Objective To determine operative procedures for Hirschsprung's disease allied diseases (HAD) in children. Methods From Jun. 2008 to Dec. 2010, 45 consecutive patients with an average ages of 35.5 ± 5 months underwent radical surgery for HAD in one surgical group, including 33 hypoganglionosis (HG) and 12 intestinal neuronal dysplasia (IND). All patients have been followed up at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after surgery. Defecation function were studied and compared with that before surgery, Results Among the 33 HG patients, 17 patients (52%) underwent open surgery, the other 16 (48%) underwent transanal or laparoscopic-assisted pull-through surgery including left colectomy on 28 (84.8%) and subtotal colectomy on 5 (15.2%). All IND patients underwent oPen surgery, and left colectomy were performed on 4(33.3%) and subtotal colectomy on 8 (66.7%). Constipation disappeared in all patients during follow-up after surgery. No death and severe complication was noted. The incidence of soiling was significantly higher in patients with transanal pull-through procedure than that patients underwent open surgery 1 year after surgery (P<0.05). Anorectal manometry for the patients with soiling showed the parameter of manometry was decreased markedly at the 3rd month after surgery is compared with preoperative manometry(52.17 ± 0.31 )mmHg vs. (66.5 ± 11.67)mmHg. However, manometry at 6th or 12th postoperative month is(58 ± 5.7)mmHg was not different with preoperative manometry. Conclusions The choice of operative procedures for HAD should be based on different pathological types and clinical conditions. Primary HG lesions can be removed directly by a simple transanal pull-through or laparoscopic-assisted surgery. For HG patients with previous anorectal surgery or in older children, the surgical procedures of saving the anorectal sphincter morphology and function should be chosen. For IND children, radical subtotal colectomy and low level anastomosis within pelvic should be performed. It was not advocated using a simple transanal pull-through procedure for IND children. The rate of soiling in transanal pull-through group was higher than that in open surgery group 1 year after surgery. Neither left nor subtotal colectomy was associated with the incidence of postoperative soiling.

Key words:
Hirschsprung's disease;  Colorectal surgery


OBJECTIVE
To measure D2 dopamine receptors in the striatum in patients with multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear palsy by I 3-iodo-6-methoxybenzamide labeled with iodine I 123 (123I-IBZM) single photon emission computed tomography and differentiate them from control subjects.

DESIGN
Survey with the following as retrospective criterion standards: (1) parkinsonism, (2) negative apomorphine test, and (3) no or only slight reaction to dopaminergic medication.

SETTING
Ambulatory or hospitalized care in an academic referral center.

PATIENTS AND CONTROL SUBJECTS
Twenty-one patients with parkinsonism not responding to dopaminergic medication (17 with multiple system atrophy and four with progressive supranuclear palsy) and 21 control subjects without parkinsonism.

INTERVENTION
In vivo imaging by single photon emission computed tomography using the D2 dopamine receptor specific radioligand 123I-IBZM.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Striatum/occipital cortex ratio of count rate density as semiquantitative measurement for striatal D2 dopamine receptor density.

RESULTS
A highly significant loss of striatal uptake of 123I-IBZM was observed in the patients in comparison to the control subjects with little or no overlap between values.

CONCLUSIONS
The hypothesized loss of D2 receptors in multiple system atrophy has been confirmed. Use of 123I-IBZM single photon emission computed tomography may be a cost-effective alternative to positron emission tomography in the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism and in the selection of patients for dopaminergic therapy.


Despite progress made by academic libraries in advancing their instructional activities, their teaching role continues to be predominantly restricted to limited classroom engagements with students. Overwhelming professional support has been dedicated to practices that insist on disciplinary context and collaboration as the most viable mechanisms for information literacy education. This article argues for a more direct and involved credit-bearing role. It takes an approach that asserts the generic contribution of the library for development of information literacy competencies, which form a foundation for more successful discipline-based consolidation of such desired competencies. It also argues that granting the library the right to offer credit-bearing classes to achieve such a goal would legitimize the library's educational contribution.


This is Marcel and Albertine. The so voluminous work of Proust culminates in these two themes of Albertine as a prisoner and as possessed, which is not distinct from Albertine who has disappeared and died. The torment that constitutes his relation to her lies in the fact that there are many things about her – simple things, attitudes, gestures, poses – that he will never know. And what he knows about her is dominated by what he will never know, because all the objective evidence is less powerful than the doubts that will remain within him forever – and that comprise his relation with Albertine.


This chapter carries out and presents the findings from an in-depth comparative analysis of real income growth around and below the middle of the income distribution across the rich countries of the OECD over recent decades. It examines trends in real incomes for the entire population and for working age households only, and sets the evolution of incomes around the middle in each country against what has been happening lower down and higher up the distribution. This allows the range of experiences across countries in these terms to be captured, providing the base which subsequent chapters seek to probe and get behind.


Aggressive radical R0 resection is necessary for good prognosis in colorectal cancer with adjacent organ invasion. According to the location of the tumor, various pelvic organs are removed in en-block resection. However, en-block resection may be challenging in case with vascular invasion such as external iliac vessels because vascular specialist should be involved and vascular reconstruction is complex procedure than any other surgical procedure. We report the case of a 53-year-old man who underwent curative surgery for rectosigmoid colon cancer invading the left external iliac artery (EIA) and vein (EIV). En-bloc resection of the tumor including external iliac vessels and ureter was performed, and the resected EIA and EIV were reconstructed using the internal iliac artery and vein. This procedure is more physiologic than extra-anatomic bypass and eliminates the need of artificial graft. Consequently, its use may improve patency and decrease the risk of graft infection.


Analog video signals in a display device connected with an outer net are acquired by an analog video signal acquisition device, the analog video signals are converted into digital video signals through a video signal analog-to-digital conversion device, and the digital video signals are sent to a data processing device connected with an intranet and are converted into graphics and texts through data processing, so that the one-way conversion and the instant transmission of simple business information of two nets can be realized. Due to the acquired analog video signals and the information being converted in one-way and transmitted instantly, the safety is high, the influence of extraneous environment can be prevented, the reliability is high, the information acquisition can be completed at one time, and the efficiency is high.


We have found the equations that determine the self-adjoint extensions, and thus the boundary conditions, of the differential operator used in the multi-band k.p-theory, when the coefficients in the Kane-matrix are piecewise constant. Both the one-dimensional and the three-dimensional case have been investigated. A numerical calculation shows that the choice of boundary conditions affects the energy eigenvalues for a quantum well.


CONTEXT
Patients affected by sporadic Alzheimer disease (AD) show a significant alteration of amyloid precursor protein (APP) forms in platelets when compared with patients with dementia but without AD and age-matched controls.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the ratio of platelet APP forms (APPr) in early-stage AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and its potential as a biomarker for the early identification of AD.

SETTING
Community population-based sample of patients admitted to 4 AD centers for investigation of cognitive disturbances.

DESIGN AND METHODS
Thirty-five patients with mild AD (mAD), 21 patients with very mild AD (vmAD), 30 subjects with MCI, and 25 age-matched controls were included. The APPr was evaluated by Western blot analysis in platelet homogenate.

RESULTS
Compared with controls (mean +/- SD, 0.93 +/- 0.3), the mean APPr was decreased in patients with mAD (0.44 +/- 0.24; P<.001) and patients with vmAD (0.49 +/- 0.3; P<.001). Regarding the MCI group, a significant decrease in APPr was found compared with controls (0.62 +/- 0.33; P<.001). Fixing a cutoff score of 0.6, sensitivity was 88.6% (31/35) for patients with mAD and 85.7% (18/21) for patients with vmAD, whereas specificity was 88% (22/25) for controls. Among patients with MCI, 18 (60%) of 30 individuals displayed APPr values below the cutoff.

CONCLUSIONS
Alteration of platelet APP forms is an early event in AD, and the measurement of APPr may be useful for the identification of preclinical AD in patients with MCI.


One, two and three pairs of inclined longitudinal slots located at the proper place with an appropriate angle on the broader wall of the rectangular waveguide antenna have been presented in this paper. The location of proper placement of slot and its appropriate angle is one where the antenna gives maximum radiation. The slots are placed from the centre of the broader wall leaving equal distance on either side of the rectangular waveguide with an inclination angle of 39° with respect to centre axis to achieve good polarization pattern. These slots have been cut by electro-discharge machine (EDM) and antennas are designed using computer software AutoCAD 2000 for better precision. The experimental observations are carried out at designed frequency of 9.35 GHz, which gives left circular polarization (LCP). These antennas are also tested at below and above the designed frequency, i.e. at 9.3 and 9.4 GHz to study the polarization pattern and found to give right circular polarization (RCP) and LCP, respectively. It is also experimentally observed that these antennas are capable of producing left and right tilt in radiation pattern without deteriorating the impedance of the antenna. Since their VSWR values are well below the allowed value, i.e. < 2 for all the antennas, it implies better impedance matching. These antennas can find application in bistatic radar system of an aircraft. The design concepts of antenna are described and experimental results are discussed.


