Vegetal cover of soil is decisive to reduce the erosive effects of direct impact of raindrops on the soil surface. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the vegetal cover (CC) index and to develop models to estimate it for soybean cultivars, using climatic attributes in the period of intense rains in the South of the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil. CC was measured weekly in the experimental area of the Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Lavras, from November 1999 to May 2000, for 28 soybean cultivars with yield potential in this region. To evaluate the vegetal cover, the method described by Stocking (1988) was used. In the modeling, CC was related with the accumulated values of following climatic attributes: medium temperature (Tmed), precipitation (PREC), and relative humidity of the air (RH). Vegetal cover values presented an amplitude from 56 to 83%, being BR 162, LO 12 L and M. Soy 108, the more efficient cultivars, and the FT Abyara and Tucano, the least efficient ones. The differential growth habit of the cultivars helps to explain this behavior. The best adjusted model for the estimative of CC was: CC = 116589.976 + 0.422, Tmed + 0.132, PREC – 0.095, RH + 0.000024 Tmed 2 , R 2 = 0.99 (P < 0.01). The knowledge of CC for different development phases of the crop is of great importance, taking into account that its establishment time coincides with the highest erosive potential of the rains in the studied region.


A Thesis report submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Art Education, 2004


The University of Idaho Forest Research Nursery was established in 1909 to grow bareroot (field-grown) tree and shrub seedlings for conservation. In 1982, the bareroot production was phased out and replaced by growing seedlings in containers in greenhouses. The nursery emphasizes teaching, research and service. Students learn about forest planting; scientists conduct research to improve seedling quality, survival and growth; and seedlings are produced each year for the state of Idaho, private industry, and the general public. The 15-acre nursery site is located one mile east of Mountain View Road along Idaho 8 (Troy Highway) on the University of Idaho Parker Farm and consists of a shop, cooler/storage building, three greenhouses, a shadehouse, and a micropropagation facility. The greenhouses and shadehouse have about 13,700 square feet of growing area and can produce about 900,000 seedlings each year. Six acres are enrolled in the Idaho Department of Fish and Game Habitat Improvement Program, with an additional 1.5 acres scheduled to be enrolled in fall 1993. The remainder of the Parker Farm is administered by the College of Agriculture.


In recent years there has been a substantial increase in the number of Engineering students who are studying Metallurgy. Considerable thought has been given to the syllabus content offered to these students both by metallurgists and engineers, but the writer felt that a direct approach to the students themselves may provide some interesting results. With this aim in view a questionnaire was prepared and sent out, together with an explanatory letter, to every Engineering student who had taken Metallurgy at the South‐East Essex Technical College since September 1957, i.e. four academic years. The number of students totalled 328 and of these exactly 50 per cent returned their completed questionnaire. This it was considered was an acceptable statistical sample. The answers given have all been carefully analysed and the results noted, and from these we have endeavoured to draw some general conclusions.


Maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) is a heterogeneous subtype of NIDDM characterized by early onset (usually before age 25 years), autosomal-dominant inheritance, and a primary defect in insulin secretion (1,2). To date, three MODY genes have been identified: hepatocyte nuclear factor4 (H N F - 4 / M O D Y 1), glucokinase (G C K / M O D Y 2), and hepatocyte nuclear factor-1 (H N F 1 / M O D Y 3) on chromosomes 20q, 7p, and 12q, respectively (3‐5). Investigation of 67 MODY pedigrees collected in France showed that 63% (42 families) have G C K / M O D Y 2 subtype and 21% (14 families) have H N F 1 / M O D Y 3 subtype (4,6,7). However, linkage and mutation searches in the 11 remaining MODY pedigrees did not give evidence for a pathogenic role of the three known MODY loci, implying that at least one additional MODY locus is associated with MODY (14; J.-C.C., unpublished observa


One of the main objectives of the Bahrain Society of Engineers is to serve engineers, the profession and the community at large. The society started offering its members financial assistance to attend conferences outside Bahrain and went further to partlyfinance members applying for graduate studies. More recently, The society has established a training centre offering a variety of courses not only to its members but also to the engineering community throughout the gulf region. This paper will outline the contribution of the Society to continuing engineering education. Background Formal primary education was launched in 1919 through the initiative of a group of enlightened Bahrainis who formed what was then known as the National Committee for Education. Prior to that there were a few private schools with a small student intake & traditional Quoran Learning Centres which offered a limited number of places for both male & female attendees. To start with formal primary education was limited to male students, females had to wait until 1928 when the first all females primary school was inaugurated. By 1930, the duties and responsibilities of the National Committee for Education were taken over by the government of Bahrain. The first batch of the primary school graduates, six male students, were sent to Beirut –Lebanonto continue their education. Secondary education for males was started in 1940 & for females in 1951. The government, recognizing the need for trained technicians, established the first technical school in 1937. Students were offered courses in autorepairs, plumbing & carpentry. However Page 947.1 "Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ©, American Society for Engineering Education" many potential students were very reluctant to join & as an incentive the government offered monthly stipend. Secondary commercial classes were first introduced in 1958 where students were taught bookkeeping, principles of finance & typing. To start with students' numbers increased slowly until parents began to see the benefits of having educated children as bread -winners. After WW II more students of both sexes started to join the primary & secondary schools on more regular basis. Primary & secondary education in Bahrain was & continues to be free. By the academic year 2001 /2003 there were about 120,000 students out of a population of about 450,000 pursuing their primary & secondary education in Bahrain.


: An intravascular stent is a tubular structure intended for permanent implant in native or graft vasculature. The stent is designed to provide mechanical radial support after deployment. This support is meant to enhance vessel patency over the life of the device. In this work an approach for designing the geometry and construction of slotted-tube balloon-extendable stent, produced by Nd 3+ :YAG laser cutting from stainless steel 316L tube is proposed. 3D model of the stent, produced by ISMA Ltd, Sofia, is prepared by using SolidWorks. FEM analysis of the stent is performed and the mechanical properties are compared with variety of commercial stents.


The superplasticity behavior of Fe-28Al, Fe-28Al-2Ti, Fe-28Al-4Ti (all composition reported in this paper are in atomic percent) alloys has been investigated by tensile testing.optical microscopy and transmission electron mocroscopy.Tensile test were performed at 700 to 900℃ under a strain rate range of about 10-5/s to 10-2/s. Maximum strain rate sensitivity index m was found to be 0.5 and the largest elongation reached 620%. The flow activation energy was measured to be 263kJ/mol for Fe-28Al and 191kJ/ mol for Fe-28Al-2Ti, which are much lower than the creep activation energy generally observed in Fe3Al alloys. After deformation grain size became much finer from about 100 μm to 20-30μm.As combined with TEM observations, we suggested that a continuous recrystallization process took place and superplasticity may arise from this process.


We consider the upper confidence bound strategy for Gaussian multi-armed bandits with known control horizon sizes $N$ and build its limiting description with a system of stochastic differential equations and ordinary differential equations. Rewards for the arms are assumed to have unknown expected values and known variances. A set of Monte-Carlo simulations was performed for the case of close distributions of rewards, when mean rewards differ by the magnitude of order $N^{-1/2}$, as it yields the highest normalized regret, to verify the validity of the obtained description. The minimal size of the control horizon when the normalized regret is not noticeably larger than maximum possible was estimated.


ECG is a heart status analysis system which is cheap, effective, easy for implementation and safe to be used. Cardiologist will interpret ECG signals whilst monitoring changes of ECG signals in order to determine the status of the heart. In this research, suitable threshold for preprocessing of the signals was determined in two stages. The preprocessing stage has successfully eliminated 92.71% of the noisy peaks from the ECG signals. MHMLP network has been proposed in this research, to increase the performance in identifying peaks (P, Q, R, S and T) of the ECG signals. Comparisons with other available neural networks for peak recognition have also been conducted. By utilising the features selection approach, the optimum peaks identification performance of the neural networks system has been determined. During implementation, the MSE (dB) of MHMLP network to identify peaks of ECG signals has been recorded at -27.92dB. As a whole, MHMLP network has achieved recognition performance of 83.78% and 89% during testing and training phase respectively.


To the Editor.— Drs Smith and Hendee 1 urge practicing physicians to defend research on animals. They claim that opponents of animal research intend to dismantle animal research by measures that would "place the future health of humans and animals at risk." The physician's first duty is to do no harm. Experiments on animals that cause suffering certainly do harm to those animals, but may be justified by the health benefits resulting from some experiments—ie, the end justifies the means. As Drs Smith and Hendee point out, the public desires assurance that animals are treated humanely and used appropriately, but I fear that they are very optimistic if they believe that the Animal Welfare Act guarantees any such thing. The act, as amended in 1985, makes the US Department of Agriculture responsible for this, but the department has few resources to devote to these tasks, which are far removed from


The rapid and changing technological advancement is worrisome and has prompted reactions, from enthusiasm to cynicism – putting the society in a dilemma. In recent times, the news trending on our media and Social-Media platforms has been that of negativity and social vices such as suicide, pornography and gangsterism, etc. The rate at which the youths in our society and even adults, embrace these vices calls for alarm. The study examined Media Psychology and Emotional Intelligence as a panacea for social vices. Descriptive survey research design was used, while questionnaire was used in collecting data. The sample consists of two hundred (200) respondents from the sampled areas in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State. The questionnaire consists of forty (40) items each was completed by the respondents. The research shows that Media Psychology, Self–Awareness, Self-Management, Social-Awareness and Relationship Management have impact on social vices. Beta values showed that Media Psychology has more effect than Emotional intelligence on social vices. As technology changes our lives, and Educational Technologists interact and handle educational/digital tools, we are compelled to change our world view, which is a challenge to humans. Media psychology and emotional intelligence is the response to this dilemma.


