Having no long-winded title, Meat Culture may mislead. If readers are looking for a whimsical exploration of backyard BBQs and cowboy culture, or even a more sophisticated global gastronomic journey of multi-cultural culinary traditions, this is not the book for them. One hint to its animal-friendly stance may be in its placement within Brill's "Human Animal Studies" book series, and if you look further at the many well-known critical animal studies scholars contributing to this anthology, you'll realize that the book takes a decidedly anti-carnistic stance in favor of cultural transformation to veganism.


The article explores the putatively non-metaphysical ‐ non-voluntarist, and even non-causal ‐ concept of freedom outlined in Hegel's work and discusses its influential interpretation by Robert Pippin as an 'essentially practical' concept. I argue that Hegel's affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim 'from a prac tical point of view'.


Articulatory and intonational patterns were studied, using a simulated discourse‐like paradigm, in which subjects were asked to make repeated corrections of a three‐digit sequence street address consisting of fives and nines and Pine. Articulatory and acoustic signals were collected using the x‐ray microbeam system for four native American English speakers at the University of Wisconsin. Based on the C/D model, a linear pulse train representing the rhythmic organization of an utterance can be inferred by analyzing jaw movements as syllable magnitude over time. Fundamental frequency contours were examined to study the effects of phrasing as a result of contrastive emphasis (digit corrected is assumed to have contrastive emphasis) and repeated corrections in the three‐digit sequence. These patterns were then studied in relation to the jaw movement patterns. The data show that subjects change speech strategies when they need to make a correction or repeated corrections [Erickson et al. (1992)]. The word in p...


Phylogenetic relationships for 14 of the 15 species of Amorimia (Malpighiaceae) were inferred based on ndhF plastid DNA and ETS nuclear ribosomal DNA using both parsimony and Bayesian methods. Our results show that: (1) the monophyly of the genus is corroborated with the new circumscription of the A. rigida complex; (2) several morphological and phytochemical characters support Amorimia and its two main clades; and (3) these clades can be proposed as new subgenera in Amorimia .


The present study explores the relation- ship between the external CSR practices of the organizations and employees' job satisfaction, employee engagement and organizational cit- izenship behavior in the context of the Saudi banking industry. A positive relationship between CSR and employee job satisfaction, employee engagement and organizational citizenship be- havior related to the organization is observed. However, the organizational citizenship behavior related to individual is found unrelated to CSR. The theoretical foundation of the study is ground- ed in the spirit of social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1964). The study implies that involvement in ex- ternal CSR may be a determinant for maintaining a motivated and enthusiastic workforce.


Computer animation and robotics have most of their mathematical foundations in common. So, Blender is a natural (but still undiscovered and imperfect) GUI candidate for robot simulation and programming. The robotics research community lacks an advanced graphical tool such as Blender, but, on the other hand, it has more advanced and efficient algorithms than Blender for the physically realistic simulation of armatures. For example, the inverse kinematis of humanoid structures, taking into account their dynamics, and with a generic approach for the automatic generation of natural motions. In this paper, I make concrete suggestions about additions to the Blender code base, in order to support these complex armatures and IPO's. My suggestions touch the following parts of Blender: moto (Motion Toolkit), gameengine, and (especially) iksolver.


Author(s): Posada-Buitrago, Martha L.; Boore, Jeffrey L.; Frederick, Reid D. | Abstract: Phakopsora pachyrhizi causes soybean rust, which is the most devastating foliar disease responsible for significant losses of soybean crop in Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. The pathogen was recently found for the first time in the continental U.S.A., becoming a major threat to U.S. soybean production. Here, we present an update on the P. pachyrhizi Genome Sequencing Project and a preliminary report of the comparative analysis of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) generated from four specific-stages of P. pachyrhizi using unidirectional cDNA libraries.


The present invention prevents the occurrence of space closed around the pressurized fluid, thereby reducing the final remaining amount of the contents to be discharged, the discharge amount of content per unit time to stabilize, and, finally until providing remainder reducing member which can be smoothly discharged the contents. Inside the flexible inner bag of which is arranged in the interior of the aerosol container (100) (102), the contents to be discharged remainder reducing member for reducing the final remaining amount of (F) (110) is mounted . The remainder reducing member (110), the groove having mounting portion inlet (103) to the content F are mounted can flow packing pouch (102) and (120), a longitudinal guide groove (131) It comprises guiding part formed by lined plurality with blocks (132) in the longitudinal direction and (130).


Estimated high production volumes of bipolar plate manufacturing, strict dimensional and surface quality requirements and nature of their designs with thousands of meters of micro-channels demand engineers and scientists from production, design, and fuel cell operations sides look into alternative manufacturing processes, and compare their outcomes in terms of certain metrics such as productivity (plate/second), dimensional tolerances (um/mm), surface quality (Ra),cost ($), corrosion and contact resistance, and durability. In this study, the effect of manufacturing processes, stamping and hydroforming, on the corrosion resistance of thin metallic plates was investigated. The effects of process speed (stamping speed, hydroforming pressure rate) were also considered in this study. The results showed that in general SS316L possesses better corrosion resistance than SS304, as expected and reported in many literatures. In addition, while the effect of manufacturing processes was expected to degrade the corrosion resistance of the formed plates when compared the a non-deformed plate, this hypothesis only held true in the case of stamping as the hydroformed plates revealed better corrosion resistance than a non-deformed plate.


For product service supply chain consisting of two manufacturers and one retailer,the competition of product service capacity is studied from perspective of service provided by manufacturers in this paper.The equilibrium strategies of supply chain members are solved from three different situations:Manufacturers Stackelberg,Retailers Stackelberg and Vertical Nash,used by Stackelberg dynamic game.Meanwhile,product service capacity competition strategies are put forward to meet different customer demand characteristics,by combing with the relationship between service cost and equilibrium results under different channel power structure.The results shows that affordable customer demand can be meet by RS price dominant strategy,while all price and service capability level are lower.Economical customers demand can be meet by VN service dominant strategy,while service capability level is higher.Professional customer demand can be meet by MS product dominant strategy,while price is higher.Quality customer demand can be meet by product service fusion strategy,while all price and service capability level are higher.Finally,the effectiveness of product service capacity competition strategies are anglicized by combing with varying relationships between wholesale price,service ability,retail price and service cost respectively.


This paper shows how analytical solutions, proposed by the writers to predict in-situ stresses in rock masses with smooth and irregular topographies, can help in the selection of the alignment of unlined pressure tunnels near slopes and valley walls. The proposed methodology can be applied to ridges and valleys in isotropic or anisotropic rock masses subject to gravity or to combined gravitational and tectonic loading. The analytical solutions are two-dimensional and assume plane or generalized plane strain. They can be used to substitute existing design charts for pressure tunnels based on the finite-element method. It is found that the safe alignment of unlined pressure tunnels depend greatly on the extent of tensile regions in valley walls, which itself depends on parameters such as valley geometry, the degree of rock anisotropy, the orientation of the planes of rock anisotropy, and the in-situ loading conditions (gravity, gravity and tectonic).


A common assembly for demising walls in multifamily residential projects is double wood studs with multiple layers of gypsum board on one or both sides. While improving the acoustical performance, installing multiple layers of gypsum board adds significant cost to the project; complicates scheduling, materials storage, and delivery; and may require additional inspections. On some types of projects, removing these complications has been desired. In these cases, the use of damped gypsum board has been pursued to reduce the number of layers of gypsum board on the demising wall while attempting to achieve equivalent acoustical performance. Acoustical testing was performed to determine if damped gypsum board was a suitable alternative to the standard gypsum board assemblies in typical demising constructions. Laboratory and field tests were performed on double wood stud walls with a variety of gypsum board configurations, and the results are presented.


Embodiment of the present invention provide a method and apparatus and an electronic device for split-screen display, vertical slide signal by obtaining signals through the lateral slide along the touch-screen input in the touch screen or the touch screen; according to the horizontal slide signal, the current display area of the touch screen into at least two display windows arranged up and down, or, according to the vertical slide signal to the current display area of the touch screen into at least two display windows arranged in order to achieve side by side on the screen above the right and left side by side or in the form of a plurality of applications simultaneously displayed, the user does not need to frequently switch between programs, user-friendly operation.


PURPOSE: A nicotine receptor antagonist containing borneol or camphor as an effective ingredient is provided, which has few side effect and high stability and is used for the treatment of nicotine-related diseases. CONSTITUTION: The pharmaceutical compositions used for the nicotine receptor antagonist contain borneol (((1S)-endo)- 1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo- (2.2.1))heptan-2-ol) represented by formula (1) or camphor (((1S)-endo)-(-)- 1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo- (2,2,1)heptan- 2-one) represented by formula (2), or borneol (((1R)-endo)-(+)- 1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo- (2,2,1)heptan- 2-ol) represented by formula (3) as an effective ingredient, and inhibit the activity of nicotine receptor to inhibit the secretion of catecholamine, so that they can be used as drugs for the treatment of central nervous-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, local anesthetic drug, muscle relaxant, anti-stress agent, and smoking stopping adjuvant.


The Franciscana dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei), a small cetacean endemic to southwestern Atlantic coastal waters, is the most endangered marine mammal species in the south Atlantic. In the Espírito Santo State, in southeastern Brazil, the Franciscana dolphin distribution overlaps regions suppressed and threatened by an intensive industrial and port development in the coastal zone. Moreover, most of Franciscana's home range was recently impacted by the collapse of a dam that released millions of iron mining waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Considering the restricted coastal habitat of the species, these impacts can be considered an immediate threat, increasing the probability of local extinction of the species. This research calls attention to the necessity for improvement in the regional Environmental Impact Assessments, Conservation Action Plans, and to the development of an effective zoning for ports and conservation areas in the region. These actions could increase conservation efforts and mitigate the current and expected impacts on the Franciscana population in the Espírito Santo State.


