Background
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a technique indicated in cases of severe respiratory failure or in situations where pump failure or heart failure is refractory to conventional medical treatment. Our goal was to describe the results of a patient with chronic Chagas dilated cardiomyopathy treated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as bridging therapy for heart transplantation.

Case report
A 62-year old male with a history of Chagas disease and severe ventricular failure who underwent veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as bridging therapy for heart transplantation, with good clinical evolution.

Conclusion
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a temporary, viable, safe and effective alternative for patients with severe heart failure refractory to treatment who will undergo transplantation.


This paper takes the history development and theories of new institutional economics as the starting point and concretely describes the research method and method innovation of new institutional economics. Combining with the legal research, the paper attempts to explore the contribution of new institutional economics theories to Chinese legal research method and some problems in applying new institutional economics theories to Chinese legal research method.


Purpose To research the value of serous D-dimer in acute miocardial infarction in the diagnosis and evaluate to the state of illness and curative effect. Methods The serous D-dimer in acute miocardial infarction were detected at admission and 1 week after streptokinase therapy with the method of ELISA. Results The concentration of serous D-dimer in acute miocardial infarction at admission was obvious higher than those who accept streptokinase therapy at least 1 week (P0.001). Conclusion The detection of serous D-dimer could be used as a index of diagnosis and evaluation of the state of illness and curative effect in the patients with acute miocardial infarction.


Objective: After introduction of the Elderly Long Term Care Insurance, number of geriatric hospitals increased greatly. However, few studies were conducted on the satisfaction of the patients of the geriatric hospitals especially on the intention to reuse geriatric hospitals. Methods: The current study modified Sheth`s consumption value model, useful for the development of an effective marketing strategy for geriatric hospitals, and tested it in Korean circumstances. The survey was conducted at two municipal hospitals and three private hospitals in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province between August 1 and September 30 of 2012. Data were collected from 472 inpatients who are 60 years or older. The structured research tool was developed and distributed. Factor analysis and hierarchical logistic regression analysis were conducted using SPSS(version 14.0) Results: The result of the research suggested that the satisfaction on rehabilitation services, which is a functional value, among the consumption values was the strongest factor on the intention to reuse geriatric hospitals. Impression of high-end luxury, reliability of care, and outside locus of control on health followed. Conclusion: It is recommended that geriatric hospitals ought to improve rehabilitation programs, facilities, and equipments and enhance kindness of staff to encourage intention to reuse geriatric hospitals.


Random forest is an accurate classification strategy, which estimates the posterior probabilities of the classes by averaging frequencies provided by trees. When data are scarce, this estimation becomes difficult. The Imprecise Dirichlet Model can be used to make the estimation robust, providing intervals of probabilities as outputs. Here, we propose a new aggregation strategy based on the theory of belief functions. We also propose to assign weights to the trees according to their amount of uncertainty when classifying a new instance. Our approach is compared experimentally to the baseline approach on several datasets.


Chromium and molybdenum are alloying elements well known in the ingot steel industry due to their positive influence in hardenability and mechanical properties. In spite of the fact that molybdenum was introduced in PM steels in 70's, chromium remains in a second plane due to its peculiarities for sintering: its high affinity for oxygen requires a well controlled atmosphere, and only recently industry is capable to use it in a reliable way. In this paper a review of the combined use of chromium and molybdenum is made, from their early use in laboratories till today, where it can be found for structural parts sintered in mesh belt furnaces.


Mots-cle: Assurance chomage, Recherche d'emploi, Incitation, Controle, Sanction. Abstract: The provision of Unemployment Insurance (UI) is associated with adverse incentive effects caused by moral hazard. Monitoring together with sanctions is one of possible instruments to restore incentives without reducing the unemployment subsidies provided by the UI system. Benefit reductions or interruptions are imposed if unemployed workers do not comply with job search guidelines. This paper investigates the effectiveness of such benefit sanctions in reducing unemployment. We use a simple job search model where the unemployment agency can simultaneously monitor search intensity of unemployed and wage offers rejection. We find that benefit sanctions for job refusals have negative effects on search intensity. Consequently, job offers monitoring can increase the unemployment rate and decrease welfare.


Various types of faults and defects could exist in the automation system of power grid.This paper introduces the design of automatic emergency dispatching system for major accident in power grid.It discusses the extraction and generation of major failures in data monitoring and control system,the extraction and generation of fault information in energy metering system,and the key technologies used in the design of information collection and judgment.The system was designed to classify fault signals from dispatching automation system,energy management system and channel on-line monitoring system to achieve seamless connection with existing management information system(MIS).It provides a quick and effective measure to eliminate hidden dangers.


Abstract Ocular ischemic syndrome (OIS) is a vision-threatening condition due to inadequate arterial supply to the orbital contents. OIS is commonly described secondary to severe carotid artery stenosis and most often observed by ophthalmologists. However, OIS may rarely also result in an interventional radiology setup during balloon test occlusion (BTO) of the internal carotid artery. BTO is a procedure to assess for the adequacy of the circle of Willis to compensate for a permanent parent arterial sacrifice by temporarily occluding the flow in the internal carotid artery using a balloon. Here, we present a case of OIS in a patient who underwent BOT as a part of presurgical evaluation for the excision of carotid body tumor.


The article discusses the problem of the construction of a test stand that allows simulation of wheelchair propulsion in various terrain conditions. The described test stand is a complete measuring system which allowing to analyse the parameters of the biomechanical system human-wheelchair. The described test stand allows observation of biomechanical parameters such as: centre of gravity, muscle activity, path, speed and acceleration. An important aspect of test stand is to replicate the real wheelchair motion in to laboratory conditions. The effect of the considerations taken in the article is the development of the structure, the construction of the test stand and the development of a research method using the stand.


Previous reviews of CO effectiveness have evaluated refugee camps and refugee resettlement as separate entities. However, few investigations have attempted to understand the relationship between refugee preconceptions, CO and refugee experience after resettlement in the US. We interviewed 17 resettled refugees – six African, five Bhutanese and six Burmese – who had attended programmes and seven case-workers.


"A field study involving 7734 Holstein calves from eight large intensive dairy herds
in northern Mexico (26o N; 24.2°C mean annual temperature; same location) was
conducted to determine factors associated with early postnatal (one to 21-d of age)
dairy calf mortality. The effects of season of birth, size of dairy operation, birth type
(single or twin), sex of calves, type of feeding (milk or milk replacer), herd and
temperature-humidity index (THI) shortly before, during or shortly after calving
were analyzed by the GENMOD procedure of SAS. The total mortality rate was
14% (range among dairy operations 7.0-29.1%). Mortality of calves was associated
with the THI during birth, with a decreased (P<0.05) mortality rate from 16 to 12%
with THI above 81 units. Mortality rates were 4 percentage point higher (P<0.05) in
winter than all other seasons. Single-born calves had fewer deaths (14%) than
twin-born calves (19%). The mortality rate was higher (P<0.05) in male than in
female calves (17 vs. 12%). Calves that were born in dairy operations >1800 cows were more likely to die than calves born in smaller dairies. Both respiration rate
(74.4 ± 15.6 vs. 67.8 ± 16.3) and heart rate (119.2 ± 19.6 vs. 113.9 ± 17.0) were
higher (P<0.05) in calves born in winter than in summer. Rectal temperature was
not altered by high ambient temperature and panting was not observed in calves
during days with high ambient temperature. It was concluded that in this particular
zone characterized by an intense heat load for most of the year, calf mortality was
not linked to high ambient temperature around calving, rather, winter weather negatively affected survival of calves. Thus, efforts to protect calves from cold
weather would likely alleviate calf losses."


Insopuble macromolecular polymer has been synthesized with three dimensional space and netted structure using epichlorohydrin as crosslinking agents,namely,polyresin.By the apphcation of theβ-cyclodextrin polyresin to separate,inositol is refined well.


PurposeThe study applied the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) framework to investigate the influence of flow elements (e.g. perceived control, concentration and cognitive enjoyment) on artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled e-tail services in evoking awe experience in online fashion apparel context.Design/methodology/approachData of 739 active users of online fashion retail shoppers were collected using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Partial least square-structural equation modeling was used for analysis.FindingsThis study suggested the relevance of AI-enabled services in evoking flow and stimulating the customers' awe experience in online fashion shopping.Practical implicationsThe use of AI could help online fashion retailers to improve the experiential elements by using stimuli that evoke feelings of vastness, novelty and mysticism.Originality/valueThe study offers insights about the relevance and applicability of AI in enhancing the flow elements and awe experience on online fashion apparel shopping in an emerging economy.


The invention discloses a barrier warning device for intelligent vehicle turning. The barrier warning device comprises a controller power supply, a probe group, a first control module and a buzzer group, wherein the controller power supply is connected with a steering wheel through an angle sensor; the controller power supply is electrically connected with the probe group to control the probe group to be started to detect barriers; the first control module decodes detection signals of the probe group and sends instructions through a power line; the buzzer group starts up according to the instructions sent by the first control module; the controller power supply, the probe group, the first control module and the buzzer group are in electrical connection to achieve carrier communication. According to the barrier warning device, the warning device is controlled to start through the steering wheel, the probe group senses the barriers, buzzers give out beeps to remind a driver and pedestrians respectively, and a camera group is started to shoot the road surface conditions, so the barrier warning device can well assist the driver in knowing the barriers around a car. The warning device is simple in structure, easy to manufacture, low in cost, safe, practical, remarkable in effect and capable of effectively improving driving safety and has wide application prospect.