ITO thin films were deposited on glass substrates using rf magnetron sputtering. Deposition parameters such as the rf power and the oxygen dilution to the plasma are investigated. Films deposited with an increase in rf power were resulting in the film preferential orientation along (100) plane. Oxygen dilution to the plasma at low rf power of 30 W was found to result in a change in preferential orientation from (100) plane to (111) plane. SEM analysis revealed a spotty surface morphology for the (100) films and a granular morphology for the (111) films. The highest transmittance was found for the oxygen diluted (111) film. The highest optical bandgap of 4.33 eV was observed for the pure Ar deposited film. Details are discussed.


Introduction Primary porcine hepatocytes are commonly used in bioartificial liver devices and for in vitro studies of hepatocyte function. Although in vivo isolation of porcine hepatocytes can give high yield and viability, such methods are time‐consuming and expensive, requiring specialist surgical facilities. Aim To develop a simple, low‐cost, high viability, high yield, reproducible ex vivo method for obtaining functional porcine hepatocytes for use in bioartificial liver systems. Methods Weanling piglets (12 kg) were killed with pentobarbitone sodium, the infra‐hepatic inferior vena cava was clamped and the supra‐hepatic inferior vena cava cannulated. The whole liver was retrogradely perfused in situ with cold saline and excised, followed by an ex vivo open‐loop and re‐circulating perfusion method (at 37°C) in five steps. The liver was disrupted, sequentially filtered in washing buffer, purified by centrifugation and resuspended in Williams E medium. Viability and cell number were assessed using trypan blue exclusion. The cells were subsequently cultured in serum‐free chemically‐defined medium and function was assessed. Results The time interval from when the animals were killed to the final cell wash was 105 ± 5 min (n = 20). Cell viability was 85 ± 6% with a yield of (2.4 ± 0.5) × 1010 from 12 ± 1 kg piglets using 0.03% (w/v) collagenase (n = 20). Hepatocytes from all isolations were successfully plated and grown in monolayer culture. In freshly isolated hepatocytes (day 0) total protein content (TP) was 1.2 ± 0.1 mg/106 cells (n = 5) and 1.2 ± 0.3 mg/106 cells (n = 5) for day 2 monolayer cultures, corresponding to approximately 9 × 106 hepatocytes per dish. The percentage of total LDH released into the medium was 13 ± 4% for day 0 and 8 ± 4% at day 2; conversely, intracellular LDH activities were 87 ± 4% and 92 ± 4% of the total, respectively. The urea synthesis rate was 196 ± 36 nmol/h/mg total protein at day 0 (n = 5) and 292 ± 62 nmol/h/mg protein (n = 9) at day 2. The total P450 content was 99 ± 11 pmol/mg total protein for fresh cells (n = 5) and maintained at 89 ± 35 pmol/mg total protein in day 2 cultures. Conclusions This ex vivo method provides a high viability, high yield, cost‐effective and rapid technique for isolating functional porcine hepatocytes with high plating efficiency, which compares favourably with results obtained using complex in vivo techniques. Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol 12:923‐930


A first–order formula is equivalent to the standard first–order translation of some formula of interpretability logic with respect to Veltman models if and only if it is invariant under bisimulations between Veltman models. To prove this, we use bisimulation games on Veltman models for interpretability logic. We provide characteristic formulas which formalize the existence of winning strategies in finite bisimulation games.


Conclusion The methods described, for generating decimal digits with two or three indistinguishable cubic dice thrown simultaneously, are based on merely taking the sum of the values shown on the faces of the standard cubic die. While a labour-saving method for three dice has been shown, the mindsaving two dice method is probably more acceptable. If distinguishable dice are available, or if only one die is available and memory of a previous throw can be relied on, the Blest derivation seems simplest and not onerously labour intensive. Are these the simplest methods based on summing? Are there simpler methods based on some combining function other than the sum? What does simpler mean, here [8]? References


This paper investigates the processes of producing information about impacts for both national and regional decision-makers. Relatively little research from a historical perspective explores the complex interactions between politics, scientific methods and infrastructure, and assessment activities that shape this information. The forest impacts of acidification in Europe are among the most researched and assessed impacts under the Long Range Transport of Air Pollution Convention. Between the late 1970s and 1998, the regional and national assessment processes under the Convention have played a key role in assembling forest impacts from a growing mass of scientific and technical data. This paper further develops the concept of "frames" as a research indicator to understand the evolution of forest impact assessment over time. Frames are social cognitive lens through which scientists, assessors, policy-makers, and lay people interpret environmental phenomena. They can become embodied in scientific research programs and assessment practices, and be communicated via assessment processes to scientists, assessors, policy-makers, and lay people. In the assessment and research of forest impacts, three broad impact frames can be glimpsed: forest decline, forest die-back, and forest health. This paper focuses on the regional assessment of forest impact frames by the Economic Council for Europe under the LRTAP Convention and in Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom as specific comparative country studies. Key conclusions include: interpretations of the causes and effects of forest damage in Western Europe have been influenced greatly by regional assessment processes that promote greater standardization and transnational analysis. The specific measures of forest damage, together with the research programs required to elucidate causal relationships, have been increasingly standardized across the member countries of the LRTAP regime. This is an attempt to establish and verify the forest damage problem as an "European" issue, not simply a national issue. The processes of building and reconstructing frames is closely intertwined with setting up a wideranging and complicated survey and research program that is carried out in many individual countries. Significantly, initial conditions (such as the adventitious use of surveys in Germany) can affect the broader structure and process of research and policy-making. Impact frames, however, do not remain static: they can undergo reconstruction over time through being influenced by new entrant actors, the emergence of new scientific data, or domestic politics, for example. Moreover, despite the shift towards standardization, scientists and policy-makers in each member country often interpret the specific character of forest impacts differently from other countries. This "local" knowledge can mean that specific countries may apply regional standards variably in their practices. It also can support their efforts to promote their interpretations of forest impacts within the regional assessment processes of the ECE.


The research area is located in the western pitching end of Tazhong uplift.Ordovician reservoir is fractured-caven reservoir of carbonate platform.To clarify the developed feature and rule of karst is the key for settling the exploration problem in the area.Using of FMI logging data,the paper accurately anatomizes the characteristics of a dissolved cave,and effectively makes sure the shape,size,density and longitudinal developed rule of a dissolved cave.The research reveals that the dissolved cave in the area is mainly developed in the Yingshan Formation of low Ordovician.Guiding by high resolution sequence stratigraphy and in combination with the sedimentary feature of carbonate rock,the author puts forward that dereliction surface isused as high frequency sequence interface to establish the sequence framework,discusse the relation between sequence and karst development,and reveal the controlled function of high frequency sequence surface to karst development and probe into a new clew of carbonate reservoir prediction.


Innovation through creativity is an important factor in the success and competitive advantage of organizations. Theory and research suggest that both leadership and organizational climate have important consequences for individual creativity. However, researchers have rarely considered the interactive effects of leadership and organizational climate. This study taking a "Substitute for Leadership" perspective, develops and tests the idea that empowerment climate affect the relationship between leadership and followers' creative performance. Data were collected from 93 teams, including 465 team members and 93 team supervisors, in a large multinational company based in China. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to examine the hypothesized cross-level model. As expected, transformational leadership and team empowerment climate were positively related to subordinates' creative performance and transactional leadership was negatively related to subordinates' creative performance. In addition, the relationship between leadership and subordinates' creative performance was moderated by team empowerment climate. The study resulted in the implication of several major variables for explaining individual creativity in the Chinese context.


It is known that Pre-Raffaellites' conception was the dominant in English painting in the late 19th century. It is observed that the artists of this period choosed the literary subjects such as mythological stories and poems for the subject of their paintings. In this context, John William Waterhouse can be given as a significant example among Pre-Raphaelites painters. Waterhouse is driving attention because of the fact that he was inspired by the poem "The Lady of Shalott" during a long time in his artistic career. For this reason, it is aimed to make a research about Waterhouse paintings whose take the subject from the poem. In this research, firstly Waterhouse's artistic biography is revealed and secondly the concept of Pre-Raphaelites is explained. In the last chapter, Waterhouse's artworks in which the poem was choosen as a subject are examined aesthetically in terms of the meaning and importance of the poem. As a result of this research, it is understood that the poem was having a critical statement about women's right in the late of 19th century. Consequently, it is seen that Waterhouse, who represented his era through illustrating different parts of the poem, is a conscious artist about women's rights.


The current article is designed for the extraction of chemical compound. Dichloromethane and methanol were applied to extract the chemical compound so that maximal number of compounds can be drawn out. Thin layer chromatography is applied as Analytical technique for the isolation and identification of the various compounds.


