Service is defined as economic activities that produce time, place, form, and/or psychological utility. It is intangible, perishable, created and consumed simultaneously [1]. Every product has some form of service [2]. Thus Service specification is necessary to get desired product and service from any purchase. In literature, there are different dimensions of services. In this article, services are classified into three categories: importance of service, expected quality from service and willingness to spend to get a service. Considering these areas, a metrics is developed that could help to identify expected service in terms of cost, importance & quality. Combined with internal and external measures of service, the matrix will also help to understand the features of potential supplier & service, take actionable strategy to get desired services and take effective service product purchase decision.


The La-Mg-Ni hydrogen storage alloys with A2B7/AB5 double phase were successfully prepared by vacuum melting combined with ball milling. The phase structure, electrochemical properties and the catalytic oxidation properties for BH4- of the (Mm1-xMgx)Ni2.485Co0.525Mn0.28Al0.21 (x=0.1-0.5 )alloys were investigated by XRD and electrochemical measurements. The results showed that (Mm1-xMgx)Ni2.485Co0.525Mn0.28Al0.21 alloys are composed of LaNi5 phase and (La, Mg)2Ni7 phase. Among the studied alloys, the electrochemical properties of the alloy with x=0.3 is the best, and the electrochemical properties of the alloy with x=0.3 is significantly better than that of the AB5-type hydrogen storage alloy, which is mainly due to the formation of (La, Mg)2Ni7 phase in the alloy. At the same time, the alloy with x=0.3 also shows a better catalytic oxidation effect on BH4-, which is also better than that of the AB5- type hydrogen storage alloy. The catalysis of (Mm1-xMgx)Ni2.485Co0.525Mn0.28Al0.21 alloy catalyst is related to its electrochemical performance. The catalysis of hydrogen storage alloys may have a positive correlation with its own electrochemical performance.


In this paper we introduce an extension of the log-normal dis tribution, based on the alpha-skew-normal distribution introduced by Elal-Olivero [ 10]. Basic properties, moments, moment estimators, maximum l ikelihood estimators and a simulation study are discussed. We apply the approach developed in this paper to data sets related to neodymium and nickel concentra tio s in soil samples. Model fit indicates good performance of the propose d model when compared with less flexible models.


Introduces the basic situation of the professional qualification system in our country, dissects its signification and basic characteristic, in the last, gives a brief analysis to its certification system and its total target.


This paper studies the critical factors that SMEs should pay attention to when they managed their innovation networks to improve their innovation competences. We investigated 105 SMEs distributed in different industries with most of them in manufacture industry and got 204 valid questionnaires. The survey results show that there are 4 factors which influence SMEs innovation performance, i.e. partner selection, trust, CEO¿s commitment, and information technology. In these four factors, trust is the most important factor followed by partner selection.


There is a broad agreement in the international academic community as well as among the major political leaders in the world that burning fossil fuels is a major cause for global warming. This article focuses, first, on the linkage between energy security and climate change; second, on the responsibilities of national governments on the one hand and the responsibilities of the international community on the other hand; and third, on the importance of the role of leaders in today's globalising world, especially with respect to energy security and climate change. The hypothesis of this article is that a globalising world requires global governance. To create global governance mechanisms, we need leadership. Leadership, however, requires not only leaders but also followers, as well as an understanding of the challenges to and the opportunities for the world we are living in.


Studies from a number of laboratories suggest that modulation of cytokine expression plays an integral role in the immunomodulatory activity of opioids. Previously, our laboratory reported that activation of the μ‐opioid receptor induced the expression of CCL2, CCL5, and CXCL10, as well as CCR5 and CXCR4. Previous work has also suggested the possibility that TGF‐β may participate in the opioid‐induced regulation of immune competence, and in the present study, we set out to determine the role of this cytokine in the control of chemokine and chemokine receptor expression. We found that D‐ala2,N‐Me‐Phe4‐Gly‐ol5enkephalin (DAMGO), a highly selective μ‐opioid agonist, induced the expression of TGF‐β1 expression at the protein and mRNA levels. In turn, the addition of TGF‐β1 was found to induce CCL5 and CXCR4 expression but not CCL2, CXCL10, or CCR5. Further analysis showed that pretreatment with neutralizing anti‐TGF‐β1 blocked the ability of DAMGO to induce CCL5 or CXCR4. Similarly, pretreatment with cycloheximide prevented CCL5 or CXCR4 mRNA expression, consistent with the observation that DAMGO induction of chemokine and chemokine receptor expression requires newly synthesized TGF‐β1 protein. These results describe a common molecular basis for the activation of chemokine and chemokine receptor expression and may permit the development of strategies to inhibit certain undesirable immunological properties of μ‐opioid agonists such as morphine and heroin.


The fundamental breakdown to turbulence known as the K-mechanism of transition has been simulated under controlled conditions. The important characteristic features of the K-mechanism, namely peak-valley formation, significant spanwise modulation of the velocity, shear layer lift-up, and appearance of spikes have been observed. A possible explanation of the characteristic traits of this K-mechanism has been given using wave-resonance theory. Due to resonance, initially largeamplitude harmonics of a plane 2D wave are generated, and with increasing streamwise distance the harmonics of all the higher spanwise wavenumbers appear gradually and amplify in a deterministic manner. Up to the location of spike formation the amplitudes of the spanwise modes increases, reaching their highest levels just after the appearance of the spikes, while slightly dropping off further downstream.


The 2016 election campaign in the United States reminds us how distant public health professionals are from claiming a significant voice in the national dialogue on health and social policy. On key questions such as how to shrink income inequality, reduce health care costs, take on humaninduced climate change, improve the American diet, or integrate immigrants into our society, public health perspectives are largely absent from the discourse. In the first decades of the 20th century and again in the 1960s, the public health community was an active participant in robust social movements that used elections, legislation, litigation, and media advocacy to shape policy debates and help win major public health advances, to, for example, restrict child labor, protect worker health and safety, regulate foods and drugs, protect the environment, and end overt racial segregation in health care. Why aren't today's public health workers following this path?Howcanweplay amore meaningful role in changing the policies and social conditions that shape patterns of premature death and preventable illnesses?


picture to that of the engraver just mentioned.1 Enthusiasm, in the 18th century sense, dominates and some of the faces are revoltingly ugly; but Heemskerck introduces a group which warns the spectator not to criticize rashly: the two noblemen who have strayed in through the open door are quite different from the rest of the company and have no part in it.2 The one with the big hat has a queer expression, half astonished, half cynical; his companion's face is serious, bewildered perhaps but not scornful. An ugly foolish face appears between the two heads, which contrasts with the faces of the faithful, be they quiet or ecstatic. The painter is no more in sympathy with the curious attitude of these intruders than with the over-excitement of most of the audience. But certain heads have such a strong expression and they show so forcibly the great workings of the inner light that they cannot have been created with any satirical intention. Heemskerck has a sharp eye for both the sincere and the grotesque enthusiasm, and he has real feeling for the intense and closed atmosphere of the Meeting into which the noble strangers have entered. The picture belongs to the category of the "Sittenbild," not to that of religious satire. It proves how rare an achievement Heeinskerck's pictures were that we still possess some twenty copies and versions of them.3 No other outstanding representation of the meeting of a 17th century sect has come down to us, numerous as these sects were. Rembrandt had continued in the tradition of Christian art as far as the choice of his subjects went, but he treated them in a spirit far from that of the ruling Churches. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to have made the devotion of the poor the subject of art. Although a small artist, Heemskerck had enough understanding of Rembrandt's art to aspire to similar problems. He turned away from the Bible subjects and studied spiritual life in the Meeting places of the Friends where a new religion was born. His creations have nothing of the blissful truth of Rembrandt's "Petite Tombe," but at their best they have a spark of 'illumination' together with something of the critical attitude towards life which was the inheritance of the realistic Dutch school of


This chapter discusses some perspectives on the responsibilities for the development, conduct, delivery, and management of verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification (VV&UQ). The topics considered here deal with both technical and nontechnical issues, but all are focused on the strategic goals of improved credibility and proper use of simulations. Our experience, and the experience of others, has convinced us that while technical issues and computing resources are important, they are not the limiting factor in improving the credibility and usefulness of scientific computing used in a decision-making environment. We believe that nontechnical issues have significantly constrained the improvements in credibility that VV&UQ can provide. Examples of the issues discussed in this chapter are (a) suggestions for needed technical developments in VV&UQ, (b) responsibilities for the various technical activities that encompass VV&UQ, (c) recommendations for management responsibilities and leadership in deploying VV&UQ practices, (d) development of V&V databases for general use, and (e) development of industrial and engineering standards for V&V.


By the common use of Internet,IM software has more and more affected people's life.How to take advantage of chat text to serve people and how to extract key words from this text has attracted more and more researchers.Chat text is different from article text.Only using TFIDF algorithm to extract keywords is not well.In this paper,a history cache is introduced to improve the performance of TFIDF in chat text.


The analysis of the internal texture of vobla kidneys shows that the fore-part of the kidneys consists of reticular and blood cells, and there are no elements of the secretory system, but along with the enumerated cells, in the back part there are the elements of the secretory system. Multiple pathologic derangements are marked in the kidneys of the examined fish species. As a result of morphologic examination it is cleared up that differentiation, proliferation and maturing of the cells of erithropoietic, granulo and agranulocitopoietic rows take place.