Left ventricular pseudoaneurysm is an uncommon clinical entity mainly from a acute myocardial infarction (AMA), this a severe complication and potentially mortal. However, in exceptional cases, rupture is content by an organized hematoma, pericardium and fibrous tissue. The early diagnosis is essential owing to


Emission of electrons from lead zirconate titanate films was measured using excitation voltage pulses of different waveforms. Time-resolved measurements of the emission, voltage, and circuit current were conducted simultaneously. Electron emission spectra excited by a sine-wave voltage exhibited two distinguishable peaks arising every second half period of the applied voltage. Electron emission was also induced by film excitation with either square-wave voltage below coercive field, or unipolar pulses of appropriate polarity. The peculiarities of the emission are considered in terms of reversal of both induced (dielectric) and spontaneous (ferroelectric) polarization. Excitation of the electron emission in the "inversion of induced charge" mode seems to eliminate problems associated with reversal of spontaneous polarization as fatigue and necessity of resetting.


Arenediazonium ions, [N2C6H4R′-p][BF4], react with [Fe(CO)3–n{P(OMe)3}n(η4-cot)](1; n= 1 or 2, cot = cyclo-octatetraene) to give the azo-coupled cyclo-octatrienyl [Fe(CO)3–n{P(OMe)3}n–(η5-C8H8N2C6H4R′-p)]X (2; n= 1, R′= NO2, X = BF4; n= 1 or 2, R′= F, X = BPh4) which is deprotonated to give the fluxional, arylazo-substituted cot complex [Fe(CO)3–n{P(OMe)3}n(η4-C8H7N2C6H4R′-p)](3). The reaction of (3; n= 2, R′= F) with NMe3(O)·2H2O yields the un-co-ordinated azo-compound C8H7N2C6H4F-p(4). The tricarbonyl [Fe(CO)3(η4-cot)] and [N2C6H4NO2-p][BF4] afford the arylated bicyclo[5.1.0]octadienyl complex [Fe(CO)3(η5-C8H8C6H4NO2-p)][BF4](5) which is deprotonated to the fluxional aryl-cot complex [Fe(CO)3(η4-C8H7C6H4NO2-p)](6). Hydride-ion addition to (5) gives the bicyclo[5.1.0]octadiene compound [Fe(CO)3(η4-C8H9C6H4NO2-p)](7), 1H n.m.r. studies on which reveal an endo-aryl substituent. The mechanism of the reaction between (1) and [N2C6H4R′-p]+ involves competitive electrophilic attack at the metal and cot ring.


Purpose of Bachelor thesis is analyse electronic banking in chosen commercial bank – Slovak bank of deposit. The first chapter focuses on the bank and its products, channels and characterize the electronic banking and products closely linked. Electronic banking our selected commercial banks are developed in the second chapter, which discusses the most used products of modern communications with the bank.


Research on Culture and Character Education is a mind that is practical and can be implemented in an atmosphere of education in schools at the present time. Nevertheless, the implementation of the Education Culture and Character require changes in the implementation of the educational process that occurs in the school at the present time. The necessary changes do not change the applicable curriculum but require a new attitude and new skills of teachers, principals and school counselors. Attitudes and new skills is a requirement that must be met (conditio sine qua non) for the successful implementation of Culture and Character Education. Changes in attitude and mastery of the skills required can only be developed through education in-service focused, sustained, and systemic.


For the first time, on the basis of archival documents, an attempt is made to recreate a brief biography of the Yakutsk provincial government official in the second half of the 19th early 20th centuries D.I. Melikov. At various times he occupied the post of Prosecutor of Yakutsk Oblast, investigator, adviser to the regional government, a member of the Yakutia District Court, attorney; he served as vice-governor. But it is not possible to describe in detail all his activities in one article, so the author makes an emphasis on an expeditionary event headed by Melikov, important at that time for Yakutia: the opening of the Kolyma-Gizhiginskiy tract aimed at establishing links between Sredne-Kolymsk and the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk through the nearby Gizhiga (Gizhiginsk). Why was this particular official with a high rank for the province involved in this event? The importance of it was to establish a cheaper, closer and more accessible path from the village Gizhiga to the city Sredne-Kolymsk, located on the Kolyma River, at the state level rather than at the private one as merchants had previously done. At the same time, an audit was to show the real situation on the ground. What caused this necessity? It was the fact that the distance from Gizhiga to Yakutsk was 2315 miles of an arduous journey, and from there to Sredne-Kolymsk slightly more than 1000. Thus, reducing the distance was an opportunity to reduce the cost of delivery of goods in the Kolyma region and the fare from 14 to 5 and even 2 rubles per pood. That would give an opportunity for people to purchase products and goods at lower prices. With the construction of the road, delivery of goods from Gizhiga to Sredne-Kolymsk could be about 5 times cheaper than bringing them from Yakutsk across Siberia. The issue of establishing this way was also important as due to the severe climatic and environmental conditions the population of the Kolyma region was not able to engage in vegetable growing and arable farming. The scope of their activities consisted of cattle breeding, hunting and fishing. Melikov could negotiate a contract for transportation with the administration of Gizhiginsk, Primorye and uluses in the face of their elders. Thus, through the description of the person the article presents an official belonging to the class of Russian bureaucracy. On his example, the author revised the previously established notions about the indifferent bureaucracy endowed only with negative colors. This attitude was greatly contributed to by the dominant Soviet ideology that distorted the real state of affairs. It considered bureaucracy as a tool of the autocratic state, the spokesman of class interests and did not take into account the individual person, which obviously controverted archival documents. The documents suggest that having professional skills in the field of law, Melikov helped to strengthen the state, justice, international relations and made a major contribution to the development of the culture of Yakutia.


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has evaluated and reported on the effectiveness of fuel economy retrofit devices for many years. Originally, such products were marketed as emission improvers but with pressures of the oil embargo in the early 1970's most devices began to be promoted to benefit fuel economy. For the most part, such devices are not effective and do not measure up to the claims made by their advertisers. Of over ninety devices evaluated by EPA, only five have improved fuel economy without increasing emission levels.


Through the probing of the experiences of sport industry in Western developed countries,the present problems and existing advantages of Chinese sport industry have been discussed fully in this research. The key points have been put forward. And some theoretic help could be given to the development direction of Chinese sport industry.


The disclosed interface device for SIM and USIM comprises: a bus interface module, a register module, an interruption-handling module, a clock generation module, a state machine module, a transmit-receive module, a card detection module, and a power supply module. Wherein, there are bus clock signal (pclk), bus chip-selection signal (p_cs), bus address line (paddr), and card power on-off control signal (sc_pwctrl). This invention expands SIM card from 2G times to the 3G times as USIM card, reduces cost and consumption, and prolongs mobilephone standby time.


The investigation is about THE DACTILOPINTURA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CREATIVITY OF THE CHILDREN AND GIRLS OF FIVE YEARS OF THE UNIT EDUCATIONAL SAN FELIPE NERI OF THE CITY OF RIOBAMBA UN THE PERIOD 2018-2019 .Its purpose is determining the importance of the development creative of the children and helping the visual-motor coordination , creative and imaginative expression, stimulating the children to use the finger painting symbolically their thoughts .Having an object of study the 24 children , where it was used as a technique the observation and as an instrument , the observation sheet that consists of fifteen indicators for the data collection .Its evidencing that the painting stimulates communication , creativity, sensitivity and increases the capacity of concentration , taking it as an aid before a treatment, expressing the emotion and feelings within an environment ,strengthening self-esteem and reinforcing confidence in the child so that he feels capable of carrying out the activities and is curious about them . The results obtained were analyzed and interpreted with their respective percentages where at end of the investigation, the main characteristic are establishing within the manifestations of the fingerprint that the child has visual when he reproduces patterns, favoring having directionality and striking techniques for the exercise of the activities presented to the child.


The aqueous suspensions of vanadium pentoxide ribbons are known to present a lyotropic nematic phase. The optical microscopy photographs of these suspensions in the gel and the sol states shown in this paper are indeed typical nematic textures. The biphasic (I/N) region shows tactoids which can be aligned by a magnetic field. Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments were performed either on unoriented samples or on samples aligned by shear flow. The scattering is comparable to that of the other classic lyotropic nematic phases displayed by stiff organic rod-like particles. Scattering patterns give information on the transverse dimensions of the ribbons and on the average distance between them as a function of concentration. Estimates of the nematic order parameter were also obtained. Finally, the relevance of Onsager's model is discussed ; the importance of the electrostatic interactions between ribbons in the onset of the nematic ordering of this system is stressed.


analyze the problem, but it may be suggested that lack of funds is not the principal obstacle to medical evaluation of the effectiveness of various contraceptive techniques. There is urgent need for investigation of how medical statistics can be improved both within the traditional structure of medical prac tice, and by exploiting fully the advantages for research of the new institutional forms emerging from the expansion of prepaid medical care plans and public health programs. The section of this book devoted to the assessment of the moral and social implications of simple contraceptives seemed to this reviewer at first reading to be superficial and platitudi nous. Later, closer reading revealed that on the contrary every page contained several interesting and worthwhile observations or raised provocative questions. However, there are few data here, almost no mention of research completed or in progress, and none explicitly proposed as necessary or desirable. There are ideas, but none is developed. The material is so condensed that its chief usefulness is likely to be as a source of suggestions for discussion and expression of opinion among other groups. The doctor as such is likely to find it irrelevant. There was no challenge to the statement in the symposium that the responsi bility for proper use of contraceptives is individual and per sonal, and therefore moral; that it is not the job of the medical profession to develop moral restraints and controls among patients, but the job of church and family.