Attachment theory, as developed originally by Bowlby (1982/1969, 1973, 1980) and further reŽ ned by Ainsworth (1973), Sroufe (1988), and a host of other scholars, is a sophisticated and even complex theory of the development of personality and capacity for close relationships, among other things. But when boiled down to its essence, there seem to be two core theoretical ideas, at least with respect to individual differences in attachment security. The Žrst is that attachment security (and attachment insecurity) re ects and inuences the internal working model (IWM) of the individual, shaping the way he or she sees himself or herself, others, and close relationships more generally. As such, attachment security works as kind of an internal guidance system, Ž ltering and appraising experiences in the world, especially social experiences, and thereby guiding behavior, especially behavior in close relationships. Given the centrality of emotions to relationships, and especially to close relationships, it is not surprising that the regulation of emotion is regarded as central to current conceptions of attachment theory. The second core proposition underlying attachment theory, at least with respect to individual differences, is that variation in security and thus the IWM are a direct function of lived experiences, especially experiences in the earliest portion of the life span (i.e. Ž rst 3–5 years of life). Sroufe and others have made clear, though, as Bowlby did himself, that because individual differences in the IWM derive from actual relationship experiences, it is mistaken to presume, as too many critics of attachment theory have done (e.g. Breur, 1999; Lewis, 1997), that once the IWM is established, it cannot be changed. Indeed, the very word 'working' in the phrase 'internal working model' was chosen originally by Bowlby to make clear that this developing affective-cognitive information processing system was a work in progress. At the same time, of course, he acknowledged that with development the model would be likely to become increasingly consolidated and thus resistant to change. Shaver and Mikulincer have made an outstanding case for their claim that the social psychological, in contrast to the developmental psychological, approach to measuring attachment in adulthood, via survey type questions about self in romantic relationships, is a valid way of tapping into the IWM and core notions of deactivating, activating, and hyperactivating emotion-regulation strategies. Although the measurement itself does not make reference to unconscious or psychodynamic processes in the way that the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) developed by Main and Goldwyn (1998) does, it nevertheless taps into such processes. Consider in this regard some of the evidence which Shaver and Mikulincer present about individuals who score high on security, high on anxiety, or high on avoidance, as measured by brief questionnaires. Attachment & Human Development Vol 4 No 2 September 2002 166–170


Mechanical ventilators are used to provide life support in patients with respiratory failure. One of the challenges in intensive care is the process of weaning from mechanical ventilation. We studied the differences in respiratory pattern variability between patients capable of maintaining spontaneous breathing during weaning trials and patients that fail to maintain spontaneous breathing. The respiratory pattern was characterized by the following time series: inspiratory time (T/sub I/), expiratory time (T/sub E/), breath duration (T/sub Tot/), tidal volume (V/sub T/), fractional inspiratory time (T/sub I//T/sub Tot/), mean inspiratory flow (V/sub T//T/sub I/), respiratory frequency (f), and rapid shallow breathing index (f/V/sub T/). The variational activity of breathing was partitioned into autoregressive, periodic and white noise fractions. Patients with unsuccessful trial presented a tendency to higher values of gross variability of V/sub T//T/sub I/ and f/V/sub T/, and lower values of T/sub I/. The autocorrelation coefficients tended to present higher values for T/sub I/, T/sub I//T/sub Tot/ and V/sub T//T/sub I/. During both successful and unsuccessful T-tube test uncorrelated random behavior constituted > 75% of the variance of each time breath components and represented 50 to 70% in the breath component related to V/sub T/. Correlated behavior represented 6 to 21% in time components and 28 to 50% in component related to V/sub T/.


In a recent review paper [Phys. Reports 214 (1992) 339] we proposed, within conventional quantum mechanics, new definitions for the sub-barrier tunnelling and reflection times. Aims of the present paper are : i) presenting and analysing the results of various numerical calculations (based on our equations) on the penetration and return times , , during tunnelling inside a rectangular potential barrier, for various penetration depths x f ; ii) putting forth and discussing suitable definitions, besides of the mean values, also of the variances (or dispersions) Dτ T and Dτ R for the time durations of transmission and reflection processes ; iii) mentioning, moreover, that our definition for the average transmission time results to constitute an improvement of the ordinary dwell-time τ -Dw formula : iv) commenting, at last, on the basis of our new numerical results, upon some recent criticism by C.R. Leavens. We stress that our numerical evaluations confirm that our approach implied, and implies, the existence of the Hartman effect : an effect that in these days (due to the theoretical connections between tunnelling and evanescent-wave propagation) is receiving -at Cologne, Berkeley, Florence and Vienna- indirect, but quite interesting, experimental verifications. Eventully, we briefly analyze some other definitions of tunnelling times.


To determine whether injection laryngoplasty or medialization laryngoplasty is more effective in the long‐term treatment of unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP).


It is suggested that there are two types of consolidation. Primary consolidation is concerned with a process of making available to the learner for use neural traces acquired during massed practice; secondary consolidation is concerned with the protection of these learned effector patterns against traumatic events affecting the brain.


4 | March 2009 ABSTRACT A thin, laterally restricted but exceptionally fossiliferous clay lens–informally dubbed the Ingersoll shale–within the Upper Cretaceous Eutaw Formation, eastern U.S. Gulf coastal plain, provides insights regarding the origins of a class of fossil conservation lagerstätten we call compact estuarine lagerstätten (CELs).The Ingersoll shale accumulated in a restricted channel wherein preservation of a diverse paleoflora, amber with fossil inclusions, and feathers was favored by rapid tidal deposition of clay-rich carbonaceous sediments, anoxic pore waters, early diagenetic pyrite mineralization, and perhaps microbial sealing and/or replacement.Although potentially easily overlooked, similar compact lagerstätten formed by comparable taphonomic factors may be common in other estuarine successions. Exploration for additional CELs, guided by sequence stratigraphic principles, may yield other small but spectacular glimpses of life in the past.


Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a lifelong handicap that affects the lives and the people around them. Knowing them as a unique person, designated learning environment should consider the sensory issues to overcome their needs. However, designers are lack of awareness in terms of sensory design while designing learning spaces for autistic children. This research objective is to identify the sensory design of physical learning enviroment in the Autism Centre, while the paper aims to develop the Design Criteria Checklist of sensory design for Autism Centre. The result of the study highlighted factors that relating to quality physical learning environment.eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v3i8.1392


We study the torsions in the integral homology of the double loop space of the compact simple Lie groups by determin- ing the higher Bockstein actions on the homology of those spaces through the Bockstein lemma and computing the Bockstein spec- tral sequence.


The precision of model and parameters of doubly fed induction generator(DFIG) are of crucial importance for the research on the influence of grid-connected wind power generation on power grid.To research dynamic behavior of grid-connected DFIG during large disturbance and obtain parameters of DFIG model that can reflect actual condition,a three-phase short-circuit test of 35kV transmission line in wind farm located in Zhangjiakou region is performed by North China Power Grid Company.Based on short-circuit testing data of the wind farm,the empirical analysis on model and parameters of DFIG in Power System Analysis Software Package(PSASP) simulation platform is conducted.Firstly,key parameters of the wind turbine are proposed and the sensitivity analysis on them are carried out;then according to on-site testing data,related parameters of the simulation platform are modified to make the simulation curve more approximating to the measured curve,thus the precision of DFIG model is improved.


It has been well known and that noise protection provided by earmuffs in real‐world conditions is lower than measured by a laboratory standardized REAT test. In this study, earmuff protection was tested by simultaneous measurement of the LAeq under and outside the earmuffs in 91 industrial workplaces and in the laboratory. In all cases, the LAeq measured under the earmuffs was compared with the level predicted according to the EN 458 standard, by an octave‐band method for calculating the A‐weighted SPL under the hearing protector. The LAeq levels measured under the earmuffs in real‐world conditions were by more than 3 dB(A) and 15 dB(A) higher than predicted by the octave‐band method, respectively in 65% and 17% of cases. The main causes of worse protection at workplaces were worn‐out earmuffs due to prolonged usage (33%), improper way of wearing earmuffs (15%), or the use of eye‐glasses (8%). The data show that attenuation values measured by the REAT method overestimate by 1‐5 dB the earmuff protection o...


Secondary recovery methods such as waterflooding are often applied to depleted reservoirs for enhancing oil and gas production. Given that a large number of discretized elements are required in the numerical simulations of heterogeneous reservoirs, it is not feasible to run multiple full-physics simulations. In this regard, we propose a data-driven modeling approach to efficiently predict the hydrocarbon production and greatly reduce the computational and observation cost in such problems. We predict the fluid productions as a function of heterogeneity and injection well placement by applying artificial neural network with small number of training dataset, which are obtained with full-physics simulation models. To improve the accuracy of predictions, we utilize well data at producer and injector to achieve economic and efficient prediction without requiring any geological information on reservoir. The suggested artificial neural network modeling approach only utilizing well data enables the efficient decision making with reduced computational and observation cost.


BACKGROUND
The type of instrument used in chorion villus sampling could have a significant impact on the success rate of the procedure. An ability to manoeuvre the instrument within the uterine cavity without puncturing the gestational sac, and to see the tip of the instrument on ultrasound scanning are particularly important.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this review was to assess the effects of different instruments for transcervical chorionic villus sampling on perinatal outcome, quality and quantity of obtained tissue, technical difficulties during the procedure and maternal adverse effects.

SEARCH STRATEGY
The Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group trials register was searched. Date of last search: October 1998.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised trials comparing different instruments for transcervical chorionic villus sampling.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Eligibility and trial quality were assessed by one reviewer.

MAIN RESULTS
Three trials involving 268 women were included. None of the trials mentioned method of randomisation. An adequate sample was more likely to be obtained using small forceps than aspiration cannula (odds ratio 7.29, 95% confidence interval 3. 39 to 15.67). However small forceps were more difficult to insert than an aspiration cannula (odds ratio 0.35, 95% confidence interval 0.13 to 0.96). Use of the Portex cannula was more likely to result in an inadequate sample and a difficult or painful procedure when compared with either the silver or aluminium cannula respectively.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Although there is some evidence to support the use of small forceps for transcervical chorionic villus sampling, it is not strong enough to support change in practice for clinicians who have become familiar with aspiration cannulas.