Recently the rising concern about the environmental impact of ship noise on the marine fauna pushed national and international bodies to face the problem. In the last decade a few mass strandings of cetaceans due to sea trials of navy sonars, enforced the interest on noise pollution effects on marine mammals. The problem of evaluating the impact of underwater noise from ships is very complex due to the difficulties in characterising the whole noise chain ( source, transmission path, receiver). As regards the source, ships are characterised by complicated emissions due to the superimposition of different sources (propeller, machineries, flow noise); moreover, because of their dimensions, the measurement procedure is long and complicated. At this aim, very recently, some standards have been issued aimed at the measurement of underwater noise emitted from commercial ships. As regards the transmission path, problems are linked with the correct evaluation of the transmission loss which is influenced by many environmental parameters (water temperature, salinity, pressure, bottom composition etc.) which cannot be easily monitored during measurements. Finally the actual sensibility to noise of the marine mammals it is not completely known, especially for species belonging to the Mysticetes (Baleen Whales).  These problems have been analysed in the SILENV collaborative project  (Ships oriented Innovative soLutions to rEduce Noise & Vibrations), devoted to the holistic analysis of noise emissions from the ship [radiation inside the ship and outside (in air and in water)]. The project is funded by the E.U. and has been launched in 2009. Again within the 7 th Framework Programme a call was launched on the specific subject of underwater radiated noise, focussed on the noise from cavitation. Presently the selection process is undergoing


Reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) and, subsequently, the quality and functionality of overhead line (OHL) systems of high-speed and high-capacity railway lines is of paramount importance, with high-speed trains currently running at speeds of up to 350 km/hr. As such, for OHL installation and maintenance, requiring specially developed installation and maintenance strategies, stringent quality criteria are in place. The modern Plasser and Theurer catenary installation and renewal technology that meets these demands is the focus of this article.


A strain of silicate bacteria screened from the surface of bauxite was chosen to carry on its physio-biochemical characteristics in different mineral culture media and desilicon from bauxite.The results showed that the strains of enrichment cultivated in different mineral media have different physio-biochemical characters,and can release major elements containing in corresponding minerals.The strains cultivated in orthoclase,kaolinite and olivine media have stronger abilities of desilicon from bauxite,the SiO2 content intheir supernatants are 0.5—1.0 times higher than the strains cultivated in other minerals.In addition,and the above strains produced more acids and polysaccharides,forming obvious bacterial-mineral complexes in the process of bauxite bioleaching.Strains cultivated in different minerals have selectivity over bio-catalytic.The strains cultivated in olivine,calcite and hematite media have better ability in dissolving,Mg and Fe.The results showed that the strains cultivated in different minerals are able to produce certain inducible enzymes for specific elements.Therefore,certain mineral training strains or mixed mineral training strains can be chosen to decompose bauxite depending on the composition of bauxite.


Plantations under various commercial crops and forest species across the globe are already extensive in area and are expanding. The benefits from these have been economic, environmental and social, and there are many opportunities and needs for their further development (Nambiar and Brown, 1997). The occasional failure of these ventures can be attributed to a variety of factors, one of the foremost in the tropics and subtropics being invasion by alien plants. Invasion by Mikania micrantha (mikania), a perennial climbing vine native to Central and South America, is a good case in point. Mikania is one of the most serious invasive species (one among the world's ten worst weeds) in plantations, agroforestry and agricultural systems, and natural forests in the Asia–Pacific region and in Miami-Dade County in Florida in the USA (Holm et al., 1991; Derksen and Dixon, 2009; Sankaran and Suresh, 2013a). The various impacts of mikania in plantations and commercial crops in the Asia–Pacific region have been well documented, as is summarized in Table 4.1. Plantation crops are particularly vulnerable to mikania in the establishment phase because it can thrive in moist fertile soil with high light intensity. It may cease to be a problem in mature plantations of crops such as oil palm and rubber as the plant cannot grow under a closed canopy. However, in most cases, the long-term productivity of the crops is seriously affected by weedimpaired early growth. This chapter looks at the impact of mikania in plantation crops and reviews options for its management. The potential of mikania to kill immature plants/young trees by overgrowing and smothering them, by competing for light, soil water and nutrients, and by releasing allelopathic substances that inhibit their growth and regeneration, is well known (Teoh et al., 1985; Sankaran et al., 2001; Matthews, 2004). Mikania also interferes with flowering, natural pollination by insects and the harvesting of crops (Day et al., 2012). The presence of the weed alters soil chemical characteristics and the soil microbial community, possibly creating a favourable condition for its prolific growth and spread (Li et al., 2006). Studies in southern China have shown that there is local adaptation at the genome level in mikania and that this may represent a major evolutionary mechanism for successful invasion wherever the species is introduced (Wang et al., 2008). The weed grows rapidly – up to 9 cm in 24 h – and can produce enormous amounts of seed, which can then be dispersed by wind or by attachment to machinery, animal fur and human clothing or possessions (Waterhouse and Norris 1987; Holm et al., 1991). Mikania was introduced as a cover crop into rubber and oil palm plantations in Impacts and Management Options for Mikania micrantha in Plantations


The invention relates to ceramic powder and a preparation method thereof in the technical field of ceramic materials, in particular to a spontaneous hydro-thermal method for preparing special composite nano ceramic powder for a ceramic tooth. The components are as follows according to molar percentage: 5 to 8 percent of yttrium oxide, 1 to 3 percent of aluminum oxide and 89 to 94 percent of zirconium oxide; and the particle diameter of composite nano ceramic powder particles is from 20 to 30 nanometers. The method has the characteristics of good toughness, nearly no crystal imperfection and favorable sintering activity; after being further processed by surface modification, the ceramic powder can form a spherical or subspherical structure; and the inner components are tightly combined with one another, are endued with favorable flowability and transport property, and can be directly used for the injection molding of a ceramic tooth piece. The preparation method has the advantages of simplicity, low cost and easy realization of industrial production.


The proteasome is a key protease in the eukaryotic cells, which is responsible for various important cellular processes such as the control of the cell cycle, immune responses, protein homeostasis, inflammation, apoptosis and the response to proteotoxic stress. Acting as a major molecular machine for protein degradation, proteasome first identifies damaged or obsolete regulatory proteins by attaching Ubiquitin chains and subsequently utilizes conserved pore-loops of hetero-hexameric ring of the AAA+ (ATPases associated with diverse cellular activities) to pull and mechanically unfold and translocate the misfolded protein to the active site for proteolysis. A detailed knowledge of the reaction mechanism for this proteasomal proteolysis is of central importance, both for fundamental understanding and for drug discovery. This study investigates the mechanism of the proteolysis by proteasome with full consideration of protein's flexibility and its impact on the reaction free energy. Major attention is paid to the role of the protein electrostatics in determining the activation barriers. The reaction mechanism is studied considering small artificial fluorogenic peptide substrate (Suc-LLVY-AMC) and evaluating the activation barriers and reaction free energies for the acylation and deacylation steps, by using the empirical valence bond method. Our results shed light on the proteolysis mechanism and thus may have an impact on further studies of the proteasome action.


This article extracts from Heinrich Heine's famous poem "Prinzessin Sabbat" a portrait of the Jew as a figure that occupies a liminal state between humanity and animality. This figure of the Jew, who spends the week as a dog and regains his humanity on the Sabbath, has been conventionally read as allegorical of Jewish existence in the diaspora. Without challenging this interpretation, I propose an alternative reading of the figure of the Jew in Heine's poem as emblematic of his own deteriorated physical condition during the last eight years of his life, and link it to his departure from the "Hellenic" persona he had previously espoused in his writings, and to his renewed interest in Judaism. The Judaism with which Heine identified toward the end of his life had little to do with the "Nazarene" mentality that he had fiercely denounced in his earlier writings. Rather, the figure of the Jew in Heine's late writings problematizes the prevalent anthropocentric outlook that maintained since biblical times the supremacy of humanity over all of creation, and breaks the traditional boundary between human and earthly nature. From the perspective of the Jew who shares the suffering that epitomizes creaturely life, Heine articulates a subtle critique of German Romanticism.


ABSTRACT A total of 5329 ticks were collected from 85 dogs in three different municipalities of Benin in West Africa. Among the species of Rhipicephalus sanguineus collected in Abomey-Calavi, the presence of a specimen with double monstrosities was revealed. The abnormal tick is a male with four pairs of legs, but the body is double lobed at the back. It has four spiracular plates, two of which are at the base at the level of the festoons and two others at the level of the fourth coxae. The specimen also has two symmetrical anal orifices, each surrounded by two adanal plates and two accessory plates, leading up to a single genital orifice. This specimen contributes to the growing database of teratological ticks.


