In the Environmental Information System (UIS) of Baden-Württemberg, an extensive collection of information and knowledge is accumulated in the form of data, methods, and multimedia documents on a variety of computer platforms. A service-oriented approach based on meta-information and WWW technology has been chosen to bring this treasure of information and knowledge to the workplace of every employee in the environmental administration. The guiding idea was to identify data, functionalities, and multimedia information that can be used in multiple ways and to supply them as self-contained network services. This helps to make the use of the available hardware and software resources more economical and, in addition, allows for a relatively unrestricted and easy access to the information sources offered by the UIS.


Immunosuppressive therapy of myasthenia gravis is important for long-term maintenance of remission with minimal side effects. Indication for immunosuppressive treatment is dependent on the severity and course of the disease, and has to take into account the effect of thymectomy which is eventually performed in early-onset generalized myasthenia. Azathioprin is the only drug formally approved for treatment of myasthenia. However, a variety of other immunosuppressants, such as cyclosporine, mycophenolate, cyclophosphamide, and tacrolimus, have also been shown to be effective and can be prescribed off-label as second-line treatment in cases with inefficacy or intolerable side effects of azathioprine.


We have applied positron spectroscopy to study the formation of vacancy defects in undoped n-type metal organic chemical vapor deposition grown GaN, where the stoichiometry was varied. Ga vacancies are found in all samples. Their concentration increases from 1016 to 1019 cm−3 when the V/III molar ratio increases from 1000 to 10 000. In nitrogen rich conditions Ga lattice sites are thus left empty and Ga vacancies are abundantly formed. The creation of Ga vacancies is accompanied by the decrease of free electron concentration from 1020 to 1016 cm−3, demonstrating their role as compensating centers.


The structure of soft clay has great influence on the physico-mechanical property of the soil body,particularly on the consolidation deformation and the flowing rate of liquid of the soil body.Currently,this aspect is still a hot issue.The refitting K0 consolidometer is used,and the experiment of consolidation or permeability can be performed on this instrument at the same time.According to the experiment of K0 consolidation and permeability of natural soil and remolded soil,the influences of the structure of soft clay on the flowing rate of a liquid are analyzed,and the calculation formula of coefficient of permeability and pore ratios are proposed.According to the trial analysis of strain characteristic of soft soil,the structural strength of the soil body is used to reflect the influence of soil body transform.Based on the foundation of the analytical deformation mechanism,the settlement-computing method that considers the soil body structure is put forward.According to the definition,the new method of the permeability of consolidation is presented.This computation method avoids the weakness of traditional method and can be performed on the COBOL.Through the example of engineering on Dazhou— Chongqing Highway,the measured results of the highway foundation is compared to the result of the method,and the availability of this method is verified.


Investigating the high-temperature effect and catalytic condition with hypersonic flow numerical research was conducted by CFD methods. For comparison, flows were calculated by using a high-temperature nonequilibrium gas model and a calorically perfect gas model. All findings showed that high temperatures alter the flow properties considerably. The flow field structure, temperature distribution, pressure distribution, etc. were different from the calorically perfect gas assumption flow. All these differences would affect the aerodynamical force and aero heat of the fly vehicles with hypervelocity. Furthermore, all conditions of non-catalytic and catalytic effects were computed and compared. The flow with catalytic conditions produces more aero heats due to an exothermic recombination reaction near the wall. The methods and computations could be used for further engineering applications and hypersonic aerodynamical research.


The ESR response of 35-40 GHz band from nanostructure Cox(Al2O3)1-x was analyzed. The linewidth increases while the Co concentration decreases. The magnetization of saturation drops to zero when Co concentration decreases up to concentration of Co falls up to metal-dielectric threshold. The magnetic phase transition from ferromagnetic to superparamagnetic state has been detected in the vicinity of the metal-dielectric transition.


The main aim of this study is to examine how the role of Islamic banks, economic growth, and price stability on poverty reduction in Indonesia from 2010 to 2019. Total Financing (TF), Financing to Deposit Ratio (FDR), Non-Performing Financing (NPF), Return on Assets (ROA), and Third-Party Funds (TPF) monthly time series data were used to measure Islamic banking role, while economic growth, price stability, and poverty, were measured by Industrial Production Index (IPI), Consumer Price Index (CPI), and Poverty headcount ratio (POV), respectively. The short- and long-term effects of Islamic banks, economic growth, and price stability on poverty reduction in Indonesia are examined using an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound test. The study documented that Islamic banking, economic growth, and price stability had a significant short and long-term effects on poverty reduction. These findings offer various key implications for the banking industry and policymakers in order to eradicate poverty through strengthening economic growth, Islamic banking sector, and price stability. The Islamic banking industry should provide a quality of financing allocation to promote economic growth and price stability that, in turn, reduce poverty.


The massive expansion and exploitation of coal mining has caused social and environmental impact on surrounding communities that caused the vanished of agricultural land and even land for settlement. The expansion of coal mining has caused the impacted communities need to relocated in other areas so that mining company could exploit the coal in accordance with the operating standard. The purposes of this study were to assess the community's response after they relocated to new settlement in Matiro Wali village. For data collection, around 40 respondents already interviewed using Structured Questionnaires. Respondents were given three options to express their response to each question: "satisfied", "fair" and "less". The data were tabulated and presented in percentage and graphics. Some aspects of assessment were the process of relocation, housing and sanitation, infrastructure development and road access, condition of social and economic facilities, agricultural land, hunting and fishing ground, and the potential future livelihoods. Results show that the Basap Dayak community complained the social economic condition in the relocation village. They complained about the bad access road to village/relocation area, the limitation of agricultural land that only 200 ha, limitation of hunting and fishing ground. The uncertainty rights over the agricultural land in the new settlement also caused the villagers unwilling to be relocated. The responses of the respondents to some aspects of social and economic condition in a new relocation area are mostly not satisfied with the existing condition. For example, in term of house development, around 57% respondents think 'satisfied, 28% "fair" and the rest 15 "less"; in term of economic life around 46.6% "fair", 49% "less" and only 7.2% feel "satisfied' with the economic life. Access to agricultural land also does not satisfy the respondents because the size is limited; development of road to relocation area is the most complained aspect by villagers because the road is very bad so that it could not be passed through in rainy season; hunting and fishing are the traditional ways of life of the Basap Dayak.


Is there an advantage to growing intercrops? The simplest answer to this question is the qualitative one. If so many traditional agriculturists do it, there must be some advantage to it. This attitude is fine at the most general level, and we really need go no further. But at a more specific level we wish to ask the question about particular intercropping systems. Is it or is it not true on a particular farm in northern Brazil that corn grown together with peanuts is better than corn grown alone and peanuts grown alone? That is the question on which we focus in this chapter. The bases for comparison The problem of population density and planting design Whatever the method of evaluation, the underlying basis is always a comparison of the performance in intercrop to the performance in monoculture. The first complication arises when one must decide what monoculture production figures should be used in the evaluation. In Figure 2.1 several possibilities are illustrated. In Figure 2.1 (a) , the polyculture is stipulated first, and we are to decide which monocultures to use for the computation of the land equivalent to ratio (LER). If we use case I, the overall population is the same in monoculture and intercrop. If we use case II, the overall population density is larger in the intercrop than it is in the monocultures. Consider the similar Figure 2.1 (b) . In this case we begin with the monocultures as stipulated, and are to decide which intercrop to use.


Recent evidence suggests a role for leptin and calpastatin in the pathogenesis of obesity‐induced coronary vascular dysfunction. However, how these factors affect coronary smooth muscle reactivity in lean vs. obese hearts is not well defined. Coronary arteries from lean and obese Ossabaw swine were isolated, cleaned of all surrounding adipose tissue, and incubated with or without leptin (3 – 30 ng/mL) or calpastatin (10 μM) for 30 min. Arteries were then pre‐constricted with the thromboxane mimetic U46619 (1μM). In untreated arteries, vasodilation to adenosine (0.01 – 30 μM) was decreased ~25% in obese compared to lean arteries. Administration of leptin dose‐dependently reduced vasodilation to adenosine, with the 30 ng/mL concentration attenuating dilation ~25% in both lean and obese arteries. In contrast, the presence of calpastatin impaired responses to adenosine (10 μM) in lean (~26%), but not obese arteries. In additional studies, coronary arteries from lean swine were cultured at 37oC in the presence/absence of leptin (30 ng/mL) or calpastatin (10 μM) for 3 days and subsequently subjected to functional isometric tension studies. Relative to untreated cultured arteries, incubation with leptin augmented active tension development to KCl‐induced depolarization (30 mM) and diminished vasodilation in response to adenosine (10 μM). Incubation with calpastatin modestly reduced vasodilation to adenosine but did not influence active tension development to KCl. These findings indicate that leptin and calpastatin differentially influence vascular function and suggest that these factors could contribute to the augmented contractile, impaired vasodilator phenotype of the obese coronary circulation.


Advances in digital sensors, digital data storage and communications have resulted in systems being capable of accumulating large collections of data. In the light of dealing with the challenges that massive data present, this work proposes solutions to inference and filtering problems within the Bayesian framework. Two novel Bayesian inference algorithms are developed for non-linear and non-Gaussian state space models, able to deal with large volumes of data (or observations). These are sequential Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approaches relying on two key ideas: 1) subsample the massive data and utilise a smaller subset for filtering and inference, and 2) a divide and conquer type approach computing local filtering distributions each using a subset of the measurements. Simulation results highlight the accuracy and the large computational savings, that can reach 90% by the proposed algorithms when compared with standard techniques.


A metric for defining low probability of detection of a communication signal by a radiometer is described. The metric is based on the gain difference G between the communication receiver and the radiometer, which includes their path losses, antenna gains, etc., plus two "mismatch" losses incurred by the radiometer. The probability of detection P/sub D/ is computed as a function of the gain G, and the detectability gain (DG) is defined as the gain for which P/sub D/ has some acceptable value. Results are given for a "generic" communication system, and methods for comparing existing or proposed systems by using the DG as a metric are presented.


