Long-span suspension bridges are susceptible to wind loads due to their lightweight, low stiffness, and small structural damping. Recently, two large-span suspension bridges in China that closed for several months due to COVID-2019 experienced large-scale and continuous vortex-induced vibration shortly after reopening to traffic, and the traffic was closed again for safety consideration, which has aroused widespread concerns in society. To provide a reference for owners and related decision-making departments whether to restore the traffic, this article intends to explore the impact mechanism of traffic loads on the dynamic behavior of suspension bridges. First, two mechanical models for suspension bridges considering traffic loads and structural damping are proposed in this article. Then, based on the extended dynamic stiffness method, the explicit expressions of modal damping ratio in the two models are derived for the first time. Subsequently, Wittrick–Williams algorithm is employed to solve the frequency equation to obtain the modal frequency of the structure that considers the effect of traffic loads. A numerical case is studied to inspect the influence of traffic loads on the structural dynamic characteristics. Moreover, field monitoring data of accelerations of a suspension bridge are utilized to demonstrate the reasonability and accuracy of the approach proposed. Analysis shows that the theoretical results are consistent well with the measured ones, which indicates the traffic loads will affect the dynamic characteristics of the suspension bridge, thus reducing the modal frequency and increasing the modal damping ratio. Besides, the measured results further explain that the contribution of traffic loads to the structural damping is significant, which has a positive effect on preventing and eliminating vortex-induced vibration response. Some interesting and enlightening conclusions are also obtained in this article.


The body sway test was taken by in 200 patients with dizziness or vertigo (100 peripheral vestibular disorders and 100 CNS disorders) to differentiate peripheral disorders from CNS disorders. The patients were divided into four groups according to the sway length. Of the 19 patients showing more than 700 mm for 30 seconds, 16 had CNS disorders and only 3 peripheral disorders. We regarded this sway length to be a characteristic difference between peripheral vestibular and CNS disorders. However, in the range of 300 mm to 699 mm in sway length, there were not only many patients with peripheral vestibular disorders but also many with CNS disorders. So the frequency analysis in body sway was performed. The X (lateral) and Y (anterior-posterior) sway was divided in to six ranges between 04 Hz, and the percentage of the sum of the power in each category to the sum of all power was calculated. This parameter was clinically useful. In the forward-backward sway analysis, power percentage in the under 0.125 Hz range were remarkably lower in some CNS disorders than in peripheral vestibular disorders, even when patients in both groups showed almost the same sway length. In conclusion frequency analysis of body sway is useful for differential diagnosis in clinical practice.


ments. It is significant that, in a paper entitled "The Aims of Anthropology," no mention is made of "aims" in so far as these are observable from what anthropologists are actually doing, i.e., by way of research projects, training programs, problems posed, and theoretical discussions pursued. Relying on the Hultkrantzian version of Scandinavian anthropology would undoubtedly lead to the conclusion that nothing has really happened in Scandinavia in the last 20 years: no fieldwork undertaken, no publications made their appearance, no theory presented, and no aim of anthropological research ever contemplated.


This paper presents the ultra-wideband inverted U-shaped slot antenna with reflector for ground penetrating radar (GPR) application. The inverted U-shaped slot of the original slot antenna is modified by adding the wide rectangular slot. In addition, the small rectangular slots based on defected ground structure (DGS) are etched on the bottom edge of the radiating slot to improve impedance matching, especially at lower frequencies. Moreover, two corners of ground plane are bended in order to improve the performance of the antenna at frequency below 900 MHz. In addition, the reflector is added behind the proposed antenna in order to improve the directivity. The proposed antenna has a dimension of 260 × 300 × 230 mm3. It is found from measured results that the proposed antenna achieves a very wide impedance bandwidth of 166% (0.33 GHz to 3.59 GHz), covering the whole frequency range of GPR. The proposed antenna has maximum gain at 0 degree around 8.86 dBi at 1.5 GHz.


S U M M A R Y The contents of this report form part of a study to determine guideline's for the establishment of databases containing digital imagery and ancillary in for ma ti or^. It begins with an introduction to the basic concepts of databases. This provides the background to the terminology commonly used in this report and other rellted literature. A review of current commercially available database systems is, made, drawing principally on a market study conducted in mid 1989. Of specific interest i!j the extent to which image databases arebeing utilised and the applications which use digital imagery (or pictures) in database management systems (DBMS). Finally, there is an overview of image compression techniques, considering the current trends and future directions of the field.


Effects on mesomorphic properties and selective reflection of cholesteric matrices have been studied for a special group of non-mesogenic dopants – organic luminophores that are actually or potentially used as organic scintillator crystals (stilbene, p-terphenyl, o-POPOP and other substances with similar features). Solubility of these compounds in cholesteric solvents, as well as their influence on isotropic transition temperatures and helical twisting, were substantially different for different dopants and matrices. The characteristics of these effects are shown to be dependent on the degree of anisometry of solvent molecules, as well as their specific interactions with components of the solvents.


Scan test is the standard method, practiced by industry, that has consistently provided high fault coverage due to high controllability and high observability. The scan chain allows to control and observe the internal signals of a chip. However, this property also facilitates hackers to use scan architecture as a means to breach chip security. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a new method called Secure and testable Scan design through Test Key Randomization(SSTKR). SSTKR is a key based method to prevent hackers from stealing secret information. Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) is used to generate authentication keys to be embedded in test vectors. Unique key is used for every test vector which prevents scan based side channel attacks effectively. Any attempt to steal secret information will lead to a randomized response. SSTKR has very low area and test time overhead without performance penalty. Our approach also facilitates in-field test of the chip.


CaF2:Eu 2+ is a well known phosphor having efficient excitation in the near ultraviolet (NUV) range. Phosphors with NUV excitation are required in newly emerging applications such as photoluminescence liquid crystal displays (PLLCD), solid-state lighting (SSL), and down-conversion for solar cells. However, emission of CaF2:Eu 2+ is around 424nm. Eye sensitivity drops considerably at these wavelengths. It is thus not useful for display applications for which emission in one of the primary colours (blue – 450nm, green – 540nm or red – 610nm) is required. Efforts were made to modify the Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of CaF2:Eu 2+ to meet these requirements using co-dopants. A Ca0.49Sr0.50Eu0.01F2 phosphor showing better colour coordinates and having an emission maximum around 440nm was discovered during these studies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The longitudinal-acoustic (LA) phonons propagating along the c axis in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) were investigated as a function of pressure up to 20 kbar using inelastic-neutron-scattering techniques. The phonon frequencies varied as v(P, q)= A (P)sin[c(P)q/2], where A (P) and c(P) indicate the pressure dependences of the zone-center LO frequency of B, g symmetry and ig) of the c-axis lattice spacing, respectively. From the measurements, the mode Gruneisen parameter for the LA branch was estimated to be 1. 5 X 10 kbar ' (independent of q); the elastic constant C33 for HOPG was found to be 3. 40X10" dyn/cm at 1 bar with a pressure coeScient of (1/C»)(dC»/dP) =2. 91X10 kbar '. The measured c-axis spacings were 6. 71 and 12. 72 A for HOPG and stage-2 SbC1&-intercalated graphite, respectively, at atmospheric pressure; the corresponding compressibilities (1/c)(dc/dP) were — 2. 24)(10 kbar ' (HOPG) and — 2. 28&10 ' kbar ' (SbC1&). Elastic-neutron-scattering studies up to 20 kbar were undertaken to search for stage transformations, but no evidence of any phase transition was observed.


Introduction: Burn injury remains one of the biggest health concerns in the developing world. It has been regarded as a formidable public health issue in terms of mortality, morbidity and permanent disability. We aim to provide an overview of the basic epidemiological characteristics of burn patients admitted at a dedicated burn center in Chitwan, Nepal.
Methods: This was a retrospective, hospital-based observational study conducted at Chitwan Medical College Teaching Hospital (CMCTH) burn ward from September 2017 to August 2019. Patients' records from admission/discharge book, admission/discharge summaries as well as patient's individual files were reviewed to obtain the necessary data. Demographic data, clinical characteristics, treatments and outcomes were statistically analyzed.
Results: Among the 202 patients, the number of males slightly predominated that of females with a ratio of 1.02:1. The median age was 24 years, and the median total body surface area (TBSA) burned was 15%.  Children less than 10 years comprised one third of all patients while more than one fifth were elderly. The commonest etiological factor was flame burn, closely followed by scald. The mortality rate was 12.38% for the period under review. Majority of the patients spent less than 10 days on admission and around one fifth needed surgical intervention aimed at earlier coverage. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that age, Body Mass Index (BMI) and total body surface area (TBSA) burnt were the major predictors of burn mortality.
Conclusions: The outcome of burn injuries is poor. Appropriate preventive & therapeutic measures need to be taken in terms of social education & provision of quality healthcare to reduce the incidence & improve the survival outcome of burn patients which should focus on children and elderly especially during the winter season.


The invention involves inserting electronic components into a glazing, particularly laminated glazing to create new features, particularly for automobliles applications, windshields, window-rear or side windows. The inserted electronic components may be opto-electronic components such as electroluminescent diodes (LED), photoresistors, photodiodes, CCD or CMOS vision sensors, or other electronic components such as components designed for electronic maps with mounting surface (SMD).


Abstract Bennettiodendron brevipes, which is only distributed in China, is a genus of the family Salicaceae. In this study, we assembled the complete chloroplast genome of B. brevipes using Illumina paired-end sequencing data. The complete chloroplast genome sequence of B. brevipes is 158,605 bp in size. It is composed of a large single-copy (LSC), a small single-copy (SSC), and two inverted repeat (IR) regions of 86,350, 16,501, and 22,877 bp, respectively. In addition, the overall GC-content of the whole plastome is 36.66%. The B. brevipes chloroplast genome has a total of 126 genes including 82 protein-coding genes, 36 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis based on the chloroplast genome demonstrated that B. brevipes is most closely related to Idesia polycarpa.


