In 2011, the Brazilian Methodist Church celebrates 40 years of the approval of the admission of women as elders of or pastor in the Church. Among the many fruits resulting from this opening, exists today at the Theology Seminary of the Methodist Church the Otilia-Chaves-Center, a space for training, sharing and reflection on issues concerning gender church and society. Within this context of the celebrations of these 40 years, the Otilia-Chaves-Center was also challenged to contribute by organizing a Dossier uniting articles written by Methodist women. The theological journal Caminhando presents in this edition the results of this initiative, containing articles of pastors and theologians of the Methodist Church, working in various areas within church and society. The proposal is to share what these women are producing in their field of knowledge. In this journal, you find mainly reflections focusing on the three major areas of theological knowledge: biblical, systematic and pastoral theology. On the subject of the Bible, Suely dos Santos Xavier, elder of the Methodist Church and professor for the Old Testament, presents in dialogue with Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert and Rene Girard,an anthropological reading of sacrifice interpreting Leviticus 6:17-23, in order to understand a little more about societies where sacrifice is a central part of its religion. In the area of  Theology / History, Margarida Ribeiro, elder of the Methodist Church and historian, points out the trajectory of Methodist women from England to Brazil, and how these women made a difference in their time. After this, Elena Silva, elder of the Methodist Church and educator, emphasizes the role of the first Methodist woman preachers, especially those who exercised their ministries based on what she calls their "social charisma". In a similar direction, Vera Silva elder of the Methodist Church and educator presents the possibility of Christian education in everyday life, especially in dialogue with Luke 24:13-35, a narrative of a daily life situation showing the pedagogical attitude of Jesus . In a pastoral perspective, several issues are addressed. Elizabete Cristina Costa Renders, theologian and educator, introduces into the universe of inclusion and demonstrates how important it is that the church dialogues and develops effective initiatives of inclusion so that its mission will be directed to all people. Blanches de Paula, elder of the Methodist Church, professor of pastoral theology and psychologist, discusses the importance of palliative care, a health care able to attend people with a terminal illness and who are facing the process of dying. Renilda Garcia, elder of the Methodist Church and educator, dialogs with Paulo Freire and discusses the applicability of his concept of "To be more" in Christian education. Finally, Hideide Brito Torres, Methodist elder, writer and journalist, offers a study about a series of programs concerning "Protestants" which have been broadcasted by the Journal Nacional, the major news program, at May 2009. The author seeks to understand the discursive relations between TV journalism, religion and science, based on a dialogue with Michel Foucault. We deliver this Dossier to our readers with satisfaction and hope that it will serve as an instrument of study, and at the same time, as a space to sharing everydays live both in communities of faith and at university. We wish a pleasant reading. Otilia Chaves Center Suely Xavier dos Santos Margarida Ribeiro Editors of the Dossier


The utility model discloses a test device for a transponder and a ground electronic unit. The test device comprises an electronic box, an upper computer and a test circuit board arranged in the electronic box, wherein the upper computer is connected with the test circuit board in the electronic box; and an interface circuit respectively connected with the transponder and the ground electronic unit is arranged on the test circuit board. In the scheme provided in the utility model, due to small volumes of the transponder and the ground electronic unit, a worker can directly carry the test device to the place where the transponder and the ground electronic unit are and carry out a message reading/writing operation or a test on the transponder and the ground electronic unit. Consequently, the scheme provided in the utility model has the characteristics that the test device is simple to use and convenient to carry, is time-saving, etc.


The foraging ecology of King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) at Pos- session Island, Crozet Archipelago, was studied between January and March 1993 and between February and March 1994. Diving activity and position of the birds were deter- mined via externally attached logging units. Feeding behavior was detected using stomach temperature sensors. All calculated positions of the birds occurred south of Possession Island. The area most frequented was situated 250 km south of the island (48.5? S), where birds stayed for 40 h during a foraging trip, on average. The overall swim speed differed with time into the foraging trip, being lowest during the central part and highest (10 km/h) during the last night at sea, when birds were returning to the colony. Diving activities showed a clear diurnal pattern, with maximum dive depth being dependent on ambient light levels. During the night, only shallow dives 85% of the feeding events occurred during daylight and at twilight. Mean food mass ingested was calculated to be -2350 g/d, with the highest amounts ingested during the central and penultimate days of the foraging trip. Foraging success (grams ingested per unit time underwater) was also highest (>370 g/h) at this time. The relationships between foraging strategy, inter- and intraspecific competition, and King Penguin body mass are discussed.


The present invention discloses a collecting method of electric information, apparatus, and systems, to power line carrier communication technology, and collecting apparatus using a power line narrowband carrier communication system, acquiring user power data from the customer's meter through the power lines, and the use of broadband power line carrier communication mode, the user of electricity through the power line to upload data concentrator. The method disclosed in the present invention, apparatus and system, thanks to the narrowband carrier communication system acquires user data from the power meter, and a broadband communication carrier power data uploaded to the communications concentrator, can avoid complicated wiring threading issues, while make communication safe, reliable, fast and stable.


Short-term power load forecasting plays a vital role in the planning of distribution network and the development of social economy, and it is a very important task to forecast the power load accurately and reliably. Many researchers have devoted their attention to construct point forecasting models. However, due to errors in load forecasting are simply unavoidable and always are significant, point forecast methods are difficult to capture the characteristics of large fluctuation for power load. Therefore, the construction of interval forecasting is particularly important to improve the accuracy of power load forecasting. In this paper, the nonparametric Bootstrap sampling method is used to estimate the confidence interval of different interval errors and construct the interval forecasting to reduce the error of load forecasting. Sliding windows method is firstly used to pre-process original data, Extreme Learning Machine AdaBoost model is adopted to simulate points forecasting. Then, intervals are divided according to the actual values, and the errors in each interval are sampled by nonparametric Bootstrap method. Finally, the ultimate forecasting error is reduced by the confidence interval of the error. The proposed model is used to forecast power load for Queensland, Australia. The experimental results show that the proposed method performs better than other comparative models.


The problem of education for girls especially for minority nationality girls is one of hot issues in the field of education today.A thorough understanding of the status of girls' education and an analysis on the existing problems in the education for minority nationality girls has a very important significance in developing our education and improving the level of education for the minority nationality girls.


The precise agriculture needs the high precision positioning information,the network RTK is the method of high precision positioning now.On the basis of JSCORS'stream resources analysis,the author proposed a simple and cheap method of realizing network RTK/RTD receiver,the success of receiving the network RTD data proved this method was feasible.


The goal of this note is to provide a general lower bound on the number of even values of the Fourier coefficients of an arbitrary eta-quotient [Formula: see text], over any arithmetic progression. Namely, if [Formula: see text] denotes the number of even coefficients of [Formula: see text] in degrees [Formula: see text] (mod [Formula: see text]) such that [Formula: see text], then we show that [Formula: see text] is unbounded for [Formula: see text] large. Note that our result is very close to the best bound currently known even in the special case of the partition function [Formula: see text] (namely, [Formula: see text], proven by Bellaïche and Nicolas in 2016). Our argument substantially relies upon, and generalizes, Serre's classical theorem on the number of even values of [Formula: see text], combined with a recent modular-form result by Cotron et al. on the lacunarity modulo 2 of certain eta-quotients. Interestingly, even in the case of [Formula: see text] first shown by Serre, no elementary proof is known of this bound. At the end, we propose an elegant problem on quadratic representations, whose solution would finally yield a modular form-free proof of Serre's theorem.


The shafting torsional vibration mode of generator sets reflects dynamic process of the power grid. This paper proposes a novel real-time algorithm for shafting torsional vibration mode decomposition of generator sets, which has excellent time-frequency resolution. The algorithm realizes the signal frequency resolution filtering based on classic infinite impulse response (IIR) filtering. At the same time, the inertia of the narrow-band filtering algorithm is eliminated through multi-period rotation IIR filtering and the time-frequency dynamic resolution of the modal decomposition is realized. PSCAD-based simulation verifies that the algorithm has the frequency anti-aliasing performance, and can fully reserve the time-frequency variation characteristics and can realize the multi-mode real-time decomposition of the torsional vibration perfectly. The algorithm can also be used for the time-frequency analysis in other fields.


Despite the findings from recent research, more investigations of both teacher and student perceptions of the advisor advisee period need to be done in a variety of different types of schools. Therefore, one of the purposes of the present study was to obtain the views of both teachers and stu dents regarding the advisor-advisee pro gram being conducted in their rural mid western middle school. A second purpose was to determine if the perceptions of the students varied by grade level.


By. ELIZABETH. L. HAZEN, PH.D., and FRANK CURTIS REED. Pp. xii + IO8, with 22 illustrations. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd. 1955. 40s. Mycology is a vast, difficult and incompletely explored field and the experts in it are few. Medical mycology is a small'fragment of it, over complicated by repeated changes of nomenclature and by inadequate co-operation between laboratory and clinical workers; few, if any, pathologists in this country are prepared to confine their attention to it. The average pathologist is frightened from the subject altogether by the size of the systematic study or by the pettiness of the purely medical one. This small book will meet the needs of the bacteriologist who wishes to identify the occasional mould that arrives in his department without laboriously learning a new and difficult language the words of which may change from year to year. It is frankly a picture book with each stage of the development of the mould illustrated. The excellent photographs are accompanied by brief descriptions of the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of each organism and of the cultural methods required. There is an appendix giving the formulae of the media mentioned. The book can be confidently recommended to anyone wishing to identify the pathogenic fungi. W.H.H.


