Iron is physiologically essential to life, but biochemically it is harmful because of its evident -but unappreciated- oxidative and inflammatory tissue power when it accumulates, is dosed in excess, or is free; and that because, after entering the body, unlike any other metal, its elimination is almost non-existent in man; thus, metal is a powerful promoter of chronic degenerative diseases, from diabetes, neurodegeneration to cancer, through extensive coronary and cardio-cerebrovascular disease; modifying its clinical expressivity and accelerating its severity. Iron is a powerful oxidizing and inflammatory agent, and its accumulation causes and promotes the proliferation of cancer cells in particular, both in animals and in humans. Free and accumulated iron triggers a powerful uncontrolled Cell Proliferation, permanently feeding the survival of the neoplastic cell. After more than 50 years of experimental and preclinical studies, it is clearly demonstrating the carcinogenicity of iron; and this is also proven in humans, from breast cancer and endometrium, in women, to cancer of the colon-rectum, prostate, and pancreas in men. In Western men and women, the reductions in iron deposits have an important anti-tumor and preventive effect for the development of cancer or diabetes, two entities biologically interrelated by the states of Resistance to Insulin, an inflammatory state that favors the development of malignant neoplasms, and can accelerate its aggressiveness. It is the chronic excess of insulin or its Tissue Resistance, the biological event and the clinical syndrome that increases the cancerous power of excess iron, both silent epidemics in modern man. Moderate increases in body iron levels increase the risk of acquiring cancer, and raise the level of their mortality. And its deficiency or chelation in vivo decreases the Tumor growth (Wang F, Elliott RL, Head JF: Inhibitory effect of deferoxamine mesylate and low iron diet on the 13762NF rat mammary adenocarcinoma Anticancer Res. 1999 Jan-Feb; 19 (1A): 445-50). If excess iron mediates and increases the risk of cancer associated with Insulin resistance, any subject with this syndrome can minimize any associated health risks (and their increased risk of cancer), avoiding iron-rich diets and donating blood with regularity; Iron is the metal that causes "exponential" and punctual mutations and fusion of genes through chromosomal translocations, constituting the greatest risk factor for human carcinogenesis. Iron is physiologically essential for life but biochemically dangerous. Chronic accumulation of iron causes pantropic organ damage and excess body iron play an important role in carcinogenesis, coronary artery disease, neurodegenerative disease, stroke and inflammatory disorders. Iron is very slowly excreted from humans once it is absorbed into the body. The significance of iron excess has been markedly underestimated, despite the fact that iron overloading disorders are as common place in the US white population. Iron-overload and catalytic iron promotes activation of oxidative responsive transcription factors and pro-inflammatory cytokines that increase cancer extension and aggravate them. There is accumulative evidence for iron as a carcinogenic metal in epidemiological, clinical, animal, and cell culture studies. The role of iron in various cancers, such as colorectal and liver cancer was demonstrated. Recent advancements on the molecular mechanisms of iron carcinogenesis evolved the Insulin-resistance generation and promotion, fisiopatologic condition that is not only permissive, but may be generated cancer and promoting it. Unlike other nutritional metals, iron is highly conserved: toxicity due to excess iron can occur either acutely after a single dose or chronically due to excessive accumulation in the body from diet. In vivo studies have demonstrated that an iron deficiency induced by either feeding a low iron diet injecting the iron chelator deferoxamine mesylate decreases tumor growth (Wang F, Elliott RL, Head JF: Inhibitory effect of deferoxamine mesylate and low iron diet on the 13762NF rat mammary adenocarcinoma Anticancer Res. 1999 Jan-Feb;19(1A):445-50). Iron supplementation has at times proven ineffective and even detrimental to health. Thus, iron excess may mediate the increased cancer risk associated with insulin resistance and heme-rich diets, and subjects who are insulin resistant can minimize any health risk associated with iron overload by avoiding heme-rich flesh foods and donating blood regularly. The energy that sustains cancer cells derived preferentially from glycolysis depends on the gene p53 deficiency-iron induced. This nutrient is postulated to contribute to the initiation of cancer in vivo, but iron overload initiates and sustain cancer development if chronic infection or insulin resistance conditions are present. Cancer cells require considerably more iron than normal cells. Since iron catalytic can induce driver point mutation and create fusion genes through chromosomal translocations, iron overload is one of the most important risk factors in human carcinogenesis. Because free iron may play a catalytic role in "spontaneous" mutagenesis, moderately elevated iron stores increased overall risk for cáncer.


The topic of this bachelor's thesis is "Quality of Life of Nurses Providing Home Hospice Care". It primarily focuses on the quality of life and questions of paliative care and home hospice care. Also, it partially deals with stress, burnout syndorme and supervision. The practical part consists of a survey, based on questionaires and interviews, conducted on nurses working in the home hospice care.


When we first began to read Homer we learnt with surprise that Zeus nodded with his eyebrows, and the expressiveness of the ancient eyebrow has been noted and, as I think, exaggerated by modern scholars. Ancient noses have, so far as I am aware, received less attention. The modern Englishman turns up his nose in contempt or disgust, and he produces with it the sniff and snort which denote similar emotions; otherwise it plays a somewhat passive part in our lives. We follow or are led by it; fail to see what is underneath it; poke it into things and pay through it; have it pulled, or bitten off; cut it off to spite our faces, or keep it to the grindstone; and we put our fingers to it—one, if we are sententious, to enjoin attention, more, if we have not been nicely brought up, in derisive contempt; but by itself it reacts little to our moods. The ancient nose was more responsive. Ironists wore the Attic or Socratic nose. Contempt, in Greek more specifically associated with the nostrils (μυκτηρισμός), derision, and disgust, were naturally at home there, but so were anger, distress, and terror. Mustard mounts to the nose of an angry Frenchman and Italian, and an Englishman, though he does not think of his nose in that connexion, may be conscious of a slight dilation of the nostril when he loses his temper, and according to Darwin the same effect may be produced by terror, but the evidence suggests that violent emotions produced in ancient noses sensations stronger than in ours and sometimes foreign to them.


Forty-two years after United States marines first landed on its beaches, there are signs of increasing economic prosperity in Da Nang, Vietnam. Behind the rows of brightly coloured fishing boats stand advertisements for banks and electronics companies. Bamboo scaffolding surrounds the shells of new


Since severe weather has great effect on flight nowadays,Rerouting strategy can reduce the loss of abnormal flight.The paper mainly studies the rerouting under block severe weather.In order to know the precise area affected by the e severe weather,the area and its track of movement are first described.Then introducing how to find the rerouting points in view of aircraft performance and pilot's workload.The method gives the best flight course using the minimum objective function value in use of airborne radar.Segment distance,number of rerouting points,heading change and average distance of side direction are standard to evaluate the rerouting course.Finally,an example about the flight course of Nanking to Beijing is studied.The simulated results show the method is safe,effective and feasible.


A new class of group decision making model under fuzzy preferences and a fuzzy majority is proposed which combines the traditional, widely employed and successful decision (making) by consensus, and the new idea, based on recent results from decision and, cognitive sciences, management science, psychology, etc. suggesting that decision by consensus may often lead to noninnovative enough decisions, and a different approach based on individuals (agents) who are not consensory but express different, maybe dissensory opinions, with a higher innovation potential, may be better. Here, in the new model, after the first phase of traditional decision by consensus, we use the concepts of Kacprzyk and Zadrożny's [28] consensory and dissensory agents, and then use primarily testimonies of dissensory agents which can imply innovative options to be chosen by using Kacprzyk [17], [18], and Kacprzyk, Zadrożny, Fedrizzi and Nurmi [29] group decision solution concepts, notably various fuzzy cores (i.e. fuzzy sets of options preferred over most other options).


Regional Secretariat South Solok District has not applied government regulations on financial management regulations. Regional Secretariat South Solok District has not made the complete financial statements, they only make budget reports only, and do not make balance and Notes to Financial Statements. Report on budget are made based on Government Regulation of the Interior No. 13 of 2006. South Solok District Secretariat has not been doing depreciation of fixed assets so that the financial statements, particularly the balance sheet does not describe the actual financial position. Based Permendagri 13 of 2006 local governments must prepare three financial statements are: the realization of the Budget Report, Balance Sheet, Notes to the financial statements. Computer applications Excel For Accounting is one medium that can be used by the Government in preparing the financial statements. Simply make a one-time formats then after that by entering transaction to the journal automatically posting process and financial reports directly generated. Ease of course, would be helpful to remember all the limitations that exist in local government in preparing its financial statements.