Importance of the QUATREHOMME collection (Monnaye Museum, Meung-sur-Loire) in the French palaeontological landscape.The QUATREHOMME collection is described by GINSBURG as "modest to very modest" and there is no accurate inventory. In order to highlight this collection and better understand its importance, an inventory of the terrestrial mammal remains is in progress. In the current state of the inventory 35 different locations were identified, mostly in the Savigné-sur-Lathan Basin. 3,266 specimens, covering 8 of the 9 orders of terrestrial mammals found in the Faluns, are currently registered in the data set. To date, the most impressive published Faluns mammal collections are from HARTMANN, hosted at the volunteer "Musée du Savignéen" (Savigné-sur-Lathan) and BOURGEOIS (today split in different museums). While this HARTMANN's collection contains 1,475 mammal remains (marine and terrestrial) and BOURGEOIS' one 1850 (only terrestrial), we estimate that the QUA1 Université de Bourgogne, Esplanade Erasme, 21000 Dijon (France) 2 firstname.lastname@example.com 3 Musée La Monnaye, 22 Rue des Remparts, 45130 Meung-sur-Loire (France) email@example.com 4 email@example.com 5 Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Bâle, Augustinergasse 2, CH-4001 Bâle (Suisse) 6 email@example.com ; firstname.lastname@example.com 7 Auteur correspondant Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Vienne, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienne (Autriche) email@example.com ; email@example.com Manuscrit en ligne depuis le 12 septembre 2017 [Éditeur : Bruno GRANIER] Carnets Geol. 17 (5) 130 TREHOMME collection encompasses more than 7,500 terrestrial specimens. It is the largest known Faluns collection of Pliopithecus (25 specimens) and of Lagomorpha (1,355 specimens). Also, eight Tapiroidea specimens (including a jaw with teeth) and three Chalicotherium remains are inventoried. This collection is now being studied in detail. In the next few years it will take a more prominent place in the French paleontological landscape.


Currently, Wolbachia is one of the most studied reproductive parasite of arthropod species and appears to be a promising candidate for biocontrol of some mosquito carried diseases, especially by Aedes aegypti. A mathematical model inspired by Nicholson-type delay equations is proposed to investigate the relation between temperature variation (implicit into maturation time) and population dynamics of both transinfected by a Wol- bachia strain and uninfected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. We analyze the existence and local stability of equilibria with and without delay. [...]


The invention discloses a differential pressure type flow transmitter provided with two differential pressure sensors. The flow transmitter is characterized in that a piston consisting of a cylinder and a head flange is arranged in an outer shell; a big cavity is partitioned into high and low pressure regions by the head flange of the piston; the piston is provided with an elastic component; the outer shell is provided with measurement holes of a high pressure difference measurement module (A) and a low pressure difference measurement module (B); high and low pressure measurement holes of thehigh pressure difference measurement module (A) ensure that two dead centre positions for compression and ejection of the elastic component are positioned in high and low pressure regions respectively; when the elastic component is not compressed, the high pressure measurement hole of the low pressure difference measurement module (B) is connected with the high pressure region; the elastic component is compressed to the dead centre position, the piston is moved to the end and the connecting channel is cut off. The transmitter can automatically switch the working channel of the low pressure difference measurement module (B) according to the pressure difference size so as to change the operating state of the low pressure difference measurement module (B) and protect the low pressure difference module; and meanwhile, the measurement range can be expanded by effectively using two pressure difference measurement modules.


How does viscosity influence the flagellar beating behaviour of free-swimming bull, mouse, and human sperm?

 Sperm flagellar beating behaviour exhibits a transition from an irregular three-dimensional (3D) beating at 5 mPa·s to an organized two-dimensional (2D) waveform at 20 mPa·s.

 Sperm migrate in a complex viscoelastic environment through the female reproductive tract. The viscoelastic properties of the oviductal fluid significantly influence the progressive motility of sperm, acting as one of the key guidance mechanisms in vivo. However, the biomechanics of sperm flagellar activity in response to varying viscosity of the oviductal fluid is poorly understood. Understanding sperm flagellar behaviour in physiologically relevant environments is crucial to understanding reproduction and may help to describe unknown causes of infertility. Lack of high-speed high-resolution imaging techniques and automated image-analysis capabilities have been the main barriers to fully describe the flagellar beating behaviour.

 We used a custom-built high-speed high-resolution dark-field microscopy platform to resolve the flagellar dynamics of human, bull, and mouse sperm near surfaces in viscoelastic media ranging in viscosity from 1 to 250 mPa·s. The imaging system includes an automated image analysis algorithm to quantify sperm flagellar waveform and motility characteristics by extracting the flagellar centreline, reconstructing the waveform and calculating tangent-angle profiles. 20 sperm from 3 different bull, mice and humans were analyzed.

 Bull, mouse, and human sperm were used in this study. In each experiment, a diluted sperm sample in a buffer supplemented with methylcellulose was used and free-swimming sperm were imaged using dark-field microscopy at 200 frames per second. An automated image analysis algorithm was used to extract sperm flagellar centreline and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) was then used to study sperm flagellar waveform. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA.

 The reconstructed flagellar beating pattern was different for sperm swimming in low and high-viscosity media. Bull sperm exhibited a lower flagellar beating amplitude along the end piece when swimming in a high-viscosity media, a potential energy-efficient strategy to navigate a high viscosity fluid. The first two dominant POD modes (shape modes) describe more than 90% of the beating pattern for all species. Bull sperm exhibited a transition mode with irregular loops in 5 mPa·s buffer, but the flagellar shape cycle created an organised repetitive circular cycle in 1 mPa.s (3D beating) buffer and at viscosities higher than 5 mPa·s (2D beating). Human sperm also indicated a similar behaviour but with the transition happening at higher viscosities. Mouse sperm in high-viscosity media had a lower flagellar beating amplitude across the principal piece and higher beating amplitude across the end piece. The flagellar shape cycle in mouse sperm showed a periodic flagellar beating behaviour at high-viscosities (>20 mPa·s), but a shape cycle with distorted loops at lower viscosities. Our results showed in quantitative detail that increasing viscosity alters sperm flagellar beating pattern, and how sperm migration behaviour in low viscosity media can be distinct from their swimming behaviour in vivo.

 A more comprehensive study of sperm motility parameters such as curvilinear velocity, average path velocity and straight line velocity with a larger sample size is required to fully characterise sperm swimming behaviour as a function of viscosity.

 The increasing viscosity of the oviductal fluid regulates the sperm flagellar beating behaviour to switch from a 3D swimming behaviour with irregular shape cycles at lower viscosities to a 2D slithering mode with repetitive circular shape cycles at higher viscosities to achieve a more energy-efficient beating pattern for navigation.

 Not applicable


The authors present an experimental investigation that compares the primary rotational fixation of 4 revision stems. Methods: Each stem was implanted into 4 synthetic femora. Micromotion of stem and bone was measured at defined sites under torque application. Femoral neck osteotomy and AAOS type I and III defects were simulated by reproducible saw lines. Results: Up to a type I defect, all implants are capable of bridging the substance loss in a rotationally stable manner. The relative movements show a dependence both on the bone defect and on implant design. Even within the basic design types clear differences (p < 0.0001) are partially observable. Major differences were seen in type III defects. Whereas the conical stem designs had the ability to bridge the extensive defect the cylindric shapes showed no rotationally stability. Conclusion: As the major fixation area the femoral isthmus plays a decisive role for all tested stems. Due to enormous and partly selective load transmission of the conical stems the cylindrical designs is good for type I defects. In case of an extensive substance loss the decision should be a conical implant.


Growth of most ablation‐resistant prostate cancers (CaPs) is dependent on androgen receptor (AR) activity in chromatin, but cancer cells in these tumors have acquired altered AR activation. It is unclear how the aberrantly activated AR loads onto regulatory regions of AR‐targeted genes. The purpose of this study was to assess the AR chromatin loading in an androgen‐depleted environment.


Two related constructions are studied:
--- The diagonal complex $\mathcal{D}$ and its barycentric subdivision $\mathcal{BD}$ related to a punctured oriented surface $F$ equipped with a number of labeled marked points.
--- The symmetric diagonal complex $\mathcal{D}^{inv}$ and its barycentric subdivision $\mathcal{BD}^{inv}$ related to a symmetric(=with an involution) oriented surface $F$ equipped with a number of (symmetrically placed) labeled marked points.
Eliminating a puncture gives rise to a bundle whose fibers are homeomorphic to a surgery of the surface $F$. It can be viewed as a surgery on the universal curve. The bundle incorporates all the M. Kontsevich's tautological $S^1$-bundles.
The symmetric complex is shown to be homotopy equivalent to the complex of a punctured surface obtained by a surgery of the initial symmetric surface.


Studying basic theoretical sports issues without the "realm" will not only render the study invalid,but also make the study a mess on the contrary,because this kind of exploration of sports humanistic sociological issues will subject to the restriction of the realm of the issues discussed without exception.By focusing on the characteris-tics of existence of sport,the authors probed into the nature,functions and origin of sport in three "entangled" realms,namely,"realm of language","realm of meaning" and "realm of time",and paid attention to the "mutual constitution and joint development" between human beings and the cultural works they have created.Perhaps,such a kind of thinking manner is the way to the methodology that substantially settles basic difficult issues in the area of sports humanistic sociology.


As QoS guarantee techniques have not been considered specially for current IP networks,applications of integrated services can not be satisfied.Some advices about QoS guarantee have been put forward in recent years,but are not applied widely in current networks.With the development of NGN,QoS guarantee is becoming its key technique.The IP network based on NGN could really satisfy telecommunications requirements,only if the solution has been found for this technique.In this paper,some factors of QoS are described,key QoS guarantee techniques are illustrated,and their principles and characteristics are simply analyzed.