Background: Cardiovascular diseases and hypertension has a significant correlation with chronic arsenic exposure through drinking water. Objectives: To investigate the prevention of sodium arsenate induced vascular disorders by Vitamins C& E in fetal renal blood vessels of albino mice. Methods: Gravid albino mice of BALB/c strain (twenty-four) were randomly divided into 4 groups having 6 animals each. Control group A was inoculated with 0.1ml/kg/day distilled water I/P for 18 days. Animals of groups B, C & D were given a single I/P injection of sodium arsenate 35mg/kg on 8 GD, whereas groups C and D were also injected with Vitamin C, 9 mg/kg/day and vitamin E 15 mg/kg/day by I/P route, beginning from 8 GD and continued for the entire pregnancy period. On 18 day of gestation fetal kidneys were extracted. Histological examination of renal blood vessels was performed for any discernable congestion, endothelial disruption and hyalinization and frequency of changes were expressed as percentages. Results: In group (B) sodium arsenate induction resulted in congestion of blood vessels, hemorrhages in glomerular capillaries and thickening of endothelial walls. The addition of Vitamins C and E in groups C & D respectively had reduced the congestion and endothelial thickening. Mean score of histological changes was statistically significant. Conclusions: The results showed the antioxidant prospective of Vitamins C and E in combating against the vascular lesions induced by sodium arsenate.


The Bahadur representation of kerneltype quantile estimator under α-mixing random variable is established,and the asymptotic normality of kernel-type quantile estimator is given,which extends the result of independent random variables.


Fast-track surgery, also named enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS), is in my opinion the most important innovation after the advent of laparoscopy (in the 1990s) in the field of colorectal surgery (as in other fields of surgery). It is defined as a multimodal pathway aiming to reduce surgical stress by using pain-free procedures with less organ dysfunction, less morbidity and better recovery. ERAS has been popularized by Henrik Kehlet and his team since the early 2000s [1] and has rapidly gained popularity around the world because of its remarkable benefits and safety. The concept of ERAS is to make use of the improvement of anaesthetic and analgesic techniques, the development of minimally invasive surgery and evidence-based perioperative care. It involves a number of items, beginning from the first medical visit before surgery to discharge. The items are all evidence based being derived from randomized controlled trials or meta-analyses. The reader can find the references related to the ERAS items in the valuable consensus review published by the European ERAS group [2] and the paper of Kehlet and Wilmore [3]. Through this pathway, the patient can benefit from the best available evidence in anaesthesia, analgesia, perioperative fluid management, surgical procedures, nutrition and ambulation. I will focus in this editorial on the role of ERAS in colorectal surgery, but readers should be aware that ERAS has been applied and validated in other abdominal procedures, and in urology, gynaecology, vascular sugery, endocrine surgery, orthopaedic surgery, etc. [3]. The numerous items or components (Figure 1) involve the preoperative, intra-operative and postoperative periods, necessitating close collaboration between surgeons (no bowel preparation, no routine nasogastric tube, minimally invasive surgery, no routine abdominal drainage and early postoperative diet), anaesthesiologists (fasting duration of two hours for liquids and six hours for solids, carbohydrate loading, no routine preoperative sedation, avoiding long-acting opioids, epidural analgesia, preventing postoperative nausea and vomiting, preventing intra-operative hypothermia, perioperative fluid restriction and postoperative analgesia) and nurses and physiotherapists (early nutrition and mobilisation). Several randomized trials and four meta-analyses [4–7] have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of ERAS, not only in reducing total length of hospital stay and morbidity, but also in improving patient satisfaction when compared with conventional care. The metaanalyses included both randomized and non-randomized studies, the most recent and the largest [6] showing a reduction of 2.5 days in total hospital stay and significantly less morbidity (OR 0.54 [0.45–0.69]) in favour of the ERAS group, with no difference in readmission rate. A recent meta-analysis focusing on major colorectal surgery demonstrated that the ERAS programme can reduce morbidity by up to 50% [7]. ERAS raises three questions. (i) What is the respective role of each ERAS item? (ii) Does the ERAS protocol increase the workload of ward nursing staff? (iii) How should this new paradigm be implemented? Several anaesthesiologists are reluctant to use epidural analgesia in daily practice, mainly when patients are undergoing laparoscopic surgery. Epidural analgesia (well known to be associated with less pain) during laparoscopic surgery has been assessed in meta-analyses and randomized trials but the conclusions are not concordant [8,9]. In my own daily practice, epidural analgesia is safe and efficacious in relieving pain and allowing early oral intake and mobilization, but it is obvious that its proper role in the ERAS protocol compared with other analgesic regimens such as non-opioid multimodal analgesia, local anaesthesia and continuous wound perfusion, in the era of laparoscopic surgery needs further evaluation. The roleof laparoscopyhas also been debated [10]. Two small randomized trials have shown conflicting results [11,12], but a recent large randomized trial [13] involving four arms (laparoscopy with ERAS vs laparoscopy with conventional care, vs open surgery with ERAS vs open surgery with conventional care) has demonstrated a shorter hospital stay after laparoscopic colonic surgery with ERAS, the other outcomes being similar. The conclusion of the authors was that 'the most optimal perioperative treatment forpatients requiring segmental colectomy for coloncancer is laparoscopic resection embedded in an ERAS program', suggesting that laparoscopic surgery is an important component of ERAS. The same team has performed a futher multivariate linear regression analysis on the same data and showed that the components significantly associated with a successful ERAS programme were laparoscopic surgery, normal diet at postoperative days one, two and three and enforced mobilization at postoperative days one, two and three (Vlug M, personal communication). There is a feeling that the ERAS programme could increase the workload of nursing staff. The nursing staff


This paper presents a linear active disturbance rejection control (LADRC)-based sensorless control for interior permanent-magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM) drives considering harmonic current suppression. Firstly, a LADRC is developed in an estimated synchronously rotating reference frame to directly estimate back electromotive force (EMF), which is treated as a disturbance, without using low-pass filter or switching function. Then, the rotor position and speed are obtained from the estimated back EMF without any phase delay or speed chattering problem. Secondly, the periodically oscillating position estimation error caused by the harmonic current is analyzed and then a novel harmonic current controller based on second order generalized integrator (SOGI) and phase-locked loop (PLL) is proposed to further improve the rotor position estimation performance. Finally, the performance of the proposed LADRC-based sensorless control with harmonic current suppression is validated by simulation results for a 200-W IPMSM drive system.


SummaryOn the grounds that the inverted pendulum model of sway behaviour necessarily implies that sway behaviour will be a linear function of physique, an attempt was made to predict sway behaviour from appropriate individual and composite physique variables. Antero-posterior (Fy) and lateral (Fx) horizontal force components of sway behaviour were recorded for 58 young adults, 29 male and 29 female, using a multicomponent biomechanical measuring platform (Kistler, 9261A). From these records, digitized using an Hewlett Packard Fourier Analyser (HP5451A), a rectified sway impulse was calculated. Height, weight, lean body mass (method of Siri 1956), ponderal index (Hirata 1972) and body surface area (Dubois and Dubois 1916) were also determined for each subject. Correlations between sway magnitude and these physique variables were calculated and appropriate multiple regression equations computed. All correlations were low, with those for the men being consistently lower than those for the women, and all regr...


In this paper, we address the problem of speech recognition in the presence of additive noise. We investigate the applicability and efficacy of auditory masking in devising a robust front end for noisy features. This is achieved by introducing a masking factor into the Vector Taylor Series (VTS) equations. The resultant first order VTS approximation is used to compensate the parameters of a clean speech model and a Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) estimate is used to estimate the clean speech features. The proposed algorithms are validated through experiments on a noise corrupted TIMIT speech recognition database. We show significant performance gain for the proposed method as compared to the traditional VTS algorithm.


In SMEs the implementation of knowledge management is different from big companies. On the one hand there are shorter ways for making a decision, but on the other hand there are fewer resources, fewer human resources and fewer financial resources as well. Therefore only single components of a knowledge management system should be implemented. The article explains which tools support the knowledge management working process in small and medium sized enterprises. Another focus of this article is the analysis of information needs and demands, which is a necessary precondition of a useful implementation of knowledge management. Particularly in the small and mediums sized companies such an analysis can give a direction for the implementation of single tools of knowledge management. Analyses of information needs can be conducted in different departments of company for providing a basis of information about the internal and external communications and then failures. Thereupon knowlede management can be optimized. The article shows in detail which methods of information needs analyses exist and which are especially expedient in SMEs.


Expert systems are receiving a tremendous amount of attention in the data processing and business communities. But few business educators have been exposed to the base concepts of expert systems or can appreciate the effect they will have on business. This presentation covers the fundamental principles of the design and development of expert systems in business. Special emphasis is placed ability of an expert system to simulate the behavior of a manager or executive in a decision making situation. The structure and operation of a typical expert systems is presented. The use of expert system development tools and expert system shells is discussed. An example is given of how an expert system can be used to capture and simulate management knowledge and the decision making process. As expert system development tools become commonplace, business educators must become as proficient with expert systems as they are now with spreadsheets.


When the theme for the 2008 Australasian Tax Teachers' Conference was announced (The Devil's in the Detail), the author immediately thought of the non-commercial losses provisions. These provisions are contained in Division 35 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) ('ITAA 1997') and restrict individuals from offsetting losses from non-commercial activities against other income.