M.'s concern is with (a) the tyrant as progenitor of a political vocabulary that anticipates classical conceptions of sovereignty and (b) the actions, memories and fictions by which the polis appropriates the tyrant's language and power (p. 9). His major conclusion is that 'the freedom of the post-tyrannical polis continued the characteristic self-interest of the tyrant. Classical conceptions and images of sovereignty were the great political legacy of tyrants and... these images existed as interpretive memories, not the simple results, of historical experiences of individual autocratic power' (pp. 8-10 [author's italics]). Chapter 1 starts from Quintilian Decl. 274, which (allegedly) implicitly contrasts the tyrant (cast out unburied) and the founder (a personage not mentioned by Quintilian) who is buried in the agora as hero-oikistes. We are told (p. 10) the chapter shows how the polis constructs and remembers its political identity in the stories of tyrants and founders—stories which ' spring from a politics of analogy [sic]'—but insofar as this is comprehensible it is not true. The chapter merely surveys the topoi of founder-stories, the traditional estimation of tyranny as prima facie desirable, and epinikian treatment of tyrants. Chapter II is more satisfactory and coherently argues that tyranny's principal rhetoric was championship of justice—a rhetoric which carried the seeds of the tyrant's own destruction. (Note the interesting argument that Pisistratus' club-bearers were deliberately armed with a weapon associated with assertions of justice or order.) Chapter HI deals with Solon's attempt to address injustice while obviating tyranny, which failed (p. 11) because the situation required a collective solution consisting in the politicizing of tyranny. This opaque observation appears to mean that Solon was (a) as autocratic as a tyrant even if he tried to invest that autocratic power in thestnoi, (b) unrealistic in thinking that legal procedures could restrain would-be tyrants, (c) simplistic in thinking that Athenians faced a stark choice of obeying his laws or being utterly ruined by stasis and (d) misguided in neglecting their need to be actors in the drama of reform if they were to end up the way he wanted. In the end (as Solon realized) the best expedient was to have a tyrant and get rid of him. There is useful stress on the isolation of the persona which Solon constructs for himself, an interesting discussion of the Law for an Activist Citizenry—and a rather peculiar (or deliberately ironic?) passage contrasting Lycurgus' success and Solon's failure as lawgiver—but the chapter remains rather less than the sum of its parts. Chapter IV discusses tyrants who tried to resign (Maeandrius, Cadmus) or reconfigure their power (Aristagoras, Gelon, Hieron). One message is that liberation can be all right from the tyrant's point of view provided it is controlled by the tyrant, and this leads (if this indeed is the connection of thought) to the idea that liberation controlled by someone else may preserve the tyrant's power while getting rid of the tyrant. 'At the end of tyranny the roles of master and slave were... reversed as the tyrant's power was depersonalised and reintegrated and the polis came to function as the political entity in whose name the citizens acted and to whom they were held accountable. In this reversal lay the origins of the classical notions of autonomy and liberty'. The imperative of self-defining self-liberation is what impelled Athenians to


This paper is study on a spatial analysis for suitable soil parameter for the expansion of saltpan in Ramanathapuram district using remote sensing and GIS. The present study area is located on Ramanathapuram district, Eastern coastal part of Tamilnadu. It is bounded between the 9° 16′ 49.58′′ N, 77° 26′ 1.03′′ E. The thematic map (soil map) was prepared from IRS P6, LISS IV 2011 satellite image (scale 1:50000) thematic map and the soil details is obtained from geological survey of India. On the basis of tone, texture, size, shape and associations, various soil features like Entisols, Inceptisols, Alfisols, settlement, vertisols, Pondicherry, Reserve forest miscellaneous, etc..By using weightage parameters the best soil saltpan is


Background and Aim: This study aimed to assess T- and B-cell-mediated immune response following administration of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine in liver transplant (LT) recipients. Subjects and Methods: Twenty-eight liver transplant recipients and seven healthy volunteers without prior history of COVID-19 infection were enrolled. All individuals received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine (either Covishield or Covaxin), with the LT recipients receiving them at least 3 months after LT. The results of humoral (COVID-specific IgG) and cell-mediated immune response (interferon [INF]-gamma assay) following vaccination in the LT recipient group were compared with the control group. Results: Both LT recipients and control individuals developed COVID-specific antibodies following vaccination. The LT recipient group showed marginally higher INF-gamma levels with an average of 61.3 pg/ml compared to the control group 42.7 pg/ml (P = 0.051). There was no difference in the immunological response between patients who received the vaccination before or after 6 months posttransplant. There was no difference in response between the two vaccines. Conclusion: LT recipients mounted an immunological response comparable to the control group with both inactivated and viral vector vaccines for COVID-19, when vaccinated with an interval period of 3 months from transplant.


Solvent mixtures for making uniform, crystalline methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite films are provided. The solvents dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), γ‐butyrolactone (GBL), and 1‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidinone (NMP) are examined as well as their binary combinations to prepare solution‐sheared perovskite films at higher than 150 °C temperatures. Characterization methods such as imaging, X‐ray diffraction, grazing‐incidence wide‐angle X‐ray scattering, and photoluminescence (PL) to evaluate the crystal size, quality, and ordering that determine the viability of these films for device applications are explored and then a perovskite solar cell is made to test the stability of the most promising film. Excellent macroscopic crystals, over 1 mm in length, are achieved using a solvent mixture containing equal volumes of DMSO and NMP. These superior 3D MAPbI3 films, which retain solvent–perovskite intermediate phases and exhibit high crystalline ordering, are essential for high‐performing and stable optoelectronic devices.


OBJECTIVE To study the flocculating efficiency of chitosan to the compound Shaohuang oral solution and the influence to the active ingredients including Paeoniflorinin and emodin. METHODS The pellucid solution of spontaneous precipition,alcohol-precipitation and chitosan-precipitation in water decoction was tested to determine the concentration of the active ingredients such as paeoniflorinin using the parallel trial. Their stabilities were investigated. RESULTS Chitosan can efficiently reserve paeoniflorinin at the rate of 88.7%, 86.4%higher than alcohol-precipitation, and meet the requirement of the preparations, but less stable. CONCLUSION Chitosan precipitation can be used in place of alcohol-precipitation for the precipitaion of compound Shaohuang oral solution.


Objective To investigate the expression of midkine(MK) and its relation with angiogenesis,biological features and clinical features of lung cancer.Method MK protein expression were determined in surgically treated 50 cases of Non-small-cell-lung cancer(NSCLC) and their adjacent tissues and 15 cases of normal lung tissues by immunohistochemmistry,respectively.The microvessel density(MVD) was performed by immunohistochemmistry with anti-CD34 monoclonal antibody directed against endothelial markers in 50 cases of lung cancer and 15 cases of normal lung tissues,respectively.Result The positive rate of the expression of MK protein was 82.0% in 50 cases of lung cancer tissues,but there was no expression of MK protein in the adjacent tissues and 15 cases of normal lung tissues.By stastistical analysis,there was no relationship between MK protein and sex,age,grade of cell differentiation,histological classification.A correlation was found between MK protein and TNM stages,lymph node metastases,the size and MVD of lung cancer.Conclusion (1)MK is closely related to angiogenesis of lung cancer.MK expression is one of the predictors for the biological behavior of lungcancer.


PurposeThis study continues a long history of author co-citation analysis of the intellectual structure of information science into the time period of 2011–2020. It also examines changes in this structure from 2006–2010 through 2011–2015 to 2016–2020. Results will contribute to a better understanding of the information science research field.Design/methodology/approachThe well-established procedures and techniques for author co-citation analysis were followed. Full records of research articles in core information science journals published during 2011–2020 were retrieved and downloaded from the Web of Science database. About 150 most highly cited authors in each of the two five-year time periods were selected from this dataset to represent this field, and their co-citation counts were calculated. Each co-citation matrix was input into SPSS for factor analysis, and results were visualized in Pajek. Factors were interpreted as specialties and labeled upon an examination of articles written by authors who load primarily on each factor.FindingsThe two-camp structure of information science continued to be present clearly. Bibliometric indicators for research evaluation dominated the Knowledge Domain Analysis camp during both fivr-year time periods, whereas interactive information retrieval (IR) dominated the IR camp during 2011–2015 but shared dominance with information behavior during 2016–2020. Bridging between the two camps became increasingly weaker and was only provided by the scholarly communication specialty during 2016–2020. The IR systems specialty drifted further away from the IR camp. The information behavior specialty experienced a deep slump during 2011–2020 in its evolution process. Altmetrics grew to dominate the Webometrics specialty and brought it to a sharp increase during 2016–2020.Originality/valueAuthor co-citation analysis (ACA) is effective in revealing intellectual structures of research fields. Most related studies used term-based methods to identify individual research topics but did not examine the interrelationships between these topics or the overall structure of the field. The few studies that did discuss the overall structure paid little attention to the effect of changes to the source journals on the results. The present study does not have these problems and continues the long history of benchmark contributions to a better understanding of the information science field using ACA.


The first part of this study about the designing of a program of educative intervention in the familiar context is focused on general aspects referring to the limitation of family concept, its functions, values and rules that improve the familiar development. In this second part, we treat to develop some guides of pedagogical intervention that solve more common disagreements and conflicts in the familiar context, anyway the detection of its causes and consequences. In both parts of the study they include different educative proposals with the purpose to improve the communication context and the development of social abilities in these contexts of familiar formation.


A new technique for interpretation of hot-film anemometer sensor response is described. This technique has been applied to simultaneous measurement of profiles of mean velocity, the three components of velocity vector fluctuation, and temperature fluctuation in non-isothermal pipe flow of water using multiple sensors^. Sensors operated in the constant temperature mode (CTA) respond to both mean and fluctuating velocity and temperature. The influence of mean temperature gradient on CTA sensor response was eliminated by appropriate adjustment of the sensors' operating resistances as the temperature gradient was traversed. The adjustments were derived from analysis of linearized CTA sensor response. A sensor operated as a resistance thermometer (CCA) responded to the mean temperature and temperature fluctuations and had negligible velocity response. Estimates of errors in the interpretation of responses are presented. Errors depend on the magnitude of the mean temperature gradient, sensors' coefficients of resistivity, and obedience to known cooling and yaw-sensitivity laws. Calculations are presented for uncoated 2-mil and 6-mil hot-film sensors. Examples of the application of this technique to the measurement of turbulence in water are presented.


Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a type of eczema that is very common in children, but also affects 2‐10% of all adults worldwide. The main symptom is itch, which can be severe enough to stop the person sleeping properly. It can be found on any part of the skin, including the face, but the areas that are most commonly affected are the elbows, knees, wrists and neck. The skin is usually red and dry and may bleed from scratching.


ABSTRACT This paper discusses the various potential impacts of Brexit on UK regions and outlines the sub-national governance challenges these potential impacts raise. In the light of these, the types of activities that UK sub-national governance bodies have initiated in preparation for Brexit are then reviewed. The conclusions suggest that the UK sub-national institutional system is largely unprepared for the post-Brexit realities.