The Rwandan minister of agriculture and animal resources, Dr Agnes Kalibata, has urged Africa's dairy farmers to explore the opportunities that the sector offers as a way of not only improving their lives, but also contributing to national development.


to the major core and envelope proteins of HIV and also to the viral enzymes. The process is time-consuming, expensive and difficult to standardize. Although each test takes only one to two days, many laboratories process samples in batches, so that results are available only every week or 10 days. In general, the Western-blot method enables a pathologist to provide one of three possible results a positive result (if envelope bands and at least three other viral bands are present); a negative result (if no virus-specific bands are present); or an indeterminate result (if bands to some components of the virus are present, but not sufficient bands to be classified as a positive result). Traditionally, it has been suggested that indeterminate results should be evaluated by an experienced clinician in conjunction with a thorough physical examination and by taking a full case-history. If necessary, a further test is ordered and the patient is monitored for a minimum of three months. If no change in the Western-blot pattern occurs, the individual is regarded to be uninfected. In practice, we have found that antibodies to HIV develop rapidly, so that acute infections often can be confirmed within two or three weeks. A number of popular misconceptions about the HIV-antibody test needs to be put to rest. The first is the idea that persons who want to be tested need to attend special clinics. This is not true. Although the Federal Government has established several centres which specialize in the investigation and management of HIV-infected individuals, the test can be ordered by any doctor or through any hospital or clinic. The second misconception is that the Federal Government keeps a record of all infected individuals and that this information could be used in a way which might damage the person who is involved. While the Federal Government does collect data on the prevalence of infection in the community, it is possible to obtain this information without the identification of individuals. Most states enable information to be provided in the form of a code (for example, the first two letters of the subject's given and family names, the sex and the date of birth). Provided that the same code is used each time that the person is tested, this system supplies useful epidemiological data while preserving confidentiality. Another misconception is that it may take several months to obtain a result. This should not be so. Most negative results should be reported within 24 hours of the receipt of the specimen, while positive results should be available within 10-12 days at the latest. Finally, many persons believe that individuals may be antibodyseronegative but infectious for many weeks or months after infection the so-called window period. In practice, with modern assays, the window period usually is only a few weeks. Although cases of late seroconversions have been reported, these appear to be rare. While most HIV-antibody assays detect total antibody or are designed to detect mainly immunoglobulin (lg)G, some assays are configured (or have been adapted) to detect HIV IgM antibody. As most of the early antibody is of the IgM subclass, these assays are useful for the confirmation (or the exclusion) of recent infection. Recently, several new assays have been introduced which assist in the establishment of the diagnosis and may be of use in monitoring the progress of infection with HIV and the response to therapy. These include assays that detect HIV p24 antigen, antibodies to the envelope (gp41) and core (p24) antigens, and the presence of viral nucleic acid by the polymerase chain reaction. Circulating p24 antigen appears early in HIV infection, is detectable for several weeks and then disappears (or falls to very-low levels) until the onset of clinical illness. Rising titres of HIV antigen late in the illness are correlated with a poor prognosis. Antibodies to envelope (gp41) antigen appear early in the illness and persist for life. Bycontrast, although antibody to the core (P24) antigen appears early, it tends to disappear late in the illness, about the time that p24 antigen becomes detectable. A rapid fall in the levels of antibody to p24 is a poor prognostic sign. The polymerase chain reaction is an enzymatic method of amplifying the amount of viral nucleic acid in a specimen until it can be detected by conventional techniques. In theory, as little as a single genome can be detected; in practice, the technique still is troubled by problems of specificity and largely remains a research tool. At this stage of our knowledge, it would be unwise to interpret a single positive test-result of a polymerase chain reaction, in the absence of any other detectable marker, as indicative of infection with nrv. As current assays for HI V-antibodies have sensitivities and specificities of 99.9070 or greater, it is unlikely that much improvement can be achieved in either of these areas. The major changes seem likely to be in the nature of the antigen that is used (for example, the replacement of purified antigens with chemically defined material) and in the configurations of the test. Many manufacturers are developing simple, rapid assays which can be performed in the field, at the bedside, or in a physician's office. These tests are likely to be available in the next 12 months. It is likelythat supplementary tests also will evolve, with the Westernblot method gradually being replaced by specific neutralization or blocking tests. As HIV is just one of a group of blood-borne retroviruses, it is probable that some manufacturers will develop combined assays which will indicate that a given individual or unit of blood is infected with a retrovirus (for example, HIV-I, HIV-2, human T-cell lymphadenopathy virus [HTLV]-I, HTLV-II) and should not be used. The particular virus that is involved would be identified by a second cycle of testing. Finally, as tests for the infection move into the mainstream of clinical medicine, there will be an urgent need to expand the number of testing laboratories so that tests can be performed by major hospitals and qualified private laboratories. While this process is both desirable and inevitable, the Federal Government should ensure that the best features of the current system are retained. This could be achieved by limiting such testing to laboratories that have a sufficient work-load to maintain expertise, well-trained staff members and the ability to maintain confidentiality of results. Licensing should be contingent upon the participation of the laboratory in an independent quality-control programme and its agreement to make its data (in coded form) available for epidemiological purposes. IAN GUST Director, Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research WILLIAM J. MASKILL Senior Scientist, National HIV Reference Laboratory Fairfield Hospital, Melbourne


This paper presents the technical analysis and results of an inquiry carried out by General Directorate for Railway and Maritime Investigations (DiGIFeMa) belonging to Infrastructure and Transportation Italian Minister. The target of this study tries drawing how the prognostic theory can be applied to railway maintenance in order to optimize procedures and operational features on railway safety. The case of study points on a HS railway vehicle derailment event, that has analysed in an Official Investigation Report drawn by Italian Transportation and Infrastructure Ministry. This document, drafted according to Legislative Decree n. 50/2019, represents the identification of technical faults, which have generated the accident, and leads to specific technical recommendations. Starting from these results, one of the most important Italian Railway Undertaking has carried out a verification of the existing vehicle safety monitoring devices, used during high-speed rail operation. Moreover, due to the prognostic's theory, a wide research and series of experimental tests could be developed on old and new devices which verify the functional status of mechanical elements connected to the rotation of the railway wheelsets.


On the basis of internationalization theory,focusing on the development of international practice of Chery automobile,this paper makes a review and evaluation on the internationalization degree of Chery with internationalization cobweb model,and analyses the result of the evaluation.Then several suggestions are putted forward on the improvement of Chery internationalization development.


The hemisynthesis of β-galactopyranosides 2, 3 and β-D-glucosaminide 4 from readily available and natural starting material, 4-hydroxylonchocarpin (1), has been achieved. 4Hydroxylonchocarpin (1) is the major constituent of the herbaceous plant D. barteri. The synthetic pathway employed in this work involved the catalytic glycosylation of 1 under phase transfer catalysis (PTC) with different glycosyl donors under various reaction conditions. All these compounds were obtained using chromatographic methods. The structural elucidation of synthetic compounds was done by mass spectrometry and NMR analysis. The hydrogen-bonded phenolic hydroxyl group of 1 was not glycosylated under the employed conditions. A key feature of this reaction is the formation of pyran ring C in the product, β-galactopyranoside (3), and the site specific glycosylation at position C-4 of ring B. The results also confirm the isomerism equilibrium between chalcone 2 and its flavanone analog 3 which also existed in the natural sources via enzymatic reaction. This is the first report of the glycosylation of natural 4hydroxylonchocarpin (1) using phase transfer catalysis.


— New technologies promote radical changes in how banking services are delivered. The field of Islamic finance is not exempt from radical changes and is gaining increasing attention from academics and practitioners. Although several scientific studies have been conducted on the impact of technologies on specific Islamic finance instruments, no research has examined bibliometric variables in this area. This study aims to cover this gap by conducting a bibliometric and open coding analysis on 170 sources of published studies on Islamic finance and technology. Our study detects the most influential authors, journals and countries of publication that currently prioritise research in this field. In addition, the thematic analysis reveals that among the niche themes are applications of technology to Takaful. Among the motor themes is the opportunity for technology to facilitate decision-making in Islamic banks. Finally, in terms of originality, this study highlights the field's current state by combining methodological approaches and providing valuable insights for future research. Moreover, it is also a starting point for practitioners to fully understand the characteristics and potential of technology in Islamic finance. Finally, the article provides researchers with a research agenda to guide future research ideas.


Calf-thymus DNA,hydrolyzed withasite- specific endonuclease fromHaemophilus influenzae Rd, yields 12discrete bandson polyacrylamide-agarose gels. Theserangeinsizefrom7.5X 104to2X 106daltons, and theyrepresent about5%ofthetotalDNA withindividual fragments comprising 0.1-1.5%. The variousDNA seg- mentsarerepeated between1500and220,000 timesper haploidgenome.Whereasthewiderangeofreiteration frequencies suggests different origins forsomeofthefrag- ments,thebiasinfragment densities inCsClandinAg+- Cs2SO4 towardthoseofknown satellite DNAs suggests similar origins forsomeofthem.Modelsforthepossible origin oftheDNA fragments canbegroupedintothree distinct, experimentally distinguishable, classes. Thechromosomes ofmosteukaryotes areorganized into unique andreiterated nucleotide sequences (for review seeref. 1).Uniqueregions arethought tobecomposed mainly of structural genes; thefunction ofthereiterated DNA remains inquestion. InDrosophila (2), guinea pig(3), andkangaroo rat(4)DNAs,atleast aportion oftherepeated sequences, the satellite DNAs,appear tobeasimple, basic repeat ofonly afewnucleotides inlength. Recent studies indicate that some ofthereiterated DNAsareinterspersed between unique se- quences. InthecaseofDrosophila, Necturus, andmouse DNAs,these interspersed, repetitive sequences appear tobe distinct fromthedensity satellites (5-8). We havestudied repetitive sequences incalf-thymus DNA using asite-specific endonuclease (restriction enzyme) pre- pared fromHaemophilus influenzae Rd(9). Thisenzymefrac- tion(abbreviated EndoR-Hind(10)), whichconsists oftwo site-specific nucleases (11), makesdouble strand scissions in theDNA atspecific recognition sites (restriction sites). Assuming thatthere areatleast twonuclease recognition sites inarepeated nucleotide sequence, thenumberofcopies ofthespecific DNA fragments produced fromthatsequence will beafunction ofthenumberoftimes itappears inthe genome. Whenenzymatically hydrolyzed DNA isfractionated onpolyacrylamide-agarose gels, somefragments derived from repeated sequences canbeidentified asdiscrete bands, whereas fragments fromunique sequences arepresent asacontinuous distribution ofvarious size DNA fragments (Fig. 2). Thesize distribution ofthefragments is, ofcourse, determined bythe spacing oftherestriction sites within theDNA.