SELECTION OF THE MOST ECONOMICAL STABILIZING AGENT FOR A DESIRED EFFECT ON THE PROPERTIES OF A SOIL SHOULD BE BASED ON KNOWLEDGE OF RELATIVE EFFECTS OF THE AGENTS RATHER THAN ON PERSONAL PREJUDICE OR THE PUBLICITY GIVEN TO AN AGENT. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PAPER IS TO PROVIDE A STARTING POINT FOR COST-EFFECT COMPARISONS BY SHOWING THE EFFECTS OF FOUR AGENTS ON CERTAIN PROPERTIES OF A SINGLE SOIL-AGGREGATE SURFACE COURSE MIX. PROPERTIES COMPARED ARE: (1) MOISTURE- DENSITY RELATIONS AS DETERMINED BY STANDARD PROCTOR DENSITY TESTS, (2) STRENGTH AS DETERMINED FROM CALIFORNIA BEARING RATIO STUDIES, (3) MOISTURE RETENTION AS DETERMINED BY A NON-STANDARD TEST, AND (4) THE PLASTIC PROPERTIES OF THE MIX AS DETERMINED BY THE ATTERBERG LIMITS TESTS. ADDITIVES, USED IN TREATMENTS OF 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 AND 2 PERCENT, ARE: (1) PELADOW CALCIUM CHLORIDE PELLETS, (2) STERLING FC AND CC SALTS, (3) TORANIL A AND LIGNIN LIQUOR SPENT SULPHITE LIQUORS, AND (4) A 79.5 BRIX MOLASSES. THE MECHANISM OF STABILIZATION WITH EACH AGENT IS DISCUSSED TO PERMIT EXTRAPOLATION OF EFFECTIVENESS TO OTHER SOILS. NO SELECTION OF THE BEST AGENT IS MADE BECAUSE THIS IS A FUNCTION OF THE DESIRED EFFECT ON PROPERTIES AND AVAILABLE FUNDS. /AUTHOR/


Gynecomastia is benign enlargement of male breast. It is caused by high estrogen to androgen ratio, attributable to various causes of estrogen excess or androgen deficiency. Herewith we report a case of gynecomastia in a middle aged man due to excess consumption of horse-gram, containing flavonoids which are estrogenic compounds. Gynecomastia regressed gradually after stopping horse-gram consumption, without any other medical or surgical interventions.


In recent years, new urban design regarding walkability has become a major focus of urban planning. Developments in transit areas have generally included walkability as a regional development concept where a walkable design encourages people to walk and switch from using motorized vehicles. Walking is very compatible with the mixed land use profile in Jakarta with compact blocks that pedestrians can easily access. This design study aims to determine the most affected walkability criteria of the existing Tanah Abang transit area based on the RDTR (Detailed Urban Space Management Program) using Urban Network Analysis and design intervention to increase the ridership. The methodology of this design study used UNA simulation as a quantitative analysis tool to determine design interventions in the walkability efficiency criteria in the Tanah Abang transit area. The connectivity and accessibility of the pedestrian path are the major problems. The results of the UNA simulation are used to analyze problems in urban design elements. Reach index affects land use, building mass intensity, and parcel blocks. The straightness and closeness index affect connectivity. The betweenness index affects the placement of open space. The gravity index affects the parking area.


I propose to go into the economic significance of veterinary science in the Republic of Ireland and to relate the evidence to the year 1954 The most significant figures I have arrived at are derived from the returns on livestock of the Central Statistics Office As a matter of fact it was only when I came across a copy of the Statistical Abstract some years ago and then went tracing the causes for the differences between one age group of cattle and another in the same and in subsequent years that I began to appreciate the significance of animal disease in the economics of this country and the place of the veterinarian in our economic set up I will probaoiy oe dcuubed a pnuiv uf placing undue trust in statistics and statisticians From my experience they seem to be mistrusted people 1 did not trust them either until I got to know them and appreciate within the limits of my understanding the outstanding value of their work compiled with such extreme care I am happy to declare myself their disciple, and I wish to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of the work of the Central Statistics Office, and my thanks to Dr Geary and his staff for the help given to me on many occasions


The invention discloses an electrostatic spinning nanofiber membrane fabric with a modified self-cleaning carbon nano tube and a preparation method. The nanofiber membrane fabric with the modified self-cleaning carbon nano tube is characterized in that high-molecular polymer of the modified carbon nano tube is applied to a structural layer fiber fabric; the diameter of the nanofiber is 150-500nm and the membrane thickness is 0.02mm, and the carbon nano tube spreads over the membrane surface, so that the hydrophobicity and self-cleaning of the nanofiber membrane fabric are enhanced, the air permeability is between 0.4cm /cm /s and 0.6cm /cm /s, and the water resistance is between 35cm H2O and 40cm H2O. The high-molecular polymer nanofiber membrane fabric has excellent air permeability and favorable water resistance, and the carbon nano tube spreads over the membrane surface, so that the hydrophobicity and self-cleaning of the nanofiber membrane fabric are remarkably enhanced. The materials can be easily available, so that the electrostatic spinning nanofiber membrane fabric has great application and industrial value.


As a first requisite in considering the correct horticultural names of Citrus fruits, perhaps it would be well to con sider what constitutes a valid variety name as recognized by pomological authorities. A few years ago the American Pomological Society adopted a "Code of Fruit Nomenclature/' which now governs the naming of fruits and which furnishes the basis for deciding disputes as to the proper name for any particular variety. From this Code I will quote the more essential features.


Social progress and economic development has resulted in the need to focus on the impacts of building microenvironment on the energy consumption in office buildings. The concept of a building's microenvironment was introduced to understand the local microclimate around a building that is formed by the surrounding urban green spaces, the distribution of roads, and building proximity. For this research, we adopted a regression analysis to quantify the impacts of building microenvironment on energy consumption in office buildings. Taking the government office buildings of Guangdong Province as an example, we measured the building microenvironment through the urban green space density, road density, and number of points of interest (POI) around the buildings. The results showed that when the green space density increased by one unit, the energy consumption in government office buildings was reduced by 0.277%. Moreover, an increase of 1% in road density and in the number of POI increased the energy consumption in government office buildings by 0.288% and 0.048%, respectively. Furthermore, we discussed the heterogeneous impacts of building microenvironment on the energy consumption in government office buildings at varying scale levels. Green space and road density had less impact on the energy consumption in larger buildings, whereas the number of POI had no significant impact on small-scale buildings but did have a significant impact on large-scale buildings. There were also some limitations in the study. The data were limited to government office buildings, and did not include panel data, as well as it lacked building characteristics such as orientation, floor height, and building materials. In addition, it was impossible to evaluate the impacts of meteorological factors such as wind speed and thermal radiation on energy consumption in buildings. Nonetheless, our study demonstrates that energy-aware urban planning and design have the potential to unlock energy efficiency for cities worldwide.


The present invention provides apparatus and methods for securing a structural member using a bone anchor to the spinal fixation, thereby able to correct spinal deformities, and / or to provide mechanical stability of the spine, the load all or part of the is to be carried through the structural member. The present invention, through to load tensile force on the components of the fixing mechanism, to provide a fixing to structural members of the bone anchor. The present invention is widely applicable to various bone anchors and structural members. The present invention is a reduction of spinal deformity caused by various spinal diseases, only by fixing mechanism, without requiring an additional reduction instrumentation system can be performed. The present invention, in case of no deformation, provides the bone anchor, for fixing to a structural member of the spinal fixation system, the fixing mechanism.


Several 102-mm cubes were cast from cement paste, mortar, and concrete mixes containing ordinary portland cement and suspended in a channel containing either a 1 or 3 percent nominal solution of continuously flowing sulfuric acid. The parameters investigated included cement content, water-cement ratio (W/C), additions of pulverized fuel ash (PFA), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), a latex (styrene butadiene), and a high-range water-reducing admixture (HRWA). The changes in weight with time for each cube were determined continuously up to a maximum exposure period of 93 days. The results indicated that the rate of deterioration of the cubes increased with an increase in cement content, w/c, or acid concentration. The addition of polyvinyl alcohol appeared to enhance the resistance and integrity of the cubes.


Changes to a composite service need to be well analyzed in order to ensure its trust is maintained. In this paper, we propose a trust analysis model to analyze the impact of three kinds of evolution operations performed on a composite service: business process changes, binding changes and interface changes. A trust dependency graph is introduced to analyze the impact on the trust of component services; a XBFG (eXtensible BPEL Flow Graph) is introduced to evaluate the impact on the trust of the composite service. Three metrics are introduced to evaluate the impact of these evolution operations. The case study shows how these evolution operations affect the trust of other component services and the composite service.


Climate extremes pose significant natural threats to socioeconomic activities. Accurate prediction of short-term climate (STC) can provide relevant departments with warnings to effectively reduce this threat. To accurately predict STC in China, this study utilizes machine learning algorithms, particularly the random forest (RF) model, to evaluate the role of both natural and anthropogenic factors. Monthly temperature and precipitation data from 160 meteorological stations spanning China, as well as natural climate factors and an economic activity index, were obtained to perform a seasonal hindcast of air temperature and precipitation observed from 1979 to 2018. Our focus was to predict the seasonal mean temperature and precipitation, specifically the summer (June, July, and August (JJA)) and winter (December, January, and February (DJF)) air temperature and precipitation anomalies using forecast factors from the preceding season. Results show that a comprehensive consideration of both natural and anthropogenic effects provides a more accurate fit to the observed climate trends compared to using only one factor. When both factors were integrated, the model scores (coefficient of determination) exceeded 0.95, close to 1.00, which is significantly higher than those of natural (0.86 for temperature, 0.85 for precipitation) or anthropogenic (0.90 for temperature and 0.50 for precipitation) factors alone. Furthermore, we also attempted to predict similar components for 2019 and 2020. The average relative error between predictions and observations was less than 10%, indicating that this integrated model's performance exhibited a significant improvement in predicting the STC. The findings of this study underscore the importance of accounting for both natural and anthropogenic factors in predicting climate trends to inform sustainable decision-making in China.