This work aims at constructing efficient high-order hybrid schemes to resolve both smooth and discontinuous regions of flow fields. To this end, a new kind of smoothness indicator, referred to as global smoothness indicators in this article, is designed first. The new smoothness indicators contain only simple difference operators and, therefore, are computationally very inexpensive. A family of high-order hybrid schemes is constructed based on the new smoothness indicators. In this kind of hybrid scheme, classic weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) schemes with work as a sub-scheme for capturing the discontinuities, while the corresponding linear optimal schemes of the WENO work as another sub-scheme for resolving the smooth region. It is shown theoretically that the convergence rates of the hybrid schemes always can reach the optimal order as the mesh is refined past a limit resolution. The robustness, high efficiency and high resolution of the hybrid schemes are demonstrated through several representative numerical examples.


An absolute kinetic study of the reaction of Cl atoms with CF3CF2CH2OH is reported as a function of temperature (T = 268–377 K) and at a total pressure of 100 Torr by the Pulsed Laser Photolysis - Resonance Fluorescence (PLP-RF) technique. No pressure dependence of the rate coefficient for the title reaction, k, was observed between 50 and 200 Torr of He at 298 K. The derived Arrhenius expression in that T-range was k(T) = (2.18 ± 0.24) × 10−12 exp(–(333 ± 34)/T) cm3 molecule−1 s−1, where the uncertainties are ±2σ. From these results, the average tropospheric lifetime of CF3CF2CH2OH due to the reaction with Cl was estimated to be 50 years, considering a global Cl concentration of 103 atom cm−3 and an average temperature of 272 K. Additionally, a theoretical study of the Cl + CF3CF2CH2OH reaction has been carried out by ab initio Möller–Plesset second-order perturbation treatment with 6-311G** basis set to investigate the reaction mechanism. Molecular energies of the different critical points of the potential energy surface have been calculated at QCISD(T) level. The theoretical study shows that the H-atom abstraction from the –CH2– group is the most favourable reaction pathway.


A controller is designed for the tokamak safety factor profile that takes real-time-varying operational and physics limits into account. This so-called model predictive controller (MPC) employs a prediction model in order to compute optimal control inputs that satisfy the given limits. The use of linearized models around a reference trajectory results in a quadratic programming problem that can easily be solved online. The performance of the controller is analysed in a set of ITER L-mode scenarios simulated with the non-linear plasma transport code RAPTOR. It is shown that the controller can reduce the tracking error due to an overestimation or underestimation of the modelled transport, while making a trade-off between residual error and amount of controller action. It is also shown that the controller can account for a sudden decrease in the available actuator power, while providing warnings ahead of time about expected violations of operational and physics limits. This controller can be extended and implemented in existing tokamaks in the near future.


This article looks at how owners/managers of established businesses in central Johannesburg perceive informal trading in the city's CBD. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews and the questionnaire. It was established that the majority of the owners/managers of formal businesses have negative views of most aspects of informal trading in the CBD such as the competition it creates for their businesses and the social ills it attracts. However, some of them expressed appreciation of some benefits that informal trading brings to their businesses such as the fact that sometimes informal traders patronise formal businesses for wares that they go on to sell and the attraction of customers to Central Johannesburg. In keeping with Johannesburg's claim to be a world class African city, the paper recommends the strengthening and implementation of policies regulating informal trading to tame the informal trading jungle characteristic of some parts of the city centre. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n4p206


Pedigree information is required to estimate breeding values accurately and to ensure high rates of genetic gain. DNA markers information can be used as an alternative to traditional recording of pedigree, being SNPs the markers of choice for parentage verification. The aim of the present study was to determine sheep parentage by SNPs using a very low density panel in: 1) a stud Merino flock to know the percentage of parentage error in order to correct pedigree misidentification and; 2) a commercial Highlander flock, to study the possibility to not control lambing anymore because for the breeder it is very laborious, time-consuming and disturb the relationship ewe-lambs during parturition. Genomic DNA was isolated from 200 samples of Merino sheep in 2015 and from 108 and 904 samples of Merino and Highlander sheep in 2016, respectively; and were genotyped with a very low density panel containing 507 SNPs. In 2015, for the 91 lambs genotyped, the error in parentage assignment was 16.5%. Although the assigned sire did not match with the declared sire for 15 lambs, the true sire was assigned for 14 of them. Thus, 99% of the lambs genotyped, had a sire assigned by the SNP panel. For the 80 lambs with their dams genotyped, the error rate was 12.5%. For the 10 lambs with mismatches with the declared dams, the true dam was assigned for five of them. In 2016, Merino samples were genotyped to link only lambs with their sires. For the 101 lambs, the error of parentage assignment was 21.8%. For Highlander, 7.5% of samples failed the genotyping and analyses was conducted without knowledge of the relationships between lambs with sires and dams. The 51% of the lambs genotyped had a sire and a dam assigned, 21% had only the sire assigned and 15% had only assigned a dam. Thus, genotyping by SNPs assigned a sire to the 72% of the lambs and a dam to the 66% of the lambs. The main problem was that only 5 of the 11 rams used as sires were genotyped and the high percentage of samples which failed the genotyping. However, taking into account the lack of information related to pedigree, we consider that a high rate of lambs had a sire and a dam assigned by the SNP panel. In conclusion, the development of a SNP panel for parentage assignment at a low price, would provide breeders with the opportunity of making mating management and control lambing easier and more relaxed while improving the known of pedigree information, ensuring high rates of genetic gain.


The sesarmid crab Neosarmatium meinerti is one of the most abundant species inhabiting the upper mangrove areas of many East African mangrove forests. However, several aspects concerning its reproduction are scarcely known. In this study, sexual maturity of N. meinerti is investigated. Samples were obtained during January and February 2002 at Saco da Inhaca mangrove, Inhaca Island, southern Mozambique. A total of 395 crabs were examined for gonad maturation. The mean size at sexual maturity was estimated at 17.3 mm for males and 15.6 mm CW for females. Keywords : Grapsidae, sexual maturity, Neosarmatium meinerti , reproduction West Indian Ocean Journal of Marine Science Vol. 4 (2) 2005: pp. 207-210


This research was developed based on the problem of waste from the coconut export industry and the current trend of water pollution. This research aims to study methylene blue adsorption by using coconut shell charcoal prepared from clay kilns. The study of adsorption isotherms in batch experiments showed that the coconut shell charcoal was fitted well with Langmuir adsorption isotherms with a capacity of 36.49 mg g–1 for particle size in the range of 53 – 74 mm. Through the determination of the surface area of methylene blue adsorption, coconut shell charcoal in the range of 53 – 74 micrometers had the highest surface area of 65.95 m2 g–1. Coconut shell charcoal was used to study the adsorption of ferrous metal solution at the initial concentration of 15 mg l–1. It was found that 0.25 g of coconut shell charcoal had the highest absorption capacity of 17.29% of the ferrous metal solution.


Abstract Evidence is presented that four sulfhydryl residues play a critical role in the activity of pyruvate kinase. Modification of the four most reactive sulfhydryl groups by 5,5'-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoate) leads to a disulfide interchange reaction in which a chemically modified but catalytically active enzyme is produced. This form, which contains 5-thio-2-nitrobenzoate in disulfide linkage to cysteine residues, is stable at low pH or in the presence of phosphoenolpyruvate and metal ions. At neutral pH and in the absence of these compounds, the thionitrobenzoate-enzyme undergoes an intramolecular disulfide interchange involving four additional but essential sulfhydryl residues to liberate thionitrobenzoate with the formation of cystine residues. The resulting form of pyruvate kinase is catalytically inactive.


We have calculated the anisotropic frequency dependent dielectric function for the 1T and 2H phases of TaS 2 and TaSe 2 using the linear muffin tin orbital method within the atomic sphere approximation. We find significant anisotropy in the frequency dependent dielectric function for the 1T and 2H phases at low energies (less than 4 eV). Unfortunately there are no experimental data to compare with. The averaged dielectric function agrees with the available experimental data except that the calculated peak heights are underestimated and shifted to higher energies by 1–2 eV.


A semiconductor field-effect device has been used for an enzymatically catalyzed degradation of biopolymers for the first time. This novel technique is capable to monitor the degradation process of multiple samples in situ and in real-time. As model system, the degradation of the biopolymer poly(D,L-lactic acid) has been monitored in the degradation medium containing the enzyme lipase from Rhizomucor miehei. The obtained results demonstrate the potential of capacitive field-effect sensors for degradation studies of biodegradable polymers. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of Eurosensors 2014.


Aim: To assess the efficiency of pre-emptive analgesia in a clinical setting as opposed to closely controlled animal models, looking at postoperative pain scores, total analgesia requirement and amount of general anaesthetic agent required during surgery.

Methods and Results. Subject to exclusions, 40 patients undergoing day-case arthroscopy of the knee (mean age 44 years, ASA grade 1–2) were randomized into two treatment groups. All patients had general anaesthesia. The trial group received an injection of 15mI 0.5% Bupivicaine / 1/200,000 adrenaline pre-emptively. After surgery a placebo injection was given of 15ml normal saline in an identical manner. The control group received the opposite order. Additional post-operative analgesia, if required, was administered in recovery. This was recorded, also total dose of propofol used, time to awakening, visual analogue pain score at 15 / 30 / 60 minutes, postoperative nausea and vomiting at 30 minutes and the number of delayed discharges. Although no difference was observed in postoperative pain scores at 15, 30 or 60 minutes, a trend for the trial group to require less analgesia in recovery was observed (Chi squared =9.74, p=0. 1) but this was not statistically significant.