The invention discloses a pervious concrete additive. The pervious concrete additive is prepared from raw materials in parts by weight as follows: 0.5-95 parts of micropowder, 0.2-3 parts of a reinforcing agent, 0.5-1.5 parts of a defoaming agent and 2-10 parts of a viscosity-enhancing and water-retaining agent. The invention further discloses a preparation method of the pervious concrete additive. A large amount of industrial waste is utilized, sources are wide, the cost is low, the prepared pervious concrete effectively reduces cost of a water permeable brick while guaranteeing permeation coefficient and compressive strength, meanwhile, a new path is provided for industrial waste residue treatment, and remarkable economic and social benefits are obtained. The preparation method adopts a simple process, and is easy to operate and high in practicability.


The manuscript describes a computational study that provides molecular-level insight into shale gas adsorption and transport in shale rocks, which are composed of organic and inorganic matter. Atomistic simulations were used to generate realistic models of the organic matter structures with both micro- and mesoporosity, and correspond to mature and overmature type-II kerogens. These porous material models are unique to most other previous kerogen models since they contain other components (asphaltene/resin, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide/water fractions) that are typically not modeled. The inclusion of these additional components significantly influences the resulting porous structure characteristics. The adsorption and diffusion behavior of methane (as a shale gas proxy) and methane/carbon dioxide mixtures were simulated in the model structures. Several key industrial-relevant findings are described in the manuscript.


In this study, the effectiveness of different types of molecular markers in assessing genetic diversity of populations of O. cumana from China was determined. ISSR and SSR markers detected different levels of genetic variability among and within broomrape populations. SSR markers analysis showed high level of genetic variation within the populations as revealed by high average values of Nei's gene diversity (H=0,75) and Shannon's information index (I=1,44), while genotyping with ISSR markers showed greater ability to discriminate genotypes according to Resolving power (Rp=7,24). Thus, the combined use of ISSR and SSR markers allowed the detection of higher polymorphism than either set of marker alone.


The invention discloses a system for achieving high-speed communication and wireless energy transmission on basis of public inductive coupling. The system comprises a powering unit and a powered unit, wherein the powering unit comprises a power transmission module and a communication signal receiving module, and the powered unit comprises a power receiving module and a communication signal emitting module; the power transmission module is coupled with the power receiving module on the basis of public inductance; the power transmission module is coupled with the communication signal receiving module, the power receiving module is coupled with the communication signal emitting module, and power transmission and communication signal transmission are based on different kinds of transmission frequency. Compared with a traditional wireless energy transmission circuit without a communication function, the system has the advantages that the communication function is increased, meanwhile, cost and the size are basically not increased, and a control mode of the traditional wireless energy transmission circuit is not changed; the communication speed is high.


Designers strive to make their mobile apps stand out in a competitive market by creating a distinctive brand personality. However, it is unclear whether users can form a consistent impression of brand personality by looking at a few user interface (UI) screenshots in the app store, and if this process can be modeled computationally. To bridge this gap, we first collect crowd assessment on brand personalities depicted by the UIs of 318 applications, and statistically confirm that users can reach substantial agreement. To further model how users process mobile UI visually, we compute UI descriptors including Color, Organization, and Texture at both element and page levels. We feed these descriptors to a computational model, achieving a high accuracy of predicting perceived brand personality (MSE = 0.035 and R^2 = 0.78). This work could benefit designers by highlighting contributing visual factors to brand personality creation and providing quick, low-cost design feedback.


Joan Kennedy Taylor and her sponsors, The Cato Institute, should be commended for broaching the subject of feminism from a libertarian or classical liberal perspective. For those who have little knowledge about the subject and want a practical, issue-based account of the movement, this book may be useful as a preliminary survey of parts of the literature and the major policy issues. However, for those who prefer a more principled approach which focuses less on issues and more on conceptual analysis--specifically a contemporary account which explains how libertarianism applies to women--readers will have to wait since (to my knowledge) that book has yet to be written. Such readers would probably be better served looking at Wendy McElroy7s anthology Freedom, Feminism and the State. Nevertheless, Reclaiming the Mainstream is not without its virtues.


Education is a lifelong process and goes on from birth to death. Throughout life one goes on learning to adjust oneself to the changing patterns of life. Change it's the fundamental law of human existence. Life is a continuous process of growth and development and so education is also a continuous process. The secondary school years can be an exciting time, as students seek opportunity for academic and personal growth. However, along with this excitement come challenges that can become taxing and difficult for students. Stressors may be academic, personal, or social in nature, and can range from situational or unexpected events to chronic problems. Many students cope successfully with the pressures placed on their time and energy while in school.


With the rapid development of the information digitizing and the popularization application of various electronic products,like digital camera,DV and game machine in our family,the different forms of files including pictures,videos,audios and texts have changed into digital format unconsciously and are stored in hard disk of our computers.However,during the process of application,due to such reasons as the operation mistakes of family members,the damage of the computer viruses or the natural damage of computer equipment,the data stored in computer will be broken.The design and realization ideas of backup system are put forward according to features of the family data.


Onion (Allium cepa.L) is one of the important vegetable in India. It is widely consumed throughout the year as salad and culinary purpose for flavoring of dishes and as spices in pickles, sauce and vegetables. In India the estimated area of onion is 10.515 hectare with production 16.813 MT/ha and Maharashtra occupied 28% share in onion production. Which shared the area of 2.60 lakh hectare, production 4.66 lakh MT and productivity of 17.9 MT/ha. Among many constrains for low productivity in onion, imbalanced nutrition is the main limiting factor. The Organics are not only the sources of crop nutrition but also improves the soil fertility which is very important for sustainability in higher yields of crop as well as soil health. Organic crop production is not only a holistic approach of production system but also gives quality "organic food" and helps to restore soil fertility on long term basis. It is relatively independent production system compared to conventional agriculture. The organic manures like farm yard manures, vermicompost increases the mineral nutrients, growth hormones, vitamins and improving other physical characters in soil (Ismail, 1995).


As Texas recovers from the force of Hurricane Harvey
and the Caribbean assesses its losses from Hurricane
Irma, it is time for coastal communities to reflect on
what makes a resilient community in the face of more
frequent storm events, rising sea levels and changing
coastal flooding patterns. How would you be affected?
Would we fare any better in Australia?


In this paper we extend the construction of special representations to convex-cocompact isometry groups of CAT(-1) spaces which admits complementary series. We prove that these limits of complementary series have a natural non-vanishing reduced cohomology class [c]. As a by product we generalize Kuhn Vershik formula and characterize geometrically CAT(-1) groups that admit complementary series. Investigating dynamical properties of the cohomology class [c] we prove an cocycle equidistribution theorem \`a la Roblin-Margulis and deduce the irreducibility of the associated affine actions. The constructions and results apply beyond the class of rank 1 linear groups where the irreducibility of the affine actions associated to the canonical class [c], even in the case of uniform lattices in SO(n,1), SU(n,1) or SL2(Qp) with n>1 and p prime, had not been established.


In this contribution are discussed the following questions, related also to presentation [1]:
 a) which kinds of human decision are most important when he/she interacts with artificial system,
 b) how the parameters of such decisions can be improved as concerns the reliability of human subject interaction with artificial system.
 Some of the presented ideas, measured results and proposed approaches are based on results obtained in 2008 and few past years in the range of project ME 949 of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic, of the project 1F84B042520 of the Ministry of Transportation of the Czech Republic, of the project 102/07/1191 of the Grant agency of Czech Republic and of the project IAA201240701 of the grant agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. This concerns also both the PhD. Theses [2] and [3].


Background: The long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a disorder of myocardial repolarization characterized by a prolonged QT interval on the ECG. This syndrome may be congenital or acquired and it can be associated with seizure-like symptoms. ECG is used routinely to diagnose this syndrome. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated the ECG of children admitted to the emergency room to estimate the prevalence of LQTS in patients with first unprovoked seizure. Patients with underlying causes like fever and those with previous episode of seizure or electrolyte imbalance at time of admission were excluded. First ECG obtained in the emergency room was reviewed and maximum corrected QT (QTc) was determined. Results: Out of 100 patients (62 boys, 38 girls), only a 6year old boy showed prolonged QTc (0.53) although 21 patients had borderline QTc (0.42-0.46). Most of the patients (58%) presented with non-generalized tonic-clonic seizures. There was no significant difference in the type of seizure and other electrocardiographic parameters between boys and girls. Conclusion: Patients with seizure and long QT were considerably lower in number in our study in comparison with other studies. This may be due to our case selection as we excluded the children with a previous history of seizure. Moreover, it seems that ECG solely is not valid or sufficiently reliable to identify LQTS, as this cardiac conductive abnormality is a temporary disorder and may occur only at the time of seizure and disappear when patients are admitted in hospital.


We study how supersonic streaming velocities of baryons relative to dark matter—a large-scale effect imprinted at recombination and coherent over ∼3 Mpc scales—affect the formation of dwarf galaxies at z ≳ 5. We perform cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, including and excluding streaming velocities, in regions centered on halos with M vir(z = 0) ≈ 1010 M ⊙; the simulations are part of the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project and run with FIRE-3 physics. Our simulations comprise many thousands of systems with halo masses between M vir = 2 × 105 M ⊙ and 2 × 109 M ⊙ in the redshift range z = 20–5. A few hundred of these galaxies form stars and have stellar masses ranging from 100 to 107 M ⊙. While star formation is globally delayed by approximately 50 Myr in the streaming relative to nonstreaming simulations and the number of luminous galaxies is correspondingly suppressed at high redshift in the streaming runs, these effects decay with time. By z = 5, the properties of the simulated galaxies are nearly identical in the streaming versus nonstreaming runs, indicating that any effects of streaming velocities on the properties of galaxies at the mass scale of classical dwarfs and larger do not persist to z = 0.


