Unless you were at the 1985 Fall Conference of the Empire State Pedologist (ESP) Society in North River, NY, you probably don't know the answers to those questions, or really have any reason to give them much thought. The ESP Society is a professional organization of soil scientists in New York. This year at their annual fall conference, the entire 2nd day's agenda was devoted to activities that combined soil survey skills with athletic competition for the world's first-ever Soil Survey Skills Olympics, better known as the "PedOlympics. " Opening ceremonies consisted of a torch lighting and a torch relay among veteran soil scientists. The torch was carried from Ped-Olympic Headquarters at the Garnet Hill Lodge in North River, down to the playing field near the shores of beautiful Thirteenth Lake. The events were dedicated to good science and to good sportsmanship, both of which prevailed throughout the games. Three teams were fielded for the occasion. Each team proudly displayed their team colors of dusky red (lOR 312), dark reddish brown (2.5YR 3/4), and yellowish red (5YR 5/6). Team captains designated ped-athletes from their teams to compete in each of the events. Veteran soil scientist and torch bearer Frank Hutton won the "Backyard Sneak-A-Thon." In this event, if the soil scientist was caught sneaking around on the landowner's property then he or she had to explain what they were doing there. Al Averill from the Westchester County Soil Survey Party took honors in the "Sharp-Shooter Dig-A-Thon." Averill dug to a depth of 70 cm in the 2-min time allowed for the event. Ped-athlete Brian Grisi was a close second with 69 cm. Undaunted, Grisi came back in the next event, "The Slippery Log Walk-AThon." Grisi traversed the precarious 30-m course in 3.53 s. This included a sprint across a 20-foot-Iong log spanning the cold open waters of Thirteenth Lake. It was an awesome display of agility and concentration. Soil Survey Party Leader Steve Indrick from Westport in Essex County, NY devastated the field in the Channer Skipping event. He swept both the distance and the most number of skips categories with a single throw that skipped 17 times and traveled a full one-third of the distance across Thirteenth Lake. The 300-m "Canoe-A-Thon" was an event which required ped-athletes to paddle 150 m out into Thirteenth Lake to determine if an object visible from shore was in fact bedrock or just a boulder. Once the observation had been made, the team raced the 150 m back to shore. Steve Page and Steve Bonnell teamed up and claimed victory in one of the most closely contested events.


Built on the top of works on adversarial examples, I show the existence of smuggling examples: alterations of training examples (precomputed from test set) which then lead the training toward unfairly good weights. If from computer vision point of view this contribution is rather incremental, it is not from a social point of view. It is a clear warning message that falsification of the train/test paradigm is not just possible but easy with classic deep learning.


The corrosion of ferrous metals is an electrochemical process whereby the metal return to a less refined condition; the mineral products of this process can be many times greater in volume than the original metal. The corrosion and consequent expansion of encased wrought iron is a major source of damage to historic masonry. This paper details ongoing research carried out by the English Heritage Architectural Metals Conservation Studio using prothodic protection.


The server includes a domain zone file containing a distribution rule, the distribution rule defines all the subfolders dividing the domain into a plurality of sub-regions of the clip. DNS data of each sub-region of these sub-regions are hosted by the server partition. The server can obtain information from a domain zone file, the identification information can be partitioned so that it can respond to the server a request for acquiring the folder DNS client transmitted.


The performance of decode-and-forward (DAF) cooperative code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems is analyzed in Nakagami fading channels. A closed-form expression for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) is derived based on of the sum of two independent non-identical distributed gamma random variables (RV). This expression is then used to obtain the outage probability. In our analysis we consider both perfect and non-perfect inter-user channels. We also investigate the behavior of the system at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) where we obtain asymptotically the achievable diversity order for various system parameters. Simulation results are presented to assess the accuracy of our analytical results.


Objective:To explore the value of laparoscopy in diagnosis and treatment of female infertility.Methods:507 infertile women who received laparoscopy and completed follow-up were analyzed retrospectively.Results:507 infertile women were followed up for 24~60 months after laparoscopy.241 women got pregnancy(including 16 women of ectopic pregnancy),the total pregnancy rate was 47.5%.According to the laparoscopy results,the pregnancy rates of cases with normal pelvic cavity,pelvic inflammatory diseases,endometriosis and other factors were 59.5%,37.9%,44.6% and 73.2%,respectively;the proportions of cases with normal pelvic cavity diagnosed definitely by laparoscopy among the cases with normal results of preoperative hydrotubation and salpingography were 22.0% and 44.7%,respectively;the pregnancy rate of assisted reproduction after laparoscopy was 42.1%.Conclusion:Laparoscopy plays an active role in diagnosis and treatment of female infertility and may help to increase the pregnancy rate in assisted reproduction.


Imaging of the platinum replica of the porous structure and low-pressure argon adsorption allowed us to elucidate the complicated porous structure of SBA-15. These techniques enabled us to draw a coherent picture of the evolution of the SBA-15 precursor mesophase as a function of the synthesis temperature. TEM of the platinum replicas has been unable to show bridges between the structural mesopores of SBA-15 synthesized at low temperature, whereas mesoporous bridges are clearly observed for samples formed at higher temperature. Argon adsorption has evidenced the ultramicroporosity of the materials formed at low temperature, as well as its evolution to secondary porosity with diameters greater than 1.5 nm under more severe hydrothermal treatment.


After careful preliminary consideration, the Engineering Foundation has inaugurated an investigation of arch dams and has appointed the following advisory committee: F. E. Weymouth, Chief Engineer, U. S. Reclamation Service, Denver, Colorado; H. F. McClure, State Engineer, Sacramento, California, (alternate): Paul Bailey, Deputy Chief of Public Works, representing the State of California; M. M. O'Shaughnessy, City Engineer, San Francisco (alternate: R. P. McIntosh, designing engineer), representing San Francisco; H. Hobart Porter, member of Engineering Foundation, New York, (alternate: Wynn Meredith, of Sanderson & Porter, San Francisco); Silas H. Woodard, member of Engineering Foundation, New York; Prof. C. Derleth, Jr., University of California, Berkeley California; H. Hawgood, consulting engineer, Los Angeles; D. C. Henny, consulting engineer, Portland, Oregon; Fred A. Noetzli, Chief Engineer, Bissell & Sinnicks, San Francisco, Secretary. All members of the committee are members of American Society of Civil Engineers. A Chairman is to be chosen at a meeting to be held in December or January.


This paper develops an econometric model for the analysis of exploration and production policies of "price-taking" suppliers, and derives theoretically consistent exploration and output equations for oil which explicitly take account of the oil discovery process and the intertemporal nature of exploration and production decision. The model is then applied to an empirical analysis of oil exploration and extraction on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) over the period 1978(1)-1986(4). The analysis explicitly takes account of the available engineering information concerning the pressure dynamics of the petroleum reserves and the geological knowledge pertinent to the discovery process, and presents formal statistical tests of the significance of these factors for the explanation of output and exploration in the North Sea. Copyright 1990 by Royal Economic Society.


You have built a simulation model, but now must choose runs to i) validate it, and ii) to gain insight about the associated real system and to make managerial recommendations. Do you need guidance? This introductory tutorial views the design of experiments as a five-step process, and presents graphical tools for each of the five steps. Further, with a graphical framework for the design, results can be presented graphically as well, helping you communicate the results visually to management in a way that builds trust.


Athletes can improve their skills by using supervising training devices with integrated digital feedback. For example, martial art techniques are often complex in detail and need to be perfectly adopted from the teacher. Distributed event detection systems for digital devices enhance the individual training, resulting in a higher precision of the technique repetition. Distributed event detection, as employed in Wireless Sensor Networks, enables cooperative evaluation and detection of spatialy or temporaly distributed events like fire or earthquakes. We evaluate the feasibility of integrating a distributed event detection approach into a wireless motion-based training device, to support fight stick training. We present an ubiquitous computing device for in-network event detection, which enables users to obtain direct feedback from the device itself. Multiple sensors help to improve the reliability of the device, while the wireless technology ensures flexibility in a multi-part device. After a brief introduction to distributed event detection, we evaluate event detection accuracy and how link quality effects different scenarios.


Objective To investigate the factors affecting the results of embryo cryopreservation and the pregnancy results of embryo transfer following thawing.Method 22cases received embryo transfer following thawing in 24cycles under routine IVF-ET procedure.Results There were 4 embryo survived and 3 continously cleaved out of 5 frozen ones following thawing per cycles.The average surviving rate was 83.3% and continue cleaving rate was 84%.The average embryo score before cryopreservation,after thawing and tranfered was 8.2,8.0,7.5,respectively.No statistics differences of embryo score were found among the three groups(P0 05).The pregnancy rate after transfer arrived at 22.7%,and the clinical pregnancy rate per oocyte retrieval cycle increased from 28.9% to 31.7%.In this study,the embryo implantation rate was closely related with age of patient,embryo quality,and condition of endometrium.Conclusion The technology of embryo cryopreservation is an important supplement for human assisted reproduction technique.The successful pregnancy rate of embryo cryopreservation depends on embryo qualilty,adoptive freeze procedure,endocrine environment and the synchronism between endometrium and embryo development.


This paper is concerned with a new time-domain modeling topology for signals which is applied to wideband power amplifiers. The memory effect will be shown using two-tone intermodulation distortion (IMD) measurement with different tone frequency spacing and power levels. The model is developed by using a memoryless nonlinearity followed by a dynamic LTI system (Hammerstein model) to consider the memory effects associated with wideband signals. For this purpose an Nth-order FIR filter is used. It is shown that the accuracy of wideband signal simulations can be improved by optimizing the model parameters based on time-domain measurements of wideband signals.