52 53 Background: Differentiation between peanut allergic (PA) and peanut sensitized (PS) 54 individuals who tolerate peanut but have peanut-specific IgE and/or positive skin prick tests 55 represents a significant diagnostic difficulty. Previously, gene expression microarrays were 56 successfully used to identify biomarkers and explore immune responses during peanut 57 allergy immunotherapy. 58 59 Objective: Characterization of peanut-specific responses from PA, PS and atopic non60 peanut-allergic (NA) children. 61 62 Methods: A preliminary, exploratory microarray investigation of gene expression in peanut63 activated memory Th subsets from 3PA and 3NA children identified potential peanut allergy 64 diagnostic biomarkers. Microarray findings were confirmed using RT-qPCR in 30 individuals 65 (12PA, 12PS and 6NA). Flow cytometry was used to identify the Th subsets involved. 66 67 Results: Amongst 387 differentially expressed genes, IL9 showed the greatest difference 68 between PA and NA (45.59-fold change, p<0.001) followed by IL5 then IL13. . Notably, IL9 69 allowed the most accurate classification of PA and NA using a machine learning approach 70 using recursive feature elimination and the Random Forest algorithm. Skinand respectively 71 gut-homing Th cells from PA donors expressed similar Th2 and Th9-associated genes. RT72 qPCR confirmed that IL9 was the highest differentially expressed gene between PA and NA 73 (23.3-fold change, P<0.01) and PS children (18.5-fold change, P<0.05). Intracellular cytokine 74 staining showed that IL9 and the Th2-specific cytokine IL5 are produced by distinct Th 75 populations. 76


The European Spallation Source (ESS) is an intergovernmental project building a multidisciplinary research laboratory based upon the world's most powerful neutron source to be built in Lund, Sweden. The ESS will use a linear accelerator which will deliver protons with 5 MW of power to the target at 2.5 GeV with a nominal current of 50 mA. The superconducting part of the linac consists of over 150 niobium cavities cooled with superfluid helium at 2 K. A dedicated cryoplant will supply the cryomodules with single phase helium through an external cryogenic transfer line. The elliptical cavity cryomodules will undergo their site acceptance tests at the ESS cryomodule test stand in Lund. This test stand will use a 4.5 K cryoplant and warm sub-atmospheric compression to supply the 2 K helium. We will show the requirements for the test stand, a layout proposal and discuss the factors determining the required cryogenic capacity, test sequence and schedule.


FIELD: information technology. SUBSTANCE: method of detecting malicious entities distributed over peer-to-peer networks consists of the following steps: requesting metadata relating to an unverified download entity from a control module at a peer-to-peer network server using a peer-to-peer network client of a user computer system. Further, the control module at the peer-to-peer network server determines availability of an antivirus module on the user computer system. Metadata relating to the unverified download entity are then downloaded using the peer-to-peer network client of the user computer system having an antivirus module. A download entity corresponding to the downloaded metadata is also obtained using said peer-to-peer network client of the user computer system. Malicious entities are also detected by checking the download entity using the antivirus module of said user computer system. EFFECT: high level of security of a user computer system from malicious entities distributed over peer-to-peer networks. 15 cl, 6 dwg


We present a new technique for designing distributed protocols for building reliable stateful services called Visigoth Fault Tolerance (VFT). VFT introduces the Visigoth model, which makes it possible to calibrate the timing assumptions of a system using a threshold of slow processes or messages, and also to distinguish between non-malicious arbitrary faults and correlated attack scenarios. This enables solutions that leverage the characteristics of data center systems, namely their secure environment and predictable performance, in order to allow replicated systems to be more efficient with respect to the utilization of resources than those designed under asynchrony and Byzantine assumptions, while avoiding the need to make a system synchronous, or to restrict failure modes to silent crashes. We implemented a VFT protocol for a state machine replication library, and ran several benchmarks. Our evaluation shows that VFT has comparable performance to existing schemes and brings significant benefits in terms of the throughput per dollar, i.e., the server cost for sustaining a certain level of request execution.


In this thesis, the interactions between neuronal death and neo-neurogenesis and the neuronal olfactory lineage have been studied. In the olfactory epithelium, neurogenesis occurs throughout life depending on the activation of stem cells localized in the basal part of the epithelium. Because of technical reasons, we have chosen the avian olfactory system as experimental model to analyse these phenomena. 1:after an experimental induction of neuronal death by axotomy, neurogenesis and neuronal death have been comparatively analysed in embryos and new born chickens. 2:specific markers of the different cell types existing in the epithelium have been isolated and characterized. 3:Horizontal basal cells have been sorted by SdFFF and their behaviours have been studied in vitro and in vivo after grafts using the quail/chicken chimera model, thus confirming their stem cell characteristics. Finally, we began to apply these results to human olfactory cells in order to use them for therapeutic autografts


Abstract : Parameters for control charts for normal extremes are derived. Formulas for estimating population mean and standard deviation from sample extremes are developed. These results are applied to an industrial example and shown to give more economical results concurring with those for Shewhart control charts for sample averages and ranges. Tables are given for estimation of parameters. (Author)


Protection against the threat of damage to the natural environment, is more often faced with the creation of laws and regulations to prevent it. However, the rules made are more defeated by economic factors, domestic and world market needs. Likewise, the protection and management of the environment and natural resources relies heavily on economic factors as the main motive which subordinates norms and ethical factors. Many environmental experts are of the opinion that practical and technical measures to protect and manage the environment and natural resources that only rely on scientific and technological assistance are not the right solution. Then various solutions are offered to prevent environmental damage, including through the theory of adaptation. Another offer is through a religious teaching approach because the assumption is that through the argument of the holy book, excessive exploitation of nature and damage to the environment due to human actions can be prevented and is an important alternative. This research will discuss whether a religious approach can be effective in avoiding damage to the surrounding natural environment or not using a literature review technique. The results show that the verses and hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad actually invite mankind to listen, think, and be grateful for God's creation by utilizing nature, the environment and protecting the environment. Hence, the conclusion is religious approach can contribute to regional development in the era of regional autonomy freedom in facing environmental preservation in the midst of a very sharp and ruthless global capitalism. Even though the dominant form of this knowledge in modern society is not religious, but religion legitimizes social institutions and orders by giving them ontological status. Thus, the Ulama Fatwa in dealing with environmental damage is an important step to maintain a better life.


A new p-coumaroylate of maslinic acid was isolated from the fruits of Zizyphus jujuba (Rhamnaceae) together with known triterpenoid acids : betulonic, oleanonic, maslinic and 3-O-trans-p-coumaroyl maslinic acid. The structure of V was characterized to be 3-O-cis-p-coumaroyl maslinic acid on the basis of chemical and spectral evidence.


OBJECTIVES
The purpose of the study was to determine the contraceptive efficacy of the female condom and to provide data about the device to the US Food and Drug Administration.

METHODS
The clinical trial was conducted at six US sites and three sites in Latin America. Eligible subjects were in mutually monogamous relationships and agreed to use the female condom as their only means of contraception for 6 months.

RESULTS
A total of 328 subjects contributed to the analysis of contraceptive efficacy. Twenty-two US subjects and 17 Latin American subjects became pregnant, yielding 6-month gross cumulative accidental pregnancy rates of 12.4 and 22.2, respectively. During perfect (consistent and correct) use of the method, the 6-month accidental pregnancy rates were 2.6 and 9.5 for the US and Latin American centers, respectively. There were no serious adverse events related to the use of the method.

CONCLUSIONS
The female condom provides contraceptive efficacy in the same range as other barrier methods, particularly when used consistently and correctly, and has the added advantage of helping protect against sexually transmitted diseases.


Results of the experimental farms OBS in Nagele and Borgerswold till 1991 and from the farm Vredepeel till 1992 on the comparison of integrated and conventional methods are presented. The introduction of integrated farming methods at 38 farms in The Netherlands is also discussed


Abstract. Derived characters that have not changed during the diversification of a clade provide traits that are diagnostic at higher taxonomic levels. The tetradynamous stamen condition (four long and two short stamens) of the Brassicaceae is an example of a diagnostic trait that has not changed during the diversification of this large flowering plant family. We investigated one hypothesis that might explain the long‐term stasis of this trait–that tetradynamous stamens have persisted because of an absence of genetic variation underlying the trait. Through a sib‐analysis with Raphanus raphanistrum and an artificial selection experiment with Brassica rapa, we demonstrate that significant genetic variation is present for the tetradynamous condition in both species and that the trait is therefore not constrained from evolutionary change by a lack of heritable genetic variation.


We study the prepotential of = 2 gauge theories using the instanton counting techniques introduced by Nekrasov. For the SO theories without matter we find a closed expression for the full prepotential and its string theory gravitational corrections. For the more subtle case of Sp theories without matter we discuss general features and compute the prepotential up to instanton number three. We also briefly discuss SU theories with matter in the symmetric and antisymmetric representations. We check all our results against the predictions of the corresponding Seiberg-Witten geometries.


In this paper will be given brief description for limestone surface mining from ore deposit tatarli cuka –Valandovo by the concessionaire, GRANIT AD – Skopje.