This paper presents the results of a study that explored if and how an OpenStreetMap (OSM) data import task can contribute to OSM community growth. Different outreach techniques were used to introduce a building import task to three targeted OSM user groups. First, existing OSM members were contacted and asked to join the data import project. Second, several local community events were organized with Maptime Miami to engage local mappers in OSM contribution activities. Third, the import task was introduced as an extra credit assignment in two GIS courses at the University of Florida. The paper analyzes spatio-temporal user contributions of these target groups to assess the effectiveness of the different outreach techniques for recruitment and retention of OSM contributors. Results suggest that the type of prospective users that were contacted through our outreach efforts, and their different motivations play a major role in their editing activity. Results also revealed differences in editing patterns between newly recruited users and already established mappers. More specifically, long-term engagement of newly registered OSM mappers did not succeed, whereas already established contributors continued to import and improve data. In general, we found that an OSM data import project can add valuable data to the map, but also that encouraging long-term engagement of new users, whether it be within the academic environment or outside, proved to be challenging.


This paper studies proper efficiency in vector optimization involving generalized cone-preinvex set-valued mappings.Some properties of the generalized cone-preinvex mapping are derived,in particular,the global result for Henig efficient solution pair is proven,the necessary and sufficient optimality conditions of Henig efficiency and super efficiency are obtained.Meanwhile,we establish the closed relationships between proper efficiency of vector optimization and proper efficiency of vector variational-like inequalities.


Objective To observe the changes in hemorheological indexes, serum intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1), vascular cellular adhesive molecular-1 (sVCAM-1) of patients with delayed union and its significance. Methods One hundred and twenty patients with fracture admitted into our hospital from January 2007 to December 2011 were selected as the research objects, including 60 patients with delayed union (the study group) and 60 patients with fracture healing timely (the control group). ELISA was applied to detect the levels of sICAM-1, sVCAM-1, and venous blood was extracted to detect the blood viscosity, plasma viscosity, hematocrit, fibrinogen and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). Results The levels of sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 in the study group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P0.05). The blood viscosity, plasma viscosity, hematocrit, fibrinogen and ESR in the study group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P0.05). Conclusion Delayed union leads to chronic inflammatory response and changes in hemorheological indexes. Dynamic measurement of hemorheological indexes can be used to understand the disease, and prevent the happening of bad fractures.


In the article there is analyzed the present condition of the problem of high-tech project management to develop the new objects by the aviation profile enterprises. The analyses showed that for improvement of the efficiency of portfolio management it should be developed special methodic tools of decision support system by HR and Project managers about executors' composition forming of high-tech projects taking into account number of indicators of different character and first of all employee competence. Based on the analyzed results the integrated process model was developed which described the main stages of team formation of high-tech projects executors. There is formation of expert committee of employees of aviation profile enterprises for the choice of rational variant of team composition from the several alternatives; estimation of the candidates' competencies level for the including to the high-tech project team, the communication level assessment of the future team participants, selection by the collective expert estimation, united variant of executive team of high-tech project. This model provides increasing of the level of objectivity of finally decision about composition of team executors of high-tech project unlike other famous models. Practical value of proposed model is in decreasing of the risks of incorrect decision making by HRs and project managers during the process of formation of team executors of high-tech project. Based on developed methodical tools, in the article there is described process of formation of team executors of high-tech project on the typical aviation profile enterprises PF "Space". This company is specialized on development of airdrome techniques in particular self-propelled passenger ladder. Also in this article there are described methods and computation effect from integration of theoretical results into the practice of management by the high-tech projects on the aviation profile enterprises. Practice value of received results is in creation of science methodic basis in aggregate models view and methods of decision making support of HR and project managers for the formation of team executors' composition of high-tech projects. These results can be used in portfolio management not only on the aviation profile enterprises but in any other innovation companies


Psychiatric disorders are commonly encountered in neurological practice and most neurologists accept the need to assess and manage behavioural problems. The more complicated cases require expert psychiatric intervention and, for optimum care, it is essential that there is close collaboration between neurologist and psychiatrist. Many neurological conditions, particularly those with cerebral involvement, increase the risk of developing a psychiatric disorder. Furthermore psychiatric disorders can be associated with symptoms such as headache, dizziness and weakness which suggest neurological disease but for which no organic explanation can be found. This phenomenon, known as somatisation, is being increasingly recognised and accounts for a substantial proportion of patients who are referred to neurological departments. Schiffer' evaluated a consecutive series of 241 patients attending an American neurology service and found that 101 (41.9%) had symptoms sufficient to warrant a psychiatric diagnosis according to DSM-III criteria. Of 57 inpatients, 10 were considered to have a primary psychiatric disorder and five of these had no neurological illness. Among 184 outpatients, 32 had a primary psychiatric disorder and 30 of these had no neurological illness. Kirk and Saunders2 had previously described a retrospective survey from a neurological clinic in northeast England and reported that, during a four year period, 358 (13-2%) of 2716 patients had a psychiatric disorder with no evidence of neurological illness. If the psychiatric disorder underlying the neurological symptoms is not recognised, patients can be subjected to unnecessary and expensive investigations3. They may receive symptomatic treatment which fails to alleviate their condition and they will become dissatisfied with the result of their treatment and try to consult other specialists in the hope of finding a more effective remedy. Some of the psychological symptoms and behavioural disturbances which the neurologist encounters are of sudden onset and require urgent attention. This review describes the clinical features and management of those disorders which are most likely to give rise to acute behavioural problems in neurological practice. Affective disorders The fundamental disturbance is a change of mood (or affect), either depression or elation. However, mood disturbance is not necessarily the most prominent symptom and it may be masked by a wide range of other abnormalities which at first sight suggest the presence of organic disease. Affective disorders have a tendency to recur. When the recurrences always take the same form, the condition is referred to as unipolar affective disorder; when the mood change varies between depression or elation it is described as bipolar affective disorder.


Coagulation cascade contributes to thrombotic and hemorrhagic diseases, but it remains unclear whether coagulation factors X (FX) and XI (FXI) levels are associated with cardiovascular diseases.


Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by progressive loss of neurons in specific regions of the brain. Neuronal death is often associated with the accumulation of misfolded proteins due to genetic mutations or abnormal protein homeostasis. An essential mechanism for regulating the clearance of misfolded proteins is neddylation, a post-translational modification closely related to ubiquitination. Neddylation is brought about by conjugating neural precursor cell-expressed developmentally downregulated protein 8 (NEDD8) to target substrates through a cascade of cellular events. Neddylation is crucial for many biological processes, and dysfunctional neddylation is implicated in several neurodegenerative diseases. This review discusses the current understanding of the role of neddylation pathways in neurodegenerative disorders and the emergence of neddylation signaling as a potential target for drug discovery and development in neurodegenerative diseases.


This Inaugural Special Issue of Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning has a particular focus on 'theory'—a contentious matter. Occasionally disparaged as obscure, or alienating, it seems fair to say that theory has never been so deeply embedded in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) research as it has become in many other areas of scholarship. One reason is that TEL is often conceived as a 'practical' field, with 'theory' negatively counterposed against other priorities: methodological innovation, 'evidence', 'best practice', or, more recently, imperatives towards being 'data driven'. Furthermore, the use of theory can often be a stumbling block for many novice researchers: even those inclined towards ambition in their use of theory can struggle in getting to grips with the attendant vocabularies, or when actually using particular theories in their own research. Many may come to wonder whether doing so is really worth the effort. The impetus for the present issue is a contention that 'theory' really matters for TEL. That contention is widely shared by members of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning , a research centre at Lancaster University, UK, which, while part of the Department of Educational Research, has members drawn from a variety of disciplines. Indeed, the initial idea for the issue grew out of a longstanding sequence of discussions within the Centre—which the two present authors, at the time of writing, jointly direct—which have expressed a desire to emphasise the importance of 'theory' to others. One earlier idea, for example, had been for the Centre to write a "report" on theory in TEL research. The current Special Issue was taken up, instead, as we came to realise that the idea of collectively writing about 'theory' might dovetail with the idea of launching an open-access journal, and that a Special Issue might allow for a more multi-vocal consideration of the subject matter.


NAFINSA was essential to Mexico's development process. It served as the financial agent of the Federal Government and provided preferential access to long-term finance favouring selected business interests and groups. With the Washington Consensus, its tasks were reduced to correcting for market failures, becoming a complement to commercial banks, and focusing on attending the market segments falling outside the scope of commercial bank activity (notably SMEs). Although it appears as a successful story of institutional transformation, on closer inspection, NAFINSA has not been able to overcome key obstacles and its success in alleviating credit restrictions is very limited. NAFINSA must recover some of its functions, prerogatives, and responsibilities as a policy bank to become relevant in strengthening financial intermediation for capital formation.


When a person has suffered a physical damage, whether personal injury or property damage, all major European traditions of civil liability, including French, English and German tort law allow the recovery of all consequential expenses. Such expenses include not only repair costs, consequential losses of profit and the like, but also, normally, all other costs that, in the circumstances, were reasonable for the victim to incur (for example, the cost of hiring a temporary substitute for a damaged chattel in order to mitigate the cost of its non-availability) .


The selection of 'right man' for 'right job' and his/her orientation in administrative philosophy and social values need to be reinforced by effective systems for ethical administration as they create 'conducive' or 'non conducive' environment Numerous studies have indicated that organization climate and atmosphere will play a dominant role in influencing individuals with appropriate attitudes and skills. Keeping this in view, this work focuses on the important aspects of organization and their impact on ethical behavior of administrators. Some of the important issues raised are to what extent hierarchy influences ethical behavior. How rules and procedures influence administration. Whether ethics institutions and codes of conduct help achieve public service ethics? This method used in this research is context textual analysis.


