ABSTRACT Actor, Andrew Garfield 'fell in love with Jesus' as he engaged in Ignatian spiritual practices in preparation for playing Father Rodrigues in the movie, Silence. Directed by Martin Scorsese, Paramount Pictures, 2016. While the importance of spiritual practices for faith formation is well recognised, spiritual practices are generally associated with developing spiritual maturity rather than with such pre-conversion engagement. This paper considers Garfield's account of meeting Jesus alongside the lived experiences of other recent converts who similarly engaged in spiritual practices before their conversions to Christianity. It argues that understanding the Christian faith as performative helps explain how Christian faith is formed and made real through such embodied acts of ritualised practice.


Abstract Southern pine and aspen flakes were acetylated with acetic anhydride alone without cosolvent or catalyst by a simple dip procedure. The new procedure greatly shortens reaction time and simplifies chemical recovery. Acetylation weight gains of 15% to 20% can be achieved in 1 to 3 hours with southern pine flakes and in 2 to 4 hours with aspen flakes. Flakeboards made from acetylated southern pine or aspen flakes absorbed much less water, both in water-soaking tests and when subjected to humid air, and swelled at a lower rate and to a lower extent than did control boards. Hygroscopicity of the resulting flakeboards decreased with increased level of wood acetylation. The equilibrium moisture content (EMC) for flakeboards made from acetylated flakes was lower at each relative humidity tested than that of control boards.


This paper describes a modified sobriety checkpoint program that uses passive sensors and can be implemented by small to moderate-sized communities to deter impaired driving at a level of effectiveness similar to the high level achieved by several Australian states in their random breath test (RBT) programs. The system envisages three to five traffic patrol officers coming together for a 1- to 2-h period to conduct minicheckpoints with passive sensors (Passpoints) as a regular feature of their patrol activity. The proposed procedures for establishing and conducting the program are described. It is suggested that the program offers an opportunity to institutionalize random screening of drivers in most U.S. communities.


What is wrong with education today? We have, on the one hand, a rapidly advancing economy and, on the other, a swiftly downsliding educational system, an unstable teaching contingent, and many weird phenomena that have drawn public attention. And how do pedagogy students in the "cradles" of all teachers—the institutes and universities of pedagogy—perceive their chosen vocation, and what is their choice of vocational orientation? In March of this year, basing itself on a survey of four pedagogical institutes in eastern Sichuan Province, this college [the Chongqing Teachers College—Trans.] sent out a thousand questionnaires—of which 650 were eventually retrieved—to investigate the above-mentioned situation, in an effort to face up to education as it is today and forecast its future development.


Most studies of transition to tertiary education focus on a single outcome variable: expectations of further study, a dichotomous indicator of participation in college and university, or simply years of further education achieved. In this paper, the authors contend that a more complete analysis of the social and personal factors which determine tertiary participation can be gained by regarding transition as a series of discontinuities in the individual's educational history. If an analysis was to commence with a cohort of Year 12 students, indicators of these discontinuities could include completion of Year 12, application to a college or university, receipt of an offer, self-selection at enrolment, and delayed entry. In a recent published study of college and university applicants in Victoria, the authors used administrative and survey data to develop causal models of the decision of successful applicants to enrol either full- or part-time rather than defer or decline. In this paper the administrative data are used to specify a model which includes two transition variables. The variables identify those who received an offer, from a defined cohort of applicants, and those who subsequently took up the offer. This model enables a distinction to be made between factors which affect the students' eligibili!y to enrol and factors that affect subsequent self-selection into tertiary education. Group and individual inequalities can therefore be assessed in terms of their total effecton transition and their separate effects on eligibility and self-selection.


The Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) of operation has been standardized by NIST to provide single-pass authenticated encryption. The GHASH authentication component of GCM belongs to a class of Wegman-Carter polynomial universal hashes that operate in the field GF (2). GCM uses the same block cipher key K to both encrypt data and to derive the generator H of the authentication polynomial. In present literature, only the trivial weak key H = 0 has been considered. In this note we show that GHASH has much wider classes of weak keys in its 512 multiplicative subgroups, analyze some of their properties, and give experimental results when GCM is used with the AES algorithm.


For two years in the late sixties Doctor Doom, Marvel's most popular villain, disappeared almost completely from the company's mainstream continuity and instead became a regular background character in the humour magazine Not Brand Ecch.

This paper will examine Doctor Doom's emergence as a wandering character during this period, free from the constraints of a regular series or creative team of his own, before focussing on his appearances in this peculiar, and under-studied, magazine. It will look at the way that Not Brand Ecch developed from its initial concentration on re-telling Marvel's own stories to its final form as a superhero-tinged copy of 'Mad' Magazine, and show how Doom's constant appearances in the series, at a time when he was almost entirely removed from the rest of the company's output, led to him becoming the main exemplar of super-villainy in a way that would be utilised again and again in Marvel's wider fictional storyworld for decades to come.


In this study, we aim to improve the faulttolerant routing algorithm in dual-cubes. The dual-cube is a topology developed by extending the hypercube. The dualcube can interconnect the same number of nodes as the hypercube with almost the half number of edges. The faulttolerant routing methods in dual-cubes proposed by previous works give priority to the preferred neighbor nodes, and forward the message to one of them. Therefore, in case where it is necessary to forward the message to one of the spare nodes to establish a fault-free path to the destination node, the routing fails. Hence, we tried to improve the performance of the fault-tolerant routing method by modifying it. In our method, each node calculates additional information if its cross-edge is faulty or not, and exchanges the information with its neighbor nodes. We also modified the fault-tolerant routing algorithm so that it can make use of the information regarding the cross-edges of the neighbor nodes. To evaluate our method, we conducted a computer experiment in which we compared it with the methods by previous work from the viewpoints of the ratio of successful routings and the ratio of the detours. As a result, our method showed better performance than the methods by the previous works.


Target poisoning in reactive magnetron sputtering deposition of thin films is an undesired phenomenon, well known for causing a drastic fall of the process efficiency. We demonstrate that when this technique is operated at oblique angles, films with composition raging from pure metallic to stoichiometric compound can be grown in non-poisoned conditions, thus avoiding most of the associated drawbacks. We have employed amorphous TiOx, although the presented results can be easily extrapolated to other materials and conditions. It is found that the proposed method improves 400% the growth rate of TiO2 thin films.


This study asks the question: is the US using food safety regulations illegitimately, that is as a non-tariff barrier to trade rather than to manage food safety risks, specifically in the context of agri-food imports from Canada? Data on US import refusals of three categories of fruits, vegetables and nuts, cereal products, and seafood are used as a proxy for stringency and enforcement of US food safety regulations, with a negative binomial generalized linear model being employed to determine the significance of range of food safety risk and other less legitimate drivers of US food safety regulations. Key variables used to capture political influence on US food safety regulations are lobbying contributions, changes in import prices, and the occurrence of countervailing investigations. While US border rejections for these commodities are largely explained by food safety risks, there is evidence of political influence, with qualitative and quantitative difference across the commodities.


Extract: Irradiation of congenitally jaundiced rats from the 1st–21st days of life by visible light emitting between 420 and 470 nm is effective in preventing hyperbilirubinemia, brain discoloration by bilirubin, and ataxia, in maintaining normal cerebellar size, and in preserving normal convulsive threshold. These findings indicate the prevention of bilirubin encephalopathy. Irradiation by "daylight" fluorescent light was only partially effective. The results of this study also indicate that in vivo photodecomposition of bilirubin has a dose-response relation to the emission in the absorbance range of the pigment.Speculation: The prevention of bilirubin encephalopathy in human neonates during phototherapy may be enhanced by the direct action of visible light on bilirubin circulating in the vessels of the brain. The transmission of light into this organ would be a fruitful area of study to confirm or discard this hypothesis. Measurement of the convulsive threshold of suitable animals may offer a quantified basis of comparison of various phototherapeutic regimens in the study of hyperbilirubinemia.


The present paper analyses the evolution of the degree of development in Romania, between 1991 and 2014, using composite indices and taking into account 16 sub-indicators. Identifying suitable methodologies for measuring development is an important empirical issue. In order to perform a more complex analysis of development, we use the aggregation process through Principal Component Analysis, being the most advanced and used methodology for composite index determination. The result of the empirical analysis reveals an involution of the degree of development in Romania.


In this study, a biomimetic triphasic scaffold was constructed to mimic the native cartilage-subchondral bone tissue structure. This scaffold contained chondral layer, calcified zone of cartilage (CZC) and subchondral bone layer. The chondral layer was type II collagen sponge, the CZC and the subchondral bone layer were derived from normal pig knee by decellularization. In order to build separate microenvironment for chondral layer and subchondral bone layer, a dual-chamber bioreactor was designed by computer aided design, manufactured by 3D printer using Poly Lactic Acid, with CZC as the barrier of these two chambers. Culture medium in these two chambers was circulated separately by peristaltic pumps. Amniotic mesenchymal stem cells were seeded in this scaffold, fluorescence labeling was used for cell tracking, total DNA content analysis was used to indicate cell proliferation, and inducing medium was used to direct stem cells differentiation. After 7 days culture, the cells regularly distributed in the scaffold, cell adhesion and proliferation was not affected. No cell migration across CZC occurred. Total DNA content analysis showed that cells in scaffold increased in a time-dependent manner. Chondrogenic and osteogenic medium could induce stem cells in these two chambers to differentiate into chondrocytes and osteocytes, respectively. Our pilot study showed that the dual-chamber culture system with biomimetic triphasic scaffold was feasible, therefore this system will be further modified and tested in vivo.