An LED fluorescent lamp driving power source (10) and an LED fluorescent lamp (1) comprising the driving power source. The LED fluorescent lamp driving power source (10) comprises: an end cover (110A, 110B), a pair of plug pins (111A, 112A, 111B, 112B) being disposed on an outer surface of the end cover (110A, 110B), and the pair of plug pins (111A, 112A, 111B, 112B) being hollow and being communicated with inside of the end cover (110A, 110B); a substrate (120A, 120B) located inside the end cover (110A, 110B), a pair of leads (121A, 122A, 121B, 122B) being disposed on one of surfaces of the substrate (120A, 120B), and each of the leads (121A, 122A, 121B, 122B) being inserted in a corresponding plug pin (111A, 112A, 111B, 112B) and being fixed on an inner wall of the plug pin (111A, 112A, 111B, 112B); and an LED driving circuit module (130A, 130B), disposed on the substrate (120A, 120B) and electrically connected to the leads (121A, 122A, 121B, 122B).


Willow Salix sp. is currently cultivated as a short rotation forestry crop in Ireland as a source of biomass to contribute to renewable energy goals. The aim of this study is to evaluate the energy requirements and environmental impacts associated with willow (Salix sp.) cultivation, harvest, and transport using life cycle assessment (LCA). In this study, only emissions from the production of the willow chip are included, end‐use emissions from combustion are not considered. In this LCA study, three impact categories are considered; acidification potential, eutrophication potential and global warming potential. In addition, the cumulative energy demand and energy ratio of the system are evaluated. The results identify three key processes in the production chain which contribute most to all impact categories considered; maintenance, harvest and transportation of the crop. Sensitivity analysis on the type of fertilizers used, harvesting technologies and transport distances highlights the effects of these management techniques on overall system performance. Replacement of synthetic fertilizer with biosolids results in a reduction in overall energy demand, but raises acidification potential, eutrophication potential and global warming potential. Rod harvesting compares unfavourably in comparison with direct chip harvesting in each of the impact categories considered due to the additional chipping step required. The results show that dedicated truck transport is preferable to tractor‐trailer transport in terms of energy demand and environmental impacts. Finally, willow chip production compares favourably with coal provision in terms of energy ratio and global warming potential, while achieving a higher energy ratio than peat provision but also a higher global warming potential.


The performance of a speech emotion recognition (SER) system heavily relies on the deep feature learned from the speeches. Most state of the art has focused on developing various deep architectures for effective feature learning. In this study, we make the first attempt to explore feature discriminability instead. Based on our SER baseline system, we propose three approaches, two on loss functions and one on combined attentive pooling, to enhance feature discriminability. Evaluations on IEMOCAP database consistently validate the effectiveness of all our proposals. Compared to the baseline system, the proposed three systems demonstrated at least +4.0% absolute improvements in accuracy, with no increment in the total number of parameters.


Carbon black (N-330), organically modified nanoclay (NC) based ternary, particulate nanocomposites comprising of epoxidized natural rubber matrix having 25 mol% of epoxy group (ENR-25) were prepared in an open two-roll mill. Investigations of cure characteristics, dynamic mechanical, tensile, thermal, and morphological characteristics were conducted using Rheometric analysis, Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), mechanical property evaluation, Thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM), respectively, to derive the interrelation among the developed nanostructures inside the composite, crosslinking density, performance properties obtained there from. A satisfactory level of correlation was obtained among various results, which indicated the formation of "nanounit" comprising of N-330 and NC inside ENR-25 matrix. To optimize the nanostructures, ENR based compounds containing various combinations of NC and N-330 was prepared. Thorough and systematic structure-property analyses were performed on those composites. Optimum stoichiometric combination of N-330 and NC inside the ENR-25 matrix was derived (ratio of N-330 and nanoclay in wt% = 20:15), which showed synergistic effect of one filler upon another that was ultimately reflected in their dynamic mechanical and tensile properties. POLYM. COMPOS., 2010. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers


There is a growing interest in maximizing CrossFit (CF) performance as the sport becomes more economically viable at elite levels. The ability to delineate the physiological demands of the sport of CF allows coaches and athletes to develop more efficacious exercise programming in order to maximize the athlete's potential for success at the most elite and lucrative levels of competition. There is also a growing interest in increasing health and fitness in the general population as obesity and chronic disease rates continue to rise. Hand grip strength (HGS) is an indicator of total body strength, mortality, morbidity and independence among aging adults. Given that CF is the "Sport of Fitness", it would be of interest to determine the relationship between HGS and CF performance. The current study examined the relationship between CF performance and hand grip strength (HGS). It was hypothesized that CF performance would have a meaningful significant relationship with HGS. Fifteen (n=15) female CF participants (age 30.9±7.1 years, height 160.3±4.8 cm, body mass 64.5±9.6 kg) of varying experience levels (51.9±30.6 months) were assessed for HGS and CF performance measures. The CF performance measures were assessed via a Workout of the Day (WOD) comprised of 3 rounds of 30 seconds at each of the following stations: fan bike (FB) for maximum calories, air squats (AS) for maximum repetitions, sit-ups (SU) for maximum repetitions, and burpees (BP) for maximum repetitions. Each 30 second work interval was followed by 2 minutes and 30 seconds of rest to ensure full recovery of the phosphagen energy system. Scores were reported as the mean number of repetitions completed across the 3 attempts at each movement station. Individual movements as well as total repetitions were then compared to HGS with Pearson correlation coefficients (r). Sit-up performance demonstrated a positive moderately (r=0.44) significant relationship with mean HGS (p 0.05). Within the parameters of this study, CF participants exhibited a moderate relationship between HGS and sit-up scores.


The kinetics of nitrobenzene carbonylation with carbon monoxide in methanol over the two-component catalyst potassium ethylxanthate-rubeanic acid was studied from 383-423/sup 0/K and pressures of 11-32 MPa. It was established that at low (< 15%) conversion of nitrobenzene the investigated process is second order in sulfur-containing catalyst and first order in nitrobenzene. The apparent activation energy was (113 +/- 6) 10/sup 3/ J/mole. A scheme of carbonylation of nitrobenzene in methanol in the presence of sulfur-containing catalyst was proposed which includes formation of complexes of nitrobenzene and CO with catalyst.


Biomass granular fuel boiler, it is related to boiler technology field;The bottom of shell is provided with shoot door, and housing interior side-wall is provided with water-cooling wall, and some fire tubes are set side by side with water-cooling wall, chimney is provided with above some fire tubes;The side of described some fire tubes is provided with gas combustion zone, the side of gas combustion zone is provided with fuel gasification area, gas combustion zone communicates with fuel gasification area, fuel gasification is provided with charge door above area, material road is connected with charge door, fire grate is provided with below fuel gasification area, the side wall of outer shell of fire grate side is provided with clean-out door;Up air channel is provided between described shell and fuel gasification area, the lower end in up air channel is connected with air intlet;Described fire grate one end is provided with slag door.The problem of biomass granular fuel boiler of the present invention, charging rate is fast, and burning is complete, and the thermal efficiency is high, and no black smoke produces, and no exhaust gas temperature is too high, safe to use, cost of investment is low, adapts to the national conditions in China.


When we think of diabetes and its potential effects on the eye and vision, we tend to concentrate of retinopathy and the possibility of macular involvement causing a permanent vision loss and proliferative disease leading to blindness. Diabetes can, however, affect most ocular structures and this article will describe some of these changes.


Six Chinese medicine and the extract of compatibility prescription were taken as subjects and add Phenol red by the improved Martin liquid as indicator. Test the minimum inhibitory concentration(MIC) of every Chinese medicine and the extract of compatibility prescription by tube double dilution method to three E.coli. The results showed that, bacteriostatic effect of Coptis chinensis was best in single herb, the prescription of dyers woad leaf, issatis root, heartleaf houtlyynia, honeysuckle and coptis prescription had good inhibitory effect on E.coli.


A method of treating a patient with a pulmonary disease, the method comprising intermittently supplying an aerosolized drug to a ventilator circuit coupled to the patient's respiratory system. Further, a method of treating a patient with a pulmonary disease, the method comprising removing the ventilator from the patient and administering a nebulized aerosol comprising about 100 μg to about 500 mg of the drug to the patient. In addition, an aerosolized drug for treating pulmonary disease, the drug comprising amikacin mixed with an aqueous solution having an adjusted pH of about 5.5 to about 6.3. The pH is adjusted by adding hydrochloric acid or sodium hydroxide to the aqueous solution.


Many service rating systems have been proposed for service computing to help users select services. Most of these systems do not consider the unfair rating problem. As a result, malicious users and services might explore the weakness of the existing rating systems in handling unfair ratings to gain commercial advantage. This paper proposed a service rating scheme that is robust against manipulations by malicious users and services. The system helps a customer to choose a suitable service through predicting the customer's ratings to services. When predicting a customer's rating for a service, the system uses the ratings given to the service by the experienced users and the users that are similar to the customer. Simulation results showed that (a) compared with other schemes, the proposed system has good prediction accuracy, and (b) the system tackles the unfair rating problem effectively.