Feed forward control is the hard core of the control function in the control cooling process of hot strip. Meanwhile elements micro-tracking is the most essential to feed forward control. The principle of elements micro-tracking is analyzed, the method for micro-tracking of the head-end and the tail-end of hot strip fulfilled in Level 1 control system is discussed. Moreover, the process of prediction for elements speed by Level 2 computer system and re-map of elements micro-tracking speed in the self-adapt postcalulation are explained. These strtegies are practical to improve the precision of tracking and conterol at a hot strip mill.


A mechanistic relationship exists between protein localisation, activity and cellular differentiation. Understanding the contribution of these molecular mechanisms is required for elucidation of conditions that drive development. Literature suggests non‐canonical translocation of the Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) to the mitochondria contributes to the regulation of the electron transport chain, cellular respiration and reactive oxygen species production. Based on this we investigated the role of mitochondrial STAT3, specifically the serine 727 phosphorylated form, in cellular differentiation using the well‐defined mouse adipogenic model 3T3‐L1. Relative levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the levels and dynamic localization of pSTAT3S727 were investigated during the initiation of adipogenesis. As a signalling entity, ROS is known to regulate the activation of C/EBPβ to stimulate a critical cascade of events prior to differentiation of 3T3‐L1. Results indicate that upon induction of the differentiation programme, relative levels of mitochondrial pSTAT3S727 dramatically decrease in the mitochondria; in contrast the total cellular pSTAT3S727 levels increase. A positive correlation between increasing levels of ROS and dynamic changes in C/EBPβ indicate that mitochondrial STAT3 plays a potential critical role as an initiator of the process. Based on these findings we propose a model for mitochondrial STAT3 as a regulator of ROS in adipogenesis. J. Cell. Biochem. 116: 1232–1240, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Roads are a very important need for the community of Mamasa Regency, so research is carried out on the Tetean river stone whether it is suitable for use as pavement for Asphalt Concrete-Wearing-Course mixture. The methodology in this research is to perform a series of tests on the characteristics of coarse, fine aggregate, filler, and asphalt then design the composition of the AC-WC mixture and Marshall immersion test for the characteristics of the mixture. The results showed that the characteristics of the AC-WC mixture using Tete River Stone and styrofoam as added materials through the Marshall test obtained the mixed characteristic values, namely stability, flow, VIM, VMA, and VFB all met the General Specifications of Highways 2018. The effect of adding styrofoam to the mixture AC-WC is able to fill voids in the mixture which makes the voids smaller, making the bonds between the aggregates stronger so that with the addition of Styrofoam the mixture becomes more watertight/resistant to water, weather and traffic loads.


In July 2017, an annotated compendium was made available for Industrial Hygienists and the wider community identifying resources useful when copingwith hurricanes, floods, tornados, and wildfires. This was developed by the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Indoor Environmental Air Quality, Biosafety and Environmental Microbiology, Construction Committee, Environmental Issues, Ionizing Radiation, and Safety Committees. For those who have experienced extreme weather, this is an unforgettable experience. Things you need to know, always meant to look up but did not, can make the difference between being safe during the event and recovery period or not. The purpose of this comment is to look at the issues based on a brief review of pertinent literature. Population health assessments are available for many of the major weather-related disasters in the U.S. Most data are for floods and hurricanes. The majority of the health impact for these events are for injuries associated with evacuation and clean-up.[1] Other major causes of deaths and injuries included carbon monoxide poisoning (related to the indoor use of gasoline-powered generators), hypothermia, electrocution, wound infections, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, hypothermia, and exacerbation of chronic illnesses, mainly of preexisting disease.[2–6] During and after Superstorm Sandy, drowning was the leading cause of fatalities followed by falls and being struck by objects such as trees.[7] Similarly, injuries and deaths during tornados were mostly associated with physical trauma.[8] Exceptionally, a cluster of soft tissue mycoses from the fungus Apophysomyces trapeziformiswas detected after a tornado in 2011.[9] This type of infection results from the soil born fungus entering wounded tissue. The cluster was only confirmed after genome sequencing.[10] Wildfires are associated significant increases of hospital admissions for respiratory distress, asthma, and shortness of breath.[11] More research on the consequences ofmega fires will emerge consequent to the recent wildfires in California and Fort McMurray in Alberta, notably for first responders and firefighters.


This double-session symposium will focus on the various issues relating to the quality of communication between ergonomists and designers. Successful communication of the relevant information at the appropriate times in appropriate formats is the key to good ergonomics practice. Unfortunately, whilst ergonomists promote usercentred design, they do not always remember that the main users of their recommendations, dam or methods will be designers. There are broad differences between ergonomists and designers. For example, ergonomists may be described as problem focussed in that they naturally look at errors, discomfort, body size issues, organisational issues etc. Designers are, by contrast, solution orientated by necessity and instinct. Ergonomists conduct formal literature reviews and publish their findings in academic journals. Designers prefer to use visual information, which is readily accessible and can be incorporated into their sketching or CAD or 3D models. In summary, ergonomists and designers have significant differences in their abilities, education, professional experience and working languages. Consequently, effective communication between the two professions is non-trivial.


This paper investigates the energy consumption of the lateral secondary active suspension for railway vehicles and studies the conditions for self-powered active suspension control. The influence of the performance index weighting factors to both the ride quality and the energy consumption is discussed based on the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) algorithm. Then the energy balance condition is analyzed. With low energy harvesting restriction, the self-powered condition can be achieved. At last, simulation results are provided to validate the feasibility of the self-powered suspension.


Biodegradation
Algal blooms in polluted lakes are often associated with high levels of microbial toxins, including a class of cyclic peptides known as microcystins. Although these molecules are resistant to normal peptidases, some bacteria have developed specialized enzymes and pathways to metabolize them. Prospecting in the notoriously polluted and eutrophic Lake Taihu in China, Yang et al. isolated a bacterium capable of completely degrading microcystins. A multi-omics analysis confirmed many previously known steps of the pathway and suggested that genes involved in phenylacetic acid metabolism contribute to the breakdown of one of the unusual amino acid components.

Water Res. 174 , 115638 (2020).


The mechanism and effect of a new extrinsic gettering method utilizing excimer laser irradiation called excimer laser gettering (ELG) was examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation and measurements of the electric properties of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors. By means of TEM, stacking fault tetrahedra and V-shaped dislocations were found in the irradiated regions of Si wafers and these defects were proved to be thermally stable. Dielectric breakdown failure of SiO2 films and generation lifetime of minority carriers were improved remarkably by ELG. It was confirmed that the gettering effect of ELG has higher temperature persistence than sandblasting methods used heretofore.


William Schniedewind is Professor of Biblical Studies and Northwest Semitic Languages at UCLA and his interest in the treatment of orality and textuality in ancient Israel is certainly nothing new. In his previous work How the Bible Became a Book? The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge, 2004), he already dealt with the social and historical context surrounding the composition of the Bible. With this new book, however, the author insists on examining the Bible from a practical point o...


Peripheral intravenous catheter-related phlebitis (PIVC) is a common procedure and significant problem in day to day clinical practice. The study aimed at finding out the incidence and contributing factors of PIVC related phlebitis among admitted patients. Prospective observational study design was used among 586 PIVC sites of 465 patients having at least one PIVC sites of general wards of Chitwan Medical College Teaching Hospital by using semi-structured interview schedule and a specific form was prepared and used to observe signs and symptoms of phlebitis. Data were statistically analyzed by using descriptive statistics and chisquare test. The study findings revealed that the overall incidence of phlebitis was at 33.44% and early stage phlebitis was 88.26%. The incidence of phlebitis was at its highest with in the first 49-72 hours. It is associated with hypertension, patient being admitted to a nephrology ward, patient received isotonic fluid and potassium chloride. Therefore, the staffs should consider these areas and the insertion site should be observed at each shift change by the care provider to prevent phlebitis as well as it is recommended to explore other factors especially infection prevention measures.


Intellectuals such as FAN ZHongyan and OU Yangxiu were concerned that business might not be valued in Noothem Song Dynasty. This concern in fact Implicitly mirrored the then booming e-conomy and the mentality of intellectuals: agriculture shoud develop in parallel with buiness. However , another camp of intellectuals with WANG Anshi as the representative emphasized the precedente of agriculture development over business. Through detailed description of divergences between the two camps of intellectuals, this paper unfolds the interplay between literature and business.


Problems on traditional gang transmission are analyzed. Speed transmitting system is advised to change mud pump discharge and lift. It has application value.


We present, by extension of some earlier results, the expression of an upper bound on the bit error rate (BER) of a digital communication system operating on a frequency selective channel linking N mobiles to an M/sup th/ order space diversity receiver using optimum combining and linear equalization. The bound is then used in conjunction with a Monte-Carlo simulation to emulate the time varying realizations of the channel and evaluate the corresponding outage rate. An explicit dependency of the performance bound on the system parameters is then obtained (using multipath Rayleigh fading model) together with its relationship with the so-called "optimum" bounds of the matched filter and information theoretic capacity types. Our results seem to indicate that, in general, such a linear equalization procedure falls short of exploiting the full potential of the time diversity coding gain available with such time dispersive channels.


