4/80 markers as leucocytic dendritic cells (DC). Freshly isolated DC up‐regulated CD11b and CD40 antigens after overnight culture, but remained negative for CD8α antigen, suggesting a myeloid origin. Lung DC which produced high amount of interleukin (IL)‐12 were potent inducers of naive CD4+ T lymphocyte priming, as assessed by interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) production by these naive CD4+ T cells. Lung explants recovered long term after BCG delivery produced sustained levels of IFN‐γ. Our results suggest that AM and particularly DC by secreting IL‐12 shortly after BCG delivery induce the long‐term persistence of IFN‐γ‐secreting T cells percolating in BCG‐loaded lung tissue.


AbstractFishing for Pacific Hake Merluccius productus in the Gulf of California is carried out by shrimp trawlers. When the shrimp fishing season ends, these boats shift to catching Pacific Hake and other finfish. The Pacific Hake fishery is relatively new and has the potential to grow as an industry. Therefore, there is interest in defining management plans to create a sustainable fishery. One option is an individual vessel quota system. This paper estimates the per-vessel quota in the Pacific Hake fishery that achieves a break-even operation and estimates the number of vessels that could enter the fishery to avoid overexploitation and overcapacity. Potential per-vessel quotas were estimated based on the cash flow of a representative trawler and the estimate of total Pacific Hake biomass. The results indicate that individual catch quotas for Pacific Hake should be 90.4 or 100 metric tons to achieve a 30% or 45% increase, respectively, in net cash. Additionally, with total allowable catch values equivalen...


In order to make it convenient for the technical personnel,the progress schedule control of construction engineering was often marked on the wall by graphs.Time coordinating network is a new way of progress schedule control of construction engineering.It was very easy to understand by this way.Combined with the engineering example,the characteristics,time parameter calculation and drawing methods of the time coordinating network were elaborated.The difference between the early and the late time scale network planning and the checking way of medium-term plan were described,so as to promote the application of time coordinating network panning in progress control of construction projects in China.


Serum luteinizing and follicale stimulating hormone concentrations were related to gonadal function, as reflected by sperm count and serum testosterone concentrations, in a group of men studied over 10 years after surgical correction of bilateral crytorchidism in childhood.


The image of doctors in white coats is becoming almost as outmoded as the top hat and gold-topped cane of earlier medical generations. This image is moving further towards patientfriendliness and a brighter appearance, thanks to the initiative of Dr Teresa Smith de Cherif. She is an American doctor, based at the University of New Mexico Hospital, who has made a second home here in South Africa. She tells a fascinating story of how she became interested and involved in an admirable project.


Increasing fragmentation in the global economy has been accompanied by a rise in the use of private standards. Technical standards created by companies and standards-writing organizations facilitate coordination and enable elaborate divisions of labor of the sort evident in the electronics industry. Standards are also used for control. Private standards schemes specify rules of behavior and develop mechanisms to monitor and enforce them. Schemes address issues such as product safety, environmental and social impacts, and sustainability. They are developed and adopted by many different actors and actor coalitions, including businesses, NGOs, and governments. They respond to the regulatory challenges created by global fragmentation, but also use the opportunities offered by interdependencies within global value chains to enable cross-border control over how products are produced and their social and environmental impacts. The multiplicity of actors and interests involved in standards development leads to the proliferation of standards and competition between them.


Optical characteristics of H2-reduced LiNbO3 have been studied. The optical transmission in the spectral range 0.3 to 5 mu m is progressively narrowed as the sample is reduced. An absorption band centred at about 2.48 eV is assigned to small polarons. This interpretation is consistent with the published defect structure, transport and spectroscopic reports on reduced LiNbO3. A semi-quantitative analysis of the 2.48 eV absorption band is carried out by employing the Reik and Heese theory (1967) for optical properties of small polarons.