This research was conducted with the aim of evaluate the effect of nitrogen fertilizer level on the growth and herbage yield of Columbus grass in the study area, evaluate the effects of varying inter row spacing in the study area and to determine the optimum nitrogen (N) fertilizer level and inter row spacing for Columbus grass production in the semi arid zone of Sokoto, Nigeria. Based on the results of this study, significant different (P < 0.05) were observed on the plant height spacing at the 6WAS where by 50 cm spacing produced the tallest plant among other spacing (30 and 70 cm). The nitrogen levels also showed significant effect at the 9 and 12WAS (P < 0.05). The interactions between the treatments are found to be significant at the 12WAS and as well not significant at the 3, 6 and 9 WAS. There are no significant effect (P >0.05) observed for the spacing in the leaf length, leaf width, number of leaves and the tillers number at all time intervals of weeks after sowing but significantly for the plant height at 6WAS. Leaf width, number of leaves and tillers also showed significant effect for the nitrogen fertilizer level at different week's interval, and so also significant difference exist (P < 0.05) for the interaction in the leaf width, number of leaves and tillers at different weeks after sowing.


Since the 1990s, the utilization of information and communication technology (ICTs) has become an important instrument for promoting public management reforms. Governments around the globe have made enormous investments in e-government initiatives. However, at the same time, critics have argued strongly that electronic government has gained objectives of its own, regardless of what citizens really want from it. According to a national survey, besides online service deliveries, Taiwanese people want e-government to play a more active role in government information dissemination and public policy consultation. In other words, people want e-government to be more "democratic" through promoting "civic engagement" in society. The key question thus becomes: could and how does ICTs promote civic engagement? This will be the key question to be answered in the next stage of e-government initiatives in Taiwan. However, scholars are still debating whether the internet has a "reinforcing" or "mobilizing" effect on civic engagement. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze national survey data to identify whether utilization of the internet encourages civic engagement in Taiwan. The results show that there is a strong correlation between utilization of the internet and online civic engagement. However, ICTs has a reinforcing rather than mobilizing effect on civic engagement. In other words, those who are already active in real-world civic engagement tend to be mobilized online to engage with others. At the end of this paper, three policy recommendations are proposed. They are: (1) more resources should be allocated to reduce the digital divide; (2) user-centered technology should be the core value of the next step of the e-government initiative in Taiwan; and (3) simultaneous reforms between online interfaces and the real world system should be included in the initiative.


A study recently published in the Lancet compared the incidence of pertussis between 1940 and 1996 in countries where vaccination with DTP vaccine reached a steady 90-100% of the population for many years against those in which coverage fell sharply following propaganda-driven vaccine scares. It was found that the incidence of a disease can be up to 100 times higher in a country where vaccination against the disease is disrupted by anti-vaccine movements than in countries where coverage of the population with the vaccine always remains high. It can take 10-20 years to reverse the potentially major damage caused by anti-vaccination movements. There may have been hundreds of thousands of cases of pertussis among children deprived of vaccine, while tens of thousands of cases of disease-related clinical complications such as pneumonia, encephalopathy, and seizures may have resulted.


The paper develops a Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) model of the South African economy for the period of 1970:1-2000:4 and forecasts GDP, consumption, investment, short-term and long term interest rates, and the CPI. We find that a tight prior produces relatively more accurate forecasts than a loose one. The out-of- sample-forecast accuracy resulting from the BVAR model is compared with the same generated from the univariate and unrestricted VAR models. The BVAR model is found to produce the most accurate out of sample forecasts. The same is also capable of correctly predicting the direction of change in the chosen macroeconomic indicators.


Sensing as a Service (S2aaS) model [1] [2] is inspired by the traditional Everything as a service (XaaS) approaches [3]. It aims to better utilize the existing Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure. S2aaS vision aims to create 'rentable infrastructure' where interested parties can gather IoT data by paying a fee for the infrastructure owners.


: The infection with H. Pylori stimulates a signaling cascade that causes the generation of Cytokines and provokes Oxidative stress that is involved in the chronic inflammatory response leads to Gastric cancers. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) produce 8-Hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), the persistent oxidative DNA damage product. The study objective was to assess if there was a link between inflammatory cytokine levels and the presence of Oxidative DNA damage in Gastric tumor patients. In addition, evaluation of the diagnostic and prognostic value of Oxidative DNA damage and inflammatory cytokine biomarkers for Stomach cancers is being conducted. The study was accomplished on medically diagnosed Stomach cancer patients before any form of treatment. A total of 33 patients with Gastric cancers were selected and divided into Stages I, II, and III according to clinical pathology, and 32 age-matched healthy subjects as a control group. The Serum 8-OHdG, IL-6, TNF-α, IFN-γ & CEA were evaluated. The results revealed a highly significant rise ( P <0.0001) in blood levels of 8-OHdG, TNF-α, & IFN-γ, and a non-significant ( P =0.4747) increasing in IL-6 in GC patients compared to Controls, with levels gradually increasing as disease stages progressed. Furthermore, in GC patients, there was an insignificant ( P =0.3472) positive correlation (r=0.1292) among 8-OHdG, IL-6, and CEA levels, but a noteworthy ( P <0.0001) positive correlation (r=0.7235) among 8-OHdG, TNF-α, and CEA levels. In GC patients, however, there was an insignificant ( P =0.6342) negative correlation (r=-0.06559) among 8-OHdG, IFN-γ, and CEA levels. The results of the current study show a strong link between serum levels of the 8-OHdG as well as inflammatory cytokines in GC patients. The significant enhancement in oxidative DNA damage, as well as overexpression of inflammatory cytokine biomarkers and CEA in the blood suggests that Oxidative stress and chronic inflammation are included in GC carcinogenesis. These observations suggest that 8-OHdG, TNF-α, & IFN-γ are viable biomarkers for the Gastric tumor prediction.


This study examines the saving patterns of Soviet households by developing a saving function based on cross-section data derived from a family budget survey of Soviet emigrants. The results are very similar to those of Western studies. While saving is a positive function of current income, the average rate of saving rises only relatively mildly with income, indicating that current income from the public sector is much more "permanent" than in market economies. The proportion of income earned from the private sector that is saved is much higher—indicating that it is highly transitory and risky. The long-run saving rate is, by international comparison, rather low.


When the dominant social trend of resisting against Japanese aggression to save the nation was gradually taking shape in northwestern China,the main military forces in this area maintained relative balance,which provided a favorable objective situation for the start and peaceful settlement of the Xi′an Incident.Accordingly the Xi′an Incident and its peaceful settlement promoted the historical turning and steady development of political situation in northwestern China in a short period of time.Starting from the incident,people in northwestern China had their view of the nation strengthened and gradually developed their homeland into one of the main anti-Japanese bases,which not only supported the anti-Japanese war but also provided favorable conditions for the growth of the anti-Japanese democratic forces headed by the Communist Party of China.To sum up,the evolution of political situation in northwestern China in pre-and postXi′an Incident days shows that a joint development cannot be actualized unless the whole nation is united.


A report from the Health & Social Policy Research Centre at the University of Brighton for the Community University Partnership Programme.


The energy conservation law and the optical theorem in the grating theory are discussed: the energy conservation law states that the incident energy is equal to the sum of diffracted energies and the optical theorem means that the diffraction takes place at the loss of the specularly reflection amplitude. A mathematical relation between the optical theorem and the energy conservation law is given. Some numerical examples are given for a TM plane wave diffraction by a sinusoidal surface. key words: energy balance formula, periodic grating, energy conservation law, optical theorem


With the building of Fears' Societies, insecure societies, it has the fertilized land for the merchandising of products that search to satisfy the protection need, the security need. This paper propose to show, with the life and accidents' insurances' case, how fear constitues today a highly effective marketing's strategy when they appeal to primordial fears of human being.


Smart tourism is a new concept focus on the tourism experience promotion. It is necessary to improve tourist experience using smart technologies, so that more efficient and appropriate measures can be taken and make a contribution to tourism experience promotion. In this paper, smarter tourism comes to be known with the deepening of the influence of information technology. In order to realize the intensification,intellectualization and unionization of tourism management, a smarter tourism perception system must be constructed on the base of cloud computing and the Internet of things so that standard information service is available to tourists, businesses and governments via its safe and online communicative functions. Smarter tourism perception system can connect travel attractions, hotels, transportation and other facilities tourist destinations of things completely to the Internet system and integration, data integration as the core database of tourism resources, which provide a more convenient means of destination tourism management and services.


The distinction of astrocytomas and oligodendrogliomas, mainly pilocytic astrocytomas (PILOs) from infiltrating astrocytomas and oligodendrogliomas (ODs), and high‐grade oligodendrogliomas from glioblastomas (GBMs), poses a serious clinical problem. There is no useful immunohistochemical (IHC) marker to differentiate these gliomas, and sometimes the differential diagnosis between them is arbitrary. We identified galectin‐3 (Gal‐3) as a possible tool to differentiate them based on gene expression profiles of GBMs. We confirmed the differential expression in 45 surgical samples (thirteen GBMs; seven PILOs; 5 grade II ODs; 5 anaplastic oligodendrogliomas [AODs], including 2 Oligo‐astrocytomas; 8 diffuse astrocytomas [ASTs], and 7 non‐neoplastic samples) by quantification of Gal‐3 gene expression by real‐time quantitative PCR (rt‐PCR). Higher expression of Gal‐3 was observed in GBMs and PILOs than in OD, AODs and ASTs. The IHC expression of Gal‐3 was evaluated in 90 specimens (fifteen PILOs, fourteen ASTs, 10 anaplastic astrocytomas, fifteen GBMs, eleven ODs, fifteen AODs, and 10 dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumors). The mean labeling score for Gal‐3 determined according to the percentage of labeled cells in the tumor bulk was significantly different in GBMs versus AODs and in PILOs versus ASTs. Hence, Gal‐3 is differentially expressed in central nervous system tumors, making IHC detection of Gal‐3 a useful tool in distinguishing between these gliomas.