An artificial ligament anchor has been designed and tested in goats. The anchor may allow direct bone anchorage of artificial anterior cruciate ligaments.


Pre-clinical cancer studies have been limited by the availability of patient cell models that accurately represent the diversity of patient populations. The utility of these studies is further impacted by the lack of normal tissue from the same patient. Furthermore, clinical evaluation of targeted therapeutics, like tarceva (erlotinib), would benefit from patient models expressing the target for robust characterization of drug response. Moreover, individual patient responses to the same anti-cancer compound cannot be assessed with high precision unless healthy controls are used from the same tumor donor. Here, we present six breast cancer patient-derived tumor models, accompanied by cancer (tumor)-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). These paired and matched sample cohorts were studied in the context of spheroid models of the metastatic breast cancer niche. We show that these models allow an increased understanding of chemotherapy modulation by non-cancerous cells, which are present within the tumor but not targeted by the current chemotherapies or other anti-tumor approaches. We used a three-drug set to create a viability profile for each patient-associated tumor sample, which in turn can be used to aid clinical decision-making and increase the personalization of each treatment for an individual. Further, our approach shows different genomic and proteomic profiles for the co-culture models when compared between the tumor 3D and healthy controls.
 Citation Format: Liam Deems, Dmitry Shvartsman, Maria Ivanova, Cheryl Murphy, David Deems. Enabling therapeutic decisions for a breast cancer patient cohort using matched diseased and normal tissue in tumor organoids [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2021 Dec 7-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-06-15.


The study assessed the maintenance culture of vehicles and the associated costs in the University for Development Studies at the Central Administration, Tamale Campus in order to provide solutions to maintenance problems facing the University with the associated high cost of maintenance. The study considered all 55 vehicles and drivers at the Central Administration used by various offices, directorates and general use (pool). However, data on 34 vehicles were available which is far more than the needed representation. Ten drivers were sampled to participate in the study using the simple random sampling approach. Face-to-face interviews with one-on-one respondents were conducted with the selected drivers. The researcher used open ended questions to gather relevant data from the respondents. The secondary data was obtained from mechanics and technicians who had presented their bills for payment at the Transport Office. Both the qualitative and quantitative methods were used in analyzing the data collected. The Grounded Theory and excel sheets were employed for the data analysis. The study revealed that that the poor maintenance culture is as a result of poor funding, delay in the release of funds for maintenance, inflation of the cost of spare parts, design errors, use of sub-standard materials, age of vehicles, insufficient knowledge and skills of mechanics and technicians were factors identified as those contributing to problems of effective maintenance culture. It is therefore recommended that a formalized maintenance department should be established with well qualified and experienced personnel with practical knowledge and skills in vehicle maintenance and with a well-equipped workshop with the necessary tools and spare parts. This will allow fast and quick response to vehicle maintenance issues.


With the rapid development of distributed hydropower technology, the issue of the equivalence of small and medium hydropower systems is urged to be solved. According to the China power grid data, the small and medium hydropower areas often contain motor (especially in the southwest of China). This paper presents a dynamic equivalent method combined 3rd generator and a parallel composite load (including a static characteristic ZIP load and a motor load) model, the parameters of which can be identified by the self-adaptive control parameters modified differential evolution (SACPMDE) algorithm. The proposed method is verified in simulation with the grid data from Sichuan and Hunan provinces in China which have abundant hydropower systems. The simulation results reflect that the dynamic responses of the proposed equivalent model are more consistent with that of the detailed model, even when the equivalent area has a certain amount of motor. Moreover, the parameters identified by SACPMDE is stable. Therefore, the presented method has high precision and it is suitable to solve the problem of equivalence of small and medium hydropower systems with a certain amount of motor.


Raman spectra of aluminum oxide, Al2O3, have been a subject of interest over the last two decades. The origin of the fluorescence background in the Raman spectra of Al2O3 is still a subject of discussion. It has been believed to be due to hydrocarbon, iron ion impurities, or hydroxy groups on the surface of Al2O3. In this paper, Raman spectra of Al2O3 are reported that were acquired with different excitation frequencies as well as different spectrometers and different temperatures. It is shown that, whereas at an excitation frequency of 1064 nm a strong fluorescence background is observed, a sample of Al2O3 heated at 1250 °C when excited with a 632.8-nm frequency exhibits strong and remarkable fluorescence ne structure. It is concluded that the origin of the fluorescence background in the Raman spectra of Al2O3 is iron, and Fe impurity, and the intensity of this fluorescence depends upon the structure of Al2O3 and the excitation frequency used.


The article reports on the new species for the flora of Mongolia Allium carolinianum DC. found in the west part of the country. A short morphological characteristics, nomenclature, the number of chromosomes and description of the karyotype are given.


It is necessary to reintegrate teaching and learning if distant education want acquire effective learning results.From the angle of distant education,the integration strategy includes instructors,learners,education institute,study materials and technique media application.The key point of reintegration of teaching and learning is media-based information interaction technology,and the difficult point is how to closely combine study materials that support distant study and study behavior of distant student.


A handbook of mathematical functions that is designed to provide scientific investigations with a comprehensive and self-contained summary of the mathematical functions that arise in physical and engineering problems.


Subject of this thesis is study of curing polyuretane acrylate via ultraviolet radiation. A large part is focused on the inhibition of curing reaction by air oxygen, because it's impor-tant complication for radial curing of acrylates. The influence of variol parameters at inhi-bition and method show eliminace it are mainly studied.


Background: Dental esthetics is an important aspect that needs to be considered in today's dental treatment planning. Enamel hypoplasia is teeth discoloration from yellowish to brownish due to disturbances during the amelogenesis process. Direct veneers are a conservative treatment option that supports the esthetics of anterior teeth. Purpose: To improve patient's appearance by a viable treatment option that offered rehabilitation of anterior teeth. Case: A 18-year-old female patient felt uncomfortable and wanted to improve her appearance because the front teeth had old fillings turned yellowish and white spots. Objective examination showed enamel hypoplasia in 12, 11, 21, 22 and secondary caries in 11 and 22. Case Management: The treatment plan was direct composite veneers. The initial stage is digital smile design analysis and composite shade selection using the button try technique. Minimally invasive preparations were performed on teeth 12, 11, 21, 22. Etching using 37% phosphoric acid and bonding agent was applied to the prepared enamel. The layering technique is used for composite applications. Finishing, contouring and polishing using Soflex Disc Coarse and Diacomp Twist. Conclusion: Direct composite veneers are a viable treatment option for patients requiring rehabilitation of anterior teeth.


Objective To explore the relationship between intrapulmonary expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) mRNA,nuclear factor-κ B (NF-κ B) activation and pulmonary injury in rats with acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP). Methods Thirty-three Wistar rats were randomized into the normal group,normal saline solution group,ANP group and prophylactic and therapeutic groups with N-acetylcysteine (NAC). ANP was inflicted with 3.5% sodium taurocholate by the method of retrograde pancreatic injection. In the prophylactic group,rats received one intravenous injection of NAC (300 mg/kg) 1 h before taurocholate injection. In the therapeutic group,a similar dose of NAC was intravenously injected 1 h after taurocholate injection. All the animals were sacrificed in 12 h after induction of pancreatitis. Activation of NF-κB in pulmonary tissues was determined with immunohistochemistry. Intrapulmonary expression of iNOS mRNA was assayed by RT-PCR. Meanwhile,plasma level of amylase,pancreatic wet/dry weight ratio and histological grading,histological grading of lung injury and intrapulmonary content of myeloperoxidase (MPO) were determined. Results NF-κB binding activity was markedly increased after induction of pancreatitis. There were intrapulmonary overexpression of iNOS mRNA and elevation of intrapulmonary content of MPO. When NAC was given 1 h before induction of pancreatitis,the activation of NF-κB was prevented and plasma level of amylase,pancreatic wet/dry weight ratio and intrapulmonary content of MPO remarkably decreased. Intrapulmonary expression of iNOS mRNA had positive correlation with activation of NF-κB and intrapulmonary content of MPO (r=0.79 and 0.66,P0.01). Conclusions The expression of iNOS mRNA and activation of NF-κB are associated with lung injury in ANP. Early blockage of NF-κB activation with NAC is effective for reducing severity of lung injury.


BACKGROUND During the last years, courses on communication skills in the context of incurable illness have been increasingly introduced at medical faculties in Germany. Detailed descriptions of the courses and the applied teaching methods are only available of few courses. In addition there is scarce literature of qualitative evaluation studies of these courses. The object of this article is to describe and analyse the concept of a course on communication with seriously ill and dying patients and to present the results of the evaluation. METHODS The study is based on the analysis of an optional course for medical students on communication skills with seriously ill and dying patients. The course has been offered of a period of 6 years. Evaluation was conducted using a questionnaire containing several open ended questions. Qualitative content analysis has been used with respect to the comments written by course participants. The students' original quotes were linked with codes which were brought into an order according to the number of their nomination. RESULTS In total 50 questionnaires had been returned completed by the medical students (response rate 89 %). The 3 open ended questions had been answered by 230 original quotes which as part of the analysis had been labeled with 43 codes. The atmosphere of the course (21 quotes), the organisation of the role plays (19 quotes) and the great part of practical exercises (18 quotes) were the most frequently mentioned positive aspects of the course. The scheduled time and the duration of the course (n = 14) were the most frequently criticised aspects (33 quotes). Effects of the courses (52 quotes) identified by the students were the prioritisation of a patient-centred communication, raised awareness regarding the patient's perspective and the acquirement of competences regarding the exploration of the patient's view (each n = 7). CONCLUSION The applied methods of the course, especially the self-awareness by taking the patient's role as part of the role plays, were highly valued by the participating medical students. The results may serve as a starting point of further evaluation of courses on communication skills in the context of palliative care.