The proximal radioulnar joint plays an important role in elbow and forearm movements. Radial head fracture involves about 20% of the elbow fractures, which is most often accompanied by other damage to the soft or bone tissue. Isolated form is about 2% and bilateral form is rare. Most radial head fractures are the result of low energy and falling down with outstretched hands. Heavy sports injuries, high energy trauma and crashes cause a breakdown with displacement and the possibility of further complications.In this article we reported a woman nurse with 35 years old whom suffered pain and swelling of both elbows due to simple falling down with outstretched hands. In the clinical examination, there was a bilateral tenderness and swelling of the elbows. Movements were decreased in right side. There was no nerve defect. In the Xray radiography, bilateral radial head fractures, Mason-type 3 at right and type 1 at left elbow were observed. Right elbow treated by open reduction and internal fixation by mini plate and screws and left side treated by conservative method. The patient was discharged with indomethacin 25 mg 3 times a day for 6 weeks and bilateral long arm splint for 5 to 7 days, active movements were begun. Subsequently, the patient was not adviced for physiotherapy. Complete movements of elbow joints were obtained in right side and left side after 8 and 4 weeks due to teratment. Precise clinical examinations and correct radiographs are necessary to diagnose the bilateral radial head fractures. Early diagnosis and proper treatment and, if necessary, physiotherapy leads to proper improvement and acceptable movements and function. _______________________________________________________________________________________________


Objective To investigate the expression patterns of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA as markers for isolated tumor cells in the peripheral blood of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) following liver transplantation, and to evaluate the correlation between VEGF and the recurrence and metastasis of HCC following liver transplantation. Methods In this prospective study, 97 patients were divided into four groups according to the pathological results: HCC following liver transplantation group (HCC+LT group, n=53), advanced HCC group (n=8), benign liver diseases group (n=26) and healthy volunteers group (n=10), among which the 53 cases in HCC group were collected from April, 2002 to December, 2003. RNA was purified from the peripheral blood of the other 44 control patients and also from the patients in HCC group before, during and after liver transplantation in order to study the expression specificity of VEGF mRNA in HCC patients and its dynamic change during perioperative period. The correlation between VEGF and the tumor recurrence and metastasis was also analyzed by fluorescent quantitative reverse transcriptase and polymerase chain reaction (FQ RT-PCR). Results VEGF mRNA could be used as marker of isolated tumor cells for its high specificity. The positive rate of VEGF mRNA in HCC group and in advanced HCC group were 37.5% and 75.0%, respectively, which were significantly higher than that in benign liver diseases group (11.5%) and healthy volunteers group (10.0%), P0.01. The presence of preoperative VEGF mRNA and the consistent presence of postoperative VEGF mRNA might be relevant with the recurrence and metastasis HCC following liver transplantation (P0.01). Conclusion The presence of preoperative VEGF mRNA and the consistent presence of postoperative VEGF mRNA may predict the recurrence and metastasis HCC following liver transplantation.


This article deals with the origin of the limited atonement concept in John Calvin. The author starts with a description of the debate in old and modern scholarship over whether John Calvin would have been an advocate of universalism (unlimited atonement). He then evaluates mainly the modern interpretation of R. T. Kendall. This scholar understands that Calvin believed Christ died for every individual. The analysis of Calvin's texts, however, demonstrates that the reformer of Geneva had a concept of atonement hardly consistent with universalism. Lima demonstrates that Calvin believed in an effective atonement rather than a provisional, potential one. The atonement, in Calvin's mind, is subordinate to election. The author pays close attention to the texts of Calvin that allegedly defend universalism, but concludes that the reformer takes this stand only as far as the preaching of the Gospel is concerned. When Calvin has to define the extension of the atonement, he indicates that it is limited to the elect only. Lima concludes that, although Calvin did not expressly defend the doctrine of limited atonement, it may be clearly deduced from his theology.


In the Shakespearean tragedies the neurotic disposition is the important characteristic of the protagonists.The tragic conflict between man and the environment is conveyed by the mechanism of the neurotic disposition.The profundity of the contradiction in Shakespearean tragedies is that they exposed the cruelty of human nature and the absurdity of human existence by showing the breakdown of the psychological structure,and thus is the dilemma between the subjectiveness and the rationalization in modernity.The aesthetic modernity is in favor of modernity from the viewpoint of subjectiveness in human beings.On the other hand,it represents the contradiction to modernity based on social reason.That is the strong argument of the awakening of the subjective consciousness and the contemporary consciousness in Shakespearean tragedies,which exerted a great influence on the modern literary and dramatic arts.


The basic principles for suppressing the harmonics of the series hybrid active power filter(SHAPF) are analyzed.In order to detect the harmonic and reactive currents of a single-phase power system,a new way based on virtual three-phase method and instantaneous reactive power theory.Furthermore the control method of PWM inverter in the series APF and for regulating its DC side voltage are discussed.Some simulated results are provided for demonstrating the effective of the proposed approach.


This project has a business plan for the implementation of a small company dedicated to the production and marketing of industrial footwear in the city of Guayaquil, revealing strengths and weaknesses of the product on the market. It describes the technical and administrative aspects of the business and marketingplan and income and expenses to be incurred to achieve an acceptable return for investors. In a world of globalization and innovation of products or services, you must be alert to the demands and expectations, for


The feasibility of using chopper circuits in ac supply to provide variable dc output is investigated. The three basic chopper circuits are considered and their input and output characteristics are thoroughly studied for direct ac/dc conversion. The performances of these ac-fed choppers for two types of control, time-ratio control (TRC) and phase-shift control (PSC), are compared. One chopper circuit is found to provide better performance characteristics than the other two choppers. The three ac-fed choppers are tested on experimental models to verfy theoretical predictions.


'hypnosis', frequently merged with 'massage and cutaneous electrotherapy', and thus before the advent of psychoanalysis (p. 128). Addressing the interior decoration of the consulting room as expressive of the analyst's ethics, Chapter Eight contrasts the 'archaeological' preoccupation of Freud's 'antiquities'-filled room (p. 144) and the present-day analyst's predilection for 'self-erasure' through sparse, self-abnegating furnishings (p. 151). The concluding chapter reflects on the intermingling of these recovered 'traditions' in the couch's past (p. 163), while also contemplating its future. Identifying critical questions for 'empirical' investigation, such as whether the couch is particularly effective in resolving some issues over others or whether the analyst's location is important (p. 166), it ultimately signals the couch's enduring singularity. Kravis recognizes 'recumbent speech' as eliciting an inimitably 'powerful discourse of the self' (p. 167), sagely endorsing the couch as a resolute safeguard of inwardness and intimacy in a time of 'hypertransparency' (p. 170). Kravis's book enriches the existing literature in manifold ways. It carves a novel visual route through the history of psychoanalysis, innovatively tilting the investigative focus towards psychoanalysis's physical objects rather than its theories. This employment of visual imagery and interest in the meaning of material artefacts is methodologically original for both medical history and medical humanities more generally. Furthermore, this work fits into the ongoing historiographic project of tracing the development of psychotherapy in different contexts (Marks, 2017). It recovers the different values that have accrued around reclining posture historically and geographically, and that have led to the apparently automatic acceptance of the couch among clinicians. For historians of the 'psy-disciplines' (p. xii), it thus resolves the longstanding lacuna surrounding the clinical omnipresence of the couch. Additionally, the author's discussion of the 'moral interior' is particularly valuable (p. 139, original emphasis). This concept provides a productive framework for scholars and medical practitioners interested in space; it refers to the way in which the analyst's principles pervade, decide and reveal themselves in the furnishings, arrangement and ambience of their respective consulting rooms (p. 139). Although Kravis's collation of photographs of contemporary analysts' rooms are quietly compelling in comparison with the striking portraiture and cartoons featured in earlier chapters, they invite further investigation into the connections between the design of therapeutic sites and the psychotherapeutic ethos. This interest in the setting of the analyst–analysand alliance will appeal especially to historical geographers of healthcare. On the Couch will register with a diverse readership. '[A]rt history, furniture history, fashion and clothing history, as well as, works on classical antiquity and modern art' (p. xi), coalesce here into a genuinely 'multidisciplinary' account (p. xii). While Kravis spotlights further audiences as those interested in 'furniture history and design, interior decoration, art and cultural studies' (p. xii), its appeal stretches further to medical humanities scholars from a wide range of disciplines. This book is accessible to all levels of expertise and will ably hold the interest of undergraduates, postgraduates and more advanced scholars alike.


There is provided a method of processing data in a wireless communication network for a geographical area for which the resource pool providing at least two uplink control channel for the mobile terminal, wherein the mobile terminal and the geographic area of the at least two the at least one resource pool for the uplink control channel resource pool. Also proposes a corresponding device and system.


The characteristics of two portable /spl gamma/-ray vision systems, which could be transported by a robot, have been explored and compared. The detector of the first system (CSPMT) consists of an array of 37 CsI(Na) scintillation crystals viewed by a single 5 inch diameter position-sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT), while the second system (CSPD) employs an array of 40 CsI(Tl) scintillation detectors coupled to PIN silicon photodiodes. These devices are designed to operate in the energy range from 70 keV to 1.5 MeV, which encompasses most energies of /spl gamma/-ray radiation from the radioactive nuclides of interest to the nuclear industry. These systems have good angular resolutions of about 3/spl deg/ FWHM at the central field of view of 10/spl deg//spl times/10/spl deg/, and coarser angular resolutions of about 10/spl deg/ FWHM elsewhere within a wide field of view of 50/spl deg//spl times/50/spl deg/. The energy resolution of both systems have been tested using individual detector elements, and the imaging performance of proposed systems have been simulated using a prototype. Our results show that these devices should be good candidates for the next generation portable /spl gamma/-ray imaging systems.<<ETX>>


Combined with some relative regulations design experiences in clean medicine workshop many years,it introduces briefly designs concrete methods of power?light?fireproof and ground connection in clean medicine workshop and points out that electric design will be perfected gradually on the base of understanding regulations renewing design ideas.


