This study presents an application of the peridynamics method to the analysis of concrete structures, the quasi-static fracture behavior of concrete column is simulated with the proposed model, numerical result shows that the proposed peridynamic model can predict both the progressive failure process and the ultimately capacity of concrete structures with reasonable accuracy. Introduction Concrete structures are widely used in the field of civil engineering, which is found to be suffering from deterioration of durability involves the progressive process of micro-cracking, delamination and other irreversible internal damage, especially in severe environmental conditions. Consequently, many construction projects lost their function prematurely and even collapse during the prescriptive service period. Therefore, the numerical modeling of progressive damage in concrete structures has become a major concern and attracted extensive research interest in the past decades. Different constitutive models and numerical approaches have been adopted to handling with complicated fracture problems, However, most methods still suffer the poor efficiency and unsatisfactory simulation accuracy when dealing with discontinuous or singularities [1]. In an attempt to overcome the aforementioned difficulties, Silling [2, 3] from Sandia National Laboratory reformulated the basic equation of continuum mechanics, and then put forward a special nonlocal theory known as peridynamics, in which no assumptions are required regarding continuity of deformation. Particularly, bonds, which contains constitutive information of the material, were used to reproduce the nonlocal interacting forces between particles over certain distance. Moreover, In contrast to the partial differential equations used in the classical formulation, this theory instead uses spatial integral equations which permits the cracks spontaneously occur at multiple sites and freely extend along arbitrary path without the need for special remedial techniques. Therefore, the peridynamic theory is very suitable for predicting the progressive failure process and final failure modes of various materials. Numerous articles on the application and evolution of the bond-based peridynamic model appears in the literature. Gerstle et al. [4] developed several models for concrete with micro-elastic stiffness c and a cut-off stretch s*, and the latest one proved to be more accurately behavior in both tension and compression regime. Huang et al. [5] proposed new numerical algorithms for quasi-static bond-based PD simulation including local damping, step-by-step loading, and a non-equilibrium criterion. However, for the current peridynamic research efforts on the concrete structure, the fracture behavior of concrete structure are usually simulated through the breakage of bonds which are determined by some specified stretch related to the fracture energy, while the fracture energy may differs in the same concrete specimen. In this paper, a new peridynamic model for concrete structures was proposed. Based on the proposed peridynamic model, the detailed process of progressive damage and final failure mode in underpinned concrete column was analyzed and compared with the experimental observations. Advances in Engineering Research (AER), volume 102 227 Second International Conference on Mechanics, Materials and Structural Engineering (ICMMSE 2017) This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Copyright © 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. Bond-based Constitutive Model for Concrete The constitutive model is defined through the relationship between bond stretch and pairwise force among material particles, which means that the material damage is introduced at the bond-level. Silling et al. [2] introduced an original constitutive model for quasi brittle materials which associated the critical stretch 0 s with the fracture energy F G , the bond would break when the elongation reached 0 s . Gerstle et al. [4] correlated the critical stretch 0 s with the uniaxial tensile t f and uniaxial compressive strength c f , and developed a eight-parameters micropolar peridynamic model for concrete, In the present work, the constitutive model is simplified as depicted in Fig. 1.


During the course of investigations dealing with the biological control of insect pests of conifers, several species of sawflies were found to be heavily attacked by the tachinid parasite Phorocera hamata A. & W. The present paper describes the immature stages and indudes the life-history of the parasite under laboratory conditions.


Optimal withdrawal strategies are developed for retirees with multiple types of tax-advantaged savings accounts. In an environment of progressive tax rates, the ability to convert pretax funds in traditional IRAs at low tax rates substantially increases investors' residual accumulations and withdrawal sustainability. Specifically, informed withdrawal-location strategies, in which traditional IRA distributions can be applied against exemptions, deductions, and lightly taxed tax brackets, can increase residual accumulations by more than $1 million. In these strategies, the optimal tax bracket through which an investor should take distributions is directly related to the investor's wealth level. The introduction of a variety of tax-advantaged savings accounts [e.g., Roth IRAs, Section 529 plans, and Roth 401(k) plans] presents retirees with an array of new decisions. Retirees with multiple types of tax-advantaged accounts from which to withdraw funds must decide how to make optimal distributions from these accounts. For example, which is optimal: to first draw down balances in tax-sheltered accounts with front-end tax benefits (such as traditional IRAs) or to first drawn down balances in accounts with back-end tax benefits (such as Roth IRAs)? Or should a retiree use some combination of withdrawals from both accounts? This article develops optimal withdrawal-location strategies for investors in an environment characterized by progressive tax rates. The term "withdrawal location" refers to the type of accounts from which investors should make distributions. The withdrawal model recognizes that withdrawals from some types of accounts are taxed as ordinary income and withdrawals from other accounts are not taxed. It highlights opportunities for tax-efficient withdrawal locations created by a progressive tax rate system. In such an environment, investors may be able to apply distributions from a traditional IRA or similarly taxed account against exemptions, deductions, or lightly taxed tax brackets. This ability to convert pretax funds in traditional IRAs to after-tax funds at relatively low tax rates substantially increases investors' residual accumulations and ability to sustain withdrawals. Examples in the article show that informed withdrawal-location strategies can increase residual accumulations by more than $1 million. The optimal tax bracket through which an investor should take distributions is directly related to the person's wealth. For example, an investor with $1.7 million in retirement assets would optimally, as long as minimum distribution requirements permitted, take taxable distributions up through the 15 percent tax bracket. An investor with $3.33 million in retirement assets would optimally take taxable distributions up through the 25 percent tax bracket, and the optimal distribution tax bracket for investors with $5 million in retirement assets is 28 percent.


Digital images have become a ubiquitous medium for information communication across a broad range of application domains. Along with this ubiquity has come an immense growth in the capabilities of the devices and tools used to produce and edit this imagery. New advances in algorithms and methods are made at a large pace, which makes staying on top of the learning curve difficult for general users and even experts. To accommodate this need, commercial devices and software packages typically provide a suite of presets and shortcuts for common tasks with intuitive descriptors, determined by extensive internal user studies and expert interaction but often without publishing the actual parameters and their settings. We describe an emerging framework which strives to externalize these practices into a centralized web-based community effort called KAV-DB (Knowledge-Assisted Visualization Data Bank), to allow coverage of algorithms and applications not currently driven by immediate commercial focus but of wide interest to the community of visualization researchers. The vision of KAV-DB is to provide a web service to capture, analyze, and retrieve parameter settings for visualization algorithms, given the data at hand. KAV-DB builds on a robust user study evaluation theory, called conjoint analysis, to formulate statistical models of method parameters extracted by ways of efficient user studies. We demonstrate the assessment and analysis stage our framework via two diverse example applications: relation-aware volume exploration and text annotation of color images. Digital Object Identifier 10.4230/DFU.xxx.yyy.p


Objective To analyze the value and pitfalls of color duplex ultrasound (US) in detecting renal artery stenosis (RAS) in native and transplant kidneys. Methods US results of suspected RAS in 30 native kidneys (17/30 positive and 13/30 negative) and 14 transplant kidneys (14/14 positive) were retrospectively compared with angiography and/or MRA. The renal artery velocity and intrarenal Doppler parameters (acceleration time [AT], acceleration index [AI], resistive index [RI]) were compared pre and post percutaneous transluminal renal artery angioplasty and stent placement (PTRAS). Results There were 2 false positive and 2 false negative US diagnoses of RAS in native kidneys. There was no false US diagnosis of RAS in transplant kidneys. The velocity of renal artery and parameters of the intrarenal arteries were remarkably changed after revascularization. Conclusion Even with its limitations, color duplex ultrasound is still a valuable initial imaging technique for suspected RAS. It is also useful for monitoring arterial reperfusion after correction of RAS. Combining all of quantitative measurements, qualitative Doppler waveform characteristics of the renal artery and intrarenal arteries and related clinical information would help us correctly interpret US study.[


Democracy provides the opportunities for the people to freely exercise their voting rights in the selection of representatives who govern them. Democracy depends on parties to survive, since the structure of elections right from citizens participation to candidates' selection and presentation of competing political programmes is done by political parties. It is on this note that political parties occupy a special place in the democratic equation. Thus, this paper examines the activities of Nigerian political parties since 1999 to date. The result of examination revealed that Nigerian political parties did not possessed features of political parties such as ideology, party manifestoes, likeminded people as well as viable opposition party. All parties are engaged in intra party conflict rather than embarked on programmes that would benefit the masses. The result of undemocratic conduct of political parties such as candidate's imposition, unclear manifestoes as revealed in this paper, gave rise to assassination that portrayed Nigeria as one of the most risky nation in the world. The paper recommend that all political parties should be reformed and reformed in such a way that ideology and discipline.


The economy of many communities in southeastern Brazil is based on agroindustry, particularly the sugarcane industry. Recent studies have found increased use of herbicides in this type of agriculture, among which diuron and hexazinone are the most widely used. The water supply for some communities is derived entirely from the Guarany Aquifer (the world's largest transborder underground freshwater system), and some wells are located in recharge zones, which makes the groundwater more vulnerable to contamination. In this study, we monitored some of the wells located in the recharge area. We studied the removal of diuron and hexazinone from synthetic water prepared in the laboratory by preoxidation with chlorine and chlorine dioxide, as well as adsorption with granular activated carbon (GAC). The saturation time of GAC in tests with preoxidation with both oxidants was shorter than the saturation time in the test without preoxidation, possibly due to the formation of by - products that competed for the adsorption of the herbicides. The conclusion was that the use of activated carbon is important for removing the herbicides in question, as well as the by - products produced by these oxidants.