In order to realize the rapid release of superconducting magnetic energy storage,a laser-triggered flux superconducting opening switch based on Meissner effect was designed and the pulsed power supply of inductive energy storage was constructed based on the opening switch.Without the high-frequency transformer,the LCC inverter output was directly rectified and charged to the storage capacitor,and then the energy was transferred from the capacitor to the superconducting inductance.The structure of the superconducting opening switch was presented,its running principle based on Meissner effect was explained and the influence of various factors on the opening switch performance is analyzed.The method of finite element analysis was used to analyze the distribution of the magnetic field in the opening switch unit before and after the transition to the normal state of the superconducting thin films,and the pulsed current output of secondary coupling inductance was dynamically simulated.Moreover,the main circuit of the pulsed power supply was presented based on inductive energy storage,and the running principle and the parameter selection principle of the LCC inverting charger were intoduced.The experimentation of the power source shows that the power source can achieve the pulsed voltage output of 1 s rising edge,30 kV amplitude and 90% pulse width 1.5 s,and the repetition work frequency can reach more than 2.5 kHz.Using the step-down pulsed transformer the power source can achieve the pulse current output of 8ns rising edge,4800 A amplitude.The charger realizes quick charge to the middle storage capacitor,and the power loss under steady state is no more than 5% of the input power supply.


We present theoretical investigation of the zero-frequency shot-noise spectra in electron tunneling through an interacting quantum dot connected to two ferromagnetic leads with the possibility of spin-flip scattering between the two spin states by means of the recently developed bias-voltage and temperature-dependent quantum rate equations. For this purpose, a generalization of the traditional generation-recombination approach is made for properly taking into account the coherent superposition of electronic states, i.e., the nondiagonal density matrix elements. Our numerical calculations find that the Fano factor increases with increasing the polarization of the two leads, but decreases with increasing the intradot spin-flip scattering.


A testing method used to check if an application executed in an operating system is crashed. The operating system is provided with a first value corresponding to the application, and the first value is stored in a storage unit. The testing method includes the following steps: send a message in a predetermined time period to the application to request a feedback from the application, and adjust the first value stored in the storage unit to another value by proceeding a predetermined algorithm; reboot the operating system if the said another value is equal to a second value; reset the said another value stored in the storage unit to the first value if the application gives the feedback.


