Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have shown an impressive performance in many computer vision tasks. Most of the CNN architectures were proposed to solve a single task. This paper proposes a CNN model to tackle the problem of object classification and viewpoint estimation simultaneously, where these problems are opposite in terms of feature representation. While object classification task aims to learn viewpoint invariant features, viewpoint estimation task requires features that capture the variations of the viewpoint for the same object. This study addresses this problem by introducing a multi-task CNN architecture that performs object classification and viewpoint estimation simultaneously. The first part of the CNN is shared between the two tasks, and the second part is two subnetworks to solve each task separately. Synthetic images are used to increase the training dataset to train the proposed model. To evaluate our model, PASCAL3D+ dataset is used to test our proposed model, as it is a challenging dataset for object detection and viewpoint estimation. According to the results, the proposed model performs as a multi-task model, where we can exploit the shared layers to feed their features for different tasks. Moreover, 3D models can be used to render images in different conditions to solve the lack of training data and to enhance the training of the CNNs.


In this paper,visitors' perception of recreation use impact and its effects on visitors' overall satisfaction in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park was studied.The results showed that:① most visitors were sensitive to recreation use impact;② among social-demographic variables(except for sex and age),other factors' effects on 3 kinds of recreation use impact perception were not significant;③ visitors' perception of social and managerial impacts reduced significantly overall satisfaction,and effects of visitors' perception of resource impact on overall satisfaction was not significant.


Objective To investigate flora distribution and drug resistance status in nosocomial infections with Gram-negative bacilli and provide the scientific evidence for clinically reasonable use of antibiotics.Methods The Gram-negative bacilli were clinically isolated from various infective specimens from the inpatients from Jan 2008 to Dec 2008 in Xinxiang central hospital were collected,sorted and analyzed on their drug resistance.Results Among the Gram-negative bacilli,the top five of the isolating rate were Escherichia coli,Pseudomonas aeruginosa,K.pneumoniae,a Acinetobacter and Enterobacter cloacae.Most Gram-negative bacilli have high resistance rates to Broad-spectrum penicillin,Quinolones and the third-generation cephalosporins.The lowest antimicrobial re-sistance rate was Carbapenems,followed by cefoperazone sulbactam,piperacillin sulbactam,amikacin and cefepime.The antimicrobial resistance rate of Acinetobacter was generally higher.Conclusion The antimicrobial resistance rate of Gram-negative bacilli to the commonly used antibiotics is rising.Periodic monitoring to the bacterialresistance tendency has greatimportance to guide the drug application in clinics.


Per Soelberg Sorensen Danish Multiple Sclerosis Center, Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark During the last decades, we have witnessed an evolution in disease-modifying treatments for relapsingremitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). These treatments have been increasingly effective and, in particular the introduction of the therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, natalizumab and alemtuzumab, have heralded a new era of efficacious disease-modifying drugs.