Prior traffic stop studies rarely consider officers' qualitative explanations of their sanctioning decisions and are based largely on municipal officers. This article explores campus officers' explanations of how they sanctioned drivers. Data were gathered from fieldwork with campus officers at a large southeastern U.S. university. Findings reveal officers usually handle traffic offenders leniently, opting for no sanction and written warnings over citations and custodial arrest. Officers named seven sanctioning reasons that fit into three broad and interrelated perspectives on crime and punishment. Implications of the findings for future research and policy are discussed.


We succeeded in preparing emulsions and microcapsules stabilized by solid particles and biological lipids. The biological lipids prevent the collapse of the microcapsules.


Singular double integrals of the Green's function and its gradients are calculated fully analytically without numerical integrations from the series expansion of the Green's function. The expansion term integrals are calculated for general 3-D simplexes recursively by lowering the order of the expansion term or the dimension of the integration. The accuracy is verified with some numerical experiments of electromagnetic surface integral equation.


In this article,it compared the details difference of leak tightness test methods in European,American,Japanese and China stainless steel pipe standards,emphasized reasonable selecting test method and test condition,and pointed out selecting reasonable inspection method according to different conditions and end-user's requirements.It introduced the importance of these test methods in monitoring stainless steel pipe quality,which should be paid attention to industry insider,especially for standard draft department,it is very useful to improve quality inspection and monitor level for China stainless steel pipe.


The drinking attitudes of 1,582 college students at 37 colleges in 1970 were compared to those of 710 students at 14 same or matched institutions in 1982. The results suggest little change in such attitudes over the 12 yr.


The article deals with values from the perspective of anthropological and axiological approaches. The undertaken research classifies the values in the context of geocultural subject matter determining integration and disintegration tendenies and including the value systems of globalization and localization causing contradictions of the modern type.


In this paper,combining with the discovery of Lianmeng silver-gold mineralized spot at southeast of Chengmenshan copper deposit,we discussed the importance of carrying out refined geochemical prospecting.That is to follow the criteria of "on the mineral prospecting" and spatial-temporal superposition mineralization of the copper-polymetallic ore deposits,on the basis of geology,guided by modern geochemical ore-forming theory and supported by geochemical exploration of new technologies,new methods and highprecision test,we carried out a new round of geochemical prospecting method research in the depth and periphery of the old mining areas.


Objective To study the variation of protein C (PC) system in acute leukemia (AL) patients and their relations to FAB classification, bleeding symptom and prognosis. Methods The activity and antigen level of PC (PC:A and PC:Ag), as well as thrombomodulin (TM) and Protein S (PS) were measured among 93 cases of AL using ELISA or chromogenic substrate assay. Results Plasma level of TM was elevated significantly at diagnosis; while, PC:Ag was decreased, and PC:A and PS remained unchanged. All the above variables returned to normal after complete remission (CR) except the increase of PC:A and PC:Ag in acute lymphocytic leukemia. None of them was related to hemorrhagic manifestation. All-trans retinoic acid enhanced the level of PC:A and TM, which was not found in arsenic trioxide group in acute promyelocytic leukemia. Increased TM be- fore treatment and after CR, decreased PS before treatment were correlated with poor prognosis. PS before treatment and TM after CR were independent prognostic factors considering relapse-free survival. TM after CR was independently prognostic factors of overall survival. Conclusion There existed the activation of PC system in AL, which could be greatly improved after CR. Although the activation of PC system was not the detendnative factors considering the hemorrhagic manifestation, the elevation of TM, as well as the consumption of PS proved to be an indicator of poor prognosis in AL patients.


. 16 Mar 2022 Introduction: Dental services are a hotspot for viral transmission. Dentists must have complete knowledge about the disease and quick access to information to combat this transmission. To prevent COVID-19 viral spreading through dental practices, dentists must be well-versed in disease and infection control measures. As a result, this study aimed to assess the knowledge of Iranian dentists on the Covid 19 pandemic. Materials &Methods: The present study was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey. A modified questionnaire of a perused one was prepared, the validity of which was confirmed, and the reliability was accepted by Cronbach's alpha test (0.86). This questionnaire was completed by 133 Iranian dentists and included six components: consent to participate in research, demographic information, knowledge, infection control, vaccination, and therapeutic approach. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman rank correlation coefficients, and P<0.05 was considered the level of significance. Results: Iranian dentists are shown to have proper knowledge, but only 21.7% of participants received infection control courses; moreover, only 47% of them knew the accurate incubation period of the Virus. Dentists working in Academic clinics took more preventive measures than those working in private clinics (P=0.023). Conclusion: It is recommended that health care authorities ensure that dentists receive organized


This article reports the findings of a longitudinal study in interlanguage phonology examining the production of two structures in a markedness relationship, biliteral and triliteral onsets, the latter being more marked than the former. This study specifically tests the Interlanguage Structure Conformity Hypothesis (ISCH) by measuring the acquisition of the onsets in the markedness relationship against a criterion measure of 80% correct production. The subjects were 10 native Spanish speakers enrolled in intermediate courses in a community college. Data were gathered twice over a period of 10 months. Results of the study fail to provide any counterevidence to the ISCH.


This paper examines the adaptive patterns of the Chinese family in New York City life. New York Citys 1980 Chinese population was 156331; there has been an increase of approximately 10000/year since then. Chinatown has become the largest Chinese population center in the US. The variety of Chinese life styles and attitudes toward their ethnic identity are mainly due to external circumstances and are results of immigration and the economic adaptation of the Chinese in a new land. The types of Chinese families and the quality of family life of the Chinese have been shaped and influenced by US immigration laws applied to the Chinese: 1) the Chinese Exclusion Law and the Incomplete Family 2) Immigration of War Brides 3) Standard Chinese Scholars and the Wars in China and 4) the New Immigrants. The incompleteconjugal enlarged and nonresidential extended families of Chinese Americans are part and parcel of the consequences of implementation of various immigration laws. Chinese American families in New York City are diverse and complex: 1) old immigrant families--1st generation Chinese who arrived in the US before 1965 2) new immigrant families--families who came after 1965 3) families of American-born Chinese--either 2nd 3rd 4th or 5th generation Americns 4) families of professionals--all 1st generation Chinese who were either stranded in the US or voluntarily migrated for economic opportunities and 5) nonresidential extended families--many generations living in the general vicinity of each other. Though the traditional Chinese family system has been changed and modified in New York City some traditions linger on among all Chinese. Of all the family types discussed in this paper American-born Chinese families are assimilated faster into US society. The replacement of the father-son bond by the husband-wife bond and the substitution of the partrilocal patrilineal kinship system with the neolocal-nuclear family system are 2 examples of the changes stated.


In field experiments conducted in Dillon, Horry, and Marion Counties, South Carolina, from 1964 to 1966, community-wide grower use of blacklight traps was evaluated for effectiveness in controlling the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta (Johannson). Hornworm populations, as measured by field-infestation counts on field tobacco and sucker growth, were approximately the same for the light trap and the outside nontreated areas for all 3 years for the experiment. Dissected females, taken from traps, had deposited at least 50% of their eggs prior to capture, compared with laboratory-reared females. The average number of female moths captured per trap in the 2 areas was approximately the same. In a communitywide light trap program (3 traps per square mile in a 100-square-mile area), the black-light trap did not control the tobacco homworm under South Carolina conditions.


Objective: To investigate clinical effect and safety of small doses of midazolam combined with fentanyl for local anesthesia.Method: 120 patients with local anesthesia in our hospital were divided into the observation group(60) and the control group(60).The MAP,HR,sedative effect,completely forgetting rates,uncomfort of surgery of the two group were observed.Result: The two groups of patients with the decline in MAP and HR before anesthesia to a certain degree,but are within the normal range;MAP and HR for two sets of time points compared to each other,there was no significant difference(P0.05).The incidence of respiratory depression and completely forgetting rate of the observer group were higher than the control group.sedative effects of observation was better than control groups,discomfort of observation was less than control group.Conclusion: Small doses of midazolam combined with fentanyl anesthesia used for local anesthesia can make good results,better security,and application.


Junctions are basic joints of road network and their models affect traffic operation and safety greatly. There are quite number of Y shaped junctions at the highway. The existence of such abnormal junctions lowers operation efficiency and triggers traffic accidents. In the rebuilding constructions, T shaped junctions may be new builds but often are converted from Y shaped junctions. For more engineering applications, there is a need to estimate the safety effects of conversions. Several studies have estimated reductions in crashes and severity; however, these results pertain mainly to conversions from Y junctions without signal control. Results for conversions from signalized Y junctions have been less conclusive. The authors study aimed to fill this void by estimating the safety performance of converting signalized Y shaped junctions to signalized T shaped junctions. Several cities in Jiangsu province along the national highway G205 helped to identify in the recent past. The empirical Bayes method was used to estimate the safety effects of conversations. The results indicated a safety benefit for converting signalized Y shaped junctions to T shaped junctions. There were reductions in both total and injury crashes, with a larger benefit for non-vehicle injury crashes. Further analysis indicated that the safety benefit of T shaped junctions for total crashes decreased as traffic volumes increase, a result that suggests the need for the development of a crash modification function (CMF), a task for which more data would be required.


The purpose of this study is to show how violent crime and social problems have an impact on society. This study particularly concentrates on the five boroughs of New York. The problems associated ...


The study focuses on uninhabited areas that need to be preserved as a buffer to reduce the negative effects of economic activity. The most environmentally friendly nature management for such places is nature-oriented tourism. In this connection, the purpose of the study is determined as follows: to study the large-scale hierarchy of uninhabited spaces in relation to territories of different levels. As an example, areas of different scales are characterized. Local - surrounding the city of Perm: homogeneous. Regional - surrounding the pole of inaccessibility of the Perm Territory: heterogeneous, the core is expressed, where the Vishersky reserve and the periphery are located. National-continental - located in Evenkia, homogeneous in structure, limited by settlements, roads and navigable water bodies. Planetary - located in Greenland, homogeneous in structure, limited by the coastline of the island.