A rising trend of survivorship and palliative care calls for innovative ways to manage the chronic phases of cancer condition. Self-management support is not a new concept but there are evidences of benefits in developed countries. However, the complementary relationship between self-management and palliative care to enable survivors to live with cancer as a prolonged chronic illness in Asia must be evaluated in terms of appropriateness and timeliness. This paper highlight some of Asia's strong culture and some lessons learnt from a patient self-management intervention with women living with breast cancer trial conducted longitudinally over 6 years. Although many studies have provided evidence of better support among patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals when self-management interventions are integrated into palliative cancer care, across the care trajectory (from curative care, palliative care, end-of-life care and bereavement phases), tailored interventions are needed to assimilate the culture to improve health outcomes in Asia. A distinction is also made between self-care and self-management. Summary: In resource limited countries, a call to better partnership with (and to support) cancer survivors and their caregivers, across the care trajectory is essential, but adaptations to the methods of deliveries are likely to ensure effectiveness of service. More research is needed in this emerging area so as to optimize care for the rising incidences. *Correspondence to: Siew Yim Loh, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. 50630, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, E-mail: email@example.com


The contributors to this volume have looked beyond the operatic debates of the Weimar Republic, which arguably speak most directly to opera's twentieth-century obsolescence. Those debates are represented here, however, by the composer and critic Ernst Krenek (1900–1991). Before writing this essay, he had produced one of the greatest operatic successes of Weimar Germany: Jonny spielt auf (1927), a Zeitoper in which a cliché-spouting composer is engulfed by a world of commodified entertainment, not entirely without glee. By the early 1930s, however, Krenek was producing a different sort of opera, his twelve-tone Karl V (1933), which took a sharp turn to historical and religious themes. "Zur Situation der Oper," from the 1958 collection Zur Sprache gebracht, first appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1932. It makes a telling companion to Krenek's later essay from the same collection, "Is Opera Still Possible Today?" (1936), which has long been available in English. Like the later essay, it takes issue with Bertolt Brecht's writings on opera, but the strident tone here is perhaps a bit surprising. In "The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre" (1930), Brecht had taken a passing swipe at Krenek: "Those composers who stem from Wagner still insist on posing as philosophers. A philosophy which is of no use to man or beast, and can only be disposed of as a means of sensual satisfaction. (Elektra, Jonny spielt auf.)" Here Krenek fights back, insisting on opera's potential for a profound and lively humanity, even a spiritual significance. At the same time, he bemoans a modern betrayal of that potential, a turn (using Brecht's terms with a revised meaning) to "culinary" opera on one hand and "didactic" opera on the other—one a theater of refined animalism, the other of pure intellect. For Krenek, the failure of these operatic modes has much to do with a certain antagonism toward song and the singer, whom he sees as newly reduced to either rigid "marionette" or "chanting agitator." In this sense, his essay resonates with the recurring discussions of voice and singer in this issue, affirming their centrality to opera's twentieth-century crises. Krenek makes a strident case against opera's obsolescence, interpreting a contemporary sense of its deadness as in fact a mercenary determination to kill it. At the same time, he allows his


This paper documents significantly negative stock price reactions to shareholder initiated class action lawsuits. We find that shareholders partially anticipate these lawsuits and that filing date effects understate the magnitude of shareholder losses. We demonstrate that prior expectations about the likelihood of being sued are important determinants of the losses anticipated prior to filing an actual lawsuit, and on the lawsuit filing date.


To meet the peak power demands of aircraft electric loads such as actuators and avionic systems, and to absorb regenerated power, an ultracapacitor-based energy storage system is examined in which a bidirectional dual active bridge DC-DC converter is used. Analysis is performed for the DAB converter producing equations for the device RMS and average currents and the peak and RMS currents in the coupling inductor. The operation of the DAB DC-DC converter has been verified through extensive simulations, confirming the accuracy of the analysis. Experimental results are included to support the analysis for 7kW, 390/180V, 20 kHz operating conditions.


The reasons caused the cracks in cast in site floor slab in masonry concrete buildings are introduced. And based upon discussion on the quality of raw materials, shrinkage cracks of concrete and other aspects corresponding prevention measures are proposed. especially the quality control is emphasized according to design and construction.


For speculative pragmatism, aesthetics is an ethical practice of becoming with the world. Considering educational practice, we might say just the same. But an educational practice is not ethico-aesthetical by its nature – the challenge is to think and live it in an ethico-aesthetical manner. Acceptance of this conclusion goes easily with stressed importance of vitality, movement and creativity of thought – but what about death? Is death even allowed in educational practice? As this paper is written during the emergence of a pandemic, the question goes even further: could education and aesthetics even be of any concern if the danger of death "do us part"? This paper was meant to unfold between memories from an ethnography research in kindergarten and resonate concepts from affect theories – but it exploded unpredictably in resonance with the COVID-19 outburst. Yet, it remained an attempt to tackle the haunting feeling left behind from 'dark' encounters with different appearances of death. Hopefully, an encounter with this paper might open a crack in the understanding of educational practice, as well as this moment in history, as a much-needed place for patience and rethinking of the human endeavor as a work of art.

Article received: April 16, 2020; Article accepted: July 1, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper


The gamma-ray spectra resulting from neutron capture in the 132-eV resonance of ${\mathrm{Co}}^{59}$ and the 336-, 1098-, and 2355-eV resonances of ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{55}$ have been observed with a Ge(Li) spectrometer at the Argonne fast-chopper time-of-flight system. The spectra are compared with the thermal-capture spectra and with the proton spectra observed in deuteron stripping. The reduced gamma-ray width for transitions in ${\mathrm{Co}}^{60}$ exhibit a dependence on the ${l}_{n}$ value of the corresponding ($d,p$) transitions. The thermal and two higher-energy resonance spectra in ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{56}$ display significant correlation with the corresponding stripping strengths. No such correlation was observed for the 132-eV resonance in ${\mathrm{Co}}^{59}$ or the 336-eV resonance in ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{55}$.


DOI: 10.21276/sb.2018.4.4.2 Abstract: The public sectors play an active role through its involvement in the execution and delivery of public projects in order to improve the quality of life of the citizens. The kind of procurement method used in securing a project is vital to the success of a given project. The stakeholder's input should be taken in accordance with their particular concern on different project definition elements, so that their involvement reflects the degree of their importance and relevance to the project. This review sought to establish the role of stakeholder engagement in project procurement in the Kenyan public sector. The study found that stakeholders are vital to the ethical decision making in project procurement and ultimately the successful completion of a project because their unwillingness to continuously support the vision or objectives of the project leads many projects to fail. Therefore, there is a need to engage the stakeholder in the project as early as possible to determine the need and capture stakeholder inputs in such projects.


I. INTRODUCTIONAs a registered nurse and family nurse practitioner who practices at the only sperm bank in North America that actively recruits Gay and Bisexual sperm donors, I am deeply concerned about the draft Guidance Document published by me Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 25, 2004, which advises banning men who have had sex with other men within the last five years from being sperm donors.1 The FDA claims that its purpose in issuing this draft Guidance Document is to protect the public against HIV and other diseases.2 Unfortunately, its rationale is not only unjustified, as current laws and practices already provide such protection; it is also misleading. In issuing this draft Guidance Document, the FDA has forsaken its role as a protector of public health and embraced a grievously bigoted and discriminatory position. The problem is, as the Supreme Court stated, criminalization of homosexual conduct leads to pervasive discrimination against Gays and Lesbians in both the public and private realms.3II. BACKGROUNDRainbow Flag Health Services & Sperm Bank (aka www.GaySpermBank.com) is a unique business. We recruit donors whose identity will be revealed to the mother when the child is tiiree months old. The moms must call die donor by the child's first birthday. Many donors have continuing contact with the children. Although the children know the donor is their genetic father, they also know the donor is not their parent. Many adults are confused by tiiis, but it never fails to amaze me that all of the children understand who their parents are. The model for mis is open adoption where children may have continuing contact with their birth parents. Children know the difference between their real parents (the people who are raising them) and tiieir birth parents (the people with whom they share a biological connection). Similarly, donors at Rainbow Flag, like birth parents, have neither custody rights nor financial obligations to their biological children but often play the same role that an uncle or godfather might in the children's lives.Although we have some heterosexual clients, Rainbow Flag primarily serves individual Lesbians and Lesbian couples who believe tiiat children have a right to know their biological fathers while they are going up. Most of our donors are Gay men who have chosen not to raise children themselves but still wish to procreate and have contact with their biological offspring. Many Lesbians, fearing misunderstanding from heterosexual donors, prefer Gay donors. Symbiosis. Rainbow Flag Health Services & Sperm Bank is one of a handful of fertility services and sperm banks that does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation with regard to botii donors and recipients.If the Food and Drug Administration's proposed draft Guidance Document4 is finalized with its present recommendation intact, to exclude Gay donors (men who have had sex with another man in the last five years), it will not stop Rainbow Flag (or anyone else) from using Gay donors because Guidance Documents do not have the force of law.5 But it will affect us; it already has. Many doctors and fertility clinics, unaware that the Guidance Document does not have me force of law (and mistakenly believing that it has been finalized), have refused to accept sperm from our bank. To date, a careful explanation of the facts has reversed these decisions, but we are not so foolish to think that we will continue to be 100% successful. With regard to Gay sperm donors, scientific fact has little to do with the FDA's draft Guidance Document.6 The Guidance Document's very existence will be another excuse for those who wish to discriminate against Lesbians and Gay men.The excuse the FDA gives in issuing new regulations and suggesting a ban on Gay donors in its draft Guidance Document is to protect the public against HIV and other diseases.7 The facts suggest otherwise. Since the HIV antibody test started being used in 1985, only one woman has been infected as a result of a medically supervised insemination. …


The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze: 1) the effect of the physical workenvironment on Nanga Pinoh Head Office, 2) effect of job performance on Nanga Pinoh HeadOffice; 3) Effect of physical work environment on job performance at the Head Office of NangaPinoh. This study was chosen because the authors see the phenomena that lead to the performanceof the employee to be down, in particular the problems caused by the work environment. Thisstudy includes the type of quantitative research to test the hypothesis. The population in this studywere all employees at Head Office Nanga Pinoh totaling 25 people. The technique used is asaturated sampling technique that takes all members of the population as a sample. Data collectiontechniques using a questionnaire that had been tested in advance and test the validity and reliabilitytesting. The data analysis technique used is a simple regression analysisThe results of a simple regression analysis to obtain the equation Y = 0.391X + 12 190, whichmeans job performance is influenced by the work environment. The results of the regressionanalysis also obtain the value of the coefficient of determination (R2) of 0891, this means that89.1% variable job performance is influenced by the work environment. The remaining 10.9%explained by other variables not examined, such as education, work discipline, reward andmotivation. Conclusions: 1) implementation of the physical work environment at Head Office inNanga Pinoh say pretty good by most respondents. Respondents who stated they were quite good,that amounted to 16 respondents (64%). 2) Work performance in the implementation of NangaPinoh Head Office in fairly good state of respondents said pretty well totaled 16 respondents(64%). 3) The work environment positive effect on employee job performance Nanga Pinoh HeadOffice. This result is evident from the results of the t test were obtained thitung X = 13 701received at significance level of 5% and F test results were obtained for 187 728 Fhitung acceptedat significance level of 5%. Keywords: Physical Work Environment, Work interpretation.