OnipLe)?C 1t Fi.ration. In 1901-2 Bordet and (lengon, workiing at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, miiade knowvn an advance in practical immlnunity, now known as the "Bordet Gengou plieniomulenon,." which. forms thb basis of many ilmmunity observationls at present. They shiowed tllat if typlhoid bacilli were injected into a rabbit at suitable intervals anid in suitable doses, the animnal developed in its blood serumii a body capable ii vitro of breakinig down Bci/ilst/yp7iosns. 'rlie antibody so produiced is calle"d "bacteriolysin," and is slec,fie. It consists of two substances--a tlherimostabile s-bstance resistingheat at 56° C. forlhalf anlhour, called the antboceptor or immune body, and a tlhermolabile substan-e dlestroyed bylheat at 560 C. forlhalf ani houtr, and called the comnplement. They slhowed that to bring about bacteriolysis of B. typhosas, anitityplhoid body, anid complem-nent, all tlheemiust be present in the muixtture, anld tltat tl e fresh antiserum contained the comiiplemlenit. whlich cani bedestroyed byheat or prolonged keeping, btut can be restored by addition of som-le freslh serLum ofnormiial guineapigs. They applied this samielplhenomenlon to organized (-ells. that is, red blood cells of different anirmals, suchl as tltera.-bbit. sicep, etc., and found thaton1 injection of red blood corptuscles of thie sheep into a rabbit, a specific 1Iaenmolysin developed wlicil inpresence of complemenit can prodiIceliaemolysis of the cells in ?i/r. T'ley slhowed firtilter that diuring this reaction the complemiienit gets tsed up) or disappears, anid can no longer be demionstrated oi a(ldina moreblood cells and coiyplenielit-free amboc(-pttor. Tlhis, tltein, was a proof of the action of body, antitbody, andcomplement. Tlte complemenit being nio longer free was said to be fixed, anid thle reaction a "cotnplei-ment fixation." rlhis fixation is a specific pltenottelonn, anlld strictly speaking slhotild be applied to known bod', antibodly combinations stieui as B. 1/h1)7iosiis and aIIntitvpltoi( serumll, B. tutbereutlosis anidttiberecilotis anitiserumll, etc. Comiplement Deviation. 'riiis can be mnerely a deviation inease of syphiilis, in whiliehi Nogicli h lias proved that fixation does not occur with syphilitic sernums in presence of pure extracts of spirochlaetes, btit that the so-called" fixation " occu1rs with suitable aqueous, alcohliolic, or acetone-insoluble lipoidal extracts of nornmal organs. The antibodies occurring in sy-philitic persons are niot, at any rate partially, ofimimune niature, that is, body antibody, and so long as the reaction is positive, unlikeinmimunity produced during an attack of typho oid fever or pneumonia and after recovering, the patienit is still in a state of infectivity. The Wasseratan reaction is only a side issue,shiowing the degree of action and interaction of the syphilitic viruts and tissues of the bo(dy, thle degradation or the tissue-reaction products which can beshown by the complement being(deviated by su;itable organ extracts.1 In the light of moderti research it is possible toshlow that spirochaete extracts can be miiade to " fix " complemnenit in cases of syphiis possessing enough imnimune antibodies, thusshlowingthatthe patient has really recovered. But the sense in whichl the preselit Wassernimann reaction is carried out is m eant toshlow and to dletect the evidence and( presence of active infection of th-e patienit's system. In a patient clinically syphlilitic, the antibody contents mav be so small and the reaction so feeble as to be almost negative (especially if a feeble antigen andl a strong


Japan Welding Engineering Society (WES) standard WES 2805 gives procedures for safety evaluation of defects at elastic-plastic condition in welded structures on the basis of the CTOD concept. The essential point of fracture strength assessment in WES 2805 is a relationship between CTOD value and local applied strain, so called "CTOD design curve". It is important to confirm the applicability of local strain based CTOD design curve to the case of the structural stress concentration, because most of brittle fractures in real structures occur from the defects at the structural stress and strain concentrated region.In this series of studies on fracture strength assessment, an investigation on fracture test results for some kind of structure models with strain concentration was carried out, and modified WES CTOD design curve was proposed. Furthermore, wide plate tests with cracks emanating from a hole and stiffener model tests with a crack in the strain concentrated region were carried out, and applicability of the proposed CTOD design curve was investigated.In this study, wide plate tests with stress concentration using 2-dimensional finite element analysis were carried out, and it was shown that the relationship between CTOD and local strain was varied with the relative size of the plastically deformed region as compared with defect size. It the plastically deformed region size was lagerer than 4 times of crack length, modified WES CTOD design curve under-estimates CTOD value. It has been revealed that the proposed modified WES CTOD design curve is valid for fracture strength assessment of cracks in the stress concentrated region except above mentioned case.


The quantum dynamics of an ensemble of interacting electrons in an array of random scatterers is treated using a new numerical approach for the calculation of average values of quantum operators and time correlation functions in the Wigner representation. This approach combines both molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods and computes numerical traces and spectra of the relevant dynamical quantities such as momentum–momentum correlation functions and spatial dispersions. Considering, as an application, a system with fixed scatterers, the results clearly demonstrate that the many-particle interaction between the electrons can lead to an enhancement of the conductivity at intermediate densities.


This article makes use of tick-by-tick data to estimate the probability of informed trading (PIN) to IBRX stocks. We add PIN in Fama French (1993) method to separate portfolios and explain their returns. Our evidence points out we may find some portfolios, which have statistically higher return and lower risk in a Markov-switching regression. The results demonstrate PIN is an important factor in explaining portfolio returns.


The invention discloses an efficient composite powdered cyanobacteria treatment agent. The efficient composite powdered cyanobacteria treatment agent is characterized by being prepared from the following raw materials in parts by weight: 25-30 parts of polyacrylamide, 20-23 parts of sodium polyacrylate, 18-20 parts of attapulgite clay, 15-17 parts of sodium silicate, 14-18 parts of silicic acid, 13-16 parts of cuprous chloride, 12-15 parts of ferrous sulfate, 1-2 parts of herba andrographitis, 2-3 parts of rhizoma kaempferiae, 3-5 parts of common carpesium fruit, and 1-3 parts of semen momordicae. The treatment agent is good in treatment effect, strong in flocculating purification effect, excellent in bactericidal performance, simple and convenient to operate, and low in cost, and can be used for treating both symptoms and root causes. Sludge can be pumped as an excellent green fertilizer, and ecological remediation and resource recycling economy are achieved.


The electrical resistivity of carbon fiber laminar composites can be tailored by weave direction, fiber composition, resin composition, applied pressure, and fiber fraction. Although the weave direction was only found to be important in the case of high aspect ratio composites, the other factors were found to influence the resistivity generally. Most intriguing, the resistivity of composites with lamina of different fiber compositions follows a parallel resistor model. This opens the door for higher performance, lower cost composites to be fabricated from these mixed fiber composites.


I was "foggy" on when and how to apply screens for lung cancer with low-dose CT, but a perfect model for a 3-question template provided answers.


AIM To compare the effect and safety of miconazole supositories and clotrimazole vaginal tablets in treating uncomplicated vulvovaginal candidiasis(VVC).METHODS Eighty patients suffering from VVC were randomly divided into treatment group and control group(40 patients for each)respectively treated with a single dose of miconazole nitrate suppository 1 200 mg and clotrimazole vaginal tablet 500 mg.Routine examination,core of clinical symptoms and physical signs,mycetology test and safety evaluation were done before the treatment and 7 and 28-35 days after the treatment.RESULTS Seven days after the treatment,there was one patient lost to follow-up in the treatment group and 2 patients in the control group,so 77 patients were followed in all.Before the treatment,there were no significant differences in pruritus,pain,congestive edema and increased secretions between the two groups(P 0.05).After 7 days and 28-35 days of the treatment,there were significant differences in those symptoms and signs compared to those before the treatment(P 0.05),with no significant differences between the two groups(P 0.05).After 7 days and 28-35 days of the treatment,the overall effective rate was 87%(34/39)and 95%(37/39)in the treatment group and 82%(31/38)and 95%(35/38)in the control group,respectively,with no significant differences in clinical efficacy between the two groups(P 0.05).Adverse reactions were mild in the two groups and they were relieved without any treatment in one or two days.CONCLUSION The effect and safety of miconazole suppositories and clotrimazole vaginal tablet are similar in the treatment of VVC.


Emerging vehicular communication makes it possible to provide traffic light information to drivers inside vehicles with the application of in-vehicle devices. However, the effect of this method on driver behaviour is still unclear, and there is concern that the application of in-vehicle traffic lights may result in driver distraction. This study proposed two modes of in-vehicle traffic lights to assist drivers: a 'current' mode providing real-time information of the upcoming ground traffic lights, and a 'predicted' mode offering predicted information regarding ground traffic lights, taking into account the time to arrival at the upcoming intersection. Two kinds of in-vehicle devices were compared for displaying in-vehicle traffic lights: a normal 4.3-inch display and a head-up display. A driving simulator experiment was executed for 11 subjects, and driver behaviour was evaluated for driving operations and eye-gaze behaviour. The results demonstrated that disruptive braking and accelerating operations were significantly reduced under the predicted mode, and glance time was significantly shorter for the head-up display than for the normal 4.3-inch display. The authors concluded that the predicted mode easily prompts drivers to ecological driving, and that the head-up display is reliable for providing in-vehicle traffic light information.


The burden of proof includes the obtaining and use of evidence to reconstruct real circumstances of the event under study; it is the only means for the protection of rights and legal interests of the injured party and protects a person against illegal criminal liability and restriction of his/her rights and freedoms. It is impossible to adjudicate social conflicts in the field of law without the burden of proof. Therefore, the burden of proof has always been and still is the heart of criminal procedure. Meanwhile, the development of national legislation gave rise to different positions connected with the structure of evidence. The Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation 2001, Article 85 has stated that the process of proof includes collection, examination and evaluation of evidence. The authors point out that none of the above constituent part got a detailed legislative regulation and this resulted in the discussion about their content and correlation with each other. It has been noted in the present article that verification of evidence is a central element of the burden of proof. The authors give a critical analysis of the opposite viewpoint (it is the examination of evidence that is a central element) and come to the conclusion that in this case examination of evidence is understood as collection of evidence and its evaluation, but this is inadmissible. Moreover, the problem of the structure of the burden of proof is solved in the legislation of foreign states in different ways. The article examines the renewed criminal procedure legislations in the countries of CIS and their interpretation of verification of evidence. According to the Criminal Procedure Codes of the Republic of Moldova (Article 100), Republic of Tajikistan (Article 87), Kyrgyz Republic (Article 92), Azerbaijan Republic (Article 144) the verification of evidence has no procedural character but is a constituent element of the collection of evidence. The Criminal Procedure Codes of Kazakhstan (Article 124) and Turkmenistan (Article 135) name the above element as "examination of evidence". On the whole the Criminal Procedure Codes of CIS interpret the examination of evidence loosely, the analysis of collected evidence being included into it. The authors come to the conclusion that all elements of the burden of proof are tightly intertwined and interpenetrated but examination of evidence has an independent character. Unlike other elements its purpose is to obtain some supplementary materials which at the final stage of burden of proof enable us to define whether the obtained evidence has all necessary characteristics and is able to supplement the set of other collected evidence.