Ionized gas dynamics is discussed in terms of two coupled equations for the one‐ and two‐particle distribution functions. The equations have been obtained previously by multiple integration of the Liouville equation and a formal expansion in the specific volume. The two‐particle equation is solved for a multicomponent plasma in terms of two operators which depend on the one‐particle functions. It is shown that these operators have a simple interpretation and lend an easy insight into the correlation mechanism. If one neglects the time dependence of the one‐particle functions which occur in the operators, then the operators can be obtained explicitly. This procedure is shown to be valid for plasmas with ``smooth'' velocity distributions and no large inhomogeneities. When velocity instabilities exist, the correlation function is subject to growing oscillation. The ultimate effect of this instability is not clear.


Cassilly, a New Yorker with an interest in Oriental art, donated two albums (JP205, 2o6), and the subsequent rapid growth of this collection is closely tied to a handful of diverse personalities centered in New York City. By 1949, the year of the purchase of the Louis V. Ledoux collection, all but a few hundred of the present 3,600 prints had been accessioned. New York was not the only center of Japanese print collecting in America (Boston and Chicago were in the forefront), and the Metropolitan did not benefit from every local collection. Nonetheless, the magic lure of the colored woodblock print enhanced the lives of a fascinating cross-section of artists, scholars, and philanthropists. The story of how these collectors came to amass and treasure so many of these flimsy sheets of mulberry paper will be told in the following pages. The Japanese print is a joint effort requiring the collaboration of an artist who creates the original design, an engraver who cuts the woodblocks, a printer who applies the colors to the blocks and rubs the handmade mulberry bark paper face down on the blocks with a baren, and a publisher who advertises and distributes the prints and finances the entire project. Printed images in black and white with Buddhist themes date from as early as the eighth century in the Far East, but the spread of printing in Japan on a large scale in the second half of the seventeenth century, a time of peace and prosperity, saw secular themes come into their own as well. These prints appealed to a broad-based audience of well-to-do townsmen whose favorite images were those of actors and courtesans in the entertainment quarters (the socalled ukiyo or "floating world"). In the nineteenth century, when avid Japanese travelers began to crisscross the countryside, representations of famous beauty spots were in demand as souvenirs. Prints were mass-produced in editions as large as ten thousand, and most were purchased for their topical, documentary interest, rather than as works of art. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when Japan was concentrating fully on modernization, the earlier woodblock prints were apparently viewed as cheap export items. As a result, the largest and best collections of ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") can today be found in the West.


Medical free-text records store a lot of useful information that can be exploited in developing computer-supported medicine. Nevertheless, extracting terminological knowledge from unstructured text is difficult because the volume of medical texts created every year keeps growing at a very fast pace and it is highly dependent on the language under examination. In this work, we present an initial study of a Natural Language Processing pipeline in order to extract terminological information from pathology reports and link this information to medical ontologies.


Abstract Metal–organic frameworks containing multiple metals distributed over crystallographically equivalent framework positions (mixed‐metal MOFs) represent an interesting class of materials, since the close vicinity of isolated metal centers often gives rise to synergistic effects. However, appropriate characterization techniques for detailed investigations of these mixed‐metal metal–organic framework materials, particularly addressing the distribution of metals within the lattice, are rarely available. The synthesis of mixed‐metal FeCuBTC materials in direct syntheses proved to be difficult and only a thorough characterization using various techniques, like powder X‐ray diffraction, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, unambiguously evidenced the formation of a mixed‐metal FeCuBTC material with HKUST‐1 structure, which contained bimetallic Fe−Cu paddlewheels as well as monometallic Cu−Cu and Fe−Fe units under optimized synthesis conditions. The in‐depth characterization showed that other synthetic procedures led to impurities, which contained the majority of the applied iron and were impossible or difficult to identify using solely standard characterization techniques. Therefore, this study shows the necessity to characterize mixed‐metal MOFs extensively to unambiguously prove the incorporation of both metals at the desired positions. The controlled positioning of metal centers in mixed‐metal metal–organic framework materials and the thorough characterization thereof is particularly important to derive structure–property or structure–activity correlations.


Speech-Emotion Recognition, (SER) is the process of attempting to recognize the emotional aspects of speech and the affective states irrespective of the semantic contents of the speech. This is to make capital out of the fact that underlying emotions are often reflected in the voice of a person. While studying speech-emotion recognition, it is a pertinent issue to find the combination of the audio features that we can extract from the speech and see which combination falls into place perfectly with a suitable classification system. But having a well-defined database for speech analysis and research is as much important to SER study. Hence, we have used the RAVDESS dataset. In our study we have used acoustic features that can reflect well-defined and sharp changes in emotional expression; for this we have extracted features like Amplitude Envelope, RMS and more from the time-domain, Spectral Centroid, Spectral bandwidth and more from the frequency-domain and Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients and more from the time-frequency domain. We have used the MLPClassifier for the classification of emotions. Our results show that a combination of MFCC, mel spectrogram and chroma is able to best explain the speech emotions through the MLPClassifier.


High switching frequency dc-dc converters are present in many applications where wide regulation bandwidth and high efficiency are needed. A resonant gate driver is presented for improvement of efficiency at light-to-medium load conditions. Gate power losses that are a main contributor to total losses are reduced thanks to energy recovery. A testchip designed in 0.25- BiCMOS shows as much as a 30% decrease in power losses compared to a conventional driver at 200-MHz switching frequency. The proposed resonant gate driver is fully integrated with its inductor unlike earlier works. The limitation in the reduction of gate losses is detailed and confirmed experimentally.


The classic idea is that aspects of the natural environment have both instrumental values and intrinsic (or inherent) values. Animals value the food on which they graze or the prey that they catch. Humans value natural resources. Plants, animals, and humans value their own lives and their offspring; they have a good of their own. They are naturally selected to be good adapted fits in their environments. Other environmental factors may have disvalues, such as storms, diseases, drought, or one's predators. A third concept is that virtuous humans ought to value relevant environmental values in both instrumental and intrinsic ways. Such values arise with human preferences; absent humans, no values exist in nature. That leaves some 3.5 billion years of pre-human life on earth valueless. A further account is that at ecosystem levels nature has systemic values. Individuals need their supporting systems. Although conflict is part of the picture, the organism has a situated environmental fitness. We want to value the lush life that is maintained by ecosystems—their diversity, unity, dynamic stability, and spontaneity; the dialectic of environmental resistance and conductance; and the creative life forces. We should likewise value environmental justice.


To explore the mechanism and male and female differences of hepatic cell's dam- nification induced by TDI.The effect of TDI on contents of superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA),and glutathione (GSH) in hepatic tissue was observed as a meas- urement for damage due to oxidation.Laser scanning confocal microscopy was used to ana- lyze the effect of TDI on the RNA and DNA in hepatic cells.And sex differences of toxicity were compared.MDA contents in hepatic tissues has increased significantly (P<0.01), while the contents of SOD (P<0.01) and GSH (P<0.05) have declined to different de- grees.The RNA/DNA ratio in hepatic cells has increased significantly after exposed to TDI. TDI exerts its toxic effect on the target organs through mechanism of oxidative damage;TDI can inhibit DNA synthesis.Furthermore,there is a difference between the dosage needed for causing damage in male and female.The endurable dosage of TDI on female is larger than that on male.


ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. MAP, storage, internal breakdown, gel breakdown, firmness, translucency, Prunus salicina SUMMARY. The influence of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) on quality attributes and shelf life performance of 'Friar' plums (Prunus salicina) was studied. Plums were stored at 0 � C and 85% relative humidity for a 60-day period in five different box liners (LifeSpan L316, FF-602, FF-504, 2.0% vented area perforated, and Hefty liner) and untreated (control). Flesh firmness, soluble solids concentration, titratable acidity, and pH were unaffected by the box liners. Fruit skin color changes were repressed on plums packed in box liners that modified gas levels and weight loss was reduced by the use of any of the box liners. Plums packed without box liners (bulk-packed) had 6% weight loss. High carbon dioxide (CO2) and low oxygen (O2) levels were measured in boxes with MAP box liners (LifeSpan L316, FF-602, and FF-504). Percentage of healthy fruit was unaffected by any of the treatments during the ripening period (shelf life) after 45 days of cold storage. However, after 60 days of cold storage, fruit from the MAP box liners with higher CO2 and lower O2 levels had a higher incidence of chilling injury (CI) symptoms, evident as flesh translucency, gel breakdown, and ''off flavor'' than fruit from the other treatments. Overall, results indicate that the use of MAP box liners is recommended to improve market life of 'Friar' plums up to 45 days cold storage. However, the use of box liners without gas control capability may lead to CI symptoms in fruit cold-stored for longer periods.


While much attention has been paid to company founders, very little is known regarding the first set of non-founder employees who join high-growth startups ("early employees"). This paper explores the wage differential between venture capital-backed startups and established firms given that the two firm types compete for talent. Using data on graduating college students from MIT, I find that VC-backed startups on average pay 8%-13% higher wages than their more established counterparts. I explore two channels for the cross-sectionally observed startup wage premium: compensating differentials and selection. The startup wage premium is robust after identifying and controlling for worker preferences for the three firm attributes (firm reputation, impactful work, and job security) that most strongly predict MIT graduates' entry into startups vs. established firms. To account for unobserved heterogeneity across workers, I exploit the fact that many MIT graduates receive multiple job offers and find that wage differentials are statistically insignificant from zero when individual fixed effects are employed. This implies that much of the startup wage premium can be attributed to selection rather than between-firm compensating differentials, and that VC-backed startups pay competitive wages for talent. Thesis Supervisor: Pierre Azoulay Title: International Programs Associate Professor of Management


Objective The aim of this study is to evaluate MUC5AC gene expression by the leukotriene receptor antagonist(LTRAs) montelukast in cultured human nasal epithelial cells.Methods Cultured human nasal epithelial cells(HNECs) were treated with leukotriene receptor antagonist montelukast,IL-1beta,the combination of both.The cultured human nasal epithelial cells were divided into four groups:the control,the IL-1beta,the montelukast and the montelukast + IL-1beta.After 24 h MUC5AC mRNAs were detected by fluorescent quantitative nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR).Results MUC5AC gene expression in HNECs were significantly different among the four groups(P 0.01).MUC5AC mRNA levels in HNECs induced by the combination of both were significantly decreased than that induced by IL-1beta(P 0.01).MUC5AC levels in HNECs induced by IL-1beta were significantly increased than the control(P 0.01).MUC5AC levels in HNECs induced by montelukast weren't different from control(P 0.05).Conclusion The leukotriene receptor antagonist montelukast downregulates the IL-1beta-induced MUC5AC gene expression in human nasal epithelial cells,but does not influence mucin gene expression in steady-state human nasal epithelial.