The complex metal hydride reductions of 2-t-butyl-1,3-dioxan-5-one (1) and 3-oxoquinolizidine (3) are faster than those of the corresponding carbocyclic compounds, 4-t-butylcyclohexanone (2) and trans-2-decalone (4). The stereoselectivities were similar in the LiAlH4 reduction, but the heteracyclohexanones exhibited higher stereoselectivity with NaBH4. These facts are discussed in terms of the intramolecular orbital interaction.


This study aims to analyze and critically evaluate the implementation of the management of public ownership ( Milkiyah ' ammah ) and State ownership (Milkiyah Daulah ) in Indonesia. In this study describes a qualitative descriptive about the implementation of the management of public ownership and state ownership are currently run in Indonesia. Theoretical approaches used to approach the Islamic Economic System Madzhab Hamfara (Hadza Min fadzli Rabbi) who critically evaluate the implementation of the common wealth management and wealth of the State of Indonesia. The data used in this research is secondary data obtained from Madzhab Hamfara books, literature, journal and information relating to the Indonesian State assets management system. Data collection techniques used are Library Research then conduct a comparative analysis of the implementation of the common wealth management and wealth of the State of Indonesia. Research results that the management of public ownership and management of State ownership is not in accordance with the ownership management approach Madzhab Hamfara Islamic Economic System. The evidence suggests that public ownership and state ownership is not fully managed by the State of Indonesia, it is seen that the common ownership in the form of water, fire and pastures are managed by individuals and institutions as well as foreign parties who have the capital to privatize public ownership. This will have an impact on the unequal distribution of income earned by the Society who have the capital and who do not have the capital, so the impact on well-being that can not be met by the majority of Indonesian society. As the evaluation and the solution is to have to implement Islamic Economic System Madzhab Hamfara in managing common ownership and possession of the State of Indonesia .


The growing number of internet applications and their users can affect the quality of the internet, each application has different traffic needs. In addition, bandwidth management can also lend bandwidth that has been allocated in accordance with its priorities in order to optimize existing bandwidth usage. Regulating and limiting internet bandwidth usage is indeed an important thing when our internet connection is limited. We need to limit the bandwidth quota of each user connected to the Mikrotik Router. In Mikrotik Router itself, there are features that can limit bandwidth, namely simple queue and queue tree. In the use of VoIP services, bandwidth management is required to manage traffic on the network, the appropriate bandwidth settings can optimize the speed of data transmission. Looking at the internet needs, this research designs an implementation of bandwidth management using routerboard, which will be applied to IP-PBX and use raspberry pi as a server. The results of the research on bandwidth management implementation in simple queue and queue tree is each able to serve 6 users with PCMU codecs, from the test obtained packet loss value of 0.00% from 3 clients, and jitter has an average value of 167.37% from 3 clients.


The file shell L. fragilis displays a slow sustained style of swimming indicative of basically aerobic mechanisms of ATP production. Although it had been proposed that anaerobic glycolysis and arginine phosphate did not contribute to powering swimming, the discovery of high activity of arginine kinase and significant activities of strombine and alanopine dehydrogenases in the adductor muscle led to a reexamination of the relative contributions of aerobic metabolism, anaerobic glycolysis and arginine phosphate during swimming. It was found that, whereas aerobic metabolism predominates with only a minor contribution from anaerobic glycolysis, arginine phosphate supplied up to 23% of the ATP used during 5 min of sustained swimming.


Objective To study in vitro induction of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) into endothelial cells and blood vessel formation on three-dimensional (3D) media. Methods The 3rd passage ADMSCs were induced in vitro into endothelial cells on conditional medium and grew on Matrigel medium. The cell surface antigens CD31 and CD44 were detected with flow cytometric analysis before and after induction. HE staining, FⅧ-RAg immunohistochemical staining, inverted microscope and transmission electron microscope were used for morphological study.Results The expression of CD44 was positive and CD31 negative in ADMSCs in flow cytometric analysis.After induction,CD31 became positive while CD44 was negative. Paving-stone-like cell appearance was seen under inverted microscope 14 days after induction.The cells were FⅧ-RAg positively stained with immunohistological method,and Weibel-Palade body was observed under transmission electron microscope.On Matrigel media,the induced cells migrated in lumping with pseudopodia protrusion after 24 hours,and formed grid structure on the 7th day.Long vasculature was observed on the 13th day,and the vessels branched on the 20th to 30th day.The vessels stained positive for FⅧ-Rag. Conclusions ADMSCs have the potential to give rise to endothelial cells with in vitro induction and to form vessel structure in 3D media.ADMSCs have potential role in vascularized tissue engineering grafting.

Key words:
Adipose-derided mesenchymal stem cell; Endothelial cells; Blood vessels


ABSTRACT This study was conducted to improve yields and qualities of corn protein co-products produced by the sequential extraction process (SEP), a process using ethanol to fractionate corn in producing fuel ethanol. A two-stage extraction protocol was evaluated to recover zein and subsequently recover a glutelin-rich fraction (GRF). After the simultaneous oil-extraction and ethanol-drying step of SEP, zein was extracted from the anhydrous-ethanol-defatted, flaked corn by using 70% (v/v) ethanol at 60°C for 1.5 hr in a shaking water bath. Zein was recovered by ultrafiltering and then drying in a vacuum-oven. Zein yield was 65% of the available zein in the flaked corn. SDS-PAGE band patterns of the recovered zein closely resembled that of commercial zein. After zein extraction, the GRF was extracted using 45% ethanol and 55% 0.1M NaOH at 55°C for 2 hr. The extract was concentrated by ultrafiltration and then freeze-dried. GRF yield was ≈65% of the available protein. Freeze-dried GRF contained 90% crude pr...


This paper will examine the business model and discuss recommendations of best practices for integrating the gig economy as a solution to workforce issues, improving global economic policies, entrepreneurial growth and society. Technology, demand, and location are environmental factors that we analyzed. The positive and negative contributions that entrepreneurs have on this economy are outlined, as well. Throughout the research, the achievement of understanding what the gig economy is and how it is shaping the future is a key focus. The conclusion is made of whether the gig economy is something that is aiding in progression or if it is hindering the development of businesses already established. Past and present economic factors will be analyzed to determine how it is influential on the success or failure of the modern economy. Companies such as Etsy, AirBnB, and Uber are thoroughly analyzed to determine if the businesses are making the best return on investment. The solutions companies are providing for helping the unemployed find work are determined to be long term solutions or a temporary fix used to aid in decreasing the unemployment rate. The research conducted is supported by a series of surveys to help determine if the initiatives taken are harmful for the economy and if economic policies are required for the protection of stakeholders. In this paper, our recommendations can serve as a springboard to create work based discussions to foster alternative workforce options for the changing global economy and for the millennial


Abstract : This study is the author's account of the strategy formulation process as viewed from the White House. The Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act requires the President to submit an annual report on the National Security Strategy. In theory, a formal presentation of grand strategy was intended to lend coherence to the budgeting process; a clear statement of interests, objectives, and concepts for achieving them gave Congress a clear idea of the resources required to support the President's strategy. The problem with such documents is that they often create the false impression that strategy formulation is a rational and systemic process. In fact, strategy formulation both within the executive branch and Congress is an intensely political process from which national strategy emerges after protracted bargaining and compromise.


This paper presents a wideband dual-polarized <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4\,\times \,6$ </tex-math></inline-formula> antenna array with two beams for base-station applications. It consists of three <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4 \times 2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> subarrays. For obtaining ± 45° dual-polarized radiation, a wideband crossed dipole is employed as a basic element. For each <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4 \times 2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> subarray, the lower and upper <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4 \times 1$ </tex-math></inline-formula> subarrays are misaligned in the horizontal plane. By using this innovative scheme, the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4\,\times \,2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> subarray is equivalent to an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$8 \times 1$ </tex-math></inline-formula> subarray with a half adjacent-element spacing, resulting in good grating-lobe suppression. For achieving stable two-beam radiation with low sidelobe over a wide frequency band, specific wideband beam-forming networks with little magnitude and phase imbalances are designed. Moreover, the adjacent-element spacing is optimized to obtain stable 10 dB beamwidth around 120°, thus satisfying the coverage requirement of 120° in the horizontal plane for base-station applications. For demonstration, the proposed <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4 \times 6$ </tex-math></inline-formula> antenna array is designed, fabricated, and measured. The array exhibits two beams with stable 10 dB beamwidth around 120° in the horizontal plane and around −10 dB cross level between two beams. The impedance bandwidth is measured to be 56.1% (1.64–2.92 GHz) for VSWR < 1.5 and horizontally, sidelobe and grating-lobe levels of the two beams are measured to be better than 18 dB. Moreover, the proposed method can easily be extended to multibeam base-station antenna array designs.