Energy balance on drying ammonium chloride (NH 4 Cl) in a fluidised bed dryer and in a rotary dryer is done for the identical feed and discharge conditions (moisture, temperature) of the dryers. Data for the energy balance calculations are taken from the designed values of an operating industry where NH 4 Cl is being produced. Fluidised bed dryer saves around 12.9 per cent of energy over the rotary dryer. The residence time in fluidised bed dryer is less than that in rotary dryer.


A 76 years old lady is admitted with cough, breathlessness and chest discomfort. She has frequent hospital attendances with the same problem. She is known to have COPD, hypertension and osteoarthritis of knees.


In view of the present situation of the large GDP,foreign-exchange reserves of China,powerful foreign trade,and rapid growth of financial markets,this paper theoretically expounds that RMB has already satisfied the essential requirements for internationalization with the graphical method.The internationalization of RMB should be scheduled to be a piecemeal process with the sequence of the settlement money,the investment money and the reserve currency.As a result,RMB will eventually become the worldwide major currency paralleling with US dollar and Euro.


AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy nanocomposite containing CNT nanoparticle reinforcement was fabricated using solidification processing followed by hot extrusion. The AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy nanocomposite exhibited similar grain size to monolithic AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy, reasonable CNT nanoparticle distribution, non-dominant (0 0 0 2) texture in the longitudinal direction, and 20% higher hardness than monolithic AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy. Compared to monolithic AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy (in tension), the AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy nanocomposite exhibited higher 0.2% TYS, UTS, failure strain and work of fracture (WOF) (+ 9%, + 4%, + 38% and + 44%, respectively). Also, compared to monolithic AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy (in compression), the AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy nanocomposite exhibited similar 0.2% CYS (+ 1%), and higher UCS, failure strain and WOF (+ 7%, + 23% and + 23%, respectively). The effect of CNT nanoparticle addition on the enhanced tensile and compressive response of AZ31/AA5083 hybrid alloy is investigated in this paper.


[Objective]To investigate effects of rice aging degree on quality of rice flour prepared by direct extrusion and texture characteristics.[Method]This study focused on the influence of the rice aging degree on the adhesion,the breaking rate,the grout vomiting value,texture properties,sensory quality of rice flour prepared by double screw extruder,and the correlation analysis between the aging degree and texture characteristics was also performed.[Result]With the increase of the aging degree of rice,the viscosity and roughness of rice-flour noodles prepared by the low aging level rice decreased slowly; the chewiness,elasticity and grout vomiting value showed the increase trend; the breaking rate showed firstly decrease and then increase trend and the result of sensory evaluation gave the opposite trend.[Conclusion]Fatty acid value can be used as sensitive factor for evaluation of rice aging degree.


Tom Dardis. Some Time in the Sun. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976.274 pp. Since the 1930's when serious writers first migrated to Hollywood, the popular phrase to describe their exodus has been that of "selling out." In the popular eye the movie empire has been envisioned as a prurient Mammon unconscionably exploiting and ruining the literary artists drawn to her by the lure of great lucre. This view was conventionalized by Edmund Wilson in his book, The Boys in the Back Room (1941), wherein he notes that "both West and Fitzgerald were writers of a conscience and with natural gifts rare enough in America or anywhere; and their failure to get the best out of their years may certainly be laid partly to Hollywood, with its already appalling record of talent depraved and wasted."1 Budd Schul- berg's novel, The Disenchanted (1950), reinforced this popular cliche by focusing upon a writer, transparently modeled on Fitzgerald, who is plagued by a sense of failure and waste in his Hollywood career. The my...


This editorial refers to 'Prediction of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality with central haemodynamics: a systematic review and meta-analysis', by C. Vlachopoulos et al. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehq024

It is remarkable that despite considerable advances in methods and technologies to assess the function and integrity of the cardiovascular (CV) system, the technique for measuring blood pressure (BP) has changed little over 100 years. We still rely on routine brachial BP recordings via sphygmomanometry for much of our clinical decision making with regard to circulatory pressures. There is good reason for this—the measurement of brachial BP has stood the test of time as a robust predictor of CV risk and the benefits of treatment. Moreover, the recording of brachial BP is a familiar and relatively simple procedure, albeit often performed badly. It is noteworthy that before blood pressure was ever routinely measured, in the 19th century the sphygmograph was used non-invasively to record the characteristics of the arterial pulse wave to gain information about the health of the circulation.1 There has been much recent interest in pulse wave analysis, reinvigorating the concept of 'pulsology' in an endeavour to go beyond conventional BP measurement in the assessment of arterial disease and central aortic pressures and haemodynamics. The word 'central' in this context is used to emphasize the estimation of aortic root pressures and haemodynamic indices as opposed to 'peripheral', i.e. brachial, pressures. This is important because brachial pressures are not always a perfect surrogate for central aortic pressures because of a variable degree of amplification of the pulse pressure wave from the aortic root to the peripheral circulation. This amplification process can be profoundly influenced by many factors, including the effects of ageing and disease on aortic stiffness, heart rate, height, gender, and, importantly, drug therapies.2 This has led to the hypothesis that …

*Corresponding author. Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3182, Fax: +44 (0)116 252 5847, Email: bw17{at}le.ac.uk


Objective: An optimized high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) method has been established for the quantification of cytisine in Thermopsis alterniflorae Regel and Schmalh.
Methods: Alcoholic extract of the aerial parts were prepared using Soxhlet extraction method. Separation was achieved on silica gel 60 F254 HPTLC plates using toluene-ethyl acetate-diethyl amine (7:2:1, v/v) as the mobile phase. The quantitation of cytisine was carried out using densitometric scanning at 545 nm after derivatization using Dragendorff's reagent.
Results: The linear regression analysis data for the calibration plot showed a good linear relationship (r2 = 0.9849) in the concentration range 10 to 15 µg/spot. The method was validated for precision, repeatability, accuracy, specificity, limit of detection and limit of quantification. The average recovery was 99.0899% indicating good accuracy. The percentage yield of cytisine obtained was 0.5075+0.0135 % w/w.
Conclusion: The proposed HPTLC method was found to be simple, sensitive, accurate, reproducible, and robust.


In the present paper, the cluster analysis as a form of unsupervised learning is implemented for human protein class prediction. The data related to human protein is accessed from Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD). From HPRD, the sequences related to ten molecular classes are obtained. For each of the molecular class five amino acid sequences are obtained. Then with the help of various web based tools, SDFs (Sequence derived Features) are extracted for each sequence. By analyzing the variation in the values of the obtained SDFs, priorities are assigned to them. Because each sequence has some value for each of the SDF, so obtained data is a complete weighted bipartite graph consisting of two independent set of nodes i.e. one set of all the sequences and second of all SDFs. Then bipartite graph is represented into the memory with adjacency weight matrix. On the basis of values of input SDFs and by considering priority of each of the SDF, clusters of the data available in the adjacency matrix are generated. Then those clusters are backtracked to predict the class of the entered sequence. General Terms Bioinformatics, Machine Learning, Human Protein Class Prediction.


Preaching in Medieval Florence is an important contribution to the burgeoning field of medieval sermon studies. Lesnick demonstrates the interlocking of religious, political, economic, and social forces in the rise of the new urban classes in Florence in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. A new elite composed in part by international merchants and bankers {popolo grasso) and in part by the craftsmen, shopkeepers and professionals (popolo), recently migrated from the countryside, vied for a share of power with the established semifeudal Florentine aristocracy. The great mendicant orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, assumed responsibility for ministering to these two classes. To enhance their prestige two imposing churches were constructed, Santa Maria Novella for the Dominicans and, at the opposite end of the city, Santa Croce for the Franciscans. The membership at Santa Maria Novella, Lesnick documents, was recruited more markedly from the native, more aristocratic, popolo grasso, while Santa Croce, he deduces, drew more from the humbler and neo-Florentine popolo. Preaching was the primary means by which the two orders sought to provide for the spiritual needs of the new social order. The Dominicans appealed more to the popolo grasso by using an abstract scholastic method emphasizing the virtues of "orderliness, logical clarity, structuration, and control." The net result was to buttress the efforts of bankers and merchants in their quest for power in the political and economic arena. The Franciscans instructed their audience, the popolo, by using a more humble style of preaching (sermo humilis) which in both form and content was based on "historical episode, concrete experience, and active imagination," such as in the Meditations on the Life of Christ. Its effect was to encourage involvement—and as with the Dominican sermons, an individualistic involvement—in both spiritual and secular endeavors. An ideology was thus provided to support the upward mobility of urban shopkeepers, artisans, and professionals.


Following the tide of world multipolarization,economic globalization and integration of regional economy,the central China should grasp the characteristics and inherent laws of socialist market economy,rise from the people oriented sustainable development roads,get Great leap  forward development through industrialization motivated by informationization and urbanization motivated by industrialization and try to bring along full development people by drawing nourishment from the worldwide opening and influx of culture.


Background:
 Readmission rates following discharge for a cardiac condition are common and costly. Compared to usual care (UC) the NP transitional care model (BRIDGE) reduced hospital readmissions in the pilot study. To determine if there is also a cost savings, we compared the costs of BRIDGE against avoided readmission and hypothesized that participation would reduce overall costs.

 Methods:
 Demographic, clinical, and f/u data were collected retrospectively on all pts referred to BRIDGE June 2008 to Aug 2009. Pts readmitted before their BRIDGE appt were excluded. Incremental costs were obtained from the institution's finance dept. MEDPAR charge data were obtained from the American Hospital Directory for the MS-DRG of cardiology.

 Results:
 Of 426 patients referred to BRIDGE, 284 (69.8%) attended, the rest received UC. Most were male (56.6%), mean age 63.4, without significant baseline differences between groups. BRIDGE participants were readmitted less frequently and were less costly (17.4% vs. 19.6%, p=.65). The incremental cost for a BRIDGE visit was $43.85 per pt compared to the avg Medicare charge for a cardiology admission of $27,558. The reduction in expected readmissions for BRIDGE pts, compared to incremental BRIDGE costs, translates into a $562 per patient savings, or a $145,106 program savings in readmission costs over UC. Because this is a marginal cost analysis, a conservative adjustment was made to account for nonproductive time. Using a multiplier of 2.63%, there was still a per pt savings of $502 and a program savings of $129,618 in readmission costs over UC. Cost savings varied by readmission rates for primary diagnosis. ACS pts have an unadjusted per pt savings of $5,412 ($357,234 program savings) and CHF pts $149 per pt savings ($225,722 program savings) while afib pts increase cost by $3,599 per pt ($179,942 program cost).