【The assay on microbial dehydrogenase activity by using TTC was investigated. The experimental results are summarized as follows: 1. The TF production was affected by dissolved oxygen. Dissolved oxygen in samples could be effectively removed by adding $Na_{2}SO_{3}$ as reductant prior to incubation. 2. The toxic effect on TF formation was observed at up to 0.1% of final TTC concentration when VSS concentration was 2.7g/l. As the VSS concentration increased the effect decreased. 3. It was clearly revealed that the TF generation rate decreased with increasing VSS concentration. The dilution of sludge could be applicable when VSS level is below 3.5g/l. 4. The TF production of endogenous phase (De) could be used as a measure for the viable fraction of sludge over various sludge ages. The additional TF production (Ds) due to extracellular substrate responded to De, not to VSS concentration.】


A solution is presented, which supports cooperative software engineering (CSE). First, traditional process architecture supporting CSE is discussed and its default is pointed out. Second, a multi-agent architecture is proposed, which overcomes the default and supports CSE. CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work) and SPT(software process technology)are used in the architecture. Five agents are defined in the architecture, i.e. coordination agent,mediate agent,negotiation agent,communication agent,monitor agent. agora is introduced as a place where agents interact each other. Billboard of the agora is introduced in order that agent searches information easily.


In this paper, the influence of pre-strain on low-temperature gas carburization of 316L austenitic stainless steel was investigated. A group of flat specimens were uniaxial tensile to several levels of pre-strain including 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% engineering strain. Then, the pre-strained specimens was treated by low-temperature gas carburization at 470 °C for 30 h. In order to elucidate the effect of pre-strain on low-temperature gas carburization, optical microscopy (OM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA), microhardness tester and residual stress analyzer were used. Meanwhile, dislocation density of the pre-strained specimens was semi-quantitatively measured by means of X-ray diffraction analysis and the role of dislocation density on carbon diffusion during low-temperature gas carburization was discussed. The results show as follow: (1) the thicknesses of the carburized layers are independent of the pre-strain degree. (2) dislocation density increases with the increasing pre-strain, but almost has no effect on carbon diffusion at the given carburizing temperature. (3) an outstanding surface with hardness (≈ 1150 HV0.1) and compressive residual stress (≈1900 MPa) is introduced by low-temperature gas carburization, and the strengthening results of carburization are unaffected by pre-strain.


Three new species of cockroaches from Western Australia are described, namely Hensallssllrea hlll1lphreysi (Blattellidae) and two cavernicolous taxa, Nocticola brooksi (Nocticolidae) and Neoten11lopteryx wynnei (Blattellidae). A few new records of some Western Australian Blattidae: Polyzosteriinae, and Blattellidae are given.


A friction and wear experiment testing was developed with Visual Basic6.0 .The design idea and the function of the system was introduced in aspects of windows interface, implements experiment datum's real-time collection, real-time show, analysis processing, preservation and search, print and export, offline treatment, ect . The system , with powerful of data processing and plotting, can be applied to friction and wear experiments. It is easy-to-use by user-friendly interface and man-machine conversation. The data and figures can be saved and printed in normative character format


Long time storage of paddy is a concerning issue at farm households and rice mills of Bangladesh due to inadequate sustainable storage technologies. Hence, paddy storage facilities of 20 rice mills and 40 farm households of Mymensingh division were investigated following semi-structured questionnaires to know the existing paddy storage technologies, problems, and future needs. Traditional gunny bags are used in rice mills for storing consumable paddy whereas 77.5%, 20%, and 2.5% farmers use dole, gunny bag and plastic bag, respectively. About 60%, 17.5%, and 7.5% farmers under the study use GrainPro bag, metal/plastic drum, and motka, respectively for storing paddy seed. Despite using preventive chemicals about 2.4%, 3.4%, and 3.3% paddy loss occurs during storage in automatic, semi-automatic, and major rice mills, respectively. To solve problem, about 80% of rice mill owners demanded for hermetic cocoon.


The reasons of causing visual fatigue is introduced and the effect of different colors of colored paper on visual fatigue is analyzed. The new returns about colored papers were also enumerated in this paper.


The chronic effects of the irritant sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) on stratum corneum (SC) barrier function, determined by transepidermal water loss (TEWL) measurements and on epidermal cell kinetics, estimated by stratum corneum turnover time (SCTT) determination (dansyl chloride staining method), were investigated in 18 healthy female volunteers. SLS (7·5%) was applied without occlusion for 20 min once daily, over a period of 3 weeks (5 days a week) on dansyl chloride‐stained skin and on untreated skin. SCTT of untreated skin (19·3 ± 0·8 days; mean ± SEM) was not changed by daily treatment with water (control) (19·3±2.0) but was significantly reduced by SLS (10·9±0·6; P0·0001; compared to controls). However, TEWL was increased in SLS‐treated sites 1·5‐fold after 4 days of treatment (5·3±0·6 vs. 3·5 ± 0·3; P<0·001). At the end of the second week, TEWL was increased 2.6‐fold and after 3 weeks TEWL was 3·3 times higher than in controls (13·0±1·6 vs. 3·9, P0.0001) The intensity of SLS‐induced irritation as measured by TEWL was significantly correlated with baseline TEWL (r=0·50; P0·02) and significantly negatively correlated with SCTT of SLS treated sites (r=− 50; P0·02) but not with SCTT of untreated skin (r=0·19).


Inspection of the engine oil pressure filter at regular intervals has been the mainstay of maintenance procedures with respect to declaring an engine unserviceable. The procedure generally consists of draining the cavity of the filter, removing the filter cover and withdrawing the filter. The filter is examined and on occasion washed over a cloth to examine more closely the particles. When this examination is completed, a decision is made in respect to the serviceability of the engine and the particles are thrown away. A survey of results achieved by only relying on a standard filter inspection shows that this method leaves a great deal to be desired.


This library research intends to identify the foundation and pattern of the Islamic tolerance paradigm that is made by KH. Ahmad Shiddiq in responding to life of life in Indonesia. This type of normative-philosophical research uses the theory of analysis in the form of a typology of religious attitudes (exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, eclectism, and universalism). The five typology will be used to identify the foundation and pattern of Ahmad Shiddiq's paradigm about Islamic tolerance. This research data collection technique uses documentation techniques. Data analysis of this study through three stages in the form of data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. The results of the study concluded that the foundation of the Islamic tolerance paradigm KH. Ahmad Shiddiq in responding to the pluralism of the life of the Indonesian people can be found in the two big ideas that he made, namely the idea of ukhuwah and society. In this case, there is a tendency for the pattern of the Epistemological Exclusivism of KH. Ahmad Shiddiq, namely making the foundation of the Islamic teachings in formulating the idea of ukhuwah in the form of Islamic values of Islamiah, Ukhuwah Watonis, and Ukhuwah Basyariah. Meanwhile, the foundation of Islamic teachings in the idea of society in the form of the value of tasamuh, tawasuth, tawazun, and amar makruf nahi munkar. Whereas in the axiological aspects there is a tendency of KH. Ahmad Shiddiq universalism, which is in the objectivity of the idea of ukhuwah and society in the reality of pluralism in Indonesia through various attitudes. First, the accommodation attitude, in the form of willingness to accommodate a variety of opinions (aspiration) from various parties. Second, selective attitude, which is to sort out which is useful and not useful. Third, integrative attitude, namely the willingness to harmonize, record and balance the variety of individual interests, minority groups and majority.


Nuclear magnetic resonance of cylindrical hydrogen mono- and polycrystalline specimens prepared with various temperature gradient directions to the axis was studied at 4.2 deg K. The diagram of monoorystals, rotating around the axis perpendicular to the constant magnetic field vector, showed the absence of noticeable (over 2%) second nuclear magnetic resonance anisotropy. The width and shape of monocrystalline specimens coincided with those of the polycrystalline ones. A certain nuclear magnetic resonance anisotropy may be found at the temperatures below 1.5 deg K, at which the molecule rotation is slowed and fine line structure appears. (R.V.J.)


Numerous telecommunication companies have entered bankruptcy proceedings in the United States lately, with 2002 being a record year. WorldCom, the second largest long-distance telephone carrier in the country, was one of them. The filing was the largest in the U.S. so far, as well as the accounting scandal in the company. WorldCom's rise and fall typifies the meltdown of the highly leveraged telecommunications sector over the last few years. An industry that historically has outpaced overall economic growth, crashed in the beginning of the new century. The overcapacity in the telecommunications sector, was perhaps the worst in the economy. As the telecom crisis still persists, although there are signals of recovery, here we show the predictability of Altman's Z-Score Model, a simple credit risk model, applying it to some of the major bankruptcy-protection telecom cases. Detailed discussion about WorldCom, as well as the telecommunications services sector in the United States is presented.


The widespread integration of intelligent electronic devices has facilitated the employment of data mining methods in evaluating the operating condition of distribution systems. This possibility comes to prominence in active networks, where distributed energy resources can cause unforeseen dynamics that requires an effective monitoring infrastructure and a fast-track procedure to convey the system operating condition in a comprehensible manner to the operator. To this end, a data-driven approach is proposed to assess the status of system operating constraints by presenting each constraint as a classification problem. Afterwards, by exploiting the propounded presentation of the system operating condition, the measurement placement problem in distribution systems is addressed as selecting a set of features that have the most contribution to evaluating the system operating status . To do so, first, the effectiveness of the measurement units is identified through their contribution to the classification process, and then a procedure is proposed to pinpoint the measurement units with redundant information. Monte–Carlo simulations are performed to provide a comprehensive training set. Receiver operating characteristic analysis and time-series power flows demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.