Provided are an audio content segmentation method and apparatus, which relate to the field of audio, and achieve capture of audio content by means of interaction between a user equipment and a server. The method comprises: receiving a segmentation position message sent by a user equipment (101); searching for at least one piece of second segmentation position information matching an audio identifier of audio content according to the audio identifier of the audio content (102); determining at least one piece of target segmentation position information from at least one piece of first segmentation position information, and determining at least one piece of reference segmentation position information from the at least one piece of second segmentation position information according to the at least one piece of first segmentation position information and the at least one piece of second segmentation position information (103); when at least one target segmentation position and a reference segmentation position corresponding to each target segmentation position are smaller than a first preset value, determining at least one piece of third segmentation position information according to the at least one piece of target segmentation position information and reference segmentation position information corresponding to each piece of target segmentation position information (104); and sending a segmentation position recommendation message to the user equipment (105).


An improved moving object detection algorithm is proposed. It is robust to changes in background illumination and can detect multiple moving objects accurately in various complex scenes. Generally, the shadow is also detected as moving object because of the same characters between them. Another method of shadow removal based on edge information is presented too, which is independent of the direction of shadow, and can effectively remove the cast shadow of a moving object. Implemented by computer of P4 2.0 GHz, it runs at about 20 f/s. Experiments show that the method is reliable, and can be used in relevant real-time applications.


Abstract Research is reported which looks at the possibility of using attitude measures to identify, before they leave school, those low-attaining pupils at risk of longer periods of unemployment, and therefore in particular need of support, information and skills. Two independent assessments of attitudes were used: ratings by class teachers, and attitude scales. Findings were largely negative: we cannot predict, through the use of attitude measures alone, which pupils will take longest to find jobs. A variety of other factors influencing duration of unemployment are discussed, together with some implications for careers teaching in schools.


This article adopts a place-based approach to explore tiger atmospheres in the Sundarbans, a transboundary environmental commons and major climatic hotspot in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta of India and Bangladesh. We argue that affective intensities of greed (lobh), fear (bhaya), respect (srodhya), trust (biswas) and empathy (karuna) sensed by the tiger subject contribute to novel theoretical as well as empirical insights into co-belonging and intersectional multispecies justice. We explore these animal atmospheres through multi-sited ethnographic research that include embodied observations, photographs, 31 in-depth interviews and focus groups with impoverished as well as racialised low-caste Hindus (Dalits/Scheduled Castes), Adivasis (Indigenous peoples) and Muslim forest-dwellers in India and Bangladesh. This attention to more-than-human geographies, animal atmospheres and subaltern stories situated in the Bengal delta unsettles macro-narratives of forest conservation and wildlife management that reduce animals to passive subjects or alternatively make them killable.


The reference stress method used in the prediction of creep deformations and failure times of components is briefly outlined. The extension of the reference stress approach for estimating incubation times and C* values, and hence creep crack growth rates, is then described. It is concluded that estimates of incubation time and C* (and therefore creep crack growth rates), using the reference stress approach, result in reasonably accurate predictions for practical purposes.


An understanding of cryptographic protocols requires that we examine the knowledge of protocol participants and adversaries: When a participant receives a message, does she know who sent it? Does s ...


Cellulose,starch,lignin,chitosan and their ramifications can be used as natural macromolecule sorbents.In this paper,research situation about these natural macromolecule treating agents used in the treatment of dyeing waste water was summarized.


Using the radioisotope method, new quantitative characteristics of the role
of phytoplankton in the formation of the pool of dissolved organic substances
(ROS) in the freshwater ecosystem were obtained.
The destruction of dead phytoplankton is carried out within one week. In
natural reservoirs, detritus settles at a rate of about one meter per day. In deep
reservoirs, most of the MOAT is released in the water column rich in oxygen,
where it is destroyed by bacterioplankton. In shallow reservoirs (such as fish
ponds), detritus particles do not have time to decompose in the water column.
Their further destruction is carried out at the bottom of the reservoir when
there is a lack of oxygen, which leads to overseas phenomena.


This research examined tax risk, audit quality, institutional ownership, and firm size on cost of capital. We used listed manufacture companies in Indonesia during 2013-2017. Based on purposive sampling method was obtained 48 companies. Tax risk variable is proxy by CETR, audit quality is proxy by KAP Big 4, institutional ownership uses a percentage of the amount spent by reserves, firm size by Ln total asset. The dependent variable is proxy by the cost of debt. We used multiple linear regression method. The research found that the tax risk and audit quality have negatif effect on cost of capital. While, institutional ownership and firm size do not have significant effect on the cost of capital.


Tests were made on 2520 irradiated X chromosomes taken from Drosophila laboratory stocks of Basc and Carton-S strains. Estimates were made on the proportions of lethals and the genetic load of lethals and detrimentals induced. The Basc chromosome is about 50% more responsive to radioinduced lethal mutation than the Canton-S chromosome. It was found that the lethals induced in the + chromosome compared favorably with those tested by other workers, producing an average frequency of about 2.5% per 1000 r, The ratio of the load due to detrimental mutants to that for lethals was 0.125. This is where the load is the product of the frequency and the average effect on viability. This is a considerably lower value than was obtained in earlier experiments but is in general agreement with a recent study by Kafer. Possible reasons for the different results are discussed. (auth)


Knowledge management is a complex systems engineering, so the evaluation of knowledge management is of non-linear characteristics. Neural network with the ability of adaptive learning is an excellent tool to deal with the issue of non-linear. This paper analyzed the essence of knowledge and knowledge management. We proposed an evaluation model of knowledge management based on the theory of information entropy and RBF neural network. After reduction of the indices system with information entropy to reduce, we would evaluate the knowledge management with RBF neural network. After empirical research with MATLAB7.0, it is had been proved that the method is validity and practicality. And then it did not only overcome the traditional methods' shortcoming which is too subjective, but also avoided complex process of the traditional evaluation method.


Cosmologists using the Anthropic Principle claim that if our universe had been much different then nobody would exist to observe it. This may become explanatory when one accepts the actual existence of multiple "universes": gigantic, largely or entirely separate systems having very varied properties. Ian Hacking has urged, though, that an Inverse Gambler's Fallacy is committed during many attempts to formulate anthropic explanations. Besides disagreeing with him, the paper makes several further points in support of such explanations, in particular against the background of the Inflationary Universe.


In the image sensor having a photodiode as a channel region of the transfer transistor P An image sensor according to the present invention can be applied to both the CMOS image sensors and CCD image sensors. In the CMOS image sensor and a second channel section connected to the floating diffusion region, in the CCD image sensor, the second channel section is connected to the BCCD area. Diffuse towards the photodiode of the electron in the lower portion of the transfer gate is thermally created on the semiconductor substrate surface is suppressed, by the potential of the floating diffusion region is swept into the floating diffusion area shop. An image sensor, CIS, CCD, a channel region, dangling bonds, dark current, noise


The f-divergence, which is defined by using a class of convex functions, is used as a generalized phenotype of discriminant measures between two probability distributions. In this paper, we derive a new class of discriminant measures defined on the set of all positive finite measures using the invariance of the f-divergence. This is a class of discriminant measures different from ones which have often been used. We mention some aspects of its effectiveness concerning the extension of discriminant measures by showing that the proposed class includes measures that facilitate statistical data processing and are suitable for the explicit formulation and analysis of the ensemble learning method. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 88(4): 35–42, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.20128


In day 1 you will want to find out what children already know about time and there are lots of assessment for learning strategies that you can use to help excavate children�s knowledge and understanding. In this section we look at KWL (know/what/learnt) grids, true-false statements and drawings.


We extendMachina's (1982) preference functional to abstract Wiener space. This has t e advantage of extending utility functions to: infinite dimensional spa ces; providing estimates for Machina's (1982) nonlinear utility functional; and establishing a nexus bet ween microfoundations of local utility, subjective probability, prospect theory, and elements of quan t m decision theory without complex valued Hilbert spaces. For example, the class of Markowitz nonconv ex utility functions (for which prospect theory's value function is a special case) are vector valued f nctions in abstract Wiener space. Instead of preferences over probability distributions, the problem i s transformed into one of preferences over states. Under Arzela-Ascoli Theorem, Wiener measure is the limit an d u ique conjugate prior in Wiener space. By a change of measure local subjective (posterior) probabi lity is a Wiener integral. So, binary choice is stochastic. This poses a challenge for the transitivity axi om because intransitive preferences will occur in that space almost surely. Savage's (1972) SEU fails in the space because probability is state depende nt. Decision weights for Rank Dependent Expected Utility are ad ditive only if their sum grows like the law of iterated logarithmOp (( 2σ2 n loglogσ2 n )−1/2) whereσ2 n is the sample variance of decision weights.