The paper analyzes the main indicators of the development of the economies of the EAEU countries (Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation). The main consequences of the influence of the "great self-isolation" on the development of the economies of these countries are revealed. The main directions of economic development of the EAEU countries have been identified to overcome the problems associated with the coronavirus pandemic.


Abstract : Recent improvements to the Kalah program are listed, and a proposal for speeding up the program by a factor of three is discussed. (Author)


Abstract We use the code CIGALE (Code Investigating Galaxies Emission: Burgarella et al. 2005; Noll et al. 2009) which provides physical information about galaxies by fitting their UV (ultraviolet)-to-IR (infrared) spectral energy distribuition (SED). CIGALE is based on the use of a UV-optical stellar SED plus a dust IR-emitting component. We study a sample of 136 Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs) at z∼0.7 in the ECDF-S previously studied in Giovannoli et al. (2011). We focus on the way the empirical Dale & Helou (2002) templates reproduce the observed SEDs of the LIRGs. Fig. 1 shows the total infrared luminosity (LIR) provided by CIGALE using the 64 templates (x axis) and using 2 templates (y axis) representative of the whole sample. Despite the larger dispersion when only 1 or 2 Herschel data are available, the agreement between both values is good with Δ log LIR = 0.0013 ± 0.045 dex. We conclude that 2 IR SEDs can be used alone to determine the LIR of LIRGs at z∼0.7 in an SED-fitting procedure.


The chemical and mineralogical composition of lignite fly ash (FA) varies as a function of the prevalent conditions in both the processes of power production and lignite mining. The differentiation of the qualitative and quantitative composition of the Greek calcareous lignite fly ash, as a function of its particle size distribution, is verified in this paper. According to the results of the conducted research, a fine-grained fraction of considerable amount presents properties that obstruct the sustainable exploitation of lignite fly ash in cement industry applications. On the other hand, the same grain fraction (because of its hydraulic properties) can be utilized in other sort of applications, based on different criteria. The coarse-grained fraction (which reflects a low proportion to the total fly ash output) presents the same undesired characteristics as well. However, the intermediate grain fraction [75-150μm] presents the highly desired properties in the field of the utilization of fly ash as pozzolanic additive in the production process of cement. In addition, the mechanism of the formation of the intermediate grain fraction strongly prevents the factors that cause the variation of its quality. It is therefore the optimum part of the whole amount of lignite fly ash, to be utilized as additive in cement manufacturing. The outcomes of this paper will hopefully contribute to the crucial goal of the expansion of the utilization of lignite fly ash in Greek cement industry by proposing a more effective way of using this material, basically by taking advantage of its fundamental chemical and mineralogical properties.


Introduction: Physical activity causes postural instability in patients with stroke and healthy subjects, but the impact of the type of physical activity and its durability on postural control in patients with stroke is not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the effect of two types of speedy and endurance walking on postural control and the time for returning of postural control to baseline after walking in patients with chronic stroke and healthy subjects. Material  and  Methods: In  this  non-experimental  case-control  study,  12 chronic  stroke patients (4 female, 8 male; 4 with right hemiparesis and 8 with left hemiparesis) by mean age of 54.16 ± 12.18) years and mean passed duration of injury 28.66 ± 25.11) months and 12 height-, weight-, age- and sex-matched healthy subjects by mean age of 54.33 ± 13.04)years were selected by simple non-probability method. Walking for 6 minutes at maximum speed and walking for 18 minutes at normal speed were considered as speedy and endurance walking,  respectively.  Mean  velocity  and  path  length  parameters of  postural  sway  were measured by force platform in tandem standing before walking and immediately, 15 and 30 minutes after walking. Results: The results of this study showed that the main effect of group was not significant in mean velocity (P = 0.487, F = 0.499) and path length parameters (P = 0.375, F = 0.818) while the both mean velocity (P = 0.016, F = 6.83) and path length (P = 0.034, F = 5.13) were greater in  speedy  walking  than endurance  walking.  Furthermore,  the  main  effect  of  time  was significant in mean velocity (P = 0.017, F = 4.26) and path length (P = 0.002, F = 5.31). None of the interaction effects was significant in any of postural sway parameters. Conclusion: The  results  of  this  study  indicated  that  speedy  walking results  in  postural instability more than endurance walking in both patients with chronic stroke and healthy subjects. Time for returning of postural stability to the baseline was 30 minutes after both speedy and endurance walking in both patients with chronic stroke and healthy subjects.


We target effective home automation based on wireless sensor networks. ASSL (Autonomic System Specification Language) is used to formally specify and generate prototype models for wireless sensor networks controlling a simulated virtual home environment. This approach allows for formal validation, experiments under simulated conditions, and smooth transition from a prototype system to a real one.


The study intends to provide a scientific evaluation method for PE teaching administrations and mainly adopted literature study.Main conclusion:the construction and application of "a comprehensive evaluation model for physical education teaching efficiency "validly reveal the functional relation of working efficiency between the teaching side and the learning side in PE teaching system,and the regularity of magnitude variations of PE teaching efficiencies H and H.


A recent study concluded that omnivorous plankton will shift from predatory to herbivorous feeding with climate warming, as consumers require increased carbon:phosphorous in their food. Although this is an appealing hypothesis, we suggest the conclusion is unfounded, based on the data presented, which seem in places questionable and poorly interpreted.


A risk-neutral producer faces liquidity constraint that forces him to liquidate real assets in imperfect markets if he cannot meet his cash obligation, entailing a fixed liquidation cost. Under this risk of liquidation, the risk-neutral producer is shown to refuse to undertake a risky project with positive expected excess return, exhibiting first-order risk aversion. The optimal output level of the producer is piecewise linear in wealth; it decreases or increases depending on whether the expected excess return is positive or negative. The producer's apparent utility function exhibits an S-shaped curve when the initial liquid assets are affected by a background risk that is normally distributed.


The Personality Assessment Inventory-Adolescent: Detection of ADHD Feigning Facilitated by Coaching and Non-Coaching Instructions. (May 2012) Jessica Diaz de Tuesta Department of Psychology Texas A&M University Research Advisor: Dr. Leslie C. Morey Department of Psychology The effectiveness and validity of three indicators of response distortion on the Personality Assessment Inventory-Adolescent (PAI-A; Morey, 2007), potentially useful to detect malingering, were evaluated by having college students complete the PAI-A under coached or non-coached conditions of faking Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The three indicators were the Negative Impression (NIM) scale, the Malingering (MAL) Index, and the Rogers discriminant function (RDF). To validate the effectiveness of the indicators, the college students' responses on the Conner's Adult ADHD Rating Scale (CAARS) was also evaluated; to determine who successfully simulated having ADHD. The effectiveness of providing information through visual and written means when coaching the participants in how to most accurately feign ADHD was also evaluated. The participants' responses from both the coached and non-coached conditions were compared with the responses of clinically diagnosed ADHD patients. The results showed that all three indicators demonstrated the ability to distinguish between actual and feigned responses. The NIM scale was more effective in identifying


ly considered substance . . . a real being of thought, judged, and talked about in relation to some real differences that activates a knowing faculty or habit." Philosophy/science is chiefly an intellectual virtue, a habit of the human soul, or better, chiefly the psychological habit of an individually-existing human person. The pre-modern understanding of science is intimately tied to the human person who deliberates and struggles to discern the nature of things and the proximate causes of their behavior. This effort activates a "knowing faculty or habit," which begins with wonder. How else can the human person scientifically discern the causes of the behavior things if he or she does not invest the time and effort to wonder about their causes? In this pre-modern understanding, economic science, likewise, studies the decisions of the human person in the marketplace. In trying to discern the best possible economic outcomes, he or she activates that 17 Redpath, A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics, Vol. 1, 157. 18 Peter A. Redpath, The Moral Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas: An Introduction to Ragamuffin Ethics (St. Louis, Mo.: En Route Books & Media, 2017), 339–374. Peter A. Redpath, Marvin B. D. Peláez, Jason Morgan 786 psychological knowing faculty or habit. Hence, science, and, therefore, economic science, is chiefly a habit of the human soul: a psychological habit. Economic science is a species of "organizational psychology," properly understood. This view of science is very different from how modern scientists and economists understand it. Today, science tends to be understood as a systematic logic. This is radically different from the way an ancient Greek like Socrates or Plato had understood scince/philosophy. For them, in its highest form, metaphysics: Philosophy uses no assumptions because it finds confirmation, not in a system or systematic logic, in an awareness of the first principles of considered in itself. It does not take its first principles from the conclusions of another higher science. Philosophy is the science that, with dialectic's help, knows the first principles that all other sciences assume. Mainstream modern economic science predominately uses mathematical symbols for logical arguments to prove theories. The role of the human person in economic activity is taken as given, but tends to be abstractly removed from concrete scientific analysis. We at the Aquinas School of Leadership School of Economics seek radically to change this disordered relationship. We hope you will join us in this effort!ly removed from concrete scientific analysis. We at the Aquinas School of Leadership School of Economics seek radically to change this disordered relationship. We hope you will join us in this effort! A Return to Pre-Modern Principles of Economic Science: Editors' Introduction


We report high gain avalanche photodetectors operating in the deep UV wavelength regime. The high gain was leveraged through reduced area epitaxy by patterning AlN on Sapphire substrate. This helps in a substantial reduction of crack formation due to overgrowth on individually isolated AlN mesas. Reproducible gain on the order of 105 was reported for multiple diodes in different areas of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$320\times 256$ </tex-math></inline-formula> focal plane array.