The consolidation of capitalist enterprise goes through stages that culminate, in general, the loss of worker's control over the production process; sale of its workforce and this processing
in the collective worker. Despite the restructuring of production, characterized, mainly, by the
deployment of the Toyotism, the decisions about hat and how to produce still alien to the
worker. This restructuring, in tum, are a direct consequence of socio - economic world order,
such as the structural crises inherent in the orki g of capitalism. The economic changes affect
organizations and, consequently, influence the life and hea th of ork,ers. However, the approach
to the issue of health care has become complex due to the efensi e strategies used by workers.
When defenses against suffering can not be exercised at ork appear p ,ychosomatic illnesses,
which are human processes due to reaction to crises threats escape pleasure or displeasure. Are
inherent to humans, but highly susceptible to cultural conditioning. During a economic crisis,
changes in the workplace and throughout the economy are more constant increasing the leveI of
anxiety at work and probably the possibility of arise a physical or mental illness. In many companies around the world, the impacts of the actual economic crisis were felt not only by its
structure, but also by alI its employees. Aiming to know the perception of the worker on the relationship between the expression of psychosomatic iIIness and crisis breaks out in the second half of 2008, was performed a literature search and then a case study, where data were collected through questionnaires given to employees of a company providing services for processing and recovery of metaIs, taken as an example. Based on survey results, it can be concluded that workers consider that the global economic crisis has brought greater organizational and emotional pressures, increasing the pressure on the worker and thus interfering with their heaIth.
However, do not identify this disease when it comes to themseIves, since respondents who consider their heaIth good for other peopIe the same age. It is observed that the respondents use defensive strategies to cope with the pain, or suffering appears designed the "peopIe", believing that doing this would somehow, being contained.


Learning from data sequentially arriving, possibly in a non i.i.d. way, with changing task distribution over time is called continual learning. Much of the work thus far in continual learning focuses on supervised learning and some recent works on unsupervised learning. In many domains, each task contains a mix of labelled (typically very few) and unlabelled (typically plenty) training examples, which necessitates a semi-supervised learning approach. To address this in a continual learning setting, we propose a framework for semi-supervised continual learning called Meta-Consolidation for Continual Semi-Supervised Learning (MCSSL). Our framework has a hypernetwork that learns the meta-distribution that generates the weights of a semi-supervised auxiliary classifier generative adversarial network $(\textit{Semi-ACGAN})$ as the base network. We consolidate the knowledge of sequential tasks in the hypernetwork, and the base network learns the semi-supervised learning task. Further, we present $\textit{Semi-Split CIFAR-10}$, a new benchmark for continual semi-supervised learning, obtained by modifying the $\textit{Split CIFAR-10}$ dataset, in which the tasks with labelled and unlabelled data arrive sequentially. Our proposed model yields significant improvements in the continual semi-supervised learning setting. We compare the performance of several existing continual learning approaches on the proposed continual semi-supervised learning benchmark of the Semi-Split CIFAR-10 dataset.


The authors report a method of determination of regional blood flow in the brain with a Polish ZM 703 apparatus produced by United Nuclear Equipment Works POLON. The authors found that ZM 703 is useful for determination of brain blood flow but it should be equipped with detection crystals and collimators of smaller size for simultaneous examination of greater number of brain regions.


Objective To study the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 protein in intestinal metaplasia(IM),atypical hyperplasia and gastric carcinoma.Methods Specimens were taken around the edge of the tumor associated with infection of Hp.The specimens were grouped pathologically into IM,atypical hyperplasia,intestinal-type gastric cancer and diffuse-type gastric cancer,with 51 cases in each group. The expression of COX-2 protein was evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in various groups mentioned above. Meanwhile,the intensity of COX-2 expression was examined.The adjacent normal gastric epithelium acts as control group.Results The expression of COX-2 protein was localized in the cytoplasm and nuclear membrane of glandular epithelial cells, but not in infra-layer of mucous membrane.Normal gastric epithelium and diffuse-type gastric carcinoma were negative for the expression of COX-2 protein. The positive rates of IM group, atypical hyperplasia group and intestinal-type of gastric cancer group were 58.82%(30/51),64.71%(33/51)and 84.31%(43/51)respectively(P0.05).Conclusion The expression of COX-2 protein presents at the early stage of gastric carcinoma associated with Hp infection and the expression is progressively increasing remains in the progressive process of intestinal-type gastric carcinoma.


Objective. Distal blood pressure (DBP) determination after an exercise test is used on suspicion of arterial peripheral vascular disease (apvd). In our department. the average age of these patients is about 60 years. The usual reference values for pressures after exercise were based on data collected in the early 1970s from healthy individuals in the age range 21–26 years. Our aims were to collect new reference data for DBP at ankle level after exercise based on older populations, and to compare between reference data for different age groups to find out whether the normal values are dependent on age. Material and methods. DBP after exercise was measured using the strain‐gauge technique on individuals in two groups: group I comprising 25 healthy persons aged between 61 and 82 years, and group II 14 healthy persons aged between 45 and 58 years. Strict rules of inclusion were followed. Results. Normal values are dependent on age. The average differences (ankle DBPafter−ankle DBPbefore) immediately after walking were 25 mmHg, 12 mmHg and −8 mmHg in group I, group II and the old data, respectively. Comparison among groups showed significant differences (p⩽0.01). Conclusion. Normal values for elderly and middle‐aged persons are presented. Use of normal values based on young people may result in underestimation of DBP response and hence underestimation of the degree of possible apvd, especially in elderly individuals.


There is an extremely high prevalence and early age of onset of non- insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM) in westernised Australian Aboriginal people. 'Syndrome X' is also highly prevalent in westernised Aboriginal Australians. The 'healthy body-mass index range' may be lower for Aboriginal people than for Europeans. Lifestyle modification can be used as an approach to the treatment and prevention of NIDDM and coronary heart disease in Aboriginal people. Prevention of excessive weight gain with increasing age is probably the key to the prevention of NIDDM and associated conditions in Aboriginal people. Culturally appropriate prevention programmes must be developed by Aboriginal Australians themselves, since those devised by European Australians - no matter how well- intended - are unlikely to be successful. (author abstract)


In this special edition Eurosurveillance covers various aspects of the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic. The compiled articles provide information and data on epidemiological patterns, surveillance trends and a first analysis of vaccine effectiveness of the trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine for 2010/11 influenza season and of the monovalent influenza A(H1N1) 2009 vaccines. It also features a paper on the possible impact of media coverage on consultation rates.


Introduction Stimulant use is an important health issue. In the US in 2018, 2.8% of males and 1.5% of females older than 18 had used cocaine in the preceding 12 months. Objective To intervene in a specific targeted group of Stimulant Use Disorder (SUD) patients according to CBT and relapse prevention theories, and to determine the program's feasibility and attendance. Method Stimulant Use Disorder patients in addiction care were evaluated for addictive, psychological and psychiatric dimensions at baseline and conclusion in a 9-session CBT group program with several themes: define SUD, enhance motivation, involve close companions, cope with craving, decline a proposal, solve problems, invite expert patients, invest time and money, and review content. Results In total, 41 patients attended at least one session. They were mainly poly dependent, primarily cocaine users. Sixty percent of the population also suffered from another psychiatric comorbidity. Median attendance for participants was 7/9 sessions. Conclusion A specific targeted CBT group for stimulant dependent highly comorbid patients is feasible. These findings suggest that peers should be included in addiction care services.


MOTIVATION
Structural variation (SV), such as deletion, is an important type of genetic variation and may be associated with diseases. While there are many existing methods for detecting SVs, finding deletions is still challenging with low-coverage short sequence reads. Existing deletion finding methods for sequence reads either use the so-called split reads mapping for detecting deletions with exact breakpoints, or rely on discordant insert sizes to estimate approximate positions of deletions. Neither is completely satisfactory with low-coverage sequence reads.

RESULTS
We present SVseq, an efficient two-stage approach, which combines the split reads mapping and discordant insert size analysis. The first stage is split reads mapping based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform (BWT), which finds candidate deletions. Our split reads mapping method allows mismatches and small indels, thus deletions near other small variations can be discovered and reads with sequencing errors can be utilized. The second stage filters the false positives by analyzing discordant insert sizes. SVseq is more accurate than an alternative approach when applying on simulated data and empirical data, and is also much faster.

AVAILABILITY
The program SVseq can be downloaded at http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~jiz08001/

CONTACT
firstname.lastname@example.com

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Epidemiological studies suggest a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and erectile dysfunction (ED) but its causal relationship and the mechanism involved are unclear. Here we demonstrate that isolated corpora cavernosa (CC) from human donors with low vitamin D levels show reduced NO-dependent erectile function. This ED is also reproduced in vitamin D deficient rats and vitamin D receptor knockout mice in vivo and ex vivo and is associated with penile fibrosis. Vitamin D deficiency also blunts the response of CC to the phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitor sildenafil. CC from deficient rats show increased superoxide and their impaired erectile function is restored by superoxide scavengers. These results suggest that vitamin D deficiency induces ED via increased superoxide production.


Cell reprogramming, which guides the conversion between cell states, is a promising technology for tissue repair and regeneration. Typically, a group of key genes, or master regulators, are manipulated to control cell fate, with the ultimate goal of accelerating recovery from diseases or injuries. Of importance is the ability to correctly identify the master regulators from single-cell transcriptomics datasets. To accomplish that goal, we propose Fatecode, a computational method that combines in silico perturbation experiments with cell trajectory modeling using deep learning to predict master regulators and key pathways controlling cell fate. Fatecode uses only scRNA-seq data from wild-type samples to learn and predict how cell type distribution changes following a perturbation. We assessed Fatecode's performance using simulations from a mechanistic gene regulatory network model and diverse gene expression profiles covering blood and brain development. Our results suggest that Fatecode can detect known master regulators of cell fate from single-cell transcriptomics datasets. That capability points to Fatecode's potential in accelerating the discovery of cell fate regulators that can be used to engineer and grow cells for therapeutic use in regenerative medicine applications.