A new approach is developed to upper bound integrity risk for safety-critical GNSS applications when the autocorrelation functions of measurement and process noise are uncertain. The algorithm is recursive and significantly expands the applicable range of existing methods. In Kalman filtering, models must be specified for autocorrelated measurement and process noise. This paper assumes that the noise processes are the output of known linear systems driven by white noise. However, the system parameters are only known to lie in specified intervals. Following the approach in [6], an augmented state model is first developed to propagate the estimate error covariance matrix when there is parameter uncertainty. It is shown that the error variance for a specified state is a polynomial in the unknown parameters whose order grows linearly with time. An exact upper bound on integrity risk is determined by maximizing the variance. Next, a recursive algorithm is derived to update the variance's Taylor series expansion. This enables an approximate bound to be established by maximizing a polynomial whose order is low and remains fixed over time. The Taylor remainder theorem is used to introduce conservatism and provide justification that the approximate bound is at least as large as the exact bound. For a one-dimensional navigation problem, we show that the number of series terms needed to obtain a tight upper bound on integrity risk is less than 10. INTRODUCTION Safety-critical GNSS applications must ensure that the probability of the estimate error exceeding predefined bounds is acceptably small. This probability is referred to as integrity risk. Stochastic measurement error models play a dominant role in determining the estimate error probability density function. These models always have some element of uncertainty and should be defined so that computed integrity risk always upper bounds the true risk. In the aviation community, the concept of cumulative distribution function (CDF) overbounding was established as a methodology to guarantee conservative assessments of integrity risk if the measurement noise is independent [1], [2]. For snapshot weighted least squares estimation using pseudorange measurements, this assumption can be justified. However, it is becoming more common to fuse GNSS with other sensors (e.g., an IMU) and perform state estimation using a Kalman filter. Autonomous vehicle navigation is one application where multiple sensors in addition to GNSS are used to estimate the vehicle's state. When measurement errors are correlated over time (not uncommon in practice), the independence assumption is no longer valid and CDF overbounding cannot be used to establish an integrity risk bound. Without a rigorous methodology, filter designers rely on intuition to establish bounds. For example, it seems reasonable to suspect that the estimate error variance will increase as measurement errors become more correlated because the measurements contain less information. Therefore, error models with maximum correlation should be used to design the Kalman filter. No analysis was done to verify the hypothesis, which turns out to be wrong (we'll see an example later). Over the past ten years, several research papers have emerged that seek to provide a mathematically sound approach to integrity risk bounding in the presence of correlated errors. A theoretical approach was described in [3] and [4] for bounding the integrity risk of linear systems driven by correlated noise. If the input noise vectors can be linearly mapped from a spherically symmetric space, the authors showed how to transform a CDF overbound on any input noise component into an overbound on the state estimate error. In [5], the authors considered the case where measurement and process noise are Gaussian random processes whose autocorrelation functions (ACFs) are only known to lie between specified lower and upper bounds. The estimate error variance was expressed as a linear combination of all past and current ACF values and then maximized by setting the ACFs equal to their upper or lower bound based on the sign of the coefficient. References [3] – [5] provide batch solutions in the sense that they store the effect of all current and past input noise samples on the estimate error vector. This is not a limitation, but rather a consequence of not prescribing any structure on the input noise ACFs. The ability of these methods to provide a real-time integrity risk bound is limited to short-duration applications whose length is dependent on sensor sampling rates. To expand the range of applicability, structure must be imposed on the ACFs. This paper assumes that the noise processes are the output of linear systems driven by white noise. However, the parameters defining the system are only known to lie in specified intervals. Numerous articles in the robust estimation literature derive linear estimators that achieve specific measures of optimality in the presence of uncertainty. These approaches will not be considered here for two reasons. First, they are often used to design filters off-line and involve computationally intensive algorithms to determine the estimator gain (e.g., semi-definite programming). Second, robust linear estimators tend to be overly conservative and provide bounds on the covariance matrix that are very sensitive to tuning parameters chosen based on engineering judgement or trial and error. In [6], the Kalman filter is defined using any set of admissible parameter values chosen by the filter designer. Although the Kalman filter is no longer optimal in this case, new estimate error equations can be derived that enable one to quantify the effect of model