One of the greatest challenges in the development of Indian economy is widening regional income inequality. Since its independence, Indian states have experienced different degree and pace of economic growth, where some states are forerunner in terms of economic growth and some others languishing behind. North East India as a backward region of the country has also experienced a varied growth during the planning era. Although the average growth of GSDP of the region is below the national average, it has shown sign of improvement in the post-reform period. Based on the secondary information collated from reports of National Sample Survey Organization, Central Statistical Organization, and Reserve Bank of India, the paper examines the trend and growth of inter-state income inequality of eight state economies of the North Eastern region of India.


La(subscript 1-x)Sr(subscript x)MnO3/Si heterostructures were prepared by pulsed laser deposition(PLD) on the Si (100) substrate. The XRD results showed that all of the films were well structured. The TG-DSC results showed that the perovskite phase of LSMO film fabricated by PLD method formed well at 750℃.


Steroids, such as cholesterol, are synthesized in almost all eukaryotic cells, which use these triterpenoid lipids to control the fluidity and flexibility of their cell membranes. Bacteria rarely synthesize such tetracyclic compounds but frequently replace them with a different class of triterpenoids, the pentacyclic hopanoids. The intriguing mechanisms involved in triterpene biosynthesis have attracted much attention, resulting in extensive studies of squalene‐hopene cyclase in bacteria and (S)‐2,3‐oxidosqualene cyclases in eukarya. Nevertheless, almost nothing is known about steroid biosynthesis in bacteria. Only three steroid‐synthesizing bacterial species have been identified before this study. Here, we report on a variety of sterol‐producing myxobacteria. Stigmatella aurantiaca is shown to produce cycloartenol, the well‐known first cyclization product of steroid biosynthesis in plants and algae. Additionally, we describe the cloning of the first bacterial steroid biosynthesis gene, cas, encoding the cycloartenol synthase (Cas) of S. aurantiaca. Mutants of cas generated via site‐directed mutagenesis do not produce the compound. They show neither growth retardation in comparison with wild type nor any increase in ethanol sensitivity. The protein encoded by cas is most similar to the Cas proteins from several plant species, indicating a close evolutionary relationship between myxobacterial and eukaryotic steroid biosynthesis.


An operational advisory method is proposed for a heat pump/thermal storage system. The daily operational strategy of thermal storage tanks is determined by a layered neural network, which receives off-line education to minimize differences from the optimal strategy. The hourly operational strategy of constituent equipment is designed to minimize the hourly operational cost, based on the daily operational strategy of thermal storage tanks. The constituent equipment is operated on the basis of the determined strategy. A simulation model is developed to investigate the effects of the proposed method on the operational strategy and cost. Simulation results show that the proposed method is a useful tool for rational operation from an economic viewpoint.


This paper describes a method for designing 2-dimensional F.I.R. digital filters to an arbitrary phase, as well as gain, specification. Examples are given of filters designed using this approach.


Hydrogenation of toluene to methylcyclohexene and methylcyclohexane was performed over a commercial 5% Ru/act. charcoal catalyst. The reaction was strongly affected by deactivation of the catalyst. The complete reaction model was examined together with a number of its simplified versions regarding their ability to fit experimental data. On the basis of the regression analysis results it was shown that methylcyclohexene could be thought as the main source of the strongly and irreversibly adsorbed surface deposits responsible for activity decrease of the catalyst. Direct transformation of toluene to methylcyclohexane was found to be insignificant. On the other hand substantial role of disproportionation of methylcyclohexene was proved.


Despite the prospective benefits of a revenue management (RM) program, some hotel managers remain concerned that customers perceive RM as being unfair. Studies have shown that offering customers information on a hotel's pricing practices can enhance their perceptions of fairness. To determine how much and what type of information hotels should provide in this context, researchers administered a scenario-based survey to 120 travelers. The study found that giving would-be guests relatively complete information about how a hotel's RM policies operate increases their perception of RM's fairness. The study found that merely letting travelers know that the hotel's rates vary was not enough to improve customers' perceptions of fairness (even with a favorable rate). When respondents were also told that rates varied according to day of the week (with weekend rates being lower), length of stay, and how far in advance the reservation was made, their perceptions of fairness improved significantly.


Behavioral finance is touted as, among others, a scientific approach to investment which combines psychology and economics, and investigates the consequences in markets when some of its participants display not logically perfectly-informed risk-averse utility-maximizing behavior, but instead act like actual human beings.  Two questions are considered: (1) "What does the science of behavioral finance imply about the behavior of stock prices?"; and also (2) "Are the predictions that behavioral makes about the behavior stock prices scientific ?" This is a thought piece organized around these two questions.  Using Popper's framework that scientific hypotheses require falsifiability, we conclude that behavioral finance is only falsifiable (and thus "scientific") in a limited sense.


An inherently limiting assumption of the KozenyCarman equation of permeability is not allowing interaction across the parallel flow through a bundle of tubes model. While this condition can be observed for flow through sufficiently high porosity homogeneous porous media, the Kozeny-Carman equation cannot represent the permeability of low porosity heterogeneous porous media. This paper presents a modeling of flow through a leaky-flow tube allowing interactions with flow occurring in other flow tubes in a bundle of tubes model of porous media. Then, the effect of such interactions is taken into account by incorporating the pore connectivity by means of the coordination number. The deviations of the real porous structure from the assumption of a bundle of tubes of uniform size are taken into account by the fractal representations. This leads to the modification of the Kozeny-Carman equation to a power-law equation of permeability whose parameters vary by well-described relationships. INTRODUCTION The frequently used Kozeny-Carman [2,15] equation is based on the visualization of porous media flow as a bundle of tubes through which flow occurs without having any interactions between the various tubes. Thus, an inherently limiting assumption of this model is the treatment of the tubes as having impermeable boundaries. Another simplifying assumption is the consideration of an average tube diameter and perfectly cylindrical tubes of uniform diameters. The effect of the tube diameter and length distributions is overlooked. Consequently, the Kozeny-Carman equation cannot describe the permeability of porous media when the preferential flow paths having the least resistivity are significantly tortuous and intermingling and therefore cross-flow effects cannot be neglected. In fact, many studies have already proven that the Kozeny-Carman equation essentially works well for high permeability porous media but fails for low porosity and low permeability media. However, the efforts made at remediating this problem have been limited mostly to empirical or semi-empirical approaches. The only theoretical approach made at alleviating the limitations of the Kozeny-Carman equation has been presented by Civan [3-9] in a series of papers based on a power-law flow-units representation approach with fractal attributes. The power-law flow-units approach is improved further by incorporating the "cross-flow effect" into the bundle of leaky tubes model of tortuous flow paths in heterogeneous porous media (Civan [11]). In addition a triple-flow mechanism fractal model of pore-size distribution including the hydraulic dispersion effect (Civan [6] is implemented instead of a constant average tube size used in the Kozeny-Carman equation [2,15]. Detailed numerical examples were presented by Civan [3-9], demonstrating the accuracy of the new modeling approach in comparison to the Kozeny-Carman equation against the experimental data obtained from a variety of core samples taken from the conventional and unconventional oil and gas reservoirs. The dependence of the cross-flow effects on the sample heterogeneity and tortuosity were correlated in terms of the relevant dimensionless numbers. The correlations show that the cross-flow effects gain importance above a criticalpressure differential depending on the fluid mobility number (effective permeability divided by viscosity and normalized over the variation range) (Prada and Civan [17]). NOMENCLATURE Ab = porous media bulk-surface area Af = porous media area open for flow Ah = cross-sectional area of flow tube c = fractal coefficient C = fractal coefficient C = fractal coefficient d = fractal dimension e = constant D = fractal dimension D = fractal dimension Dh = mean hydraulic tube diameter K = permeability Ko = reference permeability Lb = porous media length Lh = hydraulic tube length n = number of hydraulic tubes


Abstract A flexible computational model, based on a generalized object-oriented iterative algorithm is developed for the analysis of power and process cycles. Each component of the plant is identified as an object, and the interlinking between various objects is achieved through an appropriate node connectivity. Subsequently, 'iteration loops' are activated, consistent with the number of primary unknowns, until a converged solution is achieved. Simulation results are presented that correspond to the heat balance analysis of a typical cogeneration cycle of a process plant.