The transition metal salts on reaction with sodium dimethyldithiocarbamate in watcr-dichloromethane mixture, yielded the corresponding dimethyldithiocarbamates which were isolated from the organic layer. Dilute solutions (upto 50 ppm) of these complexes inhibited selectively the germination of the seeds of Avena ludoviciana and dhlaris minor weedse without affecting wheat.


Self-assembled quantum dots (QD) are nucleated by the strain induced at the wetting layer; which highly influences electrical, optical, and physical properties in PV applications. Isolating electronically QDs from their wetting layer (WL) for better performance and structural improvement is the aim of this work. Accordingly, we fabricate wetting layer free QDs by inserting an intermediate layer of GaAs(AlAs) in between the wetting layer and the dot layer by manipulating the strain accumulated in the WL. The structural and morphological characterizations were carried out using scanning transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. These analyses show that their novel strategy leads to significant improvement of dot structural characteristics as attested by the higher dot height/base aspect-ratio and by the presence of more evenly distributed and more symmetric dots. Finally optical properties were investigated by photoluminescence spectroscopy and show that the strategy results in enhanced luminescence efficiency and shaper emission line widths.


In this article, I explore the narrative construction of sexualities and intimate relationships in the self-help novel Youth in Sexual Ecstasy by Mexican writer Carlos Cuauhtémoc Sánchez. Self-help texts may be understood as being indicative of the reconstitution of the cultural logics of intimate life in relation to processes of modernization and globalization. The popular work of Cuauhtémoc Sánchez in particular points to respective cultural transformations and tensions emerging in Latin American contexts. The text is firmly embedded in the political project of reasserting a hegemonic construction of Mexican sexual identity based on the nation's patriarchal Christian heritage in the face of social change and tendencies towards a pluralization of sexual understandings and practices.


Abstract The behaviour of Me-carbides during nitriding without compound layer was studied on ternary Fe-C-Me model alloys, with Me representing Ti, Nb, Cr, Mo or V. The behaviour strongly depends on the amount of nitride forming element in solid solution during the nitriding treatment and on the coarseness of the initial carbides. This is reflected in the realized N-contents, the presence and morphology of Fe-nitrides and the resulting hardness increase after nitriding. Even in the case of strong nitride forming elements (e. g. Ti), efficient nitriding cannot be performed with the tested nitriding conditions, if these elements are bound in coarse carbides. This illustrates the relevance of a specific alloy design and prior heat treatment for nitriding steels.


The 2 kbp YNH24 pUC18 insert was partially sequenced, amplified with fluorescence‐labeled primers, and characterized by incomplete digestion with the restriction enzyme RsaI. A characteristic RsaI profile with one restriction site in each repeat unit was obtained when the fragments were analyzed on a DNA sequencer. We developed this procedure with the specific aim of analyzing the internal repeat structure in recombinant alleles often observed in the YNH24 variable number of tandem repeat system (D2S44). Nonetheless, it should also be possible to apply the method when analyzing other tandem repeats, even when little information regarding their sequences is available. In addition, when the repeat array is amplified, either a 5′ or a 3′ fluorescence‐labeled primer can be used to enable analysis from both directions of fairly long (> 3.6 kbp) alleles. The RsaI fragments obtained by partial digestion of the amplified pYNH24 insert corresponded well to the RsaI sites found in the sequenced regions. The 5′ flanking region contained eight 30–34 bp sequences similar to the repeat unit and also several RsaI sites, whereas only a few RsaI sites and no repeat units were found in the 3′ flanking region. Twenty‐five consecutive RsaI sites were revealed, in the center of the pYNH24 insert, indicating a region with strictly repeated core sequences; this repetitive block comprised less than half of the total insert. Two approximately 2.24 kbp HinfI alleles from two different heterozygous individuals were found to have identical internal structure, which was very similar to that of the insert although it exhibited only 15 RsaI repeats.


A total of 63 Hampshire Down ewes, wilh an average weight of 54.8kg, was used in this trial. Wool coverface and age had no importam effects (P>. 05) over the production traits studied. Ewes that had nursed were lighter and produced less wool than ewes that had not lambed (P<0.5). Overall meansfor wool traits were: 2.25 and l.46kg for greasy and clean fleeces, 64.8% for yield after scouring, 30.0m for fiber diameter and 7.5cm for staple length. Overall, the wool samples presented from good to regular character (85.7%), they were slightly soft to touch (79.4%), without medullation or slightly medullated (93.7%). Black fibers were observed in 41.3% of the samples, and the yellow discoloration incidence was observed in 44.4 and 34.9% of the greasy and clean wool samples, respectively. In the commercial (subjective) classification, 85.7% of the samples were classifica as "Prima A or B" (58's to 60's), however in the objective classification, 88.9% were classifica between "Cruza 1 and 3" (46's to 56's). Among the four commercial quality classifications, 57.1% of the samples were classified as "Boa" (the second worst classification) and 33.3% as "Corrente" (the worst classification). It was observed that besides the low wool production, the utilization of this kind of wool is restricted by its low quality.


An exquisite structure of graphitic carbon nanocages (GCNCs) with high surface area was fabricated by catalytic graphitization route at low temperature (650 o C). Bio-renewable lignin was used as the carbon precursor. X-ray diffraction XRD pattern and Raman spectrum indicated that the GCNCs had a high degree of graphitization crystallinity. TEM and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms showed that the GCNCs possessed mesoporous and micropore structure with high surface area. The higher graphitization carbon nanocage may promote charge transfer, giving potential wide application in electrode material.


Recently, there is a lot being done for optimization of care in pulmonary embolism (PE), however there is no significant decline in mortality and its structure  within this  pathology.  Epidemiological data  on  PE remain unknown due to difficulties in diagnostics,  however the data has been collected, witness for the low levels of diagnostics of this pathology, but not rareness of its development. Based on the Regulation of the Ministry of Health from 29.12.2012  № 1706 (ed. from 13.02.2013) in the regions, there are schemes for routing of patients  with one or another  nosology, that are the administratively proven order of direction with a detailed explication of all movements related  to medical care.  Hence,  the  routing of an exact  patient  is a process  of an optimal route of scheduled events for quality medical care with minimal time and financial expenses. Under framework of 3-level system of medical care, the order for PE patients is not yet established. However, it is  known that  in this  category  of  patients  an  on-time verification of  PE  and  start  of  adequate  treatment   do  determine prognosis.  Therefore,  the optimal organization of routing for patients with suspected PE does  determine  a course  of disease  and might, in many cases, prevent fatal outcome. This article focuses  on the optimal routing of patients with suspected PE.


To the Editor: Pendred's syndrome (PDS; 2746000) is an autosomal recessive condition, in which congenital deafness is associated with goitre, that accounts for 4–10% of hereditary hearing loss (1). Mutations in the SLC26A4 gene are responsible for the syndrome (2). This gene encodes an 86-kDa protein named 'pendrin' (780 amino acids), a member of the SLC26A family of anion transporters. In addition to classical PDS, mutations in the SLC26A4 gene may also produce non-syndromic recessive deafness (DFNB4) (3, 4). The classical criteria for the diagnosis of PDS include profound prelingual deafness, goitre and an abnormal result in the perchlorate test because of the deficient processing of iodide. Other associated features include inner ear malformations, such as an enlarged vestibular aqueduct (EVA) and Mondini's malformation (5). However, the clinical features of PDS are quite variable, particularly with respect to the thyroid gland. We, in this study, illustrate this variability in a Spanish family (Fig. 1), where four affected persons who are homozygous for the same mutation in SLC26A4, T410M, showed completely different phenotypes with respect to the thyroid gland. Each patient was subjected to a physical examination, pure-tone audiometry and computed tomography (CT) of the temporal bone (Table 1). Four patients (II.3, II.4, II.5 and II.6) suffered profound, prelingual sensorineural hearing loss that was associated with EVA, the only inner ear malformation detected. The youngest patient III.1 (11 years old) had compound hearing loss, because a conductive component was identified at low frequencies. Additional alterations were identified by means of CT, such as a Mondini's malformation (EVA associated with cochlear dysplasia), widening of the internal acoustic meatus and an incudomalleal fusion, which could account for the conductive hearing loss. With respect to the thyroid gland, palpable goitre was not detected in patients II.3, II.4 and III.1. Furthermore, serum T3, T4 and thyroidstimulating hormone levels were normal in these patients. However, goitre was identified in the 2nd-3rd decade of life in probands II.5 and II.6, and patient II.6, in addition, suffered hypothyroidism. Ultrasound examination of the thyroid in these patients showed a large goitre that was partially endothoracic in patient II.6, whereas the perchlorate discharge test was abnormal in patient II.6 (Table 1). The thyroglobulin antibody could not be identified in either of these patients with goitre. After having obtained their informed consent, the genotype of four polymorphic markers for the Pendred chromosomal region 7q22.1-q31.1 was analysed in the members of this family (Fig. 1). The segregation of the haplotypes confirmed the linkage of deafness to the DFNB4/Pendred locus in this family. Furthermore, mutation analysis of the SLC26A4 gene showed that the four affected siblings were homozygous for the C1229T mutation in exon 10, which involves the substitution of a threonine by methionine, T410M. Although their parents were not thought to be consanguineous, they do come from the same small village. A second mutation was also identified in patient III.1, A2171G in exon 19 that results in the substitution of aspartic by glycine, D724G. Patient III.1 is a compound heterozygote, who inherited the T410M mutation from his father and the D724G from his mother. Significantly, both these mutations have been previously described as disease-causing alleles (6, 7). In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the mutation T410M in SLC26A4 produces PDS and non-syndromic DFNB4 deafness when homozygous, Clin Genet 2005: 67: 438–440 Copyright # Blackwell Munksgaard 2005 Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved CLINICAL GENETICS doi: 10.1111/j.1399-0004.2005.00432.x