ABSTRACT Analysis of 100 in-depth interviews with academic, clinical, educational, and administrative leaders in health literacy examined these experts' definitions of health literacy and explored emerging themes pertaining to the status and definition of the concept. Drawing on Nutbeam's (1999, 2000) trilevel model of health literacy and Shannon and Weaver's (1949) information model of communication, the authors propose a process model of health literacy comprising four primary factors: message (the health-related informational component); information-based action (individuals' understandings of and use of health information beyond simply receiving the information); communication tools (the channels by which individuals receive health information); and the health care system (an environment where health care is provided and performed). The health literacy experts interviewed in this study perceived most problems in the message and health care system components, followed by communication tools and action. These findings suggest the need for improved presentation of health information to health consumers, as well as more education to build critical literacy skills. More efforts should be made to shift the conceptual understanding of health literacy from a persistent focus on word and number literacy (i.e., functional literacy) to more interactive and critical components, such as patient-provider communication and cultural competence.


Imagery from U-2 flight or Skylab is used to produce maps of Arizona for resource management and land use. Color photography and thermal mapping techniques are described for studying vegetation growth, natural resources, flood plains, soil erosion, and heat loss from buildings.


Premeditated handling of settling disputes is one of the main issues that international parties have to take into consideration in concluding contracts. Having effective dispute resolution provisions is one of the key factors that will lead to success in international agreements. In the recent years, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has made lots of transactions in petroleum industry by concluding many international agreements with various international companies in the energy sector. Negotiation, mediation and arbitration have been adopted by the Kurdistan Regional Government in details, through its Oil and Gas Law No.28 of 2007 and signed production sharing contracts, as means of dispute resolution. Nonetheless, having less experience in this field has weakened the position of the host government in front of foreign companies. Moreover, the recent case of Dana Gas versus Kurdistan Regional Government has proven this fact; it was an indication that the Kurdistan Region has to be more cautious when it comes to regulate the terms and conditions of the contracts with the international companies, particularly in dispute resolution part. This paper will shed light on the available mechanisms to resolve every kind of disputes between the conflicted parties, with the specific focus on Kurdistan Region. Investigating the effectiveness and enforceability of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms is another major part of this paper.


Spurred by the expanding bulk shipping and technological innovations, dry bulk vessels have gained considerable development in ship types, ship design, and operation since the invention of the first specialized dry bulk carrier in the early 1950s. However, questions like: what changes in technical specifications have occurred for dry bulk vessels during the past four decades; what triggered these changes and what impacts have these specific changes had on shipping costs or earnings potential, have never been examined systematically in previous work. Subsequently, this article attempts to investigate changes in main technical specifications and relationships between the main technical variables and their economic performance measured by costs and revenues of dry bulk carriers. Technical changes in speed, deadweight, lightweight, and engines are checked for the main types of dry bulk vessels, and trends revealed in these developments are demonstrated to be the consequences of both technical improvement and economical considerations. Additionally, it has been found that the earnings potential differs much from dry bulk vessels with different technical specifications. This can be manifested in the sensitivity analysis. The analysis of this article may contain useful information to practitioners of dry bulk shipping in guiding their market decisions about ship building and operations.


AN ANALYSIS IS PRESENTED OF SOME 6,000 MI OF PAVEMENT PROFILE OBTAINED BY THE MICHIGAN PAVEMENT PERFORMANCE STUDY IN THE 3-YEAR PERIOD OF 1958-59-60. THIS MILEAGE ON THE MICHIGAN STATE TRUNKLINES CONSISTS LARGELY OF REINFORCED CONCRETE PAVEMENT WITH SERVICE PERIODS OF UP TO 35 YEARS, UNDER A CONSIDERABLE RANGE OF TRAFFIC INTENSITY, SOIL CONDITIONS, AND CLIMATIC ENVIRONMENT. EMPHASIS IS GIVEN TO PAVEMENT CHANGES OVER LONG PERIODS OF TIME, BUT DATA ARE ALSO AVAILABLE ON A NUMBER OF SPECIAL FEATURES BRACKETING MICHIGAN DESIGN CONDITIONS. PROCEDURES DEVELOPED FOR EVALUATING PAVEMENT PERFORMANCE ARE BASED ON TWO BASIC CRITERIA FOR MEASURING PAVEMENT CHANGE. THE FIRST, OR ROUGHNESS INDEX, IS RIDING QUALITY BASED ON PAVEMENT PROFILES AND RECORDED IN INCHES OF VERTICAL DISPLACEMENT PER MILE. THE SECOND IS STRUCTURAL CONTINUITY, BASED ON THE CRACKING PATTERN, EXPRESSED AS A CONTINUITY RATIO, AND DEFINED AS THE RATIO OF UNCRACKED SLAB LENGTH TO AN ASSUMED SLAB LENGTH OF 15 FT. BOTH OF THESE MEASURES ARE RECORDED ON PAVEMENT CONDITION SURVEYS. THE DATA AFFORD SIGNIFICANT COMPARISONS BETWEEN CURRENT DESIGN FOR YEAR-ROUND SERVICE WITHOUT SEASONAL LOAD LIMITATIONS, AND OLDER ROADS CONSIDERED INADEQUATE FOR PRESENT DAY TRAFFIC. THE PAVEMENT STUDY INCLUDES PLAIN CONCRETE, REINFORCED CONCRETE OF CONVENTIONAL DESIGN AND JOINT SPACING, AND AN EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT WITH CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT. THE DOMINANT EFFECTS OF SOIL CONDITIONS, FROST ACTION, DRAINAGE, AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS ARE REVEALED ON CERTAIN PROJECTS WHERE WIDER VARIATION IN THESE CONDITIONS HAS OCCURRED. CONSTRUCTION CONTROL IS REVEALED AS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN RIDING QUALITY, WITH BUILT-IN ROUGHNESS VARYING THROUGH WIDE LIMITS. SUBGRADE PREPARATION IS ALSO FOUND TO BE AN IMPORTANT INFLUENCE ON INITIAL RIDING QUALITY AND SUBSEQUENT PERFORMANCE. DIFFERENTIALS IN PERFORMANCE BETWEEN THE TRAFFIC LANE AND THE PASSING LANE OCCUR ON CERTAIN PROJECTS, WHEREAS ON OTHERS THERE IS NO APPARENT EFFECT OF LOAD APPLICATION. /AUTHOR/


All longhorned beetles are xylophagous and phytophagous. For this reason, longhorned beetles which are generated large damages on or in forest trees in larval stages especially, includes many pests of forests. Adults of the longhorn beetles can be found on flowers, leaves, wood, logs, trunks, stumps, herbs etc. Cerambycidae fauna of Caucasus is still very poorly investigated. Formerly, many data on Caucasian Cerambycidae was chiefly included in the works of N. N. Plavilstshikov (mainly 1927, 1936, 1940 and 1958). Then, Longhorned beetles fauna of Caucasus was published by Danilevsky & Miroshnikov (1985) in detail. As a critique, however, the work did not include the species or subspecies that occur only in the Caucasian parts of Turkey and Iran. The present work based on a total of 9 species group taxa of the tribe Cerambycini (Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae) for Caucasus fauna (8 species and subspecies of the genus Cerambyx Linnaeus, 1758 and 1 species of the genus Dissopachys Reitter, 1886). These taxa of which almost all are forester, will present with eco-biological data (host plants, obtaining of adults and larvae, life cycle or developmental period, overwintering stage, larval feding and life, pupation, habits of adults and flying period of adults), synonyms, distributional arguments, zoogeographical classifications (chorological types) and descriptive photos for each species group taxa. Among them, 2 taxa are new records for Caucasus fauna as Cerambyx ( Microcerambyx ) elbursi Jurecek, 1924 and Dissopachys pulvinatus Reitter, 1886. Also, Cerambyx ( Cerambyx ) carinatus Kuster, 1845 has been recorded by Sakenin et al. (2011) from Ardabil province: Aslandooz in NW Iran that is in Transcaucasus. But it is based on very likely misidentification and impossible for Iran and thereby Caucasus fauna.


The control of subway train must fulfill some demands, such as safety, punctuality, comfort, energy-efficient, stop precision and so on. In this paper, maximum principle and fuzzy control are applied to the control of train operation to design a high-performance algorithm. As the result of tests, we verified that the proposed algorithm could fulfill demands. First of all, based on the productions of foreign scholars, an algorithm of aim as energy-saving is developed applying the conclusions of maximum principle with regardless of comfortable-ride demand. Then itpsilas discussed that how comfort demand affects the algorithm. In the end, fuzzy controller is applied to achieve the comfort object. The algorithm has already used in the train running simulation.


This note provides an overview of the fourth AIUCD (Associazione per l'Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale) Congress, which took place at the University of Turin, from the 17th to the 19th of December 2015. The theme of the meeting was the relation between Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage, with particular emphasis on their reciprocal exchanges both at theoretical and technological level


Display devices at bit-depth of 10 or higher have been mature but the mainstream media source is still at bit-depth as low as 8. To accommodate the gap, the most economic solution is to render source at low bit-depth for high bit-depth display, which is essentially the procedure of de-quantization. Traditional methods, like zero-padding or bit replication, introduce annoying false contour artifacts. To better estimate the least-significant bits, later works use filtering or interpolation approaches, which exploit only limited neighbor information, can not thoroughly remove the false contours. In this paper, we propose a novel intensity potential field to model the complicated relationships among pixels. Then, an adaptive de-quantization algorithm is proposed to convert low bit-depth images to high bit-depth ones. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to apply potential field for natural images. The proposed potential field preserves local consistency and models the complicated contexts very well. Extensive experiments on natural image datasets validate the efficiency of the proposed intensity potential field. Significant improvements have been achieved over the state-of-the-art methods on both PSNR and SSIM.