A highly-secure wireless communication system has a transmitter for transmitting the same information at predetermined polarized wave angles having different rotation-polarized waves for rotating the polarized waves of a carrier wave, and a receiver for restoring the reception information at the aforementioned predetermined polarization wave angles and for comparing the restoration results of the predetermined polarization wave angles with one another.


Objective To screen phage clones which can specific binding to MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells from phage random 12 peptide library by phage display technology.Methods Agminated positive monoclonal phage was selected from phage random 12 peptide library,using normal mammary gland cells as subtract screening cells and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells as target cells.The specificity and affinity of the positive clones were identified by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and DAB dyeing.Results Eleven clones were chosen after 3 rounds of screening.ELISA showed the affinity to breast cancer cells of NO.8 phage (named LK-8) was 6.5 times higher than that in control group,immunohistochemistry also showed NO.8 phage had a high specificity bonding to breast cancer cells.Conclusion A specific phage (LK-8)bonding to MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells is screened successfully using phage display technology,and it lays the foundation for compounding specific polypeptide to diagnose and treat breast cancer.

Key words:
Breast neoplasms;  Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay;  Biological markers;  Phage display


Objective
To explore the surgical technique and clinical effect of percutaneous lumbar endoscopic surgery for central disc herniation.

Methods
From February 2010 to April 2014, 69 consecutive patients (36 males and 33 females) with central lumbar disc herniation underwent percutaneous endoscopic surgery were included in the study. The average age was 31.33±8.27 years, ranging from 16 to 56 years. All operations were performed by increasing the initial puncture angle. First enter the intervertebral space through the ventral nerve root, and then move the guide rod tip step by step to the top of the protrusion. Operative time, intraoperative blood loss and complications were recorded. Visual analogue scale (VAS), Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) and Oswestry disability index (ODI) were followed up before surgery, immediately after surgery, 3, 12, 24 months after surgery. The MacNab criteria were used to evaluate the efficacy at the last follow-up. During the follow-up period, X-ray, CT and MRI were performed to observe the instability and recurrence of the operative segment.

Results
All of the disc herniations were successfully removed without conversion to open surgery or revision. All patients were followed up for more than 24 months. The VAS scores of low back pain and leg pain were significantly lower than those before operation immediately, 3 months, 12 months and 24 months after operation (P<0.01). The JOA score was significantly higher in monthly follow-up (P<0.01), and ODI was significantly improved in 3 months and 24 months after operation (P< 0.01). There were 22 excellent cases (31.88%), 44 good cases (63.77%), 3 cases (4.35%) during the final follow-up, and the excellent and good rate was 95.65%. Dural sac injuries occurred in 1 patient and discharged from hospital in 2 weeks of symptomatic treatment. Lumbar instability and operative segment recurrence were not found during the follow-up period (2 years).

Conclusion
The improvement of the puncture angle and the technique innovation of the guide rod moving from intervertebral space to intraspinal canal step by step can effectively reduce the nerve root stimulation and injury during the puncture and the placement of the working passage, and significantly improve the clinical efficacy of percutaneous lumbar endoscopy in the treatment of central lumbar disc herniation. Microscopic management of the posterior longitudinal ligament can effectively reduce the recurrence rate and has no significant impact on spinal stability.

Key words:
Lumbar vertebrae; Intervertebral disc displacement; Endoscopy; Surgical procedures, minimally invasive


Previous studies have employed 3D-printed spherical models inspired by the geometry of the dodecahedron to demonstrate the mechanism of self-assembly of viral capsids from free-floating capsomeres. This research builds on these studies by constructing a complete set of 3D-printed self-assembling Platonic solids. These objects not only serve a functional purpose but are also aesthetically pleasing as they showcase the duals of each solid. Additionally, we expand upon the complexity of previous methods by creating three self-assembling Archimedean solids; the truncated tetrahedron, truncated octahedron, and truncated icosahedron.


Empirical studies on income distribution and poverty have indicated that the public transfer system has been successful in terms of poverty and inequality reduction in welfare states. However, very little attention has been paid to private transfers in this analysis. Recently, while there has been an increasing interest in the unique features of East Asian welfare states/regimes, many scholars have begun to have an interest in the role of the family in their welfare mix. This article aims to widen the scope of comparative income studies, firstly by analyzing 12 Western welfare states and two newly emerging East Asian welfare states, i.e. South Korea and Taiwan, and secondly, by comparing the poverty and inequality reduction effects of private transfers with those of public transfers. The Luxemburg Income Study dataset is used for the analysis. The empirical results indicate that private transfers are much more effective than public transfers in terms of income inequality and poverty reduction effects in both South Korea and Taiwan, in contrast to western counterparts including three Southern European countries. Finally, based on the results, we propose further research questions.


Given that Chinese universities have been engaged in patent for a short period and lack experience,and aiming at dealing with imperfection of systematic patent management,the systematic patent management needs to be improved.Applications have been increasing sharply.However the qualities of the applications are not high enough and conversion rate is low,which are analyzed respectively.On the basis of the above,the operation models of improving intellectual property management,strengthening patent conversion and implementation are proposed.


Gap junctions play an important role in cell-to-cell communication, a process obviously required for embryo implantation. Uterine luminal epithelium (LE) is the first contact for an implanting embryo and is critical for the establishment of uterine receptivity. Microarray analysis of LE from periimplantation mouse uterus showed low level expression of 19 gap junction proteins in preimplantation LE and upregulation of gap junction protein, beta 2 (GJB2, connexin 26, Cx26) in postimplantation LE. Timecourse study using in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence revealed upregulation of GJB2 in the LE surrounding implantation site prior to decidualization. Similar dynamic expression of GJB2 was also observed in the LE of artificially decidualized mice but not pseudopregnant mice. To determine potential function of uterine gap junctions in embryo implantation, carbenoxolone (CBX), a broad gap junction blocker, was injected intraperitoneally (100 mg/kg) or via local uterine fat pad (10 mg/kg) into pregnant mice on D3 at 1800 h, a few hours before embryo attachment to LE. These CBX treatments disrupted embryo implantation, suggesting local effects of CBX in the uterus. However, intraperitoneal injection of 100 mg/kg glycyrrhizic acid, which shares similar structure and multiple properties with CBX but is ineffective in blocking gap junctions, did not affect embryo implantation. CBX also inhibited oil-induced artificial decidualization, concomitant with suppressed molecular changes and ultrastructural transformations associated with uterine preparation for embryo implantation, underscoring the adverse effect of CBX on uterine preparation for embryo implantation. These data demonstrate that uterine gap junctions are important for embryo implantation. Summary sentence: Broad gap junction blocker carbenoxolone suppresses uterine molecular changes and ultrastructural transformations associated with preparation for embryo implantation and disrupts embryo implantation.


In this study, the heat transfer rate of Al2O3/Water nanofluid flow in a tube
 with twisted tape inserts is examined, experimentally. The twisted tape
 insert can cause a swirling region in the fluid flow which will enhance the
 heat transfer coefficient. On the other hand, the twisted tape inserts have
 a great influence on the pressure drop. It is known that nanoparticles and
 twisted tape inserts may both increase the heat transfer rate of the fluid.
 Thus, in this study, it is tried to demonstrate the combined effect of both
 phenomena, experimentally. In this way, the Al2O3/Water nanofluid is used as
 the carrier liquid in a tube equipped with various twisted tape inserts of
 different pitches and twist ratios. Moreover, the influence of
 nanoparticles' volume fractions was studied in the turbulent regime of a
 tube with the constant temperature boundary condition.


The Taming of the Shrew As You Like It A Midsummer Night's Dream Othello Hamlet Macbeth King Lear Romeo and Juliet Julius Caesar Henry V Richard III The Tempest other plays.


In order to provide efficient handover (HO) of end to end connections, the cross IP/MAC layer design is proposed in this paper to integrate the procedures of hierarchical mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) and the original WiMAX mobility. From the practical implementation point of view, the mobility anchor point (MAP) of HMIPv6 can be collocated either with the ASN gateway or CSN. In this paper, the message sequence flows for the integration of above scenarios are deeply analyzed. The quantitative comparisons, in terms of control messages overhead and handover delay, are performed. Analytical results show that ASN anchored mobility has the lowest handoff delay at the cost of establishing and maintaining extra data paths. And this cost could cause ASN-GW overloaded, which will degrade the traffic forwarding quality, owing to the large amount of data path establishment. Thus a tradeoff shall be considered between the handover latency and the network load.


The hydrolysis reaction of N2O5 was investigated at room temperature on two aerosol types using a flow tube coupled to a newly built Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (CIMS). This instrument was fully constructed and optimized during this research period, as well as employed to conduct one of two aerosol studies. The first examined the reaction on ammonium bisulphate aerosols using a new ion detection method, I•N2O5 cluster formation, which proved to be highly advantageous over the common approach of dissociative charge transfer, yielding a sensitivity for I•N2O5 of 0.024 Hz/pptv. The uptake coefficients at 30% and 50% relative humidity were 0.0067 ± 0.0002 and 0.0120 ±0.0014, respectively. The second study was performed using a different CIMS previously assembled in the laboratory. In this case, the reaction was investigated on secondary organic aerosols produced through the ozonolysis of αpinene, and resulted in an uptake coefficient of 8.5x10 ± 7x10 at 0% relative humidity.