The recent experimental results on the flow of $J/\psi$ at LHC show that ample amount of charm quarks is present in the quark gluon plasma and probably they are thermalized. In the current study we investigate the effect of thermalized charm quarks on the heavy quark energy loss to leading order in the QCD coupling constant. It is seen that the energy loss of charm quark increases due to the inclusion of thermal charm quarks. Running coupling has also been implemented to study heavy quark energy loss and we find a modest increase in the heavy quark energy loss due to heavy-heavy scattering at higher temperature to be realized at LHC energies.


Context: Previous studies report cross-sectional associations between circulating cortisol levels and type 2 diabetes in older adults; none assessed the association prospectively.
Objective: This study's objective was to examine the association of serum cortisol with prevalent and incident diabetes in community-dwelling older adults.
Methods: Between 1984-87, 885 men and 729 women aged 50 or older had serum fasting morning cortisol measured and an oral glucose tolerance test administered at a baseline research clinic visit and were followed for up to 25 years. Logistic and cox proportional hazards regression models were used to assess cortisol associations with prevalent and incident diabetes.
Results: Median age of participants was 75 years, median body mass index was 25kg/m2, and median cortisol was 91mg/ml. At baseline, 249 participants had prevalent diabetes; 118 developed diabetes during follow-up. In unadjusted analyses, the odds of prevalent diabetes for the highest cortisol quartile compared to the lowest was 1.95 (95% CI: 1.32, 2.87) and remained significant after adjusting for age, sex and diabetes risk factors (OR: 1.85, 95% CI: 1.21, 2.83); associations were not significant for the second and third quartiles. Serum cortisol was not associated with incident diabetes before or after adjusting for covariates (fully-adjusted HR for highest versus lowest quartile=1.02, 95% CI: 0.58, 1.78).
Conclusions: Results suggest that in older adults, elevated cortisol levels may be a result of diabetes and its complications, rather than a cause. Further studies using cohorts with repeated cortisol measures are needed to confirm the direction of the hypercortisolemia-diabetes link.


The invention relates to a hinged door (11) with a hinge plate (1) comprising a stationary hinge plate part, a leaf plate part (2) that can be pivoted about the stationary hinge plate part and a pivoting pin (7) that extends through the stationary hinge plate part and the leaf plate part (2), characterized in that the pivoting pin (7) interacts with an opening and/or damping mechanism.


Decoration in early ceramic work stemmed from the abstraction of culturally significant symbols and motifs now serves as a record of cultural identity. Contemporarily, the role of decoration in our visual culture has been relegated; commonly artists view decoration not as an element of cultural significance but as a dispassionate method of image making. I will research the use of decoration in contemporary ceramics and in my studio work and what role decoration plays with regard to individual and cultural narrative by conducting a review of contemporary ceramic artists and examining their methods of making and use of decorative motifs in addition to utilizing a range of decorative elements within my own work and incorporating decorative motifs.


Progesterone(P4) is an important intermediate in the synthesis of androgens and estrogens. Furthermore, P4 itself plays a crucial role in ovulation, atresia and luteinization, and is essential for the continuation of early pregnancy in all mammalian species. In spite of the hormone's physiological importance, the exact action mechanism(s) of P4 in mammalian ovary has not been fully understood yet. In this context, a decades-long controversy regarding the identity of receptors that mediate non-genomic, transcription-independent cellular responses to P4 is presently attracting huge scientific interests. P4 may exert its action in mammalian ovary by several ways: 1) the well-documented genomic pathway, involving hormone binding to so-called classic cytosolic receptor(PGR) and subsequent modulation of gene expression by the ligand-receptor complex as transcription factor. 2) pathways are operating that do not act on the genome, therefore refered to as non-genomic actions. The prominent characteristics of the non-genomic P4 actions are: (ⅰ) rapid, (ⅱ) insensitive to transcription inhibitors, (ⅲ) transduced by membrane associated molecules. In particular, the non-genomic P4 actions could be mediated by: (a) classic genomic P4 receptor(PGR) that localizes at or near the plasma membrane, (b) a family of membrane progestin receptors(MPRα, MPRβ and MPRγ), (c) progesterone receptor membrane component I(PGRMC1), and (d) a membrane complex composed of serpine I mRNA binding protein(SERBP1). The present review summarized these rapid signaling pathways of P4 in the mammalian ovary.


Aging is inevitable, among the several organs that suffer with aging, the skin is an organ that suffers considerably with external factors, which potentially interferes on the precocious aging of the organ. Such aging is associated with a higher probability of developing dermatological diseases as well as substantially interferes with aesthetic issues. Based on this assumption, the objective of this study was to analyze the frequency of exposure of university students to risk factors involving skin aging. Were invited to participate in the study students of several university courses in the area of health. Each volunteer answered a structured questionnaire containing questions related to exposure to risk factors related to skin aging, such as smoking, alcoholism, prolonged sun exposure, absence of photo protection and few hours of sleep per day. In all, 298 volunteers from various health courses were interviewed, most of whom declared themselves white. We found a low frequency of smokers (11%), but higher frequency of individuals who ingested alcohol (42%), and additionally about 33% of individuals reported sun exposure, and about 56% of respondents did not use photo protection. Regarding sleep, about 56% of the individuals described having less than 6 hours of sleep per day. The studied population is frequently exposed to the main intrinsic and extrinsic factors involved with skin aging.


This paper describes the application of organic photonic devices including organic light-emitting and photodetector devices to integrated photonic devices for the realization of flexible optical link and sensor devices. Fundamentals and future prospects in printed optoelectronic devices for high-speed modulation are discussed and reviewed.


Mental hospitals in India, mostly established by the colonial state, remain the backbone of the state's response to mental distress. However, the quantum and quality of care in these hospitals are in urgent need of improvement. In attempting to answer why this is so, this paper responds to the thesis that the popularity of the colonial asylums was in large part due to the social control functions which they performed. It is argued that asylums exist because they are embedded in a discourse of care, improvement, and freedom of the mentally distressed which originated in imperial Britain and Europe. In a nuanced and complex manner the combination of 'care and cure' and 'control and emancipation' was introduced in India through lunatic asylums. This ideology of freedom, however, gained widespread legitimacy because it was nestled within a larger discourse on freedom which was articulated keenly by the emerging political economy. Listening thus to the ideology of freedom in mental asylums and in political economy helps us in understanding the continued reliance on mental hospitals as the frontline in the battle against mental distress in India.


This paper discusses the the pricing of carbon emissions trading on the primary and secondary markets respectively under total emissions control. Through the analysis, for the construction of China's cabon emissions trading market, the author proposes five political recommendations such as focusing on the primary market and developing pilot of industry and region actively, establishing carbon emissions trading market undertotal emissions control as soon as possible, leading options methods into carbon emissions trading, establishing a joint trading market with European Union and the United States and taking the right of determining price using the opportunity of market construction.


It is known that tantalum is the only metal in whose presence diamond is still obtained from graphite without the formation of a melt. However, there is still no explanation for this in the literature. To elucidate the conditions for crystallization of diamond in the presence of tantalum and the role of tantalum in this proces, it is first necessary to consider the thermodynamic properties of the various phases formed in the tantalum-carbon system and the phase diagram resulting from them.


This work deals with the stabilization of recycling systems with unstable dynamics at both, the direct path as well as the recycling trajectory, also two different time-delays are considered in the internal dynamic. The main contribution of this work focuses to obtain a stabilizing strategy to the mentioned class of system. Even when in literature there are stability results for stable or partial unstable recycling system, it should be highlighted that there is not stability results when unstable dynamic is considered in both paths of the recycling process. The stability conditions of the proposed stabilizing controllers are obtained from a frequency domain analysis.


The paper reveals the importance of reducing the vulnerability and increasing the resilience of companies in the modern economic space, clarifies the factors and conditions influencing the vulnerability and resilience of companies in the event of nonstandard situations.


OBJECTIVES: To estimate the effect of an evidence‐based depression care management (DCM) intervention on the initiation and appropriate use of antidepressant in primary care patients with late‐life depression.


sumer reliance upon advertising since these mechanisms substitute as sources of product/vendor information. One can predict, therefore, that when relative prices favor consumer reliance upon advertising as information, producers will respond accordingly. This prediction also received empirical verification-advertising intensity by sellers in the mobile Washington, D.C. area greatly exceeded advertising intensity in the relatively stable Baltimore, Maryland area.


Bioethics arises from the need to respond and try to solve the major conflicts that arise in society. Bioethics is a modern term that is attributed paternity Van Rensselaer Potter (1970) by publishing the article "Bioethics, the science of survival," Potter establishes the existence of a close relationship between the world of life sciences, his deeds and ethical values, bioethics subsequently primarily it related to medical ethics. Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress published "Principles of biomedical ethics" 1979, being considered a classic text in biomedical ethics, in which four bioethical principles states: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice. Analysis and bioethical reflection are essential in the practice of the dentist, this will allow a clinical practice based on values, which would involve all health personnel, guiding strategies to address adequately the ethical dilemmas that may arise during the patient care process. Finally dental practice requires a higher professional level values.