This advanced technical solution combines the strongest in line inspection technology, which is 3D AOI with At-Line X-ray technology, giving Real Process Management.But as so often it is not so easy to turn it into reality, it requires a real commitment from different companies with differing software platforms and methods of operation. Let's look at the issues of achieving Real Process Management; In-line X-Ray has some challenges in this environment due to False Fails and Escapes, in short if you do not have accurate data you cannot achieve improvement easily or cost effectively. So, we promote 3D AOI as a faster, more technically advanced solution, but even these systems have an Achilles Heel, they cannot inspect joints on Bottom Terminated Components (BGA's, CSP's, QFN's etc.) As they have only vision and height measurement, they can measure flatness and co planarity very well, but as in line x-ray they have to make a decision based on assumptions. Or at least that was the issue until now, when a technology is available to link 3D in-line AOI to At-Line X-Ray, allowing a decision to be made based on information from both systems, indeed SPI results and Pre-Reflow AOI results can also be considered.The technology works like this: any height measurement of a BTC which the in-line 3D AOI "fails" is relayed to the At-Line X-ray and evaluated by its operator using all the technology at his disposal including ICT which gives a detailed view of all hidden joint interfaces.The results and images are then fed to a Management Information System where a technician can review the SPI data, the 3D AOI data and the x-ray results, in real time on the same monitor. He can now use his judgment to accept or fail the board, can review historic data trends to fine-tune the AOI height limits and continuously improve the process by Intelligent Feedback. The use of a brain to filter the algorithms and images to ensure maximized yields, reduced rework and lower costs. This data can then be archived and shared with other lines, other factories or even with customers.Reports can be made available to senior managers and customers showing the results of this Process Management, which is improved yields and reduced rework. In short, a process fully under control and utilizing the application of knowledge, tools and systems to measure, control, report and improve processes with the goal to meet the customer requirements profitably.


mostly mutually exclusive advantages over each other, therefore one usually selects inorganic or organic solid for certain applications depending on the requirements. Traditional mineral filled polymers meant the simplest combination of organic polymers with inorganic materials, followed later by organic-inorganic hybrids, ceramic precursor polymers and other organic/inorganic nanostructures. Even the classical filler technology was tuned up e.g. by using low melting point metal alloys (DOI: 10.1081/PPT-100101407) or phosphate glasses (DOI: 10.1002/pc.10070) which behave as liquids (melts) during the melt processing of polymers. This results not only in completely new morphologies, but in new behavior. Micro-phase separation of inorganic moieties appears not only in ionomers, but also in sol-gel derived polymeric composites. Sol-gel derived structures can also be fired to remove all organic components, resulting in glassy, crystalline or nano-structured bulk, coating or fibrous structures. Nano-wire and nano-fiber formation by electrospinning of inorganic filled or ceramic precursor polymers became very fashionable and successful research direction, among others in the development of energy-harvesting. Ceramic precursor polymers are becoming more and more sophisticated and the up-to-date structural investigation methods allow a more precise understanding of their decomposition and transformation process. The extensive use of electrochemical technologies to develop new conducting polymer/inorganic, conducting polymers/ nanotube and/or graphene and/or nanoplatelet structures allow the development of new, ordered nanostructures with special properties. Not only periodical superlattices (DOI: 10.1186/1556-276X-7-71), but also quantum dot nanocomposites can be developed using conducting polymers (DOI: 10.1021/bk2010-1034.ch010). Organic-inorganic copolymers are used as precursors (DOI: 10.1002/adfm.200400462) or as electrolytes (DOI: 10.1021/ma301404q). Nanostructured, metal containing polymer precursors are used for high temperature, non-oxide ceramic synthesis (DOI: 10.1016/S0955-2219(02)00119-X). Biopolymer based hybrids (see e.g. DOI: 10.1039/ B505640N) include not only immobilized enzymes but also polysaccharide based hybrids, including cyclodextrin moieties attached to inorganic particles or media, capable of selective adsorption. Even this cursory glance at the recent development of inorganic/organic hybrid technologies, including ceramic precursor systems shows that several new technical solutions can be expected from this lively research field.


Hohenemser, K. H. and Yin, Shen-Kuang, "Some Applications of the Method of Multi-blade Coordinates," Journals of the American Helicopter Society, Vol. 17, No. 3, July 1972, pp. 3-12. Coleman, R. P., "Theory of Self-Excited Mechanical Oscillations of Hinged Rotor Blades," NACA Advanced Restricted Rept. 3G29, Republished as Rept. 1351,1943, NACA. Miller, R. H., "Helicopter Control and Stability in Hovering Flight," Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, Vol. 15, No. 8, Aug. 1948, pp. 453-472. Azuma, A., "Dynamic Analysis of the Rigid Rotor System," Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 4, No. 3, May-June 1967, pp. 203-209. Curtiss, H. C., Jr. and Shupe, N. K., "A Stability and Control Theory for Hingeless Rotors," American Helicopter 27th Annual National V/STOL Forum, Washington, D. C., May 1971. Ward, J. F., "Exploratory Flight Investigation and Analysis of Structural Loads Encountered By A Helicopter Hingeless Rotor System," D-3676, Nov. 1966, NASA. Harris, F. D., "Articulated Rotor Blade Flapping Motion at Low Advance Ration," Journal of the American Helicopter Society, Vol. 17, No. 1, Jan. 1972, pp. 41-48. Ormiston, R. A. and Peters, D. A., "Hingeless Helicopter Rotor Response with Nonuniform Inflow and Elastic Blade Bending," Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 9, No. 10, Oct. 1972, pp. 730736.


The present invention is beta-alanine derivatives, to pharmaceutical compositions containing a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, and as an active ingredient. Novel beta-alanine derivatives and pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof of the present invention is to effectively inhibit the activity of DGAT1 is an enzyme that catalyzes the final step of the synthesis of triglyceride, obesity, dyslipidemia , fatty liver, insulin resistance syndrome, and can be effectively used as a pharmaceutical composition for preventing or treating various lipid metabolism related disorder selected from the group consisting of hepatitis.


The rapid increase of the literature on the clinical aspects of blood-pressure observations makes the appearance of this work very opportune. The volume is one of 270 pages and deals fully with the subject. The different types of instruments are described and illustrated, specially those of American origin, although they differ but only in details from those in general use in Europe. The physiological aspect of the question is fully dealt with. In dealing with the racial variations the observations made in the


A 53-year-old man with a history of Wegener's granulomatosis and kidney, eye and nose involvement was admitted. Presenting symptoms were dyspnea and chest pain. Physical examination revealed mild rales over both lungs. The patient had no haemoptysis or bloody discharge of the nose. Chest X-ray and computed tomography showed bilateral cavernae (Figures 1 and 2). A lung biopsy was performed and revealed granulomatous inflammation with haemorrhagic necrosis. Mycobacterium tuberculosis PCR was negative. C-reactive protein was highly elevated (138 mg/l; normal value <5 mg/l). Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) with a cytoplasmic staining pattern (titer of 1:80, normal <1:20) were positive on direct immunofluorescence, and the level of ANCA directed against proteinase 3 was 68% in an enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (normal <10%). Therefore, pulmonary involvement in Wegener's granulomatosis was diagnosed. Treatment with cyclophosphamide 500 mg and methylprednisolone 100 mg q.d. was initiated. The treatment was well tolerated and the patient's condition improved rapidly.


Teruo Mishina, Kousuke Watanabe, Keiichi Miyakoda, Hirotaka Araki, Terufumi Fujiwara and Hiroki Watanabe Department of Urology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine (Director: Prof. H. Watanabe, M. D. ) From January, 1964 to December, 1975, we have experienced 294 cases with bladder tumors in the Department of Urology, Kyoto Perfectural University of Medicine. Clinical evaluation was performed on 67 cases out of them who were treated by partial cystectomy. The results obtained were as follows: 1) The 3 years survival rates of the patients in stages O, A, B1, B2 and C or D were 78%, 80%, 83%, 67% and 75%, respectively. The 5 years survival rates of the patients in stages O, A, B1, B2 and C or D were 78%, 80%, 62%, 55% and 38%, respectively. 2) The recurrence rate of bladder tumors was 25% in stage O, 38% in stage A, 44% in stage B1, 40% in stage B2 and 100% in stage C or D. 3) The death rates of the patients who died of the tumors in stage O, A, B1, B2 and C or D were 0%, 14%, 24%, 32% and 75%, respectively. 4) There were 20 cases which had lived or have been living more than 5 years after the surgery. Two cases in them which belonged to the low stage group have been living more than 12 years. One case in stage D had lived for an exceptionally long period, about 7 years.


Autonomous flight systems are expected to be used for aircraft flight control. Aircrafts are dynamical systems that contain a variety of nonlinearities and constraints. Model predictive control is a type of optimal feedback control in which the control performance over a finite future is optimized and its performance index has a moving initial time and a moving terminal time. Nonlinear model predictive control method is known as one of the most successful control methodologies because it enables control performance to be optimized while taking nonlinearities and constraints into account. This study focuses on the control design problem of aircraft flight dynamics. The objective of this study is to propose a model predictive control for autonomous flight of aircrafts. This paper provides a numerical solution method based on so-called C/GMRES algorithm to solve the model predictive control problem for autonomous flight of aircrafts. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulations.


In order to study a relationship between blood viscosity and miscelaneous blood components in patients with cerebrovascular disease (CVD), whole blood and serum viscosity, hematocrit, γ-globulin, total protein, albumin and lipids were measured in 113 patients with CVD (cerebral thrombosis 90, TIA 23) and 31 patients with non-CVD neurological diseases served as control.1) Whole blood viscosity, especially at the shear rate of 18.75 and 376sec-1, was correlated with hematocrit (r=0.52).2) γ-globulin was correlated with plasma viscosity (r=0.52) and whole blood viscosity (r=0.36 at 18.75sec-1 and r=0.31 at 75.2sec-1). Thus serum γ-globulin was thought to be another factor for increasing blood viscosity.3) Thrombosis of carotid system and TIA were associated with the increase of whole blood viscosity and hematocrit. However thrombosis of vertebrobasilar system were not associated with them.4) It is suggested that the increased blood viscosity plays a role on thrombosis of carotid system but not of vertebrovasilar system.