The Abstract: Big business in the Russian economy has features of its development and spatial distribution. This article shows the modern principles of the spatial arrangement of large business, in particular: the principle of infrastructure oriented companies, cumulative principle, the principle of aggregate placement, the principle of agglomeration centering, the principle of conditionality cluster.


This article investigates the effectiveness of simultaneous and staged evacuation strategies for hurricane evacuations of Galveston Island using agent-based microsimulation techniques. In the simultaneous strategy the entire population is informed to evacuate simultaneously, whereas in a staged evacuation strategy, people are informed to evacuate in a sequence. The results suggest that (1) the most efficient staged evacuation strategy can help reduce the evacuation time for Galveston Island by approximately one hour, (2) previous studies might have underestimated the evacuation time of Galveston, and (3) an evacuation under the rapid response assumption does not necessarily lead to an effective evacuation.


The Austrian Centre was established in London in 1939 by Austrians seeking refuge from Nazi Germany, of whom 30,000 had reached Britain by the outbreak of World War II. It soon developed into a comprehensive social, cultural and political organisation with a theatre and a weekly newspaper of its own. A Communist-influenced organisation, it also followed a distinct political agenda. In the first book on the cultural and political life of Austrian refugees in Britain, "Out of Austria" assesses and evaluates the Austrian Centre's activities and achievements, while also examining the Austrians' often fraught relations with their British hosts. It gives a fascinating insight into such figures as Sigmund Freud, who became the Centre's Honorary President during his final months and the poet Erich Fried, then an unknown seventeen-year-old, k and sheds light on the interaction of politics and culture against the background of exile in wartime Britain.


Contents:
* Community news:
Einstein prize update, by Clifford Will
World year of physics, by Richard H. Price
We hear that... by Jorge Pullin
* Research briefs:
R-mode epitaph? by John Friedman and Nils Andersson
Gravitational waves from bumpy neutron stars, by Ben Owen
LIGO science operations begin!, by Gary Sanders
* Conference reports:
Fourth international LISA symposium, by Peter Bender
Initial Data for Binary Systems, by Gregory Cook
Report on Joint LSC/Source Modeling Meeting, by Patrick Brady
Greek Relativity Conference, NEB-X by Kostas Kokkotas and Nick Stergioulas
Gravity, Astrophysics, and Strings @ the Black Sea, by Plamen Fiziev
Quantum field theory at ESI, by Robert Wald
School on quantum gravity in Chile, by Don Marolf
Apples with apples workshop, by Miguel Alcubierre
Radiation reaction focus session and 5th Capra meeting, by Eanna Flanagan
Numerical Relativity Workshop at IMA, by Manuel Tiglio


This article aims at focusing on the GATS and its influence over state schools in England. The two first sections provide an overview of the GATS and the WTO. The third section deals with the implications and effects of these agreements to public schools. The conclusion is that every aspect of our lives is potentially open to capital invasion and that the commercial administration of our schools is an aspect of this


Remote sensing technique is very effective method for water quality mapping through analysis of satellite images over a large coverage of study area. The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of using the ALOS digital image for Total Suspended Solids (TSS) mapping over Penang Island, Malaysia. A new algorithm was developed for detecting and mapping water pollution from the ALOS satellite image. The algorithm used was based on the reflectance model, which is a function of the inherent optical properties of water, and these in turn can be related to the concentration of the pollutants. Water samples were collected using a small boat simultaneously with the acquisition of the satellite image and later analyzed in the laboratory to determine the real concentration of the TSS level. Water sample's locations were determined by using a handheld GPS. A simple atmospheric correction, namely darkest pixel technique was performed in this study. This is a very simple correction, based on 2 assumption: The first assumption is that in the darkest water pixel of the image there is total light absorption and the radiation light recorded by this pixel comes from the atmospheric path radiance and secondly it is assumed that the atmospheric path radiance is uniform all over the image. The radiation of the darkest water pixel (assumed to represent the atmosphere) is subtracted from the whole image. The darkest pixel is found by searching for the lowest values over water for all wavelengths. The digital numbers for each band corresponding to the sea-truth locations were extracted and then converted into radiance values and reflectance values. The reflectance values were used for calibration of the water quality algorithm. The calibrated TSS algorithm was then used to generate the water quality maps of the study areas. The newly developed algorithm can estimate TSS concentration with linear correlation coefficient square (R) of 0.92. The result obtained indicated that reliable estimates of TSS values for the Penang Island, Malaysia, could be retrieved using this technique.


To allow employees to hold the shares is an important way of enterprise reform.As this method of staff shares is adopted in the transformation of the enterprises,the way how to replace SOEs with SOSEs(enterprises of staff shares)as well as how to make the accounting treatment concerning the earnings allocation in the SOSEs has become important problems demanding prompt solution.


Aim of this work is to study the effect of mechanical load and damages, on the performance of structural capacitors, made by CFRP composite laminates with a PET dielectric film (treated with sodium hydroxide) inserted at the laminate middle-plane. Such capacitors have been characterized by ILSS and tensile tests and the properties so estimated were compared to those of the simple CFRP. By measuring the capacitance before mechanical loading, under loading and after unloading, it has been observed that, due to the damage of the CFRP layers, proved also by proper fractographic analysis, at high strain level the capacitance decreases although it exhibits a complete recovery after unloading. Successive FEM analysis have been performed on structural capacitors to detect the interlaminar stress field and to implement a suitable criterion that can be used at the design stage to a reliable prediction of the failure load of such multifunctional CFRP composite materials.


Visceral angiography is valuable in the preoperative diagnosis of congenital small bowel arteriovenous malformations [1 -5]. Small bowel arteriovenous malformations are difficult to localize intraoperatively, even with a prior arteriogram as a guide [1 1. Several localizing methods have been proposed in addition to palpation and transillumination. Among these are: (1) direct injection of methylene blue into the proximal superior mesenteric artery to look for rapid clearing [1 ] within the arteriovenous malformation, (2) selective mesenteric venous pressure and P02 measurements [2], (3) intraoperative DoppIer ultrasound examination [3, 4], and (4) superselective percutaneous catheter placement with intraoperative injection of methylene blue to stain the involved segment of small bowel [51. All of these methods have distinct advantages and disadvantages, and none is error proof. We have recently aided intraoperative localization of an isolated ileal arteriovenous malformation in a child by coil embolization of a feeding vessel. This was used because other methods had failed previously. The coil facilitated palpation of the segmental mesenteric artery and resection of the subserved bowel containing the arteriovenous malformation.


this paper shows that S&P 500 stock betas are overstated and the non-S&P 500 stock betas are understated because of liquidity price effects caused by the S&P 500 trading strategies. The daily and weekly betas of stocks added to the S&P 500 index during 1985-1989 increase, on average, by 0.211 and 0.130. The difference between monthly betas of otherwise similar S&P 500 and non-S&P 500 stocks also equals 0.125 during this period. Some of these increases can be explained by the reduced nonsynchroneity of S&P 500 stock prices, but the remaining increases are explained by the price pressure or excess volatility caused by the S&P500 trading strategies. I estimate that theprice pressures accountfor 8.5 percent of the total variance of daily returns of a value-weighted portfolio of NYSE/AMEX stocks. The negative own autocorrelations in S&P 500 index returns and the negative cross autocorrelations between S&P 500 stock returns provide further evidence consistent with the price pressure hypothesis.


Dr. Middaugh describes his interest in farm-size stills as a way to use unmarketable organic materials to produce fuel. Small-scale operations eliminate transportation costs and use essential cost-free damaged produce, straw, trash wood, newspapers, and other materials. Farm-based groups promoting farm economy will be urged to form investment groups to buy the distillation equipment. A demonstration plant showed that farmers can build a plant in three weeks and operate it as a 24-inch column to make 2100 gallons a day. Several companies are manufacturing still equipment that costs only a fraction of large distillation plants. The commercialization process will include equipment and formula improvements as well as public education. (DCK)


A coarse-grained method for simulating diffusion of a small molecule within a glassy polymer was developed and implemented. The method builds on our previous work in which molecular-level jump rates between likely sorption states were calculated with multidimensional transition-state theory incorporating explicit chain motions that accompany each jump. In this work we first use a reverse Monte Carlo approach to generate large microstructures of sorption states and jump paths whose size, connectivity, and rate constant distributions match those found in detailed molecular simulations of methane in glassy atactic polypropylene. Next we simulate diffusion of isolated penetrant molecules in these microstructures using kinetic Monte Carlo. Over small to moderate times, mean-squared displacement increases sublinearly (anomalous diffusion) in structures of either low or moderate connectivity and with either uniform rate constants or a distribution of rate constants. At long times, regular diffusion is observed i...


Abstract A variety of cues have been proven to elicit reactivity in nicotine-dependent individuals. Since such reactivity has been shown to form a source of relapse, treatments aim at extinguishing this reactivity. Yet, typically, in cue-exposure treatments a very limited range of relevant stimuli is used, usually focusing only on proximal stimuli (e.g., a cigarette) rather than on contextual cues that trigger craving (e.g., a bar). The restriction to proximal cues may be one of the reasons for the low efficacy of cue-exposure treatments. In the current pilot study (N = 88), we aimed to evaluate the effect on relapse rates of exposure to contextual cues prior to quitting smoking, by varying the degree of exposure/extinction to habitual smoking contexts prior to quitting between groups. Results suggest that context exposure prior to smoking cessation indeed reduces relapse. However, since dropout rates were high, this finding needs replication with a larger sample.