Prophylactic oophorectomy is a focused theme with disputes recently.The topics related to prophylactic oophorectomy are discussed in this article,including the objects for the operation,the molecular mechanism of the hereditary ovarian cancer,the method and the process of the operation,the pathological evaluation and risk assessment,psychological status and the hormone replacement therapy in patients after prophylactic oophorectomy.


The British press is notable for its longstanding resistance to accountability. However, the Leveson Inquiry, formed in response to the 2011 phone-hacking scandal, has opened up a dialogue on the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press and, by extension, the roles and responsibilities it is expected to bear. Taking the position that analyzing journalistic "metadiscourse"—journalism about journalism—is critical to understanding how the press views its role in a democracy, this study analyzes editorial comment in mainstream national daily and Sunday newspapers on the Leveson Inquiry from its inception to the conclusion of its hearing phase. We find four central discursive strategies: catastrophization (the slippery slope to state control), self-affirmation (affirming journalism's value to a democratic society), minimization (downplaying the significance of the phone-hacking scandal and therefore questioning the legitimacy of the inquiry), and localization (localizing the damage to the community to acts committed by a handful of members). We argue these findings are indicative of an institutional ideology that is quick to assert rights but largely resistant to notions of attendant responsibilities.


Cerebrospinal fluid shunt devices are increasingly being used for decompression, and despite excellent results, obstruction and infection are concerning complications, with underlying fungal etiology a rare consideration. In this study, we focus on pediatric shunt infections caused by Candida albicans in an extensive literature review and by reporting two additional cases. Very limited information regarding diagnosis and treatment of the Candidal shunt infections is available. Prematurity and use of broad spectrum antibiotics have been postulated as risk factors, and a CSF analysis prior to surgical placement of the shunt should be implemented as standard practice. Based on our cases, we suggest establishing the diagnosis based on a single positive fungal culture, and to initiate with intravenous and intraventricular antifungal therapy for two weeks, switching to oral antifungal medication for a total of 43 days in an outpatient setup without immediate ventriculoperitoneal shunt removal. Correspondence to: Parekh MA, Department of Neurosurgery, South City Hospital, Street 1, Block 3, Shahrah-e-Firdousi, Karachi 75600, Pakistan, Tel: (92)21-35862301-3, Fax: (92)21-35878639, E-mail: email@example.com


Emerging exascale systems have the ability to accelerate the time-to-discovery for scientific workflows. However, as these workflows become more complex, their generated data has grown at an unprecedented rate, making I/O constraints challenging. To address this problem advanced memory hierarchies, such as burst buffers, have been proposed as intermediate layers between the compute nodes and the parallel file system. In this paper, we utilize Cray DataWarp burst buffer coupled with in-transit processing mechanisms, to demonstrate the advantages of advanced memory hierarchies in preserving traditional coupled scientific workflows. We consider in-transit workflow which couples simulation of subsurface flows with on-the-fly flow visualization. With respect to the proposed workflow, we study the performance of the Cray DataWarp Burst Buffer and provide a comparison with the Lustre parallel file system.


We have studied the incisor enamel microstructure of Chaetomys subspinosus and other possibly closely related caviomorph rodents. Chaetomys subspinosus lacks the important synapomorphy of the Octodontoidea, rectangular plate-like interprismatic matrix (IPM) in the portio interna (PI) of the incisor Schmelzmuster. Therefore its transfer from the Erethizontidae to the Echimyidae, as proposed by Patterson and Wood (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. 149,371-543, 1982) based on retention of dP4, is contested. The parallel to acute angular IPM in the PI of Chaetomys and the Erethizontidae is a symplesiomorphy and does not indicate close relationship. Contrary to previous claims, a posterior carotid foramen is also retained in Chaetomys. Chaetomys is characterized by an unusual thin enamel which is considered primitive after outgroup comparison. Therefore, it is proposed to leave Chaetomys in the monospecific erethizontid subfamily Chaetomyinae, until additional information on the species is available.


Progress made in the construction of an experimental system to study boiling of water from the outer surface of tubes at low values of heat flux (from 5000 to 100,000 Btu/ hr ft/sup 2/) and pressures up to 2000 psia for both natural and forced convection is described. All major system components were installed. As of October 1, 1982, the system was ready for cleaning and preliminary tests. (auth)


Provided are a culture medium for preparing neural stem cells and use thereof, the culture medium for preparing neural stem cells comprising: a basic culture medium suitable for the growth of stem cells, and a cell signal pathway inhibitor selected from at least one of GSK inhibitor, MEK inhibitor, TGF-β inhibitor, ROCK inhibitor and BMP inhibitor.


Three classes of locally connected continua which admit sufficiently many maps
onto non-metric arcs are investigated. It is proved that all continua in those classes are continuous
images of arcs and, therefore, have other quite nice properties.


A correlation between the peak luminosity and the peak energy has been found by Yonetoku et al. as Lp∝E2.0p, i for 11 pre-Swift long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In this study, for a greatly expanded sample of 148 long GRBs in the Swift era, we find that the correlation still exists, but most likely with a slightly different power-law index, i.e., Lp ∝ E1.7p,i. In addition, we have collected 17 short GRBs with necessary data. We find that the correlation of Lp ∝ E1.7p,i also exists for this sample of short events. It is argued that the radiation mechanism of both long and short GRBs should be similar, i.e., of quasi-thermal origin caused by the photosphere, with the dissipation occurring very near the central engine. Some key parameters of the process are constrained. Our results suggest that the radiation processes of both long and short bursts may be dominated by thermal emission, rather than by the single synchrotron radiation. This might put strong physical constraints on the theoretical models.


Continuous steel-concrete composite beams strengthened by external prestress in both elastic and ultimate states are studied.The influence of prestress and its increment is considered.Based on the force method,formulae are proposed for calculating the yield and ultimate loads of the beams under symmetrical concentrated loads.Compared with the measurements of two specimens,the predicted results by the proposed formulae are accurate.The formulae are expected to be useful for design.


The present study was carried out to studying the effect of different levels of organic fertilizers (cow manure) on yield of alfalfa. For this purpose, a pot experiment with complete randomized block design in the form of a factorial experiment was carried out on a single soil sample with plant of Medicago sativa (alfalfa), two levels of cow manure (zero and 100 tons per hectare), and with eight repetitions during the farming year 2005-2006. Plant was harvested at the height of 20 cm in three turns. The harvested plant samples were dried in the oven and their yield was measured. According to the results obtained by comparing the means (base on LSD test), the effect of cow manure different levels on plant yield was significant in all three harvests (Pr 0.01). Yield of the plant during the first harvest of 3.2 g per pot, respectively, to 4.2 and 5.4 g per pot showed a significant increase in the second and third harvest. Because, its application is recommended up to the mentioned limit of the studied soils.


It has been over six months now since the entire globe was struck by the new Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19; aka severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2]), which has affected 215 nations. The medical and scientific communities continue to search for and study potential treatments for COVID-19 as well as an effective vaccine. As of 21 June 2020, 11.4 million cases have been confirmed worldwide, with approximately 530,000 deaths. A large number of scientific papers have been produced, hundreds of thousands of patients have been hospitalized and studied, several treatments and vaccines are being tested in randomized clinical trials, social distancing regulations have been implemented, with most of the planet in partial or full lockdown, and we have yet to control this pandemic.


Regarding the input-to-state stability (ISS) property, we extend it to arbitrary closed invariant sets various results which were previously known for the case of equilibria. In particular, we show the equivalence between stabilizability and feedback equivalence to ISS systems. In addition for the compact attractor case, we provide Lyapunov and dissipation-theoretic characterizations, and we relate this case to the notion of "practical" ISS (ISpS), a notion which appears in the context of small-gain theorems.


Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) is a large-scale equipment that is widely used in various tunnel constructions. However, the replacement of cutters still relies heavily on manual labor, which brings serious safety problems to workers and restricts the further improvement of TBM efficiency. At present, there is still no effective solution to solve this urgent engineering problem in tunnel projects constructed by TBM. In this article, we first analyze the current research progress of TBM automated cutter change and some key issues that need to be resolved when using automated cutter change. Then, this paper proposes a set of feasible automated cutter change solutions, including TBM cutter change robot and a new integrated cutter system. Finally, a TBM cutter changing robot trajectory planning algorithm based on binocular vision is proposed to solve the problem that the internal space of the TBM is narrow and the TBM cutter changing robot is difficult to locate the cutters.


Aluminum-carbon composition comprising aluminum and carbon, wherein the carbon and aluminum to form a single-phase material, characterized in that the carbon is not separated as a phase from the aluminum when the single-phase material is heated to melting temperature.