 Conclusions:
 This analysis demonstrates that the BRIDGE model reduces health care costs associated with readmissions that are in excess of program costs despite the diverse population. Hospital revenue is not addressed because our perspective assumes that lower health care costs benefit all. Further, proposed legislation to reduce hospital reimbursement for readmissions may make this a mute issue.


The Epping to Chatswood Rail Link (ECRL) commenced operating in 2009. At the Chatswood end of the project, the railway corridor contains two existing tracks (with conventional ballast and sleeper design) and two new concrete slab tracks, the design of which incorporates sections of low stiffness rail fasteners and floating slab track. During commissioning, noise measurements were undertaken at the upper floors of two high rise buildings which overlook the railway corridor. Noise from the new ECRL tracks was found to include prominent tones which added to the subjective loudness of train passbys and were approximately 5 dBA higher than the existing tracks. The noise controls incorporated into the final mitigation package included additional rail grinding and the installation of rail dampers and acoustic panels. Computer noise modelling and a simplified cost-benefit analysis approach were adopted to optimise the mitigation measures. This paper discusses the noise benefits associated with each mitigation measure and provides a comparison between the predicted and measured noise level reductions.


This is the first in-depth analysis of social and political changes within the party structure of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the period 1954-1968 which have been largely misunderstood in the West. The book focuses on and provides detailed information about the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the dominant Communist organization in East Germany.Ludz investigates the party's organization, the development of the social structure of its Central Committee, and party ideology. The text is documented by extensive tabulated material--59 detailed tables in all--containing data concerning shifts and longevity tendencies of Central Committee personnel and on other high-ranking party functionaries.


Thermoelectric‐based waste heat recovery requires efficient materials to replace conventional non‐eco‐friendly Te‐ and Pb‐based commercial devices. Ternary copper chalcogenide‐based famatinite (Cu3SbS4) compound is one of the practical substitutes for traditional thermoelectric materials. However, the pristine Cu3SbS4 inherits poor structural complexion, large thermal conductivity, and low power conversion efficiency. To develop high‐efficiency Cu3SbS4, InSb nanoinclusions are incorporated via high‐energy ball milling followed by the hot‐press densification method. Incorporating InSb nanoinclusions to lower thermal conductivity via phonon scattering while increasing the thermopower via a carrier energy filtering process. The thermoelectric performance (ZT) of ≈0.4 at 623 K is obtained in Cu3SbS4‐3 mol% InSb nanocomposite, which is ≈140% higher than pure Cu3SbS4. Both mechanical and thermal stability are improved by grain boundary hardening and dispersion strengthening. Thus, a facile nanostructured Cu3SbS4 with added InSb nanoinclusions is delivered as a highly efficient, eco‐friendly, structurally‐, thermally‐, and mechanically‐stable material for next‐generation thermoelectric generators.


Analysis of the concept of 'semantic primitive' , and of the different methodologies for its study, mainly the ones proposed by Jackendorf and Wierzbicka. Firstly, a brief state of the art of modern Semantics is offered. Thereafter, some new concepts that have broadened the field of primitive semantics are explained, such as those of Lakoff's 'reference domain'or Langacker's 'network' and 'node'. This last author develops a wider analysis, in which a new category of primitives is considered, called relational primitives. Finally, the need to define new generic models of primitives is stated, exemplified throughout situational cognitive models such as those of formulating petitions and establishing control


Chaotic neural networks have been proved to be powerful tools to solve function and combinatorial optimization problems. Several chaotic neural units were studied and their activation functions are obviously different. The reversed bifurcation and Lyapunov exponent figures were respectively given. To improve the search-optimization capacity of chaotic neural network, a new transiently chaotic neural network was presented and its activation function is composed by Morlet and Sigmoid function. Then it was applied to function and combinatorial optimization problems. The simulation results show that the new transiently chaotic neural network is superior to the other transiently chaotic neural networks


Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have revolutionized chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and changed it from a fatal disease to a chronic illness. The goals of treatment are no longer survival but have...


Surface groups are determined among limit groups by their profi-nite completions. As a corollary, the set of surface words in a free group is closed in the profinite topology. Profinite rigidity is the study of the extent to which a group G is determined by its set of finite quotients, or, in more sophisticated terminology, by its profinite completion (cid:98) G . Since (cid:98) G only depends on the image of the natu-ral map G → (cid:98) G


In the article is shown dynamics of change of indexes of hearts-vessels and respiratory systems at the girls of a 1 course during a school year. The majority of parameters of cardiovascular and respiratory systems are subject to changes within one academic year. Reliable change of parameters at girls I of a rate falls at extremity I of a semester.


We report on experimental and theoretical studies of the electronic structure of ternary Tl4CdI6 alloy. Our XPS results indicate low hygroscopicity of its surface. The first-principle calculations indicate that the valence-band region of Tl4CdI6 is dominated by contributions of I 5p states (mainly at the top and the central portion), while its bottom is prevailed by contributions of Tl 6s states. The theoretical data indicate that the Tl4CdI6 compound is a direct gap semiconductor with the band gap value of Eg = 2.03 eV. The calculations reveal that the significant covalent component (in addition to ionic component) is characteristic for the chemical Tl–I and Cd–I bonds of Tl4CdI6.


We thank the authors on both sides for an interesting and informative debate on evidence-based medicine (EBM) and its application in primary health care.[1][1],[2][2] Dr Upshur and Mr Tracy note that EBM can be problematic because it does not take into account factors such as comorbidities or


Sonderweg thesis is at play. But the belief that the employee-engineer who identifies with his firm is a fool is only a cultural assumption. Certainly there is no reason to think that such a conflict-confrontational professional view fits a well-functioning capitalist society better than one based on harmony. In Japan today, a profoundly anti-individualistic society, one in which vertical group rather than horizontal occupational loyalties prevail, outstrips the West. Ironically, it is the very horizontal group allegiance that Gispen finds "normal" that is now being labeled dysfunctional. The German engineers who inherited a Gemeinschaft outlook can hardly be considered anachronistic. Despite this strong criticism, much can be gleaned from this book. The description of the economic conditions facing engineers in the mechanical construction industry and of their conflicts with employers is enlightening. And the discussions of the engineers' political-social outlook contribute much to comparative professional history. The bibliographical essay and the footnotes, moreover, are a rich guide to the historical literature.


Tuberculosis disease is a serious threat to human life and health, and CT images of Tuberculosis shows a variety of pathological manifestations causing damage to the lungs. To solve the problem that traditional segmentation methods for CT images cannot accurately segment damaged lungs, we proposed an approach, Attention Multi-scale Fusion UNet (AMF-UNet), for tuberculosis lung CT image segmentation based on convolutional neural network. In this work, we designed a dual attention mechanism in the model to retain important spatial information of damaged lungs and improve segmentation accuracy. At the same time, in order to extract deeper semantic information, the atrous spatial convolution pooling pyramid was introduced. In particular, we designed a multi-scale fusion module in the decoding structure for the first time to reduce the information loss of damaged lungs during the up-sampling process. Compared with several enhancement methods, the proposed model achieves better subjective results on the ImageClef19 tuberculosis CT dataset.


Selecting subcellular organelles as therapeutic targets have drawn great interest for cancer treatment. Herein, novel nanotheranostic agents FeF2/Fe1–xS nanorods modified by polyethylene glycol (FFSNRs‐PEG) are first synthesized for tumor microenvironments (TME) responsive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided synergetic cancer therapy focused on the mitochondria. In TME, the Fe2+ and F− ions released from FFSNRs‐PEG can make mitochondrial damage via the production of toxic ·OH through Fenton reaction and activation of caspase‐3, resulting in apoptosis and cell death. Taking advantage of the strong absorption of FFSNRs‐PEG in the second biowindow (1000–1700 nm), the photothermal effect boosts the efficiency of Fenton reaction to achieve synergetic chemodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy under near‐infrared light (1064 nm) irradiation. In addition, benefiting from the self‐oxidation effect, the FFSNRs‐PEG can serve as a novel TME‐responsive contrast agent for T2‐weighted MRI. Overall, this work highlights an innovative "weapon" to realize TME‐responsive tumor diagnosis and synergetic therapies focused on the mitochondria.


The screening of African medicinal plants, utilized in traditional herbal remedies in Ghana West Africa for their antibacterial and antifungals activities, is reported in this paper. Of ten plants tested, extracts of five (Phyllanthus niruri, Ageratum conyzoides, Acanthospermum hispidum, Cassia alata, and Sida acuta) had activity against the Gram positive microorganism Staphylococcus aureus including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). None of these ten plants have previously had their anti-MRSA activity or lack of activity documented. Hexane extracts from three plants (Portulaca quadrifida, Ageratum conyzoides, and Newbouldia lavis) show remarkable anti-fungal activity against Aspergillus fumigatus. Four plants (Phyllanthus niruri, Portulaca quadrifida, Ageratum conyzoides, and Newbouldia laevis) have strong anti-Candida activity. This paper may be the first documentation of Portulaca quadrifida in vitro anti-C. albicans and anti-A. fumigatus activity.


The article shows that a key factor for the practical realization of the idea of the combined process "helical rolling-pressing" is the axial force during the helical rolling, which should provide continuous compression in the matrix behind the rolls. To measure the maximum axial force, which is in fact a reserve of friction forces, a special strain gauge was designed. The work was carried out at a three rolls mill with helical rolling "10–30" for hot rolling of steel bars with a diameter of 16–25 mm at reduction of 6 % in diameter and the temperature of 1000 °C. Results are presented based on 24 experiments. The research shows that the main danger in helical rolling and extrusion is not an effort lack, but rather the possibility of bending the work piece between rollers and the matrix. The possibility of raising efforts by means of using rolls with a notch at maximum compression is substantiated. The results are compared with the research of the firmware of similar profiles at three rolls mills. The article shows the prospects of optimizing the process of continuous firmware blanks into the sleeve by the use of research results, especially when the information about reserve forces (friction forces) of the helical rolling is concerned.