ABSTRACT environmental stress in two Mediterranean species different Variation of stress indicators in Quercus species grown at Quercus species may be the most characteristic plants of the Mediterranean forest, and due to their economic and forestry interests, this study seeks to establish parameters indicative of of the genus Quercus , Q. suber and Q. ilex subsp . Ballota . Six sampling areas were located in protected zones of southern Spain. Among the indicators studied, we include malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) and other molecules that form part of the non-enzymatic antioxidant systems in plants, such as phenolic compounds, ascorbate, or proline. Our results show that the content in MDA, H 2 O 2 , phenolic compounds, and ascorbate were optimal indicators of environmental stress for both species. These results were different depending on sampling area. The present work therefore suggests that stress indicators could be a quick and effective tool for determining the ecophysiological behaviour of


ABSTRACT The hydrogen embrittlement plays a crucial role in high-temperature material. However, the hydrogen embrittlement mechanism of Nb5Si3 is entirely unclear. To solve the key problem, we use the first-principles calculations to study the H-doped mechanism and influence of hydrogen on the elastic properties, brittle-or-ductile behaviour and Debye temperature of α-Nb5Si3. According to the structural feature, we consider four H-doped sites. We find that hydrogen prefers to occupy the H-ST(4) site because of the strong localised hybridisation between hydrogen and α-Nb5Si3. Importantly, H-doping weakens the volume deformation resistance, shear deformation resistance and elastic stiffness of α-Nb5Si3. In particular, hydrogen results in hydrogen embrittlement of α-Nb5Si3 due to the formation of Si-H bond and Nb-H bond. In addition, the calculated Debye temperature of H-ST(1) site and H-ST(3) site is larger than that of α-Nb5Si3.


Abstract
 This exercise examines the correlation between gravitational-force (g-force) tolerance and the sizes of organisms, emphasizing differences between vertebrates and invertebrates, particularly the effects of size and scale on biological processes. Students form a hypothesis based on background information and then test it by spinning subjects in a centrifuge. Class results can be graphed, analyzed, and compared to human tolerance. The activity engages students in scientific process while investigating the effects of physical forces on structure and function.


This paper proposes a practical and effective method base on weather patterns for producing 15-minutes short-term prediction of photovoltaic generation with a prediction horizon of 24 hours. Two different radiation prediction models are examined for two different weather patterns. In the clear sky model, the surface radiation is predicted by calculating the cutting plane instantaneous intensity of solar radiation and atmospheric transparency coefficient. In the mode of non-clear sky, future radiation is forecasted by finding the quadratic curve of the measured surface radiation and the time. Finally, the radiation - power conversion model is developed to calculate the corresponding power prediction through the outputting of the short-term radiation prediction model. The proposed approach been applied in many PV power plant in the Northwest part of China. It is shown that the system can produce reasonable forecast results, providing a good guidance for dispatching and efficient running for PV power plant.


The scarcity of observation data over Xiamen areas were reinforced using the data of Zhangzhou and Dongshan.Then the annual and seasonal precipitation trend,dryness and wetness phase,variation period,secular change of precipitation under climatic change,frequency of precipitation anomaly and catastrophic point of precipitation over Xiamen were analyzed from 1893 to 2005.It showed that:(1)The annual and summer precipitation of Xiamen had increased in recent 113a.(2)It was rainless in 1893~1902 and 1948~1971 while rainy in 1931~1947 and 1983~2005.(3)The annual precipitation had oscillation periods of 7~8a,60~65a and 17a.(4)The inter-annual change of annual and summer precipitation were acute in 1903~1931.(5)The climate variability of autumn precipitation was the highest among 4 seasons.(6)The precipitation anomaly events occurred frequently in 1951~1960,1901~1910 and 1990~2000.(7)The annual precipitation over 1971~1972 and 1982~1983,spring precipitation over 1942~1943 and 1972~1973,summer precipitation over 1987~1988 and autumn precipitation over 1972~1973 had catastrophe occurrences.


When young children have an irritant in their eyes, to reduce the stinging and make opening the eyes easier, try putting a drop of an ocular anesthetic in each medial canthus while the child is supine; be sure to wait for it to seep in.


Attapulgite clay was soaked with natural brackish water,and the effects of soaking time on the viscosity,rheological and suspension stability of attapulgite were intensively investigated.The results indicate that the metal ions in the brackish water were exchanged with the surface ions of attapulgite,which altered the surface charges of attapulgite and thus improved its colloidal properties.After being soaked for 90 d,attapulgite exhibits the best suspension stability.After being soaked for 180 d,the rotary viscosity of attapulgite was increased from 1 188 mPa·s to 2 444 mPa·s.


Telemedicine can help in the management of patients suffering from chronic pathologies, particularly elderly patients with numerous comorbidities. Elderly residents in nursing homes usually have multiple comorbidities, including cognitive and psycho-behavioral pathologies, cardiac disorders, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and kidney disease, and Note to the Reader: This chapter is part of the book Digital Health (ISBN: 978-0-6453320-1-8), scheduled for publication in March 2022. The book is being use multiple medications. This implies the need for regular monitoring, and a high level of medical and multidisciplinary expertise for the healthcare team. The GER-e-TEC (GERIATRICS and e-TECHNOLOGY) project aims to provide these fragile elderly patients with telemedicine tools, more specifically telemonitoring, backed by a well-defined and personalized protocol. The tools use non-invasive communication sensors and artificial intelligence techniques, allowing daily monitoring with the ability to detect any abnormal changes in the patient's condition promptly. The GER-e-TEC project specifically considers the challenges of aging residents, especially those who are in nursing homes, with a major focus on falls, malnutrition, cognitive-behavioral disorders, and iatrogenic conditions.


The evolution of mechanical properties and microstructure of Al-4.5Mg-0.7Mn-0.4Er-0.1Zr alloy after annealing at different temperatures was studied by means of tensile test,OM,SEM and TEM observations.The results show that annealing temperature has a significant affect on mechanical properties and microstructure of the experimental alloy.After annealed below 200℃ for 1h,there is little change of mechanical properties of the alloy so it happens only with recovery;and annealed at 200—300℃ for 1h,the recrystallization happens now,and mechanical properties of the alloy change remarkably.After annealed over 300℃ for 1h,the alloy grains coarsen,but there is a little change for mechanical properties.The phase particles containing Er remarkably inhibit the coarsening of recrystallized grains.


During the period of fighting against Japanese aggression,the CCP and the KMT formed the national united front on the basis of the second cooperation between the KMT and CCP.The CCP made clear that the Three People's Principles advocated by Sun yat-sun was identical with CCP's position in his democratic revolution.The CCP also expounded the difference between the Three People's Principles and the Communism,demanding KMT to practice the true People's principles and criticizing KMT's betray of the true principles.


Identification of mammalian olfactory receptor agonists enables development of a predictive model of receptor activation. To Shape a Smell? Our ability to detect and discriminate among the numerous odorous compounds to which we are exposed depends on odorant recognition by members of a large family of heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide–binding protein (G protein)–coupled odorant receptors (ORs). However, the specific physicochemical properties that enable a particular odorant to act as a ligand for a particular receptor—and thus the initial stage in determining how that odorant is perceived—remain unclear. Saito et al. used a heterologous expression system to test the responses of a large library of human and mouse ORs with a panel of 93 odorants. Analysis of ligand properties and OR sequences enabled the authors to develop a model for predicting interactions between ORs and their ligands. Deciphering olfactory encoding requires a thorough description of the ligands that activate each odorant receptor (OR). In mammalian systems, however, ligands are known for fewer than 50 of more than 1400 human and mouse ORs, greatly limiting our understanding of olfactory coding. We performed high-throughput screening of 93 odorants against 464 ORs expressed in heterologous cells and identified agonists for 52 mouse and 10 human ORs. We used the resulting interaction profiles to develop a predictive model relating physicochemical odorant properties, OR sequences, and their interactions. Our results provide a basis for translating odorants into receptor neuron responses and for unraveling mammalian odor coding.


Piccione and Rubinstein have pointed out ambiguities in the interpretation of games of imperfect recall. They focus on the notion of time consistency, and argue that a player in a game of imperfect recall may be time inconsistent, changing his strategy despite no new information and no change in his preferences. In this paper it is argued that the apparent time inconsistency arises, in part, from an inappropriate definition of the notion. That is only part of the problem though. It is shown that in some cases the apparent time inconsistency, and, more generally, ambiguity in interpreting games of imperfect recall, stems from the fact that information sets in such games do not in general capture all the relevant features of an agent's knowledge. A model is proposed, based on earlier work in the computer science literature, that does capture all these features.


One of the great joys of the history of astronomy is that it can be treated on many different levels. You can delve deep and immerse yourself in four hundred page tomes on the significance of the observations of the comet of 1577, and you can wallow in a huge three volume set of the letters of John Flamsteed, our first Astronomer Royal, or you can flit briefly and joyfully from highlight to highlight. Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest adopt the latter approach. They have travelled widely and interviewed many of the key players in recent astronomical and astrophysical history, as well as those who study the development of astronomy over the past few thousand years. The views of the authors and the people they interviewed have then been skilfully knitted together to produce an immensely readable, easily accessible and racy overview of mankind's stumbling attempts to understand the cosmos. From Stonehenge to SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and from black holes to Bethlehem's star, little has been overlooked. Half the page-area in this 285-page book is covered with illustrations, many of which are refreshingly unfamiliar. I specially liked Joseph Haydn conducting The Creation (was he really inspired to compose this by peeping through William Herschel's telescope?), and the transit of Venus (a drunken synonymous lady being stretchered off to jail by two rotund policemen!) I leave it to readers to work out the relevance of Richard Burton's Hamlet and the trial scene of Kepler's mother. I loved this book. It is unpretentious, and uncluttered by source references and extraneous detail. Heather and Nigel always look on the bright side. Astronomy is mysterious, often uncertain but always fun. Old astronomers are fabulous, and the pursuit of astronomical knowledge is clearly one of the greatest scientific adventures. But looking at some of the pictures of famous astronomical scientists, one can often pick up hints of the darker side. I wonder how frustrated Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen felt trying to understand spectral lines before the electron had been discovered. Galileo Galilei looks very uncomfortable at his inquisition, moving the Earth from the centre of the cosmos clearly has its consequences; Carl Sagan's furrowed brow underlines just how difficult it is to find extraterrestrial life; and Martin Ryle might just be about to show that the continuous creation theory could not explain the distance between distant galaxies, but this discovery doesn't raise even the hint of a smile. This book is a 'must read' introduction to an amazing human endeavour, our continuing quest for cosmic understanding. Start here, and then be prepared to spend the rest of your life diving ever deeper into one of the greatest scientific adventures.