Purpose: EML4-ALK is a transforming fusion tyrosine kinase, several isoforms of which have been identified in lung cancer. Immunohistochemical detection of EML4-ALK has proved difficult, however, likely as a result of low transcriptional activity conferred by the promoter-enhancer region of EML4. The sensitivity of EML4-ALK detection by immunohistochemistry should be increased adequately. Experimental Design: We developed an intercalated antibody-enhanced polymer (iAEP) method that incorporates an intercalating antibody between the primary antibody to ALK and the dextran polymer-based detection reagents. Results: Our iAEP method discriminated between tumors positive or negative for EML4-ALK in a test set of specimens. Four tumors were also found to be positive for ALK in an archive of lung adenocarcinoma (n = 130) and another 4 among fresh cases analyzed in a diagnostic laboratory. These 8 tumors were found to include 1 with EML4-ALK variant 1, 1 with variant 2, 3 with variant 3, and 2 with previously unidentified variants (designated variants 6 and 7). Inverse reverse transcription-PCR analysis revealed that the remaining tumor harbored a novel fusion in which intron 24 of KIF5B was ligated to intron 19 of ALK. Multiplex reverse transcription-PCR analysis of additional archival tumor specimens identified another case of lung adenocarcinoma positive for KIF5B-ALK. Conclusions: The iAEP method should prove suitable for immunohistochemical screening of tumors positive for ALK or ALK fusion proteins among pathologic archives. Coupling of PCR-based detection to the iAEP method should further facilitate the rapid identification of novel ALK fusion genes such as KIF5B-ALK.


Semiconductor arrangement comprises a semiconductor device having a semiconductor path made from an organic semiconductor and a rewritable storage cell based on the ferroelectric effect in a storage material. Preferably the storage material is an organic polymer having ferroelectric properties or an inorganic material having ferroelectric properties. The organic polymer is a fluorinated polyene, preferably a poly vinylidene fluoride. The inorganic material is a ferroelectric titanate or tantalate.


ABSTRACT
 Alternative hosts may increase rearing and possibilities of using Trichospilus diatraeae (Cherian & Margabandhu) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) for biological control. The aim of this study was to evaluate T. diatraeae reproduction with the alternative host Tenebrio molitor L. (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) with life and fertility tables. Twenty-five 24-h-old T. diatraeae females were individualized per Te. molitor pupae of the same age, who were replaced daily until their death of this parasitoid. Survival of T. diatraeae immature in Te. molitor pupae was 92.65%. Longevity of female parasitoids was 8.28 d with an innate density increase of 0.15, net reproductive rate of 37.50, finite rate of increase of 1.16, mean generation time of 23.67, and population doubling time of 4.52 wk. Te. molitor pupae are suitable for development and rearing of T. diatraeae.


Address for correspondence: email@example.com Our training in dental surgery or stomato logy has taught us everything we need to know about teeth: their life and works. We afford them care and protection and, as od ontologists, reorganization. Faced by the failure of longterm results for expansion, C. Tweed conceived the idea of extracting healthy dental elements and drew up his drastic rules for the correct po sition of the mandibular incisor. Extraction has become consensual, but for some it amounts to voluntary mutilation. There is thus an open battle between the partisans and opponents of extraction and, beyond that, of the concept of expansion. Ricketts was one of the first to question Tweed, whom he found far too extractionist; he was not exactly challenging the concept itself, but defined an area of equilibrium, integrating function. Others, such as Korn, took up more extreme positions, describ ing more or less extractionless approaches, with a conservationist, natural, "organic" at titude more in line with the Zeitgeist: con serving what nature has bestowed on us is pure benefit... What is wanted, however, is precisely to change what Mother Nature provided! So, how to justify extraction? The treatment decision should be guided by the risk/benefit ratio (presuming here that the decision to undertake orthodontic treatment has a positive risk/benefit value). Assessment of extraction risk begins with the risks incurred by surgery. Moreover, ex traction represents an immediate, definitive and irreversible loss of dental substance; benefit has therefore to match this loss, or the risks entailed by abstention have to be unacceptable.


A couple of decades ago, it was easy to complain about the lack of historical studies regarding retailing and consumption (Benson & Shaw, 1992; Strasser, McGovern, & Judt, 1998). Today, this is definitely not the case. To produce an overview of the developments in the two fields over the last 20–30 years is an enormous undertaking. However, it should be noted that while consumer and consumption history have matured in recent years to the point where it is relevant and possible to publish major overviews (Trentmann, 2012, 2016), this is less so when it comes to retailing history. One possible reason for this difference is the fact that the organisation of retailing and wholesaling is permeated by national characteristics, not the least institutional differences; meanwhile, the character of consumption and consumer society, at least in the last century and in the Western World, has many common features. One aspect is, of course, the Americanisation of consumption ideals. This is not to say that the general development of the retail sector differs much when viewed over a longer period. All types of retail formats and practices, from specialised stores with lavish shop windows and servile manual service to e-commerce, have at some point in time been adopted and developed in all countries around the world. However, the introduction and relative importance of the different aspects of the retail sector have differed between countries and between urban and rural settings. The present special issue of Scandinavian Economic History Review is based on an open CFP on 'Retail Trade, Consumption, and the Construction of Markets from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries'. We, the guest editors, are grateful that the editorial team of SEHR has given scholars doing research on these subjects the opportunity to present their results in this way. We have, in different capacities, been involved in organising workshops on the Evolution of the Retail Trade in the Twentieth Century. One in Paris in 2015 and one in Uppsala in 2016. The main reason for organising these two workshops was a feeling that there was a need for more research on twentieth-century retail history; another motivation was to gather scholars from different countries in order to create a discussion of similarities and differences in the development of retailing and its final destination, consumption. The outcomes of these workshops have been gratifying. A number of papers from the first workshop will feature in a special issue of Business History on 'New perspectives on 20th century European retailing' in the near future. Some of them are already available online (Bide, 2017; Dewitte, Billows, & Lecocq, 2017; Heyrman, 2017; Jacques, 2018). It could also be noted that Business History is rolling out articles from another upcoming special issue, in this case on 'Changing Secondhand Economies' and also that couple of other recent articles makes important contributions to our understanding of changes in retailing in the twentieth century (Scott & Walker, 2017; Seppälä, 2017). It could also be noted that a couple of papers from both the first and second workshop mentioned above have recently been published in the journal History of Retailing and Consumption (Arnberg & Husz, 2018; Potamianos, 2017; Sandgren, 2017). Thus, the present special issue of SEHR adds to this body of important work. There are of course other important conduits for the study of retailing and consumption. The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) at the University of Wolverhampton has, through its conferences and workshops, been an important locus for interactions in this field for 30 years. Recent anthologies such as Jessen and Langer (2012) and Lundin and Kaiserfeld (2015) have collected several interesting studies. But it is also indicative that it is not until very recently


The purpose of this research is to describe the challenges faced by high school English teachers in teaching and evaluating during online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative research. The researcher used observation, an open-ended questionnaire, and an interview to collect the data. The result showed that the teachers face some challenges in teaching speaking and assessing speaking in online learning. First, limited or shorter duration of teaching causes less speaking practice in the process of teaching and learning. Second, limited access to the online platform, this condition happened since not all students have sufficient internet connections during online learning. Third, less learning motivation from the students. Fourth, limited speaking performance activities, such as dialogue, role play, and other performing activities, are difficult to do in online learning. Those problems forced teachers to be innovative in redesigning teaching activities and authentic assessments for students' speaking proficiency.


An experimental program was carried out to investigate the behavior of concrete filled steel plate walls. Seven wall-panel specimens were tested under repetitive in-plane pure shear loading. Each specimen was made by connecting a pair of surface steel plates with partitioning webs and tie bars, and filling the boxes so-formed with concrete. The parameters investigated were the thickness of the surface steel plate, the number of partitioning webs and the presence or absence of headed stud bolts. Results describing a restoration force characteristic of a large loop area are presented. Rigidity after the onset of cracking approximates the cumulative value of truss rigidity (rigidity of resistance mechanism consisting of longitudinal and transverse tension chord members of steel plates and compression diagonals of concrete) and in-plane shearing rigidity of surface steel plates. The skeleton curve for the shear stress vs. shear strain relationship could be theoretically idealized into a quadrilinear curve with three control points.


With the analysis of several key factors that affect the improvement result of soft soil improved with the vacuum preloading method,it is believed that modification of jet pumps for vacuum preloading,improvement of the air-tightness around the improved area,application of loads on sealing membrane,and shortening of the spacing of prefabricated drains are the main approaches to effectively improve the degree of consolidation of soil,shorten the working period and cut down the construction cost.


Regulatory functions of the lungs"is one of the important contents in theory of viscera state of Traditional Chiˉnese medicine(TCM).Its meaning includes basic physiological function of lung,assistant action to other viscera and bowˉels,and balance function for life rhythm of human being.Clinically,in disturbance of Qi movement,abnormal distribution of"jinye",qi stagnation and blood stasis,imbalance of life rhythm and various diseases induced by the impairment of"Regulatory functions of the lungs",we should attach importance to regulating lung,recover the"regulatory functions of lung",and this can usually achieve effect.


This editorial is an annotation on the exciting research topic "Microbiotechnology based surfactants and their applications" that covers a compilation of original research articles, reviews and mini-reviews submitted by researchers enthusiastically working in the field of biosurfactants.