Two approximate methods have been developed for calculating the radar cross sections of nonconducting bodies. The superposition approximation used to obtain the radar cross sections of dielectric clad bodies requires that the scattering properties of the component parts be known. The modified geometrical optics method, which yields the radar cross sections of dielectric bodies, requires no such initial information. These methods can be applied to some bodies with shapes that cannot be treated by means of the classical boundary-value solutions. Furthermore, the computations required are usually considerably simpler than for the boundary-value solutions even when the latter are obtainable.


The growing needs of accuracy required for measurements in most sectors of human activitities makes metrology a prerequisite for improving industrial production as well as human health and environmental protection. This article outlines the metrology organisation at the international level and describes role and activities of the National Institute of Ionising Radiation Metrology (INMRI), the italian national metrological institute. The INMRI is an institute belonging to ENEA that has the task to develop and maintain the national primary standards for ionising radiation measurement. In its forthcoming issue this journal will present the activities carried out by some laboratories operating at ENEA as secondary calibration centres in various fields of measurement.


SUMMARY Different geranium (Pelargonium graveolens L. Herit) clones differed in susceptibility to root rot and wilt caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn. Reactions were consistent when assessed either by standardized laboratory tests or by pot experiments using 60-day-old well-rooted plants. Plants of an Algerian-type clone (Kd) had a lower survival rate and higher root rot index values than those of a Reunion type (Lo) and an Egyptian type (Eg). Field studies conducted in naturally-infected plots in southern India from 1987 to 1990 showed that summer planting resulted in higher plant losses of all clones than winter planting. As in the laboratory and pot experiments, the Lo and Eg clones sustained less plant loss and produced higher herbage and oil yields than the Kd clones in both field experiments.


Objective:To investigate the effects of inhibiting hRAD51 on the proliferation of osteosarcoma cells line and transplanted osteosarcoma in nude mice.Methods:The HOS-shA2 cell was constructed using RNA interference technology.Effect of silencing hRAD51 gene expression on the proliferation of osteosarcoma cells was investigated with MTT assay and colony formation test in vitro.Cell cycle distribution was observed using flow cytometry(FCM) analysis.The effect of silencing hRAD51 gene expression on the proliferation of transplanted osteosarcoma in nude mice was determined using tumor formation assay.Results:The hRAD51 gene-silenced cell line HOS-shA2 was successfully constructed.The proliferation ability of HOS-shA2 cells in vitro was obviously weakened compared with HOS and scrambled cells(P0.01).FCM analysis showed that the proportion of cells in G_2/M phase was significantly increased in HOS-shA2 cells(P0.01).Tumor formation assay in nude mice showed that the tumor growth was slowed down and the average tumor weight was decreased in HOS-shA2 group compared with HOS group and scrambled group.The difference was significant(P0.01).Conclusion:hRAD51 plays an important role in the proliferation of osteosarcoma.hRAD51 may become a new target for tumor gene therapy.


Switching Mode Power Supplies (SMPS) usually emit Electromagnetic Interferences (EMI) at switching frequency and its harmonics. There are many different methods to reduce EMI interferences made by switching converters. In this paper different kinds of spread spectrum EMI reduction methods have been tested. Unlike traditional proper tuned filters used for this purpose, PWFM technique is a reliable and cheap method which could be used in small high frequency converters using in communication circuits such as cellular phones and etc.


A method was developed for the determination of olaquindox in feed of chicken and fish by HPLC,with mobile phase of 15% methanol in water,flow rate of 0.9 mL/min,injection volume of 5 uL,detection wavelength of 260 nm.At the range between 10 and 100 μg/mL,there is a good linearity between the concentration and the peak area,r=0.999 98.The average recovery was 85.8%~99.4%.The RSD of intra-day was less than 5.7% and that of inter-day was less than 1.1%.Olaquindox was not found in 24 batches of chickens feed,but picked out in 62 batches of fish feed and the rate was 8.1%,content from 19.7 to 42.0 mg/kg.This method has a good separation degree.It is convenient,reproducible and accurate.


We improved the two-stage electrostatic precipitator (ESP) developed for information technology manufacturing with highly corrosive and explosive gases by adding a novel mixing-type charger to generate unipolar ions outside of the gas duct and inject them into the main gas flow using an additional electric field. The charging stage (100 × 100 × 400 mm3) is composed of a brush-type charger located outside of the upper part of the charging stage and two parallel plates with an additional electric field. Downstream of the charging stage is a typical collection stage with parallel plates and a collection area of 0.1 m2 at 50 L/min. Electrical and particle removal characteristics of the ESP were evaluated using ultrafine particles and varying the thickness, hole size, and electrical connections in the charging stage. The total air flow rate in the ESP during tests was approximately 50 L/min, with a 10:1 ratio of the main and mixing flows. Using our novel mixing-type charging stage and electrical connections, a high voltage of −5 kV was applied between the brush charger and the grounded upper plate, and a positive high voltage was applied to the lower plate in the charging stage. Collection efficiency ranged from 20% to 90% of 60 nm particles over a wide range of electrical potentials between the upper and lower plates of 0–15 kV.


The effects of carotenoids extracts from Potamogoton crispus L.(CEPC)on proliferation and apoptosis of Helacells were studied.This paper adopted visible light,fluorescence,electron microscopy and Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope(LSCM)to observe the cellular morphology of Hela cells under the effecfs of CEPC.After cells were treated with 2.5,5,10μg/ml CEPC,respectively,many typical apoptotic morphological features were observed by these apparatus,such as:the number of cells decreased,the cells shrunk,the cells distorted,the volume reduced,the antennas prolonged,the shape of cell nucleuses appeared like crescent or piece,the villus of cell membrane surface reduced,the vacuole inside plasm obviously increased,the chromosome in the cell nucleus shrunk and the content of RNA in the cell increased.So it suggested that the carotenoids of Potamogoton crispus L.have a marked inhibition on the proliferation of Hela cells and can induce Hela cells apoptosis.


Extreme probability analysis of drought periods were conducted on daily rainfall from 1944 to 1976 for the frequencies 7, 10, 15, 20 and 25 days to adjust crop phases according to their water need. The study indicated that the first, fortnight of June, second fortnight of July, first fortnight of August and second fortnight of September are not suitable for .sowing, flowering and pod formation, panicle initiation, earhead emergence and grain filling of kharif crops respectively. If the crop phases are adjusted as per their water need with the available depth of rainfall three years of very successful "'cropping, five years with success and the crops may undergo severe moisture stress in, two year period. Further, the study reveals that if proper crop sequence is chosen the crops would have good harvest in a year particularly where the soil depth exceeds a metre.


Blood tends to pool in the legs and abdomen when standing up. However, the ill effects are normally transient. They are corrected by sympathetic nervous reflexes causing arteriolar constriction in the legs and splanchnic region, which prevents transudation of fluid from capillaries, and releases extra blood from the splanchnic reservoirs. In addition secretion of renin is stimulated' and excretion of salt and water cut down. These mechanisms give both shortand long-term protection to the circulation in the upright posture. Postural hypotension usually results from some lesion on the efferent side of the autonomic system, most commonly in the efferent sympathetic tracts in the spinal cord, but also sometimes from peripheral nerve lesions or from destruction of the vasomotor centre. Some cases are due to well-recognized disease of the nervous system, as in diabetes mellitus with peripheral neuritis, tabes dorsalis, and syringomyelia. Other cases are "idiopathic," and in these it is common to find patchy degeneration of the spinal cord.2 A pointer to the condition is the appearance of impotence which often precedes the vascular symptoms by many years. But impotence is common and postural hypotension is relatively very rare. The first and most characteristic symptoms of the disorder are giddiness, muscular weakness, a feeling of faintness, and sometimes blurring of vision, occurring only when the patient (usually a man) is standing or walking. The symptoms are promptly relieved by lying down, and are usually worse in the mornings, when plasma volume is at its lowest.3 A diagnosis of epilepsy of late onset is often made; but the characteristic relation to posture, and the simple confirmation of the disorder by measuring the fall of blood pressure on standing, serve to make a firm clinical diagnosis possible in most cases. In doubtful cases it is worth admitting the patient to hospital so that observations of changes in blood pressure can be made in the early morning. Many different remedies have been tried. None is entirely satisfactory, and for any given patient it may be necessary to try several lines of treatment, sometimes in combination. Elastic stockings are the simplest measure but are of limited effectiveness. An antigravity suit, enclosing the legs at least to the hips, is much more effective but extremely cumbersome. An abdominal binder is helpful sometimes, but if it is too tight it may restrict venous return unduly and make matters worse. Drugs that constrict the arterioles would appear to be logical treatment, but they have met with only limited success. The ideal drugs might appear to be catecholamines and their analogues. Direct a-constrictors such as noradrenaline and phenylephrine (which can be given by mouth) should be effective in cases of postganglionic degeneration of sympathetic nerves, when supersensitivity to circulating catecholamines might be expected. But, when the denervation is preganglionic, indirecfly acting amines such as ephedrine might be effective.


This paper describes techniques for designing both the front and back end of a data warehouse in such a way that companies can continue to evolve their warehouse and query tools as their business changes, instead of continuously having to restructure and rewrite their existing tools. Object-oriented design and pattern languages are also discussed.