The implementation of a curtailable rate program through an appropriately designed menu, mainly determined by the customer's outage costs, is one feasibly solution to a power shortage problem. In Taiwan, this issue is particularly important because currently Taiwan is facing a shortage of power generation supply in the summer peak period. In this paper, the authors conducted a survey to examine the market acceptance for the proposed curtailable rate menu and investigated customers' imputed outage costs in relation to their attributes. The survey results show that the imputed outage costs range from $2.25/KW to $3.14/KW and a potentiality of 5.6% to 18.1% of high-tension power peak load supply of the surveyed customers could be curtailed. The economic implications of the research results are presented and further research is recommended.


A family of subsets of an n-set is k-locally thin if, for every k-tuple of its members, the ground set has at least one element contained in exactly one of them. For k = 5 we derive a new exponential upper bound for the maximum size of these families. This implies the same bound for all odd values of k > 3. Our proof uses the graph entropy bounding technique to exploit a self-similarity in the structure of the hypergraph associated with such set families.


Financial analysts are well aware of the many innovations made by corporations and individuals in cashmanagement techniques in recent years, but few have noted the equally impressive strides made by state and local governments in managing their $250 billion in annual revenues. Yet given the magnitudes involved, government treasurers can add considerably to pu bblic revenues by wisely investing the cash balances that they have available in excess of operating needs. Moreover, their actions can have a far-reaching impact, influencing both the level of commercialbank liabilities and the behavior of the monetary aggregates.


Arresting disabling tremor, allowing paralyzed individuals to reach and grasp, and enabling the deaf to hear are only a few examples of how neural prostheses are improving the lives of individuals with neurological disease or injury. Neural prostheses interface with the nervous system and electrically stimulate or record electrical signals to restore function. The Neural Interface Workshop (NIW) is an annual meeting held by the NIH to provide a forum to present and discuss advances in neural prosthetic research. At the 37th annual NIW meeting, held August 21–23 (MD, USA), basic scientists, biomedical engineers, clinicians and neural prosthesis users gathered to discuss the current state and future potential of neural prostheses. Approximately 45 platform presentations were supplemented by 125 poster presentations.


The Loss-of-Fluid Test (LOFT) test facility, program objectives, and the experiments planned are described. The LOFT facility is related to the smaller Semiscale facility and the larger commercial pressurized water reactors. The fact that LOFT is a computer model assessment tool rather than a demonstration test is emphasized. Various types of reactor safety experiments planned through 1983 are presented.


The application of learning models should be considered for the characteristics and intellectual development of students by using appropriate learning strategies, in order to obtain optimal learning outcomes. Character education and high student thinking are the main goals in the 2013 curriculum. There are many elements for students to be said to have intelligence and independence in learning. This is the background in the purpose of simas eric learning model that has stages in accordance with the main objectives of the 2013 curriculum. The selection of appropriate learning strategies can improve the results that will be obtained from the application of learning models in the classroom. The task and forced learning strategy was chosen to complement and perfect the implementation of the simas eric learning model in the classroom. This strategy aims to train students' independence and discipline in learning through tasks that are provided with clear time limits and strict punishment if there are students not completing their duties properly. The combination of simas eric learning model with task force and forced learning strategy can be an alternative to improve the quality of learning in school. With the improvement of thinking power which is accompanied by discipline of students in learning, the process of learning in the class will run well and get maximum results so that the purpose of learning can be achieved. For educators it is advisable to apply simas eric learning model with instructional and forced learning strategy in school, so that learning objectives can be achieved optimally.


Along with the change from hydrophilous to terricolous environment ,the Vertebrate changes from cyclostomate ,Pisces ,Amphibia ,Reptilia,Aves toMammalia.And the body structure changes greatly.In this paper,according to the skin of the Vertebrate,Respiratory system.,Circulatory system,Nervous system and sense organ,skeletal system and so on,the pointview of transformism,we dissertate the succession rule of the vertebrate from hydrophilous to terricolous,from simplicity to complesity,from low\|grade to high\|grade,in a certain sequence in the long time.


PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce the amount of a fuel leaked from a discontinuous part on a barrier layer in a fuel container consisting of a multilayer resin structure comprising the barrier layer and an outer layer. SOLUTION: A protrusion 1b is formed on the outer surface of a tank body 1, where the protrusion 1b is formed to be annular so as to encircle a through-hole 1a composing the discontinuous part on the barrier layer 2b and a fuel component 3, such as a valve, inserted and fixed in the through-hole 1a. The protrusion 1b, the fuel component 3, and the part of outer surface of the tank body 1 that is between the protrusion 1b and the component 3 define a housing recession 4. A coating part 5 is formed in the housing recession 4 by filling it with a molten resin having high permeation preventiveness against a fuel and leaving the resin solidifying. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI


This paper reports two studies that examine the difference between happiness and academic procrastination among undergraduate students. The first study investigates gender and geographic location differences in happiness and academic procrastination levels, finding that males and urban students report higher levels of both. The second study, conducted in Kashmir, explores undergraduate students' subjective experiences and perspectives on happiness and academic procrastination. The second study's objective was to gain an understanding of how undergraduate students in Kashmir subjectively experience happiness and academic procrastination. Employing a qualitative research design and using thematic analysis, the study revealed that happiness is a personal experience that can be achieved in various ways, including through social relationships, activities, and gratitude. The study offers insights into the perceptions of undergraduate students in Kashmir regarding happiness and academic procrastination, which can aid in the creation of strategies to enhance student well-being and academic performance. Overall, the two studies underscore the importance of considering individual differences in levels of happiness and academic procrastination, as well as subjective experiences, when formulating interventions to endorse student well-being and academic success. By comprehending how students define and pursue happiness and recognizing the factors that contribute to academic procrastination, educators and policymakers can develop effective strategies to promote student well-being and academic achievement.


Recent theoretical work by Storer, concerning the impedance of a vertical antenna in contact with a circular metal disk, is extended to include the case when the system is laid upon an imperfectly ...


Adolescents' Emotional Autonomy from Parents A relevant tenet in developmental psychology is that adolescents are expected to achieve an autonomous functioning, independent from parents, to become reliant on their internal resources and responsible for their actions and decisions. Within this framework, emotional autonomy reflects the affective side of the largest process by which a young person acquires a more mature identity. It emerges when adolescents are capable to abandon dependence on parents and to individuate from them. Moreover, emotional autonomy implies a shift towards a less idealized conception of parental figures, the development of a more complex consideration of them as people, and the establishment of affective bonds more symmetrical than those characterizing the parental relationship in childhood (Beyers, Gossens, Vansant, & Moors, 2003; Parra, Oliva, & Sanchez-Queija, 2015; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986; Zimmer-Gembeck & Collins, 2003). The construct of emotional autonomy has gained interest among researchers because of its importance as a key component of adolescent development, and two main theoretical orientations have informed its study. Some authors with a psychoanalytic background have suggested that a positive process of emotional autonomy occurs when adolescents are able to move away from familial influences and to distance themselves from parents, including the extreme form of disengagement, achieving an emotional separation from them (Blos, 1979; Freud, 1958). Consistently with this perspective, research has shown that an increased independent behaviour and the relinquishing of dependence on parents are positively related to indices of well-being during adolescence, such as better school grades and performances (Chen & Dornbusch, 1998), better adjustment to university environments (Beyers & Goossens, 2003) and higher self-esteem (Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). Some other authors have questioned the adaptive meaning of separating from parents (Beyers & Goossens, 1999; Garber & Little, 2001). According to their point of view, a healthy autonomous development can only occur if accompanied by a warm and intimate relationship with nurturing figures, providing love, support and empathic responsiveness to their children while encouraging and promoting an appropriate sense of autonomy, independence and selfregulation (Goossens & Waeben, 1996; Goossens & Van der Heijden, 1998; Grotevant & Cooper, 1986; Hill & Holmbeck, 1986; Ingoglia, Lo Coco, Liga, & Lo Cricchio, 2011; Lo Cricchio, Liga, Ingoglia, & Lo Coco, 2012; Youniss & Smollar, 1985). Research carried out from this perspective have found that highly emotionally autonomous adolescents who also perceive their parents as being supportive are more likely to show positive patterns of adjustment and competence than those with higher levels of autonomy but low levels of connectedness to parents (Fuhrman & Holmbeck, 1995 Ingoglia, Lo Coco, Pace, Zappulla, Liga, & Inguglia, 2004; Lamborn & Steinberg, 1993). However, even in this perspective, results are puzzling and there are studies that have found a different pattern of outcomes identifying teenagers who score high on measures of psychosocial adjustment even if they show low levels of attachment to parents and high levels of emotional autonomy (McClanahan & Holmbeck, 1992). Much of the above mentioned controversial findings seem to originate from measurement issues (Beyers, et al., 2003; Parra, Oliva, & Sanchez-Queija, 2015). Firstly, the Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986) has been one of the most widely used measure of this construct. However, it has been argued (Beyers et al., 2003; Ingoglia, Lo Coco, Liga, & Lo Cricchio, 2011; Ryan & Lynch, 1989; Schmitz & Baer, 2001; Turner, Irwin, Tschann, & Millstein, 1993) that this instrument seems to measure a detachment from parents, rather than a genuine autonomy. …


A new oribatid mite of the family Oribotritiidae, Indotritia nunomurai sp. nov., is described from litter and soil layer of Cryptomeria japonica forests in Toyama Prefecture, Central Japan. The new species is readily distinguishable from the congeners by the spindle-shaped sensilli with elongated tip.