Study objective: In our study, we aimed to examine the associations between subjective sleep quality, potential sleep disorder, chronic diseases, and cognitive functions of geriatric patients having comorbid diseases. Methods: A total of 212 volunteer geriatric patients (male/female: 110/102; mean (± SD) age: 74.58 ± 7.43) were included in our study. This study was designed as a cross-sectional study. Sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) risk, cognitive functions and major depression were evaluated with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth and Berlin questionnaire, Mini Mental (MM) test, and Beck depression scale, respectively. Results: 138(65.1%) of total patients had good sleep quality, 74(34.9%) had poor sleep quality. MM test points were normal in 92(66.7%) of patients having good subjective sleep quality and 59(79.8%) of patients having poor sleep quality (p=0.045). Patients having normal MM test points had lower median age (72) than those having lower points (78). MM test points were lower in single, female, unemployed, or physically inactive patients rather than married (p=0.006), male, employed or physically active patients (p<0.001).Geriatric patients with chronic diseases had significantly poorer sleep quality (p=0.037). Patients having gonarthrosis or major depression had significantly poorer sleep quality than the patients without gonarthrosis or major depression (p=0.041, p<0.001; respectively). Cigarette smoking increased the risk of poor sleep quality 2.01 times. Conclusion: The sleep quality of geriatric patients affects significantly the cognitive functions of thepatients. Sleep quality of older persons may be improved by education of sleep hygiene, informing them regarding to sleep health, and removal of potential risks for sleep disorders. ABBREVIATIONS BMI: Body Mass Index; MM: Mini Mental; NIH: National Institutes of Health; OSAS: Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome; PQST: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; REM: Rapid Eye Movement; SD: Standard Deviation INTRODUCTION Normal aging lead some changes in body systems; sleep neurophysiology may also be affected by these changes. It is well known that disturbance of sleep quality and increased sleep disorders may be observed in geriatric population [1]. Studies including geriatric population showed us that the frequency of sleep disorders was as high as 50 % [2]. With aging, initiation and maintenance of sleep become more difficult and total sleep duration decreases. With increasing age, sleep becomes more superficial, more frequent disruptions in sleep are observed, and duration of deep wave and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep declines. Sleep disorders arising with these changes in sleep Central Bringing Excellence in Open Access   Kayabekir et al. (2018) Email: firstname.lastname@example.com JSM Brain Sci 3(1): 1020 (2018) 2/7 quality may be accepted as inherent. Sleep disordered breathing, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, and periodic extremity movements during sleep, which are leading causes of sleep disorders, may be encountered more frequently with aging [3,4]. Sleep disorders decrease life quality, increase falls, and disturb cognitive functions. Additionally, therapeutic management of sleep disorders cause a new additional drug for patient, drug-drug interactions, and polypharmacy [5-9]. Sleep disorders may be the result or predictor for chronic illnesses. Insomnia secondary to chronic diseases was defined as 'comorbid insomnia' by National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2005 [10]. Although a lot of studies according to sleep health in geriatric population were done in several countries, reports concerning to sleep physiology and disorders in geriatric population were limited in our country. In our study, we aimed to examine the associations between subjective sleep quality, potential sleep disorder, chronic diseases and cognitive functions in geriatric population with comorbid disorders in Turkey, and to determine the sexual differences in this manner. METHODS Study design, participants, and ethics In accordance with the declaration of Helsinki, totally 212 volunteer geriatric patients (male/female: 110/102; mean (± SD) age: 74.58 ± 7.43 years) were included in our study. We included the patients ≥ 65years-old with adequate cognitive functions making them enable to fill the written informed consent form, who were referred to our clinics between June 2016 and September 2016. Patients younger than 65 years-old, having active malignancy or severe cognitive dysfunction, making them unable to fill the written informed consent were excluded from the study. Demographic data (age, gender, education level, job, place of residence, number of people in place of residence), cigarette and alcohol use, body mass index (BMI), medication, and chronic diseases and physical activity were questioned prospectively. The patients were grouped as young-old (6574), middleold (75-84), and oldest-old (≥ 85) according to their age. BMI was achieved by dividing body weight in kilogram to square of height in meter. The patients were also grouped as underweight (BMI<20kg/m2), normal weight (BMI 20-24.99 kg/ m2), overweight (25-29.9 kg/m2), and obese (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) according to their BMI values [11]. Usage of 4 or more drugs was defined as polypharmacy [12].The patients who did exercise at least 3 times a week or at least 30 minutes each day in last month were accepted as they did physical activity. Mini mental test Cognitive functions (orientation, registration, attention, calculation, recall, language) of our patients were evaluated with Mini Mental (MM) Test. This test was first defined by Folstein and colleagues [13]. Turkish validity and reliability of this test was done by Güngen et al, [14]. If MM test score was between 24 and 30, it was accepted as normal; if the score was lower than 24, it was accepted as cognitive dysfunction. Short beck depression scale Short Beck depression scale was used for major depression. That scale was first used by Beck and colleagues. The point ranges of 0-10, 11-13, and ≥ 14 were evaluated as "no depression", "possible depression", and "depression present", respectively [15]. Pittsburgh sleep quality index Sleep quality was evaluated by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) including 19 questions. PSQI is a questionnaire evaluating sleep quality and including questions under 7 categories such as subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficacy, sleep disorders, sleep medication usage, and daytime functionality in the last month [16]. Turkish validity and reliability of this test was done by Agargun et al, (1996). Subjective sleep quality was accepted as low in patients having PSQI score of ≥ 5; however, subjective sleep quality was accepted as high in patients having PSQI score of <5 [17]. Epworth test The Epworth test was performed to evaluate daytime sleepiness. This test was first defined by MW Johns in the literature and totally contains 8 questions. Each question should be filled by the patient itself by scoring between 0 and 3. This questionnaire questions patients about possibility of whether they fall asleep in an ordinary day without being excessive tired. In all questions, same scoring method is used; if there is no possibility to fall asleep it takes 0 point, low possibility 1 point, moderate possibility 2 points, and high possibility 3 points. Total points of ≥ 10 show us excessive daytime sleepiness [18]. Turkish validity of this test was done and it was reported that Turkish version was effective to designate daytime sleepiness [19]. Berlin questionnaire Berlin questionnaire was used for Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) risk. Berlin questionnaire was prepared for population screening and contains 10 questions under 3 main categories. Each category was evaluated in itself; if 2 or more categories were resulted as positive, increased OSAS risk was accepted by Berlin Questionnaire [20]. Ethical approval was received by Ethics Committee of Regional Training and Research Hospital, Erzurum (21. 06. 2016 2016/ 12-95). Data analysis Data was recorded to IBM SPSS 16. For descriptive results according to variables, mean ± standard deviation was given for numeric data, and frequency and percentage were given for categorical variables. As regards to type of variable, Chi-square analysis and two group comparison tests (Student-t test, MannWhitney U test) were performed. The analysis of correlation was evaluated by Pearson correlation test due to that variables were normally distributed. p values of ≤ 0.05 were accepted as statistically significant. RESULTS A total of 212 geriatric patients with a mean age of 74.58 ± 7.43 (65-94) were included in our study. Among which, 110 (51.9%) patients were female, 102 (48.1%) patients were male. Demographic features, chronic diseases and comorbidities, distribution of patient groups determined by cut-off points of Central Bringing Excellence in Open Access   Kayabekir et al. (2018) Email: email@example.com JSM Brain Sci 3(1): 1020 (2018) 3/7 the tests were presented in Table 1-3 respectively. Mean time to fall asleep was 26.5 ± 37.85 minutes, mean total sleep duration 7.9 ± 1.6 hours, and mean bedtime 21.45 ± 1.55. There were no correlations between cognitive functions, and time to fall asleep, total sleep time or mean bedtime (p>0.05). Sleep quality, daytime sleepiness and OSAS risk in elder population We detected poor sleep quality in 34.9% of the patients, daytime sleepiness in 14.2%, OSAS risk in 85.8%. BMI values were higher in female (median (min.-max.) = 28.9(19.5-42.9)) than male patients (median (min.-max.) = 25.9(16.2-35.4)) (p<0.001). Female patients were found as at high risk for OSAS (p=0.028). The patients having high quality of sleep were determined to stay with higher number of people in their place of residence rather than patients having lower quality of sleep (5 vs 4, respectively, p=0.


The aim of the paper is to analyze the effectiveness of smoke exhaust ventilation for the protection of metro technical personnel. Therefore, the specified technological corridor as a part of the underground station was chosen. The Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) was used to carry out numerical simulations. Due to the low fire hazard, the heat release rate (HRR) was set at 1 MW after 250 s. Four cases were analyzed: three differing in the location of the fire source and a reference case in which the smoke exhaust ventilation is turned off. The analysis took into account temperature distributions and gas flow speeds, and qualitative verification of visibility. It was shown that the variant in which the fire source was located in the middle of the corridor turned out to be the most unfavorable variant in terms of the effectiveness of smoke exhaust ventilation. The operation of the smoke exhaust ventilation improved visibility, and reduced the temperature from 270 °C to 120–155 °C, depending on the variant, with local maximum flow speeds not exceeding 10 m/s. It was shown that properly designed smoke exhaust ventilation enables the evacuation of employees within the required safe evacuation time (RSET).


Critical thinking (CT) is one of the most important 21st-century skills that employers believe will grow in prominence. However, many higher education (HE) graduates often lack it. This is also true for graduates in computer science (CS) and related disciplines, who need CT to drive social and organizational digitalization. There are a number of strategies for teaching CT. However, there is no evidence regarding how to effectively teach CT in CS. To address this gap, this study proposes an educational approach that aims to promote CT to the students of CS and related disciplines. An educational experiment using this approach was conducted in two modules with similar content. The written reflections of 11 students on their development in CT and the quantitative data of students' self-assessments of their CT skills and dispositions before (N = 20) and after (N = 11) the experiment were analyzed. Priority was given to the qualitative data. The results of this study support the hypothesis that the proposed approach has a positive impact on the development of students' perceived CT skills. They also show that this approach stimulates and promotes students' ability to transfer CT to other tasks and domains and to other contexts and situations. However, the positive development of students' CT dispositions could not be demonstrated in this study, which can be explained by the short duration of this intervention.


Introduction - Objective: The new Gold Assessment of COPD now includes more than spirometry results which is also assessing the risks and symptoms about COPD. We aimed to see the changes in treatment protocols of pulmonologists in COPD patients after Combined Assessment of COPD. Method: COPD patients followed by a few clinics were assessed observationally. They were categorized by Spirometry Classification and Combined Assessment of COPD. The treatment protocols were evaluated if they were suitable for both classifications. Results: 307 patients were included in the study. It was reported that treatment protocols were suitable for 40.4% both, 30.9 % combined and 20.8% spirometric classification. 51.8% of patients were using an unsuitable therapy for spirometric and 38.4% for combined assessment. 98% of unsuitable treatment was overtreatment. 58% of patients were using LABA + LAMA + ICS. Improper ICS usage, the most common type of improper drug usage, was found to be 97.1% in combined, 93.1% in spirometric classification. Conclusions: There is a high rate of impropriety to treatment protocols of classifications of COPD. It was remarkable that most of the unsuitable usage was about ICS therapy. It was thinked that it could be about the high usage of combined devices in our country.