We analyze the efficiency of wheat farmers toward the ever-increasing demand for wheat in Tanzania. Translog production and cost functions were utilized in the stochastic frontier analysis to examine technical, allocative, and economic efficiencies (TE, AE, and EE) of wheat farmers in Northern Tanzania. Propensity score matching through caliper radius and nearest neighbor methods were utilized to analyze the impact of value chain participation on smallholder farm efficiency levels. Analysis revealed that the average TE, AE, and EE scores for farmers' value chain participation were 79%, 80%, and 64%, respectively, in the study area, implying that wheat farmers could still improve level of TE, AE, and EE by 21%, 20%, and 36%, respectively. Caliper radius matching revealed that the net effects of farmers' participation in vertical coordination on TE, AE, and EE were 6.8%, 5.7%, and 8.7%, respectively, while the net effects of farmers' horizontal coordination participation were 6.3%, 9.5%, and 11.6%, respectively. This indicates that farmer's participation in value chain (vertical and horizontal coordination) would positively impact their level of wheat farm efficiencies. Based on the results, we recommend the expansion of wheat plots and use of modern farming technologies to increase wheat production in Tanzania. To further improve farm unit efficiency, we recommend additional formal education for future farmers, more on-farm extension training, and participation in the value chain through contracts and farmers' associations.


The condensed polynuclear aromatic(COPNA) resin was synthesized using 1-naphthol as monomer and 1,4-benzenedimethanol as crossing-linking agent in the presence of p-toluene sulfonic acid,and then allylated to prepare the allylic COPNA resin having the copolymerization reactivity with 4,4'-bismaleimidodiphenyl methane(BMI) to obtain high performance resin.Properties and preparation of the copolymer resin of allylic COPNA resin and BMI were studied in this paper.The chemical structures and rheological properties of the prepolymer were characterized by FT-IR and viscometer,respectively.The curing reaction of the prepolymer was studied by DSC.Moreover,TG-DTG was employed to study the thermal behavior of the copolymer resin.The results show that the prepolymer has good rheological properties and can be easily controlled during the curing reaction.Furthermore,the cured copolymer resin has good thermo-stability,as indicated by that its initial decomposition temperature arrives at 450 ℃ and the carbon yield reaches 53.6% at 800 ℃ in nitrogen.


The concept of supersymmetry originated in the fields of particle physics and enabled treatment for bosons and fermions on equal footing. Supersymmetry has rapidly expanded to other fields such as quantum mechanics, where it provided a way of generating pairs and families of potentials with similar properties, e.g. different reflection-less potentials; and optics where it can be used to design (de)multiplexing arrays of waveguides.

In the first part of the talk, we show that for parity-time symmetric structures supersymmetric transformation is isospectral only locally (at a specific amplitude of gain and loss). Moreover we show that depending on whether a passive mode (with real propagation constant) or an active mode (with gain or loss) is removed, the parity-time symmetry of the system is preserved or broken as a function of gain/loss amplitude.

In the second part of the talk we investigate the influence of supersymmetric transformation on the scattering spectrum of reflection-less structures and systems with epsilon-near-zero materials. We show that the transmission/reflection properties of a structure containing an epsilon-near-zero material can be mimicked using materials with refractive index values above unity, which are more easily accessible and introduce smaller losses to the system. The relation between these two systems is governed by supersymmetry. We conduct a quantitative performance analysis of realistic structure in which the continuous variation of the refractive index is replaced by the step-wise profile corresponding to a realistic layered structure.

Our studies pave the way towards achieving remarkable properties of the epsilon-near-zero materials with the use of much more accessible materials compatible with the state-of-the-art integrated optics fabrication.


To reach the goal mentioned in the title, an intuitive solution using two pieces of ferrite is first proven to be effective. Then, ferrite is removed and the externally applied field that minimizes losses is searched. This is done using a new optimization tool (GOT) and taking advantage of multipolar expansion of the external field


AIM To observe the distribution of interleukin 8 receptor (IL 8R) immunoreactivity in rat digestive tract. METHOD Immunohistochemical method was used. RESULTS IL 8R positive cells distributed widely in gastrointestinal mucosa and were variable in shape. Most of the cells were column like or cone like and distributed among epithelium. Part of the cells was round or elliptic in shape and inter spersed among the lamina propria. CONCLUSION This isthe first observation of the existence and distribution of IL 8R in epithelium of digestive tract, which suggests that IL 8 may possess some physiological function in the local region of digestive tract.


ABSTRACT Based on videodata of play situations between children and professionals, a qualitative analysis of gender socialisation of boys in German EEC (Early Education and Care) institutions has been conducted. The theoretical and methodological framework of this research is an attempt to describe gender identity as an interactional phenomenon, which is situationally flexible but at the same time affected by structural persistence. Coming from this conceptual basis, qualitative video analysis was used to examine and interpret the data. The results can be understood as a rationale for male childcare workers as promoters of diversity. Emphasising the micro-level of sociality in theory and research allows diverse interpretations of gender, instead of describing dichotomous polarities.


Literal interpretation is the basis and core of legal interpretation and rule of law.The general literal interpretation is one made according to the plain meanings and conventional usages of legal norms.It generally forms in the processes of the definition of the legal conceptions and the analysis of the grammar and syntax of the legal norms in the Legislative and Legal Studies.Specific literal interpretation happens in the application of law to specific cases.It is determined on the basis of the combination of the general meaning of the law with the case and the reference to other interpretation methods.


The first concern is that there is a lack of an in-depth investigation of complex anisotropy, which is characterized by systematic azimuthal variations of the splitting parameters (Silver and Savage, 1994). Although the azimuthal coverage is not ideal, one can still plot the measurements against the azimuths (or their modulo-90 or modulo180 degree) to see if the variations are systematic or not, and if there are systematic variations, are the periodicity 90 (indicating multiple layer of anisotropy with a horizontal axis of symmetry) or 180 (tilting axis) degrees? It seems that some stations do display such variations (e.g., the two stations to the NE of the TESZ in the central profile).


We performed a systematic review describing obesity/intelligent quotient (IQ) association, particularly childhood IQ in relation to adulthood obesity. After screening 883 citations from five electronic databases, we included 26 studies, most of medium quality. The weighted mean difference (WMD) of the full IQ (FIQ)/obesity association in the pre‐school children was −15.1 (P > 0.05). Compared with controls, the WMD of FIQ and performance IQ of obese children were −2.8 and −10.0, respectively (P < 0.05), and the WMD of verbal IQ was −7.01 (P > 0.05). With increasing obesity, the FIQ in pre‐school children declined, with a significant difference for severely obese children and FIQ. In pubertal children, a slightly different effect of FIQ and obesity emerged. Two studies reported an inverse FIQ/obesity association in adults, but it was non‐significant after adjusting for educational attainment. Four papers found that childhood FIQ was inversely associated with adult body mass index, but after adjusting for education, became null. Overall there was an inverse FIQ/obesity association, except in pre‐school children. However, after adjusting for educational attainment, FIQ/obesity association was not significantly different. A lower FIQ in childhood was associated with obesity in later adulthood perhaps with educational level mediating the persistence of obesity in later life.


Peer review status:NoCorresponding Author:Dr. Birgit Gurr,Consultant Neuropsychologist, Neuropsychology department. Dorset Healthcare UniversityNHS FoundationTrust, Neuropsychology Department, Poole Clinic, Shaftesbury Road, Poole, BH15 2NT - United KingdomSubmitting Author:Dr. Birgit Gurr,Consultant Neuropsychologist, Neuropsychology department. Dorset Healthcare University Foundation Trustt -United KingdomOther Authors:Mr. Jac Dendle,Trainee Clinical Psychologist, Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust, Neuropsychyology, Pooleclinic, Shaftesbury Road, Poole, BH15 2NT - United KingdomArticle ID: WMC004800Article Type: Case ReportSubmitted on:16-Jan-2015, 05:07:29 PM GMT Published on: 17-Jan-2015, 09:52:38 AM GMTArticle URL: http://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/4800Subject Categories:REHABILITATION Keywords:Effective communication, nurse-centred training, cost-effective training, stroke rehabilitationHow to cite the article:Dendle J, Gurr B. On-the-Spot: Training nurses about effective communication withacute stroke patients. WebmedCentral REHABILITATION 2015;6(1):WMC004800Copyright: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionLicense(CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal author and source are credited.Source(s) of Funding:No funding requiredCompeting Interests:No competing interestsAdditional Files:Spot on Stroke Training


Objective To investigate the dynamic change of C-MYC oncogene in the process of chemical induced liver cancer in mice.Methods Sixty healthy C57BL/6J male mice were induced to establish the hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) model by combination of diethylnitrosamines(DEN),carbon tetrachloride(CCl4) and ethanol for twenty weeks(experimental group),and another sixty C57BL/6J mice as normal controls.The mice were randomly put to death every two weeks and observed the pathology of their liver tissues.Real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR was used to detect the change of expression of C-MYC gene in experimental group and control group.Results After 20-week DEN/CCl4/ethanol induction,HCC model of mice were successful induced.The result of real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR suggested that no significant difference was found in C-MYC mRNA between experimental group and control group of the fourth week and the sixth week(P0.05).C-MYC expression quantity was gradually increased from the eighth week,and the increasing was most significant during the eighteenth week and the twentieth week,which was higher in the experimental group than the controls(P0.05).Conclusion In the process of induced HCC model in mice,C-MYC gene expression quantity is gradually increased with cancer-induced time prolongs,C-MYC gene shows abnormal high expression in HCC stage and may promote the occurrence and development of HCC.