The Director's Forum series is designed to guide pharmacy leaders in establishing patient-centered services in hospitals and health systems. This month's article continues the focus on the use of mind mapping to clarify and simplify complex pharmacy department issues. At the ASHP Foundation's Pharmacy Leadership Academy, faculty use mind maps to prepare a summary of the participants' responses to the week's content. The mind mapping process clarifies the discussion and illustrates the conclusions that are drawn.


This paper presents unified time-to-go algorithms that achieve generalizations in several aspects. In particular, they are applicable to the general class of proportional navigation guidance laws in which the navigation gain ranges from negative to positive values. They are also applicable to a general class of targets: stationary targets, targets with speeds lower than the interceptor, and targets with speeds that are several times higher than the interceptor. Finally, they are applicable to general three-dimensional engagements that subsume the traditional planar engagements addressed in the literature. First, a time-to-go algorithm is derived as a closed-form approximation function of range, navigation gain, and heading error. This is followed by an algorithm that is based on simple recursive numerical computations. In terms of accuracy over the engagement period, the first is found to be comparable, and sometimes better, with respect to existing algorithms, while the latter is found to perform the best in almost all cases.


Jamaica's Data Protection Act 2020, is the fifteenth data privacy law in the Caribbean. Not yet in force, it provides for a transitional period of two years. The Jamaican Information Commissioner, once appointed, should be influential in the region. It is influenced strongly by the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018, including in providing for extra-territorial jurisdiction, and in limiting data exports through the concept of 'adequacy'.

All data controllers must comply with eight numbered 'Standards', one of which includes compliance with the various 'Rights of the Data Subjects'. The Act also imposes four types of higher obligations, above the 'Standards', on some controllers in relation to some processing. These include registration, controls on specified processing, data protection officers (DPOs) and data protection impact assessments (DPIAs).

The Act's enforcement is based on three types of notices by the Commissioner, which can then lead to offences, administrative penalties, or compensation. The terminology and procedures are somewhat unusual, but the enforcement mechanisms are substantial.

This is a remarkably strong post-GDPR data privacy law. Of the nearly 20 features of the EU's GDPR that are relevant to countries outside the EU, and are stronger than the 1995 Data Protection Directive, only a handful are missing from explicit inclusion in Jamaica's law: data protection by design and default; demonstrable accountability of controllers; direct liability for processors; requirements to cooperate with other DPAs; and rights of public interest groups to take representative actions. The exemptions from the Act may prove to be unreasonably broad. It remains to be seen whether fines of up to 4% of corporate turnover will be genuinely dissuasive when administered by courts, and whether significant compensation awards will be made.


Parasites in gills of farmed Brycon amazonicus (Characidae, Bryconinae) in stream channels of Turuma-Mirim, Amazonas State, Brazil. The purpose of the present study was to determine the prevalence and intensity of parasites in the gills as well as the condition factor of farmed Brycon amazonicus (Spix e Agassiz, 1829) from three stream channels in Taruma-Mirim, Manaus, Amazonas State. Sanitary conditions of stream channels, fish handling, and water physiochemical parameters were monitored. From the 150 examined fish, 25.0% were contaminated by protozoan Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (18,0%) and by leeches Placobdella sp. (7.0%). The prevalence of I. multifiliis in the stream channels was of 22.0%, 18.0% and 14.0%, respectively, and the average intensity was high only in the stream channel that maintained fish in high population density. The leeches Placobdella sp. were found only in one stream channel. There was no seasonal variation in the infection by I. multifiliis ; however Placobdella sp. infected the hosts only in January and March. Condition factor of parasitized fish was significantly lower (p < 0.001) than on unparasitized fish, but, it was not correlated with


Means for heat transport of metallic bodies (K1-K4) as slabs, billets, or forgings in cuboid, cylindrical or truncated cone shape, with a mounting surface (4), are arranged on the support frames (5a-5p), which between them one to the receiving the transportable body (K1-K4) provided, starting from the supporting surface (4) upwards widening receiving space (A1-A8) laterally bound by the facing each other, the receiving space (A1-A8) associated with the side surfaces (8, 9 , 10) of the support frames (5a-5p) at least a surface portion (8a, 8e, 9a, 9c, 10a, 10c) with respect to the installation surface (4) at an angle (α1, α2) are disposed obliquely, wherein the receiving space (A1-A8) delimiting side faces (8, 9, 10) of the support frames (5a-5p) are arranged in at least two obliquely to each other and to the installation surface (4) surface portions (8a, 8e, 9a, 9c, 10a, 10c) are divided, characterized in that between the surface portions (9a, 9c; 10a, 10c) of the side surface (9, 10) of the support frame (5a-5p) a step (9b, 10b) is formed.


To develop novel nonlinear dyes for photonic applications, we synthesized a series of transition metal-containing phenylacetylene oligomers and polymers. The optical properties of these compounds were measured by UV/Vis, fluorescence, and flash photolysis experiments. As the number of oligomer units increased, the transition energies decreased. A solvatochromism experiment suggested the fluorescing state was different from the absorbing state. As a group, the spectra of the polymeric versions of these complexes were red shifted from the spectra of the oligomers. The polymeric complexes had less clear trends relating the number of oligomer units to transition energies. A comparison of a low molecular weight and a high molecular weight polymer showed the degree of polymerization caused spectroscopic shifts comparable to the number of phenylacetylene units in the monomer unit.


Optical beam scanning is a widely utilized function in optical systems and a compact nonmechanical solid-state device has long been anticipated. Here, we have studied such a device consisting of photonic crystal slow-light waveguides and switch trees, fabricated by a Si photonics process, employing a bespoke prism lens for beam collimation. Further in this study, we particularly demonstrated the operation of the device only by the thermo-optic (TO) tuning of its components, at a fixed wavelength of light. A spot beam of ∼0.1° divergence, was scanned in two dimensions, in the angular range of 40° × 8.8° and average power consumption of < 0.7 W. Neglecting some disordered beams caused by the non-uniformity of the fabricated device, the estimated number of resolution points was 400 × 32 = 12,800, which required a significant effort in the device fabrication and calibration, utilizing optical-phased arrays, if the same performance was targeted.


72Background: Many young women with early BC require systemic therapy (ST) which can result in ovarian damage leading to infertility. Fertility preservation (FP) can be performed prior to ST, however uptake is low. Data suggest oncology providers do not routinely discuss the risk of treatment related infertility (TRI) or FP with young women with BC. Methods: We created a QI protocol to ensure providers address fertility needs of young women with early BC. Non-pregnant women age 18-44 years with stage I-III BC who have not initiated ST are identified by screening clinic schedules. Clinicians are asked to follow a QI protocol requiring assessment of patients' childbearing potential (CBP), risk for TRI and fertility goals (FG). If appropriate, FP is discussed and consultation with a fertility specialist arranged. A clinical team member completes a provider documentation form (PDF) summarizing the QI protocol steps accomplished. Results: Since implementation of the QI protocol, there have been 80 eligible wom...


Theme and also the main aim of bachelor thesis is an analysis of quality of services provided by company System plus Zlin, s. r. o. Based on the findings and analysis conducted are suggested ways of improving or expanding existing services. Theoretical part is focused on the interpretation of basic concepts of marketing such as: market definition, the definition of marketing, competition and marketing mix of services. The following explains the SWOT analysis, PEST and Porter´s analysis. Because of the focus on the work of a company dealing with security technologies, it is also necessary to define the basic concepts of this field. The practical part describes the scope of business of the company System plus Zlin, s. r. o., politics and organizational structure of the company, and also are describe services provided by the company. After are made SWOT, PEST and Porter´s analysis, which are applied to the analyzed company. All this resulted in suggestions for improvement of the quality or expanding services provided.


The superconducting parameters are the key for building or identifying the theory responsible for the mechanism of superconductivity. Such parameters for fulleride superconductors have not been well established despite the tremendous efforts over the past 30 years. Here we provide a full set of parameters through a systematic study on a well-characterized K$_{3}$C$_{60}$ sample. The obtained high upper critical field of 33.0$\pm$0.5 T from the direct electrical transport measurements together with the relatively high critical temperature and large critical current density classifies K$_{3}$C$_{60}$ as a promising three-dimensional superconducting magnet material with the advantage of the rich carbon abundance on the Earth. This high upper critical field along with the large reduced superconducting energy gap and strong phonon self-energy effect supports the strong electron-phonon coupling interactions in this superconductor. The evaluation of all self-consistently obtained parameters suggests the unconventional nature of the superconductivity for K$_3$C$_{60}$ with the joint contributions from the strong electron-phonon coupling and electron correlations. These results and findings are important not only for fundamentally understanding the superconductivity in fullerides but also for future superconducting magnet developments and applications.