This article explores the expectations of the National Literacy Framework (NLSF) and highlights some problem areas in the context of the National Curriculum (NC) for English. One such area relates to the assessment criteria which were selected from the framework to address children's understanding of organisational features of texts in reading and writing. The aim of the CamPAS English Project (Cambridge Primary Assessment Scheme) was to develop materials to support teacher assessment at key stage 2, focusing on the text level strand of the National Literacy Framework. Assessment units were developed which were linked to criteria selected from the framework. The materials were trialled with key stage 2 children and the data analysis provided evidence about the factors which affected their performance in reading and writing in the context of the NLSF text level criteria. Analyses of pupil performance and the documentation of the NC and the NLSF suggested that there were problems in this curriculum area.


The present qualitative case study investigated the beliefs and practices of six English language teachers in secondary schools in Oman about grammar instruction. To improve EFL education in Omani schools, the study sought to determine whether teachers' beliefs and their grammar teaching practices were congruent. The study collected the data through classroom observations and interviews, and analysed the data using content analysis and Grounded theory to analyze the data. The findings showed that even though most teachers acknowledged the benefits of inductive grammar instruction, they favored deductive grammar instruction. Teachers attributed their classroom decisions to various factors such as students' language proficiency, time constraints, and curriculum overload. In addition, the findings showed that teachers' learning experiences shaped their decision-making and instructional practices. The lack of professional development training was another crucial factor that influenced their beliefs and grammar teaching practices. The study concluded that teachers in Oman required more individualized training sessions that could foster alternative beliefs and practices in favor of inductive grammar instruction.


Specimen adequacy is a key component in the cytologic evaluation of cervical Pap tests. At our institution, yearly unsatisfactory rates continue to be high, placing our laboratory in the 95th percentile for CAP benchmark data for unsatisfactory Pap test rates. Using the 2001 Bethesda System criteria, unsatisfactory Pap test rates were calculated over a ten year period (January 2002 to December 2011) and contributing factors were analyzed. Of the 124,457 ThinPrep Pap tests performed, 4,163 (3.3%) were unsatisfactory for evaluation, the majority (90%) due to too few squamous epithelial cells. Peri/postmenopausal women and those who had received radiation/chemotherapy had the highest unsatisfactory rates; 55% and 25%, respectively. Higher unsatisfactory Pap test rates are related to the patient population served. Defined, reproducible adequacy criteria need to be defined for Pap tests from patients in certain clinical conditions. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2014;42:380–383. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


BACKGROUND
Raising the minimum legal age (MLA) of tobacco sales from 18 to 21 (T21) has recently been implemented nationwide as a method to reduce tobacco use, but empirical data on youth knowledge of T21 policies and related pathways to tobacco use are limited.

METHODS
Data were collected from the 2018 Kansas Communities That Care Student Survey. Knowledge of the MLA was compared between T21 and non-T21 regions using a quasi-experimental design. Logistic regression and mediation analysis were conducted to assess the association between knowledge of the MLA, influencing factors, and intention to use tobacco.

RESULTS
Of 16,949 students (aged between 11 and 18) completing the T21 survey, fewer students responded correctly about the MLA in T21 than in non-T21 regions (37.4% vs. 46.3% responded correctly, 27.6% vs. 24.2% responded incorrectly, respectively). In T21 regions, Hispanics and students who support T21 were more likely to respond correctly about the MLA. Among current non-tobacco users in T21 regions, students who responded correctly about the MLA were less likely to report intention to use tobacco (AOR=0.7, 95% CI[0.6 - 0.8]) than those who responded incorrectly. The pathway from knowledge of the MLA to intention to use tobacco was significantly mediated by increased support for T21 (P=.002), perceived difficulty in accessing cigarettes (P = .042), and reduced susceptibility to peer influence (P=.027).

CONCLUSIONS
Knowledge of the MLA was inversely associated with intention to use tobacco among youth. Educational campaigns to raise awareness and support for T21 among youth may improve the impact of T21 policies.

IMPLICATIONS
This study examined youth knowledge of the MLA to purchase tobacco products, and whether knowledge of the MLA was associated with reduced intention to use tobacco. It also examined other influencing factors (e.g., perceived support for T21) and potential mediation pathways linking knowledge of the MLA with intention to use tobacco. Given the nationwide adoption of T21, educational campaigns to promote knowledge of the policy may improve its impact.


Radiocollars represent a significant investment of financial resources, particularly global positioning system (GPS) collars, and loss of data imposes analytical limitations from reduced sample sizes. Radiocollars on large, terrestrial mammals are seldom lost in the water. However, several instances in Oklahoma, USA necessitated a reliable and cost-effective technique for retrieving GPS collars from underwater to salvage the financial investment and data. We designed an underwater telemetry antenna to find and retrieve collars in ≤3 m of water. We describe field simulations under varying environmental and water conditions, and provide a list of materials along with instructions and considerations for building and using an underwater telemetry antenna. We successfully used our underwater antenna to locate and retrieve our submerged collar that was disposed of in a pond after illegal harvest; we also located and retrieved all collars used for field simulation (n = 11). On average, search time for collars was 30 min. The design of our underwater antenna was inexpensive (US$30), easy to build, and effective at locating submerged collars in 0.6–3.0 m of water, with varying water turbidity and substrates. Although our underwater telemetry antenna was designed to meet our needs, it could be modified for more specific or alternative circumstances. © 2011 The Wildlife Society.


This study discusses the effectiveness of the token economy method in reducing class disruption in class V attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) students at SD Negeri 16 Takengon, the aim is to prove the effectiveness of token economy in reducing out-of-class behavior disorders in ADHD children. This research is a quantitative research with an experimental approach, in the form of single subject research (SSR). The study design used A-B-A, where , baseline (A1), intervention (B), baseline (A2). Data collection techniques in this study were direct observation and using instruments for ADHD children. Data collection is done by filling in the frequency during the learning process. Based on the results of the analysis of the student's condition showed up and down in the behavior. In the intervention process, students experienced a decrease in class disruptive behavior in the form of leaving the class when the Economic Token Method was given, indicating that the Economic Token Method was effective in reducing class disruptive behavior in the form of leaving the classroom during the teaching and learning process.


The Thai vowel system comprises nine short-long vowel pairs. The nine spreading vowels occur in specific locations covering the whole articulatory area. The location of each vowel can be identified according to its acoustic characteristics. Relationships between acoustic and articulatory characteristics were found in the Thai vowel system where F1 relates to vowel height and F2 relates to vowel advancement like other vowel systems. The bark F1-F0 and F3-F2 were also found to represent vowel height and vowel advancement, respectively. Vowel height includes high, mid and low vowel groups while vowel advancement includes front, central and back vowel groups. The previous binary classification criterion is not sufficient for a spreading vowel system. Hence, three new classification strategies are proposed for the classification of complex vowel systems: (1) classification by vowel height, (2) classification by vowel advancement, and (3) classification by combined vowel height and vowel advancement. Acoustic analysis on the Thai vowel system is conducted and each vowel is acoustically modelled by its acoustic-articulatory features. The F1 and bark F1-F0 are employed in classification by vowel height. The F2 and bark F3-F2 are employed in classification by vowel advancement. Both acoustic features are integrated into a single feature vector in combined vowel height and vowel advancement classification using the Bayesian classifier. From the results, linear frequency scale provides better classification accuracy than bark in every case. The linear F1 is 88.52% correct in vowel height classification while it is 94.09% correct using linear F2 in vowel advancement classification. Both linear F1 and F2 achieve 86.33% correctness in combined classification of all the vowels. These illustrate that three classification strategies efficiently classify complex vowel systems using only static spectral cues. Therefore, the simple linear F1 and F2 values can be used to model vowel articulation and to classify each vowel in languages with a complex vowel system like Thai.


Adolescence is a developmental period which the risk of drug and alcohol abuse increases. Since mesolimbic dopaminergic system undergoes developmental changes during adolescence, and this system is involved in rewarding effects of drugs of abuse, we addressed the hypothesis that ethanol exposure during juvenile/adolescent period over‐activates mesolimbic dopaminergic system inducing adaptations which can trigger long‐term enduring behavioural effects of alcohol abuse. We treated juvenile/adolescent or adult rats with ethanol (3 g/kg) for two‐consecutive days at 48‐h intervals over 14‐day period. Here we show that intermittent ethanol treatment during the juvenile/adolescence period alters subsequent ethanol intake. In vivo microdialysis demonstrates that ethanol elicits a similar prolonged dopamine response in the nucleus accumbens of both adolescent and adult animals pre‐treated with multiple doses of ethanol, although the basal dopamine levels were higher in ethanol‐treated adolescents than in adult‐treated animals. Repeated ethanol administration also down‐regulates the expression of DRD2 and NMDAR2B phosphorylation in prefrontal cortex of adolescent animals, but not of adult rats. Finally, ethanol treatment during adolescence changes the acetylation of histones H3 and H4 in frontal cortex, nucleus accumbens and striatum, suggesting chromatin remodelling changes. In summary, our findings demonstrate the sensitivity of adolescent brain to ethanol effects on dopaminergic and glutamatergic neurotransmission, and suggest that abnormal plasticity in reward‐related processes and epigenetic mechanisms could contribute to the vulnerability of adolescents to alcohol addiction.


and development in physical agents, namely, fully autonomous legged robots. In this article, we describe our work using Sony's legged robots to participate at the RoboCup-98 legged robot demonstration and competition. Robotic soccer represents a challenging environment for research in systems with multiple robots that need to achieve concrete objectives, particularly in the presence of an adversary. Furthermore, RoboCup offers an excellent opportunity for robot entertainment. We introduce the RoboCup context and briefly present Sony's legged robot. We developed a vision-based navigation and a Bayesian localization algorithm. Team strategy is achieved through predefined behaviors and learning by instruction.


To look into the assumed difference between East and West in acceptance and use of robots, we performed a content analysis on 120 papers about social robots in two Asian-English (China Daily and Th...