In recent years increasingly sophisticated models have transformed our understanding of hydrology and land use. However, while there has been much discussion of multi-disciplinary approaches in hydroinformatics, it is notable that few tools attempt to integrate analyses from different disciplines. The Catchment Management and Poverty (CAMP) alleviation project is an attempt to predict the effects of water and forestry policy on the livelihoods of people living in developing countries using a multi-disciplinary approach. Integral to the research is Integrated Water Resource Management at the catchment scale and the sustainable livelihoods framework for analysis at the household scale. The sustainable livelihoods paradigm conceptualises the resources available to an individual in terms of five 'capitals': natural, economic, human, social and physical. While the immediate application of the research is in the Republic of South Africa, the methods of analysis developed are intended to be applicable to a more general situation and will be validated in at least two other developing countries: Tanzania and Grenada. The methodology is intended to guide policy over water and land use issues. This paper gives an outline of the methodologies employed and a description of the sustainable livelihoods approach and discusses how they relate to the Luvuvhu catchment in South Africa. A conceptualisation of an integrated model is presented and modelling options are discussed.


In 1910 the War Minister Mahmud ?evket Pasa requested reports from the military attaches of the War Ministry on the activities of European armies, including information on military organisations and aviation. To this end Enver Bey, who was to become War Minister and one of the Committee of Union and Progress triumvirate in charge of the empire at the beginning of the First World War, was sent to Germany, and Ali Fethi (Okyar), later to be the Turkish Republics ambassador in Paris, was sent to France. Having observed military manoeuvres in France, Fethi Bey prepared a report stressing the importance of aviation and the pressing need for an air force organisation within the Ottoman army.1 Following this report, General Chief of Staff engineer officer Lieutenant Colonel Sureyya Bey from the Second Division of the General Chief of Staff was appointed in June 1911 to head aviation oper ations.2 In order to gather more information about aviation, Sureyya Bey then requested that the military attaches in Berlin, Paris and Vienna obtain published books and documents on the subject.3 In the same period as the Ottomans were taking the first steps towards the creation of an air force, an event occurred which was to give a considerable impetus to this new endeavour. On 29 September 1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman empire. Troops were despatched to Tripoli and Bengazi, then under Ottoman sovereignty, and the Italian fleet was sent to the Dardanelles. Despite the fact that the Ottomans performed very well on land, successfully engaging the Italians at Tripoli, it was the Italians who triumphed in the war,


A quantitative study of over 1000 skins of Redshank from Iceland to India and China forms the basis of a complete revision of the taxonomy of the species throughout its present geographical range. Problems of dimorphism and hybridization are also discussed.


Ori and Thorne have discussed the duration and observability (with LISA) of the transition from circular, equatorial inspiral to plunge for stellar-mass objects into supermassive ${(10}^{5}\ensuremath{-}{10}^{8}{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}})$ Kerr black holes. We extend their computation to eccentric Kerr equatorial orbits. Even with orbital parameters near exactly determined, we find that there is no universal length for the transition; rather, the length of the transition depends sensitively\char22{}essentially randomly\char22{}on initial conditions. Still, the Ori-Thorne zero-eccentricity results are essentially an upper bound on the length of eccentric transitions involving similar bodies (e.g., a fixed). Hence the implications for observations are no better: if the massive body is ${M=10}^{6}{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}},$ the captured body has a mass m, and the process occurs at distance d from LISA, then $S/N\ensuremath{\lesssim}{(m/10M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}})(1\mathrm{Gpc}/d)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}O(1),$ with the precise constant depending on the black hole spin. For low-mass bodies $(m\ensuremath{\lesssim}{7M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}})$ for which the event rate is at least vaguely understood, we expect little chance (probably [much] less than $10%,$ depending strongly on the astrophysical assumptions) of LISA detecting a transition event with $S/Ng5$ during its run; however, even a small infusion of higher-mass bodies or a slight improvement in LISA's noise curve could potentially produce $S/Ng5$ transition events during LISA's lifetime.


Adsorptive breakthrough modelling is essential for design of a sorption packed bed. In this work, breakthrough modelling of the furfural uptake in bagasse fly ash (BFA) packed bed has been performed. Effect of various parameters like bed height (Z = 15-60 cm), flow rate (Q = 0.02-0.04 L/min) and initial furfural concentration (Co = 50-200 mg/L) on the breakthrough curve of furfural sorption in a BFA packed bed have been studied. Enhanced breakthrough performance was observed for the higher value of Z, and lower values of Co and Q. For Co = 100 mg/L, packed bed operated at Q = 0.03 L/min and Z = 60 cm was found to have lowest adsorbent utilization rate of 5.61 g/L with highest breakthrough volume of 14.67 L. Bed depth service time and Thomas models well represented the experimental data points under all experimental conditions. It can be concluded that BFA can be utilized efficiently in continuous system for the removal of furfural. Overall, more than 99% of furfural was adsorbed in BFA packed bed at experimental conditions.


The purpose is to explain dual and multi-photon photoelectric emission by using classical electrodynamics. It is realized that photoelectric emission is dependent on the incident light's frequency and the photon density (the number of the photon per unit area) of the incident light.


BACKGROUND
Limited studies have proposed protocols for the management of failure of eruption (FOE) of permanent molars with no clear consensus or guidelines. Accurate diagnosis is challenging but key for successful management.

AIMS
Confirm key diagnostic criteria that will aid diagnostic differentiation between primary failure of eruption (PFE) and mechanical failure of eruption (MFE) of permanent molars and identify successful management strategies.

DESIGN
Retrospective descriptive study. Patients diagnosed with FOE of permanent molars (excluding impaction) between January 2003 and December 2013 were identified. Patient details and clinical and radiological features of FOE were recorded. Two examiners analysed the data. A diagnosis of PFE or MFE was made based on a combination of current protocols. Management strategies for each were identified and reported as satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

RESULTS
Thirty-one patients met the inclusion criteria. Fifteen were classified as PFE and 14 as MFE. One patient was too young to confirm diagnosis, and one patient had delayed eruption. A total of 26% of cases were misdiagnosed which led to unsuccessful orthodontic management.

CONCLUSION
We propose a protocol based on the results of this study coupled with existing protocols in the form of a simple flow diagram to aid accurate diagnosis and management of this rare and challenging clinical problem.


Geographical conditions monitoring is the basic elements of the conditions the spatial distribution,spatial composition relationship,trends in spatial distribution and composition of dynamic and continuous monitoring and analysis of the causes,trends to predict the means and methods of combination.Geographical conditions to monitor economic and social development work on the mapping of geographic information of the new requirements.This article describes the geographic situation of monitoring content,technical route,organization and implementation methods,from speed to form a national mapping of geographic information,"a network,a library and a platform" for the three geographical conditions described in detail the monitoring of key infrastructure projects,to promote the work of the business,standardization and normalization.


While sedimentation equilibrium is most commonly used to characterize the molecular weight and state of association of single proteins, this technique is also a very powerful tool for probing the interactions between two or more different proteins, and can characterize both the binding stoichiometry and the equilibrium constants. To resolve the complex binding interactions that can occur in such systems, it is crucial to globally fit data from many experiments to a common binding model, including samples made with different mixing ratios and a wide range of total concentration. It is often also essential to constrain the parameters during fitting so that the fits correctly reproduce the molar ratio of proteins used in making each sample. We have applied this methodology to probe mechanisms of receptor activation for a number of hematopoietic receptors and their cognate ligands, using receptor extracellular domains expressed as soluble proteins. Such data can potentially help in the design of improved or new protein therapeutics, as well as in efforts to create small- molecular mimetics of protein hormones through structure- based drug design. Sedimentation equilibrium has shown that stem cell factor, erythropoietin, and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor can each dimerize their respective receptors in solution, but the mechanism of ligand-induced receptor dimerization for these three systems are strikingly different.


Optimizing rural human settlement to improve households' life quality and balance urban and rural development is an important part of new rural communities' construction.Taking underdeveloped areas as geography unit,this article discussed the evolution characteristics and micro-mechanism of rural human settlement in particular areas during the transition based on the survey data of 100 farmers in 8 villages in Hong' an County.The Results shows that rural human settlement has changed very much under the quick development of urbanization and industrialization.From the point of microcosmic angle,rural human settlement evolution is in reality the external aspects of households' spatial behavior.Different types of households' spatial behavior have different influence on rural human settlement.Households' habitable space behavior is the micro-foundation of rural human settlement evolution.The rural culture transition relies on common guide by behavior and social communication space behavior.Expansion of social communication space is the result as well as the demand of employment space expansion.It is also the main force of new values formation for households.Rural human settlement is a complicated system project.Its academic infrastructure and research framework have not formed,so there are much more filed need further study.Taking underdeveloped areas as geography unit,this article tries to discuss evolution rules and micro-mechanism of rural human settlement in particular areas during the transition based on the investigation data.