With the accumulation of household wealth in western countries since the conclusion of World War II, there has been a growing interest in the transmission of financial assets across generations. This is a theme of some importance in stratification research because it taps a central mechanism in the replication of inequality. It is also a topic of interest in the family literature since the timing and volume of parental transfers is a potential source of strain in the relationship between generations.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the probiotic characteristics and immune activities of selected lactic acid bacterial (LAB) strains as feed additives in livestock. 301 LAB strains isolated from traditional fermented foods were first assessed for their antibacterial activity potential. Of the 301 isolates, five showed antibacterial activity against five livestock pathogens (Esherichia coli KCCM11234, Listeria monocytogens KCTC3710, Salmonella Typhimurium KCTC1926, Staphylococcus aureus KCCM11593, and Shigella flexneri KCTC2517). The probiotic characteristics of the five selected strains were also investigated by antioxidative activity, hemolysis, bile salt hydrolase, acid resistance and bile tolerance. The SRCM102607 strain was found to have superior probiotic properties and was selected for further experimentation. 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed that SRCM102607 is Pediococcus acidilactici, which was labeled as P. acidilactici SRCM102607 (KCCM 12246P). The survival characteristics of P. acidilactici SRCM102607 in artificial gastrointestinal conditions were assessed under exposed acidic (pH 2.0) and bile (0.5% and 1.0%) conditions. P. acidilactici SRCM102607 was also confirmed to have resistance to various antibiotics, including amikacin, gentamicin, vancomycin, and etc. The TNF-α production by P. acidilactici SRCM102607 was 171.86±4.00 ng/ml. These results show that P. acidilactici RCM102607 has excellent potential for use as a probiotic livestock feed additive.


Renewal of station areas is complicated by the large number of actors involved, such as local governments, urban planners, project developers, railway companies and local residents. In principle, they all have their own ideas concerning desired developments. We suppose that such areas can only be adequately developed when all these actors are involved in a balanced way in the development and decision processes. How do such processes evolve, what can we learn from theories such as growth machines and urban regimes? What can be noticed in practice in the renewal processes of many European HST station areas?


The story of the Richardson/Fielding rivalry is a fascinating source of critical passions, prejudices, and often surprising interrelations between the literary tastes and cultural environments of the day. This first book-length study of these writers' rivalry uses an adaptation of Hans Jauss's reception theory to survey how readers have used one author's work to set the critical standards used against the rival's.


The bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of molsidomine (SIN-10) from a capsule containing wax-coated beads, were compared with those from a conventional tablet in dogs and monkeys during the formulation study of a sustained release dosage form of SIN-10. Sustained-release capsules (SR capsules) A, B and C contained coated beads with different amounts of wax, and SR capsule D contained 20% immediate release beads and 80% wax-coated beads. In dogs, SR capsules A and B did not satisfactorily prolong the effective plasma concentration. With capsule C, although satisfactory maintenance of effective plasma concentration was obtained, the bioavailability was only to half of that after administration of a conventional tablet. On the other hand, in monkeys, reasonable prolongation of effective plasma concentration (depending upon the amount of wax coating) with satisfactory bioavailability was obtained for each SR capsule. With an SR capsule D, more than 12h duration of effective plasma concentration of molsidomine and control of blood pressure from immediately after administration of the capsule were achieved in monkeys.


During the 20th century, the field of radiology experienced extraordinary growth and became an essential component of the practice of clinical medicine (Chan, 2002). In the 21st century, it is likely that radiology will continue to grow by interfacing with new and important domains such as information technology, molecular biology new tracers in nuclear medicine. This will require radiologists to understand the gaps between the new frontiers and the traditional core of radiology.This article introduce the reader to one strategy management method, Scenario Planning, to identify, analyze and present four scenarios for the Swedish Radiology 2025. It also presents the trends that will affect the future of radiology


Abstract Early age classes of the Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) are particularly vulnerable to predation by several mammal and bird species. We studied tortoise survival at the Sand Hill Training Area of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, from 1998 to 1999. We radiographed and thread-spooled 25 females to determine reproductive and nesting ecology. Predators consumed 11 of 42 monitored nests during the first 70 days of incubation. Ninety-one of 132 eggs in nests fenced after 70 days developed into healthy neonates. We recorded 0.84 and 0.91 neonate survival probability during dispersal in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Applying neonatal survival to egg success, we predict that 40% of individuals survived from oviposition to hibernation. Our findings support other chelonian life-history models indicating relatively high mortality early in life. Our data also suggest that neonatal Desert Tortoises are less susceptible to predation than was previously thought, perhaps because of their cryptic coloration and secretive habits. The Common Raven (Corvus corax) was not found to be a source of neonate mortality during this study.


My bachelor thesis I deals with costs, earnings and costs calculation analysis in Auto Kretek Company. The introduction is focused on analysis of present situation on the market of cars, situation of car services in the Czech Republic and importance of effective costs control and management. In the theoretical part follows analysis of theoretical knowledge dealing with costs, earnings and costs calculations. In the next part there is analysed section of car repairs in term of profitability. There is quantified standalone income from opera-tions of section and analysed calculation of order. In the end I present recommendation for the management of Auto Kretek Company.


Objective To investigate the expression and prognostic relationship of C-Met and RON in human breast invasive cancer.Methods The expression of C-Met and RON in 106 cases of human breast invasive cancer and 30 cases of breast benign tissues was analyzed by using immunohistochemical PV-6000 method.Results The expression of C-Met and RON was significant different between the human breast invasive cancer and breast benign tissues and was positively related to pathological grade, clinical stage and lymph node metastasis.The expression of C-Met、 RON and co-expression of C-Met、 RON were negatively related to the survival time of patient.There was a positive correlation between expression of C-Met and RON.Conclusion C-Met and RON involve in the progression、invasion and metastasis of breast cancer. The test with C-Met and RON together can be more effective in prediction of the prognosis of patients, and will provide new therapeutic targets for the treatment of breast cancer.


Objective To understand the cognition and compliance of family non-invasive ventilation treatment for patients with overlap syndrome.Method Investigate 52 patients undergoing family non-invasive ventilation treatment by self-designed questionnaire.Result Patients have poor cognition on non-invasive ventilation treatment.Only 8 cases have fully compliance(15.38%).Conclusion Patients with overlap syndrome have poor cognition and compliance on family non-invasive ventilation treatment.Guidance on non-invasive ventilation treatment should be enhanced.


Objective To investigate the effects of adiponectin(ADPN) on cell proliferation and the oxidative stress level of INS-1 cultured with high concentration of D-glucose and to illuminate the potential protection of ADPN on the INS-1. Methods The INS-1 cells culture in vitro :The INS-1 cells were cultured with different concentrations of glucose. After culture for 24,48,72 h,the proliferation activity of INS-1 was observed by CCK-8. The content of MDA and T-AOC of the cell supernatant was measured by colorimetry. The expression of t-P38 MAPK,p-P38MAPK were examined by Western blot. Results Compared with control group,INS-1 proliferation activity,the activation of P38 MAPK,the content of T-AOC and MDA were changed in 24,48,72 h(P 0. 05),and adiponectin or SB203580 inhibited these changes(P 0. 05). Conclusions Adiponectin can promote the proliferation of the INS-1,ameliorate the oxidative stress level and protect them through P38 MAPK signaling pathway.


The aim of this paper is to indicate possible applications of operator systems in qualitative description of varoius scenarios while studying non-locality. To this end we study in details the notion of generalized non-commuting cube. Following ideas of Fritz and Farenick-Kavruk-Paulsen-Todorov we show in systematic way that various classes of Tsirelson's correlation boxes as well as NPA hierarchies can be described by using various operator system tensor products of generalized non-commuting cubes. Moreover, we show also that noncommuting cubes can be applied for the description of steering assemblages. Next we study some aproximation properties of noncommuting cubes by finite dimensional models. Finaly, we indicate possibility to use the framework operator systems for studying Bell and steering inequalities.


The effect of input factors on output of natural rubber was analyzed based on VAR model.The result shows the area of tapped natural rubber in Hainan state farms has been the main cause for the increasing of dry rubber.Under current technical conditions and production,the contribution of tapping workers and capital asserts to the natural rubber industry is low.Therefore,natural rubber production in Hainan state farms is faced with an conversion of technological innovation,and the planting,breeding and tapping techniques of natural rubber urgently need to be strengthened.


"Do you know how many more years they will read me? Seven." "Why seven?" Bunin asked. "Well, seven and a half." "No," Bunin replied. "Poetry lives long, and the longer it lives the more powerful it becomes." "My dear Sir," Chekhov chuckled, "You regard as poets only those who use such words as 'silvered distance/ 'accord,' or 'To battle, to battle in the struggle with darkness!' "... And then turning serious again, he continued: "Even though they may read me only seven more years, I have less than that to live: six."l


The SASSYS LMFBR systems analysis code is being developed mainly to analyze the behavior of the shut-down heat-removal system and the consequences of failures in the system, although it is also capable of analyzing a wide range of transients, from mild operational transients through more severe transients leading to sodium boiling in the core and possible melting of clad and fuel. The code includes a detailed SAS4A multi-channel core treatment plus a general thermal-hydraulic treatment of the primary and intermediate heat-transport loops and the steam generators. The code can handle any LMFBR design, loop or pool, with an arbitrary arrangement of components. The code is fast running: usually faster than real time.


There are two formulas S1=SA+SB+SC and S2=(P2+Q2)~(1/2) to compute total apparent power of three-phase circuit.Regarding the answer of a choice problem for the total apparent power of the three-phase circuit as a start,the correlation between S1 and S2 has been discussed.Theoretical analyses,computational examples and power figures validate: S1=S2 with symmetrical loads,S1=S2 with asymmetrical loads that have equal impedance angles and S1S2 with asymmetrical loads that have unequal impedance angles.