checkpoints between East and West Berlin on 9 November 1989, and people danced on the wall or hacked away chunks of concrete to take home, it seemed that collectivist ideology had crumbled in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Individualism, and of course capitalism, had triumphed. Yet when the wall fell, the ideological and political rift it symbolised did not close. Instead it shifted and became a philosophical, cultural and emotional disconnect, functioning rather like a shutter along the eastern border of the Baltic states, down the western border of Belarus, and appearing (in varying guises and at different times) in regions of Ukraine or Moldova. East of this more permeable barrier, communism may have been relegated to history, just as it was further west, but the perception remained that the social-collective shapes, indeed owns, people; that individuals must conform; and that, ultimately, the integrity and cohesion of the group are paramount. But the myths, lore and beliefs that help to cement states and national groups are not the same everywhere in the region – far from it. There are starkly conflicting sensibilities, for example, about the myth of medieval Kievan Rus (a state that covered large areas of present day Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia until the 13th century). Irrespective of historical perceptions and loyalties, however, in eastern parts of Europe feelings of group integrity and mission stand in stark contrast to the Western liberal sense that as individuals, within the framework of democratic consent, we possess and can invent ourselves. Over the past decade or so in Russia the Kremlin has enlisted the Russian religious tradition, alongside other storylines, to encourage state cohesion and the priority of group goals over individual ambitions. The canonisation of Tsar Nicholas II (murdered by the Bolsheviks); memories of imperial glory; wartime struggles against Nazi Germany; a nostalgia for global power and the mellow togetherness of life in the USSR; Nikita Khrushchev's "mistake" in giving Ukraine to Crimea in 1954 – all have been co-opted into the campaign. But underlying these narratives is a deeper cultural predisposition to communality and collectivism: a sense that the human personality and the group which defines it are somehow destined to fuse. According to the Orthodox Christian tradition still prevalent in Russia, human fulfilment and salvation rest in a merger between self, community and – at the religious level that underpins all this – deity. In this cultural context the Western political principles of opposition, bargaining, pressure and conflict between competing groups are bound to be anathema. Eastern and central European countries, once under Imperial or Soviet Russian rule, uphold their own communitarian traditions. But with weak, historically unstable The other wall


Oscillation in irrigation channels have many undesired consequences such as increased erosion on channel banks, reduced level of service to farmers, increased wear and tear on mechanical equipments, etc. It is therefore important to detect oscillations early. In this paper computationally inexpensive algorithms for detection of oscillatory control loops are applied to operational data from six consecutive pools of an irrigation channel. The algorithms performed well and detected the control loops which gave oscillatory responses. Moreover, the controller which caused the oscillations was also identified. As there can be many control loops in an irrigation channel, methods which are able to detect and locate the cause of oscillations are of great value in the operation of irrigation channels.


We have developed an m-scheme cluster-orbital shell model approach to study neutron- and proton-rich nuclei toward the drip-lines. We discuss the property of the neutron-rich oxygen isotopes with analyzing the relation between the energy and r.m.s. radius.


Study on fresh collections and type material of Hamatocanthoscypha rotundispora showed that the original description is incomplete and that the variation range in the essential characters is too narrowly defined. In this paper we therefore provide a detailed description, including ascospore morphometry using length, width, length/width ratio and volume. Non-parametric statistics showed significant deviation of normal distribution and high variability of all morphometrical variables, suggesting that use of living material for ascospore morphometrical analysis is more reliable than that of a traditional approach. Geometric criteria for defining the simple spore shape regarding the length/width ratio, polarity and symmetry in straight symmetric spores are proposed. Refractive cytoplasmic globules are described as a new type of inclusions in living cells. Species ecology and biogeography is also discussed.


OBJECTIVES
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic, inflammatory arthritis and autoimmune disease.

BACKGROUND
The main symptom of AS is inflammatory spinal pain; with time, some patients develop ankylosis and spinal immobility. We aim to find cure available for ankylosing spondylitis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We used the GSE11886 series to identify potential genes that related to AS to construct a regulation network.

RESULTS
In the network, some of TFs and target genes have been proved related with AS in previous study, such as NFKB1, STAT1, STAT4, TNFSF10, IL2RA, and IL2RB. We also found some new TFs (Franscription Factors) and target genes response to AS, such as BXDC5, and EGFR. Further analysis indicated some significant pathways are associated with AS, including antigen processing and presentation and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, etc.; although not significant, there was evident that they play an important role in AS progression, such as apoptosis and systemic lupus erythematosus.

CONCLUSIONS
Therefore, it is demonstrated that transcriptome network analysis is useful in identification of the candidate genes in AS.