The utility model discloses a rotary cleaning device which comprises a housing as well as a motor, a universal wheel group and one or more sweeping drums which are arranged in the housing, wherein a garbage collection port is formed on each sweeping drum and is connected with a garbage collection box; the garbage collection boxes are respectively and independently arranged for the sweeping drums, or one garbage collection box is respectively connected to the garbage collection ports; thus, the plurality of sweeping drums are arranged, and the garbage collection ports are formed on the sweeping drums, so that all-around and all-angle sweeping is achieved during an autorotation type travelling process, and the use effect is good; moreover, the rotary cleaning device provided by the utility model has a simple structure and is easy to produce and manufacture; and the housing is designed to be a polygonal structure, so that the rotary cleaning device is suitable for grounds with different shapes, such as abnormal grounds with a plurality of turning corners thereon, and avoids dead angles which are not swept.


The sulphate-reducing bacteria represent the part of the biosphere, the active component in the cycle of elements in the biosphere and as shown by the existing knowledge they are becoming also the part of the environmental industrial technologies. The objective of this work was to give principal information concerning characteristics, the occurrence and the importance of sulphate-reducing bacteria in environment.


By studying the hand down net of Ci Yuan and comparing the Qi Shan Zhai handwritten copy with Shi Lin GhuangJi and so on,this paper points out that the volume one of Ci Yuan which is about the music data is a forged book.The volume one was not written by Zhang Yan,but forged by the other person on the basis of Shi Lin Guang Ji and so on.The volume two is the original book written by Zhang Yan.


This paper presents the development and the level control implementation of interconnected tanks system, through a motor-valve as actuator element and a level sensor as a sensor element. The implementation of the digital control is executed by using Matlab through a DAQ of NI. The controllers implemented are PID and algebraical.


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent statement in Hanoi that the U.S. is concerned about human rights violations in Vietnam is precisely the kind of rhetoric for which human rights and democracy activists have been calling. Demonstrations of U.S. concern about these issues made by high level officials is an integral part of efforts to improve human rights in countries like Vietnam. Clinton's remarks also signify, if not a shift, than certainly a break from comments she made in 2009 in China where she seemed to indicate that China's human rights violations were not all that important to the U.S. suggesting that for the U.S. and China "it might be better to agree to disagree" on those issues. Clearly, China plays a different global role than Vietnam and the U.S., as Clinton pointed out on that trip, has a number of other very important issues on which it needs to work with China, but the change in the tone of her remarks is striking.


In this work, we consider an adaptive two-user random access scheme with multipacket reception (MPR) capabilities. A user adapts its transmission characteristics based on the status of the other user. The users have external random traffic stored in their queues. We derive the stable throughput region of the system and the convexity conditions of this region. We derive analytically the queueing delay by formulating and solving a Riemann- Hilbert boundary value problem. Finally, we evaluate numerically the presented theoretical results.


Schrödinger dynamics is a nonlocal process. Not only does local perturbation affect instantaneously the entire space, but the effect decays slowly. When the wavefunction is spectrally bounded, the Schrödinger equation can be written as a universal set of ordinary differential equations, with universal coupling between them, which is related to Euler's formula. Since every variable represents a different local value of the wave equation, the coupling represents the dynamics' nonlocality. It is shown that the nonlocal coefficient is inversely proportional to the distance between the centers of these local areas. As far as we know, this is the first time that this inverse square law was formulated.


Report presenting an investigation of the rolling effectiveness of a wing-spoiler arrangement using a rocket-propelled test vehicle in free flight. The configuration investigated in the report is likely not optimum and indicates a need for further exploration.


The results of ascending aorta-right pulmonary artery anastomosis in 35 patients are reported. The patients ranged in age from 18 hours to 12 years; 16 were less than 12 months old. Seventeen had tetralogy of Fallot, six had pulmonary atresia and a ventricular septal defect, and eight had tricuspid atresia with hypoplasia of the right ventricle. In six infants under 4 months of age with tricuspid atresia, an atrial septal defect was made by the balloon catheter technique prior to the shunt operation. Four patients initially required digitalis for left heart failure. Three patients died in the postoperative period. The remaining 32 patients have been followed up to 3 years and have done well and maintained adequate shunts.


The number of horizontal oil wells has been increasing rapidly in the past few years because of several advantages of their application. However, further improvement in the oil production rate of horizontal wells is limited by the encroachment of water or gas when bottom-water or gascap exists. This encroachment of water or gas is called interface cresting. The behavior of the cresting in horizontal wells is unknown. The critical oil production rate (defined as the maximum water-free or gas-free production rate) and location of the water-oil or gas-oil interface need to be determined in horizontal oil wells. This work focuses on the theoretical analysis of the cresting behavior in line-sinklike horizontal wells under steady state flow conditions. The principle objectives of this investigation are (1) to develop an approach to determination of the critical oil production rate of horizontal wells and (2) to determination of the position of the water-oil or gas-oil interface. The mechanism of the water encroachment process is analyzed graphically in this study. This analysis reveals that the existence (or non-existence) of an unstable water crest depends upon the flowing pressure gradient beneath the well bore. If this flowing pressure gradient is less than the hydrostatic pressure gradient of water, a stable water crest exists right below the wellbore, i.e., no unstable water crest exists. By treating the horizontal weUbore as a line sink, conformal mapping theory was adopted in this study to solve the interface cresting problems under steady state flow conditions. The critical oil production rates and locations of the interfaces for two wateroil cresting systems and two gas-oil cresting systems were determined analytically in this investigation. The difference between the two water-oil cresting systems is the different locations of wellbores in the two flow domains. The wellbore is located at the top of the oil


Pesticides which is one of the part of the process built on the intensive input use, called green revolution in agriculture,have become an indispensable part of the modern agriculture both in our country and in the world. Feeding of the current population of the world is not possible without the use of pesticide, an agricultural system which is not used pesticide is far from realism due to the growing population and the reduction of arable area. Although research regarding pesticides and funds allocated to this sector Research and Development (R & D) increase continuously, the number of firms operating in the sector and introduced new environment-friendlyactive ingredients number has been decreasing steadily. Declining in the number of active substances placed on the market and prohibition of the existing active substances according to the recent studies are left in the lurch to farmers used these active ingredients and agricultural advisers. Fruit and vegetable growing and viticulture sectors used intensive pesticide will be one of the most affected agricultural sectors by this change. In this study, R & D activities in the pesticide industry and changing of the sector in the axis of these activities are evaluated


Provide a thermostat in a fault determination apparatus and method, a thermostat responsive to the actual temperature of the coolant in a vehicle engine, controlling the coolant flowing into the radiator. The apparatus comprises: detecting the actual temperature of the temperature detector; calculated estimated temperature of the temperature estimation portion of the coolant; and a failure determination means that the failure determining means at a cold start of the engine, by the temperature detector detects an actual temperature and the temperature estimation the estimated temperature calculating unit compares and determines whether the thermostat valve is open fault. In the non-operating mode of the engine automatic stop of the engine comprising at least, the temperature characteristics of the actual water temperature estimation section is applied to the estimated temperature calculated immediately before the automatic stop of the engine, to calculate the estimated temperature of the engine non-operation mode.


In a now classic 1994 article Victor Zhivov counters the idea that the eighteenth-century quest to create a modern Russian literature represented a wholesale rejection of Russia's previous literary tradition. He shows instead how poets appropriated elements of Orthodox liturgical tradition in a bid to adapt the classical notion of 'furor poeticus', marking it by the eruption of Church Slavonic norms into modern poetics. This chapter demonstrates how, as Zhivov contends, elements of Orthodox liturgical culture have continued to shape the modern Russian poetic tradition from the eighteenth century into the present. In particular, Russian poets have long presented poetry as uniquely able to transform the world by drawing on Orthodox imagery of theosis or divinization—the transfiguration of human life and thus the world, by the divine light and being. The liturgically inflected religious concerns of Russian poetry that sections address include prophecy, human co-creation with God, the problem of the body, and the role of silence.


Novelty detection is an important means to detect structural damage occurrence. Nevertheless auto-associative memory neural network, the current novelty detection method, may give faulty information in structural novelty detection when the training and testing data are un-normally distributed or polluted by noise with different levels. Present a new approach called statistical neural network for structural damage detection, based on the neural network and statistical principle. The conception of possibility is applied in the sequence to represent the occurrence of structural damage. Both the numerical simulation results of a two-story steel frame and the experimental results of a simple beam prove that the performance of statistical neural network is better than the auto-associative memory neural network.


The most common failure mode of implantable neural implants has been delamination of layers in compound structures and encapsulations in a wet body environment. Current knowledge of failure mechanisms of adhesion and its standardized test procedures are lacking and must be established. This study demonstrated a combined experimental and numerical method to investigate the residual stresses from one of the most common encapsulation materials, silicone rubber (polydimethylsiloxane-PDMS) during the coating process at elevated temperatures. Measured shrinkage of test specimen correlates well to a modified shrinkage model using thermal-mechanical finite element method (FEM) simulation. All simulated interfacial stresses show stress concentration at the PDMS coating front depending on curing temperature and coating thickness, while Griffith's condition estimated the delamination of the coating front. This study emphasizes the understanding of the interfacial delamination giving the possibility to predict failure mode of neural interface.