We perform a renormalization-group analysis of the nonrelativistic four-boson problem by means of a simple model with pointlike three- and four-body interactions. We investigate in particular the region where the scattering length is infinite and all energies are close to the atom threshold. We find that the four-body problem behaves truly universally, independent of any four-body parameter. Our findings confirm the recent conjectures of others that the four-body problem is universal, now also from a renormalization-group perspective. We calculate the corresponding relations between the four- and three-body bound states, as well as the full bound-state spectrum and comment on the influence of effective range corrections.


Decreased antigen presentation contributes to the ability of cancer cells to evade the immune system. We used the minimal gene regulatory network of type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1) to reprogram cancer cells into professional antigen-presenting cells (tumor-APCs). Enforced expression of the transcription factors PU.1, IRF8, and BATF3 (PIB) was sufficient to induce the cDC1 phenotype in 36 cell lines derived from human and mouse hematological and solid tumors. Within 9 days of reprogramming, tumor-APCs acquired transcriptional and epigenetic programs associated with cDC1 cells. Reprogramming restored the expression of antigen presentation complexes and costimulatory molecules on the surfaces of tumor cells, allowing the presentation of endogenous tumor antigens on MHC-I and facilitating targeted killing by CD8+ T cells. Functionally, tumor-APCs engulfed and processed proteins and dead cells, secreted inflammatory cytokines, and cross-presented antigens to naïve CD8+ T cells. Human primary tumor cells could also be reprogrammed to increase their capability to present antigen and to activate patient-specific tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In addition to acquiring improved antigen presentation, tumor-APCs had impaired tumorigenicity in vitro and in vivo. Injection of in vitro generated melanoma-derived tumor-APCs into subcutaneous melanoma tumors delayed tumor growth and increased survival in mice. Antitumor immunity elicited by tumor-APCs was synergistic with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Our approach serves as a platform for the development of immunotherapies that endow cancer cells with the capability to process and present endogenous tumor antigens. Description A minimal cDC1 regulatory network reprograms cancer cells into tumor-APCs with low tumorigenicity that elicit anti-tumor immunity. Editor's summary Cancer cells down-regulate antigen presentation to evade recognition by the immune system. Zimmermannova et al. investigated the ability to reprogram cancer cells into tumor-derived antigen-presenting cells (tumor-APCs). Mouse or primary human cancer cells transduced with the transcription factors PU.1, IRF8, and BATF3 acquired a stable dendritic cell phenotype, could present endogenous tumor antigens to stimulate the effector function of CD8+ T cells, and showed decreased tumorigenicity. In mouse models, intratumoral injection of tumor-APCs decreased tumor growth, increased the survival of tumor-bearing mice, and enhanced responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors. This study highlights that future immunotherapies aimed at reprogramming cancer cells in situ could combine reversing malignancy with mobilizing the cellular antigen-presenting machinery to enhance the activity of CD8+ T cells toward tumors. —Sarah H. Ross


This position paper presents and proposes new requirements for Privacy and Data Protection. We first raise misalignments of current Privacy regulations and argue that current regulatory approaches do not benefit individuals as much as expected to the point that it primarily shields large organisations from ethical management of personal data. From this assessment, we propose the Start-from-the-End (SftE, pronounced "soft") approach to online Privacy. It puts the focus on the later stages of the lifecycle of Personal Data (such as the Right to Erasure), while removing focus from the points of collection of personal data. The ultimate goal is to reclaim straightforward enforcement and re-empower individuals in a way that is meant to be feasible and practical.


Bike‐sharing systems have been widely used in major cities across the world. As bike borrowing and return at different stations in different periods are not balanced, the bikes in a bike‐sharing system need to be redistributed frequently to rebalance the system. Therefore, traffic flow forecasting of the bike‐sharing system is an important issue, as this is conducive to achieving rebalancing of the bike system. In this article, we present a new traffic flow prediction approach based on the temporal links in dynamic traffic flow networks. A station clustering algorithm is first introduced to cluster stations into groups. A temporal link prediction method based on the dynamic traffic flow network method (STW+M) is then proposed to predict the traffic flow between stations. In our method, the non‐negative tensor decomposition and time‐series analysis model capture the rich information (temporal variabilities, spatial characteristics, and weather information) of the across‐clusters transition. Then, a temporal link prediction strategy is used to forecast potential links and weights in the traffic flow network by investigating both the network structure and the results of tensor computations. In order to assess the methods proposed in this article, we have used the data of bike‐sharing systems in New York and Washington, DC to conduct bike traffic prediction and the experimental results have shown that our method produces the lowest root mean square error (RMSE) and mean square error (MSE). Compared to four prediction methods from the literature, our RMSE and MSE of the two datasets have been lowered by an average of 2.55 (Washington, DC) and 2.41 (New York) and 3.35 (Washington, DC) and 2.96 (New York), respectively. The results show that the proposed approach improves predictions of traffic flow.


Abstract The reaction of 6-nitroazolo[5,1-c]triazines with O-methylated polyphenols, with pyrrole and its benzo analogues, and with thiophene has been studied. Methods for the reduction of the nitro group in the resulting σH-adducts and subsequent oxidative aromatisation have been developed.


SUMMARY A field study was conducted on vertisols to determine the effect of three watering regimes and two plant densities on growth and yield of groundnuts. Total water requirements ranged from 486 to 597 mm depending on treatments. Three quarters of the water depletion was from the upper 20–30 cm. Plants in the sparse population were more sensitive to water stress so that the watering interval could be lengthened in the dense population without seriously reducing yield.


Fingering convection (otherwise known as thermohaline convection) is an instability that occurs in stellar radiative interiors in the presence of unstable compositional gradients. Numerical simulations have been used in order to estimate the efficiency of mixing induced by this instability. However, fully three-dimensional (3D) computations in the parameter regime appropriate for stellar astrophysics (i.e., low Prandtl number) are prohibitively expensive. This raises the question of whether two-dimensional (2D) simulations could be used instead to achieve the same goals. In this work, we address this issue by comparing the outcome of 2D and 3D simulations of fingering convection at low Prandtl number. We find that 2D simulations are never appropriate. However, we also find that the required 3D computational domain does not have to be very wide: the third dimension only needs to contain a minimum of two wavelengths of the fastest-growing linearly unstable mode to capture the essentially 3D dynamics of small-scale fingering. Narrow domains, however, should still be used with caution since they could limit the subsequent development of any large-scale dynamics typically associated with fingering convection.


Seismic wave scattering representation for the layered half-space with lateral inhomogeneities subjected to a seismic dislocation source has been formulated in the companion paper with the use of first-order perturbation (Born-type approximation) technique. The total wave field is obtained as a superposition of the mean and the scattered wave fields, which are generated, respectively, by a series of double couples of body forces equivalent to the seismic dislocation source and by fictitious body forces equivalent to the existence of the lateral inhomogeneities in the layered half-space. The responses in both the mean and the scattered wave fields are found with the aid of an integral transform technique and wave propagation analysis. The characteristics of the scattered waves and their effects on the mean waves or corresponding induced ground and/or underground mean responses are investigated in this paper. In particular, coupling phenomena between P-SV and SH waves and wave number shifting effects between the mean and the scattered wave responses are presented in detail. With the lateral inhomogeneities being assumed as a homogeneous random field, a qualitative analysis is provided for estimating the effects of the lateral inhomogeneities on the ground motion, which is related to a fundamental issue: whether a real earth medium can or cannot be approximately considered as a laterally homogeneous layer. The effects of the lateral inhomogeneities on the ground motion time history are also presented as a quantitative analysis. Finally, a numerical example is carried out for illustration purposes.


On 1905 Ruben Dario writes the «Letania de nuestro senor Don Quijote», a long poem that later would be included in Cantos de vida y esperanza. It was the Centenary of the publication of the first part of Don Quixote, and, due to the cultural and social echoes found in the text, it was one of the most important tributes to Cervantes of that year. The main goal of our work is to discuss the poem from the perspective of its various cultural references and its antagonism towards academic and popular celebrations.


System safety is defined as the integration of skills and resources specifically organized to achieve accident prevention over the life cycle of a given system. Although born in the aerospace field, system safety has been receiving increasing application in other areas and is now being used within the marine industry. This paper discusses the current Navy emphasis on system safety considerations during the design phases of shipboard systems. System safety requirements are reviewed, their use by the marine industry examined, and objectives of system safety analyses as related to marine systems are discussed. This is followed by a description of the various types of safety analyses that may be applied to shipboard systems. The preliminary hazard, fault tree, and fault hazard analysis techniques are discussed in depth, and examples of their development are presented. Lastly, the key elements of the SSN688 Class Submarine System Safety Program are described.


Four major themes appear to be running through ESOL teaching and research efforts at the present time: (a) In our focus on learners, we are attempting to capitalize on their intrinsic motivation to learn English as a means to their empowerment; (b) sociopolitical issues have us focused on English as an international language and on language policy issues in many countries, including the U. S.; (c) efforts are being made to make curricula more content-centered and task-based, with an emphasis on pressing global issues; (d) our methods are, in turn, increasingly oriented toward cooperative, learner-centered teaching in which learner strategy training plays a significant role.