TiO2 nanotube arrays are becoming increasingly more attractive for their excellent biocompatibility and photocatalytic properties in biomedical fields.However,no work has been reported on the adhesion characteristic of renal tubular epithelial cells to TiO2 nanotube film in order to fulfill a function of renal tubular.In the present study,novel titania nanotube arrays are fabricated on a pure titanium foil by means of the electrochemical anodization in this group.The effects of illumination performance,crystal structure,and geometry parameters of TiO2 nanotubes on the adhesion of Lewis-lung cancer porcine kidney 1(LLC-PK1) are investigated by fluorescence microscope.The cell viability is examined by MTT.Furthermore,the morphologies of cell growth on nanotubes with four various pore sizes are observed using filed emission scaning electron microscope(FESEM);micrographs for cell growth on the pure titanium foil are also provided as a contrast.The results show that the TiO2 nanotube arrays with pore size of about 70 nm have an advantage of optimal adhesion and proliferation for LLC-PK1 cell,and as a consequence giving higher cell viability.In comparison with the amorphous TiO2,the anatase nanotube arrays are more favorable to cell adhesion under a condition of the absence of UV irradiation;however,anatase TiO2 irradiated with UV light can cause apoptosis.SEM studies show that the LLC-PK1 cells grown on nanotube arrays have an elongated strip morphology,whereas cells grown on pure titanium foil exhibit the plate-like accumulation state.It demonstrates that novel titania nanotube array films have good biocompatibility,which can help to improve the cell adhesion.


In this research, it is aimed to examine the readiness for online education of teachers who are members of the eTwinning platform (eTwinner) and who take part in the project processes that present a quality label as a result, in the context of demographic and technology usage variables and to develop suggestions in this direction. The research, based on the cross-sectional survey model, was carried out with 384 teachers working in Eskişehir and registered on the eTwinning portal in the 2022-2023 academic year. The K–12 Teachers' Online Teaching Readiness Scale was applied. In the analysis of the data, a t-test was used for variables with two sublevels, and one-way ANOVA was used for the variables with more than two sublevels. In case of a difference in the ANOVA test, post-hoc tests were used to determine the pairwise differences. The results showed that the average level of readiness for online education of eTwinner teachers working in Eskişehir is high and the group with the highest readiness for online education is teachers with a service period of 1-10 years. Among the factors of educational technology proficiency, learner readiness, and relative usefulness, male teachers were more than female. On the other hand, it is a remarkable result in the research that female teachers have higher proficiency in pedagogical and ethical competency than male teachers, and that postgraduate teachers in technical and pedagogical, and ethical competence have higher proficiency than those with undergraduate degrees.


a bite block resulting in pulmonary oedema [3]. It is clear that these airway adjuncts are not a complete solution to the problem. We wish to highlight that the SafeBite protector does not guarantee the prevention of laryngeal mask occlusion by a patient's bite. This incident has been reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the item in question has been returned to the suppliers.


We present an investigation into the effect of the motion of a printed circuit board (PCB) on the response of a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) device to shock loads. A two-degrees-of-freedom model is used to model the motion of the PCB and the microstructure, which can be a beam or a plate. The mechanical shock is represented as a single point force impacting the PCB. The effects of the fundamental natural frequency of the PCB, damping, shock pulse duration, electrostatic force, and their interactions are investigated. It is found that neglecting the PCB effect on the modeling of MEMS under shock loads can lead to erroneous predictions of the microstructure motion. Further, contradictory to what is mentioned in literature that a PCB, as a worst-case scenario, transfers the shock pulse to the microstructure without significantly altering its shape or intensity, we show that a poor design of the PCB or the MEMS package may result in severe amplification of the shock effect. This amplification can cause early pull-in instability for MEMS devices employing electrostatic forces.


Absolute differential cross sections for elastic scattering and vibrational excitation of have been measured at incident energies between 0.6 and 5.4 eV. These cross sections have also been extrapolated and integrated in order to derive integral and momentum transfer cross sections which are compared with the results of previous single-collision and electron swarm experiments. Elastic differential cross sections have also been calculated using a body-fixed (BF), single-centre expansion (SCE) for the close-coupled (CC) equations. There is excellent agreement between the present data and the most recent elastic scattering results of Boesten and Tanaka, but substantial discrepancies between these two data sets and several previous measurements. There is also excellent agreement at most energies between the present measured and calculated elastic cross sections.


Turbo decoded redundant residue number system (RRNS) codes are proposed and their performance is evaluated. An RRNS (n,k) code is a maximum-minimum distance block code, exhibiting identical distance properties to Reed-Solomon (RS) codes. Hence their error correction capability is given by t=(n-k)/2. We adapt the classic Chase algorithm in order to accept soft inputs and to provide soft outputs. Using the proposed soft input soft output (SISO) Chase algorithm, the turbo decoding of RRNS codes is contrived.


PURPOSE: To obtain a dielectric ceramic material whose dielectric properties can be reliably reproduced and optimized for specific fields of application by preparing a specific substituted barium - neodymium - titanium - perovskite which has a defect structure. CONSTITUTION: The perovskite has a defect structure and expressed by the formula I (in the formula, cation II at least comprises Ba 2+ , Nd 3+ and optionally one or more cations selected from the group Cs + , Rb + , Tl + ,... ..., Tm 3+ , Yb 3+ and/or Lu 3+ ; cation III at least comprises Ti 4+ and optionally one or more cations selected from the group Mn 2+ , Cr 2+ ,... ..., Mn 4+ , Ge 4+ and/or Re 7+ ; black squares are cation vacancies; a 1 +a 2 +...a n+1 is 1; a n+1 is >0.17 and <0.30; b 1 +b 2 +...b n is 1; a 1 n 1 +a 2 n 2 +...a n n n +b 1 m 1 +b 2 m 2 +...b m m m is 6). In preparation, oxides or carbonates having about 0.5 μm average particle size are compounded corresponding to the chemical composition, after wet grinding calcined and sintered at 1,000-1,400°C after forming. COPYRIGHT: (C)1995,JPO


The study was conducted with the aim of evaluating three maize varieties (BH-660, BH-540 and Kulani) allreleased for production in high potential maize zones of Ethiopia by Bako Research Center for grain yield,stover components, digestible crop residue yield and nutritive value of the stover. The analysis of variancerevealed that differences between varieties were significant (P 0.05); grain and leaf yields being significantly highest for BH-660. The cob and total residueyields were lowest for BH-540. The values for harvest index were highest for BH-540 (52.74%), intermediate forBH-660 (51.96 %) and lowest for Kulani (45.66 %). Significant varietal differences were observed for ash(P BH-660 > Kulani.Consistently similar ranking order was observed for stalk, total residue, CP and CP yield; the ranking beingKulani > BH- 660 > BH-540. BH-660 ranked first in grain yield and consistently ranked second for most of theimportant quality traits. Varieties with higher grain yield were also observed to have higher digestible cropresidue yields suggesting the possibility of selecting maize varieties that combine grain yield with desirableresidue quality attributes.


The purpose of this research is to clarify and optimize the job shop scheduling problem under the environment of hybrid operations of machining. The machining operations of the jobs could not be finished in its own plant and thus inter-cell productions are considered. First, we clarify the features of the above job shop scheduling problem in detail and propose a new optimization criterion which accords with fact problems. Second, we set up a mathematical model for such job shop scheduling problem. Then, we bring up two heuristic algorithms named JSBGAHEU (Joint Scheduling-based) and SCMC-HEU (System-Coordinated based Min Cost) whose chromosomes have two layer structures to solve the model. The optimal solution of the former algorithm is taken as the reference points of calculating the fitness of the latter algorithm. At last, we analyze the proper application scope of the two algorithms through changing their parameters.


Review of: Cuisset T, Deharo P, Quilici J, et al. Benefit of switching dual antiplatelet therapy after acute coronary syndrome: the TOPIC (timing of platelet inhibition after acute coronary syndrome) randomized study. Eur Heart J. 2017;38:3070-3078.


This research contributes to answer the question whether learning/cognitive styles of students serve as a justified starting point for creating target-group appropriate instruction. The study was realized in a self-regulated problem-based learning environment. Data of 56 participants on their individual learning styles, their acquired problem solution and their increase in declarative knowledge were collected. Results indicate that a consideration of learning styles to design a matching instruction or learning environment does not transfer into higher quality problem solutions or an enhanced increase in declarative knowledge.


The paper considers grounds and limitations of various ways to reveal prior austenite grain boundaries (PAGB) in martensite in terms of EBSD data and a predetermined orientation relationship (OR). In order to improve this reconstruction, a novel approach is proposed that extracts PAGB from a network of interfacial disorientations rather than orientations of transformed crystals. Thus, errors due to non-uniformity of deformed austenite grains are excluded while essentially diminishing computational expenses. Special attention is paid to special (∑ = 3) twin PAGB because a notable part of then would be lost when conventionally discarding all combinations ( V 1 / V i , i = 2, 3,…, 24) of OR variants. Instead a limited set ( i = 2 – 6 and 8) of variant couples most frequent in martensite is considered. Although such a procedure occasionally admits wrong segments of PAGB and still partly discards their twin parts, a simple correction of such errors is possible owing to very low probability to meet them at successive segments of prior boundaries. The algorithm is verified on low carbon martensitic steel where actual PAGB have been previously imaged by the thermal etching in vacuum. In order to quantify their correspondence to PAGB reconstructed by means of EBSD, related length distributions in random intersection of prior grains by straight lines are analyzed.


In the process of royal jelly production,manual cutting of royal cells,clipping of beeswax and gathering of royal jelly are the main factors influencing the royal jelly production efficiency. Based on predecessor's work,the project group designed a set of mechanized royal jelly-gathering devices to match the technology of non-grafting larvae technique. It included the beeswax-cutting device and spray royal jelly-gathering device. Meanwhile,the project group studied the effects of the mechanized jelly-gathering device on cutting royal cells and gathering royal jelly. The results showed that the use of the mechanized jelly-gathering device could solve the problems in manual cutting of royal cells,clipping of beeswax and gathering of royal jelly. The mechanized royal jelly-gathering device has laid the technological foundation for realizing mechanization of gathering royal jelly in China.