As GP trainees our curriculum puts an emphasis on acquiring valuable skills in communication, and managing clinical complexities. Once we complete our training schemes, and venture into the complex world of general practice, we may face challenges that our training did not prepare us for.

Traditionally, GP trainees would complete their training and aim to become partners in a GP practice, or alternatively, bid for open lists in order to set up their own practices. With the recent advent of salaried GP positions, some GPs are resisting partnership positions and opting for alternative positions within a general practice. Regardless of the position, it is inevitable that at some point the GP will recognise that general practice involves complex contracts with Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), which to some degree dictate how we can deliver our services to our local populations. With this article we hope to introduce you to some of these concepts.


Public opinion is associated with the study of attitudes, preferences, and beliefs among people toward a specific subject. This study is applicable in many fields, such as politics, to better understand citizens' opinions and to manage them accordingly; for commercial companies, to understand customers' satisfaction; among academic organizations, for research purposes; and in media, for posting articles based on public opinion. The fact that public opinion could be used as a tool in many fields is the core motivation of this work. According to academic literature, one of the most widely used techniques to quantify and interpret public opinion is surveying. Surveying consists of a series of steps to choose a sample population, develop a questionnaire to be answered by the sample population, collect the response data using different methods, and finally interpret and quantify the results. In this work, the Twitter social network is used to collect data in the context of the 2018 Ecuadorian national referendum and constitutional reforms during the three months of political campaigning before the voting. The objective was to analyze public opinions obtained from Twitter and to compare it with the official results presented by the National Council of Elections in Ecuador after the voting. The results presented in this work indicate that Twitter data can be used to extract public opinion with a high level of confidence in sensitive scenarios like elections or voting processes.


Ti-6Al-4V is preferred as material in the production of implants because it possesses favorable properties, such as relatively low modulus, low density, and high strength. Unfortunately, it has poor bioactive properties and fails to bond to bone tissue. The pure HA coating on the Ti-6Al-4V, improves the surface bioactivity but often flakes off as a result of poor HA/Ti-6Al-4V interface bonding, which may cause the surgery to fail. One way to improve the low strength of pure HA coatings is to form a composite coating by reinforce HA coating with CTS. In this study, HA/CTS composite were produced with the composition of CTS is (30 wt.% CTS) by powder metallurgy method. The study is focusing on identifying the effect of temperatures on HA/CTS composite layer onto Titanium Alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) substrate. The substrate were sintered under flowing high temperature furnace in Argon gas atmosphere at four different temperatures for 750 °C, 800 °C, 850 °C and 900 °C. The effect of different temperatures onto composite layer has improved its hardness properties were characterized by Vickers Microhardness. Meanwhile, the verification of phase composition and chemical analysis were conducted by XRD, SEM and EDX. In addition, the biocompatibility of the alloy was remarkably improved by the HA coating and the incorporation of CTS into the coating. At 900 °C was selected as the best temperature due to the good results obtained from XRD, SEM and EDX analysis and mechanical testing such as Vickers Microhardness.


With the development of economic society,the efforts to increase higher education have being strengthened further.As the number of graduates has increased in recent years,the employment condition is becoming serious.Employment is the basis of people's livelihood and harmonious society.The difficulties for university students' employment has become one of the focuses of the social concern.This article analyzes current situation of university students' employment,then discusses reasons and put forward to some countermeasures.


Detection of a fetal anomaly leads to considerable psychological distress for the pregnant woman and her partner. The relation between psychological and endocrine reactions to stress is relatively well understood in non-pregnant women. This knowledge is not necessarily transferable to the situation during pregnancy because pregnancy itself causes alterations in the maternal hormone balance. We are studying the relation between psychological and endocrine stress responses in pregnancies following the detection of fetal anomalies by ultrasonography


Objective:To evaluate the effect of endothelial cell to marrow mesenchymal stem cell in in three-dimensional system.Methods:dissociation and culture rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell and endothelial cell,and in different co-culture models(co-culture with or without direct contact), Analysis ossification ability of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell.Results:In directive and indirective co-culture and marrow mesenchymal stem cell alone culture ,Protein quantity is (0.239±0.023) mg/mL,(0.174±0.015) mg/mL,(0.115±0.012) mg/mL,(0.121±0.016) mg/mL; The ALP activity are (0.625±0.123) μ/mg、(0.412±0.178) μ/mg、(0.141±0.08) μ/mg;Osteocalcin are (0.8±0.124) μg/L、(0.462±0.149) μg/L、(0.235±0.146) μg/L.By statistics evaluation, To ossification ability of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell co-culture is higher than culture alone(P0.05),and direct is higher than indirect(P0.05).Conclusions:Ossification ability of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell can be regulated in co-culture with Endothelial cell by cytokine and cell membrane proteins.


In field test,the effect of non-coated slow release compound fertilizer on pepper is studied.Compared with common compound fertilizer,slow release compound fertilizer shows positive effects in yield increase and quality improvement under same nutrients.No.2 slow release compound fertilizer is better: the effect of one application is nearly equal to that of traditional applications and shows an yield increase of 13.7% ~ 24.6%.In output efficiency comparison,unit slow release compound fertilizer shows an increase of 61.2% ~ 68.8% than a direct application of common compound fertilizer,and shows an increase of 4.0%~ 11.1% than regular application(many times).In N utilization ratio comparison,slow release compound fertilizer shows an average increase of 10.3% ~ 10.9% than a direct application of common compound fertilizer,and shows an increase of 3.8% ~ 5.9% than regular application(many times)


Asthma is an important problem in the elderly, our fastest growing age group. Asthma in the elderly is sometimes underdiagnosed and undertreated. The elderly asthmatic has a poorer quality of life, is hospitalized more often and is more likely to die. Comorbid conditions are much more common in the elderly and impact greatly on the diagnosis and management of asthma in this age group. While allergy is less common in the elderly than in younger age groups, it should still be considered in any patient with asthma. The management of asthma in the elderly must take into consideration comorbid conditions, polypharmacy and the increased probability of adverse reactions from medications.


This paper presents a new framework comprising the combination of uplink cell-free massive multiple input multiple output (mMIMO) with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for serving Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices in an uncoordinated manner. We investigate the benefits of reinforcement learning to support the massive connectivity and quality of service (QoS) requirements of IoT devices. Using the multi-armed bandit technique, the devices jointly determine their subband and transmit power, without any cooperation, in such a way as to strike a balance between the QoS and the transmit power. Applied with a dynamic cooperation clustering of serving access points (APs), the allocation technique is shown to achieve a quick convergence while having a negligible loss in performance towards a system that relies on all deployed APs for serving the devices.


Let G be an edge-colored graph on n vertices. For a vertex v , the color degree of v in G , denoted by d c ( v ), is the number of colors appearing on the edges incident with v . Denote by δ c ( G ) = min { d c ( v ) : v ∈ V ( G ) } . By a theorem of H. Li, an n -vertex edge-colored graph G contains a rainbow triangle if δ c ( G ) ≥ n +12 . Inspired by this result, we consider two related questions concerning edge-colored books and friendship subgraphs of edge-colored graphs. Let k ≥ 2 be a positive integer. We prove that if δ c ( G ) ≥ n + k − 1 2 where n ≥ 3 k − 2, then G contains k rainbow triangles sharing one common edge; and if δ c ( G ) ≥ n +2 k − 3 2 where n ≥ 2 k + 9, then G contains k rainbow triangles sharing one common vertex. The special case k = 2 of both results improves H. Li's theorem. The main novelty of our proof of the first result is a combination of the recent new technique for finding rainbow cycles due to Czygrinow, Molla, Nagle, and Oursler and some recent counting technique from [26]. The proof of the second result is with the aid of the machine implicitly in the work of Tur´an numbers for matching numbers due to Erd˝os and Gallai.


The Passover night was a night to be remembered. But long before that night the custom had existed, and the Israelites must have been familiar with it, of welcoming a guest, or of accepting a bride or bridegroom who was to become one of the family, by the outpouring of blood on the threshold of the door,-by staining the doorway itself with the blood of the covenant. On this night Jehovah announces to the Israelites that He is to enter into


Canna edulis Ker-Gawl is a versatile crop that integrates food, energy, and feed in China. The rhizome is a traditional Chinese medicine with a long history. However, there are few studies on chemical components. Crude plant extracts are a complex mixture of several biologically active secondary metabolites. Therefore, rapid and accurate identification and quantification are critical in phytochemical analysis. An efficient approach based on ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with Q-Exactive Orbitrap tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS) was used to analyze the chemical components systematically. We used retention time, accurate molecular weight, parent peaks, fragment peaks, fragmentation characteristics, comparative analysis with the literature, reference standards, and standard databases, including ChemSpider, mzVault, MassBank, and mzCloud. A total of 54 chemical constituents were identified from the methanol extract of the rhizome, including 36 organic acids (with six phenolic acids), three phenols, one sugar (and its derivatives), one coumarin, one triterpenoid, ten N-containing organic compounds (including seven amino acids), and two other compounds. Moreover, three compounds were quantitatively analyzed and a methodological study of the three components was carried out. The established method provided satisfactory precision and accuracy, acceptable recovery, good linearity, and a reasonable detection limit. The UHPLC Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS method was used for the first time to accurately, quickly, and systematically characterize the compounds of the rhizome, revealing the pharmacodynamic substances and providing a theoretical basis for its quality control, in-depth research, and development.


Virtually all segmentation methods require parameter tuning, quite a difficult task, mostly performed manually through a troublesome trial-and-error process. To overcome this difficulty, an earlier work describes an automatic parameter adjustment method using Genetic Algorithms (GAs), given an initial set of reference object samples. The method performs well only for homogeneous objects. However, in most real applications, the meaningful image objects are actually non-homogeneous, or rather, an ensemble of usually few homogeneous segments. This work addresses this issue and proposes a supervised GA-based method to automatically adjust the values of segmentation parameters in applications where meaningful objects are inhomogeneous, though formed by an assembly of homogeneous parts. Moreover the work introduces a post-segmentation procedure that merges adjacent segments into single units, which match the geometric form of the interest image objects. Specifically, a metric for detection of polygonal arrangements of segments is proposed herein. Experimental analyses evidence the higher performance of the new method for adjusting segmentation parameters in comparison with the earlier approach. The experiments also attest the ability of the proposed post-segmentation metric to detect polygonal shapes.