Recent evidence suggests that managers use voluntary CAPEX guidance to stimulate market feedback by incentivizing informed trading in their stock prices. We show that this "feedback disclosure" is associated with a decrease in informed trading in nondisclosing firms. The decrease of informed trading is pronounced in unexpected nondisclosure, consistent with the interpretation that traders perceive nondisclosure as indicating low gains from informed trading. The reduction in informed trading is associated with a reduction in investment- q sensitivity and future performance for nondisclosing firms. Overall, we document a novel link between managers' strategic disclosure decisions and real effects. feedback-intended disclosure on nondisclosing firms. We highlight significant feedback implications, where nondisclosing firms in which their ability to learn from implications by considering a nondisclosing firm's investment decisions and future operating profitability. The reduction in informed trading of nondisclosing firms is associated with a reduction in investment- q sensitivity, and future profitability. Overall, our findings are in line with the interpretation that nondisclosing managers' are able to extract less valuable information from their stock price when the market is expecting CAPEX guidance to be released. Overall, our paper provides novel evidence regarding the interaction between voluntary disclosure and the feedback channel. In particular, we highlight that unexpectedly nondisclosing firms suffer a reduction of informed trading, negatively affecting investment and future performance.


We generalize the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm by exploiting summations of the roots of unity. The generalized algorithm distinguishes a wider class of functions promised to be either constant or many to one and onto an evenly spaced range. As previously, the generalized quantum algorithm solves this problem using a single functional evaluation. We also consider the problem of distinguishing constant and evenly balanced functions and present a quantum algorithm for this problem that does not require any initialization of an auxiliary register involved in the process of functional evaluation and after solving the problem recovers the initial state of an auxiliary register.


There exists the following problems concerning the legal education in colleges: poor legal literacy for some students,weak legal awareness and moral decline as result of students'legal misconception,incomprehensive legal education and weakened social and family ethics binding.Therefore,it is imperative to integrate college students' moral education with legal education with the participation of all parties involved: college students,schools and families.The goal is to improve college students' legal literacy and moral cultivation,and strive to create a harmonious society.


This study presents a conceptual framework for exploring teachers' ontologies of English and investigates how a group of Chinese university teachers of English conceive of, and orient to, the language. Interview data suggest that participants orient to both a monolithic view as well as the 'plurilithic' reality. The data reveal that monolithic ontologies are associated primarily with classroom contexts, whereas plurilithic ontologies are activated when usage is in focus. Particularly significant is teachers' monolithic conception of grammar, compared to plurilithic conceptions of lexis and pronunciation. We propose that usage-based approaches to grammar might offer teachers a way to reconcile their apparently contradictory ontologies and help them challenge the deficit view of learning inherent in the monolithic approach.

本文提出了研究教师英语存在论的概念框架,并调查了一群中国大学英语教师如何看待和适应英语。访谈资料表明受访者既认同单一性的观点也接受多重性的现状。资料显示单一存在论主要存在于课堂背景下,而多重性是在语言使用中激发的。相对词汇和发音的多重性观念,教师对语法的单一性观念尤为显著。我们提议以语言运用为基础的语法教学也许可以解决显著的单一与多重并存的矛盾,并且有助于纠正单一论教学法中固有的关于语言学习的错误观念。


Evidentiality has often been described in narrow terms as an
 independent grammatical category denoting an overt source of information (e.g.,
 perception, inference, assumption and hearsay). Drawing on fieldwork data, this
 paper explores how evidentiality is encoded at the copula level in
 Chhitkul-Rākchham (West Himalayish). In doing so, it is argued that the relevant
 evidentials, part of a comparatively complex scheme consisting of nine elements,
 together with a negative sub-system, fall under the broader umbrella of
 epistemic modality. The contention finds an illustration in an egophoric marker
 following two inflectional tracks with two resulting degrees of assertiveness,
 and in a handful of combinatorial constructions. Evidentiality as expressed by
 copulas points to the self, which builds bridges with the study of
 consciousness. The latter term is underappreciated within linguistics and this
 work emphasizes the need for a broader cross-disciplinary outlook.


Improving prevention, recognition and treatment of noma Alexandra Caulfield & Tobias Alfvén a Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18, 17165 Solna, Sweden. Correspondence to Tobias Alfvén (email: email@example.com). (Submitted: 25 August 2019 – Revised version received: 2 December 2019 – Accepted: 25 February 2020 – Published online: 8 April 2020) Global consultations are ongoing in preparation for the launch of World Health Organization's (WHO) new roadmap for neglected tropical diseases. These consultations will set out the strategic direction for treatment and prevention of these diseases in the coming decade. We therefore argue that it is timely to assess the global progress against noma, a disease endemic to tropical areas and neglected in terms of detection, prevention, treatment, research and policy.


The author responds to a critique of an earlier article in which hypotheses concerning the relationship of fertility to changes in socioeconomic status of minority groups were compared. It is noted that the theoretical discussion of minority status effects has not been cast in terms of change over time as asserted. Secondly the use of cross-sectional data does not require that initial members of a minority group attaining high socioeconomic status be representative of all members of the minority eventually attaining a high status. Thirdly the inability of the authors critic to reject either hypothesis on the basis of the total fertility rates he presents is a result of his restricted interpretation rather than the ambiguity in the theory.


Mostly used at previous design stages, the incorporation of digital tools into construction processes is quite recent. But this displacement from design fiel...


Ti ion was implanted into Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films synthesized by magnetron sputtering method. After ion implantation, the chemical bonds were detected by Raman spectroscopy and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), the surface morphology of the films was observed by atom force microscope (AFM), the friction coefficient was measured by a ball-on-disk microtribometer. Raman spectra confirm the DLC characteristics of the films and the content of sp~2 bonds increases after Ti ion implantation. In the TEM analysis, TiC nanocrystals are formed in the surface of the film. AFM results show the films are smooth and uniform with the surface roughness as low as 0.6nm. The hardness of Ti doped DLC film increases from 14GPa to 20GPa. The friction coefficient of the film reduces to 0.15 by Ti~+ implantation. The wear resistance of DLC film was improved after Ti~+ ion implanted into DLC film.


The invention relates to a heating method of a liquid steel bath in a metallurgical vessel by injection of an oxidizing gas with a consumable lance and introduction of a metallic fuel, and wherein injected in addition by a separate means a stirring gas.


Liye J1 is an archaeological site where the official documents belonging to the county court of Qianling County (遷陵縣) were discarded during the Qin dynasty. Among those unearthed slip manuscripts, some are called "Other Post Slips" 異處簡 These were meant to be delivered to other offices rather than the county court. This article discusses the possible significance revealed by their variety in quantity, and to point out that the frequency of the appearance of "Other Post Slips" reflects the relative distance between the county court and affiliated offices. At the same time, this work provides support to restore the spatial layout of these offices within the county.


Abstract Russia has consistently opposed US hegemony since the early 1990s. Moscow has sought to create a world overseen by the UN Security Council and several power centres supporting an anti-hegemonic axis. Until recently, Russia's resources have been very limited. Russian opposition therefore was largely conceptual or a work in progress. Russian policy was largely reactive – and non-confrontational. However, the failure of the Russia-US relationship to develop practically has highlighted negative views of US hegemony, and the greater wealth generated through high energy prices is supporting an increasingly active Russian policy.


A natural algebraic generalization of V.F.R. Jones' theory of subfactors is defined and studied. Noncommutative finite separable extensions of K-algebras are defined from the algebraic notions of relative separability, split extension, and a counit condition. Examples are drawn from group, field and general Galois theory, which is of interest due to the existing comparisons between Jones' subfactor theory and these other algebraic theories. Finite separable extensions possess the main properties of the subfactor theory such as index and iterative aspects that lead to a tower of algebras and braid group representations. We prove that global dimension and other homological properties are the same for overalgebra and subalgebra in a finite separable extension.


The characteristics of a transversely excited atmospheric pressure (TEA) CO2 laser with a new electrode arrangement have been investigated. The electrode arrangement consists of two brass bars as anode and cathode with two flat side electrodes held at the same potential as the anode. The laser output is compared to that obtained from a conventional TEA laser in which the cathode consists of a row of resistors.


The types of wood in Banda Aceh used was seumantok, meranti, and sembarang wood. The process of wood leaves sawdust. The sawdust becames rubbish and could pollute the environment. There was five quality of woods, namely quality I - quality V. The purpose of this study is to optimize the sawdust of seumantok (quality I), meranti (quality II), and sembarang wood (quality III) to be processed into wood ash as a substitute for a part of cement in concrete with its percentage were 5% and 10%. The research method was experimentally in a laboratory-based on ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and ACI (American Concrete Institute). The maximum diameter of the aggregate was 25.4 mm, and the compressive strength of concrete was 14.5 MPa with 21 specimens of cylindrical concrete. Concrete compressive strength results at 28 days with 5% wood ash variation and 10% respectively for quality I were 15.83 MPa and 14.20 MPa, quality II was 13.56 MPa and 12.75 MPa, and quality III were 13.79 MPa and 10.75 MPa. While the normal compressive strength of concrete was 15.86 MPa.


In continuation of our work on the synthesis of naturally occurring pyranoflavones,!-4 we wish to report here the synthesis of four new flavones, 3,6diacetyl-and 6-acetyl-7-hydroxy-3'-4'-dimethoxy flavones, 4 and 5, 3, 6-diacetyl-and 6-acetyl-7-hydroxy4'-methoxy flavones, 8 and 9 from 5 acetyl 2, 4, diaroyldioxyacetophenone derivatives 3 and 7 by Baker-Venkatraman rearrangement followed by acid catalysed cyclisation and deacetylation reactions. The synthon, 5 acetyl 2, 4 dihydroxyaceto phenone 1 on h-:-ating with 3,4 dimethoxybenzoyl chloride gave the diester 2 as colourleSs prisms, mp 132°C. Its IR spectrum showed strong absorption bands at 1720 and 1670 cm'! characteristics of ester and ketone carbonyl groups, respectively. It didnot give alcoholic ferric chloride test indicating the absence of phenolic hydroxyl. On this basis and elemental analysis, the structure of the compound was elucidated as diester. The diester 2 on Baker Venkatraman rearrangement with potassium hydroxide in pyridine gave a Single product 3 as yellow needles, mp 185°C. It gave violet colouration with alcoholic fernic chloride, indicating the presence of phenolic hydroxyl. The spectral data of 3 are given in Table I.