Measurements were made with plutonium nitrate so lutions and uranyl fluoride solutions (93# 1570 enriched U02F2) to determine the concentration at which k , equals unity (the limiting c r itica l concentration) for each of these solutions . The limiting c r itica l concentration for Pu 239 in an aqueous solution occurred at an H:Pu ratio of 3392 =t 100; this limiting ratio corresponded to a concentration of 8.0 & 0. 3 g Pu 23g/liter for the solutions used in the experiments . In conjunc tion with this plutonium measurement, the limiting c r itica l concentration for U 235 in an aqueous solution was measured; the result (12.05 =t= 0.03 g U235 /liter) was compared to a s imilar result reported by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (2)


Since the government announced the roadmap to revitalize the hydrogen economy, we are constantly making the effort to expand the use of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and hydrogen charging stations. There is however a significant issue to build and operate the hydrogen charging station due to the lack of the profit model. Many researchers believe that the supply of FCEV will be increased in the near future and finally ensure the economy of hydrogen charging stations. This study shows that the sales changes of hydrogen gas and consumption patterns by the operation of the hydrogen charging station in Changwon City. The results will be used as the evidence to support for operating the hydrogen charging station by private businesses and the validity of additional establishment of hydrogen charging stations.


The obtained value of velocity potential (/spl phi/) within the range 4/spl les//spl phi//spl les/6 corresponds to the microstream development and the following explosion which can be calculated exactly for the moment of the explosion, and can be measured experimentally as well in the development of a cathode spot in vacuum arcs. Experimental values of /spl phi/ for different metals are within the range 4-6 V which corresponds to the authors' results. As appears, from the estimates received and the following estimates, inertness of the liquid in certain local regions is not an obstacle for superfast hydrodynamic processes. Corresponding hydrodynamic disturbances will lead to an appearance of one or several special protuberances on the film. At heavy unevenness on the film, the theory given above loses its power (it is obvious from the comparison of times) and it is necessary in this case to research a new model of the process.


Convolutional neural networks have been widely used in remote sensing classification and achieved quite good results. Most of these methods are based on datasets with relatively balanced samples, but such ideal datasets are rare in applications. Long-tailed datasets are very common in practice, and the number of samples among categories in most datasets is often severely uneven and leads to bad results, especially in the category with a small sample number. To address this problem, a novel remote sensing image classification method based on loss reweighting for long-tailed data is proposed in this paper to improve the classification accuracy of samples from the tail categories. Firstly, abandoning the general weighting approach, the cumulative classification scores are proposed to construct category weights instead of the number of samples from each category. The cumulative classification score can effectively combine the number of samples and the difficulty of classification. Then, the imbalanced information of samples from each category contained in the relationships between the rows and columns of the cumulative classification score matrix is effectively extracted and used to construct the required classification weights for samples from different categories. Finally, the traditional cross-entropy loss function is improved and combined with the category weights generated in the previous step to construct a new loss reweighting mechanism for long-tailed data. Extensive experiments with different balance ratios are conducted on several public datasets, such as HistAerial, SIRI-WHU, NWPU-RESISC45, PatternNet, and AID, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with other similar methods, our method achieved higher classification accuracy and stronger robustness.


Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization the question of national scale, because it goes to the heart of the economy. The solution of this question in one form or another affects the current policy of the state and prospects of further development of Russia. A key question for Russia in the light of WTO accession for the competitiveness of agriculture.


A central requirement for the development of robotic systems, that are capable of autonomous operation in non-specific environments, is the ability to create maps of their operating locale. The creation of these maps is a non trivial process as the robot has to interpret the findings of its sensors so as to make deductions regarding the state of its environment. Current approaches fall into two broad categories: on-line and offline. An on-line approach is characterised by its ability to construct a map as the robot traverses its operating environment, however this comes at the cost of representational clarity. An offline approach on the other hand requires all sensory data to be gathered before processing begins but is capable of creating more accurate maps. In this paper we present a new means of constructing occupancy grid maps which addresses this problem.


Objective To observe the feasibility and safety of fast track surgery in patients with thyroid neoplasm.Methods 116 patients with thyroid neoplasm were randomly divided into two groups:fast track group(58 cases,fast track surgery)and control group(58 cases,traditional surgery).The operative time,blood loss,postoperative hospital stay,postoperative complications,postoperative nausea and vomiting and medical cost were compared.Results There were no significant differences in opeative time[(110.33±28.79)min vs (112.72±33.63)min]and blood loss[(100.86±42.27)ml vs(95.22±32.54)ml]between two groups.The post-operative hospital stay[(2.24±0.82)d vs(3.84±1.02)d],postoperative nausea and vomiting(34/58 vs 44/58)and medical cost[(4980.13±575.38)Yuan vs(7843.14±473.63)Yuan]in fast track group patients were significantly lower than those in non-fast track group patients,P0.05.Patients in fast track group had no more complications than those in control group.Conclusions Fast track surgery can shorten postoperative hospital stay,save medical cost and accelerate rehabilitation of patients with thyroid neoplasm.


The paper presents an adaptive algorithm for the statistical filtering of the miniaturized inertial sensors noise by building redundant networks of sensors in the same navigator, followed by each sensors network data fusion. The proposed method offers the advantage of having a redundant inertial navigator in terms of the detection unit. The sensors are disposed in linear redundant arrays. The novelty brought by the proposed algorithm consists in its adaptivity provided by the permanent update of the measurement noise covariance matrix [Rk] for the desired to be filtered data. In order to see how the filter works, its numerical simulation is performed by using the Matlab/Simulink software. In this way, an accelerometer sensor model is used to provide the noisy inputs. For simulation, two cases of the ideal input acceleration are considered: 1) a null signal; 2) a repeated steps signal.


An (N, K) codebook is a set of N unit-norm code vectors in a K-dimensional vector space. For its applications, it is desired that the maximum magnitude of inner products between a pair of distinct code vectors should be as small as possible, meeting the Welch bound equality strictly or asymptotically. In this paper, an (N, K) codebook is constructed from a K × N partial matrix with K <; N, where each code vector is equivalent to a column of the matrix. To obtain the K × N matrix, K rows are selected from a J × N matrix Φ, associated with a binary sequence of length J and Hamming weight K, where a set of the selected row indices is equivalent to the index set of nonzero entries of the binary sequence. It is then discovered that the maximum magnitude of inner products between a pair of distinct code vectors is determined by the maximum magnitude of Φ-transform of the binary sequence. Thus, constructing a codebook with small magnitude of inner products is equivalent to finding a binary sequence where the maximum magnitude of its Φ-transform is as small as possible. From the discovery, new classes of codebooks with nontrivial bounds on the maximum inner products are constructed from Fourier and Hadamard matrices associated with binary sequences.


Recently, there has been a tremendous growth in mobile network traffic. Network providers are looking for techniques that selectively offload the mobile data traffic onto WiFi (IEEE 802.11) networks to balance the load and improve network performance. Several architectures based on Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) have been proposed to support seamless data offloading. The demerits of PMIPv6 include lack of flow mobility and single point of failure. There exist architectures that extend PMIPv6 to support flow mobility, but still face the problem of overhead at the gateway and single point of failure. In this paper, we propose Seamless Internetwork Flow Mobility (SIFM), a new architecture that overcomes these drawbacks and provides seamless data offload supporting flow mobility. Both the PMIPv6 and the SIFM architectures have been implemented and evaluated incorporating salient LTE and WiFi network features in the ns-3 simulator. The performance studies validate that seamless mobility can be achieved for clients in both of these architectures. The results show that for the best possible (scenario dependent) offload value, the SIFM architecture shows an improvement of 13.86%, 29.05% and 11.33% whereas the PMIPv6 architecture shows an improvement of 7.96%, 19.52% and 7.83% in terms of delay, packet loss and throughput respectively compared to no offload scenario in each architecture. Further, we also show that the support for flow mobility in the SIFM architecture provides the flexibility to move selective flows to another network. This helps in achieving better performance gain compared to moving all the flows of the user as done in the PMIPv6 architecture.


Cameroon has arrived at a decisive stage of demographic data collection in which data are becoming abundant and of high quality. In this context, the problem of effective utilization has become relevant; the creation of a bibliographic data base of population studies in Cameroon and a planned national seminar on utilization of demographic data are 2 means of promoting effective use of data. The objectives of the seminar will be the acquaint high officials of various economic sectors with the importance of using demographic data in their work. The proceedings of the seminar will be published and distributed to participating public, semi-public, and private organizations. The themes addressed will include the relationship between population and development and the use of demographic statistics in studying related problems; the history of population studies in Cameroon from 1884-1984; an evaluation of the integration of demographic statistics into development plans in Cameroon; demographic statistics and planning for education, health, manpower and employment, food self-sufficiency, the production of goods and services, territorial administration, urbanization, and housing; the use of demographic statistics in scienfific research and in industry; and demographic statistics and population coummunication. The names and institutional affiliations of the demographers and officials in charge of presentation of each topic are identified.


Aspartame was obtained in pure form in three steps from Boc ! Asp(O t Bu) ! NCA without the use of organic solvents, either for the coupling reaction or the removal of the protecting groups, and with the generation of volatile organic by-products and water-soluble inorganic salts. The only purification step consisted of a final precipitation from water to recover solid aspartame. This methodology was also exemplified by the synthesis of the tripeptide Boc ! Val ! Ala ! Gly ! OMe with good purity and excellent yield.