ABSTRACT Received: Revised: Accepted: July 12, 2010 September 30, 2010 October 14, 2010 Key words: Buffalo oocytes In vitro maturation In vitro fertilization Somatic cells co culture This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of different somatic cell types and media in supporting in vitro maturation (IVM), in vitro fertilization (IVF) and early embryonic development competence of buffalo follicular oocytes. Cumulus oocyte complexes were collected for maturation from follicles (>6mm) of buffalo ovaries collected at the local abattoir. Oocytes were co-cultured in tissue culture medium (TCM-199) with either granulosa cells, cumulus cells, or buffalo oviductal epithelial cells (BOEC) @ 3x10 6 cells/ml or in TCM-199 without helper cells (control) at 39°C and 5%CO 2 in humidified air. Fresh semen was prepared in modified Ca ++ free Tyrode medium. Fertilization was carried out in four types of media: i) Tyrode lactate albumin pyruvate (TALP), ii) TALP+BOEC, iii) modified Ca ++ free Tyrode and iv) modified Ca


This research aimed to identify the effect of POGIL model on the students' mathematical problem-solving ability. The variables involved in this research were mathematical problem-solving abilities as an independent variable, and the POGIL model as a dependent variable. Based on the observations of researchers through interviews with mathematics subject teachers and students at Junior High School 2 Kalibagor, showed that the mathematical learning process that took place was still dominated by learning that did not involve the active role of students. The learning used is still teacher-centered and limited to information transfer, especially in the form of theoretical and mathematical equations. The population of this study was the students at seventh grade in Junior High School 2 Kalibagor, even semester in the school year 2017/2018 consist of 8 classes and amounted to 219 students. Sampling was done randomly, selected as an experimental class is 66.91 with 30 students and 55.91 as control class with 30 students. This test was validated by two mathematicians, then it was tested to a group of seventh-grade students to fulfill the validity and reliability criteria. The data were analyzed by using t-test after conducting a series of normality and homogeneity tests. It was concluded that t-test for equality of means was used for hypothesis testing that shows a significant value = 0.000 less than alpha 0.05. So that H0 is rejected, it means that students' mathematical problem-solving ability taught by using POGIL model is better than students' mathematical problem-solving ability taught by conventional learning. In other words, POGIL model influences or effects on students' mathematical problem-solving abilities.


Mobile crowdsoured data from location based social network services (LBSNs) provide information on individual's preferences for locations. In this article, we propose a travel package recommendation system to help users make travel plans by leveraging mobile crowdsourced data. We extract user preferences, discover points of interest (POIs), and determine location correlations from check-in records. We then generate personalized travel packages by considering user preferences, POI characteristics, and temporalspatial constraints such as travel time and starting location. A prototype system is built and evaluated on real-world crowdsourced data from Jie Pang, one of the most popular LBSNs in China.


By applying relative eco physiology theory,biomass stuctures of Dendrocalamus oldhami individuals and stands were analyzed for the purpose of the feasibility of afforestation along seashore dene The results showed that on the seashore dene,the bamboo growed soundly,and I degree bamboo seldom burgeoned branches and leaves On the contrary,II degree bamboo whose photosynthesis organs developed perfectly,commenced on accumulation of nutrient for conceiving bamboo shoot Moreover,the biomass distribution rule in organs of both individuals and stands was followed by the following order,culm,root,stake,branch and leaf


Background  Patients with papulopustular rosacea (PPR) frequently complain of dry, sensitive skin. We have previously demonstrated that patients with PPR have reduced skin surface hydration levels in the presence of normal sebum casual levels, suggesting that it may be the quality and not the quantity of sebum that plays a role in PPR.


Secondary hyperparathyroidism(SHPT) is often accompanied by cardiovascular calcification in chronic kidney disease(CKD) patients. Through its effects on calcium and phosphorus metabolism, SHPT can indirectly cause or aggravate vascular calcification. However, the direct effects of parathyroid hormone(PTH) on cardiovascular calcification are biphasic. Physiological dose of PTH inhibits vascular smooth muscle cells(VSMC) proliferation and calcification while supraphysiological dose of PTH promotes these processes by increasing inflammatory mediators such as IL-6, RAGE or by promoting transcription of the calcification gene. Therefore, prevention of SHPT is important for intervention in the cardiovascular calcification. It has been found that parathyroidectomy, dietary phosphorus restriction, use of phosphate binders, active vitamin D and/or its analogs may effectively improve SHPT, but their effects on vascular calcification still remains unclear yet. Recently, cinacalcet, the only drug of calcimimetics, has been found to slow down the progression of cardiovascular calcification in dialysis patients, which provides important evidence for prevention of the cardiovascular calcification with anti-SHPT drugs in CKD patients.


Novel thienopyrimidines (2, 3, 4) and 1, 3, 4-triazole fused thienopyrimidines (5a-c) were synthesized efficiently from 2-Amino-6-methyl-4, 5, 6, 7-tetrahydro-1-benzothiophene-3-carbonitrile 1 under microwave irradiation technique as well as by classical heating. The Precursor 1 was prepared by employing the Gewald reaction using microwave irradiation. The structures of newly synthesized thiophene derivatives were ascertained by spectral and analytical data and they were screened for antimicrobial activity where they had showed promising antibacterial and antifungal activities


Objective: To observe the therapeutic effect of Yuyin Recipe in treating psoriasis vulgaris and its effects on erythrocyte and platelet. Methods : In this clinical study, 69 outpatients of psoriasis vulgaris were randomly divided into two groups: 44 cases of psoriasis were treated with Yuyin Recipe. 25 cases of psoriasis were treated with Compositus Indigo Naturalis Pill. The course of treatment was 8 weeks. Examinated the index of erythrocyte and platelet. Results :In the observed group, the total effective rate was 93.18%, while in the control group, 72 % . With the comparision of the total effective rate between the two group showed significant difference (P0.05).It also could improve the MCV, MCHC, PLT and MPV to the normal. Conclusion : Yuyin Recipe could treat psoriasis vulgaris. It could be studied to the further step.


This paper presents descriptions, and taxonomic and ecological data by the angiosperm pollen grains recovered from Quaternary sediments of the Gruta do Urso Cave, Tocantins State, Northern Brazil. Among recovered assemblage, 44 types of angiosperm pollen were identified. Most of the pollen types described here are related to the modern aboreal-shrub and herbaceous-subshrub taxa currently present in the plant communities of the Cerrado biome: (i) forest formations (Annonaceae, Aspidosperma, Ilex, Celtis, Trema, Tournefortia, Protium, Combretaceae-Melastomataceae type, Croton-type, Moraceae-Urticaceae type, cf. Bauhinia brevipes, Cassia, Pithecellobium, Peixotoa, and Cedrela); (ii) savannah formations (Anacardium, Astronium, Asteraceae Tribu Eupatorieae, Caryocar, Cyperaceae, Eriotheca-type, Ludwigia, Pseudobombax spp., Ouratea, Qualea, and Utricularia), and (iii) grasslands (Poaceae). Regarding the diversity of pollen types registered, the most representative botanical families were: Fabaceae (8), Malvaceae (4), Euphorbiaceae (3), Anacardiaceae (3), Apocynaceae (2), Cannabaceae (2), Sapindaceae (2) and Poaceae (2), which also occur in the Cerrado-Caatinga transition. Pollen data show paleovegetation during the Last Glacial Maximum and Holocene times out of the cave, and provides a reliable source for paleoecological, paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic investigations.


Of Canada's Inuit, 49% reside in Nunavut. Factors such as geographic isolation and a distinct culture have a unique impact on cancer epidemiology in this population and create an area ripe for investigation. Dr. Tim Asmis and colleagues have completed a retrospective study1 of 11 years of cancer treatment and outcomes in Inuit patients referred from Nunavut to The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre (tohcc), the hub of the Champlain Regional Cancer Program. Their study is the first of its kind and provides valuable information about an often overlooked population.

Patients from the Baffin region of Nunavut receive their cancer care at tohcc, travelling more than 2000 km by air to Ottawa for multidisciplinary assessment, treatment, and follow-up for all malignant conditions. Coordination of culturally sensitive care is extremely important for those who come to Ottawa, because these patients need interpreters, housing, and transportation.

The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre not only serves the Inuit population from Nunavut, but also a substantial Inuit population that resides in the Ottawa region. In fact, Ottawa is home to the greatest number of Inuit outside of the North2, and the region has the third-largest aboriginal population in Ontario. "Aboriginal" is an umbrella term that refers to three distinct groups: First Nations, Inuit, and Metis (fnim). Each group has its own customs, language, beliefs, and values—and certainly its own health needs. There are approximately 38,000 aboriginal people living in the Ottawa area, and that number is growing rapidly3. During 2001–2006, the fnim population grew by 67%, greater than the non-fnim population by a factor of 6 because of higher birth rates and moves to urban areas2. First Nations make up the greatest proportion of the aboriginal population in the Ottawa area, followed by Metis and Inuit. Aboriginal people deserve greater attention in the area of cancer care because the incidences of cancer are increased, cancer diagnoses occur at later stage, and survival rates are lower in fnim communities than in the general population4. In fact, the Inuit have the highest rate of lung cancer in the world4.