There was no difference in mean dose of propofol used in either group, 15mg/kg/hr (sd=2.85) trial versus 14.6mg/kg/hr (sd=1.96) control.

Conclusion: Local anaesthetic given pre-emptively appears to be no more effective at controlling pain in the immediate postoperative period than the current standard practice of postoperative injection. It's effect in clinical practice may be less dramatic than that observed in more controlled animal models and a larger study may be required to show a statistically significant difference.


In this paper, we derive solutions to the derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which are associated to real and complex discrete eigenvalues of the Kaup–Newell spectral problem. These solutions are obtained by investigating double Wronskian solutions of the coupled Kaup–Newell equations and their reductions by means of bilinear method and a reduction technique. The reduced equations include the derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation and its nonlocal version. Some obtained solutions allow not only periodic behavior, but also solitons on periodic background. Dynamics are illustrated.


A new gas dosing rig built for the high-resolution powder diffraction beamline (ID31) at the ESRF is described. The rig is fully controlled and monitored by the beamline control software, enabling automated absorption and desorption of fixed pressures of gases up to 100 bar (107 Pa) for in situ structural studies. The rig has successfully been used on ID31 as well as other beamlines at the ESRF.


The invention relates to the field of pharmacy, in particular to medical composition containing vicagrel or pharmaceutically acceptable salt and aspirin which are taken as effective components, as well as an application of the medical composition containing vicagrel or pharmaceutically acceptable salt and aspirin which are taken as effective components in preparation of a medicine for preventing or curing diseases caused by thrombus. Besides, the invention further provides a method for utilizing the medical composition containing vicagrel or harmaceutically acceptable salt and aspirin which are taken as effective components for preventing or curing the diseases caused by thrombus, and particularly provides a therapeutic method.


The language situation in a transboundary region depends on which languages function on its territory, their role in communication, and their functions. In recent years, academic interest in analyzing and describing linguistic situations in transboundary regions in increasing. However, since there are transboundary regions with a monoethnic composition of the population, the essence of the language situation in this case can be defined as performing the functions of all existing forms of language existence in all environments and spheres of social activity under certain social conditions of a given people. In this paper, the author considers the linguistic situation in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and attempts to determine the significance of using Russian as the language of international communication in the transboundary regions of the Russian Federation.


In this article we analyze the predictions of the Einstein gravitation theory (EGT) on black holes in the framework of the Schwarzschild geometry that is defined in the vacuum around a spherically symmetric mass distribution, without charge, not in rotation. The Eddington and Kruskal metrics have been also taken unto account and the topological connections named wormholes have been analyzed. This article was written to graduate and postgraduate students of Physics.


Developmental course effectiveness for 314 full‐time community college students was evaluated in terms of cumulative grade point average (GPA), total credits earned, retention, goal attainment, certificate earned, and degree earned. Three groups of students were compared: those exempt from developmental skills courses in 4 areas, those who completed recommended developmental skills courses, and those who did not complete at least 1 recommended course. The exempt and completer groups did not do better than noncompleters on total credits earned, retention to the second year (students in 2‐year programs), goal attainment for students whose goal was to earn a degree or to transfer, and degree earned. The exempt and completer groups did not differ in mean cumulative GPA, and only the exempt group outperformed noncompleters on this measure. For students in 1‐year certificate programs, there appeared to be an advantage for those who were exempt from or completed developmental skills courses in terms of retention...


The search process for domestic services have tended to be difficult because of the lack of centralized information media. The process of offering services performed by service providers is also difficult because of the absence of promotional media that can be accessed by service customers. Based on these requirements, crowdsource application was made for the services of domestic workers that can be a source of information as well as to help connecting service customers with service providers. Crowdsource application for the services of domestic workers is designed into a Service Provider Application, a Service Customer Application, and a Registration and Administrator Website. Registration Website is used to allow users to enroll as a provider. The website also serves for the administrator to accept or reject registration and to activate or deactivate an account. Service Provider Application and Service Customer Application function to communicate with each other in order to reach an agreement of supply and demand services. The results show that the Service Provider Application and Service Customer Application can provide the necessary information and help users communicate, negotiate, and reach an agreement. Review and report violations feature helps to evaluate every element in the application, both service providers, service customers, demand, and supply.


An individual who wishes to become a computing professional requires some focus for his profession al life in an organisational domain. In this position paper, focus is made on the information systems (IS) professional who conducts practitioner-based inquiry research in the discipline of IS in the workplace environment in organisations in South Africa. Since the actual context for the professional IS practiti oner (designated by PMCSSA) who conducts such computing research in organisations in South Africa is not well-charted, this needs clarification and investigation. The probing thereof is the objective of this position paper. The research land scape of the professional IS practitioner in South Africa is sketched by the author. The author argues that by engaging in pract i ioner-based inquiry research, this can contribute to the IS practitioner's professional knowledge and elevate the PMCSSA statu s of practitioners engaged in the IS discipline in organ isational domains in South Africa.


Reduced widths for a single nucleon emission are calculated. The nuclear wave function is separately antisymmetrical with respect to neutrons and protons, the individual wave functions being those given by Nilsson. Theoretical results are compared with experimental data for a few light nuclei. (auth)


The Student Entrepreneurship Program (ESP) is a Jambi University program to facilitate students to develop businesses as a means of education, training, and coaching to become young entrepreneurs. The attitude and competence of students towards entrepreneurship largely determine the success of student business. This study aims to examine the effect of entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial competence on the business success of Jambi University students. The population of this study was students participating in the Jambi University Student Entrepreneurial Program (ESP) in 2020-2021, as many as 104 business groups. Each business group consists of 3-5 students. One person (the group leader) was selected for each group as a respondent. Data were collected using a questionnaire distributed online and analyzed using multiple regression statistical techniques. The results of the study show that (1) There is an influence of entrepreneurial attitude on business success. (2) There is an influence of entrepreneurial competence on business success. (3) There is an influence of entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial competence on business success. It is suggested that students participating in ESP be more committed to developing a business financed from program funds and improving their expertise in the field of business they are involved in. More intensive coaching is needed for business development run by students by ESP managers.


The purpose of the article is to analyze B. Bolzano's doctrine of the highest moral law. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved: the variants of justification of the supreme moral law proposed by Bolzano are investigated; the context in which Bolzano's ethical views were formed is clarified; finally, the Bolzano's doctrine is compared with Kant's theory of the categorical imperative. The methods of rational reconstruction and historical-philosophical comparisons are used. The article consists of six sections. The first section talks about the role that the doctrine of the highest moral principle played in the philosophy of Bolzano. In the second section, two possible formulations of the supreme moral law are proposed and two variants of the justification of these formulations found in the works of Bolzano are examined — "subjective" and "objective" justification. The third section clarifies the context: it talks about the influence of Bohemian Josephism on the philosophy of Bolzano, two ethical teachings are considered separately: the practical ethics of K. H. Seibt and the moral theology of A. Zippe. The fourth section deals with Bolzano's criticism of some aspects of the ethical teachings of the Enlightenment: Bolzano believed that hedonism could not be the cornerstone of the doctrine of morals, and he found the moral theologians' conception of the status of practical truths incorrect. The fifth section gives the assessment that Bolzano gave to Kant's ethics, and also analyzes separately the reasons why Bolzano criticized Kant's formulations of the categorical imperative. Finally, the sixth section clarifies some of the theses of the ethical theory of Bolzano, and also shows that the Bolzanian version of utilitarianism is able to cope with some of the problems of Kantian ethics.


The increasing needs and health problems that exist in the community and the more critical the community-related health problems that require the ability of a primary care doctor able to handle existing health problems in the community. Primary care doctor complies with Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 as the backbone of health that makes direct contact with the community, so it is essential for a primary care doctor to involve the patient or the patient as part of the team. Patient experience information or patients given to primary care doctors is expected to further improve the quality of patient health services as individuals and is part of the family and society or community....................


Noble readers.	As the holiday season hurls inexorably into the realm of your physical
experience, are you at a loss for a meaningful way to contribute to the Greater Good?
Well look no further. Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) needs you. Consider gifting a donation in the name
of your neighbor or your beloved. Your generous contribution will not only fill your
soul with the true Holiday Spirit, it will aid in essential research on the healing
potentials of psychedelics and marijuana.


This research aims to select variables affecting creativity and develop a causal model of the variables affecting creativity for Undergraduate Students at NRRU. The 760 students participated in this study. The instruments used were visual language and written language of Torrance Test and questionnaire on variables that influence creativity developed by the researchers. Confirmatory factor analysis, mean and standard deviation, Path analysis with LISREL program were used. The results show that administration, teaching, instructional climate, motivation, and personality variables affected the creativity of the undergraduates. After confirmatory factor analysis the results showed an acceptable goodness-of-fit. All factor loadings were over .30. The results of the CFA indicate that each construct was well represented by the items used for the measurements. The means of creativity and variables affecting creativity of undergraduates were at a medium and high level (between 2.98 to 3.05 and between 3.94 to 4.13), respectively. The goodness-of-fit of the causal model of the variables affecting the creativity of undergraduates which developed is in harmony with the empirical data as well. Considering the χ2 = 125.28, df = 104, p-value = 0.07622, GFI = .98, AGFI = .97 and RMSEA = 0.016 which is based on specified criteria.


In this paper a framework is presented for the ex-post evaluation of the quality of information in organizations. The framework brings together several approaches to quality that can be found in the literature, which however, offers no approach to the evaluation of the goal-related aspects of quality. Therefore such an approach is described in the second half of this paper.