The SOFC technology under development at Haldor Topsoe A/S and Riso National Laboratory is based on an integrated approach ranging from manufacturing of planar anode-supported cells and compact stacks to analysis of total systems. The standard cells are thin and robust with dimensions of 12 x 12 cm 2 and cell stacks are based on internal manifolding. Production of cells is being up-scaled continuously. The durability of the standard stack design with standard cells has been tested for more than 13000 hours including nine full thermal cycles with an overall voltage degradation rate of about 1% per 1000 hours. Recently, the degradation rate has been significantly reduced by introduction of improved stack component materials. 75-cell stacks in the 1+ kW power range have been tested successfully, so far for several hundred hours. Stacks have been delivered in a pre-reduced state to partners and tested successfully in test systems with natural gas as fuel. The consortium of Haldor Topsoe A/S and Riso has an extended program to develop the SOFC technology all the way to a marketable product. Stack and system modelling including cost optimisation analysis is used to develop 5 kW stack modules for operation in the temperature range 700-850°C. To ensure the emergence of cost-competitive solutions, a special effort is focused on manufacturing and testing of larger anode-supported cells. The SOFC program comprises development of next generation cells and multi stack modules for operation at lower temperature with increased durability and mechanical robustness. Development of cells with porous metallic support and new electrode materials is in progress in order to ensure long-term competitiveness.


Tabular data prediction is a fundamental machine learning task for many applications. Existing methods predominantly employ discriminative modeling and operate under the assumption of a fixed target column, necessitating re-training for every new predictive task. Inspired by the generative power of large language models (LLMs), this paper exploits the idea of building universal tabular data predictors based on generative modeling, namely UniPredict. Here, we show that scaling up an LLM to extensive tabular datasets with the capability of comprehending diverse tabular inputs and predicting for target variables following the input instructions. Specifically, we train a single LLM on an aggregation of 169 tabular datasets with diverse targets and compare its performance against baselines that are trained on each dataset separately. We observe this versatile UniPredict model demonstrates an advantage over other models, ranging from 5.4% to 13.4%, when compared with the best tree-boosting baseline and the best neural network baseline, respectively. We further test UniPredict in few-shot learning settings on another 62 tabular datasets. Our method achieves strong performance in quickly adapting to new tasks, where our method outperforms XGBoost over 100% on the low-resource setup and shows a significant margin over all baselines. We envision that UniPredict sheds light on developing a universal tabular data prediction system that learns from data at scale and serves a wide range of prediction tasks.


PATRICK CRITCHLEY, Department of Family Medicine, Palliative Care Services, St. Joseph's Hospital, Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation, Hamilton, Ontario, ALEJANDRO A. JADAD*, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Program in Evidence-Based Care, Cancer Care Ontario, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, ALAN TANIGUCHI, St. Peter's Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario, ANNE WOODS, Palliative Care Services, St. Joseph's Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario, ROBERT STEVENS, Health Information Research Unit, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, LEONARD REYNO, Medical Oncology, Nova Scotia Cancer Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, TIMOTHY J. WHELAN, Department of Medicine, Supportive Cancer Care Research Unit, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Are Some Palliative Care Delivery Systems More Effective and Efficient than Others? A Systematic Review of Comparative Studies


Hydroxy-terminated copoly(fstyrene-b-1,2-butadiene) (HPSB) containing rubber-affinitive vinyl side chains and having a molecular weight of 2000 to 4000 were prepared, and block copolyurethanes were synthesized by using a low molecular weight hydroxy-terminated poly (ethyl en e terephthalate) as a PET-affinitive component and 4,4′-diphenylmethane diisocyanate as a chain extender. The relationships between the molecular weight of HPSB, copolymerization ratio of styrene to butadiene and the adhesive strength of PKT/rubber in high temperature atmospheres were examined. A peak of adhesive strength was observed at styrene copolymerization ratio of 20 wt percent and a HPSB molecular weight of 3000. The adhesion mechanism was estimated from the behavior of the characteristic infrared absorption of block Copolyurethane in heating.


To view an abstract for an individual paper, or place a paper order, click the paper title. 640203 Detection of human interaction from a distance using salient body behaviour modelling Hayley Hung, Shaogang Gong 640204 Image fusion technology for security and surveillance applications Tom Riley, Moira Smith 640205 Lip-reading enhancement for law enforcement Barry J. Theobald, Richard Harvey, Stephen J. Cox, Colin Lewis, Gari P. Owen 640206 Latest electro-optic and photonic devices for security and military applications A. R. Jha 640207 Countering laser pointer threats to road safety Soren Svensson, Stefan Bjorkert, Hans Kariis, Cesar Lopes 640208 Optical network security: countermeasures in view of attacks Stamatios V. Kartalopoulos 640209 Message extraction mechanism in optical chaos communications using injection-locked semiconductor lasers Atsushi Murakami, K. Alan Shore 64020A Optical visual cryptography based on the phase characteristics of spatial light modulator Sang-Yi Yi, Chung-Sang Ryu, Seung-Hyun Lee 64020B Complementary spectroscopic studies of materials of security interest Andrew Burnett, Wenhui Fan, Prashanth Upadhya, John Cunningham, Howell Edwards, Tasnim Munshi, Michael Hargreaves, Edmund Linfield, Giles Davies 64020C Compact and coherent source of widely tunable THz radiation.


Writing is an important skill that everyone can explore the idea, thought, and knowledge in the form of composition.To have good writing skills, students need to follow the writing process that improves their writing attitude. In the writing process, students are prepared to compose in several phases: pre-writing, draft writing, editing, and revising. If the students do the steps of process writing systematically, it will build students' writing attitude. In order to write well and produce a good task of writing, students need to have a positive attitude. Hence, students who have a writing attitude can influence students' writing ability. This study aimed to find out the correlation between students' writing attitude and writing achievement.. Correlation research was used in this research. The participants were X.TKJ students of SMK N 1 Kayuagung. The respondents were 92 students. Written tests and questionnaires were used to collect the data. Pearson Product Moment correlation was used to analyze the data. The calculation using a Pearson product-moment coefficient found that r-obtained (0.014) was lower than r-table (0.202). It meant that there was no significant correlation between students' writing attitude and writing achievement. It can be concluded that the students have a less writing attitude.


The hypothesis that "lupoid" hepatitis represents a specific entity in the range of chronic active liver diseases was tested by examining the clinical, biochemical, immunochemical, and histologic features of 88 consecutive patients with chronic active liver disease. All patients were selected by predefined criteria and regardless of the result of the lupus erythematosus (LE) test. Initially, the test was positive in 30 patients and negative in 58 patients. LE-positive patients were characterized by disease of shorter duration before symptoms developed and more frequent hepatosplenomegaly; higher levels of serum bilirubin, γ-globulin, and IgG; longer prothrombin time; and lower levels of serum albumin. The incidence of subacute hepatitis with bridging was greater in LE-positive patients. In contrast, the two groups could not be differentiated by sex, age, associated disease of an "autoimmune" type, most systemic manifestations of liver disease, responses to treatment, the presence of smooth muscle antibody, antinuclear antibody, or Australia antigen, and the degree of plasma cell infiltration on liver biopsy. The LE cell test became negative in 92% of those who responded to treatment, but in none who failed to respond. Discriminant analysis of numerous variables failed to distinguish characteristic features associated with the LE test in most patients. The data are interpreted as showing that a positive LE test indicates more active and severe liver disease rather than a different entity with a specific cause or prognosis.


Recent papers have introduced the Motivation Dynamics framework, which uses bifurcations to encode decision-making behavior in an autonomous mobile agent. In this paper, we consider the multi-agent extension of the Motivation Dynamics framework and show how the framework can be extended to encode persistent multi-agent rendezvous behaviors. We analytically characterize the bifurcation properties of the resulting system, and numerically show that it exhibits complex recurrent behavior suggestive of a strange attractor.


In rising out of the ruin s of the War to become now the third largest stee l producing nation in the world, after the United States a nd the U.S.S.R., there have been many tasks that had to be tackled by the Japanese stee l industry. These included the need to bui ld anew complete production facilities from the rubbles of the War ; the need to reduce the costs of tran sportation through extensive use of mammoth ships to overcome the disadvantage of a lmost complete dependence on overseas resources for raw materials; the deve loping of the most up-to-date civil engineering techn iq ues to build stee l mill s in the ocean-front areas that had to be created by dredging and reclamation; the devi sing of compact layouts to utilize the more effectively the hard-earned land spaces; and various research and development works in the art and science of ironand steel-making: to give an example, the complete mastery in the basic oxygen converter technology. The Yawata Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. , expanding from its base of the Yawata "Vorks situated in Kita-Kyushu City, has made enormous efforts to modernize and en large its equipment and capacity so as to meet the increasing demand, in both quantity and product sophisti cation ; it has built a series of modern p lants, including the Tobata Works also in Kita-Kyushu City, the Hikari Works in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the Nagoya Plan t in Aichi Prefecture, and the Sakai "Vorks in Osaka Prefecture. The latest program in thi s series was the construction of an integrated steel mill , the crystalli zation of advanced ideas and new technologies: the Kimitsu Works in C hiba Prefecture. T he merger with Yawata Steel Pipe Co. in Apri l, 1968, added a new steel pipe division , further broadening the range of the produ cts. The merger with Fuji Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., on March 3 1, 1970, on the other hand , has brought about the dawn of new era: the launching of Nippon Steel Corporation. As the crude steel production as of December, 1969, the Yawata and th e Fuji combined, was 2.85 million tons, a lready greater than that of the United States Steel Corporation of the U.S.A., the then largest steel producer in the world, Nippon Steel Corporation was to star t its career as the world's greatest cr ude steel producer. And, the Kimitsu "Vorks will be its major plant for many years to come. In th is report, the past hi story and future prospects of the Kimitsu "Vorks will be reviewed and d iscussed. II. Significance oj the Kimitsu Works


The migration through smart grids (SGs) has generated a growing interest in power generation systems around the world. However, the generation of electric power from different energy sources is a process whose efficiency is not always fully considered. The gross electricity production in Italy by 2015 depended 67% (192 TWh) on thermoelectric plants (non-renewable resources), while alternative energy sources such as wind power, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass and photovoltaic added a gross production of almost 91 TWh, with a domestic production able to cover almost 86% of gross consumption. Beyond profitability, the energy analysis of the electrical Italian system allows us to evaluate the rational use of non-renewable resources and to calculate the overall efficiency of the system simplifying the model to three key factors: efficiency of generation, of production (utilities) and of grid (transmission and distribution). The product of these three factors represents the overall efficiency of the system, which results in values of 0.563, 0.189 and 0.312 for gas, solid fuels and oil, respectively, which are the three non-renewable resources most used in Italy to produce electricity.