The provincial government—namely, Cancer Care Ontario—has recognized the need to better serve fnim patients and is committed to reducing cancer cases among fnim people and to ensuring that those who do develop cancer receive timely and culturally-appropriate access to services. Cancer Care Ontario launched the Aboriginal Cancer Strategy ii in June 2012 and has been working to achieve key milestones related to each of its 6 strategic priorities: Building Productive Relationships, Research and Surveillance, Prevention, Screening Blitz, Palliative and Supportive Care, and Education4. In executing the strategy, Cancer Care Ontario is working in partnership with tohcc to develop strong relationships with community partners, to support locally-driven solutions, and to position all stakeholders for the upcoming Aboriginal Cancer Strategy iii.

The Champlain Regional Cancer Program has enhanced care for the aboriginal population through the introduction of an aboriginal patient coordinator who provides support in navigating the cancer system and addresses cultural and spiritual needs. Patients also have access to a new designated space in the cancer centre that is welcoming and culturally appropriate. Volunteers from fnim communities were very active in designing the space and participated in a special event to mark the opening.

Specifically for the Inuit community, tohcc collaborates with Ottawa Health Services Network Inc. (to assist in the care of residents of Baffin coming to Ottawa for health care) and with Larga Baffin (an organization that provides culturally sensitive lodging, meals, and transportation for patients from Nunavut). And tohcc is actively pursuing improvements in cancer care in Nunavut. For example, a computed tomography scanner was recently installed in Iqaluit, and physicians are now able to read images and diagnose remotely from Ottawa. The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre has also formed a working group to assist in collaboratively designing priorities for improving the provision of cancer care from prevention, through treatment, to survivorship and palliative care. With the support of researchers, government, and the community, tohcc is working diligently to build the foundation for what will be a long-term commitment to improving aboriginal health.


We have developed a novel method to explore the single molecule behavior of proteins in the low force regime of the laser tweezers. Individual protein molecules are tethered between two polystyrene beads using two dsDNA molecules, which are in turn attached to the protein through unique engineered cysteine residues. One bead is held by suction on the tip of a pipette while the other is held in the optical trap. The force and distance between the beads is varied by moving the bead on the pipette relative to the bead in the trap. The DNA handles can be attached to any exposed cysteine residues, allowing a variety of pulling geometries to be used to investigate the anisotropy of the protein energy landscape. The low spring of laser tweezers enabled us to directly monitor low force refolding events and fluctuations between different molecular structures at quasi‐equilibrium conditions. Data exploring the behavior of different protein protein topologies, different pulling geometries and the relationship to bulk solution studies of the energy landscape will be presented.


In this paper, we contemplated the transport characteristics of a single molecular device junction by augmenting the length of the molecule in the scattering region. The molecules considered here belongs to class of alkanedithiols (CnH2n+2S2). Specifically, we used a tight binding semi-empirical model to compute the transport characteristics of butanedithiol, pentanedithiol, hexanedithiol and heptanedithiol connected to semi-infinite gold electrodes through thiol anchoring elements. The exploration of transport properties of considered alkanes was completed for different bias voltages within the sphere of Keldysh's Non Equilibrium Green's Function (NEGF) and Extended Huckel Theory (EHT), for studying the self-consistent steady-state solution, analyzing the out-of-equilibrium electron distribution, and the behavior of the self-consistent potential. We perceived that the current and conductance retrenches with aggravation with the increase in length of the molecule with exhibition of single electron tunneling. We observed that the coupling regime shifts from strong coupling to weak for higher order alkanedithiols and the transmission is function of evenness or oddness of the carbon atoms forming an alkane.


Abstract We propose a relational theoretical model of economic organization that offers new insight into the organizing dynamics of economic systems. Neoclassical and complexity economics are, in their Western cultural origins, based on an assumption of the primacy of the discrete individual. Collectivist economic traditions are based on the principle of collective interest rather than self-interest. We attempt a rapprochement of individualist (especially free market) and collectivist (especially centrally planned) economic cultures and traditions by modelling economic organization as arising from individual and collective dynamics and the relationships between them. Structure, process, function, and content are four fundamental inter-related properties of our model of economic organization. We posit the existence of micro, meso, macro scales of economic organization in all of structure, process, function, and contents. To operationalize our relational model, the conventional bottom-up process of self-organization is reconceived to involve relationships within micro-, meso-, and macro-economic organization. In turn, the new concept of socio-cultural organization is construed to involve relationships between and among economic organization, across micro, meso, and macro scales. Our model of relations provides a structure for complex-realist exploration, making cross-scale inter-relationships explicit and by providing a structured language for description of these relationships.


The study of childhood across Late Prehistory is a perspective that arouses much interest today in the field of archaeological studies. What is proposed below is a systematic study of several case studies of different sites in the Murcia province. In this way we try to establish how lived these subjects, what considerations have within the community or what were the functions that could be performed within it, through a methodology that takes into account gender and age analysis.


The utility model relates to a continuous casting cutting optimizing system which comprises a continuous casting machine sizing cutting device, a lower computer, an upper computer and an ocx control. The continuous casting machine sizing cutting device is connected with the lower computer which is connected with the upper computer. The upper computer is connected with the ocx control. The continuous casting machine sizing cutting device, the lower computer and the upper computer are connected through data lines. Data exchange between the upper computer and the ocx control is carried out on the same computer. The upper computer is connected with a display screen. The continuous casting cutting optimizing system has the advantages of reducing casting blank loss of a steel mill, increasing metal yield and creating considerable economic benefits for the steel mill.


OBJECTIVE
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of many individuals. While emerging evidence has begun to document health (e.g., infection) and financial (e.g., job loss) consequences, less is known about the day-to-day experiences of some of the country's most vulnerable populations. The current study sought to address this gap in understanding by examining exposure to potentially stressful or traumatic experiences (PSTEs) and their relation to mental health among predominately low-income, African American/Black individuals.

METHOD
Adult caregivers (N = 110) from an ongoing longitudinal research project occurring prior the pandemic completed surveys about their exposure to COVID-19-specific PSTEs during the initial months of the pandemic. Information on participants was combined with pre-COVID-19 PSTE exposure and examined in relation to current mental health functioning (e.g., depression).

RESULTS
Findings indicated that participants experienced several different types of COVID-19-specific PSTEs across multiple domains, including home, work, social life, and health and well-being. Results from model testing indicated that COVID-19-specific PSTEs were only associated with worry about COVID-19-specifically. Adulthood PSTEs prior to COVID-19 were also associated with current anxiety symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS
Among low-income, African American/Black individuals with a history of exposure to PSTEs, additional PSTEs experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic may not contribute significantly to general mental health functioning above and beyond pre-COVID-19 PSTE exposures. Taken together, research on PSTE exposure from the pandemic should make attempts to account for lifetime PSTE exposure to most accurately evaluate current mental health concerns, especially among marginalized populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).


After ten-year resplendence,the tourism in Kunming city emergences an embarrassed tendency of"dimension rising and status dropping".The main reason is that the core competitiveness of tourism in the twenty-first century not only lies in the conventional factors of tourism,but more lies in the modern factors of tourism.The gap between Kunming and burgeoning cities rests with the comparatively scarcity of modern ones.Kunming has entered the era of"project-driven development","competitive and cooperate drastically"and"times of crisis are also times of opportunity".In order to avoid aging and decaying of the destination of tourism, Kunming should draw support of Southeast Asia as the factor of rising to changeover. And it is supposed to innovate and develop deeply,to construct and inaugurate brand, product and item of tourism,and to reform the mechanism of tourism at the aim of remolding the tourism status of Kunming.


In order to facilitate the integration of active devices, a leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on corrugated substrate integrated waveguide (CSIW) structure is proposed. By introducing rectangular ring slots on the CSIW structure, the proposed LWA is capable of beam scanning from backward to forward. The rectangular ring slots do not only enable energy leaking but also provide series capacitance. In addition, the grounded vias and quarter-wave open-circuit stubs provide shunt inductance. Thus, the proposed CSIW exhibits left-handed characteristic which enables beam scanning through the broadside. To further facilitate the design and suppress open-stopband of beam scanning antenna based on CSIW structure, an equivalent circuit model is developed and the relationships between structure parameters and the equivalent circuit parameters are presented. Based on this design guide, a leaky wave antenna is designed with radiation angle ranging from −53° to 23°. This proposed novel CSIW LWA has great potential in tunable or reconfigurable antenna design due to its ease of integration with active devices.


BRILL (Amer. Journ. of Med. Sci., April, 1910) describes an acute infectious disease of unknown origin and pathology from a clinical study based upon 221 cases occurring in the Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, during the past sixteen years. Characterized by a short incubation period of four to five days; a period of continuous fever with intense headache, apathy, and prostration; an extensive erythematous maculo-papular eruption which does not disappear on pressure; lasting about a fortnight and ending by crisis or by lysis within three days; without tendency to relapse; and always negative to the Widal test, the disease appears to have a distinct clinical entity entirely separate from typhoid, typhus, or any other known disease. During the incubation period the patient suffers from malaise, anorexia, nausea, and slight headache, the disease com mencing abruptly with a chill, vomiting, general aching, and sometimes epistaxis, the headache becoming intense, and apathy and prostration rapidly supervening. The temperature reaches its height in from two to three days, and averages 103.60 to 104.20 during the rest of the disease. The evening temperature is usually the highest, but the remissions between morning and evening rarely exceed 10 F. The patient lies very quietly, sometimes moaning, and with a facial expression of frontal pain. The eyes are dull and suffused, the conjunctivae congested, and the face flushed, while the patient is drowsy, with dulled sensorium, and presenting disturbance. About the sixth day a dull, slightly-raised erythematous maculo-papular eruption commences on the abdomen and back, and rapidly spreads over the whole body with the exception of the face. There is usually obstinate constipation with a coated tongue, and the pulse is of low tension and not nearly so rapid as might be expected from the pyrexia. All these symptoms remain fully developed until about the twelfth day, when the crisis occurs, followed by a rapid convalescence. Rigidity of the neck and Kernig's sign were present in a few instances. The disease is most common between the twentieth and fortieth years of life, males being affected about twice as frequently as females, the largest number of cases occurring in the summer. One of the most prominent features is the persistent headache, which is general and not partial to any locality. No positive reaction to the Widal test was ever obtained, although daily examinations were made. Though there is no evidence of the disease being directly communicable, the definite periods of incubation, onset, a;nd decline warra:nt its being regarded as an infectious disease, and it has been considered wise to take the usual precautionary measures when attending such cases. Treatment for the present is entirely symptomatic.