Abstract Gas phase hydrogenation of 1,3-butadiene, propene, and mixtures of 1,3-butadiene and propene has been investigated over 0.05 wt% Pd/Al 2 O 3 catalyst. The catalyst was deliberately poisoned by methane (513 K) or diene (473 K) and the effect of the hydrocarbonaceous materials was tested on the product selectivity and the rate of hydrogenation of diene–propene mixtures. It has been concluded that a large quantity of hydrocarbonaceous deposit decreases the surface fugacity of diene due to transport hinderance and in consequence enhances the over-hydrogenation of diene and permits the hydrogenation of propene in the presence of diene.


Social entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly popular these days. A good many people are beginning to realize that mere giving away of money or dealing out assistance alone will not solve the society's problems. While a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur focuses on creating social capital. Thus, the main aim of social entrepreneurship is to further social and environmental goals. This paper focus on Social entrepreneurship importance and focus on modern view of priority to social development and the simultaneous creation of social and economic values. An organization's decision to utilize its financial gains for the enhancement of a community forms the basis for corporate social entrepreneurship. This is an emerging new trend among business enterprises. More and more companies are becoming aware of their social responsibility. Thus, social entrepreneurship can be the solution to a better to morrow heralding a world free of hunger, social inequality and able to take on challenges on its own.


The purpose of this article is to use observed changes in hours of work and labour force participation to draw inferences regarding behavioural responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. Using the Current Population Survey and controlling for differences in demographics, labour market conditions and a time-invariant unobserved individual fixed effect, we determine that for most sub-samples there was no change in labour force participation or in hours of work after 9/11 relative to before. Exceptions were women, who increased their labour force participation, and workers living in the proximity of one of the 9/11 events, who increased their hours of work. These results are consistent with a precautionary increase in labour supply during an uncertain time, and with others' documentation of women responding more dramatically to external stressors.


In this paper, optimal mounting configuration of skewed bias momentum wheels for satellite attitude control is discussed. Eight mounting configurations of bias momentum wheels are presented. Control performances of these configuration are analyzed with unified criteria (momentum and reliability).The results show that skewed mounting configuration (Fig. 1—3 and Fig. 1—5) is optimal in the sense of maximizing the performance criteria.


There are three difficulties in real-time dynamic data stream classification:real-time processing of massive data,tracking of concept drift and model updates,model′s stability and robustness.To solve these problems,extreme support vector machine(ESVM)is combined with MapReduce framework,and a forgetting factor robust ESVM algorithm(FFR-ESVM)is proposed.The proposed algorithm amends the residuals by constructing a residual matrix,while improves the effect of new samples by forgetting factor.Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can rapidly and effectively classify dynamic data stream,and the results are stable and less affected by noise interference.


Summary This study was carried out to find the natural enemies of the speoies of the family Aphididae (Homoptera) oausing serious damage to pomeand stone fruit trees, as well as the many other plants. in this paper parasitte species belonging to the farnildes Aphidtidae and Pteromalidae (Hymenoptera) are reeorded, from which Aphidius eolemani Viereek and Aphidius matrieariae Halidayare new records for Turkey. Nirie families in 4 orders and thelr related 51 species of 29 genera were Identified as the predators of the Aphididae fa.m.ily, harinful to pome and stone fruit trees. Among of them Paragus nigellus Goeldlin is the first reeord for the world, while Phytoeoris longfpermis Flor, Calvia quatuordeeimguttata (Llnnaeusl , Paragus majoranae Rondani, Episyrphus aurieollis (Meigen) are new records for Turkey. Distribution, hosts, .abundance and efficieney of this natural enemies are given.


This article reviews the ongoing conflicts in the Brazilian public sphere involving political actors with very different cultural programs, Catholic, evangelical and feminist movements and LGBTT. Divided into four sessions, it begins with a presentation of the critical approach adopted and a brief analysis of the relations between Church and State in the twentieth century. The next session, seeks to show how the advancement of human rights policies in meeting the demands of feminist and gay movements takes place concurrently with the growth of evangelicals in partisan politics and legislative power and how these contradictory tendencies produce tensions in the public arena. In the third section, the article reviews more closely the political agenda, the involvement of evangelicals in Rio de Janeiro state executive and legislative powers in the first decade of this century and the conservative religious activism in the 2010 elections. In the final considerations, we aimed to demonstrate that, despite the conflicts of interest among Catholics and evangelicals actors, partnerships have been developed between religious groups of both sides in order to prevent the establishment of a secular sexual morality.


Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonists represent a class of medications used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus in adults. Examples of drugs in this class include exenatide, lixisenatide, liraglutide, albiglutide, dulaglutide, and semaglutide. According to the American Diabetes Association, metformin remains the preferred first-line therapy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. However, the addition of a GLP-1 analog should be considered in patients with a contraindication or intolerance to metformin, in patients with a hemoglobin A1c greater than 1.5% over target, or in patients who do not reach their target A1c in three months particularly in patients with atherosclerosis, heart failure, or chronic kidney disease. Furthermore, high dose liraglutide is FDA approved as a pharmacologic treatment for obesity or can be prescribed to overweight patients with comorbidities. The utilization of GLP-1 analogs is an object of research with favorable hemoglobin A1c results and weight loss results in patients with type-1 diabetes mellitus. Of note, higher costs, as well as tolerability, remain significant barriers in prescribing these medications.


In the last two decades, private entrepreneurship has emerged as an important research area in the field of Adantic history. Various studies have clearly shown the role played by private business in the making of the early modern Adantic economy. Initially, private entrepreneurship was studied separately from imperial entities and did not contemplate activities encompassing several European empires. Recently, however, scholars have started to look into private engagement in various branches of the Adantic colonial trade, broadening our understanding of when and how private business operated simultaneously in different colonial settings. The works of Schnurmann, Studnicki-Gizbert, Ebert, Trivellato, and Antunes are some of the most important contributions.


Primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an orphan autoimmune disease, characterized by heterogeneous bleeding phenotypes, not necessarily connected to low platelet counts. 25-(OH) vitamin D (VD) has been reported to have immunomodulatory properties. Vitamin D deficiency (VDD) has been associated to more severe courses of ITP, especially in acute pediatric cases.


Object:To describe the situation of knowledge to NCMS in LiuAn city and to find out the satisfaction evaluation status and its factors influencing the status.Method: The study investigated 57 patients with convenient sampling method.Result: ① the patients knowing about the pay line,the reimbursement rate and the reimbursement procedure account for less than 50%;② about 80% of the patients are very or quite satisfied with the NCMS;③all the patients are willing to pay the premium the next year,but not willing to pay more;④ with the years joining the NCMS rising,the satisfaction level is rising,and the male patients are more satisfied at the NCMS than the female.Conclusion:to improve the satisfaction of NCMS is to improve the management of the NCMS,to promote the efficiency of NCMS,and to improve the reimbursement rate with the same premium.


The support of a predictable level of real-time performance requires some form of explicit resource allocations, and a degree of cooperation among t he network c omponents to enforce the resource allocation policies. In this paper, a network level abstraction, 4channel, to support the requirements of real-time applications is described and a discussion of a simulation experiment that was used to test t he validity of this network abstraction is provided. The experiment aims at demonstrating that the scheme guarantees the applications' specified requirements. The simulation analysis demonstrates the eficiency of the scheme to handle a wide range of applications in di'erent network topologies.


Plant diseases consider the most dominant matter for farmers' concerns becausethe operation of discovering and dealing with them requires accuracy, experience, and time. Therefore, this paper proposes an approach to classify seven varieties of tomato diseases using deep learning models. A dataset of 10448 images from PlantVillage and google utilize to train the deep learning (CNN models). The trained models proved their ability to classify with high accuracy, as the highest testing accuracy reached 95.71% for the proposed model for 50 epochs only. The resulted best model is published to a mobile application using the android studioplatform, this application enables the farmer to classify plant diseases accurately and easily. The proposed model and mobile application could be extended to classify as many plant diseases as possible.


A method for surface strain measurement based on the multi-mode optical fiber speckle was presented.The paper analyzed the basic theory of this method and designed the testing device.The paper also showed how to sample the data,fit the polynomial curve and compute the strain value by using the LabVIEW software.The measuring result has been obtained by experiment and its corresponding analysis were shown.The result shows that this method is suitable for surface strain measurement.The system is simple and has high work reliability and good application prospects.


Aiming at crack situation of drainage pipelines and on-site limited factors,steel sheet pile supporting structure is adopted and the detection is completed after excavation.Then,according to pipelines damage positions,repairing the interface and filling the foundation are adopted.During the pipelines repairing period,the measures of water transfer and repairing by segment are adopted,which not only can keep the pipelines repaired but also keep the drainage system run.This project may provide positive meaning for similar projects in the future.


The Volta Grande do Xingu (VGX) in the Amazon Forest of Brazil was chosen to analyze the land use and land cover changes (LULCC) from 2000 to 2017, with the aim of assessing the most suitable classification method for the area. Three parametric (Mahalanobis distance, maximum likelihood and minimum distance) and three non-parametric (neural net, random forest and support vector machine) classification algorithms were tested in two Landsat scenes. The accuracy assessment was evaluated through a confusion matrix. Change detection of the landscape was analyzed through the post-classification comparison method. While maximum likelihood was more capable of highlighting errors in individual classes, support vector machine was slightly superior when compared with the other non-parametric options, these being the most suitable classifiers within the scope of this study. The main changes detected in the landscape were from forest to agro-pasture, from forest/agro-pasture to river, and from river to non-river, resulting in rock exposure. The methodology outlined in this research highlights the usefulness of remote sensing tools in follow-up observations of LULCC in the study area (with the possibility of application to the entire Amazon rainforest). Thus, it is possible to carry out adaptive management that aims to minimize unforeseen or underestimated impacts in previous stages of environmental licensing.