Employees' retention in an organization reduces costs in terms of recruitment, training of new staff and loss of institutional memory as a result of experienced and skilled staff leaving the organization. The study helps organizations to establish policy framework to reduce the turnover level and increase employees' retention. Employees' turnover brings in new ideas, fresh perspectives, experiences and skills to the organization. However, it leads to losing employees whose skills, talents and experiences are valuable to the performance of the organization. Qualitative and quantitative approaches adopted, self-administered questionnaires were given out to about 65 respondents randomly selected and the results summarized, analyzed and presented in tabular and graphical format. In addition, secondary sources of information consulted. According to the finding, 100% of the respondents confirmed employees' turnover in the organization is affected by the job insecurity. 62% believed lack of opportunity for staff capacity development influences employees' turnover, 54% of the respondents asserted working a distance away from the family is one of the reasons staff leave for another organization and 77% confirmed that staff mobility is influenced by better compensation package elsewhere within the humanitarian organizations and 92% stated high family dependency rate as one of the factors that makes staff move for better paid job because the income in the current job is not enough to care take of the family members. The study noted that an organization that invests a lot in its human resources has high level of employees' retention and motivation today.


This research studied the utilization of biodegradable polymer for nonwoven fabric production and applied to fabricate a sound absorbing panel by corporate with natural fiber nonwoven fabric. PLA was used as a biodegradable polymer and hemp nonwoven was used as a natural fiber nonwoven fabric. PLA nonwoven fabric was prepared using a melt jet spinning process. The spinning process was carried out at 250 and 260°C with screw speed of 10 rpm and air blown pressure of 0.3 and 0.5 MPa. The die-to-collector of fabric production was studied at 30 and 60 cm to compare the nonwoven fabric product property. It was found that the process temperature, air pressure and die-to-collector distance have significant effects on the nonwoven fabric thickness, GSM, and fabric density. Air permeability decreased with high fabric thickness as well as fine fibers which supported the property of sound absorbing panels. Therefore, the suitable conditions for sound absorbing panel fabrication were processed at temperature of 260°C, air pressure 0.5 MPa and die-to-collector distance of 60 cm. Sound absorbing coefficient measurement revealed that GSM fabric thickness had an effect on increasing sound absorption. The effect of nonwoven sheet order and arrangement of PLA nonwoven and hemp nonwoven of 3 layers sandwich indicated that the layers order of PLA/PLA/Hemp had high sound absorbing coefficient that was comparable with PLA/PLA/PLA due to fiber size and arrangement.


We have designed and fabricated a photonic crystal filter intended for demultiplexing in wavelength division domain. This device is single-mode, the total insertion losses are about 12dB and the channel isolation can exceed 25dB. Non return to zero signal at 40Gb/s have been successfully filtered with no penalty in the bit error rate analysis. The device is cascadable to form a multi-channel demultiplexer and can be tuned through an integrated, low power temperature controller.


W HEN the hero of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight sets out from Camelot to keep his promise at the Green Chapel, he and all his friends are quite sure that he will never return alive (11. 56o, 669, 68i). Had Merlin himself predicted his unfortunate end, it could not have seemed more certain. He has been trapped, partly through Arthur's pride and rashness, but largely through the deceitful power of a magician or a pagan goddess, in one of those desperate situations where it really seems possible to foretell the destiny of an individual. Yet the good Gawain, Mary's knight, does return, thereby showing that contrary to appearances he was not the victim of an unalterable fate, and that magic is not an omnipotent force. But Gawain does not emerge a conqueror in the usual manner of epic and romance. It is not through aggressive courage or military skill or natural cunning that he eludes magic and masters fate. His one active and aggressive deed was, as the Green Knight himself made clear, mere boys' stuff, and very foolish at that (285-6). What brings him safely through his encounters with the world of magic are the 'passive' but (in the circumstances) very exacting virtues of patient fortitude, truth, piety, and chastity: virtues which are frequently annexed in part by the typical Arthurian hero but, when viewed in the context of medieval narrative and idealism as a whole, are much more characteristic of the saint, the perennial Christian hero.


Abstract In this paper, a direct adaptive fuzzy tracking control scheme is presented for a class of stochastic nonaffine uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown dead-zone input. Based on the first-type fuzzy logic system's online approximation capability, a direct adaptive fuzzy tracking controller is developed by using the backstepping approach. It is proved that the design scheme ensures that all the error variables are bounded in probability while the mean square tracking error becomes semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded(SGUUB) in an arbitrarily small area around the origin. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the control scheme.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine how different types of crime impact housing prices in Swedish municipalities.
The thesis includes regression analyses of various types of crime's relation to house prices. In addition, a difference-in-difference analysis of a joint action plan between municipalities and state authorities in Norrbotten County to counter organized crime is made, in order to investigate the causal impact that crime could have on house prices.
This thesis can conclude that there seems to exist a correlation between some types of crime and housing prices in Sweden. It also shows that work against organized crime in rural areas of Sweden can result in both lower crime levels and higher housing prices.


Introduction: rubella is an acute serious viral infection in pregnancy. Rubella and resultant rubella syndrome (CRS) is still regarded as an important public health problem around the world. Islamic republic of Iran has implemented a nationwide vaccination program for measles- rubella in order to eradicate CRS in 1382. There is an imperative need for applied researches and collecting appropriate data in order to be informed about the result of the vaccination program. The aim of this research was to determine rubella immunity in relation with mothers admitted to postpartum unit of Be'asat hospital in Sanandaj. Materials and Methods: This study was analytic descriptive and was included 204 women who were bedridden in the postpartum ward. Patients were divided into two groups randomly using simple random sampling. The data about personal, medical and obstetric history were obtained by using questionnaire while blood sampling was daily taken from the above-mentioned women accessibly. Then the taken blood samples were immediately operated on because of serum separation action every day. Assay of specific IgG antibodies concerning rubella was determined by using ELISA test. The data were analyzed by ANOVA and T- Test using SPSS software. Result: Majority of subjects (31/4%) were 25-29 years old who had (35/8%) primary literacy and were city-dwellers (65/2%). In addition, 49% of them were primipara. 54/9% of them had history of rubella vaccination. 82/4% of them had no information about rubella complications in pregnancy. Overall; 93.7% of participants were immune to rubella. There were no significant association between immunity levels and other patients characteristics such as individual characteristics, obstetric and rubella vaccination histories and finally having rubella itself. Conclusion: According to our findings the general immunity level is acceptable, but it seems that this level of immunity isn't merely the result of the mass campaign vaccination. As sporadic cases of disease may still occur and in view of the fact that rubella antibodies might wane after spending a period of time; a screening program is exceedingly necessary to determine rubella immunity levels before marriage or pregnancy and finally vaccination of susceptible persons.


In the present paper, the free vibration behavior of functionally graded plates containing straight and curved
embedded crack is investigated. A NURBS-based multi-patch isogeometric analysis formulation is utilized based on the firstorder shear deformation plate theory. The Nitsche technique is implemented to meet the inter-patch connection constraints. The crack line is assumed as a narrow cut along a straight or free-shape curve path within the plate. The crack growth phenomena are overlooked. The accuracy and quality of the obtained results are compared to those available in the literature. Subsequently, the effect of various material and geometry parameters on the free vibration characteristics of cracked FG plate including the
volume-fraction index, crack shape, crack length, crack orientation and, crack location are examined. It learned that the straight crack inclination angle mainly influences the fifth and fourth natural modes. Moreover, the FGM mixture index doesn't noticeably affect the frequency trends. No considerable impact is noted between the edge constraint setups on the fundamental frequency.


The velocity analysis is an important step for the seismic processing. With the increase in the difficulty of work with specific conditions and complex geological structures, more complex travel-time approximations are developed to perform a better structural characterization. As the complexity increases, more approximations were developed aiming to characterize different factor responsible for the nonhyperbolicity, and using sometimes an additional parameter. Many nonhyperbolic multiparametric travel-time approximations were developed and their complexities vary strongly from one to other. In previous works, it was observed that some approximations present a unimodal behavior while other approximations showed a multimodal behavior. However, a specific kind of approximation showed both statistical distributions, the unimodal and the multimodal in distinct situations. To find out the factor responsible for this variation in the probabilistic distribution behavior of this kind of approximation, it was necessary to test different theoretical models to understand which variation in the structure interferes in the topography of the objective function.


The researcher carried out the action research to experiment and experience the effectiveness of applying the theoretical aspects of bottom-up processing to help learners with decoding in listening lessons. The experimental lesson included six adult intermediate students (n = 6) from different backgrounds at an English language teaching professional development training undertaken at International House, Bangkok, Thailand in July 2021. The researcher planned the lessons after the literature review on bottom-up processing and surveying students' needs and interests. The pre-lesson preparation included collecting the group profile, setting lesson aims and learning outcomes, analyzing the target language assuming learners' existing knowledge, anticipating problems and solutions, planning the lesson procedures with appropriate teaching, and learning materials. and considering the timetable fit. The study aimed to find out the effectiveness of a listening lesson focused on bottom-up processing through self-reflection, and feedback from the observer, co-teachers, and students. The study was largely based on the collection of qualitative data through means of the researcher's post-lesson reflection, and feedback from the observation, co-teachers, and students, which functioned as research tools in the study. The data analysis found that bottom-up processing was learner-engaging and beneficial to students' positive perception of improving their listening skills. In addition, they provided the researcher with insights into the steps of planning and administering a listening lesson focused on bottom-up processing identifying areas of achievement and improvement.