Historical water quality data of the Tarago catchment in Victoria. Australia was analysed using a set of statistical techniques in order to obtain information on catchment water quality behaviour. The information includes water quality generating processes and their catchment wide homogeneity, information pertaining to identification of critically important water quality variables and identification of indicator variables. The primary statistical tools employed in this study are factor, discriminant, correlation and trend analysis. Limitations present in the raw data requires data to be cleaned prior to application. This study shows that historical data can provide useful insights and information on catchment water quality processes and behaviour. This information can be used in building catchment specific models for water quality management.


A general overview on the photochemical behaviour of [Ru(NH3)5L]2+ complexes (where L is a p ligand) is presented. The proposed mechanisms and techniques employed for the study of these reactions are discussed. Emphasis is made on the mechanisms that allow the identification of the reactive excited state of the [Ru(NH3)5py]2+ complex.


The present study deals with the mathematical modelling of vented explosions of hydrogen. The main focus is on the realistic scenarios of flow past an obstacle which increase the observed peak pressure significantly. The framework of a basic model is described first. Then formulation to account this obstacle is given in detail and validations from recent experiments on a 20-foot ISO container are shown. The model predictions match well with the experimental results for various model obstacles in different configurations.


Perhaps the notion of Popper's that has had the most influence is his attack on induction. Facts do not speak for themselves, he warned, making it vital for us to approach them with interesting theoretical questions in mind. As it happens, I have grave doubts about this cognitive ethic, habitually preferring as an historical sociologist to immerse myself in a period through whatever evidence literary, statistical, cartographic 1 can find before then seeking to generalise. Certainly, this view has curtailed my writing about Quebec, even though it is my intention to do so at length in the future. For I have learnt an enormous amount in Quebec, more or less as a member of a once dominant group, and have besides endlessly enjoyed living in genuinely multicultural Montreal. But it docs seem possible to say something now, first about civic and civil nationalism, and then, tentatively, about Quebec. The comments arc occasioned almost entirely by the exceptionally interesting conference on stateless nations on which this issue of Scottish Affairs is based.


Effect of smoking methods and cold storage on quality of silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) fillets was investigated in the present study. Fish fillets were cold and hot smoked in presence potassium sorbate (PS) and spices mixtures and or without it throughout salting process. All batches were polyethylene packaged and stored at 4±1 ° C for 60 days. Results showed that although values of total volatile bases nitrogen (TVB-N), trimethylamine nitrogen (TMA-N), and total bacterial count (TBC) were higher in cold smoked products than ones but thiobarbituric acid (TBA) and pH values were higher for hot smoked samples. Sensory evaluation indicated that cold smoked products were got high scores than hot smoked products. During cold storage, quality criteria of all treatments were gradually increased. However, all smoked silver carp products had long shelf life and still acceptable until the end of storage period. In addition, cold smoked fillets treated with spices mixtures had a superior color, odor, taste, texture, and overall acceptability scores. Therefore, essential amino acids index (EAAI) total essential amino acids (TEAA), essential amino acids (EAA), amino acid score (AS), biological value (BV) and percent satisfaction (PS/150%) were increased while grams consumed to cover the daily requirements (GDR) were decreased in this product at the initial zero time of storage and the end of storage period (60 days). In conclusion, cold smoked products were sensory more accepted than hot smoked products especially treated with spices. Also, both spices mixtures and PS in salting process improved sensory characteristics and controlled in changes rate of final products. Cold storage increased the shelf life and keeping the quality of silver carp fillets.


We present an improved nonlocal resonance model for electron-HCl collisions. The short-range part of the model is fitted to ab initio electron-scattering eigenphase sums calculated using the Schwinger multichannel method, while the long-range part is based on the ab initio potential-energy curve of the bound anion HCl-. This model significantly improves the agreement of nonlocal resonance calculations with recent absolute experimental data on dissociative electron attachment cross sections for HCl and DCl. It also partly resolves an inconsistency in the temperature effect in dissociative electron attachment to HCl present in the literature. Finally, the present model reproduces all qualitative structures observed previously in elastic scattering and vibrational-excitation cross sections.


Desorption kinetics of methanol on Au(111) and the oxidation of methanol on atomic oxygen pre-covered Au(111) have been investigated employing temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and molecular beam reactive scattering (MBRS). On clean Au(111), methanol is weakly adsorbed and desorbs molecularly. Three adsorption states, which are assigned to methanol molecules desorbing from the monolayer (β phase), amorphous multilayers (α2 phase), and crystallized multilayers (α1 phase), are observed. For the β peak, detailed numerical analysis, based on mathematical inversion of the Polanyi-Wigner equation, leads to an optimized pre-exponential factor (log ν = 11.3 ± 1.1 s-1) and coverage-dependent desorption energies, which are further used to accurately simulate TPD spectra for submonolayer initial methanol coverages. For methanol coverages of 0.2 and 1.0 ML, desorption energies of 40.6 ± 1.6 kJ/mol and 34.8 ± 1.4 kJ/mol are extracted. In the presence of atomic oxygen, TPD of adsorbed methanol exhibits desorption...


Provided herein comprising converting electromagnetic radiation from the infrared or near-infrared wavelengths into the visible spectrum of lanthanide-doped nanoparticles of the composition. Also provided herein using a light-doped nanoparticles delivered by a lanthanide activated light-responsive opsin and method for selectively changing the polarization state of the membrane of neurons expressed on the plasma membrane of neurons.


The work is a brief review of the results obtained in nonautonomous dynamics based on the concept of uniform equivalence of nonautonomous systems. This approach to the study of nonautonomous systems was proposed in [10] and further developed in the works of the second author, and recently - jointly by both authors. Such an approach seems to be fruitful and promising, since it allows one to develop a nonautonomous analogue of the theory of dynamical systems for the indicated classes of systems and give a classi cation of some natural classes of nonautonomous systems using combinatorial type invariants. We show this for classes of nonautonomous gradient-like vector elds on closed manifolds of dimensions one, two, and three. In the latter case, a new equivalence invariant appears, the wild embedding type for stable and unstable manifolds [14,17], as shown in a recent paper by the authors [5].


In a large scale distributed simulation with thousands of dynamic objects, efficient communication of data among these objects is an important issue. The broadcasting mechanism specified by the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) standards is not suitable for large scale distributed simulations. In the high level architecture (HLA) paradigm, the Runtime Infrastructure (RTI) provides a set of services, such as data distribution management (DDM) among federates. The goal of the DDM module in RTI is to make the data communication more efficient by sending the data only to those federates that need the data, as opposed to the broadcasting mechanism employed by DIS. Several DDM schemes have appeared in the literature. We discuss grid based DDM and develop a DDM model that uses grids for matching the publishing/subscription regions, and for data filtering. We show that appropriate choice of the grid-cell size is crucial in obtaining good performance. We develop an analytical model and derive a formula for identifying the optimal cell size in grid-based DDM.


Subject
 Changes in China's migrant population.

 Significance
 China's population of migrant workers has reached a new high of 286.5 million. Almost half now work in inland areas, not the wealthy east coast; most migrate to areas near their homes, not thousands of miles away; and most are not young and footloose -- their average age is 40 and the vast majority have children. However, they remain largely restricted to low-wage jobs and face institutional discrimination, particularly from the 'household registration system' that limits access to welfare and public services.

 Impacts
 As urbanisation gathers pace, the position of migrant workers as a new urban working class will be consolidated.
 The expansion of China's middle class will slow because migrant workers and their children are denied upward social mobility.
 The average age of the migrant population will increase; most lack pensions and will rely on their children for support.


The invention discloses a method for preparing a fiber base material and silicon dioxide aerogel composite heat insulating sleeve, and belongs to the technical field of materials. The method comprises the following steps: preparing wet gel from polyethoxydisiloxanes, water, a solvent and a catalysts serving as raw materials; and pouring the wet gel into a sleeve die in which a fiber base materialis laid evenly in advance, ageing, putting into an autoclave for drying heat treatment, and reducing temperature and releasing pressure to obtain the fiber base material and silicon dioxide aerogel composite heat insulating sleeve. The method has the advantages of reasonable design and simple operation; the obtained composite heat insulating sleeve has the advantages that: 1, the minimum thickness of the wall of the sleeve is only 0.5mm, the pressive strength can reach over 1MPa, and special dimensions or other special products can be manufactured by a similar process; 2, the minimum density can reach 100kg/m3, and the minimum heat conductivity is only 0.015w/m.k; and 3, the sleeve can resist maximum temperature of 800 DEG C. The sleeve is particularly suitable for the field of aviation with special requirements on heat insulating properties.


The significant costs of a road weather information systems (RWIS) motivate governments to optimize the design of the network to provide adequate monitoring coverage.


Many studies on this topic use models to predict the effect of food taxes. For example Bahl et al. [3] produced a model of the Irish economy to predict the effect of changing the price of soft drinks [3]. In Ireland there is already a special tax for soft drinks and the researchers tried to model what would happen if this tax was reduced by 20%. Their model predicted that this would cause a 7% increase in soft drink consumption in Ireland. In the same year, Santarossa & Mainland [4] created a similar model for Scotland [4]. Their model predicted that the price of fatty foods would have to increase by a quarter for fat and energy consumption to fall by 20% to the government's recommended rates. Four years later, Smed et al. [5] used a model to examine what would happen if value added tax in the Denmark was halved on vegetables and fruits [5]. They found that sugar consumption in Denmark would reduce by 7% and saturated fat by 4%. This study and the other two mentioned, all examined the effect of food taxes on consumption. But what about the effect on body weight?


After millennium development goals end it terms in 2015, members of United Nation agree to create new sustainable development goals (SDGs). The media are endorsed and needed to involve in the implementation of SDGs. Moreover, media in all its forms has a crucial role to play in the development agenda to ensure that citizens are well informed. The media has important roles to play, to inform, to educate, and to provide a platform for public debate and discussion. The media could serve as catalyst for citizens' empowerment and help to hold government and authorities to account. This study focuses on how media deal with its agenda setting in order to spread the information of SDGs to wider public. Based on theoretical assumption of the study, this study examines the media coverage of SDGs in 2017/2018; how SDGs has been understood and framed by media. By using a sequential mixed-method, this study applies quantitative approach to analyze all articles on SDGs. The qualitative approach is conducted to explore deeper insight of SDGs understanding from news management. This study found that not all SDGs are informed well. Only several SDGs are framed based on the concern of public policy.