Primary cardiac tumors in infancy are rare and, fortunately, most are benign.'-4 Echocardiography has become the definitive modality for imaging cardiac and is now used to guide patient management. We report a case of multiple tumors in an infant with tuberous sclerosis, and discuss the role of two dimensional and Doppler echocardiography in the diagnosis and management of infants and children with cardiac tumors.


ABSTRACT Eight Scandinavian oat cultivars were studied as grains, groats before and after kiln drying, rolled oats, and oatmeal for 62 physical, chemical, and sensory parameters over three consecutive crop years. The objectives were to study cultivar and year differences, and the relationships between parameters to find out the cultivars most suitable for rolled oats production and to understand how grain parameters are reflected on groat, rolled oat, and oatmeal characteristics. The cultivars and crop years differed (P 0.70) to rolled oat parameters, the former correlating negatively to crude fat and the latter positively with maximum viscosity value. However, some weaker (r < 0.70) negative associations were found such...


Historical documents are often used in applied linguistics as a source for studying the structure and use of language in the past. Linguists compile corpora such as the Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers (ARCHER; http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/research/projects/archer/) or the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (PPCEME, 2004; http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/PPCEME_RELEASE-2/index.html), using a variety of text types and covering a wide period. They are used for diachronic linguistic studies, to show, for example, lexical or grammatical differences between Early Modern English and present-day English (e.g., Hundt, 2007), or the structure of a particular language variety (e.g., Dollinger, 2008). In this way the analysis of historical corpora contributes to the understanding of earlier forms of a language and of language variety and change.

Keywords:

discourse analysis;
methods;
corpus


Forecasts of fertility and mortality rates are two of the components of population projections. Because the data consists of age-specific rates, the production of an age distribution curve leads to a high-dimensional problem, where there may be more ages in the data than there are observed years. This paper focuses on forecasting the total rates of fertility and mortality for a set of gender and race/ethnic subgroups, as well as the relative age-specific rates (or age distribution curves) for each. The forecasting of total rates is relatively straightforward, with comparisons done using time series models with and without a drift parameter. For age-specific rates, principal components analysis is used to reduce the dimensionality of the data. The procedure for carrying out the principal components as well as all time series modeling of the principal component series is discussed; included is some discussion of how to choose the number of principal components to retain. Results are produced using fertility and mortality data dating from 1989 to 2009. For total rates, it is determined that a model without drift produces more tenable forecasts in comparison to the occasionally implausible results from the model with drift. Some discussion of ways to improve the procedure for the future are provided.


Reduced quantum dot (QD) absorption due to state filling effects and enhanced electron transport in doped QDs are demonstrated to play a key role in solar energy conversion. Reduced QD state absorption with increased n-doping is observed in the self-assembled In0.5Ga0.5As/GaAs QDs from high resolution below-bandgap external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurement, which is a direct consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle. We also show that besides partial filling of the quantum states, electron-doping produces negatively charged QDs that exert a repulsive Coulomb force on the mobile electrons, thus altering the electron trajectory and reducing the probability of electron capture, leading to an improved collection efficiency of photo-generated carriers, as indicated by an absolute above-bandgap EQE measurement. The resulting redistribution of the mobile electron in the planar direction is further validated by the observed photoluminescence intensity dependence on doping.


With the development of market economy,operating scale of agricultural research institutes more and more complex,business diversification,administrative multilevel,project audit work has become a new topic engaged in internal audit work.Based on analysis of the function and problems on internal audit of agricultural scientific research projects,how to strengthen the internal audit have done some thinking.


Objective:To explore the application of pre-hospital emergency care in acute cerebral hemorrhage and its influence to prognosis.Methods:120 cases with acute cerebral hemorrhage were randomly divided into control group and observation group.68 patients of observation group were received pre-hospital emergency care,and 52 cases of control group were not received pre-hospital emergency care.The time of the patients treated after first onset and the mortality during in-hospital period were compared between two groups.MBI and FMA were used to evaluate ADL and extremity motor function before and after treatment.Results:The time of the patients treated after first onset in observation group was significantly shorter than that in control group [(46.28±10.35)min vs(71.92±19.27)min,P0.01);The mortality during in-hospital period were 10.3% and 19.2% respectively in observation group and control group,and there was a significant difference between them(P0.01);MBI and FMA in observation group were superior to control group(P0.01).Conclusion:Application of pre-hospital emergency care in acute cerebral hemorrhage can decrease the mortality during in-hospital period and improve the prognosis of patients.


The first observation of a high‐mobility, two‐dimensional electron gas in a modulation‐doped, strained GaAs–GaAs1−xPx (x=0.25) superlattice is reported. Electron sheet concentrations of n=6.4×1011 cm−2 and mobilities (4 K) of μ=1.2×104 cm2 V−1 S−1 are measured.


Chitosan(CS) is a deacetylated derivative of chitin,the second abundant natural biopolymer.Due to its interesting characteristics: biocompatible,biodegradation and the ability to be molded in various geometries,it has more and more attention as bone tissue engineering scaffold materials gradually.It is more valuable to review the research articles about chitosan used in composite bone tissue engineering scaffold.The functions in composite scaffolds can be found by reviews and it would be applied worthily.Extensive using of Chitosan-based biomaterials in bone tissue engineering will be foreknown by this review


In whole-set equipment multi-attribute procurement, the buyer not only cares about the exchange price, but also pays more attention to the influence of lead-time and equipment quality on his value. According to the practice of equipment procurement, this paper formulates the suppliers' cost function with parameters which are unknown to the buyer, and the buyer's value resulted from the procurement is expressed by value function. Both the cost and value relate to quality, leadtime and quantity attributes. In order to get the more concrete cost function, we study the cost parameters by multi-round bidding. In the end, We provide a numerical example to illustrate our method and get a reasonable solution. Keywordscost function; value function; multi-attribute procurement; parameter estimation; whole-set equipment


The conventional test method for evaluating the potential of a material to produce smoke in a real fire is the NBS Smoke Density Chamber. However there are major problems with this approach. These include foremost the fact that its results do not correlate with those of real fires. Furthermore, materials that melt and drip are able to achieve a favorable, but misleading, evaluation because a significant fraction of the sample escapes the burning process. Another problem is that the test takes no account of the role the rate or extent of material burning plays in controlling the smoke density in a real fire situation. The physical problems are solved by material smoke production evaluation techniques based on measurements from the Cone Calorimeter rate of heat release apparatus, which has been developed by the National Bureau of Standards. A smoke parameter has been developed, calculated from cone calorimeter measurements, which reflects the smoke hazard of a real fire. The smoke evolution characteristics for a series of rigid thermoplastic materials have been measured using the cone calorimeter and the smoke parameter concept. The results demonstrate that due to its tendency to resist ignition and to burn very slowly, PVC would produce very little smoke in a real fire situation. Of the 15 materials tested, the expected real fire smoke performance characteristics of PVC were superior to those of all other materials except one.


TITLE: ANALYSIS OF PRICES AND OUTCOMES FOR COMMON HOSPITALIZED CONDITIONS IN 2021 Authors: Lina Vadlamani, Roy Xiao, Nihar Desai Section of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT Our study seeks to use newly disclosed hospital price transparency data to understand associations between average payer-negotiated prices, outcomes and hospital characteristics. Data on prices, outcomes and hospital characteristics for 4 commonly hospitalized conditions Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI), Heart Failure (HF), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Hip/Knee Replacements (THR/TKR) were acquired from publicly available hospital chargemasters and Medicare's Hospital Compare database. Mann-Whitney U and ANOVA tests were conducted comparing prices and key hospital characteristics (geography, urban/rural location, Medicare percentage, Medicaid percentage, and ownership). Linear regressions were conducted exploring the effect of outcomes (mortality, readmissions) and hospital characteristics on prices. Geography (Northeast) and urban location were the only hospital characteristics consistently significantly associated with lower prices across conditions even after adjusting for geographic differences in cost of care delivery. Higher prices were significantly associated with decreased readmissions in AMI, HF and COPD, and increased mortality in HF; however, predictive reliability was small with low R values. Subgroup analyses exploring how hospital characteristics are associated with prices and outcomes found that relationships between higher prices and lower readmissions persisted in urban but not rural hospitals, and persisted in the Midwest but not Northeast hospitals. No other subgroup analyses findings were consistent across conditions. Taking a cross-section of emergent to elective conditions requiring hospitalization, measures associated with hospital competitiveness (northeast geography and urban status) appear to be most clearly associated with lower prices, suggesting prices are set by hospital negotiating power. Hospitals with higher negotiated prices appeared to have decreased readmissions in conditions except hip/knee replacement, perhaps suggesting greater resources to coordinate high quality care to prevent readmission. Overall, no clear and consistent patterns emerge for hospital characteristics that vary with the relationship between prices and outcomes.


Writing a poem on a painting is a unique cultural character in Chinese paintings. It mainly connects the function of poems with the painting style through the art of characteristic calligraphy. The art of poems on paintings is to combine poems with pictures as a whole, which forms the aesthetic values of poems in paintings, and vice versa.


A few reasons to cause the half-wave hole for the short-wave pass filter had been analyzed. According to these reasons, the application of a new admittance-matching method and a photoelectric maximum control with half-wavelength effectively eliminated the half-wave hole. The matching stack consisted of a symmetrically periodic structure and provided a complete matching at the desired wavelength; i.e., both conditions for the equivalent admittance and phase thickness were fulfilled. Furthermore, both the theoretical and the tested curves had been given, and a good agreement between them was obtained.