uncertainty on the estimate error covariance matrix. Intended as an off-line analysis tool, the Kalman filter is run repeatedly with different values of the true parameters to assess sensitivity. Reference [7] considers the specific case where measurement noise is first-order Gauss Markov with an unknown time constant. In addition to assuming the true parameters are unknown, the authors also allow the filter parameter values to vary. The minimum upper bound on integrity risk is defined as a mini-max optimization problem, whose solution is determined using a bank of Kalman filters. An alternative approach to upper bound integrity risk is derived in this paper that represents a significant improvement over the methods in [6] and [7]. The paper is organized as follows. Section I introduces the problem, which is simplified to one measurement noise component and no process noise. The measurement noise is known to be a first order Gauss-Markov process with a transition parameter that is lower and upper bounded. The results obtained for the simplified problem extend naturally to the general case of multiple measurement and process noise components. Section II follows the approach in [6] to develop estimate error equations that conveniently express the covariance matrix in terms of the unknown parameter. It is shown that the error variance for a specified state is a polynomial in the unknown parameter whose order grows linearly with time. An exact upper bound on integrity risk is determined by maximizing the variance. A recursive algorithm is derived in Section III to update the error variance's Taylor series expansion. This enables an approximate bound to be established by maximizing a polynomial whose order is low and remains fixed over time. The Taylor remainder theorem is used to introduce conservatism and provide justification that the approximate bound is at least as large as the exact bound. The methods are applied to a onedimensional GNSS navigation problem in Section IV, where it is shown that the number of terms needed to obtain a tight upper bound on integrity risk is low (less than 10). Concluding remarks and suggestions for future work are provided in Section V. PROBLEM STATEMENT This paper considers the simplified linear system xk+1 = Akxk zk = Ckxk + νk (1) where xk is the state vector, zk is the measurement and νk is zero-mean Gaussian measurement noise. Suppose that νk = mk + rk, such that rk is zero-mean white Gaussian noise with variance σr 2 and mk is a first order Gauss-Markov process with transition parameter a and variance σm 2 . The first order Gauss-Markov process evolves according to [6] mk+1 = amk + σm(1 − a )wk (2) with wk~N(0,1). The variances σr 2 and σm 2 are known, but a is only known to lie in the interval [c, d]. Let εy be the error in the Kalman filter estimate of a specified state y and let ly be the maximum tolerable absolute error for εy. Determine an upper bound on the integrity risk, P(|εy| > ly) for all a ∈ [c, d]. COVARIANCE PROPAGATION WITH UNCERTAIN PARAMETERS The Kalman filter uses state augmentation to account for correlated noise. The augmented measurement and state dynamic models are [ xk+1 mk+1 ] = [ Ak 0 0 ?̅? ] [ xk mk ] + [ 0 σm(1 − ?̅? ) ] wk zk = [Ck 1] [ xk mk ] + rk ⇒ [ xk+1 mk+1 ] = Fk [ xk mk ] + Gwk zk = Hk [ xk mk ] + rk (3) such that ?̅? is any value in [c, d] chosen by the filter designer. The Kalman filter covariance matrix accurately describes the estimate error statistics when a = ?̅?. However, it is more common that a ≠ ?̅?. In this case, new estimate error equations must be derived to properly determine the estimate error covariance matrix. For the linear system in Eq. (1), Appendix A shows that ek+1 − = Fkek + ek + = (I − KkHk)ek − + Kkνk (4) with ek T = [εx,k T ?̂?k] and Kk being the Kalman gain matrix. Notice that ek is driven by the correlated noise sequence νk. Therefore, E[ek νk] ≠ 0 and the covariance of ek cannot be updated recursively. To address this difficulty, substitute νk = mk + rk into Eq. (4) and incorporate the dynamic model from Eq. (2), resulting in the augmented system [ ek+1 − mk+1 ] = [ Fk 0 0 a ] [ ek + mk ] + [ 0 σm(1 − a ) ]wk [ ek + mk ] = [ I − KkHk Kk 0 1 ] [ ek − mk ] + [ Kk 0 ] rk ⇒ ξk+1 − = Φkξk + + Γwk ξk


Special event promotions are particularly one of the popular ways of promoting restaurants in Asia (Sun et al, 2009). The use of special event promotion in full service restaurants have been recognized as an important marketing tool (Cohen, 2008) and it has been found that there is a relationship between the level of promotion and success in restaurants (Stephens, 2008).


This paper explores the political economy of fiscal policy in the German Lander, testing several theories from the cross-national literature on budget deficits along with some additional hypotheses relating to the incentives created by the German federal system. The results suggest that governments controlled by the left spend and borrow more in the long run than right-wing governments, though short-term partisan differences in fiscal management cannot be identified. Furthermore, incumbents spend and borrow more during election campaigns, and contrary to common wisdom, Land fiscal policy is decisively pro-cyclical. The most striking findings have to do with Germany's peculiar system of intergovernmental grants. Although transfers have a positive effect on fiscal balance in the short term, states increase expenditures and deficits in the long run as they grow more dependent on transfers. The results may have implications for other fiscal systems where lower-level governments have wide-ranging expenditure and borrowing autonomy but little authority to tax.