The problem of constructing near-complementary sequences for peak power control in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is considered in this paper. In some applications, it is required that the sequences have various lengths as well as low peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR). In this paper, we give a method for constructing length n · 2m-k near-complementary sequences by the aid of standard Golay sequences. The method is a generalization of the construction of Golay sequences given by Fielder et al. Our method transforms seed pairs of length n to near-complementary sequences of length n · 2m-k, while the PMEPR bound of these sequences is two times as many as that of the seed pairs. When the seed pairs are Golay pairs, a class of complementary sets of size 4 will be obtained. We will consider the number of sequences of length n · 2m-k with PMEPR ≤ 4 in the future.


Abstract : Over the past several years, conjugate vaccines have met with much greater success and a number of these vaccines have received United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for use in adults and infants. Thus, it is the overall objective of this research project to assess the potential of an HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (gp120) conjugate-based vaccine to induce high, long-lasting anti-HIV-1 envelope antibody titers with group specific neutralizing activity against primary and laboratory isolates of HIV-1.


Bev Colless wants to say thank you - a big thank you - to nurses, doctors and the staff of The College of Nursing for their support on what could have been a horrible journey.


This article argues that the business alliance between the Polish nobility and the Jews was central to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth's overcoming the economic crisis of the mid-seventeenth fol...


Toxicopathological impact of lethal concentration (925 mg/l) of lead nitrate on the gills of air-breathing catfish Heteropneustes fossilis was analysed. Following exposure the gills exhibited rapid alterations that include detachment and lifting of the epithelial linings from the surfaces of the gill filament (primary, PL) and respiratory (secondary, SL) lamellae. This led to extensive haemorrhage from the gills. Thus the quantity of blood flowing across the gills decreased substantially. Simultaneously, uncontrolled regeneration of the PL and SL occured, leading to extensive hyperplasia of the epithelial cells lining the PL, and SL. Consequently, the gill filaments appeared as a cylindrical solid mass of cells with very little or almost no free surface left on the SL for gaseous exchange. The goblet mucous cells also exhibited periodic fluctuations in their density and staining behaviour. The chloride cells showed periodic fluctuation in their number at different stages of exposure. The density of the chloride cells is inversely proportional to the thickness of the epithelial lining of the PL and SL. Due to prolonged exposure, the neighbouring SL fused together and the entire gills appeared as solid mass of undifferentiated cells. Subsequently, the ladder-like arrangement of the pillar cells-blood capillaries of the gills also collapsed, causing asphyxiation and the death of the fish.


Objective To observe the effect of hyaluronic acid(HA) on apoptosis and cell cycle of chondrocytes of patients with osteoarthritis(OA) and investigate the mechanism of protection of HA.Methods Normal chondrocytes and those from patients with OA were subcultured to passage 2 and treated with HA for 24 h,then determined for proliferation activity by MTT method,and for apoptosis rate and cell cycle by flow cytometry.Results HA significantly decreased the apoptosis rate(P 0.05) and increased the proliferation activity,percentage at S phase as well as proliferation index(P 0.05) of chondrocytes of patients with OA,while showed no significant effect on proliferation activity and apoptosis of normal chondrocytes.Conclusion HA promoted the division and proliferation and decreased the apoptosis rate of chondrocytes of patients with OA,thus protected the chondrocytes.


This study aims to analyze the geographical economic concentration (GEC) in Aceh Province. The Decomposition AGC Index and secondary data for the period 2001-2013 are used in the analysis. The results showed that the GEC in Aceh Province tend to decline about -7.09 percents a year. But, since 2011 the growth increased about 1.27 percent a year. It showed five phases of changes of GEC. When the Aceh Province was proliferated from 13 to 23 districts, economic growth was not driving factor for economic concentration, but as a driving for de-concentration. Government spending density is significant for economic concentration driver, both in the period 2001-2007, and 2008-2013. Government spending per capita is the driven factor for economic concentration during the period 2008-2013. As well in Aceh-13 (period 2001-2013). This suggests that direct government expenditure to be important in developing the center of economic growth in Aceh Province.


Recent surveys have shown that trachoma is prevalent and is the most important cause of defective vision and blindness in certain regions of Southern Africa. The findings in surveys undertaken by a group of ophthalmologists on behalf of the South African National Council for the Blind and reported by Scott' are summarized in TABLE 1. In a survey in Sekukuniland, Amies et a1.2 examined over 500 children clinically and prepared films for microscopic examination from 109 of them. The findings were as shown in TABLE 2. The role of malnutrition in aggravating the iniections of the eye was also considered by Amies et d3 in a survey made on two tribes, the Bavenda and the Shangaan living in the North Eastern Transvaal. They concluded that the belief that the high incidence of blindness in the Bantu was largely due to malnutrition was not correct. They concluded further that blindness in the Bantu resulted from two main causes, trachoma and leukoma, the principal cause of the latter being bacterial conjunctivitis. In the course of this study typical inclusion bodies were found in a proportion of the cases examined, thus again confirming the clinical diagnosis of trachoma. These surveys showed the extent and importance of trachoma in the Union of South Africa. Other surveys have indicated that the populations in some regions of the other Territories of Southern Africa also suffer severely from eye disease. Thus, Eiselen and Gear4 in a recent study of a representative sample of the population in the Eastern Caprivi Strip of South-West Africa found that 64 per cent had evidence of eye disease resembling trachoma. Microscopic examination of 60 conjunctival smears showed typical inclusions or particles resembling elementary bodies in 10 per cent of them. Koch-Weeks infection was detected in only two persons. This finding is possibly relevant to the fact that few persons in the older age groups showed entropion, cicatrization, and other late sequelae of trachoma, in contrast to the findings in the Northern Transvaal, where Koch-Weeks infection was frequent and late sequelae of trachoma common.


Our attempt to synthesize Na2V3O7 and LiVO3 by using template free modified solvothermal methods with ethylene glycol-water solvent system (EG:H2O; 2:1 v/v) followed by calcination at 500 C in air have resulted in the formation of NaV6O15 admixed with NaV3O8, phase pure NaV6O15 and Li0.6V1.6O3.67.H2O. The compounds are being analyzed using P-XRD and FE-SEM. NaV6O15 crystallizes in the A2/m space group with a monoclinic crystal structure while Li0.6V1.6O3.67.H2O crystallizes in the I4/mmm space group with a tetragonal crystal structure. Refined lattice parameters of NaV6O15 are a = 10.151(5), b = 3.606(2), c = 15.581(1) Å, β = 109.45 and Li0.6V1.6O3.67.H2O are a = 3.712(1), c = 15.96(1) Å. The phase pure NaV6O15 and NaV3O8 admixed NaV6O15 have rod shaped morphology with an average length of 7 μm and diameter of 0.5 μm.


The aim of this research is to determine heavy metal concentration and their different chemical species in sediments of Lake Martignano, in different periods of the year and in the different sediment layers. Initially we considered twelve stations situated along a transept, then the experimentation was carried out on three stations located at different depths. It's possible to observe a trend, particularly for manganese, to accumulate in the deeper zone of the lake. Most of the elements are present as stable species indicating that the lake Martignano is an unpolluted environment; manganese is present overall in mobile form. This high level of mobile manganese depends on redox potential conditions, so MnO 2 can be reduced and solubilized. Noticeable seasonal variations are not observed, except for manganese in central zone of the lake. The variations observed for manganese can be attributable to an imperfect correspondence of sampling point rather than a seasonal phenomenon.


Designing materials with low thermal conductivity ( κ) is of demand for thermal protection, heat insulation, thermoelectricity, etc. In this paper, based on the state-of-the-art first-principles calculations, we propose a framework of a 1T-sandwich structure for designing materials with low κ. The 1T-sandwich structure is the same as the well-known transition metal dichalcogenide but with light carbon atoms in the middle plane. Using different atoms to fill the outer positions, a few novel two-dimensional materials are constructed as study cases, i.e., Mg2C, Janus MgBeC, Be2C, and Mo2C. With a systematic and comparative study, the κ are calculated to be 3.74, 8.26, 14.80, and 5.13 W/mK, respectively. The consistent values indicate the stable behavior of low κ in the 1T-sandwich structure, being insensitive to the component. Our study would help design advanced functional materials with reliable heat transfer performance for practical applications, which reduces the influence of unavoidable impurities.


Aim To expore the effect of hyperinsulin on the maturation of monocyte-derived dendritic cells in the Acute Coronary Syndrome(ACS) patients. Methods Human monocytes of ACS were purifed using successive adherence method,recombinated human granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor(GM-CSF,100 μg/L)and interleukin-4(IL-4,100 μg/L)after 5 days culture in RPMI 1640 medium containing.Immature DC(imDC) were collected,then added RPMI 1640 medium containing with insulin of various concentrations(1nmol/L,10nmol/L,100 nmol/L)for 48 hours,mature DC(mDC) were derived.Immunophenotypic expression of CD40,CD80 and CD83 were monitored by flow cytometry,and expression of IL-12,IL-10 and TNF-α were measured by ELISA,and the morphological features of dendritic cells were observed with invert optical microscope. Results Hyperinsulin promoted the expression of CD40,CD80 and CD83 and enhanced the expression of IL-12 and TNF-α significantly and refained the expression of IL-10 in the acute coronary syndrome patients. Conclusions Hyperinsulin contributed to the development of atherosclerosis via stimulating immune maturation of DC,which may be one of its mechanisms in the development of ACS.