In recent years there has been extensive discussion and exploration on college and university campuses related to increasing student sense of belonging. At George Mason University, the University Life office charged a university-wide committee (University Life Programming Committee) to improve the coherence and coordination of collaborative programming. By designing and funding more diverse programming, the University Life office offers programs that are more inclusive of the campuses ethnic and cultural subgroups. This article provides an overview of the programming activities designed to enhance students' sense of community. Ernest Boyer (1990), in the Carnegie Foundation's report titled Campus Life: In Search of Community, provided evidence and expressed concerns about declines in the state of community on college and university campuses. The report identified many influencing factors including increasing diversity and transience in student populations, competing student goals and priorities (career and work vs. education), changing norms for student behaviors (more problems related to alcohol, drugs, personal conduct, etc.), and shifting institutional concerns (declining budgets and public support, balancing research and teaching) and philosophies (seeing the purposes of student affairs and academics as separate, using student as "customer" business models, declining acceptance of "in loco parentis" commitments). The report struck a cord on many campuses, and thus stimulated much discussion and experimentation related to ways to increase students' sense of and participation in campus communities. At George Mason University (Mason), the student services unit called University Life (UL) provided leadership for discussions and efforts to enhance the state of community on campus. Background Mason is located in a prominent metropolitan area (northern Virginia), and has a large (approximately 15,000 undergraduates) and diverse (37% minority and non-resident alien) student body. Based on responses from the Mason 2000-01 "Graduating Senior Survey" (response rate 85%), 22% of responding seniors reported being "first generation," 62% transferred to Mason from another college/university, and 88% worked for pay during the time they attended Mason. Also, 39% of the seniors reported that "most of the time" during their undergraduate years, they lived off-campus with a family member while 14% lived on campus. These characteristics combine to pose particular challenges in terms of students' engaging in campus life and attaining a sense of community. Because many students live off campus and in the midst of a large metropolitan area, they have a variety of competing priorities (work, family, off campus activities). Also in addition to providing programs and activities for a diverse community, Mason must also compete with the region's entertainment and employment offerings. UL, like most student affairs units, dedicates significant resources to the provision of programs and activities for students. During the mid-1990s, concerns about UL's programming were identified to be (a) the large number of events with poor attendance and the educational opportunities and resources that were lost when major, well-known speakers were brought to campus and there was poor attendance; (b) questions about whether there was efficient and effective use of staff time and fiscal resources when major events attracted very small audiences; and (c) concerns about low staff morale in that many staff perceived an imbalance between their high levels of investment of resources and effort in providing events and activities, and the low levels of program impacts based on low attendance (K. Rosenblum, personal communication, July 10, 2002). Another issue identified was a need to provide more programming that spanned the year rather than periodic "glut(s)" such as the beginning of the semester, themed months (e.g. Black History Month), etc. …


A new split-drain MOSFET magnetic-field sensing device is reported which uses multiple gates to establish a longitudinal electric field in the channel. A relative sensitivity of 185 mA/AT was measured for a double-polysilicon, multiple-gate, split-drain MOSFET. A triple-drain multiple-gate MOSFET device achieved relative sensitivities greater then 10,000 mA/AT. A new amplifier circuit for the multiple-gate, split-drain device achieved an absolute sensitivity of 10 V/T at a 400 nA bias current corresponding to a relative sensitivity of 2.5*10/sup 7/ V/AT. The intrinsic power dissipation of the magnetic amplifier sensor is as small as 8 mu W.<<ETX>>


With international concern over terrorism and organised threats, many situations are beginning to arise where lightweight composite armour protection systems are necessary. Armour systems typically comprise a ceramic front plate together with a rigid backing plate. The armour deformation due to ballistic impact is highly dependent on the constituent materials and characteristics of the impacting projectile. This is seen as an energy system which channels the kinetic energy of the projectile away from the target, resulting in a minimisation of force required to stop the projectile. The work described here presents a PC based one-dimensional computer aided model of plate deformation. Design emphasis is placed on the material property and geometry requirements of the armour. The model has been developed to simulate the results of the mechanics of impact.


he latest report from the IPPC1 has once again warned of the unsustainable current climate trend. In spite of the numerous public policies and private initiatives already introduced and implemented, human-induced emissions of GHGs have never grown so quickly and will never have been so high as in the last decade. Additional efforts are therefore needed and will be at the heart of the political agenda in the coming months. Agriculture is undoubtedly playing a greater role in climate negotiations – marked, in 2014, by the preliminary discussion on the 2030 Framework for Energy and Climate within the European Union and on a global scale by preparations for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21), which will be held in Paris in 2015 – although its treatment in these arenas remains a delicate matter. On the one hand, it is one of the sectors that is most severely affected by climate change, to which it must inevitably adapt2, in a context where the growth in the global population and the increase in living standards are driving demand for food even higher. On the other hand, agriculture can make a significant contribution to mitigation efforts. Nonetheless, it is important to emphasise that emissions from agriculture and forestry are specific insofar as they are due, mainly, to diffuse biological processes, which make them more difficult to monitor, report and verify.


PURPOSE: A clock signal delay circuit is provided to rapidly update a delay clock signal by including a delay controller which generates a delay control signal. CONSTITUTION: A variable delayer(100) controls the unit delay of a reference clock signal. The variable delayer outputs a delay clock signal. The delay unit(200) delays the delay clock signal. A phase detector(300) detects the phase difference of the reference clock signal and a feedback clock signal. A control clock output unit(500) outputs the control clock signal. The toggling period of the control clock signal is adjusted according to the detection result of the phase detector. A delay controller(600) generates the delay control signal.


During the past year we have developed and explored an analytic method for expressing the electrical potential as a continuous function of position in a cylindrically symmetric lens. Using this method, we partition the lens into appropriate cells and then select the proper Bessel-Fourier series to express the solution in each cell. Each solution is made to join smoothly to its neighbor along the cell partitions, and to satisfy the outer boundary conditions. By this procedure it is easy to estimate the relative precision and convergence of each solution. Moreover, in contrast to numerical methods, this method affords a high degree of flexibility, in that variation of the lens parameters does not require major changes in the computer program for calculating electron trajec-tories. Details of this analysis are given elsewhere. 1 Recent application of this analysis to an einzel lens reveals that significant reduction in spherical aberration can be achieved by a system of three flat, electron-transparent foils (at ground potential and perpendicular to the axis) and two annular rings (one between each of the foils, at potentials VI and V2). In this doublet system a parallel beam, entering a converging lens and exiting a diverging lens, can be brought to a point focus for cone half-angles up to approximately 0. 1 radian. It appears that further improvements can be realized by altering the symmetry, as regards the thickness and spacing of the annular rings along the axis and the cross-sectional shapes. While we intend to explore these possibilities, a practical problem arises, in that it is necessary to calculate first a number of trajectories for a given lens configuration, alter the lens parameters, and then recalculate the trajectories so as to evaluate the properties of the modified lens. Although this procedure is straightforward, it is clumsy and expensive of machine time, since it is often difficult to intuit changes in the lens parameters which will render improved optical performance. Hence, it is highly desirable to develop an analytical method by which one can be guided to the optical properties directly from the potential. We have considered some possibilities for executing a JSEP


Matching a dictionary of patterns (i.e. subsequences) against a streaming time series to identify occurrences is one of the primary components of real-time monitoring systems such as earthquake monitoring, power consumption monitoring, and patient monitoring. These domains critically depend on timely alarms immediately after events (i.e. earthquake, fire, seizure, etc.) start. Until now, the problem has been solved independently by smart pruning, efficient approximation, and pattern indexing without bounding the delay between pattern occurrence and detection time. Moreover, complexity of the dictionary matching problem is quickly growing with larger dictionary sizes, faster data streams, and stricter delay requirements; pushing existing pattern matching systems to their limits. In this paper, we describe a robust distributed matching system, called DisPatch (Distributed Pattern Matching), that matches a pattern with a guaranteed maximum delay after the pattern appears in the stream. We develop and evaluate a novel distribution strategy and integrate state-of-the-art algorithmic optimization techniques to horizontally scale to a high data rate and a large dictionary size. We show three use cases of DisPatch in seismic, patient and power consumption monitoring.


Objective To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of transcatheter selective ophthalmic arterial injection(SOAI) for the treatment of advanced refractory retinoblastoma. Methods During the period from January 2009 to April 2011, 30 consecutive cases of retinoblastoma patients(17 males and13 females with an average age of 17 months) who failed to respond to systemic chemotherapy were admitted to authors' hospital. The 30 patients had 39 diseased eyes. A total of 82 times of SOAI(injection of 5 mg melphalan and 20 mg carboplatin) were carried out with a mean of 2.1 times for each diseased eye. The patients were followed up for 2-28 months with a mean of 13.6 months. The clinical results were evaluated.Results SOAI was successfully accomplished in 82 procedures of 84 trials, with a technical success rate of97.6%. After the treatment different degrees of decrease in eyeball size was observed in all the diseased eyes.The effective rate was 76.9%, including D grade(n = 17, 85.0%) and E grade(n = 13, 68.4%) according to the international intraocular retinoblastoma classification. The eye preservation rate was 85.0% in group D and 68.4% in group E. Enucleation of eyeball had to be performed for the remaining 9 eyes(23.1%). Ocular adverse events included bulbar conjunctiva congestion(n = 10, 25.6%), eyelid oedema(n = 7, 17.9%) and delacrimation(n = 3, 7.7%). No severe complications such as septemia occurred. Conclusion SOAI is an effective and safe treatment for advanced refractory retinoblastoma.