The skin serves an important barrier function performed by epidermal lipids, cornified epithelial cells and cell–cell adhesions. This function is compromised in old age and exhibits certain abnormalities such as flattened dermal–epidermal junction or improper lipid metabolism, and is also associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. The levels of a basement membrane protein laminin 332 have been shown to decrease as the skin ages. We have previously demonstrated that loss of laminin 332 leads to an upregulation of genes involved in cholesterol biosynthesis and is associated with an altered skin lipid profile. We showed that this change is caused by an abnormal intracellular cholesterol transport that is actin-dependent. To further elucidate the mechanism around cholesterol transport, we have identified five proteins of interest for further investigation. We have shown that two of those proteins, NPC2 and Myo5b, are decreased with the loss of the α3 laminin 332 subunit in laminin α3 knockdown nTERT keratinocytes vs. shC controls. Interestingly, the NPC2 binding partner, NPC1, appears to be increased in the laminin α3 knockdown nTERT keratinocytes. Our analysis has also demonstrated that e-cadherin, a crucial cell–cell adhesion protein, as well as several differentiation markers, are altered with the loss of laminin α3. We have carried out laminin 332 recovery experiments in two (2D) and three dimensions, which showed that the addition of recombinant laminin 332 restores the proper levels of myo5b and e-cadherin, suggesting a potential therapeutic effect. We have also performed proteomic, lipidomic, and transcriptomic studies in 2D, which demonstrated statistically significant changes (Q-value ≤ 0.01) in proteins involved in actin and microtubule regulation, cell–cell adhesion and showed unexpected mitochondrial metabolic changes associated with the loss of laminin α3. These findings show that laminin α3 plays numerous, previously unreported roles in epidermal lipid transport, cell–cell adhesion, differentiation and metabolism, and suggests a potential therapeutic role of the protein in skin ageing.


Soft skills are things that become part of learning outcomes in the learning process. This is related to the provision of the lives of students in the future. The aim of the chemical stoichiometry learning process with discovery-based community learning models is to improve students' soft skills. This classroom action research was carried out in 3 cycles with 3 meetings each cycle. The research subjects were softskills for students of class X Science-6 Pekalongan 1 High School. The results of the study showed an increase in students' soft skills from 67% (less) in cycle 1 to 87% (good) in cycle 2. In cycle 3 it increased to 96% (very good), with very good indicators of success. This increase shows that discovery-based community learning models can improve students' soft skills. Other results indicate a change in enthusiasm, activity, and motivation to learn to be better.


Teredo is the only one tunnel mechanism designed for NAT users. However, Teredo does not support symmetric NAT users and cannot allocate stable IPv6 addresses for the users, and also has security problems. Based on client-server tunnel mode and servers' statefule characteristic, a new tunnel mechanism named Silkroad is proposed to resolve Teredo's problems. The mechanism makes use of tunnel servers, which assign IPv6 addresses to users and then act as relays to transmit the packets between NAT users and IPv6 networks. In addition, an adaptive communication optimization scheme is presented to reduce the time cost of communication between two clients. Silkroad supports all types of NAT users to connect with IPv6 networks, can assign stable IPv6 addresses to the users and has high security.


We report on the first observation of avalanche electroluminescence resulting from band-to-band recombination (BTBR) of electron hole pairs at the breakdown limit of Gallium Nitride p-n diodes grown homo-epitaxially on single crystalline GaN substrates. The diodes demonstrated a near ideal breakdown electric field of 3 MV cm−1 with electroluminescence (EL) demonstrating sharp peaks of emission energies near and at the band gap of GaN. The high critical electric field, near the material limit of GaN, was achieved by generating a smooth curved mesa edge with low plasma damage, using etch engineering without any use of field termination. The superior material quality was critical for such a near-ideal performance. An electric field of 3 MV cm−1 recorded at the breakdown resulted in impact ionization, confirmed by a positive temperature dependence of the breakdown voltage. The spectral data provided evidence of BTBR of electron hole pairs that were generated by avalanche carrier multiplication in the depletion region.


Consider the following set-up for the plot of a possible future episode of the TV series Black Mirror: human brains can be connected directly to the net and MiningMind Inc. has developed a technology that merges a reward system with a cryptojacking engine that uses the human brain to mine cryptocurrency (or to carry out some other mining activity). Part of our brain will be committed to cryptographic calculations (mining), leaving the remaining part untouched for everyday operations, i.e., for our brain's normal daily activity. In this short paper, we briefly argue why this set-up might not be so far fetched after all, and explore the impact that such a technology could have on our lives and our society.


Embodiments of the present invention disclose a skin tendering smoothening whitening exfoliating microsphere, an exfoliating element containing the exfoliating microsphere and a preparation method of the exfoliating microsphere, the skin tendering smoothening whitening exfoliating microsphere comprises the following package components and structures: papain as a first layer, micron activated carbon as a second layer and a tea stamen extract as a third layer, the skin tendering smoothening whitening exfoliating microsphere may expand the variety of functions of a product, the efficacy principle is as follows: skin problems are improved by first dissolution, secondary adsorption and third nourishing whitening, the three functions can be played as follows: first, dissolution, to be more specific, by use of the characteristics of the papain, aging cuticle is dissolved; second, adsorption, to be more specific, by use of micron activated carbon powder, dirt in pores of the skin are adsorbed; and third: nourishing whitening, to be more specific, the tea stamen extract is rich in tea polyphenols and catechins which can bring the skin three nutrition repair functions of whitening, moisturizing and nourishing. The skin tendering smoothening whitening exfoliating microsphere can remove dead skin and clean the skin, and meanwhile can make the skin tender, smooth, moistening and whitening.


The robust output feedback stabilization problem for a class of uncertain linear time-delay systems containing a saturating actuator is studied in this paper. The systems are described by state differential equations with bounded time-varying uncertain parameters and unknown constant delay in the state. New criterion for robust stabilizability of the uncertain time-delay systems is presented and the corresponding observer-based robust output feedback controller is derived in terms of the solutions of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Simulation results show that the obtained method is feasible.


Bioethics raises discussions of great relevance regarding the values and moral principles that are present in the daily practice of nursing in hospital gerontology. Hospitalization emphasizes the fragility of the elderly, leaving them susceptible to suffering, vulnerability and discomfort. This fact can hinder their recovery, entailing the adjustment of the care provided. The objective of this article is to reflect on the promotion of well-being for the hospitalized elderly, based on the Theory of Comfort and the principles of bioethics. Thus, it is essential for health professionals to offer holistic and humanized care that addresses patients' physical, psycho-spiritual, sociocultural and environmental needs, taking into account the comfort of the hospitalized elderly and the principles of bioethics.


Hydatid disease or echinococcosis is a wide spread zoonotic parasite caused by a tape worm Echinococcus granulosus frequently. Liver is commonly involved but calcified hydatid cyst occurs in 10 – 16% of cases and calcified hydatid cyst causing gastric outlet obstruction is rare. We are going to report such a rare case of calcified huge hydatid cyst of liver causing gastric outlet obstruction. A 55yr old women came to opd with complain of vomiting after small amount of meal for 15 days and swelling in right upper and mid abdomen for last 15 years. On examination a mass of size 12x7cm was visible in epigastrium and right hypogastrium. The swelling moved with respiration. On palpation liver is enlarged 9cm below right costal margin in the right mid clavicular line and a cystic swelling is palpable in relation to the liver 12x7-cm in dimension. Nontender. No other mass is palpable. Calcified hydatid cyst was diagnosed in left lobe of liver by ultrasound and CT Scan. Cystopericystectomy done. Post operatively patient recovered well. Huge Calcified hydatid cyst is very rare with gastric outlet obstruction. Surgery is the treatment of choice.


and other obstetricians inserting the whole hand into the vagina to carry out rotation, and again later to confirm that the forceps are correctly applied over the ears of the fcetus. He had not been discussing this class of case, in fact such cases do not cause any difficulty. In the patients with whom he was concerned, the hand could not be introduced into the vagina without displacing the head above the brim, thereby lesing the hard-won ground; and after the forceps had been applied to the head there was insufficient room to insert one finger, far less the whole hand. Finally he would like to emphasize that the occasional use of Kielland's forceps with its inevitable departure from Kielland's own method must result in bad work; and he would, in all seriousness, advise an obstetrician who might use them in this way to take them home and use them for putting coal on the fire.


This paper deals with non-rational aspects of hidden curriculum, specifically with ritual dimension of classroom interactions. It considers rituals to be important aspects of culturally underpinned behaviour which can be problematized in ethnically diversified classrooms. Using the interactionist perspective, the aim of this paper is to present analytical model of rituals applicable to empirical research of classroom attended by Czech and Roma minority pupils. Despite strongly embedded segregation of Roma children in the Czech educational system the author concentrates on Roma pupils educated in a mainstream public school. The author suggests different types of pupils' behaviour, coping strategies and other aspects of classroom community life which could be analyzed using the presented model in her developing ethnographical project. Conceptualizing school classroom as distinct social group with its own dynamics, this paper discusses the advantages of interactionist perspective reflecting the drawbacks of prevailing theories of cultural and social reproduction in education. This paper was supported by the Czech Science Foundation, under the terms of the research project "Educational Strategies of Migrants and Ethnic Minority Youth" (P404/12/1487).