A facile strategy was developed for one-step synthesis of yttrium(Y)-doped cobalt-based metal-organic framework (CoY-MOF) nanosheet arrays. It was demonstrated that in situ doping with a low content of Y can tailor the electronic structure of the MOF structures, thereby improving their electrocatalytic performance for both hydrogen evolution and glycerol oxidation reactions.


Sleep apnoea is a common condition in the elderly population with potentially significant consequences, including comorbidity and cognitive decline. There is now a wealth of information indicating that untreated sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular event, a higher propensity of sudden death during sleep and a greater risk for stroke and all-cause mortality. Consequently, OSA represents a significant evolving public health challenge in both the developed and developing world. Currently many cases of obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome are unrecognized which leads to unnecessary morbidity and even mortality. By posing a few additional questions during the routine clinical interview, patients in need for further diagnostic testing can be easily identified. The best methods of diagnosis are costly and increased sophistication of screening devices and interpreting physicians are required to reduce the need for full polysomnography. CBCT, with its 3D presentation of the airway and its surrounding structures, offers the increased visualization of both untreated obstruction tendencies and potentially of changes in the airway by treatment modality.


In September 1982 Dynamic Isolation Systems Inc, of Berkeley, California, received a licence from the Development Finance Corporation of New Zealand to market and manufacture seismic isolation products in the United States that were developed in New Zealand. The product of primary interest is the patented lead-rubber bearing developed by Dr Bill Robinson of DSIR and enhanced by Dr Ian Buckle of the University of Auckland.


The European Space Agency's Darwin and NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) are among the most challenging space science missions ever considered. Their principal objective is to detect Earth-like planets around nearby stars and to characterize their atmospheres. Darwin and TPF-I are currently conceived as nulling interferometers with free-flying telescopes. Within the frame of the Darwin program, the ESA and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), supported by European industries and scientific institutes, have performed two parallel Phase A studies of a ground-based nulling interferometry experiment (GENIE) at the site of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in Paranal, Chile. GENIE will demonstrate several key technologies required for the Darwin mission. Its science objectives include the detection and characterization of dust disks and low-mass companions around nearby stars. These studies have established detailed instrumental designs, in which GENIE will operate in the L' band around 3.8 microns as a single Bracewell nulling or constructive interferometer, using either two Auxiliary or two Unit Telescopes. The studies were supported by detailed numerical simulations which indicated the possibility of detection and low-resolution spectroscopy in nulling mode of extra-solar giant planets (EGPs) with atmospheric temperatures down to 700 K, provided that a proper calibration of instrumental effects is applied. Detection of circumstellar exo-zodiacal (EZ) dust clouds is possible down to 0.5 mJy, with interesting prospects for the characterization of planet-forming disks.


Typical manifestations of spontaneous and conscious playing activity of a child are analyzed in the article, also a typology of game innovations of children's speech is suggested. The author advances an idea of necessity of working out of principles of interpretation of children's innovations, which would be adequate to reality of language consciousness of the child.


Introduction Gastro intestinal foreign body in canines is one of the common life threatening ailments. The incidence is common and quiet high because puppies by nature love to chew and play with non food things and may intentionally or accidentally swallow these substances. The most frequently found gastro intestinal foreign bodies were bones, corn-cobs, stones, fruit pits, food packaging materials, children's chewing toys, bottle caps, fish hooks and sewing needles (Senapati et al., 1997; Sreenu and Kumar, 2006). This paper reports about the metal ball and metal piece as gastric foreign bodies in pups and their successful surgical management.


CASE The patient is a 34-year-old white woman with abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and blood in stool. On physical examination, mild tenderness is present in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen. There is no abdominal distention or evidence of ascites. Murphy's sign is negative. No bruits are heard. No palpable masses, hepatomegaly, or splenomegaly is noted. A stool guaic test is positive for blood and the WBC count is mildly elevated, but the results of laboratory studies are otherwise normal. An ESR is not performed. The differential diagnosis in this patient includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis—both types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)—as well as irritable bowel syndrome, appendicitis, and pelvic inflammatory disease. CT of the abdomen and pelvis is performed (see Figure 1), as is an upper GI series with small bowel follow-through (see Figure 2). What do these imaging studies reveal?


Correspondence to: Ying-Ying Leung Abstract: Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease characterized by joint inflammation and cutaneous psoriasis. With advances in knowledge of genetics, immunohistology and pathogenesis, PsA is now recognized as a distinct disease entity. Unique clinical features include distal interphalangeal joint (DIPJ) involvement, dactylitis, enthesitis, axial involvement, specific radiographic features, and specific skin and nail changes. PsA affects young adults and is progressive and destructive, causing deformities, impaired physical function, reduced quality of life and lost of productivity. We now focus on more aggressive treatment in patients with progressive disease. With both conventional disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and emerging biological agents, the outlook for patients with PsA has improved.


The results of experimental studies of the new jetting DG-300, on the basis of which set of generalized analytical dependency jetting resistance ratio of the diameter of nozzles used and developed an algorithm for determining the diameter of the jetting nozzles, taking into account the mode of operation of the pumping station. Application of new jetting improves performance and efficiency jetting.


The main features of the four-a-helix bundle, one of the characteristic structural elements of many proteins, can be explained in terms of noncovalent interactions between the constituent helices. Conformational energy computations have been carried out on four types of four-a-helix bundles, each consisting of four CH3CO-(L-Ala)1O-NHCH3 polypeptide chains, with various combinations of parallel and antiparallel orientations of the helices. In the bundle with the most favorable energy, all pairs of neighboring helices are oriented antiparallel-i.e., in the orientation that is favored by electrostatic interactions between the helices. In this structure, the orientation angle between neighboring helix axes is 168°, within ± 70, in close agreement with the orientation angles observed in proteins and with the value that we computed earlier for the most favorable packing of pairs of interacting a-helices. This orientation corresponds to a left-handed twisting of the helical bundle. The preferred handedness of this twisting arises as a result of favorable nonbonded interactions between the a-helices. Analysis of the interactions among the commonly occurring structural elements in globular proteins is helpful for the understanding of protein structure and function. Among well-defined structural elements, one of the most striking arrangements is the bundle of four nearly antiparallel ahelices (1-3). Four-a-helix bundles occur in several proteins of widely different overall structure and function, yet they all exhibit some common structural features. Therefore, it is important to characterize the energetic factors that determine the nature of the packing of the a-helices in the bundle. In some proteins, the four-a-helix bundle serves as a framework that encloses prosthetic groups (2), such as the heme in cytochrome b562 (4) and cytochrome c' (5), the dimeric iron center in myohemerythrin (6) and methemerythrin (7), or the nonheme iron in bacterial photosynthetic reaction centers from two species (8, 9). In other proteins, such as tobacco mosaic virus coat protein (10), uteroglobin (11), apoferritin (12), methionyl porcine somatotropin (13), the ColEl Rop protein (14), and interleukin 2 (15), no prosthetic group is enclosed inside the bundle. The presence of a prosthetic group causes small adjustments in the orientation of the four a-helices because the helix axes must diverge at one end of the bundle to accommodate the group (2). Furthermore, one of the helices is bent in two proteins (13, 15) because of the presence of a prolyl residue (16), so that only one part of this helix appears to participate in efficient packing inside the bundle. In spite of such irregularities, the following basic features are common to most four-a-helix bundles observed so far (2, 3). The four helices form an assembly with an approximately square cross section; the orientation of neighboring helices is nearly but not exactly antiparallel; the helices are tilted in such a manner FIG. 1. Schematic illustration of an antiparallel four-a-helix bundle. The helices are shown schematically as cylinders. Arrows indicating the helix axes point from the N to the C terminus (adapted from ref. 17). that the bundle always has a left-handed twist (Fig. 1); the orientation angle between neighboring helices (defined below in Methods) is nearly constant, with a value of flo = -1620 + 5.80 (2). It has been pointed out that an antiparallel arrangement of neighboring a-helices is favored by electrostatic interactions between the helices (17) caused by the large dipole moment of the a-helices (18-21). However, these interactions could not explain the tilting ofthe helices and the handedness of the twist in the bundle. Certain values ofthe orientation angle are favored by the complementarity of the surface of the helices (22-25), expressible in terms of nonbonded interactions (25, 26). Considerations based on regularities of packing have been used in the design of a four-helix bundle (27). In a theoretical analysis of the packing ofpairs of a-helices, we have shown by means of conformational energy computations that a near-antiparallel orientation of the two helices, with flo = 1540, is energetically the most favorable among several low-energy arrangements (25, 26). This packing Abbreviations: EES, electrostatic energy; ENB, nonbonded energy. 4295 The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 85 (1988) arrangement is stabilized, relative to other possible packings, by both electrostatic and nonbonded interactions between the helices. Interactions between more than two helices, however, can possibly alter the relative energies of the various helix pair orientations (28). Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of helix packing in the four-a-helix bundle. The goal of the present study was the elucidation of the following questions. Is the most favorable packing arrangement for a-helix pairs altered by the presence of two more a-helices? Is the antiparallel arrangement of all four neighbor pairs in the bundle favored over parallel or mixed arrangements? What are the interactions that cause left-handed, rather than right-handed twisting of the bundle? The investigation of these questions has been carried out by optimizing the intraand interchain potential energy.