Why do some cultural items (e.g., songs, stereotypes, and ideas) catch on while others fail? While researchers have long been interested in cultural dynamics and cultural success, quantification has been challenging. It's difficult to get data over time or to extract psychological features of cultural items that might contribute to their success. We suggest that natural language processing can help. The digitization of information has made more textual data available, and the emergence of new tools provide novel ways to extract behavioral insight from text. We discuss the dual role that language serves, review some useful approaches that psychologists may be less familiar with (e.g., topic modeling and embeddings), and describe how these approaches can help unlock a range of novel questions. By focusing on culture, we highlight a specific place natural language tools can be applied, while also illuminating how they can address a broader range of psychological science topics.


What happens when a municipality becomes the owner and builder for an innovative low-energy project? Marken Projects joined forces with a small group of motivated individuals from the City of Fort St. John's in northern British Columbia to build a passivhaus that would serve as a demonstration project for future developments in the city. This project is not only one of the first completed passivhaus projects in British Columbia, but at 56 degrees north latitude, it is the most northern in Canada, matched only by one in Finland. It serves as an example of the important role that municipalities can play in introducing new ways of building and new technologies. It has been used as a demonstration to teach builders and homeowners about passivhaus and low-energy building design. The City will be able to communicate lessons learned and best practices observed through constructing and monitoring the project themselves, and by validating technologies not typically used in Fort St. John. They have already succeeded in breaking down local pre-conceptions about energy efficient homes during the construction process. By taking on the role of General Contractors, they faced challenges that lead to increased costs and longer construction timelines but the practical knowledge they gained from building the project themselves outweighed these challenges. Upon completion of the home in the autumn of 2014, it will eventually be sold at market value making this a breakeven project for the City. They will retain ownership for three years following completion in order to complete the building commissioning, monitor its energy performance and hold open houses for the community to experience this house and learn more about it. This type of leadership role by a municipality can go a long way towards changing the way building happens.


Objective To evaluate the treatment effect of using the double frequency Laser 532 to treat the pathological changes of retina due to diabetes before proliferation. Methods To condense the rays of the wavelength 532nm green laser on the pathologically changed retina and the case-pattern rays on the yellow spot,the full ray-condensed retina should be dealt with after the ray condensation of the yellow spot. During the following 8 months, close attention should be paid to the improvement of the pathologically changed retina, the fadeaway of the dropsy of the yellow spot and the change of eyesight after the operation. Results 67 of 86 persons were improved in their eyesight, with the percentage of 78. 5% ,17 persons(19.5% ) didn't improve and only 2 (2 %) were worse. Conclusion The double frequency laser 532 is effective in treating the pathologically changed retina due to diabetes before proliferation, and has obvious effect in improving the eyesight of the persons with the limited yellow-spot dropsy through the ray condensation.


We present a simple, and robust method for writing long period fiber gratings with low polarization dependent losses. Our method is based on utilizing mechanical vibrations of the tapered fiber while pooling it. Our method enables real-time tunability of the periodicity, efficiency and length of the grating. We also demonstrate complex grating by writing multiple gratings simultaneously. Finally, we utilized the formation of the gratings in different fiber diameters to investigate the Young's modulus of the fiber.


In her penultimate letter, Eliza Wharton, the doomed protagonist of Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette (1797), pours out her anguish and repentance at having allowed herself to be seduced. Imploring her mother's forgiveness, she sorrowfully admits to having been the poorest of listeners: For your kindness, your more than maternal affection towards me from my infancy to the present moment, a long life of filial duty and unerring rectitude could hardly compensate. How greatly deficient in gratitude must I appear then, while I confess, that precept and example, counsel and advice, instruction and admonition, have been all lost upon me!(1) Indeed they have. Throughout the novel, Eliza's friends and family repeatedly warn her of the danger of becoming involved with a known rake like Peter Sanford, and just as often Eliza fails to heed their entreaties. One can easily read The Coquette, therefore, as an object lesson in the wages of foolish willfulness, with the responsibility for Eliza's downfall resting as much on her shoulders as on Sanford's. Eliza herself hypothesizes that perhaps "some evil genius preside[s] over [her] actions, which has directed them contrary to the sober dictates of [her] own judgment" (p. 108), and in her final letters she takes full responsibility for her part in the affair. The novel then concludes with an admonition of its own, a plea for American women "to reject with disdain every insinuation derogatory to their true dignity and honor" (p. 168). Certainly, Eliza and Sanford share primary responsibility for her pregnancy and subsequent demise, and contemporary readers would have interpreted the novel's moral accordingly. Yet over the years The Coquette has proven to be a much richer work than its overt didacticism might suggest, and it remains remarkably fertile territory for readers seeking to reconstruct the text's uneasy relationship to early American culture. In particular, a rock-solid critical consensus has formed around the idea that Foster distributes the blame for Eliza's death more widely than does the novel's judgmental republican chorus. The mainline position holds that Foster, by dramatizing inconsistencies in or conflict among the ideological and social codes of the early republic, takes an implicitly subversive stance toward her culture.(2) Indeed, a number of readers have seen Eliza's fall as the direct result of a paralysis induced by conflicting cultural imperatives.(3) The various arguments rooted in this critical tradition are, with good reason and without exception, highly dependent upon gender as a category of analysis. We now generally agree that, through Eliza's fatal unwillingness to conform to society's strictures, and through the very act of writing a novel, Foster implicitly indicts the gender ideology of a nation whose women could play no sanctioned public role beyond that of the available maiden and faced dispiriting, unfulfilling lives in marriages which effectively obliterated their legal identities. In the past few years, scholars have brought to bear on early American fiction an expanded range of interpretive strategies, looking more closely at figurations of print and oral culture in the postrevolutionary period, at the role of fiction in the marketplace, and at the relationship between the emerging cultures of literary sentimentalism and democratic nationalism. The signal feature of this recent work is an effort to broaden and complicate our understanding of how Foster and other authors participated in the development of American letters. Grantland Rice has challenged the familiar story of the novel's rise in America by bringing market pressures and material conditions to center stage and making the case for their impact on formal literary strategy and on conceptions of the long-standing tradition of social criticism.(4) In a similar break from the narrative of liberalism's "triumph" over republicanism, Bruce Burgett has sought to explain how sentimental literature, by figuring the body as a site of contradiction and political contestation, mediates between the multiple oppositions-public/ private, political/social, rational/sentimental-that structure most versions of that narrative. …


Algorithm of mining weighted association rules based on equivalence classes and multiple minimum supports is proposed to solve the problem that the transactions and data items have not the same importance and frequency in datasets.The algorithm allows the user to specify varied minimum supports and gives items weights to find association rules those cover less data but are useful,in which the user are more interested.The algorithm divides the items into different equivalence classes in the ascending order of their MIS(minimum item supports) values,and then mines the weighted frequent itemsets in each class respectively in the descending order of the minimum support of items.Moreover,the algorithm adopts vertical database to represent primitive transactional database and there is no need to scan the database repeatedly.The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is efficient.


Currently,many organizations need the distributed knowledge discovery.With the integration of the Web service and the grid techniques,this paper presents three-layer architecture of the knowledge grid.On the support of the knowledge grid,the requirements of processing data and discovering knowledge in the distributed environment can be satisfied.


This paper attempts to examine the effect of financial linkages on c ost margin and efficiency of microfinance cooperatives (MCs) in Tanzania. Based on d ata from six focus group discussions comprising 112 managers from 102 MCs, the paper starts by exploring the nature of linkages between commercial banks and MCs. It further applies quantitative analyses: the stochastic frontier and semi-logarithm regression models to examine the effect financial linkages on cost efficiency and cost margin. The paper reveals that financial linkages increase cost margin and inefficiency of MCs. It therefore enlightens MCs' stakeholders on the possible explanations of the positive effects of financial linkages on cost margin and inefficiency. The findings are useful for policy makers, development institutions, MCs and banks.


Prior to clinical applications, it is critical that risk prediction models are evaluated in independent studies that did not contribute to model development. While prospective cohort studies provide a natural setting for model validation, they often ascertain information on some risk factors (e.g., an expensive biomarker) in a nested sub-study of the original cohort, typically selected based on case-control status, and possibly some additional covariates. In this article, we propose an efficient approach for evaluating discriminatory ability of models using data from all individuals in a cohort study irrespective of whether they were sampled in the nested sub-study for measuring the complete set of risk factors. For evaluation of the Area Under the Curve (AUC) statistics, we estimate probabilities of risk-scores for cases being larger than those in controls conditional on partial risk-scores, the component of the risk-score that could be defined based on partial covariate information. The use of partial risk-scores, as opposed to actual multivariate risk-factor profiles, allows estimation of the underlying conditional expectations using subjects with complete covariate information in a non-parametric fashion even when numerous covariates are involved. We propose an influence function based approach for estimation of the variance of the resulting AUC statistics. We evaluate finite sample performance of the proposed method and compare it to an inverse probability weighted (IPW) estimator through extensive simulation studies. Finally, we illustrate an application of the proposed method for evaluating performance of a lung cancer risk prediction model using data from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer (PLCO) trial.


The Velvet Longhorned Beetle Trichoferus campestris (Faldermann, 1835) was intercepted for the first time in Italy, in the Naples harbour, during monitoring activities at entry points carried out in the context of the national project ASPROPI. T. campestris is widely polyphagous and able to colonize several woody species in both agricultural and forest environments. Moreover timber and solid wood items can be equally attractive to this pest. This additional report, in an area where other alien insect species had been identified in the past, emphasises how the national monitoring network represents a key element of the alert system designed to quickly counter the accidental introduction and spreading of exotic insect pests.