The Oil and Gas plants operate using a network of pipelines as well as mechanized machines that help in both extraction as well as transmission of the product. These assets have an important role in maintaining an overall health of the plan and thus require regular maintenance. This maintenance is often subjective and still leads to failures, resulting in downtime and thus affecting the revenue hours of a particular asset. We suggest a comprehensive solution for monitoring both the motorized assets and the pressurized pipelines in an oil and gas plant using acoustics and vibrational analysis. This solution is currently being tested for monitoring large and small diameter pipelines as well as pumps in water reclamation or desalination plants in Singapore and could be easily opted for O&G industry.


As a new social stratum,private entrepreneurs have become conscious of the importance of political participation.A Study on an interview to 5 private enterprises in Wuchang District,Wuhan City indicates that they have some concern for certain aspects of politics,such as whether the government function has transformed or not,the strength of government's support,and enhancement of their own status and so on.However,they care little about whether to join the Communist Party of China or not,the public interest or worker's situation and so on.The difference is made by the criterion that whether the concern may bring them any concrete help or has a stronger actual efficacy.Therefore,the private entrepreneurs' political demands have obviously taken on a look of economic utility.


The friars who ministered to the Nahua (Aztec) Indians incorporated into their Nahuatl teachings Old World symbolism which used the sun as a metaphor or type for Christ. The solar Christ had different connotations in Nahuatl because of differences between Christian and Nahua views of cosmology, morality, history, and the symbolism of sun and light. Indians today view Christ as a solar deity; Christian teaching may be one source of this identification. The Mendicant friars who converted the Indians of Mexico to Christianity after the Spanish Conquest left behind a large corpus of Christian doctrinal literature in Nahuatl and other Mesoamerican languages. These texts include sermons, catechisms, biblical excerpts, dialogues, hagiography, meditations, hymns, and confession manuals. They were written by friars conversant in the native languages, in collaboration with indigenous students who were educated in Spanish and Latin and who had considerable influence on the native-language texts. Because of their dominantly European content, these texts have received relatively little attention from ethnohistorians more interested in the indigenous side of Indian-Spanish contact. Thus these texts constitute a largely unexploited ethnohistorical resource of great value for interpreting colonial culture, particularly in regard to religion but also to language, political and social relations, and other aspects of Indian life. They provide a useful guide to the acculturative pressures operating upon native ideology. They may also help to establish more continuity between the indigenous beliefs and practices recorded in sixteenth-century ethnographic descriptions and those observed by ethnographers in the present. The doctrinal corpus is dominated by texts in the Nahuatl (Aztec) language. This extensive body of Nahua-Christian literature reveals precisely how Christianity was presented to the Nahuas, how Christian conEthnohistory 35:3 (Summer 1988). Copyright ? by the American Society for Ethnohistory. ccc ooI4-I8o0/88/$i.5o. This content downloaded from 18.104.22.168 on Fri, 17 Jun 2016 05:27:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Solar Christ in Nahuatl Doctrinal Texts cepts were translated and explained, and what elements of indigenous belief were carried over by the friars into what was, in effect, a Nahuatl interpretation of Christianity. Christian concepts picked up new meanings and symbolic associations as they were translated into Nahuatl; at the same time, the new contexts and modes of expression characteristic of Christian preaching began to influence the meanings of Nahuatl terms. Analysis of this hybrid literature helps to illuminate the true character of the so-called spiritual conquest. Christian doctrine was "Nahuatized" in the process of its accommodation to native categories of language and thought just as Christian personages and Christian rites took the place of the indigenous ones that most closely resembled them. This paper examines the treatment of one motif, Christ as the sun, in the colonial Mexican literature, and analyzes this motif in light of its Old World origins and its New World cultural setting. The use of this motif in the Nahuatl doctrinal writings of three prominent friars, the Franciscans fray Bernardino de Sahagun and fray Juan Bautista and the Augustinian fray Juan de la Anunciacion, is discussed. The Solar Christ in the Old World and the New The Christ-sun is by no means a common theme in the colonial literature, but it illustrates some interesting aspects of the translation process, including the very sensitive issue of idolatry. It is the sort of identification that one might expect the friars to avoid in the interest of preventing idolatry. Alternatively, the fact that they did use it might be seen as an attempt at planned "syncretism," the fostering of identifications between indigenous and Christian figures as an easy way to bring the Indians into the church. In reality, though, the friars were neither so conscientious nor so crafty. They were simply employing an Old World motif, translating its terminology into Nahuatl and using it in traditional contexts. Formal Christian teaching did not necessarily contradict the Nahuas' own interpretations of Christianity; the difference between Old World and Nahua Christianity lay in the articulation of their respective worldviews and the way that metaphors operated within them. It is widely known that present-day Mesoamerican Indians view Christ as a solar deity (see, for example, Gossen 1974; Hunt 1977; Taggart I983; Vogt I969). This identification may look like a "survival" of indigenous solar worship, but in fact the identification was not inconsistent with sixteenth-century Christianity. For Christ to become identified with the sun was a logical response given the structure and character of the indigenous worldview; the argument here is not that the friars were responsible for this identification but only that theirs was one voice active in the intercultural dialogue within which this identification originated. 235 This content downloaded from 188.8.131.52 on Fri, 17 Jun 2016 05:27:06 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms


In this introduction, the authors do three things. They first introduce the puzzle and relate it to existing interpretations from market reformists and their critics, arguing that both sets of views are inadequate. The authors then offer an alternative interpretation: that entrenched inequities sustained by a rent-sharing political equilibrium are a primary source of inefficiencies and weak growth. Moreover, this equilibrium has been resilient to democratization in ways that can be explained by the nature of the underlying forces. Finally, they draw some tentative implications for the future, suggesting how public action could potentially support a shift to more equitable and more efficient equilibrium. The volume's chapters are introduced within the structure of this argument.


L.J. Pino, D.W. Stashuk*, S.G. Boe and T.J. Doherty Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, University Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, London, ON N6A 5A5, Canada Heart and Stroke Foundation Centre for Stroke Recovery, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Toronto, ON M5G 2A2, Canada


An experimental energy recovering air-conditioner can produce fresh air exchange heat with exhaust air in the heat exchanger, which has no additional moving parts. The EER of the experimental air-conditioner (EAC) is increased by 17.4~37.3 percent over that of an ordinary window type air-conditioner (OAC), which is very significant for energy efficiency. On the other hand, the fresh air proportion of the EAC is increased by ~20 percent over that of the OAC, and the indoor noise of the EAC is decreased by ~3.8 dB. Therefore, indoor environment quality can be greatly improved with the EAC.


Steady laminar natural convection flow over a semi-infinite moving vertical plate with internal heat generation and convective surface boundary condition in the presence of thermal radiation, viscous dissipation, and chemical reaction is examined in this paper. In the analysis, we assumed that the left surface of the plate is in contact with a hot fluid while the cold fluid on the right surface of the plate contains a heat source that decays exponentially with the classical similarity variable. We utilized similarity variable to transform the governing nonlinear partial differential equations into a system of ordinary differential equations, which are solved numerically by applying shooting iteration technique along fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. The effects of the local Biot number, Prandtl number, buoyancy forces, the internal heat generation, the thermal radiation, Eckert number, viscous dissipation, and chemical reaction on the velocity, temperature, and concentration profiles are illustrated and interpreted in physical terms. A comparison with previously published results on the similar special cases showed an excellent agreement. Finally, numerical values of physical quantities, such as the local skin-friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number, and the local Sherwood number, are presented in tabular form.


Abstract This study describes high potentiality of hydrogels composed of geleatin and poly(L-glutamic acid) (PGLA) as a biological glue for soft tissues compared with a conventional fibrin glue. The mixed aqueous solution of gelatin and PGLA set to a hydrogel by use of water-soluble carbodiimide as rapidly as the fibrin glue. The cured hydrogel exhibited firm adhesion to soft tissues with a higher bonding strength than the fibrin glue. In addition, the inflammatory response to the hydrogel subcutaneously implanted in mice was mild and the hydrogel was gradually absorbed with time in vivo.


Abstract In this work, we propose to analyse the existence of possible correlations between the taxonomic classes of asteroids showing featureless spectra –i.e. a flat continuum with no absorption bands– and their orbital properties. We compute the mean spectral slope of 14 753 asteroids using the photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky survey Moving Objects Catalog (SDSS-MOC4). Although the quality of these data is not comparable in resolution to the spectroscopic data, the amount of observations in the SDSS-MOC4 is more than 20 times larger that in the available spectral databases. This allows us to obtain a statistically significant result.


The Motorcyclist Anthropometric Test Dummy (MATD) and injury risk/benefit analysis methods standardized under International Standard ISO 13232 allow the relative injury benefits and risks of rider protective devices fitted to motorcycles to be assessed, for a specific set of injury types. Research involving the feasibility of airbags fitted to motorcycles intensified the need to upgrade the crash test dummy neck injury assessment methods. This involved the development of an improved dummy neck with multi-directional biofidelity and injury assessment capabilities and corresponding probabilistic four axis neck injury criteria. The neck injury criteria were developed by fitting the distributions of neck injury severities observed in on-scene in-depth investigations of 568 real-world motorcycle crashes, including the direction of neck motion indicated by special detailed neck dissections in 67 fatal cases, to the distributions of upper neck forces and moments measured in calibrated computer simulations of the MATD with the improved neck in the 568 crashes. The result is a probabilistic injury criterion that can estimate the probability of neck injury, based on four axis upper neck forces and moments measured with the new MATD neck. The model has a high level of overall agreement with neck injury severity levels and directions observed in real world crashes. For the covering abstract see ITRD E825082.