The reactions of poly(epichlorohydrin) (PECH) and poly(2-chloroethyl vinyl ether) (PCEVE) with various reagents were investigated using phase transfer catalyst (PTC) such as tetra-n-butylammonium bromide (TBAB), 18-crown-6 (CR6), and dicyclohexyl-18-crown-6 (DCHC) is a solid—liquid two-phase system. Although the reactions of these polymers hardly occurred without PTC in nonpolar solvents such as toluene and diglyme under mild conditions, the addition of PTC caused the reactions to proceed smoothly under the same conditions. In addition, the reactions of PECH and PCEVE with a strong base such as potassium hydroxide proceeded selectively through β-elimination reaction to produce the polymers with pendant vinyl groups. These results suggested this method is useful for the syntheses of functional polymers. On the other hand, it turned out that quaternary ammonium salts such as TBAB have higher catalytic activity than crown ethers such as CRG and DCHE in these reactions. Furthermore, the catalytic activity of quaternary ammonium salts was strongly influenced by their chain length and the structure of the polymers.


Purpose: Treatment of malignant melanoma with interferon‐α has been associated with a variety of side effects ranging from fatigue to depression, and a concomitant impact on quality of life (QOL), in a variety of case reports and cross‐sectional clinical trials. Few, if any, studies have been conducted with the express purpose of assessing the longitudinal course of depression, fatigue, and QOL before and during interferon therapy.


A Review of Varieties of Governance in China: Migration and Institutional Change in Chinese Villages By Jie Lu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 298 pages. Jie Lu's new book is a landmark work of political science that lucidly draws on the diverse fields of history, anthropology, and migration studies in elucidating divergent modalities of local village governance in China. Drawing on an impressive number of statistical analyses, rich case studies, and his own fieldwork in rural China, Lu strongly makes the case that the effectiveness of local governing institutions in rural China is dependent on the social environment, community networks, and rates of out-migration. Through exploring local governance in Chinese villages, Lu sheds important insight into grassroots democracy, lineage solidary groups, rural banking, disaster relief, and conflict resolution, which enables this book to appeal to broad scholarly audiences. At the heart of Lu's argument are three villages that stand as case studies and frame much of his qualitative evidence: Qianzhouzhai Village of Shandong Province, Songzhuang Village of Henan Province, and Su Village, also of Henan Province. For Lu, Qianzhouzhai is representative of one type of rural Chinese village, which has preserved a high level of tight-knit communal structures and has seen relatively low rates of out-migration. Strong social pressures dictate much of everyday life and mundane behavior here, such as a custom of only using umbrellas on rainy days. (1) Elections are held in Qianzhouzhai Village, though candidates are typically nominated directly by the township government, and village cadres sport meager salaries. Nonetheless, roads get paved and loans are provided, though largely through kinship structures and charity from within the local village. Songzhuang Village, the second case study, has a higher rate of out-migration, with 10 to 15 percent of its total population working outside of Henan Province. (2) Though the houses of Songzhuang are clustered together like those in Qianzhouzhai, the streets are less lively and mainly populated with elders, whose children have left for work elsewhere. Competitive, democratic elections matter here: Voter turnout nears 100 percent of the local population, and elected cadres help villagers solve all different types of problems and maintain public infrastructure. Su Village, Lu's third case study, is located in the northeastern part of Henan province, where it has seen approximately 60 percent of its 1,500 people leave for work in other provinces or emigrate with their families. (3) There is little social cohesion in Su Village, with most families building large, detached houses while public roads remain unpaved. There is weak enthusiasm and low turnout in elections, and the township government heavily influences, if not dictates, the results. Lu's point is that effective local governance, either through kinship ties or grassroots democracy, is possible in the first two types of villages but difficult to achieve in the third, which has crossed a migratory threshold. There, local bonds have been broken, traditional village cohesion is lacking, and democratic elections are irrelevant. Lu's arguments are cogent and supported by empirical data that highlight collective village income, semi-regular land allocations, distances to central townships and cities, and election statistics, all of which he generously provides throughout his narrative. One pleasure of this book is Lu's constant conversations with historians of China, with close readings of Prasenjit Duara's formulations of informal state brokerage and the "cultural nexus of power," as well as Philip Huang's notion of "involution in agricultural production." (4) Lu points to other groundbreaking scholars, such as Vivienne Shue, who has noted the irony that, even as the early decades of the People's Republic of China (PRC) saw attacks on kinship and lineage structures, the commune organization and hukou system effectively tied people to the land, which in many cases allowed some traditional kinship and lineage structures to remain active into the 1980s. …


A well-known high-school problem asking the final temperature of two identical spheres that are given the same amount of heat, one lying on a table and the other hanging from a thread, is re-examined. The conventional solution states that the sphere on the table ends up colder, because thermal expansion raises its center of mass. This solution violates the second law of thermodynamics and is therefore incorrect. Two different new solutions are proposed. The first uses statistical mechanics, while the second is based on purely classical thermodynamical arguments. Gravity produces a counterintuitive effect on the heat capacity, and the new answer to the problem goes in the opposite direction of what has been traditionally thought.


Data are presented on the cytological studies of spermatogenesis of apes exposed to x-radiation doses of 150 to 500 r. The studies were concerned mostly with the dividing spermatogenes in order to determine the composition of Macaca mulatta chromosome complex and with dividing spermatocytes of the flrst order for determining the character of chromosome reorganization taking place under the action of ionizing radiation. Tabulated data show that sperm of ape No. 1 irradiated with 150 r and killed two years later underwent 5% of anaphase changes; the sperm of the No. 2 ape irradiated with 450 r and killed two years later showed a disturbance about 6%; in the ape No. 3, irradi ated with 400 r and killed 11 days after, the disturbance is about 28%. Such a great number of anaphase changes indicate considerable chromosome disturbances, which within two years eliminate the most damaging ones and multiply the least damaging to 5 or 6%. Consequentiy, it may be deduced that the part of the chromosome reorganization resulting from irradiation, while multiplying, may retain and induce new different reorganization during the span of the animal's life. Hence, the opinion that after a long interval and repalring processes the organismmore » re- establishes the normal fertility is erroneous. Moreover, the radioinduced disturbances may induce various pathological effects in the mammals and their progeny. (R.V.J.)« less


This paper assesses the performance of monetary indicators in predicting euro area HICP inflation out-of-sample over the period since the start of EMU considering a wide range of forecasting models, including standard bivariate forecasting models, factor models, simple combination forecasts as well as trivariate two-pillar Phillips Curve type forecasting models. The results suggest that monetary indicators are still useful indicators for inflation in the euro area, but that a thorough and broad based monetary analysis is needed to extract the information content of monetary developments for future inflation.


As this great Pittsburgh museum approaches its 100th anniversary, it celebrates its incomparable collection of some 400 American paintings and sculptures dating from the 18th to the mid-20th century, especially strong in early modernism and artists of Western Pennsylvania. Includes biographies of 200 artists and essays on each work of art.


Inhibitor‐of‐differentiation 2 (Id2) belongs to a family of transcriptional modulators that are characterized by a helix loop helix region but lack the basic amino acid domain. During development, Id2 antagonizes differentiation mediated by the retinoblastoma protein, probably by scavenging downstream E‐box basic helix‐loop‐helix proteins. Here, using differential display RT‐PCR, we identify Id2 as an induced gene during serum and potassium deprivation‐induced apoptosis of cerebellar granule neurons. Consistent with a biological role for induced Id2 messenger RNA and protein expression in neuronal cell death, expression of Id2 antisense RNA, or targeted deletion of the Id2 gene in neurons from Id2 knock‐out mice, protect from apoptosis. Further, gene transfer‐ mediated overexpression of Id2 induces neuronal cell death both in high potassium and low potassium conditions. Thus, the present study defines a role for Id2 in the modulation of neuronal apoptosis.


The centrifugal pump can not meet the technical requirements of deep-sea mining in performance and structure. Moreover, coarse particles and water was regarded as a research object. In order to study the performance of deep sea mining, this article uses a new type of electric pump as a model. At the same time, there are different diameter particles in deep-sea mining. The force of the coarse particles in the quasi-fluid is analyzed by CFturbo for 3D modeling and extracting the flow path of the quasi-fluid. The ICEM is used for the meshing, and the quasi-fluid at the concentration of 5%, 8% and 10% was selected. The Particle model was used for numerical simulation in CFX to predict the electric pump performance from the results obtained. Using two-stage electric pump to do the water test, the data obtained with the numerical simulation results are compared. It shows that when the particle concentration is 10% in the deep sea mining, the system is more stable and the efficiency and the head are more reasonable.


An optimized design method of new slab structure is offered.By applying this method,the structural parameters of composite exterior wall slab are optimized,and the influence of properties of the surface layer and core layer materials on the optimized result is analyzed.


The Summit on the National Assessment of Psychology was held on June 2016 to chart a path for assessing student achievement of the goals of the undergraduate psychology major. Our subcommittee was charged with identifying evaluation strategies and tools for students' professional development, which included applying psychology to various careers; engaging in effective self-regulation, project management, and teamwork; and developing lifelong professional skills. In this article, therefore, we not only review a wide range of assessment tools for facilitating and evaluating professional development in psychology, but we also discuss the larger importance of the learning goal both to students and to public perceptions of psychology.