In the horse there are different types of murmurs of aortir insufficiency (described below as types I and 11). Type I . The diastolic murmur immediately follows the second heart sound (FIGURE 1: horse 12/58 and FIGURES 2 and 3 : horse 3 3 / 6 3 ) . Actually, it is a decrescendo murmur which can increase and decrease in intensity (FIGL'RES 2 and 3 ) . Interesting relationships may be noted between the form of the pulse curve and variations in intensity of the murmur (FIGURE 3 ) . In accord with our present experience, type I seems to display greater anatomical changes in the aortic valve cusps and also causes more marked clinical disturbances than type 11. Type 11. In this type, the diastolic murmur occurs 0.2 to 0.3 sec. after the beginning of the second or is very weak during the first period after the


Strategic management and its practices have become the most important stream need to discuss and focus in business environment, due to its vital role in improving economic growth. Although many benefits and advantages can be obtained from using strategic management, but a lot of organizations still resist or employ it a little, since some of them think this method is only helpful for larger organizations and they didn't believe its benefits also for small-medium sized enterprises (SME) as well. The purpose of this study is to review the studies which discuss the strategic management concept and its role and impact on the organization in Jordan. The paper adopted the descriptive cross sectional research design. The study found that majority of the organization try to adopt different strategies to achieve its organizational objectives which may include competitive advantage, market share, corporate reputation and total quality of the operation. The study concludes that strategic management has a significant correlation with many factors, for instance competitive advantage and great performance. It is recommended that the management should have a long-term strategic thought towards the using of strategic management tools and employ the right resources to obtain the desired success of a business depends basically on the value creation, and skill of its top management and the strategic formulation and implementation within the context of ambiguity of the business environment. The study methodology is based on a systematic review of empirical studies on the usage of strategic management models and methods. Keywords: Strategic management, Strategic planning, Jordan


The Covid-19 pandemic has created new problems for various countries hit by this pandemic, especially regarding how the country's efforts are to pre- vent and stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic so that it does not become wider and cause more victims. The covid-19 vaccine is one of the policies taken by many countries in response to the covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to find out how successful the vaccination policy was in handling the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia. The research method used in this study is Literature Review, the data used is to collect several research papers related to the covid-19 vaccination policy. The results of the research related to the success of the vaccination policy as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia can be said to be successful, because the level of attainment of vaccine doses continues to increase, then positive cases of COVID-19 continue to sag, although there are still pros and cons in the community, and there are also cases of the public's distrust of the covid-19 vaccine, the biggest obstacle due to the lack of clarity of information regarding the corona vaccination, these obstacles can be input for the government to further accelerate the vaccination program. The government itself has targeted vaccination to reach 2 million doses a day, and also the occurrence of public distrust with the covid-19 vaccine.


Phosphorus (P) sources are limited around the globe making it unsustainable with present farming practices. This necessitates the development of more phosphorus efficient crops while monitoring P status. Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a major crop in Southern Andhra Pradesh, India where soils are light textured and less fertile. Twenty groundnut genotypes were evaluated under a pot culture experiment conducted at Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India during kharif, 2016 grown using standard crop recommended practices in P-sufficient (control) and in P-deficient conditions. Leaf Acid phosphatase activity and leaf P content were monitored after 60 days of sowing while kernel P and pod yields were recorded at harvest and estimated using standard protocols. Results showed that under P deficient conditions, genotypes TCGS 1616, TCGS 1622, TCGS 1624, TCGS 1517 and Greeshma had higher leaf P accumulation (between 0.20 % to 0.24 %) in comparison to others. Genotypes TCGS 1616, TCGS 1624, and TCGS 1517 reported high kernel P when compared to others under P starved conditions. Likewise under deficient soil P conditions, TCGS 1528, TCGS 1624, TCGS 1517 and Greeshma (range 2.71-4.45 µmoles hr-1g-1) demonstrated having lower leaf acid phosphatase content in leaves when compared to other genotypes. Only TCGS 1624, TCGS 1616 and Greeshma had lower leaf acid phosphatase while at the same time having higher accumulation of leaf P and highest pod yield followed by TCGS 1517 suggesting that P starvation was better coped by these genotypes and hence can be recommended in soils deficient in P. Leaf acid phosphatase activity correlated negatively with P content in leaves (r = -0.73) similar to those reported for soybean cultivars in Brazil. There is potential for breeders in accelerating identification of markers to specific traits that would be suitable for monitoring P status and manage nutrient application.


Fortunately, in South Africa, there is access to world-class vaccines. The Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) provides infants with similar protection to that offered in first-world countries. In this article, primary immunisations, given at 6, 10 and 14 weeks, will be examined.


Infertility is a problem that affects approximately 15% of couples today. Although assisted reproduction techniques are widely used today, only 40-50% of couples who apply can have children with their own genetic structure. Especially in people with premature ovarian failure, the rate of conception does not exceed 5-10% with the treatments applied today. For this reason, many studies are carried out to obtain oocyte from stem cells with their proliferation and differentiation feature. In addition, regenerative cellular therapies that can replace assisted reproductive techniques and correct impaired fertility are also being investigated in both animal and human studies. In recent years, research has been carried out on stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles, which will eliminate immunological problems. In terms of safety and efficacy, clinical studies involving large populations are needed.


Development of biomimetic structures with integrated extracellular matrix (ECM) components represents a promising approach for biomaterial fabrication. Here, we report an artificial ECM comprising the structural protein collagen I (COL) and elastin (ELN), as well as the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) hyaluronan (HA). Specifically, collagen and elastin were electrochemically aligned to mimic the compositional characteristics of dermal matrix. HA was incorporated into the electro-compacted collagen-elastin (CE) matrices via adsorption and chemical immobilization, to give a final composition of collagen/elastin/HA of 7:2:1. This produced a final collagen/elastin/hyaluronic acid scaffold (CEH) that recapitulated the compositional feature of the native skin ECM. In this study, we analyzed the effect of CEH composition on cultivation of human dermal fibroblast cells (HDFs) and immortalized human keratinocytes (HaCaTs). We showed that the CEH scaffold supported dermal regeneration by promoting HDFs proliferation, ECM deposition, and differentiation into myofibroblasts. The CEH scaffolds were also shown to support epidermis growth by supporting HaCaTs proliferation, differentiation and stratification. A double layered epidermal-dermal structure was constructed on the CEH scaffold, further demonstrating its ability in supporting skin cell function and skin regeneration. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Selection of the combination of metal, ligand set, and spacer groups that are most appropriate to form a coordination complex with a desired function are of paramount importance in supramolecular chemistry. In particular, the establishment of reproducible methods to accomplish controlled selforganization of molecules to form polymers and homoor heterometallic coordination aggregates is an important field of research. Although important advances have already been made, few metallopolymers, which are one of the most exciting classes of functional materials, are water soluble. An important example of a water-soluble polymer is the polyferrocenylsilane-b-polyaminomethacrylate copolymer described by Manners and co-workers, as part of their ongoing study on metallocene-based polymers. Recent examples also include the water-soluble metallopolymer obtained by reaction of bipyridyl-appended poly(p-phenyleneethynylene) (PPEs) with metal ions in organic and aqueous solution. Other examples of ligands that afford coordination polymers with various topologies and applications are ferrocenyl groups bearing bipyridine (bpy) or carboxylate moieties. A recent example of a non-water-soluble multimetallic polymer is [Sm(H2O)5][Ru2(bpy)2(CN)7], in which the CN ligands bridge the samarium and ruthenium metal centers. The first air-stable water-soluble multimetallic polymer that includes mixed P,N ligands as metal-coordinating spacers has been recently reported by us. This heterobimetallic complex is based on two metal-containing moieties, [CpRu] (Cp= cyclopentadienyl) and [AgCl2] , and is bridged by the cagelike water-soluble monodentate phosphine 1,3,5-triaza-7phosphaadamantane (pta) in an unprecedented P,N coordination mode. More recently, the synthesis of silver coordination polymers containing pta bridging molecules in a tridentate P,N,N' coordination mode has been reported and several examples of pta N coordination have been presented. Therefore the pta molecule could be an excellent ligand from which to obtain water-soluble Ru–Au polymers which could have interesting and useful properties for a variety of applications such as magnetism, nonlinear optics, electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, photovoltaic, template formation of ordered networks, advanced electrode materials, and conjugated coordination polymers. Herein, we describe the first water-soluble, air-stable heterobimetallic polymeric structure based on two metalcontaining moieties [CpRuCNRuCp] and [Au(CN)4] , bridged by pta in the P,N coordination mode. Interestingly, this complex display gel-like properties in water, specifically a thermally controlled volume transition. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of an coordination polymer network that is sensitive to its environment. The physical and chemical properties of this complex make it a promising material for industrial and biological applications, for example, smart catalysis, drug delivery, or chemical sensing. The first strategy we attempted to obtain a water soluble Ru–Au polymer was similar to that used for the synthesis of [{CpRu(pta)2(DMSO-kS)}{AgCl2}]1. [8] The complex [CpRuCl(pta)2] (1) was reacted in a straightforward manner with AuCl3 in water, EtOH, and DMSO, and in the presence of NaBF4 and NaCF3SO3. This resulted in the swift formation of a stoichiometric amount of metallic gold. A second strategy, in which the [Au(CN)4] moiety (which is very stable under a wide variety of conditions) was used, was then tested. The reaction of 1 with K[Au(CN)4] led to the partial reduction of gold together with the formation of several new species. A careful analysis of the reaction products suggested that the presence of the chloride ion in 1 could give rise to the formation of unstable gold species which finally decompose to metallic gold. To avoid the presence of the chloride ion in the reaction, the complex [RuCp(CN)(pta)2] (2) was prepared by substitution of 1 with KCN at room temperature in water (Scheme 1). Slow crystallization of a diluted H2O solution of [Ru(CNkC)Cp(pta)2] (2) in air give colorless crystals suitable for Xray diffraction. The X-ray crystal structure of complex 2 shows that it is a mononuclear complex in the solid state and is similar to 1, except that the chloride ligand has been


OF THE DISSERTATION COMPARISON OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE RISK FACTORS IN FOREIGNBORN AND UNITED STATES-BORN AFRO CARIBBEAN AMERICANS AND AFRICAN AMERICANS IN SOUTH FLORIDA by


1. The effect of repeated stimulation and of FDNB on the heat of shortening has been studied in sartorius muscles of Rana temporaria at 0° C.