Reelin is an extracellular glycoprotein that is essential for neuronal migration and brain development. Neuroprotective effects of exercise on various brain insults are well documented, however, the effects of exercise on autism in relation with reelin expression are not clarified. In the present study, we investigated the effects of treadmill exercise on the functional recovery and on the expressions of reelin and its downstream molecules, phosphatidylinositol‐3‐kinase (PI3K), phosphorylated Akt (p‐Akt), phosphorylated extracellular signal‐regulated protein kinase 1 and 2(p‐ERK1/2), using autistic rats. The rat in the treadmill exercise groups were forced to run on a treadmill for 30 min once a day, five times a week for 4 weeks, starting postnatal day 28. To investigate autism‐like behaviors and memory deficit, open field, social interaction, and radial 8‐arm maze were performed. In the present results, treadmill exercise alleviated aggressive tendency and improved correct decision in the spatial learning memory in the autistic rats. Treadmill exercise increased neurogenesis and the expressions of reelin and its down‐stream molecules, PI3K, p‐Akt, and p‐ERK1/2, in the hippocampus of the autistic rats. The present study showed that treadmill exercise ameliorated aggressive behavior and improved spatial learning memory through activation of reeling signaling pathway in the valproic acid‐induced autistic rats.


the human face is a wealthy source of information, with distinct features such as the eyes, nose, and mouth offering a wealth of data. Facial feature recognition algorithms leverage this wealth of information to distinguish one person from another, making it a powerful tool with many applications. This technology has found its way into numerous aspects of our daily lives, from unlocking smartphones with a simple glance to enhancing security in public spaces. Even more, a person's personality traits can be predicted from their outer appearance according to physiognomy as each shape of facial features can tell a lot about a person's personality; what encouraged us to address this by proposing a novel dataset created for facial feature recognition based on their shape and color, specially designed for the YOLO object detection models; the final dataset contains 2,116 images with Over 10K annotations with six classes, namely blue eye, brown eye, rounded nose, rounded eyebrows, pointy nose, and straight eyebrows, employed in all version of the YOLOv8 object detection model, experiment result shows that the small version of YOLOv8 performed the best based on mAP of 89.9%, this work also proposed a modified lightweight version of YOLOv8 with only 211 layers which outperformed the best model by 1.4% as it reaches 91.3%mAP on the proposed dataset.


We investigated the seed production and sowing seed quality from eight plantations of Betula pendula Roth., which are subject to the negative influence of exhaust gases of motor vehicles and emissions from industrial enterprises in Kryvyi Rih. In seven plantations, we revealed such changes in some morphometric parameters of female catkins: decreasing length of the petiole to 21.4 % (to 1.3 times), and the length of the catkin to 10.8 % (to 1.1 times), as well as the width of the catkin to 33.3 % (to 1,5 times); increasing of the quantity of seeds in catkins to 43.5 % (to 1.4 times) compared to the control, except the plantings near "ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih", where the quantity of seeds was 21.1 % lower than in the botanical garden; increasing quantity of scales in all sites to 32.0 % (to 1.3 times); reducing percentage of pure seeds to 2.7 %; declining weight of 1000 seeds up to 20,3 % (to 1,3 times), and seed adequacy to 60 % (to 2.5 times); lowering germinative energy up to 92.9 % (to 14 times), and seed germination to 94.4 % (to 17.7 times). All these changes are due to increasing level of technogenic pollution. We ascertained that additional effect is caused by geographical location of plants and climatic factor. The seed adequacy, germinative energy, and seed germination are most sensitive indicators, which can be used for the environmental assessment.


Abstract The material we studied is composed of plasticized PVC mixed with pitch which is used for waterproofing in the City of Lyon's underground. We established that plasticizer migration in PVC is not ruled by the usual laws of diffusion, particularly when a difficult-to-extract plasticizer is used. Time-temperature equivalence allows us to use a graphic method to make an extrapolation to one century hence. The influence of water on plasticizer loss introduces a correction consisting of a graphic translation. Time-temperature equivalence seems to be better described by the equation of William, Landel, and Ferry than by the Arrhenius Law.


We present a prototype of confocal endomicroscopy, which can be compatible with biopsy channel of conventional endoscopy, with an immediate diagnosis that is virtually consistent with the histologic diagnosis with 8 fps imaging speed.


The study of intangible assets has attracted increasing interest in the recent years. By force of this trend, the study of companies that intensely use this type of asset is also relevant. The intangible assets are responsible for great changes in the financial and operational characteristics of the companies. Following this assumption, an important question to be analyzed is whether significant differences between tangible-intensive and intangible-intensive companies exist. Thus, the objective of this paper is to analyze the possible financial-economic determinants of the intangibility of the Brazilian companies. The results show that two variables related to the debt level and to the size of companies are important in the differentiation between the intangible-intensive and tangible-intensive firms in Brazil.


The authors consider a relatively unusual injury to the hip in youngsters. They report the mode of treatment used and follow-up studies, in some instances over many years. Results have been quite satisfactory


Abstract:From 1976–1978, UCLA PhD student Ronald B. Melton travelled to the state of Sonora in Mexico with his wife, Lily Villanueva Melton, to record legends and folktales for his dissertation research, though he died before he was able to complete the project. Historian Miriam Melton-Villanueva (their daughter) and folklorist Sheila Bock discuss key considerations framing their attempts to present the unfinished story of this tale collection, attending specifically to the role of "women's work" and the dynamics of presence and absence shaping their participation in an ongoing, collaborative research process.


On the basis of introducing substitution principle and its functions briefly, the thesis discusses important positions and applications of substitution principle in appraisal of real estate, It is pointed out that substitution principle is a general principle in guiding appraisal of real estate and an essential principle, it is widely used in appraisal of real estate.


This paper focuses on a 179-line poem written by Nicolas-Eloi Lemaire, professor of Latin poetry at La Sorbonne (1819): a dedicatory epistle to Louis XVIII, in order to thank him for funding his collection of classical authors (Bibliotheca classica Latina). Several Latin authors, including Caesar, Horace, Vergil, Juvenal and Claudian, sing the praises of the king. While the poem eulogises some major virtues of Louis XVIII and the new Regime, it reflects the popularity of those authors. The poem is also programmatic of the whole collection, considering for instance its patriotism and its eulogy of Louis XVIII's successors. In the Appendix, the poem itself is edited with a translation and explanatory notes.


The author believes that marketing would be strengthened by closer relationships between academics and practitioners. He argues that the commercial market research environment can be stimulating for methodological development, and he suggests that everyone would benefit if academics and practitioners had experience in both environments.


The paper introduces the designing software course of the circuit CAA system using the Visual Basic programming language. After the user input the topologic information and parameter of the circuit and component, we run the program, the system can calculate node voltage, branch voltage and branch current finally. The system can analyses and calculate the circuit in short time. Because VB is simple to study, the design of program becomes easy. The system has nicer user interface.


Avalanche photodiodes are widely used in various fields, such as optical communication and LIDAR, because of their high multiplication. In order to adapt to very weak signal detection applications, devices with higher gain values are required. Current avalanche photodiodes generally use single carrier multiplication mode of operation, its multiplication effect is limited. This paper designed an electron and hole simultaneously involved in the multiplication of InP/In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As avalanche photodiode structure, where the absorber layer uses In0.53Ga0.47As material, the hole multiplication layer uses InP material, In0.52Al0.48As is used for the electron multiplication layer, and the two multiplication layers were distributed on the upper and lower sides of the absorber layer. Under the reverse bias, the photogenerated electrons and holes generated in the absorber layer can enter the respective multiplier layers in different directions to occur the avalanche multiplication effect, so that the carriers are fully utilized. This structure and the conventional single multiplication layer structure were simulated by Silvaco TCAD software. Comparing the single InP multiplication layer structure and the single In0.52Al0.48As multiplication layer structure, the gain value of the double multiplication layer structure at 95% breakdown voltage is about 2.3 times and about 2 times of the former two, respectively, and the device has a larger gain value because both carriers are involved in multiplication in both multiplication layers at the same time. The structure has a dark current of 1.5 nA at 95% breakdown voltage, which does not increase compared to the single multiplication layer structure, due to the effective control of the electric field inside the structure by multiple charge layers. Therefore, this structure is expected to improve the sensitivity of the system detection.


The aim of the study was to find out the prevalence and frequency of oral hygiene habits among intermediate and secondary school students in Riyadh. The study was carried out using a self-administered questionnaire. Seventeen hundred students responded with a response rate of85%. The age range of the students was 12-20 years (mean 15.39 and SD ± 2.08). The results showed that daily oral hygiene habit was prevalent among 19% male and 20% female students in intermediate school students. Toothbrush was most commonly used (63.7) by female students at seondary schools. Miswak was used by almost 24% secondary school male students. Toothpaste was commonly used by both groups of students. Once daily tooth brushing habit was prevalent among 42.6% male and 27.6% female students at intermediate school and 61.4% male and 26.8% female students at secondary school. Horizontal and unspecific tooth brushing technique was equally common among male secondary school students. Medium toothbrush type was common among both groups. Miswak was most commonly used by male students and majority of the miswak user students 58.5% to 63% used old miswak. Both group of students expressed the use of toothbrush due to better cleaning perception. It can be concluded that over all the oral hygiene practices among secondary schools students need to be improved. Female students have better oral hygiene practices as compared to male students at intermediate school but trend shifts to male student at secondary school level. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of oral hygiene habits, and comparison of oral health status among the studied population.


This chapter is about the way in which computer hackers invoke social networking paradigms to support and encourage their activities. It reviews the evolution of hacking as a form of social networking, from its roots in Bulletin Board systems to the current attacks on Second Life, and considers the motivation for hacking. Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior and Beveren's Flow Theory model are, when considered together, found to explain many of the observed characteristics of early hacker activity. The place of social networks in motivating hacking is explored, and some observations are made in relation to hacking and the Second Life environment. A number of control variables are identified which can be used to reduce the likelihood of people engaging in the hacking activity. Addressing the social network factors which motivate hacking provides an important early step in addressing cybercrime. Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch flies but let wasps and hornets break through —Jonathan Swift, A Critical Essay Upon the Faculties of Mind


SUMMARY: Laboratory-hatched juvenile yellowtails (mean fork length, 9.3 cm) were reared for 2 months in two groups on different kinds of food, mysid and squid in one group and fish in the other, and the gustatory neural responses to seven chemicals (adenosine-5'-monophosphate, alanine, arginine, betaine, proline, tryptophan, and valine) were recorded in fish before and after the 2-month rearing period. Large variances in the responses to some chemicals were noticed in the juveniles before the rearing experiment. Mann–Whitney U-tests on the neural responses indicated significant changes in the magnitude of the responses to valine and some other chemicals relative to that for proline or tryptophan between the pre- and the two post-rearing groups. No significant differences in the response magnitude for the seven chemicals were observed for the two post-rearing groups suggesting that the response changes during the 2-month rearing might have been intrinsic and not due to specific food items in the diet. The dose–response relationship for some chemicals was also examined in the juveniles before and after the 2-month rearing. A slight lowering of threshold was noticed for alanine and valine after the rearing. Data on the responses of wild yellowtails were in support of the changing responsiveness of gustatory receptors during development of juvenile yellowtails.