Plaxico and Kletke (PK) presented three alternative models for valuing farmland capital gains. Their first model assessed the present value of anticipated capital gains, assuming that they have value only when the asset is sold. Their second model viewed the value of unrealized capital gains as equivalent to a tax-deferred income stream with the tax being paid at capital gains rates either when the property is sold or at the end of the planning horizon. Their third model assessed the value of the capital gains as an equity base for further credit. Dunford has criticized PK's formulations, especially their second model. However, his alternative model perpetuates several errors made by PK. Other errors made by PK led them to an important conclusion about tax rate effects, which conflicts with conventional wisdom. In this comment we correct the models for these errors and offer some further thoughts on the assessment of the value of farmland capital gains. Dunford correctly comments that, "because the capital gains on the farmland are not actually realized until year n, it is necessary to borrow for additional investments." The value of unrealized capital gains will depend on how the increased equity base is used in borrowing more funds and how the borrowed funds are invested. There are two possibilities. One is that each year's capital gain is used as a basis for a one-year investment. Second, the gain can be the basis of an investment lasting for the whole planning horizon. The latter is equivalent to using the total accumulated value of capital gains each year as an equity base for an investment lasting one year. These two possibilities conform to Dunford's equations (2') and (3), respectively, equation (3) being identical to PK's third model. Since the first of these alternatives appears distinctly inferior, we concentrate on the latter. What these authors have failed to note is that it is only possible to use an unrealized capital gain as an equity base for an investment in periods after the gain occurs. All the models suggested by PK and Dunford for valuing unrealized capital gains imply that the farmland owner can borrow at the start of each year against the expected capital gain in that year. This is clearly not tenable and leads to an overestimation of the gains of about 5%. PK err further in the way in which they include tax and inflation in their models. The present value of any future cash sum can be calculated either by discounting the nominal sum with a nominal discount rate to year 0, or by discounting the real value, measured in year 0 dollars, of the cash sum by the real discount rate. Both methods necessarily lead to the same present value. For example, a future sum S,, when discounted at a nominal rate N, has a present value


Trueman et al. (2003) show that, during the late 1990's, internet stock prices increase significantly in the few days prior to earnings announcements, and reverse in the days following the announcements. Consistent with Miller (1977), we find the magnitude of these temporary stock price run-ups is related to changes in investor disagreement on the days around the earnings announcement, and the strength of this relation depends on the severity of short sales constraints. Furthermore, we find changes in investor disagreement are positively related to net initiated order flow from retail investors and negatively related to net initiated order flow from institutional investors. This evidence is consistent with our hypothesis that Miller's theory is more applicable to retail investors than institutional investors in the short period around earnings announcements. This hypothesis is further supported by our finding that the magnitude of the temporary stock price run-ups, and the strength of the association between disagreement and stock returns, are greater when there is a greater proportion of retail trading in a stock. JEL Classification: D82, G14, G19.


The stabilization of a linear, multivariable discrete-time system via Kleinman's (1974) control law is considered. It is basically shown that this control law with iteration numbers N ≥ v (v being the controllability index of the system) asymptotically stabilizes the system considered.


The aim of this paper is to present a systematic literature review of the existing research, published between 2006 and 2023, in the field of artificial intelligence for management information systems. Of the 3946 studies that were considered by the authors, 60 primary studies were selected for analysis. The analysis shows that most research is focused on the application of AI for intelligent process automation, with an increasing number of studies focusing on predictive analytics and natural language processing. With respect to the platforms used by AI researchers, the study finds that cloud-based solutions are preferred over on-premises ones. A new research trend of deploying AI applications at the edge of industrial networks and utilizing federated learning is also identified. The need to focus research efforts on developing guidelines and frameworks in terms of ethics, data privacy, and security for AI adoption in MIS is highlighted. Developing a unified digital business strategy and overcoming barriers to user–AI engagement are some of the identified challenges to obtaining business value from AI integration.