Ozone data were obtained in the free troposphere at altitudes of 5 to 7.5 km and at latitudes from 44°N to 46°S during a 3-week period from October 19 to November 4, 1982. Flight trajectories included the continental U.S., Central America, and the western coast of South America. Maximum observed ozone was 110 ppb at about 41°S latitude and at an altitude of 7.3 km (msl). Analysis of the data as a function of latitude showed a region of elevated ozone in the southern latitudes extending from about 2° to 30° in which latitudinal ozone averages (2° bands) peaked at about 80 ppb. Ozone concentrations, measured at northern latitudes, were lower, averaging about 35 ppb. A discussion of the data, including comparison with other ozone data sets, is presented.


Abstract Chlorine dioxide prebleaching (D0-stage) is known to produce some chlorinated organic compounds. This article presents the development of AOX and OX as a function of time under various prebleaching conditions for oxygen delignified hardwood pulp. It was observed that OX is formed more rapidly than AOX and its amount was less affected by a preceding A-stage. Temperature had little effect on chlorination. Using mill filtrate instead of water for dilution increased the amount of AOX formed while the amount of OX remained unchanged. Higher charges of chlorine dioxide expectedly increased chlorination during a D0-stage.


In this paper we present a new dynamical approach towards the classical Perron-Frobenius theory by using only some elementary knowledge on linear ordinary differential equations. It is completely self-contained and significantly different from those in the literature. As a result, we develop a complex version of the Perron-Frobenius theory and prove a variety of generalized Krein-Rutman type theorems for real operators. In particular, we establish new Krein-Rutman type theorems for sectorial operators in a formalism that can be directly applied to elliptic operators, which enable us to reduce significantly the technical PDE arguments when dealing with elliptic eigenvalue problems.


Past literature shows that artificial neural networks (ANN) can be successfully applied for fault diagnosis of rotating machinery but the results reported in the past literature are not satisfying. It is discovered that the main reasons for this poor accuracy are, noise present in the signals and usage of feature set that do not describe the signals accurately. Data obtained in field contains good degree of noise and this noise hurts the performance of the network. Although neural network, as a function estimator removes noise from time series to a certain extent, denoising prior to the modeling can greatly improve its ability to capture valuable information. The features used to describe the vibration signals implicitly define a pattern language. If the language is not expressive enough, it would fail to capture the information that is necessary for classification and hence regardless of the learning algorithm used, the accuracy of the classification function learned would be limited by this lack of information. Signal de-noising and feature selection are therefore highly desirable to improve the classification performance of the network. In this paper de-noising based on wavelet transforms and feature selection process based on genetic algorithms is presented. The implicit assumption made in all the past literature is, multi defects do not occur. But in reality we can find lot of cases with multi defects. So, cases with multi defects are also considered in this paper. GA is also used to select optimum network parameters. A multi layer feed forward neural network (MLFNN) is trained with error back propagation (EBP) learning algorithm. To have a complete understanding of the concepts behind the classification accuracy first the study is started with ideal signals derived by synthesizing different sinusoids composed of possible frequencies and amplitudes of sinusoids normally observed in machine vibrations and faults such as unbalance, misalignment and defects in anti friction bearings. The test results show that the proposed method improves the performance of diagnosis to 99.2% even with 15% random noise in the input signals.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


The stability effect that an RF electric field imposes on drift instabilities in a magnetized plasma, inhomogeneous in density and temperature, is investigated in the kinetic approximation, taking account of the finite ion Larmor radii. Stabilization of drift instabilities is examined in three frequency ranges:¿/k¿ < ¿th,i, ¿th,i < ¿/k¿ < ¿th,e, and ¿/k¿ > ¿th,e, where k¿ is the component of the wave vector parallel to the applied dc magnetic field, and ¿th, e and ¿th, i are the electron and ion thermal speeds, respectively. It is found that stabilization is most effective for the medium phase-velocity range, where the drift instability, driven by streaming electrons, is strongest and sensitive to the ratio Ln/LT, where Ln and LT are the density and temperature gradient scale lengths, respectively.


Objective To study the renal toxicity of arsenic trioxide (As2O3) with therapeutic dose in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) in childhood. Methods Renal toxicity of 37 APL was monitored. The examinations of urinary routine, urinary microproteins[αt1-microglobulin (α1-MG), microalbumin (mAlb),β2-microglobulin (β2-MG), transferrin(TRF)] and renal function were performed. Results Five cases with leukocyturia, three cases with hematuria, six cases with proteinuria were observed before therapy. Ketonuria occurred in six cases associated with fever and less diet; overall abnormality disappeared in the first week. No significant changes of blood uric nitrigen(BUN), serum creatinine(Cr) and uric acid (UA) were founded in induction remission. Compared with tests before As2O3 infusion, obvious increase of uric α1-MG occurred in second week with arsenic trioxide, obvious increase of uric β2-MG in third week (P <0.01), slow recovery of uric α1-MG and β2-MG in fifth week. No significant changes of uric mAlb and TRF were seen in induction remission. Conclusion The renal toxicity of As2O3 was gentle in general therapeutic dose, renal tubercular damage could be seen. The important monitoring period were the second to fifth week in induction remission.Influence of As2O3 cumulant on renal function was not serious in the near future in childhood. The combined detection of urinary microproteins with dynamic variety could detect early renal damage with As2O3.

Key words:
Promyelocytic, leukemia, acute;  Arsenicals;  Kidney function tests;  Urinary microproteins;  Childhood


The effect of tip clearance height on the three-dimensional flow and aerodynamic loss in the wake region of a high-turning turbine rotor cascade has been investigated with a miniature cone-type five-hole probe. Distributions of velocity magnitude, secondary velocity vectors, and total-pressure loss coefficient are presented for three tip gap-to-span ratios of h/s


This paper analyzes the deep reasons that the US financial crisis has different influences on Chinese and Russian,and concludes that the stable development of burgeoning economy is certainly affected by external environment,and the impact on Russian economy is bigger than China.The difficulty in dealing with financial crisis in Russia tells us that China should quicken adjustment of industrial structure to reach the even and innovative development,and build a firewall against external risks to improve management of financial crisis.From the perspectives of overcoming crisis,stabilizing increases,and reaching harmonious development of economy and society,China need increase resident consumption,control of economic development and awareness of risk prevention.


strains of marine bacteria were isolated from Gwangyang bay in Korea. The dominant species were identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Aeromonas hydrophila, P. fluorescens, P. paucimobilis, Chryseomonas luteola and P. vescularis. To screen marine bacteria capable of removing nutrients and organics, marine bacteria was inoculated in 10 mL of marine broth 2216 (DIFCO) with NH3-N (100 mg/L), NO3 - -N (100 mg/L), and PO4 -3 -P (10 mg/L) with 1.0% (v/v), and incubated for 12 h. Results from the screening test, showed that the removal efficiencies for CODCr, ammonia niterogen, nitrate nitrogen, and phosphate were over 25% for 16 strains, 15% for 9 strains, 50% for 63 strains, and 15% for 80 strains, respectively. Aeromonas hydrophila, Chryseomonas indologenes, Pseudomonas diminuta, Vibrio parahaemolyticus were selected for nutrients removal experiments. For the batch test, 4 species of marine bacteria were inoculated in modified marine broth containing with nutrients(CODCr 250 mg/L, NH3-N 40 mg/L, NO3 - -N 40 mg/L, PO4 3- -P 10 mg/L, respectively), incubated for 10 hr and the removal efficiencies were measured.


Intriguing role of "little brain" neurons of heart in control of myocardium functional state is analyzed with addiction after appearance of this term in the articles by J.A. Armor on the border of the second and third millennia. The "little brain" neural network of heart modifies adrenergic and cholinergic afferent and efferent signals in accordance with functional state of brain, myocardium and heart automation nodes. Thus, the "little brain" of heart is the guarantor of implementation of stochastic principle at the level of key vital organ of mammals. It is advisable to try to find ways to optimize heart activity by influencing the "little brain" neural networks. This idea initiated an attempt by the authors to test the effectiveness of the method of perineural delivery of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to damaged areas of myocardium, including "little brain" structures. First group of male Wistar rats weighing 200‐220 g (n=10) was subjected to vagus damage on the right side of neck with subsequent injection of 50000 PKH67‐labeled MSCs in 50 µl of phosphate buffer solution into left vagus under ketamine‐xylazine‐acepromazine (55.6, 5.5 and 1.1 mg/kg, respectively) anesthesia. Only vagus on the right side of neck was damaged in the second group of Wistar rats (n=8) under anesthesia. Heart rate variability disturbances were recorded in rats of both groups on the next day after the operation. Heart rate was analyzed using non‐invasive pulse recorder L120E INSELT (USA). One rat from the second group died in two days after the operation, and the heart rate variability was restored in all rats of the first group. Decapitation of three animals from the first group was performed on the third day of observation, horizontal slices of heart (8 µm) were made using a Microm HM525 freezing microtome (Germany). MSCs distribution was visualized using Zeiss AxioVert 200M fluorescence microscope with Zeiss AxioCam HRm CCD camera. The dominant location of MSCs was recorded near sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes. Ten serial heart slices were taken with the interval of 50 µm and stained in hematoxylin‐eosin; structural changes were visualized using MPV‐2 microscope (Leitz, Germany) with Leica DC 300F camera (Germany). An accumulation of 10‐15 nerve cells, 15‐25 µm in size, was found near sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes. Therefore, experimental simulation of heart rhythm disturbances on rats allowed finding that perineural implantation of MSCs (n.vagus) is one of the ways to correct disturbed heart rhythms. Neurotrophic factors of MSCs are the basis of reparative effects, which is accompanied by an increase in efficiency of corrective action of the "little brain" neurons near sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes. Implementation of such method in clinical practice will be an alternative or addition to surgical methods in the treatment of patients with cardiac arrhythmias.