Abstract Let R be a ring and m, n two fixed positive integers. In this article, R is defined to be left slightly (m, n)-coherent if each n-generated submodule of the left R-module Rm is (m, n)-projective. It is shown that R is left slightly (m, n)-coherent if and only if the cotorsion pair is hereditary if and only if R is left (m, n)-coherent and the cotorsion pair is hereditary, where (resp., ) stands for the class of all (m, n)-projective (resp., (m, n)-injective) left R-modules, and (resp., denotes the classes of all (m, n)-flat (resp., (m, n)-cotorsion) right R-modules. As applications, (m, n)-homological dimensions of modules and rings over slightly (m, n)-coherent rings are studied.


A tangential X-ray imaging crystal spectrometer (XICS) has been upgraded on J-TEXT tokamak to measure the electron/ion temperature and the plasma toroidal rotation velocity. The XICS has been designed to receive emissions of Ar XVII from −13 cm to +13 cm region with a spatial resolution of 1.8 cm in the vertical direction. The temporal evolution of argon impurity density profiles after an argon gas puff could be observed with a time resolution of up to 2 ms. The emissions of Ar XVII can be modulated by the resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) which indicates that the transport of argon is affected by the RMPs significantly. The 2/1 RMPs can lead to field penetration with enough RMPs amplitude. The XICS provides a tool for the study of the transport of argon impurities during the penetration of RMPs. During the field penetration phase, the emissions of Ar XVII decreased. The phenomena show that the transport of argon impurity at r/a~0.5 has been enhanced during the field penetration phase. STRAHL can give the ratio between D and v profiles for the argon. The result shows that the argon is moving towards the edge by the diffusion. References [1] W. Jin et al 2014 Rev. Sci. Instrum 85 023509 [2] A. Langenberg et al 2017 Nucl. Fusion 57 086013 [3] Joohwan Hong et al 2017 Nucl. Fusion 57 036028 Fig.1 Inferred diffusive D and convective v transport coefficients for the argon transport by STRAHL Note: Abstract should be in 1 page. MFP-13 AAPPS-DPP2018


Objective: To determine the frequency and nature of safety-related regulatory actions for orphan drugs in the United States and the European Union. Orphan drugs are often intended for serious or chronically debilitating diseases. None of the studies that have been conducted on safety-related regulatory actions for drugs focused on orphan drugs. Design: Cohort study. Methods: Orphan drugs approved in the United States and/or the European Union between January 2000 and December 2007 were identified (75 US, 44 EU, of which 24 in both regions). Nature, frequency and timing of safety-related regulatory actions were determined for each orphan drug, defined as safety withdrawals, black box warnings, and written communications to healthcare professionals issued by the FDA or the EMA between January 2000 and June 2008. Results: Of the 95 identified orphan drugs 10 (11%) received at least one safety-related regulatory action. No safety withdrawals, 4 black box warnings and 12 written orphan drugs were identified. Probability of a first safety-related regulatory action for orphan drugs was 20% after 8 years of follow-up. Orphan drugs approved by accelerated approval [relative risk (RR) 3.3; 95% CI 1.1 to 10.4), oncologic products (RR 7.8; 95% CI 1.0-63.8) and products for gastrointestinal and metabolism indications (RR 10.4; 95% CI 1.3-87.3) may have a higher risk for a safety-related regulatory action. Conclusion: The probability of a first safety-related regulatory action of an orphan drug was slightly lower than reported for biologicals and new molecular entities. However, detection of safety issues may be complicated by the limited experience with orphan drugs in practical use. Copyright Adis Data Information 2010. All rights reserved.


Road detection from images is a complicated task, most of which is done manually. This method is not very efficient and not used in real-time scenarios. So the need for a better and more robust road detection method is necessary. For land transport, navigation is crucial in the present world as there could be more number and complex routes between two locations. With the applications, from annotating new roads to estimating the fastest possible routes, road detection can play a significant role. To overcome the difficulty in manually annotating roads, a Fully convolutional neural network (FCNN) based system is proposed which extracts and learns road features from satellite images. Two different models, FCNN-32 and FCNN-8 networks, were trained with the same dataset. The conventional skip connection in FCNN-8 network was re-arranged and optimised. This customisation helped the network preserve spatial information that could improve overall accuracy of the model. The proposed method has the advantage of processing speed, and it is cost-effective.


Shock-tunnel measurements are reported of skin friction with supersonic hydrogen-air combustion in a constant area duct. A floating-element skin-friction gauge was used, in which the shear force was applied directly to a piezoceramic measuring element. The experiments were conducted at stagnation enthalpies of 5.7 and 6.8 MJ kg(-1), a precombustion Mach number of similar to 4.5, and with a maximum duct Reynolds number of 1.3 x 10(7). The measurements showed that, although supersonic combustion caused the skin friction to fluctuate with time, it did not affect the mean value of the skin friction coefficient, and this mean value could be predicted using existing turbulent: boundary-layer theory. Measurements of heat transfer also established that Reynolds analogy could be used in both the fuel-off and fuel-on flows.


In this study, long memory and asymmetric properties in volatility of Turkey Stock Market are examined by using the FIGARCH, FIEGARCH and FIAPARCH models under different distribution assumptions as Normal and Skewed Student-t for the period 1990-2015. Furthermore, structural changes in volatility of Turkey Stock Market are investigated. The findings of the study display long memory property and the presence of asymmetric effects of shocks in volatility of Turkey Stock Market.


played a significant role in the struggle between supporters and defenders of the Protestant Ascendancy.1 During the  general election, the contest in County Monaghan, where the Catholic Association used its voting power to defeat the conservative Colonel Leslie of Glaslough, decisively showed the voting strength available to Daniel O'Connell. An election riot on Saturday, June , , when Catholics attacked Leslie as he entered Monaghan town with a crowd of Orange supporters, was known as "Stony Saturday." In , this attack was still recalled as an unparalleled outbreak of violence; a subsequent stage of the proceedings was known as "Stick Wednesday."2 In the s, Orangemen were preoccupied with the perceived influence of O'Connell over the Whig administration, shown in several attempted prosecutions of Monaghan Orangemen for breaching the Party Processions Act in the years –.3 For much of the nineteenth century, the core leadership of Orangeism and Irish Toryism was provided by a network of South Ulster evangelical gentry, such as the Coles and Crichtons of Fermanagh and the Jocelyns of South Down. In the s and s, Monaghan was notorious for the use of extra-judicial force by Orangemen in reaction to Catholic mobilization. Orange paramilitary intermingling with the local legal apparatus was symbolized for many contemporaries by Sam Gray (–), who was an innkeeper, a property-owner, and manager of a local Loan Fund in Ballybay; Worshipful Master of Ballybay lodge and District Master of Ballybay; land agent, tithe proctor, local tax-collector, and baronial High Constable for the Ballybay area. Gray's inn contained a cell for Patrick Maume


The failure of Reconstruction is widely seen as a key factor in the social and economic status of African Americans today. Despite the imposed extension of the franchise to the formerly enslaved, Southern elites used violence and other extralegal means to regain power and ultimately remove these newly granted rights. In this paper, we study the importance of enforcement of political rights on the ability of the formerly enslaved to achieve political power during Reconstruction. We use data on the location of federal troops to predict the election of black politicians in the Congressionally-mandated state constitutional conventions and subsequent state legislatures. We use various estimation strategies, including exploiting railway coverage at the time of occupation, two-way fixed effects models, and an instrumental variable model, to analyze patterns of black representation state legislative bodies. We find that enforcement principally impacted representation through minority turnout. In light of the recent Supreme Court decisions to weaken the enforcement mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act and subsequent legislative efforts to suppress minority turnout, our evidence has implications on minority representation to this today.


In this project a one dimensional and steady state numerical model (FloWell) for describing wellbore behavior has been conducted. The wellbore simulator solves the continuity, energy and momentum equations using the ode23 function built in MATLAB. Validation of FloWell shows that the Homogenous (with slip ratio equal to one) and Rouhani-Axelsson void fraction correlations give good results for a liquid dominant well in Svartsengi in Iceland. A numerical analysis is performed with the iTOUGH2-PEST package to improve the model design in FloWell. The case study shows that parameters in void fraction correlations can be adjusted with the package so that simulations with FloWell fits measured data. Further work will include simulations of more wells with different characteristics and the future goal is to couple the wellbore simulator FloWell with the reservoir model TOUGH2.


Formal education in global health (GH) and short‐term experiences in GH (STEGH) are offered by many emergency medicine (EM) residency programs in the United States. In an increasingly connected world, training in GH and STEGH can provide essential knowledge and practical skills to trainees, particularly at the graduate medical education level. The current core programmatic components and the essential competencies and curricula that support ethical and effective STEGH, however, still vary widely. The authors conducted a survey of the 228 EM residency programs in the United States to describe the current state of GH training and STEGH.


A 71-year-old woman with Kaposi's sarcoma was admitted to the hospital because of severe pancytopenia with negative sternal aspirate. The bone marrow trephine biopsy demonstrated an extensive replacement of the hematopoietic tissue by Kaposi's sarcoma. Skin, soft palate mucosa, spleen, retroperitoneal and axillary lymph nodes were also found to be involved at the post-mortem examination. Therefore the bone marrow biopsy can be used in the staging of Kaposi's sarcoma in presence of pancytopenia and might be able to detect a primary visceral involvement in patients without cutaneous lesions.