In a microprocessor-based PWM waveform generator, the quality of the waveform depends on the accuracy with which the position of the switching edges of the waveform can be determined. This in turn depends on the length of the binary word or digital counter used to control the edge positions. The quantisation effects experienced in microprocessor-based PWM waveform generators are analysed for various word lengths. It is demonstrated that good waveform quality can be achieved by an eight-bit microprocessor for a wide range of applications, including those in which the carrier frequency is in the ultrasonic range.


Introduction. Chloroform intoxication as a result of inhalation is usually associated with occupational exposure. Fatal cases of accidental and intentional chloroform poisoning are extremely rare. The aim of this work was to report a case with fatal consequences caused by prolonged chloroform inhalation in a child. Case outline. We report a case of a three-month-old child found dead by its mother in their home. Investigation provided the data about two refrigerators in the house, which were not entirely functional, and were filled with a refrigerant based on chloroform, and about a recent house spraying with a pesticide also based on chloroform. Forensic autopsy was performed the following day. Autopsy established the existence of malnutrition, dehydration, brain and lungs edema, the presence of very scarce contents in the digestive tract, and the enlargement of the abdominal lymph nodes. The initial stage of liver degeneration was noted on histopathological examination. Chemical-toxicological analysis of organ tissue samples (brain, lungs, spleen, liver with gall bladder, kidney and bladder, stomach, small and large intestine) performed using the techniques of headspace gas chromatography with mass detector, confirmed chloroform poisoning. Conclusion. The emaciation underlying the dysfunction of organ systems provided a grim frame for a child to succumb to chloroform toxicity. The proper use and maintenance of domestic appliances, and careful application of chemical agents indoors is an imperative, especially in the vicinity of children. Low levels of chloroform inhaled from the room air may have fatal consequences in a susceptible individual.


Abstract An efficient one-pot multicomponent reaction of 2-aminopyridine with aromatic aldehydes and either benzoyl cyanide or cyanamide in pyridine under controlled microwave heating afforded N-aryldene-2-arylimidazo[1,2-a]-pyridine-3-ylamine derivatives. The reaction is catalyst free and is of high atom economy.


OBJECTIVE:To study the pharmaceutical human resources management and new management modes.METHO_DS:Survey and analysis were based on the relevent literature and combined with the actual situations of human resources man_agement of pharmaceutical enterprises in China.RESULTS CONCLUSION:Only by raising the level of human resources management and practicing new management modes,will the pharmaceutical enterprises get sustained benefit of the company and society.


Hollow concrete blocks are the most commonly used materials in building construction due to several factors, including their lightweight, mechanical strength and low cost. This study focuses on the identification of the thermal performances of hollow concrete blocks used in Salé City, Morocco, using the 1D-approximate suggested in EN ISO-6946 [1]. An iterative algorithm based on the equivalent thermal resistance network is described and applied to hollow structures. It should be noted that the heat transfer through the hollow blocks is coupled with conduction., natural convection., and radiation. Firstly., the thermal properties of the basic materials used as input to the numerical calculation were estimated based on experimental methods. In this context., the present work is intended to contribute to a better understanding of the feasibility of using Multilayer wall technology in order to achieve potential energy savings and acceptable thermal comfort condition for the six Moroccan climate zones. The obtained results show that the thermal insulation system must be applied to comply with the requirements of the RTCM.


We present Chandra observations of eight candidate Optically Dull X-ray Bright Galaxies at low redshift (z � 0). Six of the eight appear to be extended in the X-ray, indicating the presence of hot intra-cluster (or intra-group) gas, and are thus candidate poor clusters, gro ups, or fossil groups.


Abstract Synthesis of 2-memyl-8-phenyl-5) 6,7,8,10,11-hexahydrobenzo[6,7]-cyclohepta[d][1,3]thiazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-10-ones (4a-g), 2-methyl-8-phenyl-5,6,7,8,11,12-hexahydro-10H-bemzo[6′,7′]cyclohepta[4,5]pyrimido[2,1-b][1,3]-thiazin-10-ones (6a-g) and 2,11-dimethyl-8-phenyl-5,6,7,8,10,11-hexahydro-benzo[6,7]cyclohepta[d][1,3]thiazolo[3,2-a]pyrimidin-10-ones (8a-g) have been described. A number of compounds show promising antimicrobial acitity.


Graphene is a one-atom-thick 2D system that has a unique hexagonal crystal structure of two carbon atoms per unit cell. Unlike any other 2D semiconductor material known today, intrinsic graphene has a zero bandgap with its charged carriers behaving like Dirac fermions with a zero mass, resulting in many extraordinary properties that are very different from other materials. Such properties can be controllably modified by proper impurity doping or by electrical or optical modulation, making graphene extremely attractive for novel device applications. The salient electronic, optical, and optoelectronic properties of graphene, together with its unique nanostructure, offer innovative opportunities to many potentially revolutionary applications for high-speed/high-frequency electronic and optoelectronic devices, terahertz (THz) oscillators and sensors, and ultrafast nonlinear optical elements. Realization of these exciting graphene-based devices, as well as the possibility for further innovation, relies on a good understanding of graphene's electronic, optical and optoelectronic properties in the broad spectral range from THz to the visible. In this thesis, the electronic property of graphene is investigated first, followed by the discussion of THz property of graphene. Based on the derived models of the electronic and THz properties of graphene, we can describe the plasmonic behavior of graphene in various configurations, such as graphene-based THz waveguide. A concept THz device is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally in the last.


Landfill gas (LFG) is one of the degradation products derived from municipal solid waste landfill site, which can cause secondary pollution, and bring about greenhouse effect as well. However, its cleaning treatment may remove inert and hazardous gases and refine the main constituent, methane, as one kind of clean energy. In this article, the technique progress of LFG purification is summarized, and based on common purification unit operation, various joint processes are proposed for LFG cleaning treatment.


Abstract Carrier binding and recombination processes at transition metal (TM) and post-transition metal impurities in solids are reviewed. The presence of low-lying empty core orbitals in these impurities introduces novel binding and recombination phenomena and leads naturally to a classification of impurity centres as 'simple' or 'structured'. 'Simple' impurities, generally the main group elements, introduce only effective-mass-like states into the forbidden gap of the host lattice, whereas 'structured' impurities show localized atomic-like transitions below the lattice absorption edge. The fact that donor or acceptor centres generated by TM ions in semiconductors are usually deep is discussed with reference to a simple oxidationstate correlation diagram based on the variable chemical valency characteristic of these ions. Many metal ion impurities in solids generate iso-electronic centres however, and evidence is assembled to show how the normally accepted range of iso-electronic centres can be extended ...


User generated content that appears on weblogs, wikis and social networks has been increasing at an unprecedented rate. The wealth of information produced by individuals from different geographical locations presents a challenging task of intelligent processing. In this paper, we introduce a methodology to identify notable geographically focused events out of this collection of user generated information. At the heart of our proposal lie efficient algorithms that identify geographically focused information bursts, attribute them to demographic factors and identify sets of descriptive keywords. We present the results of a prototype evaluation of our algorithms on BlogScope, a large-scale social media warehousing platform. We demonstrate the scalability and practical utility of our proposal running on top of a multi-terabyte text collection.


The purpose of this study was to determine if neurons within the NTS that possess the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) play a role in aldosterone stimulation of salt intake. Adult WKY rats received microinjections into the NTS of a small, hairpin RNA for the MR (shRNA; n=9) or a scrambled RNA (scRNA; n=8). After the viral construct injections, aldosterone‐filled osmotic mini‐pumps were implanted subcutaneously and connected to tubing within the 4th ventricle to infuse aldosterone at a rate of 20ng/h. Prior to and after surgeries, rats had ad libitum access to food and two graduated drinking bottles filled with distilled water and 0.3M NaCl and salt intake expressed as 100 × the ratio of 0.3M NaCl intake to total fluid intake. Prior to surgeries, basal salt intake was 4.7% ± 2.9% in the scRNA group and 3.91% ± 2.6% in the shRNA group. 24 days post‐surgery salt intake was 20.6% ± 2.9% in the scRNA group and 4.3% ± 2.8% in the shRNA group. Post‐mortem immunohistochemistry revealed a significant reduction in the number of NTS neurons exhibiting immunoreactivity for the MR (scRNA 33 ± 2 cells/section; shRNA 23 ± 1 cells/section; p=.008). These results indicate 4th ventricular infusions of aldosterone stimulate salt intake and that at least part of the stimulation of salt intake during 4th ventricular infusions of aldosterone is mediated by hindbrain NTS neurons that possess the MR.


We have examined the design and economics of chemical plant for the destruction of organochlorine wastes, such as hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as a contaminant of transformer oils. These studies were prompted by the need for destruction methods other than high-temperature incineration which has been rejected by the community in Australia. Instead of oxidation the processes we examined are all based on reduction for which there are several advantages: absence of gas streams vented to atmosphere, production of valuable hydrocarbon by-products and a significant reduction in the likelihood of producing toxic dioxins. Economic analysis found that Sodium Metal Reduction of PCBs in transformer oil gave an attractive return on investment, but the same was not true for HCB. Similarly Base-Catalysed Dechlorination was found to be suitable for HCB but not competitive for PCBs in transformer oil. Hydrogen reduction was uneconomic as was electrolytic reduction. Despite the secrecy necessarily surrounding some of these commercial processes it was possible to produce feasible and novel reactor designs.


The purpose of the panel is to raise the common questions about diversity and multiculturalism training in library schools, and engage the audience in a meaningful discussion about diversity and multiculturalism. We will discuss the importance of diversity and multiculturalism training in library and information science curricula by examining multiple countries/regions as case studies. We would be seeking answers to two major questions: "What do responsible library science educators need to do to educate librarians on diversity/multiculturalism/internationalism?" and "How can we educate future librarians so that they will have a greater perspective on diversity and multiculturalism?"