The purpose of this work is to consider the basic concepts on the present state of understanding of photocatalytic energy conversion using oxide semiconductors. This work also considers the approaches in derivation of theoretical models that allow explanation of the effect of properties on the performance of oxide-based photocatalysts in photocatalytic water oxidation. In this work we show that the performance of photocatalytic systems must be considered in terms of a range of the key performance-related properties (KPPs) that, in addition to the band gap, include the concentration of surface active sites, charge transport and Fermi level. Taking into account that all these KPPs are related to defect disorder, defect engineering may be applied in processing oxide semiconductors with optimal properties that are required to exhibit maximised performance in solar-to-chemical energy conversion.


Experiments have been carried out on grating of carbon suboxide on nonactivated polyethylene films and on films previously activated by ultraviolet irradiation and by γ-irradiation. The experiments gave a grafted copolymer. A grafted copolymer was also obtained on grafting carbon suboxide in solution on polyethylene films preactivated by means of ozonization at 70°C. Examination of the copolymer indicated its structure to be cross linked. It has been proved that below 50°C single molecules of carbon suboxide react with polyethylene. The polyethylene thus modified is then easily surfacedyed.


Norway Spruce (Picea abies Karst.) is one of the most widely planted spruce species, both within and outside its native range, and one of the most economically important coniferous species in Europe as well as in the Czech Republic. Its extensive planting started at the beginning of 19th century and this activity of foresters is nowadays considered highly controversial. Spruce is appraised for its economic value but its planting at lower altitudes is often being rejected by environmentalists who claim that it grows naturally only in the mountains. The natural range of tree species including spruce plays a very important role in deciding which forests we will have and herewith it is a source of endless struggle between foresters and environmentalists about the future of our forests. The statement that spruce is native only in the mountains is supported also by the system of vertical zonation of vegetation expressed in forest vegetation belts which are characterized by their dominant woody species. In the Czech Republic, nine vegetation belts were defined and designated after the major native tree species (Table 1). Although thenative occurrence of tree species does not directly correspond with the designation of the vegetation belts, according to certain studies reconstruction of the native tree species composition has been more or less derived from the vegetation belts. Spruce is not mentioned among native trees at lower latitudes excepting on Stagnosols where is íntroduced only as admixed species (Plíva, 1984). Poleno, Vacek (2007)| also claimed that spruce is native as admixed species only on acid Stagnosols in the 4th vegetation belt. Such statements have led to the opinion that spruce is autochthonous only in the mountains, its spread to lower altitudes contradicts its native range, and its planting there has been considered profitable just from the economic viewpoint. On the other hand, certain reports came with a hypothesis that autochthonous spruce had populated also lower vegetation belts in uplands and hilly regions. Thus the question is whether spruce originally occurred only in the mountains in the Czech Republic or whether its native range on the Czech territory was wider and therefore it can be considered autochthonous also at lower altitudes. When speaking about spruce distribution, two terms should be considered – natural share (representation or composition) and natural occurrence (spread or extension). M á l e k (1961) reported that the natural occurrence of spruce is broader but at lower altitudes spruce was only an admixed tree species growing on specific habitat types mainly on waterlogged soils where spruce survived as a relict species. However, AUThOChThONOUs NORwAy spRUCe OUTsIDe MOUNTAIN ReGIONs IN The CZeCh RepUBLIC*


Nanoparticle‐mediated photothermal therapy (NP‐PTT) constitutes a flexible, highly selective, cost effective, and accurate tool for cancer treatment alone or in combination with other therapies such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The future application of NP‐PTT in real life mainly depends on the design and synthesis of novel multifunctional nanoparticles that could overcome the current limitations of NP‐PTT such as limited penetration depth and absence of therapy control. In this work, ultrasmall (≈2.4 nm) NdVO4 stoichiometric (100% constituent Nd3+ ions) nanoparticles are reported, which are capable of in vivo sub‐tissue localized heating under 808 nm optical excitation while providing, simultaneously, the possibility of high penetration near‐infrared fluorescence imaging. Ultrasmall stoichiometric NdVO4 nanoparticles have evidenced a superior light‐to‐heat conversion efficiency. This is explained in terms of their large absorption cross‐section at 808 nm (consequence of the particular spectroscopic properties of neodymium ions in NdVO4 and of the high neodymium content) as well as to their ultrasmall size that leads to large nonradiative decay rates. Results included in this work introduce ultrasmall, NdVO4 stoichiometric nanoparticles to the scientific community as multifunctional photothermal agents that could be considered as an alternative to traditional systems such as metallic, organic, or carbon‐based nanoparticles.


1.1 The CMA's qualitative analysis does not support the provisional findings in this WP. The qualitative analysis focuses on a small set of documents, and the CMA's interpretation of those documents appears to misunderstand the competitive behaviour they exhibit. The evidence suggests vigorous competition where providers need to work hard to retain their clients and respond to their demands. Further, the improvements achieved by engaged customers are enjoyed more widely: we provide examples and evidence of this in our response below.


We study the existence of limit cycles in planar piecewise linear Hamiltonian systems with three zones without equilibrium points. In this scenario, we have shown that such systems have at most one crossing limit cycle.


This study was performed to develop the accelerated life test method using Weibull-IPL (Inverse Power Law) model for power train components that are running on cyclic loads. Weibull-IPL model is concerned with determining the assurance life with confidence level and the accelerated life test time. From the relation of weibull distribution factors and confidence limit, the testing times on the no or some number of failure acceptance criteria are determined. The power train components under cyclic loads generally represent wear and fatigue characteristics as a failure mode. IPL based on the cumulative damage theory is applied effectively the mechanical components to reduce the testing time and to achieve the accelerating test conditions. The proposed Weibull-IPL model is an approach to improve the reliability assessment on the statistical distribution and wear out failure mechanism concepts. As the actual application example, accelerated life test method of agricultural tractor transmission was described. Life distribution of agricultural tractor transmission was supposed to follow Weibull distribution and life test time was calculated under the conditions of average life (MTBF) 3,000 hours and 90% confidence level for one test sample. According to IPL, because test time can be shorten in case increase test load, test time could be reduced by 482 hours when we put the load 1.1 times of rated load than 0.73 times of rated load that is equivalent load calculated by load spectrum of the agricultural tractor. This time, acceleration factor was 11.7. This Weibull-IPL model can be used to develop accelerated test method of gear reducer, hydraulic hose, bearing and etc.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


The type IIB matrix model is a promising candidate for a nonperturbative formulation of superstring theory. As such, it is expected to explain the origin of space–time and matter at the same time. This has been partially demonstrated by the previous Monte Carlo studies on the Lorentzian version of the model, which suggested the emergence of (3+1)-dimensional expanding space–time. Here we investigate the same model by solving numerically the classical equation of motion, which is expected to be valid at late times since the action becomes large due to the expansion of space. Many solutions are obtained by the gradient descent method starting from random matrix configurations, assuming a quasi-direct-product structure for the (3+1)-dimensions and the extra 6 dimensions. We find that these solutions generally admit the emergence of expanding space–time and a block-diagonal structure in the extra dimensions, the latter being important for the emergence of intersecting D-branes. For solutions corresponding to D-branes with appropriate dimensionality, the Dirac operator is shown to acquire a zero mode in the limit of infinite matrix size.


How newly synthesized proteins fold to their functionally active conformations remains one of the fundamental questions in biology. Studies in vivo and in vitro, conducted over the last decade, indicate that translation and folding are coupled. Various components, such as molecular chaperones, proteases and other factors, interact with nascent polypeptide chains emerging from ribosomes and assist in nascent chain folding, quality control, subcellular targeting and co-translational modifications. A complete compendium of these factors is still missing and our understanding of the cellular machinery that acts co-translationally on the ribosome is still incomplete.
In this study we sought to identify the factors that interact with translating ribosomes in E. coli cells using quantitative proteomics methods. Antibiotics, which inhibit translation in bacteria by interfering with protein synthesis at specific stages, were employed to generate ribosome nascent chain complexes amenable to isolation and unbiased analysis. Two examples of antibiotics used in this study are chloramphenicol and puromycin. Both act on the ribosome by targeting the ribosomal peptidyl transferase center.
By combining translation inhibition with chemical crosslinking in spheroplasts and analysis by SILAC-based mass spectrometry, we designed a method that can be used to generate an inventory of factors contributing towards efficient folding of nascent chains in the cellular environment. We identified approximately 378 factors that interact specifically with translating ribosomes and are depleted upon nascent chain release from the ribosome. These factors could be divided into the following main categories: Molecular chaperones, RNA quality control proteins, transcription factors, translation factors and translocation factors.
Chaperones ofthe small heat shock protein family, disaggregates and proteases, apparently interact with nascent chains in a concerted manner to support productive folding, reverse misfolding and remove aberrant protein chains. Various transcription factors also interacted substantially with ribosome nascent chain complexes (RNCs), suggesting their additional function in translation and folding.
Our analysis of RNCs provides further insights into the mechanism of co-translational translocation and helps to elucidate the role of chaperones and translocon protein complex in guiding co-translational targeting and stabilizing secretory and membrane proteins. The data provide a valuable resource for future functional studies.