A fault is superposition of crustal strain in different geological history and stress fields. Finding out the development sequence and tectonic stress field is very important for understanding the tectonic evolution. Because of intense tectonic process, the western Junggar of Xinjiang is not only a good field laboratory for studying faults and deformation sequence, but also a key area to understand the tectonic domain in central Asia. The statistics and analysis of 1,500 occurrences show that the following four groups of structural foliation have developed: (1) WNW 290°; (2) NNE 10°~20° and EW 80°~90°; (3) NE 40°~45° and NW 320°~ 325°; (4)ENE 60°~70° and NNW 340°~350°. Based on analysis of field structures, intersection and cutting relationships of faults, intrusions and strata, combining with remote sensing data, it is concluded that the strike-slipping fault is the main structural style in western Junggar since Late Paleozoic, and the deformation sequence is also determined. During Late Permian to Triassic, the earliest dextral faults striking WNW 290° were developed due to the NW-SE direction compressive stress derived by the convergence between the Junggar and the central Tianshan. During Jurassic-Cretaceous, the tectonic process was relatively stable. The conjugated strike- slipping structures with sinistral faults striking NNE 10°~20° and dextral ones trending EW 80°~90° had developed in Paleogene maybe due to the NW-SE compressive stress from the Pacific tectonic domain. In Early Neogene, the direction of stress field was nearly north-south as a result of the distant effect of collision between the Indian and the Eurasian continents, which resulted in the strike- slipping faults striking NE 40°~45° and NW 320°~325°. For the clockwise rotation of stress field, the structural directions were replaced by ENE 60°~70° and NNW 340°~350° in Late Neogene.


The article is devoted to the characteristic of the fund «Central Research
Institute of Experimental Design», which is permanently stored in the Russian State Archive in Samara. The main types of documentation are described as well
as specific projects developed by the organization. Documents over a long period of time makes it possible to judge both the development of experimental construction in the USSR and the development of the organization itself, which in
the 1960s became the leading institution dictating the rules of experimental
design.


This paper generalizes the Bollerslev and Zhang (2003) approach for the estimation of loadings of asset pricing models using "realized" measures and co-measures of risk. We propose here to extend this approach by including higher-moments in asset pricing models. Estimations are conducted using several methodologies aiming to neutralize data measurement and model misspecification errors, explicitly dealing with the interrelations between financial asset returns. An empirical application performed on a highfrequency French stock price database shows that realized higher-moment measures contribute to improve the global adjustment of the extended model with market data.


Char and colleagues provide a useful conceptual framework for the proactive identification of ethical issues arising throughout the lifecycle of machine learning (ML) applications in healthcare. Th...


The nutritional regulation of protein and amino acid balance in human skeletal muscle carried out by the authors with Mike Rennie is reviewed in the context of a simple physiological model for the regulation of the maintenance and growth of skeletal muscle, the "Bag Theory". Beginning in London in the late 1970s the work has involved the use of stable isotopes to probe muscle protein synthesis and breakdown with two basic experimental models, primed‐dose continuous tracer infusions combined with muscle biopsies and arterio‐venous (A‐V) studies across a limb, most often the leg, allowing both protein synthesis and breakdown as well as net balance to be measured. In this way, over a 30 year period, the way in which amino acids and insulin mediate the anabolic effect of a meal has been elaborated in great detail confirming the original concepts of bag filling within the muscle endomysial "bag", which is limited by the "bag" size unless bag enlargement occurs requiring new collagen synthesis. Finally we briefly review some new developments involving 2H2O labelling of muscle proteins.


5 The Counting California project (http://countingcalifornia.cdlib.org) makes available statistical information about the State of California, using data from California State and various federal agencies. The initial project design called for a metadatadriven system, based on the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) document type definition (DTD). The goal is to provide consistency in data discovery and data display to the end user, regardless of the structure of the underlying data.


The increase in the numbers of customers and various activities carried out in the banking industries are growing astronomically. This has consistently increased the amount of data processed by the banks, thereby making the conventional methods of data processing to be slow, prone to error, low productivity, insecurity, fraud and increase in resource personnel overhead. This paper is designed to examine the significance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the development of the banking industry. Data was collected through questionnaires administered to both the staff of the bank and customers; and other sources of data were personal interview, textbooks and websites. The data is thereafter analyzed using percentage and chi-square methods. The espousal of ICT in the banking industry has improved the efficiencies of the bank, made global banking a reality and aids in making management decision timely and effective on the job. Hence, the successful implementation of ICT is a must for the development of any bank.


Will engineering technology replace musical artists? This replacement nearly occurred in January 2004 when Sir Cameron Mackintosh threatened to replace part of the London Orchestra in the musical Les Miserables with a "virtual orchestra." Yet, to attend the opera and hearing synthesized music performed is akin to viewing lip-synching arias! Strange as it seems, musicians are being virtualized. The New York City musician strike of May 2003 resulted in not a reduction of nine "pit" musicians, as the theaters had proposed, but a slash of six. To fill in the void of the missing pit musicians, virtual musicians are used.


The present invention relates to a method and device for controlling, by a control device, a connection between a first device and a second device, using Bluetooth low energy (LE) or Bluetooth BR/EDR. According to the present invention, the control device may transmit, to at least one of the first device and the second device, first control information for changing a device mode, and transmit, to the first device, second control information indicating a connection with the second device, so as to control a connection between the first device and the second device.


FERNANDES, Felipe Moura. The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma: Brazil Among Geographical Fictions in the Backcountry / Seacoast. 2016. 347f. Thesis (Doctorate) Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, 2016. This very project discourses about the relation between Geography and Literature in Lima Barreto's The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma. It deals with the possibility of realizing a geographical reading of individuals, social groups and society itself by using Literature as a source, however, there is no necessity of identifying geographical contents to ascertain reality. The possibility of establishing a link with Literature was adopted as metdhodological principle and, under this perspective, attribute to the source the status of subject.Therefore, the typical behaviour of taking Literature as Resource Source was relativized in this study. Firstly, a data collection and a quality analysis of Geography and Literature production in Brazil is proposed with the objective of placing the piece of work in the Comtemporary Scenario. From that point on, a thematic snippet that involves the Empire (Romanticism), the First Republic(evolucionism, positivism and determinism) and the identification of Brazilian intellectuals who worked with the categories of nature and earth is presented. The time frame embodies specificity from Lima Barreto positioning on issues that gained prominence during the First Brazilian Republic, including, football, feminism. To perform the literary text analysis, the most plastic definition of backcountry was used, not coinciding with fixed features, such as the presence of the savanna, drought and the backcountry. In the same movement, the categories of backcountry and suburbs were approached and, in addition, it is refrained to the themes of the narrative that have a geographical aspect: the intellectuals, the "popular culture," the suburban middle class, madness, politics, the agrarian matter and racism.


Objective To study the variation of CD cells blocked efficiency for unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion(URSA) patients with intensive immunotherapy before and after pregnancy,and the outcome of URSA patients after second pregnancy.Methods Peripheral blood lymphocyte was involved in active immunotherapy of URSA patients.The anti-spouse CD cells blocked efficiency was detected before and after treatment,at the same time,the subsequent pregnancy outcome of URSA patients were analyzed based on the frequency of intensive immunotherapy.Results For URSA patients,immunotherapy could improve anti-spouse CD cells blocked efficiency in peripheral blood.Comparing the times of intensive immune treatment and the final outcome subsequent pregnancy,it was found that URSA patients with intensive immunotherapy 3 times after re-pregnancy could obtain the best effect.Conclusion Immunotherapy can improve anti-spouse CD cells blocked efficiency in peripheral blood and URSA patients should continue to strengthen immunotherapy 3 times after pregnant again,in order to significantly reduce the occurrence of abortion again.


The authors conducted a series of 5 experiments in which 1 m diameter and 3 to 6 m long cylindrical enclosures were built in an acidic lake on a coal mine site. The enclosures extended from the lake surface to the sediment. Limestone, phosphate, sewage sludge or wheat straw was added to the enclosures to test their neutralizing capabilities. The theory suggests that sewage sludge and wheat straw should be substrates for sulfate reduction by bacteria and that the production of H2S and its precipitation as FeS should remove sulfuric acid from the water column. The limestone additions raised pH as expected. Straw additions supported sulfate reduction. Sulfate reduction was strongest where both lime and straw were added together. Straw additions produced the expected neutralization in the experiments, but neutralization was not permanent.


In view of the serious waste of electricity and poor utilization and management of college multimedia classrooms,an intelligent teaching building control system is designed using NXP company cortex M0 chip and with wireless gateway controllers as the core to realize the rational use of classroom electric equipments and better teaching management.


Objectve To reproduce a model of focal cerebral ischemia, in which infarction and vessel injury penumbra can be observed distinctly, the parameters of local cerebral blood flow, activity of fibrinolytic system, nitric oxide and endothelin can be monitored too. It is expected to offer a practical tool for the pathophysiologic study of stroke and for developing new drugs. Methods Based on the principle of photochemical initiation of thrombosis, rat infarction model at the blood supply region of middle cerebral artery was established, The phase change of the experimental items, such as infarction size, penumbra size, degree of vessel damage, pathologic slides, local cerebral blood flow, t-PA,PAI,NO,and ET, was investigated. Results The experimental data showed the parameters of the model animal were different from those of the control at certain time points after completion of the light irradiation. Conclusion Informative experimental data can be observed from the model. So this model will be a practical tool to evaluate thrombolytic therapy and protection of endothelial cell.