Water shortage has become one of the bottlenecks for Shiyang River Area's sustainable development.Developing water-saving cultivation model is very important to the solutuion to the problem.We choose five water-saving cultivation models used in Hexi to do research on the effect of five models on crop yield,water consumption and WUE.The results show that whole plastic mulch,ridge irrigation with plastic mulch,furrow irrigation with plastic mulch,double mulch ridge increased the crop yield by 10.2%,4.2%,13.9% and 16.3%.Water was saved by 101.6,272.7,188 and 173.8 mm.The WUE was increased by 12.1%,32.5%,22.4% and 20.7% compared to the traditional model of strip plastic mulch.So,whole plastic mulch,ridge irrigation with plastic mulch,furrow irrigation with plastic mulch and double mulch ridge can be use in Shiyang River Area.


Design and construction of advanced aerospace systems capable of meeting demands of accessto-space, operations in and through space, and high speed/hypersonic flight are constrained by material challenges. Requirements for airplane-like operations of reusable systems fall most heavily on the needs for improved thermal protection systems and durable, lightweight structures. Robust and affordable industrial manufacturing procedures for these material systems frequently do not exist, even for materials such as some nickel-based superalloys, which have attractive high-temperature performance, manufacturability, cost and durability. Applications of Alloy 718 are restricted to about 649°C. Above this temperature the Ni3Nb strengthening phase overages, and properties, particularly creep resistance, fall dramatically. There is a need for an alloy that maintains the excellent properties and processing characteristics of Alloy 718 to higher use temperatures. Allvac ® 718Plus™ Alloy meets this need. The new alloy shows excellent hot-workability and weldability relative to Alloy 718, and better stress rupture and creep properties at 704°C than Alloy 718 and Waspaloy material. Only a small drop in mechanical properties is observed after long-term thermal exposure up to 760°C. The Air Force Research Laboratory funded ATI to evaluate the suitability of 718Plus alloy rolled sheet product for elevated temperature applications. Hot- and cold-rolling practices were utilized to manufacture thin sheets of suitable thicknesses for forming into structural components. Microstructure and mechanical property characterizations were conducted to assess the sheet product capability in elevated temperature structural applications.


Decision making and the social processes that influence it are of great importance to many problems. The ways people make decisions can determine whether a new technology is successful, whether resources are allocated optimality, or how society responds to a crisis. In this paper, we propose a model for how these decisions can be influenced using modern information technology and social networks. Specifically, we study the use of artificial social networks to make influential users that are desirable to society as a whole. In real life, this would be achieved by the publication of "best users" by the authority behind the artificial network. Graphically, this creates a set of temporary edges from those users to other users. We first develop a general model for an abstract, general case. We then apply it to a specific case study in a smart grid. Our results suggest that the proposed methodology has the potential to move the equilibrium of a system to a more desirable state and that the degree of the improvement, as well as other, graph-theoretic characteristics, depends on the mathematics of the decision being made.


Many investigators have for several years been studying the use of rectangular loop magnetic cores as memory elements. It seems profitable at this time to examine, from a dimensional point of view, the various selection systems which have been developed, and to find the relations between their operating principles.


Mandatory vaccinations of children in Poland have aroused much public controversy for years. The high activity of anti-vaccination movements has resulted in an increase in the percentage of parents who do not want their children to be vaccinated. This results in a high epidemic risk, which is becoming increasingly dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019 alone, nearly 50,000 unvaccinated children were recorded. In comparison, in 2010, there were only less than 10,000 of them. Mandatory vaccinations of children in Poland have been placed in an administrative procedure. Interestingly, evading this obligation is an offence, not an administrative tort. Offences in Poland have a separate procedure and are situated in the criminal law sense of largo. This fragmentation of the procedures for enforcing the obligation to vaccinate causes significant difficulties in the practical application of the law, which results in a reduction in the effectiveness of mandatory vaccinations of children in Poland. The question arises as to how to protect public health effectively against the spread of infectious diseases. It seems that protective vaccination for diseases such as measles is an effective preventive measure. The paper presents a model for mandatory vaccinations of children in Poland. Administrative and criminal regulations on the implementation of the obligation to vaccinate are presented. The doctrine and judicature on this issue are also presented. The paper shows the legal problem in the social context.


This paper illustrates the connotations of Smart City and Urban Planning, analyzes the interrelations between them from the guidance of urban planning theories to Smart City and conversely the influence of Smart City construction to Urban Planning, proves that a mature urban planning system does bring some inspiration for the emerging Smart City, finally elaborates the suggestions and references learned from urban planning angle in all aspects of the whole Smart City construction process including planning targets, planning concepts, decision-making, organizational mechanisms, spacial form and city management.


Inferring gene regulatory networks based on single-cell transcriptomes is critical for systematically understanding cell-specific regulatory networks and discovering drug targets in tumor cells. Here we show that existing methods mainly perform co-expression analysis and apply the image-based model to deal with the non-euclidean scRNA-seq data, which may not reasonably handle the dropout problem and not fully take advantage of the validated gene regulatory topology. We propose a graph-based end-to-end deep learning model for GRN inference (GRNInfer) with the help of known regulatory relations through transductive learning. The robustness and superiority of the model are demonstrated by comparative experiments.


Monitoring systems are needed to obtain information about particulate matter (PM) concentrations and to make such information accessible to the public. Small, low-cost, optical sensors could be used to improve the spatial and temporal resolution of PM data. The paper presents results of collocated comparison of four low-cost PM sensors and TEOM analyser, conducted from 20-08-2017 to 24-12-2017 in Wroclaw, Poland. Plantower PMS7003 and Nova Fitness SDS011 sensors proved to be the best in terms of precision and were linearly correlated with TEOM data. Alphasense OPC-N2 sensors exhibited only moderate precision and linearity. Winsen ZH03A sensors had low repeatability between units and only one copy demonstrated good operation possibilities. All tested sensors had a bias in relation to PM 2.5 concentrations obtained from TEOM.


This paper deals with design of Goubau PCB antenna as partial discharge (PD) detector. In the design, Goubau PCB antennas are simulated with a variety of shapes and sizes by using software for antenna design and simulation based on finite element method. The antennas are designed to achieve ultra wide band partial discharge frequency range. Goubau PCB antenna is designed with the type of substrate FR4_epoxy ranging from the size of the substrate with a length of 70 mm, width 40 mm, and thickness of 1.6 mm. We simulated three different shape and size antenna designs: trial 1, trial 2, and trial 3. The simulation results show that in the first design, the bandwidth antenna is 960 MHz and the minimum return loss −16.86 dB at the frequency 2.11 GHz with VSWR value is 1.4. In the second design, the simulation results show that the bandwidth is 388 MHz, the minimum return loss is −26.04 dB at a frequency 1.3 GHz with VSWR 1.1. In the last design, the bandwidth is 386 MHz, the return loss is −38.36 dB at a frequency 1.3 GHz with VSWR 1.02.


Abstract Anaerobic digestion of diluted whey was performed in two different fluidteed bed pilot reactors of 40 1 and 250 1 respective volume. Different operating conditions were tested. Without nutrient addition there is a maximum COD removal rate which is directly proportional to the packing medium volume. The corresponding specific maximum COD removal rate is of about 6 kg COD degraded. m‐3 packed bed volume. d‐3. Suitable nutrient additions, consisting mainly of iron, nickel and cobalt salts and of dried yeasts, allow a dramatic increase of this maximum rate up to about 40 kg COD degraded m‐3 packed volume. day‐1. This increase of COD removal rate is mainly due to higher biomass accumulation inside the reactor.


Psychodynamic therapy (PDT) has been shown to be effective for social anxiety disorder but inferior to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a


Objective: Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 2 and MMP9 are involved in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular and renal diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze if albuminuria escape that some well-controlled hypertensive patients develop even under chronic renin-angiotensin system (RAS) suppression could be related to an increase in MMPs activity. Design and method: Concentration of MMP2/9 was analyzed by ELISA, and its activity by gelatin zymography in plasma samples from normoalbuminuric (n = 17) and albuminuric patients (moderate n = 14 or severe n = 8 albuminuria). The interaction between MMPs and its tissue inhibitor (TIMP) was analyzed by a novel assay developed in our laboratory using AlphaLISATM technology. The study of MMPs activity in the kidney as one of the target organs of this pathology was performed in Munich Wistar Frömter (MWF) rats, an experimental model of spontaneous albuminuria. Due to albuminuria is associated with a locus placed on chromosome 8, consomic MWF-8SHR rats, in which chromosome 8 from MWF rats was replaced by the respective one from spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), were also studied in order to analyzed whether MMP pattern is differentially associated with albuminuria development or conversely depends on a hypertensive. Results: Plasma MMPs concentrations were no different while their activities were increased in albuminuric patients as well as collagen type IV, one of their targets molecules. This increase in their activity is due to a significant decrease in MMP2/TIMP2 and MMP9/TIMP1 interaction in albuminuric patients. MMP2/9 activity was also increased in albuminuric MWF rats, and a positive correlation in MMP9 activity between plasma and kidney samples was observed. Consomic MWF-8SHR rats, showed a decrease in systemic and renal MMP9 activity compared with albuminuric MWF rats. Conclusions: i) The exclusive determination of circulatory MMP concentration could be underestimating its real activity in the clinical practice; ii) MMPs are multiorganic targets specifically involved in albuminuria escape that present well-controlled hypertensive patients even under chronic RAS blockade.


Australian coastal areas tend to be retirement destinations. Coastal public libraries in NSW are analysed for the impact on them of a growing ageing population, using census and library data. The impact on library collections, budget, and staffing is shown to be significant. Given the importance of public libraries to older Australians, this needs to be recognised in federal and state policies and funding support for the ageing population.


whole he differs from the previous editors in details rather than in anything fundamental. The linguistic facts are rather differently arranged, sometimes presented with greater clarity and more detail, sometimes not. The figures giving the relative frequency of the spelling variants are useful, e.g. p. 29, a l'initiale: bendo, bendimus, etc. 70 fois (contre vendo, vendimus, etc. 53 fois). There is a certain amount of supplementary material from contemporary Vulgar Latin documents for comparison as promised on p. 6, and syntax is dealt with more extensively than in the earlier work. The main change is the compilation of sections o and D, which largely contribute to the increase of the linguistic chapter from 18 pages in the earlier work to 32 here. Yet the increase in information is not all that great, since much of it can be tracked down at various places in the earlier work, and the merit lies in the collection of the material in one place. This linguistic chapter still leaves an impression of slightness, an effect that is perhaps inevitable in view of the limited extent of the material being investigated, and probably not much more could be done with it. But the improvement on the earlier study is not so marked as to make one feel that the author has really fulfilled the claims put forward in the preface, or that this fresh study was really necessary.