This paper gives a brief overview of the artificial and empirical project data generated and collected by the researchers from the Operations Research and Scheduling (OR&S) group from Ghent University in Belgium. Artificial data are generated by project network generators under a strict design to control both the network structure and the resource constraints, while the empirical project data are collected over a time horizon of multiple years, using a standardized collection and classification method. All data are publicly available on the OR&S website www.projectmanagement.ugent.
be/research/data) and can be used anywhere for academic purposes. More
detailed information on the network and resource parameters used to
generate the artificial data and the classification process for the collection
of empirical data is available in a paper published in the Journal of Modern
Project Management (Vanhoucke et al., 2016).


In order to effectively solve the scheduling problem of mixed flow assembly line material distribution, an optimization method of material distribution scheduling based on mixed distribution strategy was proposed. Firstly, the mixed distribution strategy is described, and the distribution strategy of materials is divided by taking the refrigerator assembly line as an example. Then the problem of mixed distribution strategy is simplified and a mathematical model is established for scheduling optimization. The construction of the model is different from the existing calculation of material consumption based on working hours. This model is based on the quantity of products on line, making the actual material consumption more accurate. Finally, an example is given to verify the feasibility of the model.


Two problems on conducting fluid flow in a plane channel were resolved using Winer-Hopf methods. Motion of a semi-irfinite plate in a conducting fluid, confined between two parallel planes in a transverse magnetic field was analyzed in the first problem. Flow between parallel halfdielectric and half-ideally conductirg walls was analyzed in the second problem. (tr-auth)


Parenting is a responsibility one finds himself or herself under voluntarily or involuntary. During adolescence, gradual changes that may be cognitive, emotional, biological, physical and social or environment occur. The qualities of changes are influenced by how well decisions are made at different levels of interaction (cognition, instinct or biology, emotional, social and/or natural environment) in relation to one's sexuality. It all begins at conception – through important stages of birth, special care of newborns, weaning, and child in playful stage, socialization and learning, gender roles or interests, young stardom, youthful period and adulthood. The study explored parents' basis of taking on the responsibilities, quality and level of attachment, parent's ability and circumstances under which she or he conceived and the parent's nature of the environment and lifestyle. It went on to find specific relationships between parent's decision making and quality of attachment, circumstances at conception and attachment, nature of environment and attachment – and environmental, itself, and decision making. Method: The target groups were young parents (18 years to 45 years) subjected to both structured survey questions and focused group discussions (FGD); and children (8 to 18 years) that participated in FGD only. The study had 52 participants of which 33% were from urban areas, 10% (urban) and 58% rural; 40% males and 60% females. SPSS tool was used for data analysis. Appropriate questions were constructed that enabled participants – to freely and honestly speak out from their own experiences. Group focused discussions with equal number of girls and boys (2:2); and adults (women and men) = 3:3 were convened guided by specific themes – regarding gender issues, human rights, risky behaviors and behavior change, relations with parents, knowledge of life goals and problem solving amidst family and environment hazards. Unique cases were also sought of how children from poor backgrounds and as for parenting care managed to succeed late in life. Results: Correlation between decision making and quality of attachment was significant showed by r=0.291, sig. (2-tailed) at 0.036, where p=0.05. Correlation between circumstances faced at conception and quality and level of attachment was not significant when r=0.261, sig. (2-tailed) at 0.061, where p=0.05. Correlation between environment and level and quality of attachment was not significant indicated by r=0.124, sig. (2-tailed) at 0.381, when p=0.05. Correlation between environment and decision making was not significant showed by r=0.148, sig. (2-tailed) at 0.295, when p=0.05. From FDGs, equal treatment between boys and girls was emphasized (4:4) and (6:6) so that they both benefited from development opportunities; of education (both formal and informal) and employment. Friendliness between parents and children was highlighted (4:4) – with correcting behavior attached to light beating, with strongest emphasis put on friendly talking with children (6:6). However, to parents, family planning was still a big challenge – as hardly at all did men approve of it (regarding condom use), while women complained of hemorrhage and delayed resumption of pregnancy as most negative (2:6). Furthermore, condom use was out of every parent's mind, given the fact that they were married (6:6). 1:6 of parents said that, because her husband did not care about family planning, she adopted inject-plan secretly. 2:6 of women nurtured a norm that alcohol eased delivery and was associated to healthy and pretty babies. In conclusion: Failure of parents to ensure child health growth and development was by and large a result of poverty. This greatly hampered decision making as observed from r=0.291, sig. (2-tailed) at 0.036 where p=0.05. In rural and semi-urban areas it is only mainly men who went to work while women stayed home to cook and bare children. In the same category, the nature of jobs determined by their level of education did not at the same time help meet children development needs as women complained of men's negligence. There is, thus, a need to start life skills education, poverty alleviation program and reproductive health (or health education) programs to help better family-life situation.


Introduction: Despite an increasing number of studies reporting high levels of co-morbidity between depression and hypertension in high-income countries, there is limited information on co-morbid depression among hypertensive patients in low- and middle-income countries.                                                                                Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression, associated factors and treatment gap among hypertensive patients attending outpatient follow-up at a referral hospital in Ethiopia.
Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 302 consecutive outpatient attendees with hypertension. Probable depression was measured using an interviewer administered depression scale (the Patient Health Questionnaire; PHQ-9) previously validated for the Ethiopian setting for a cut-off of 9 and above. Contextualised standardized measures of medication adherence, alcohol and khat use were used. Clinical information was extracted from medical notes, augmented by assessment of body mass index. Univariate and multivariable analyses were carried out to assess factors associated with depression.
Results: The prevalence of probable depression among participants was 22.2%. The treatment gap was 91%. Only 9% (n=6) had received any treatment for depression. Of these, all were prescribed an antidepressant. Female gender, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 2.6, (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2, 5.8), being unmarried (aOR 2.0; 95% CI 1.0, 3.7) and having two or more co-morbid medical illnesses (aOR 12.6; 95% CI 4.3, 37.0) were associated independently with depression. There was no association between depression and medication adherence, diet, physical activity or body mass index.


In this paper we describe a simple interferometric phasemeter which can be used as a linear sensor. This method is based on the interferometric restoration of both p- and s-components of the resultant field. The phase shift between them as a function of the attenuation of the total internal reflection can be determined from the interference signal. A lateral fringe shift and contrast variations were observed during the measurements. To explain these effects a simple theory is proposed. The resulting interferometrical signal is studied experimentally.


We have recently identified TECRL, which encodes the trans ‐2,3‐enoyl‐CoA reductase‐like protein, as a new life‐threatening inherited arrhythmia gene. More precisely, we have reported a homozygous rare variant in TECRL gene (p.Arg196Gln) in two unrelated patients diagnosed with long QT syndrome with recurrent exercise‐ and emotion‐induced arrhythmias. TECRL mutations are associated with electrophysiological and calcium‐handling abnormalities and a role for TECRL in fatty acid (FA) metabolism is suspected, however the exact mechanism underlying the electrical phenotype in TECRL patients remains unknown. The current study was undertaken to document the role of TECRL in lipid metabolism in order to better understand its implication in the regulation of cardiac electrical activity.


We consider a model of D-dimensional supergravity coupled to elementary p-branes. We use gravitational arguments to deduce the low energy effective theory of N nearly parallel branes. This is a (p + 1)-dimensional scalar field theory, where the scalars represent the positions of the branes in their transverse space. We propose that the same theory in a certain temperature regime describes a 'soup' of strongly interacting branes, giving a microscopic description of near extremal black p-branes. We use natural approximations to estimate the energy density of this soup as a function of the physical parameters; N, temperature, brane tension and gravitational coupling. We also characterize the horizon radius, measured in the metric natural to the branes, with the thermal vev of the scalars. For both quantities we find agreement with the corresponding supergravity black brane results. Surprisingly, beyond the physical parameters, we are naturally able to reproduce certain irrational factors such as πs. We comment on how these ideas may explain why black hole thermodynamics arises in gauge theories with holographic duals at finite temperature.


Zinc-manganese has consistently attracted researchers as potentially the most corrosion resistant zinc alloy coating but to date is the most under-developed and yet to be commercially exploited to any significant degree. This paper reviews the current status of this alloy, outlining the research that has been carried out, the deficiencies of the sulfate-citrate based electrolyte system and the possible ways of overcoming them. The corrosion resistance of the zinc-manganese system is also examined, with particular reference to its sacrificial protection capabilities on ferrous surfaces.