Background: The platelet mitochondrial genome has many similarities to bacterial and viral genomes. These include the lack of DNA redundancy, the lack of introns, no protective histone proteins, and inefficient DNA repair mechanisms; all of which are important characteristics that likely contribute to the increased rate of mutations occurring with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) compared to that seen with nuclear genomic DNA. Recent studies have shown that the use of pathogen inactivation involving UVA phototherapy using the combination of ultraviolet A (UVA) light and either the photoactive psoralen 4′-aminomethyltrioxsalen hydrocholoride (AMT/UVA, known to induce cross-linking of DNA) or the B-vitamin riboflavin (RF/UVA, known to produce the oxidized guanine moiety 8-OH-dG) are effective approaches to reduce and/or inactivate the bacterial and viral contaminants often present in human blood products. Such treatments however have been shown to be associated with impaired in vivo platelet recovery, survival and hemostatic function. Methods and Results: In the current study, rabbit and human platelets were treated with the two photochemical pathogen inactivation methods, (AMT/UVA or RF/UVA), using various UVA exposure, and the resultant platelets compared to control platelets with regard to their in vivo recovery, survival, and hemostatic function, as well as evaluating evidence of damage to platelet mtDNA. Rabbit platelets treated with UVA (1 to 5 joules/cm2) alone, RF alone, or AMT alone, showed minimal or no effect on in vivo platelet function; without evidence of damage to mtDNA. In contrast, the photochemical treatment of rabbit platelets with either AMT/UVA or RF/UVA showed a UVA-dose-dependent effect on in vivo platelet function as well as on mtDNA damage. Platelets treated with AMT/UVA(1 to 5 joules/cm2) revealed a 10–30% UVA-dose-dependent reduction in platelet recovery, survival, and hemostatic function, as well as a widespread but a non-specific effect upon platelet mtDNA structure. The treatment of rabbit platelets with RF/UVA(1 to 5 joules/cm2) showed considerably greater impact on platelet recovery, survival, and hemostatic function than that seen with AMT/UVA, at equivalent UVA doses. This was associated with a reproducible impairment of the amplification of a 3.8kb fragment within the platelet mtDNA genome. This mtDNA fragment is specifically associated with the coding for the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1. A threshold dose of 1.0 joule/cm2 was noted for RF/UVA treatment, below which damage to mtDNA was found to be UVA-dose-dependent. Using HPLC to determine the concentration of 8-OH-dG within photochemically treated human platelets resulted in the demonstration of a UVA-dose-dependent increase of 8-OH-dG production for RF/UVA treated platelets. Control (no treatment), UVA alone, or AMT/UVA treated platelets produced no increase in 8-OHdG levels, even at UVA doses of 5 joules/cm2. Conclusions: These results indicate that the reproducible focal damage of platelet mtDNA by RF/UVA may have a considerably greater effect upon platelet in vivo circulatory and hemostatic functions than does the introduction of random mtDNA cross-linking produced by AMT/UVA treatment, possibly because of the discrete reproducible defect caused by the RF/UVA on the platelet mtDNA. These data nonetheless support the hypothesis that platelet mtDNA damage produced by pathogen inactivation methodology is associated with and may affect subsequent in vivo platelet function following platelet transfusion to a recipient.


This paper presents a simple direct adaptive control strategy for the operation of chemical processes. An efficient and easy-to-implement learning algorithm is proposed that enables a three-paramet...


This article describes initial investment and operation cost on three cold source schemes of central air-conditioning in one hotel renovation engineering. It is air-cooled heat pump, screw chiller, and lithium bromide absorption refrigerating unit. The first is the best scheme by comparing.


In the last decade, Assistive Technology researchers have studied and developed accessible and adaptable environments intended to enhance the autonomy and the quality of life of the people with disabilities and elderly people. Their efforts, technologically rooted in the Ubiquitous Computing technologies, are firmly supported by the Ambient Intelligence concept. In the assistive scenario the main problem that researchers have to face is the integration of diverse local and remote services that were previously provided through different network technologies. In this paper we identify the main issues that may influence design decisions regarding the integration of -and the interaction among- different subsystems in the context of assistive technologies.


In this paper, an algorithm is proposed to perform investment decision in a fuzzy environment. This algorithm considers both economic and strategic factors to select the optimal investment project. By using this algorithm, the ambiguities involved in the assessment data can be effectively represented and processed to assure a more convincing and effective decision-making. Finally, the air logistics service provider (Air LSP) is used to assess the optimal investment decision.


PURPOSE: A partial discharge sensor and a partial discharge detector apparatus using the same is provided to constitute a partial discharge detector apparatus which does not receive the influence of the external noise by installing a partial discharge sensor inside a gas insulation device. CONSTITUTION: A partial discharge detector apparatus(210) comprises a partial discharge sensor(100) and a connector(200). The partial discharge sensor is installed in the inner side of an external case(310). A connector draws out a partial discharge signal detected from the partial discharge sensor to outside. The connector is fixed to an outside wall of the enclosure. The connector is directly connected to the connection terminal of the partial discharge detector apparatus.


For the treatment of municipal waste such as road sweepings, sand trap residue from sewage treatment plants and sewage sands collected during the maintenance of the sewage system, the Department of Municipal Sanitation in Brunswik, Germany, installed a sand recycling plant (SRP) engineered by the Hirschau-based compagny AKW Apparate + Verfahren. This measure was taken to enable environmentally compatible recycling of municipal waste in accordance with the provisions of the new German commercial and industrial waste management act (KrW-/AbgG). The plant, which has been in continous operation since March 1999, is used to recover a mineral sand and gravel fraction by means of wet-processing. The sand and gravel produced are reused in road construction and civil engineering projects in the Brunswick area. This recycling has lead to a reduction in the quantity of waste that must be disposed of by over 50 wt. %.


Considerable amounts of tuna fish meal and moderate amounts of meat meal with bone are produced in Puerto Rico. These ingredients are less expensive per protein unit and more readily available than imported soybean meal. Diets containing high levels of both locally produced ingredients have been formulated and evaluated (S) in an effort to lower feed costs. The objective of the studies reported herein was to determine if meat from poultry raised on diets containing different levels of tuna fish and meat meals have undesirable off flavors or odors as determined by a trained panel.


Despite a large number of publications in the field, photocatalytic water treatment is still somewhat disconnected from real world application and we highlight recent developments to address this.


Introduction: Combined exposure to chromium, nickel and cobalt occurs in many occupations as dental laboratory technicians, electroplating workers and welders. Dental laboratory technicians whom are the main concern in our study are exposed to chromium, nickel and cobalt metal alloys during casting, finishing and polishing of dental prosthesis (e.g. bridges, crowns, partial and complete dentures) and also to small amount of molybdenum, silica beryllium, boron and carbon. The objective of this work was to evaluate the magnitude of exposure to these metals among dental laboratory technicians and their genotoxic effects.Subjects and methods: The study included 30 dental technicians (24 male & 6females) and 20 comparable control subjects (15 male and 5 females) selected from outpatient clinic and nursing staff in Kasr ElAini hospital. Both groups were subjected to a prepared questionnaire including present, occupational, past and family history , measurement of serum chromium, nickel and cobalt levels, assessment of the chromosomal aberrations in the peripheral blood lymphocytes and measurements of the air levels of the chromium, nickel and cobalt at the work place.


The goal of the paper is to discuss the recent trend of the configuration of high resolution LEO(Low Earth Orbit) EO(Earth Observation) satellites. The satellite configuration is decided by considering several factors such as mission, payloads, launch vehicle, propulsion and attitude control module. The advent of commercial companies selling satellite's images in 2000's requires additional changes of the satellite system to be capable of obtaining many high resolution images quickly. In order to meet customer's needs, the overall configuration of satellites is designed to be compact and stable without the loss of structural integrity and reliability. Among design changes, the configuration change of satellites is treated intensively in the paper.


Author(s): Pla, Andrew Maxim | Advisor(s): Mali, Prashant | Abstract: Chronic pain is a considerable issue facing society today. Current treatments for chronic pain consist mainly of opioids, highly imperfect solutions due to their side effects and high risk of addiction. This thesis aims to investigate a new avenue for treating chronic pain by taking a cue from nature. Individuals have been identified with congenital mutations to a gene encoding for a sodium channel subtype, Nav1.7, leading to total insensitivity to pain. Here we attempted to treat chronic pain via genetic targeting of SCN9A, the gene encoding for Nav1.7. Due to the desire to non-permanently ablate pain, we have utilized a variant of the CRISPR-Cas9 system without nuclease activity, dCas9 (dead-Cas9). The fusion of dCas9 to transcription regulators, such as the KRAB repressor, enables stable and efficient transcriptional repression. We delivered a dCas9-KRAB and a gRNA targeting the Nav1.7 gene via adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) to enable repression of pain, similar to a small-molecule drug, but, unlike small-molecules, lasting up to a few weeks. We injected mice with carrageenan to induce an inflammatory hyperalgesia pain model, performed nociceptive assays in order to verify a phenotypic change in pain sensation, and carried out qPCR to show repression of SCN9A. Results show ~50% repression of SCN9A was achieved, as well as a l100% improvement in thermal pain tolerance in the inflammatory state. Moving forward, this therapy could potentially be a future chronic pain treatment in humans without the negative side effects of current approaches.


Objective—To evaluate the effects of a standardized exercise test to exhaustion in horses on leukocyte function ex vivo. Animals—6 Thoroughbred geldings. Procedures—Blood samples were obtained from each horse before exercise; at exhaustion (termed failure); and at 2, 6, 24, 48, and 72 hours after exercise to evaluate hematologic changes, rate of leukocyte apoptosis, and leukocyte production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) ex vivo. To assess leukocyte function, leukocyte ROS production in response to stimulation with lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan, zymosan, and phorbol myristate acetate was evaluated. Apoptosis was evaluated via assessment of caspase activity in leukocyte lysates. Results—In response to lipopolysaccharide, production of ROS by leukocytes was significantly increased at 2 hours and remained increased (albeit not significantly) at 6 hours after exercise, compared with the preexercise value. In the absence of any stimulus, leukocyte ROS production was significantly increased at 6 and 24 ho...