CLARK, ZACHARY THOMAS. Modeling Impact of and Mitigation Measures for Recurring Freeway Bottlenecks. (Under the direction of Dr. Nagui M. Rouphail.) Recurrent congestion is a continually growing problem on urban freeways. Facility expansions cannot keep pace with the growing vehicle demand. Low-cost mitigation measures are one way to alleviate the congestion at recurring bottleneck locations. Low-cost measures typically have a life of approximately 10 years and costs ranging from $8,000 to $2.45 million. While benefits have been realized in field applications, only few studies investigated the performance of these measures in terms of added facility capacity. While micro or macro traffic modeling has long been a tool for planning and analyzing freeway networks, little has been reported regarding model use for estimating the benefits of low-cost freeway improvements. In this study, the author tested proposed treatments at two sites using both a macroscopic and microscopic model. Because empirical performance information of these measures is not available, a purely quantitative analysis would not be feasible since confidence in the values reported would be somewhat low. Current bottleneck identification methods typically either predict breakdown in realtime or analyze detector data off-line. In order to identify bottlenecks from recorded aggregated data in an off-line simulation model, criteria were generated to identify active bottlenecks and analyze the models' performance in an empirical and qualitative manner. An assessment of selected available modeling tools is carried out by applying recurring freeway bottleneck criteria to two case study sites where the position and activation times for recurring bottlenecks were known. The sites were modeled under baseline, or nontreated, conditions as well as with the simulated treatments in place. The experience gained from the modeling exercise enabled the evaluation of the models' ability to simulate the proposed treatments, and the results are used to evaluate the treatment effectiveness on a system-wide basis. The two most common treatments applied in the case studies are the addition of auxiliary lanes between on and off ramps, and off-ramp facility improvements. Auxiliary lane additions showed reductions of system bottleneck activations in the microsimulation models by 10%, 13%, and 73%. Off-ramp improvements reduced system bottleneck activations in the microsimulation models by 10%, 13% and 32%. In the macrosimulation model, auxiliary lane additions reduced system bottleneck activations by 0%, 33%, and 100% and off-ramp improvements showed a 0% reduction in system bottleneck activations in all instances. The macrosimulation model proved to be better in identifying hidden bottlenecks and in providing an adequate general overview of the freeway operational quality for the case study locations. The microsimulation model, on the other hand, provided a more realistic representation of the proposed bottleneck treatments and their effects on the entire modeled roadway system. Because of the encountered limitations in both models, a hybrid approach using both model types is recommended Modeling Impact of and Mitigation Measures for Recurring Freeway Bottlenecks


Objective To compare and analyze the HIV 1+2 screening positive results and Western Blot Test Results.Methods ELISA and PA results among 150 screening positive specimens were compared with Western Blot Test results.The coincidence rates of both sensitivity and specificity of ELISA and PA were calculated,and the relationship between PA and WB results was also explored in accordance with the variations of ELISA OD value.Results The positive coincidence rate of ELISA and PA with WB was 89.93% and 86.81% respectively.The sensitivity was 100% and specificity was 90.34% for ELISA,while the sensitivity was 100% and specificity was 87.33% for PA.Both of the coincidence rates of ELISA were 100% when the S/CO value(mean 18.63) was much higher than the cutoff value(mean 6.677).The coincidence rate was 21.05% and 0 when the S/CO value(mean 0.8596) was ≤1 or slightly larger than the cutoff value among the specimens and the coincidence rate was 66.67% and 0 when the S/CO value(mean 2.648) was 1 and the positive control value.Conclusion The final HIV antibody test results must be confirmed by Western Blot Test as several false positives do existe in the screening test.The results of ELISA and PA conflict with WB results only in confirmed HIV-1 negative or unconfirmed specimens.


We report the band structures and excitonic properties of delafossites CuMO2 (M=Al, Ga, In, Sc, Y, Cr) calculated using the state-of-the-art GW-BSE approach. We evaluate different levels of self-consistency of the GW approximations, namely G0W0, GW0, GW, and QSGW, on the band structures and find that GW0, in general, predicts the band gaps in better agreement with experiments considering the electron-hole effect. For CuCrO2, the HSE wave function is used as the starting point for the perturbative GW0 calculations, since it corrects the band orders wrongly predicted by PBE. The discrepancy about the valence band characters of CuCrO2 is classified based on both HSE and QSGW calculations. The PBE wave functions, already good, are used for other delafossites. All the delafossites are shown to be indirect band gap semiconductors with large exciton binding energies, varying from 0.24 to 0.44 eV, in consistent with experimental findings. The excitation mechanisms are explained by examining the exciton amplitude ...


The motion control system of two-dimension positioning table based on GT-SV-400 motion control card is developed, which adopt the structure of "NC+PC". And this paper presents the composition of hardware and the function of software about positioning table. Furthermore, compensation method was applied in the software program to reduce the error of the system. The result of experiment shows that the table has a working rang of 200mm and the positioning accuracy is controlled to be smaller than 5μm.


This article examines how Somalis have attempted to overcome deep clan divisions through appealing to an Islamic-nationalist identity. This religious nationalism has served to bring Somalia historically and currently into conflict with neighbouring states. These conflict dynamics have been given added impetus as a result of irredentist claims by Somali state and non-state actors on the territory of neighbouring states. In recent years Al Shabaab has also attempted to mobilise Somalis through an Islamist nationalism. However, while such attempts are bound to fail largely on account of the type of Islam espoused by Al Shabaab, misdirected counter-terrorism initiatives are serving to bolster Al Shabaab's narrative and appeal.


Abstract. Prionus laticollis (Drury, 1773) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), the broad necked root borer, is a known pest of numerous woody plant species. Larvae feed on and can severely damage roots and lower trunks, causing decline or structural weakness. It has been documented infesting commercial apple plantings in New York and New England, notably in recent years when infestations caused tree decline and death in an established orchard in Northport, New York. As with other Prionus species found in the U.S.A., males are attracted to all four isomers of 3,5-dimethyldodecanoic acid, the female-produced sex pheromone of the related species, P. californicus Motschulsky, 1845. We conducted field trials using a commercial mix of this pheromone to monitor occurrence, phenology and abundance of P. laticollis in several orchard and mixed hardwood habitats in New York from 2010–2015. Male beetles were readily captured in all locations using pitfall traps baited with a commercial synthetic pheromone blend of all possible isomers, with maximum seasonal totals of 112–145 beetles per site. The first beetles were captured from 19 June to 4 July, corresponding to 436–691 degree-days (base 10°C) from 1 January, depending on year and location. A 2012 lure comparison between the single-isomer natural pheromone and the four-isomer blend showed no significant differences in numbers of beetles captured. Beetle catch generally peaked within two weeks of initial flight each year, with most activity occurring throughout July. A distinct decrease in beetle numbers was noted at the Geneva location over the course of repeated annual trapping trials, possibly reflecting a negative impact on the local population.


AbstrcatP is one of the major nutrients for plants. A study of total-P, organic P , available-P, pH, and acid, medium, alkaline phosphatase in rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil of Pinus yunnanensis forest in central Yunnan province was conducted. The results showed that the difference of total-p between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere of Pinus yunnanensis forest. was not significant, but that of available-P was significant. The pH value of rhizosphere was significantly lower than that of non-rhizosphere. Acid and medium phosphatase was the dominant phosphatase at both rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil and they accounted for a big portion of the total phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase accounted for a small portion. The activities of either acid, medium or alkaline phosphatase was higher at rhizosphere than those in non-rhizosphere. A positive correlation was found between available P and total-P, organic P, pH and alkaline phosphatase concentration. This result suggested that the Pinus yunnanensis forest has capability to activate phosphor at rhizosphere, but the capability was determined by multiple factors. This capability also varied with the age of Pinus yunnanensis.


The starter includes a field winding (20), which comprises four coils (28), constituting two parallel circuits (A, B), which is connected to the input terminal and the common power supply line (24), and each output terminal has a brushes (44A, 44B), the coil (28) in pairs (i, j) is formed, the first two windings (i) a coil (28) are continuously wound in a first direction and in a second opposite direction, and two pairs of coil windings (j) (28) continuously wound in a second direction and a first common power supply line (24) fixed on the first pair of windings (i) a connecting bridge (42i), two pairs of windings by two ends connected to two brushes (44A, 44B) fixed to the second winding (j) of the connecting bridge (42j).


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Intact VZV is released when trafficking to late endosomes is shut off in skin.

GERSHON/ELSEVIERVaricella zoster virus (VZV) causes both varicella (chickenpox) and zoster (shingles). VZV spreads throughout the body, but it does so slowly, and virus only emerges


Process modeling and monitoring has become more complex with increasing demand of productivity and product quality in industrial plants. The constant evolution of technology used in industrial processes, sensors, data acquisition and control software and methods had enabled better information understanding and knowledge extraction. However, current methods for modeling production processes of large industrial plants require a very detailed knowledge about the process. Monitoring, as it was very close to the modeled process, also requires advanced knowledge of their behavior. Due to the nature of multidimensional data (from sensors), new methods of modeling and process monitoring are needed to handle large volumes of data while being adaptive, i.e., able to learn from data. The paper approaches a method that uses unsupervised neural networks (self-organizing methods) and data mining toward defining clusters from data, which are associated to states from a process. The method enables visualization and clustering of raw or transformed data. It is possible to derive the process modeling in an unsupervised way and creates a model, such as a Petri net, describing the process. It also enables monitoring process behavior. Results are shown for multidimensional data, with and without faults conditions.


Temperature gradients are shown to deform and shift the magnetic islands that grow during fast collisionless reconnection when electron inertia decouples the plasma motion from the magnetic field. A kinetic model of the electrons describes the collisionless processes during the reconnection of field lines that originate in regions with different temperatures. Using a novel model of the reconnecting instability as a surface mode, the kinetic effects are treated analytically in both the linear and nonlinear stages of the instability of a current-carrying low-β plasma slab in a strong magnetic guide field. This configuration is shown to be unstable with respect to tearing modes of large enough wavelength, and stable with respect to short wavelength and kink-like perturbations. A temperature gradient across the chain of magnetic islands yields a new criterion for marginal stability and a diamagnetic shift of the chain with respect to the initial perturbations. Submitted for publication in: Physics of Plasmas Authors: E.V. van der Plas, H.J. de Blank