The invention provides a physical simulation experimental device for oil and gas charging of a fracture-cave carbonate reservoir. The physical simulation experiment device comprises a fracture-cave model, an experiment table with a window, surrounding rock and a camera shooting and monitoring system, wherein the fracture-cave model comprises simulation caves in different sizes and simulation fractures in different sizes, and the simulation caves are communicated through the simulation fractures; the fracture-cave model is arranged in the experiment table with the window, and the simulation caves in at least one side of the fracture-cave model are visible through the window of the experiment table; the surrounding rock surrounds the fracture-cave model to form the fracture-cave carbonate reservoir in a simulating manner; and the camera shooting and monitoring system is used for detecting and adjusting changes of both the flow rate and pressure in the charging process and recording images, displayed in the window, of the fractures and the caves in the charging process. The invention further provides a physical simulation method for oil and gas charging of the fracture-cave carbonate reservoir, and the physical simulation method employs the experimental device. According to the physical simulation method and the physical simulation experimental device for oil and gas charging of the fracture-cave carbonate reservoir, an oil-gas-water distribution rule can be obtained according to such parameters as karst, fractures, crude oil density and oil-gas-water distribution.


In this paper, output feedback tracking sliding mode control was considered for uncertain multivariable linear systems. The uncertainties included external disturbance, the system state, and control input. A new property of the loop transfer recovery (LTR) observer was first established: the state estimation error of the LTR observer can be made arbitrarily small with respect to state- and input-dependent system uncertainties. Observer-based output feedback tracking sliding mode control using the LTR observer is presented. The proposed sliding mode control approach can maintain the boundedness of the system state and drive the system outputs arbitrarily close to the desired reference outputs; the degree of closeness was determined by a design parameter in the LTR observer. In the proposed approach, the most general and simple observer-based output feedback control formulation was used to achieve global tracking. Simulations with a two-degree-of-freedom (DOF) robotic manipulator application illustrated the claimed properties, and a peaking and chattering reduction technique was demonstrated to protect the actuator.


The direct reaction between Cu(CH3COO)2 and uracil-1-acetic acid in water gives rise to the formation of a hydrogel consisting of entangled nanometric ribbons of a crystalline antiferromagnetic 1D Cu(ii) coordination polymer (CP) decorated with biocompatible uracil nucleobases. This hydrogel is the precursor for the preparation of a meso/macroporous ultralight aerogel that shows a remarkable Young's modulus. As a proof-of-concept of the molecular recognition capability of the terminal uracil moieties anchored at Cu(ii) CP chains, this material has been tested as the selective stationary phase for the separation of nucleobase derivatives in HPLC columns.


A case of sudden sensorineural hearing loss following abdominal surgery is reported. In addition, all cases of sudden hearing loss following general surgery found in the literature are re-examined. This analysis indicates that either this pathology is extremely rare (only 15 cases have been reported in the literature, plus the present case) or, more likely, that little attention is paid to the relationship between general surgery and sudden hearing loss. In the author's opinion a causal relationship between the two events is highly unlikely. He analyzes the possible pathogenic mechanisms and indicates that other cases should be promptly reported so that greater insight into this pathology can be obtained.


XU Te-li put forward a series of insights in the noble work of the teachers.Teachers' work is the glorious and important post of training talents.Teachers should enjoy the political and social status of people's teachers;primary and secondary school teachers are engaged in basic education,and are the enlightenment of comprehensive development quality.Teachers occupy an important position in social development and nation-building."Teachers are the cadres with knowledge ".They should enjoy the same treatment as that of the civil servants.Primary and secondary school teachers should be assessed with professional and technical titles,and primary and secondary schools teachers of special grade can enjoy the same treatment as that of university professors,associate professor and so on.


Starting from the basic task of experimental teaching and stressing on training college students' general practical abilities,the article discusses the characteristics and rule of practical teaching in Sensor Curriculum.In experimental teaching,the author researches and improves the teaching contents and experimental methods in Sensor Curriculum.Moreover the author puts forward some suggestions to improve the teaching quality and effect of experimental teaching.


The article objective is to theoretically substantiate the preconditions and consequences of the ritualization of public relations communications in a postmodern society.

Research methodology. In order to achieve the objective of the research, the following methods are used: descriptive, analysis and synthesis method, systematization and generalization to discern the main scientific approaches to the study of ritual as a social and communicative phenomenon to identify parameters for ritual and PR communication; comparative and historical method is implied to determine the regularities of genesis and interaction of ritual and PR communication in public space; structural and functional method is applied to identify the functions of ritual in public relations communications under conditions of postmodern society.

Results. One of the prerequisites for ritualization of public relations communications is the genetic kinship of ritual and PR through their entrenchment in public space. PR technologies effectively exploit the potential of ritual as a means of structuring reality, and ritualization in postmodern PR communications becomes one of the mechanisms of creating simulated hyper reality. The negative consequences of ritualization in public relations are formalization and dumbing down of communication processes, which lead to loss of public confidence and can have a negative impact on the quality of society development. At the same time, under conditions of information environment saturation, the effectiveness of PR enhances the ritual communication techniques: reducing the level of critical perception through the appeal to the primary structures of archetype, preponderance of the non-verbal component over the verbal one, showmanship and periodicity of exposure.

Novelty. The novelty of the research lies in the substantiation of theoretical bases, including the preconditions and consequences of ritualization of communications of public relations in post-modern society.

The practical significance of the research is in the possibility of implementation of theoretical concepts of the article in a field of research in the different spheres of social communications, such as public relations.

Key words: ritual, ritualization, social communications, postmodern, public relations, myth.


A considerable proportion of the global population has lost vision due to the late diagnosis of glaucoma, causing ocular pressure on the optic nerve, and blindness to become irreversible. A number of 60.50 million people suffer open angle (OAG) and angle closure glaucoma (ACG) in 2010, increasing to 79.60 million by 2020, and of these, 74% will have OAG. For that reason, the objective of this project was to implement a computational technique of early diagnosis of glaucoma using imaging processing in MATLAB, with the aim of preventing future more severe damages. Together with this, it also sought to improve the precision of the technique to complement the work of the specialist, and providing more accessibility to the patient. The entire ACRIMA database was used for the diagnosis and then analyzed and processed by MATLAB, by extracting the most relevant qualities from the images to reach an optimal diagnosis. The performance test was based on Matlab glaucoma detection proposed method, showing satisfactory results with an accuracy of 94.61%, sensitivity of 94.57% and specificity of 95%. These percentages showed that glaucoma detection using Matlab is feasible.


The present invention discloses a defoamer A vinyl chloride resin for paste. In the polymerization reactor containing a vinyl chloride as a main component by polymerizing the monomer mixture to the process of preparing vinyl chloride resin, the agent of the present invention can prevent fish eyes from the slurry due to bubble generation and the production efficiency is deteriorated, without hinder the inherent transparency of vinyl chloride resin.


Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (CE-MRI) has been widely used in the diagnosis of lesions. Many contrast agents with various chemical and pharmacokinetic properties have been developed for clinical use. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) after the contrast agent administration depend on many factors, e.g. category and injected dosage of contrast agents, field strength of magnetic resonance (MR) scanner, slew rate of gradient, type of radiofrequency coil, reconstruction algorithm, pulse sequences, and so on. Gadovist is a newly developed contrast agent with high formulation of 1.0 M. It has been used in MR angiography and perfusion studies. The aim of this study is to investigate the optimal concentrations of Gadovist in MR T1-weighted (T1W) images from phantom study and computer simulation. A phantom made of 21 test tubes with various concentrations of Gadovist (0–160 mM) was investigated. All the studies were performed on a 1.5-T clinical whole-body scanner. Four T1W pulse sequences, including two-dimensional spoiled gradient echo (2DSPGR), three-dimensional fast spoiled gradient echo (3DFSPGR), conventional spin echo (CSE), and inversion recovery (IR) were employed to produce T1W images. The CNR values were calculated from regions of interest (ROIs) of all test tubes and the optimal concentration for each pulse sequence was determined. The T1 and T2 values of the phantom were also measured to obtain the relaxivities (r1 and r2). Afterward, the optimal concentration for each pulse sequence could be obtained from computer simulation by using the r1 and r2 values. The results showed that the measured optimal concentrations for 2DSPGR, 3DFSPGR, CSE and IR are 10, 20, 2.5, and 2.5 mM, respectively. The r1 and r2 values of the Gadovist phantom are 4.1 and 5.7 mM-1s-1, respectively. The optimal concentrations obtained from computer simulation are 13.5, 22.8, 2.0, and 2.7 mM for 2DSPGR, 3DFSPGR, CSE, and IR, respectively. The optimal concentrations obtained from computer simulation and phantom study are in good agreement.


The book presents a study of the theoretical foundations for Islamic transactions. It provides the reader with a solid background which is essential for a comprehensive knowledge Islamic transactions, banking and finance. The main discussion include the sources for Islamic commercial and financial laws, the objectives of Sharia'ah with regard to commercial and financial transactions, property and its classifications and their implications for transactions, rights and financial rights, ownership and its types, the theory of contract, the pillars of contract, its classifications, and its options. The last chapter discusses factors that invalidate transactions such as usury/interest (riba), ambiguity (gharar), gambling (maysir), and the involvement of prohibited properties. The book is as important text note only for the students but also for all those who work in Islamic banks and financial institutions.


A systematic investigation on the mechanisms of nucleation and surface morphology evolution was performed on ZnTe epilayers, deposited on chemically etched GaAs(001) by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. A 2D–3D growth mode transition was observed at around two ZnTe equivalent monolyers (ML), which was ascribed to a Stransky–Krastanow growth mode. The 3D growth behavior was correlated to the development of {n11}-type planes, leading to a surface ridging effect along the [110] direction for 4000-ML-thick ZnTe epilayers. The use of a solid-on- solid kinetic roughening model allowed the identification of a mechanism that limits the self- organization of ZnTe nanosized islands, namely, the high density of kink sites found in non- atomically flat GaAs substrates.