Obviously, the basic of the earthquake disaster prevention is the strengthening against the earthquake load. The devastations caused by the Sichuan Earthquake in May 2008 were mainly based on the lack of the strength of the many facilities and structures. However, in case of the facilities functional with moving themselves as transportation system, because it will be unstable during the earthquake motion, it is necessary to escape from the situation as meeting with the large earthquake motion during the system working.


For improving QoS multicast routing in Internet, based on multipopulation PSO and game theory, a new QoS multicast routing algorithm is proposed. It consists of three parts: edge evaluation, game analysis, and multicast tree construction. Based on the degree of membership functions, the candidate edges parameters are evaluated synthetically. Nash equilibrium between network provider utility and user utility are determined on candidate edges by game analysis, and attempts to construct a multicast routing tree with not only user QoS requirements satisfied, but also Pareto optimum under Nash equilibrium on network provider utility and user utility, achieved or approached by the proposed algorithm. The performance of the algorithm is verified by simulation.


The assessment and development of leadership potential in organizations is a critical factor in an effective talent management strategy. Given the business environment, war for talent, and greater involvement from Boards of Directors on succession planning many organizations have prioritized their high-potential identification practices over other human capital goals. Although much has been written about theories and tools in the area of high-potential assessment, there remains little independent guidance for practitioners looking to compare practices across organizational settings. This article represents a follow-up study to Church and Rotolo (2013) based on responses from 80 top leadership development companies on their high-potential and senior executive talent programs and assessment practices. The results of this more in-depth study focus on how organizations define leadership potential, content domains being assessed today, and various other design elements including degree of transparency of high-potential labels, shelf-life of assessments, talent distributions, and access to results. Attitudes toward assessments, including performance impact, are also discussed. The article concludes with summary observations and implications for industrial‐organizational psychologists, consulting psychologists, and talent management professionals.


Religion in the Trenches : Miniature Scriptures and Artifacts for Muslim and Sikh Soldiers in the British Army during World War I


The described design of a permanent magnet synchronous motor for battery electric vehicles is based on a drive cycle. For a given vehicle a set of operating points of the electric machine can be derived from the cycle. The next step in the design of the traction motor is to find a suitable lamination layout. Common motor design procedures take only a few representative operating points into account. This paper describes an approach which includes a large number of operating points at early stages of the motor design process. It is based on a specialized motor model and an optimization strategy which are described in this paper. As an example a traction motor for the VW Golf CityStromer is designed by using the proposed method.


Numerical simulations of the weak beam–plasma instability were done in the turbulent regime where small‐scale trapping is a dominant feature of the instability, a regime with behavior not predicted by quasilinear theory. It occurs when the trapping frequency ν=(k2D)1/3 is larger than the growth rate γk of the instability. The results of the simulations were compared with those of a specific model of the turbulence, the so‐called ''turbulent trapping'' model, which gives precise formulas for the particle correlation functions, and predicts a growth rate well enhanced over the quasilinear value. It was found that the model gives accurate predictions for the correlation functions, and thus provides a good description of the turbulent structure of phase space. On the other hand, while growth rates were enhanced over the quasilinear values, the enhancements observed are smaller than expected from the quantitative predictions of the model.


In recent years, with the development of engineering material technology and its application in project, a number of choices are available for the slope protection project in riverway. For the increasing number of applications of gabion and reno mattress in such engineering projects, as advanced flexible materials, which are also obviously competitive in protection effect and service life, they are more expensive comparing to the traditional masonry and concrete. Therefore, comprising AHP method and both the qualitative and the quantities analyses focusing on five major factors, the execution condition, construction cost, protection effect, service life and management & maintenance, this paper provides reference for decision-makers to choose the most appropriate material in the slope protection project.


Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET) have a wide array of military and commercial applications. Many traditional protocols can not meet various increasing requirements in efficiency and security yet. In this paper, we propose a novel solution in a different perspective. First we present a more appropriate definition to the measurement of network condition, in order to reform a more precise two-dimensional criterion. Second we propose a Back-off Observing Mechanism (BOM) to improve efficiency by considering the network context. Third we take full advantage of trusted computing technology to design a secure scheme, which could protect users against various attacks. Combining all three components, we form Trusted Adaptive Routing Strategy (TARS) with BOM. At last, we give a performance analysis of our scheme, which shows that TARS with BOM outperforms previous work in both efficiency and security, and we experimentally prove this conclusion.


Aim: The aim of this study; to investigate the clinical course and mortality of COVID-19 in chronic liver patients with and without cirrhosis and to determine decompensation rates during COVID'19 in cirrhotic patients.
Materials and Methods: 96 patients with chronic liver disease (30 of them cirrhosis) and 153 patients without any comorbid disease were included in this study. It was examined whether there was a difference among these patient groups in terms of severity and mortality of COVID-19.
Results: Severe COVID-19 developed in 46.6% (14/30) cirrhotic patients, in 15.1% (10/66) non-cirrhotic patients, and in 12.4% (19/153) patients with no chronic liver disease (p


Two new species belonging to tribe Gabuniini of the subfamily Mesosteninae, Torbda albivittatus sp.nov. and Apocryptus gratus sp.nov., collected from the Funiu Mountains in Henan Province of China, are described. All specimens are preserved in the General Station of Forest Pest Management, the State Forestry Administration, China.1 Torbda albivittatus sp.nov. (Figs 1 3) Holotype ♀, Henan: Xixia, Laojieling Natural Reserve (33 6°N,111 6°E), 1?550?m, 17 July 1998, SHENG Mao Ling, SUN Su Ping. This species is similar to T.parallela Momoi, 1970, can be distinguished from the latter by the following characters: face with dense and coarse punctures; apical transverse carina of propodeum very weak, complete centrally; first tergite about 2 times as long as its apical width; face, mesopleurum and mesosternum, coxae black.2 Apocryptus gratus sp.nov. (Fig 4) Holotype ♀, Henan: Xixia, Laojieling Natural Reserve (33 6°N,111 6°E), 1?550?m, 17 July 1998, SHENG Mao Ling, SUN Su Ping. Paratype 1♀, Henan: Neixiang, Baotianman Natural Reserve (33 4°N,111 9°E), 1?100 1?300?m, 13 July 1998. Other data as holotype. This species can be distinguished from all known Chinese species by: smooth thorax, propodeum smooth without punctures or wrinkles. It is similar to A.nitidus Gupta et Gupta, 1983 but can be distinguished from the latter by the following characters: submedian sections of apical carina of propodeum broken; the ridges on the subapex of the lower valve of the ovipositor distinctly divided into two groups; upper part of face and mesoscutum entirely black; apical part of propodeum yellow; first tergite with shallow wrinkle punctures.


Despite significant advances in percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), bifurcation lesions still remain technically challenging for treatment. In an attempt to treat bifurcation lesions, innovative interventional techniques such as T-stenting, V-stenting and crush stenting have been developed. However, stenting both main and branch vessels inherently involves geometrical constraint on the devices at the site of a branch junction. Moreover, dynamic cardiac motion may cause significant deformation of the coronary artery (Fig. 1) and hence may adversely impact the functionality as well as durability of stents. This critical issue has been emphasized by recent studies on stent strut fracture-induced restenosis in a bifurcation lesion [1]. Although it has been hypothesized that cardiac motion causes significant mechanical stress on coronary stents, three-dimensional (3D) characteristics of the coronary artery deformation are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to quantify the change in the bifurcation angle between the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) and left circumflex artery (LCX), and the curvature change of the LAD during the cardiac cycle.Copyright © 2009 by ASME


This essay, part of a symposium on the use of foreign cases in domestic adjudication, explores the reasons the Supreme Court's occasional citation of foreign cases has spawned vociferous opposition from some judges, politicians, and commentators. The essay offers a brief taxonomy of the jurisprudential criticisms lodged against the practice, observes that they have been deployed selectively, and concludes that the opportunistic use of these criticisms may demonstrate that they are often deployed as stand-ins for a different and more political concern - namely, how the United States should respond to a new global culture that deems national law subordinate to universal human rights norms.


For all the insights that it provides on the national motivations that produced the Free Trade Agreement, Making Free Trade Work fails to address the larger issue of the future of the Agreement. This book is guilty of having taken the economic and political contexts of the Free Trade Agreement for granted, and of completely disregarding two very serious realities. These realities—a Mexico ready and willing to deal and a Canada where the Free Trade Agreement is certain to have a difficult future—cannot be ignored.


Perylene bisimides (PBIs) are among the best fluorophores but have to be enwrapped for optoelectronic applications by large and heavy substituents to prevent their ππ‐stacking, which is known to accelerate non‐radiative decay processes in the solid state. Here, light‐weight di‐tert‐butylsilyl groups are introduced to bridge 1,12‐dihydroxy and 1,6,7,12‐tetrahydroxy PBIs to afford sublimable dyes for vacuum‐processed optoelectronic devices. For both new compounds, this substitution provides a twisted and shielded perylene π‐core whose, via OSiObridges, rigid structure affords well‐resolved absorption and emission spectra with strong fluorescence in solution, as well as in the solid state. The usefulness of these dyes for vacuum‐processed optoelectronic devices is demonstrated in organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) that show monomer‐like emission spectra and high maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax) values of up to 3.1% for the doubly silicon‐bridged PBI.