The spectral character of X-ray emitted from laser-irradiated gold disk is studied by using the one-dimensional non-LTE multigroup radiation transport hydrodynamics code RDMG. The applicability of the "three-temperature" model in which the radiation is described with thermal conduction approximation is checked. The simulation results show that the X-ray emitted from the laser-produced gold plasm is in non-LTE, and that the atom model has significant effect on the structure of X-ray spectrum. However, the plasma states, laser absorption efficiency and X-ray conversion efficiency, which are calculated with the "three-temperature" model, are almost the same as those with non-LTE multigroup radiation transport model. This fact indicates that the "three-temperature" model can be used to study plasma states and the energy distributions produced by a laser-irradiated high-Z target. This is meaningful to the 2-D or 3-D simulation.


narratives and poems of his culture? How does he conceive of them and what does he perceive in their forms and themes? How does he use them properly in society and what do they mean to him? The answers to these questions may vary from one African society to another. Presently we attempt to learn to ask the questions which might enable us to understand the folklore of an African society the way the members of the community do. The forms of folklore, as speakers delineate and recognize them, have cultural symbolic meanings. Texts, framed into genres and performed in socially defined communicative situations, acquire significances beyond the literal meanings of their constituent words. Ritual songs, for example, which abound with repetitions and obscure terms, are rendered meaningless outside their verbal or social contexts; or, in other cases, their transition from one context to another involves a trans-


Africa constituted a vivid part of the popular European imagination as early as the nineteenth century. Fascinated by travel accounts and adventure novels and, towards the end of the nineteenth century, by ethnographic shows and colonial exhibitions, audiences in Europe followed with great interest the "scramble for Africa," with its spectacular discoveries on the periphery of the expanding colonial empires, just as people marvelled at the images of the first landing on the moon a century later (Lindfors 1999; Rotberg 1970). Towards the turn of the nineteenth century, new media technologies and forms of representation emerged such as the panorama or the cinematograph, conveying ever new images of seemingly exotic worlds. Thus, at Berlin's Kolonialpanorama which opened its doors for the public in 1885, a 115-metre long cyclorama, showing scenes of Germany's colonial occupation of Africa, awaited visitors. In exhibition rooms, ethnographic objects from the colonies were on display. Palm trees, a special lighting system, and artificial fog were installed to create a "tropical atmosphere" (Zeller 2002). The holistic, three-dimensional experience panoramas so created led Erlmann to speak of the "first mass medium to set up a perfect enclosure, a proto-cyberspace that enabled the viewer to become an inhabitant of image-space, someone who enters an image rather than someone who contemplates it from the outside" (1999:5–6). Other technologies such as phonography imparted not only a sonic but, as it were, a new "psychophysical" reality to the myth of Africa as a continent persisting in a seemingly timeless past (Carl 2004:126–31; see also Kittler 1986).


ForewordJ. Ochsner PrefaceS. Attar Section I. Hemostasis During Cardiopulmonary Bypass 1. Anticoagulation for Cardiopulmonary BypassJ.U. Hasnain 2. The Effect of Cardiopulmonary Bypass of Platelet Function and Platelet KineticsM.D. Crittenden, S.F. Khuri 3. Hemostasis in Pediatric Patients Undergoing Cardiopulmonary BypassM.G. Cardarelli Section II. Blood Conservation in Cardiac Surgery 4. Blood Transfusions: Safety, Risks and CostsS. Attar 5. Evolving Concepts in Blood Transfusion and Blood Conversation in Cardiac SurgeryL.T. Goodenough 6. Blood Conservation in Cardiac Surgery: Autologous BloodR.L. Thurer Section III. Diagnosis and Therapy of Coagulopathy Associated with Cardiac Surgery 7. Intraoperative Diagnosis and Therapy of Hemostasis Abnormalities with Cardiac SurgeryN. Skubas, G.J. Despotis 8. Aprotinin as an Adjunct to Blood Conservation in Open Heart SurgeryB.P. Bidstrup 9. Pharmacological Agents in Perioperative BleedingS. Attar, J.W. Hammon 10. Blood SubstitutesS. Attar 11. Hemostasis in Heart TransplantationE.A. Davis, W.A. Baumgartner 12. Hemostatic Complications of Total Artificial Heart and Ventricular Assist DeviceH. Al-Mondhiry, W.E. Pae, W.S. Pierce Section IV. Medicolegal Aspects of Blood Transfusions 13. Medicolegal Aspects of Blood TransfusionsS. Attar, B.H. Friedman


Nanotechnology is one of the most active research areas in the modern material science. Based upon their specific characteristics such as size, distribution and morphology nanoparticles have distinct properties compared with the bulk form of the same material. A nanoparticle (or nanopowder or nanocluster or nanocrystal) is a microscopic particle with at least one dimension less than 100 nm (Packia Lekshmi et al., 2012). Silver nanoparticle can be dissolved in a liquid environment that prevents their agglomeration of entrapped in a matrix that utilizes special drug carrier systems (e.g. the drug is dissolved, entrapped, encapsulated or attached to a nanoparticle matrix). These particles represent an ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 3 Number 3 (2014) pp. 146-152 http://www.ijcmas.com


Global leadership is becoming increasingly important in multinational companies as well as in non-profit and public sectors. The purpose of this study was to investigate what makes a global leader effective, by identifying key predictors of global leadership effectiveness. The predictors investigated in this study included a combined measure of overall intercultural global leadership competency and selected cognitively oriented competencies: nonjudgmentalness, inquisitiveness, tolerance of ambiguity and cosmopolitanism. The sample consisted of 171 undergraduate and graduate students from a large university. Linear and multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify the ability of the competencies to predict effectiveness. Inquisitiveness was the only cognitive competency found to successfully predict global leadership effectiveness. While no effect was found for overall intercultural global leadership competency, exploratory analyses revealed two other individual competencies as predictors: self-confidence and self-identity. The results of the study suggest that inquisitiveness is a key competency indicating cognitive flexibility that enable individuals to adapt to the situation at hand. Furthermore, self-identity and self-confidence likely enables individuals to participate and display leadership skills in novel and challenging situations.


The main purpose of this paper was to explore the area of continuing professional development for foreign language teachers, with a particular focus on the educational system in Montenegro. We briefly discussed the reasons for this kind of teacher education, and then we put a particular stress on research. The target group for the survey were in-service foreign language teachers, teaching in Montenegrin primary, elementary, secondary and high schools. The survey aimed not only to show the present situation in the area of continuing professional development for foreign language teachers in Montenegro, but also to help us identify the needs and give a possible projection of perspectives in the Montenegrin educational system, when foreign language teacher education is concerned.


The last mile is characterized as the last step of delivery to the customer from the logistics point of view. It is necessary to aim and fulfill all customers' needs mainly during the process of the last mile, because it is directly connected to them. Customer orientation can cause many complications that must be solved according to their will. This part of the supply chain is currently under pressure. Nowadays, trends have changed the last mile into a more ecological process mostly in the transport field. Railway transport is considered as an ecological transport mode therefore the last mile should be done by the railway transport. Preconditions for doing the last mile by the railway transport is the existence of siding (special purpose tracks) at the place of delivery. Our research focuses on minimizing the negative impacts of the last mile to customers in the context of using sidings. This research is based on the real conditions of the Slovak rail network, and on consultation with some experts from freight transport companies.


The Spectral Imaging Laboratory (SPILAB) has developed a new type of multiple aperture, super resolution artificial compound eye (ACE) camera that captures an array of interrelated sub-images using a single sensor. The optics, which were inspired by the compound eyes of arthropods (insects and crustaceans), allow the same object to be viewed simultaneously through adjacent apertures. This paper develops the computational algorithms to reconstruct a single high resolution image from the array of low resolution sub-images viewed through the adjacent apertures. The sub-images are first calibrated using a 2-dimensional correlation matched-filter process. Precise sub-pixel shifts are then found using both spatial and frequency domain registration approaches. Super resolution image reconstruction is performed using bicubic interpolation. Resolution is improved by a factor of four using super resolution methods. Numerical implementations based on two different types of prototype cameras are demonstrated and discussed.


Financial institutions are ultimately exposed to macroeconomic fluctuations in the global economy. This article proposes and builds a compact global model capable of generating forecasts for a core set of macroeconomic factors (or variables) across a number of countries. The model explicitly allows for the interdependencies that exist between national and international factors. Individual region-specific vector error-correcting models are estimated in which the domestic variables are related to corresponding foreign variables constructed exclusively to match the international trade pattern of the country under consideration. The individual country models are then linked in a consistent and cohesive manner to generate forecasts for all of the variables in the world economy simultaneously. The global model is estimated for 25 countries grouped into 11 regions using quarterly data over 1979Q1–1999Q1. The degree of regional interdependencies is investigated via generalized impulse responses where the effects of shocks to a given variable in a given country on the rest of the world are provided. The model is then used to investigate the effects of various global risk scenarios on a bank's loan portfolio.


The scientific and efficient prediction method of build-up rates was the key technology to optimize drilling parameters and to improve wellbore trajectory control accuracy and efficiency. It was of great significance for the efficient and low-cost development of complex directional wells. The prediction of build-up rate, which had the characteristics of fuzziness, randomness and nonlinearity, was affected by various coupling factors. As a result, it was difficult to describe with mathematical and mechanical models, and it was proposed that Kriging surrogate model was applied to predict the build-up rate of steering tools. Starting from the analysis of the factors affecting the build-up rate, the influence of difference between the structure and build-up principles of the steering tools was emphatically analyzed. The current methods were summarized into three types of geometric prediction, mechanic prediction and regression analysis and prediction. By comparison between them, their limitations were pointed out. From the aspect of regression analysis and prediction, a novel method based on the build-up rate of Kriging surrogate model is proposed; the scientificalness and high efficiency of the method are analyzed; the concrete procedures for prediction and key issues for attention are proposed; it provides new ways for predicting the build-up rate.