It has been proved by field survey and test that the cause of corrosion and perforation of the elbow-box in front of convection chamber of heater is not only of condensed sulfuric acid from sulfur in fuel,but also of corrosive smoke and ash due to structural airproof defection.In this paper two countermeasures have been put forward: one is to extend sootblowing sleeves from the tubeplate to the outside of heater so as to keep the smoke away from the elbow-case;the other is to set sootblowers at both sides of the convection chamber-which have kept the elbow-case from smoke and ash corrosion and work well in practice.


THE term multiphasic screening (MPS) is almost as general as the word doctor. This term has been applied to such diverse processes as the general laboratory testing of asymptomatic communities of people and very specific surveillance testing of individuals with chronic diseases such as diabetes. The term has developed a Madison Avenue-type sheen in the lay press, generating ideas that it is the panacea for the immediate detection, diagnosis, and management of all disease conditions, with resultant benefits at little cost to the recipient. The engineering community has appropriately termed MPS a technological success. The medical community is aware of MPS and has responded with a diversity of criticisms. The experience with MPS in this country had been bleak until recent times. The notable major exception to failing MPS programs has been that of Kaiser Permanente on the West Coast. The few other programs funded by Regional Medical Programs and the National Center for Health Services Research and Development, while effective in detecting abnormalities in the population, resulted in further frustration and fragmentation of medical care as attempts were made to interpret and pursue the abnormalities found. Presently there are companies marketing a number of different types of multiphasic screening programs which may be leased or purchased by physicians or hospitals. Thorner, in a provocative article relating the history of MPS and challenging its future, makes a discerning comment in stating "the issue is how multiphasic screening can be integrated into the medical-care system."' This issue may be a major cause of the success of Permanente and the failure of many others. This issue is further stressed in the major treatise on MPS, the three-volume Provisional Guidelines for Automated


A method is described in which pairs of ion-sensitive electrodes are used to determine changes in the concentration gradients of pH and of Na+ and Cl– ions across an actively transporting membrane. Measurements can be made almost continuously without withdrawing samples. Matched pairs of ion-sensitive electrodes are placed in the membrane chambers with one of each pair on each side of the membrane. A procedure is described by which the potential difference can be measured across these pairs of high-impedance electrodes. The potential difference generated across the transporting membrane is measured independently. From these two sets of values the concentration gradients of H+, Na+ and Cl– ions across the membrane can be calculated. This method registers gradients of 0·02 pH unit and of 0·5 milli-equivalents l–1 of Na+ and Cl–; the changes in ionic concentration can be correlated with the membrane potential almost continuously. Short-circuit current cannot be measured with the electrodes in situ. Absolute ionic concentrations in the solutions can be measured at any time by using a standard reference electrode with any of the other electrodes.


A new class of protonconducting membrane based on polyvinyl alcohol and phenolsulphonic acid was synthesized. Prepared membrane were tested in hydrogen-air fuel cell and hydrogen gas sensors under natural conditions and showed high effectiveness.


Objective To analysis the clinical features of cerebral infarction with type 2 diabetes.Methods 50 cases of diabetic cerebral infarction and 50 cases of non-diabetic cerebral infarction were compared in risk factors and clinical features.Results The incidence of hypertension,level of blood lipid,the rate of stroke in progressing and recurrent infarction was higher in diabetic group than in the non-diabetic group,and the difference had statistical significance(p0.05).There was no difference in age,severity of neurological deficit,stroke subtypes and lesion location.Conclusion Diabetic patients have a higher incidence of hypertension and hyperlipdemia and are more likely to have stroke in progressing and recurrent stroke.There is no great influence on stroke subtypes,lesion location and severity.


The fisheries sector is one of the leading sectors in Simeulue Regency's economy. It impacts increasing regional income, opening up employment opportunities, and improving the local community's standard of living, so fisheries UMKM policies are an important aspect of Simeulue Regency. The research method was descriptive qualitative, with field studies and interviews with policymakers and implementers from the Department of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (DKP), the Department of Industry, Trade, Cooperatives, and Small and Medium Enterprises (Disperindagkop) Simuelue Regency, and business actors. Furthermore, data were obtained through literature studies, which included scientific journals, government regulations, documents, and research reports. This study's analysis employs inductive logic by collecting field data and then analyzing it to conclude. The findings demonstrated that the government implemented the fisheries UMKM policy by providing business capital stimulus for UMKMs, conserving marine areas to protect fishery products, and limiting foreign ship visits to maintain marine sovereignty. The study concludes that the implementation of fisheries UMKM policies fails because: (1) there is no definite data on the number of fisheries UMKMs; (2) there is no communication and forum that can mediate the interests of UMKM business actors and the government; and (3) the government has limited budget funds in the form of business capital; and (4) UMKM business assistance and training have been provided, but have not yielded maximum results due to a lack of a market that can accommodate production results.


A modern area utilizes more energy than some flip side use parts and as of now, this segment is expanding about 37% of the world's complete conveyed energy. Energy is devoured in the mechanical area by a differing gathering of enterprises including fabricating, agriculture, mining, and development and for a wide scope of exercises, for example, preparing and get together, space molding and lighting. This paper presents an exhaustive writing audit about modern energy sparing by the board, advances, and arrangements. Most recent writings as far as proposition (MS and Ph.D.), diary articles, gathering procedures, web materials, reports, books, handbooks on modern energy the executives, arrangements, and energy investment funds systems have been gathered. Energy-sparing by the board including energy review, preparing projects and housekeeping next to some energy the board rehearses on the planet has been investigated. Energy-sparing innovations, for example, utilization of high proficiency engines (HEMs), Variable Speed Drives (VSDs), economizers, spill avoidance and diminishing weight drop has been checked on. In light of energy sparing innovations results, it has been discovered that in the mechanical segments, a sizeable measure of electric energy, emanations and service bill can be spared utilizing these innovations. Recompense periods for distinctive energy funds measures have been distinguished and observed to be monetarily practical in most cases. At long last, different energy sparing strategies for few chose nations were checked on.


INTRODUCTION
Pelizaeus-Merzbacher's disease involves extensive demyelination of the Central Nervous System. This is due to a defect in the gene for proteolipoproteins, found on the X chromosome. It appears early as marked axial hypotonia, stridor, nystagmus and anomalous movements of the head, and later as variable pyramidal, extrapyramidal and cerebellar involvement.

CLINICAL CASE
A three year old boy, with no unusual family history, was seen for psychomotor retardation. He had marked hypotonia, absence of evidence of social contact, inspiratory stridor, nystagmus and horizontal nodding movements of the head. MR at 4 months showed absence of supratentorial and infratentorial myelinization. Analysis of the gene for proteolipoproteins showed a specific mutation on the exon 5 C227Y. At eight and a half years there was persistence of the severe axial hypotonia with minimal visual function and social contact was maintained through hearing.

CONCLUSIONS
It is possible to make an early diagnosis of Pelizaeus-Merzbacher's disease in the first weeks of life, on the typical clinical picture and MR findings of marked extensive hypomyelination, although assessment of myelination is difficult at this age. Early diagnosis is very important, since molecular analysis of the proteolipoproteins gene permits confirmation of the diagnosis, identification of heterozygotes and the establishment of prenatal diagnosis.


Recent studies have identified cytoskeletal elements in bacteria which play important roles in cellular morphology, cell division, DNA segregation and the establishment of cell polarity. However, our understanding of the contribution the bacterial cytoskeleton makes toward virulence is lacking. The MreB protein is a bacterial homolog of eukaryotic actin and interacts intimately with MreC and MreD. We provide evidence that the Mre-based cytoskeleton directly influences pathogenicity in Salmonella. Disruption of MreC and MreD caused the downregulation of the Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI-1) type 3 secretion system (T3SS) essential for host cell-invasion, and also flagella-mediated motility. These phenotypic effects were mediated by RcsC, the sensor kinase of the Rcs phosphorelay two-component system and a major envelope stress regulator. Curiously, the SPI-2 T3SS remained viable. Our results demonstrate the importance of the integrity of the bacterial cytoskeleton for virulence, highlighting the impact of associated global regulatory mechanisms on pathogenicity.


Total effective temperature that toon-sprouting needed generally increased with the decrease of temperature. It had little effect to transplant toon sapling on sprout time and total effective temperature whether before or after deblade phase. Toon dormancy property belonged to unphysiological type. Constant temperature treating abbreviated sprouting time obviously compared with variable temperature dealing. Root damage dealing suspended sprout time and increased total effective temperature.


Peter Berger is a leading American sociologist whose special expertise is in the areas of sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge.1 In his latest book, however, Berger steps outside the limits of his professional methodology to some extent in order to reflect on "the possibility of theological thinking in our present situation." 2 The result, A Rumor of Angels, is a brief, readable volume "addressed to anyone with a concern for religious questions and the willingness to think about them systematically." 3 Despite the popular character and obvious limitations of the work, it teems with pregnant insights and intriguing argumentation. My concern here will be to report some of Berger's views and to say something about their philosophical implications. No attempt is made in this paper to take up all of the concepts which are to be found in A Rumor of Angels. Rather, I have chosen to concentrate on Berger's positive program and, more specifically, on the five kinds of data which he advances as intimations of transcendence. The first two parts of the paper are devoted to description of this material. Once these portions of Berger's work are before us, we will turn to a critical examination of the evidence and the sort of argumentation which Berger employs, as well as the implications of this type of approach for contemporary work in philosophy of religion. These critical remarks constitute the final portion of the paper.