The results of laboratory experimental research with round not deep dies on sand basement, strengthened with empty steel cylinder wall are given. The functions of depth influence and wall diameter on the die carrier and replacement of surrounding soil are obtained.


This paper proposes a new power distributed control method for a dc microgrid. This method was developed to share the load power proportionally to the distributed power source ratings and restore the dc bus voltage when the load changes. To achieve this effectively, a shifted voltage technique was developed based on the power rating and the instantaneous power of distributed generators. By adding the shifted voltage, the voltage drop caused by the droop controller is effectively compensated such that the dc bus voltage is constantly regulated regardless of the load change. To realize the method, all the required information to determine the reference voltage is transmitted through low-bandwidth communication. The controller design process is presented in detail along with a system stability analysis. The effectiveness of the method was verified by simulation and experiments, which were carried out using a 2.8-kW prototype of a dc microgrid.


In the Social Security amendments of 1972, Congress created entitlement to Medicare for all people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) who were eligible for benefits under Social Security. This amendment was passed to sustain the lives of patients with ESRD, with the hope that patients would return to work and main stream America.1 Since that time, more than 1,000,000 patients have been supported with dialysis and transplants.2 Unfortunately, the vast majority of patients have not returned to work and their mortality rates are unacceptable, at 20% per year. Lynchburg Nephrology Dialysis (LND) started a nightly home hemodialysis (NHHD) program in September 1997, patterned after Dr. Pierratos' program in Toronto.3,4 Patients dialyze 7–9 hours, 6 nights a week, using the Fresenius 2008H machine (Fresenius Medical Care, Lexington, MA), while asleep. This new modality has reduced hospital days by 50%, erythropoietin (EPO) usage by 25%, Calcijex/Zemplar (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois) usage by 100%, and out of pocket medication expense for patients on an average of $1,060.68 per year. Nightly home hemodialysis is not being offered to patients in the United States because of Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFAs) three treatment payments per week reimbursement policy. This policy is a financial disincentive for nephrologists and the dialysis industry to provide daily dialysis as an option, resulting in reduced quality of care for ESRD patients. Lynchburg Nephrology Dialysis started its NHHD program in September 1997 to improve the quality of life of patients, reduce the mortality rate, and to find a more cost effective way to care for patients with ESRD for LND and the Medicare ESRD programs. These ideas were based on reports of Pierratos and others3, 4 that presented excellent results of nocturnal hemodialysis in Toronto, and more than 60 articles supporting daily dialysis as a better option for patients with ESRD.5,6 The literature reports that daily hemodialysis offers a higher quality of care for patients at an overall lower cost to the Medicare ESRD program.7 In the United States, the annual mortality rate of 20% for ESRD patients exceeds that of patients with breast cancer or prostate cancer.8


An innovative base isolation system for seismic mitigation of ordinary low-rise buildings is introduced in this paper. The proposed base isolation system utilizes "Stable Unbonded Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Isolator" (SU-FREI) bearings. The steel plates used in conventional laminated rubber bearings are replaced with fiber fabric in FREI bearings. The fiber fabric is extensible in tension and has no flexural rigidity. In an unbonded application, the FREI bearings are simply placed between the superstructure and substructure with no bonding between the contact surfaces. Results from an experimental study conducted on model scale prototype SU-FREI bearings comprised of unfilled soft Neoprene rubber as the elastomer and bi-directional carbon fiber fabric as the reinforcement show that these bearings exhibit Stable Rollover (SR) deformation and perform as an effective seismic isolation device. The experimentally evaluated lateral load-displacement properties of the proposed SU-FREI bearings have been modeled using an iterative analysis with a simplified mathematical model. Results of time history analysis performed on both a 2-storey prototype base-isolated structure and a corresponding fixed-base structure indicate that the proposed base isolation technique can be employed efficiently in hazard mitigation of low-rise buildings located in high seismic regions worldwide.


Aim  This study uses molecular data in conjunction with palaeogeography to infer the most plausible biogeographical scenario accounting for the current distributional pattern of Iurus dufoureius.


This study aims to see how the application of the endurance test application can be used in calculating the price of shares in 10 companies in Indonesia. This study uses a model of test method of resistance, better known by the name of stress testing, at 10 Integration stock companies that are considered a good category in Indonesia. From the research that has been done can be concluded that firms should make better use of stress testing.


The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of di(n-butyl)phthalate (DBP) on oxidative damage in the testes of hypothyroid rats. Hypothyroidism was induced by administering 0.1% 6-N-propyl-2-thiouracil (PTU) in drinking water for 30 days. DBP was dissolved in corn oil and administered daily for 30 days by oral gavage. Significant decreases in testes weight were observed both in normal (DBP) and hypothyroid (PTU + DBP) groups. Serum testosterone concentrations were significantly reduced in the DBP groups, but no significant change occurred in hypothyroid rats. Di(n-butyl)phthalate significantly increased malondialdehyde (MDA) and 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) level in the testes, whereas the DBP-induced oxidative lipid (MDA) and DNA (8-OHdG) damage were less in hypothyroid rats. PTU-induced hypothyroid rats decreased testicular catalase activity, whereas superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities did not show any significant changes. However, the DBP and PTU + DBP groups significantly increased catalase and SOD activities in testis. The testicular expression of thyroid hormone receptor α-1 (TRα-1) was significantly increased in the DBP and PTU + DBP groups. In contrast, androgen receptor (AR) protein levels were not detected in the DBP and PTU + DBP groups. Di(n-butyl)phthalate significantly increased the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-r (PPAR-r) and retinoid X receptor-α (RXR-α) levels. Peroxisome proliferators activated-receptors-α and RXR-r protein levels were markedly decreased in the DBP groups, but these protein levels increased in the PTU + DBP group, as compared to DBP alone. These results suggest that PTU-induced hypothyroidism may protect against oxidative damage in the testis, probably due to the regulation of the PPAR and RXR expression, which is associated with decreased metabolic activation of DBP.


Transition‐metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) islands and thin films are grown on TiO2(110) via physical vapor deposition and analyzed with electron diffraction, Auger spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). For this purpose, Mo and Se are co‐deposited onto the surface at different temperatures and dosing conditions. Surprisingly, large, crystalline TiSe2 patches develop on the TiO2 surface instead of the expected MoSe2 islands. The former are identified by a hexagonal lattice with 3.4 Å periodicity, a unique (2×2) superstructure related to charge‐density waves and an empty conductance doublet in STM spectroscopy. DFT calculations assign the STM contrast to tunneling into the 3p orbitals of the topmost Se layer and the detected conductance doublet to maxima in the Ti 3d‐related density of states. Control experiments without Mo deposition confirmed that the observed TMDC growth is indeed the result of a surface reaction between gas‐phase Se and Ti3+ atoms, segregating out of the reduced TiO2 crystal used in our study. From the unique shape and orientation of the TiSe2 islands in the low‐coverage regime, a distinct nucleation scheme is proposed, in which the Se(3×1) superstructure on TiO2 provides pinning centers for the TMDC. Our work aims at increasing the awareness that Mo and Se co‐deposition not automatically results in MoSe2 formation, but parasitic processes may trigger the formation of other TMDCs.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


The Southern North Sea is bordered by Great-Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. The North Sea basin and its adjacent shorelines are intensively used. Management of the basin and the coastal zone is therefore essential. Because of the small scale of the area, the dense population and the big scale of the interactions, international cooperation is vital. In this paper an overview is given of both the morphologic-physical interactions and the administrative interactions between the bordering governments. A complicating factor in Coastal Zone Management around the Southern North Sea is that CZM is highly connected to national spatial planning and to sea defence policy. In several of the bordering countries this is not a subject of the national government, but is handled on a regional level. This makes that we are dealing with more authorities involved. At this moment international agreement exists on most aspects of active use of the North Sea basin itself (navigation, oil and gas mining, fishery, cables, etc) and its major coastal shallow areas (like the Waddensea). However in the field of passive use (pollution by inflowing rivers, air contamination by heavy industry, risk by transport and processing of hazardous goods) still much has to be done. International agreement on the recreation along the coastal strip does not yet exist. Also the standards for coastal protection against flooding by storm surges and against chronic erosion vary in each country.


The life of Him whose birth Christians commemorate each Christmastide was all of one piece, like the seamless tunic He wore. At the end of that life, the loveliest and lowliest and lordliest ever lived out under these ordinary skies, stands a cross. Bethlehem and Calvary must never be separated in meaning or in time. It took the crudest of all cribs, a life saturated with service and sacrifice, and the grisliest of all gibbets to defeat death, shatter sin's soul-destroying power, dispel the darkness of doubt and leave behind an empty tomb in Joseph's garden. Not only by His humble birth in the stable, but by His bloody sweat and suffering, by His toil and tears, by His death and resurrection, is He the Saviour of the world.


We describe a tensorial generalization of the Navier slip boundary condition and illustrate its use in solving for flows around anisotropic textured surfaces. Tensorial slip can be derived from molecular or microstructural theories or simply postulated as a constitutive relation, subject to certain general constraints on the interfacial mobility. The power of the tensor formalism is to capture complicated effects of surface anisotropy, while preserving a simple fluid domain. This is demonstrated by exact solutions for laminar shear flow and pressure-driven flow between parallel plates of arbitrary and different textures. From such solutions, the effects of rotating a texture follow from simple matrix algebra. Our results may be useful for extracting local slip tensors from global measurements, such as the permeability of a textured channel or the force required to move a patterned surface, in experiments or simulations.