The development of the smartphone industry is growing very rapidly, as well as information about this product. Nowadays, smartphones have become a necessity for everyone. With so many smartphone products on the market, people need a tool to assist in buying a smartphone. Many Conversational recommender systems (CRS) have been developed to recommend smartphones. However, most of those CRS still interact in technical features. Meanwhile, most people still do not understand about the technical features. In this study, we develop CRS using the CRS framework based on high-level requirements that is proposed by previous works. In this study, we call this high-level requirements as functional requirements. An example of a functional requirement is, "a user wants a smartphone to play ultra-mode games without having to know the required specifications". The CRS framework consists of ontology and the agent for generating interaction. Ontology acts as the knowledge that maps functional requirements to technical specifications of the product. In this study, we propose the CRS for smartphone domain based on functional requirements with updated knowledge. Attributes taken from the smartphone domain contain network technology, display type, display size, display resolution, etc. For evaluation, we measure the system performance and user satisfaction. Based on the evaluation results, the system performance score is 88.87% and the user satisfaction score reaches 0.88. So that our proposed CRS recommend the product accurately and satisfying the users.


This Letter presents the fabrication and characterization of a
 perylene (Per) and Rhodamine 6 G (Rh 6 G) co-doped polymeric fiber. The
 spectroscopic properties (luminescence spectra, attenuation, energy
 transfer) of the co-doped polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) fiber are
 presented. Two different concentrations of Rh 6 G (2.2×10−4 and
 4.1×10−4 mol/L) and a constant Per concentration
 (6.2×10−4 mol/L) are used in the experiments. The
 luminescence spectrum changes versus the fiber length are discussed.
 Additionally, the ratio of the maximum fluorescence peaks of the used dyes
 is calculated versus the fiber length. The obtained results show the
 energy transfer from Per (donor) to Rh 6 G (acceptor). The proposed
 co-doped fiber can be used in applications in lighting and sensor
 technology.


This report contains the results of a study of four instrumental electrochemical and two colorimetric methods for chlorine analysis to determine which ones would be most suitable for power plant applications. The methods were: an automated amperometric titration, amperometry (using the NBS chlorine flux monitor), membrane probe amperometry (using the Delta Scientific Multi-Range Analyzer for Chlorine), potentiometry (using the Orion chlorine electrode), as well as methods based on the use of DPD and syringaldazine colorimetric reagents. At this time, we recommend the automated amperometric titration when concentrations below 0.1 mg/L Cl must be determined. A precision of +- 0.0015 mg/L has been obtained with standard solutions using this method for total halogen residual. However, in the future if an improved version of the NBS flux monitor becomes available, it will be an attractive alternative. For situations in which quantification below the 0.1 mg/L level is not needed, the Orion electrode is a comparatively inexpensive alternative, although it should be field tested before being adopted by a power company. The colorimetric methods appear to have inadequate sensitivity for low-level analysis. The claimed specificity of the syringaldazine method for free chlorine disappeared when the method was used in bromide-containing soluions similar tomore » seawater.« less


Based on the theoretical analysis of the integrated development of power grid enterprises serving the Yangtze River Delta, a set of systematic scientific and perfect evaluation index system of service "Integration of Yangtze River Delta" development ability was established. AHP is used to determine the weight of each index in the evaluation system and screen out the key index. The analysis results show that Anhui company is in a leading position in green development, there is not much gap with Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang companies in quality service and integrated coordination mechanism, and there is a big gap with Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang companies in infrastructure construction and industrial development.


In his 1970 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures published as Sincerity and Authenticity, Lionel Trilling contends of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: Today it is scarcely possible to read Marlow's celebration of England without irony; to many, especially among the English themselves, it is bound to seem patently absurd. The present state of opinion does not countenance the making of discriminations among imperialisms, present or past, and the idea that more virtue might be claimed for one nation than another is given scant credence. But this was not always the case. Having the choice to make, Conrad himself elected to become English exactly because he believed England to be a good nation. (110) Trilling's notion that one can discriminate among imperialisms, claiming virtue for some and not for others, is a perfect starting point for a discussion of the imperial justifications of Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, and Graham Greene, all of whom saw in Britain's empire a justifiable endeavor. In their three fictions, Kipling's Plain Tales From the Hills, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Greene's The Heart of the Matter, these authors discriminate among possible motivations for the colonial project, critiquing their predecessors' justifications and offering their own. Further, having inherited a fictional tradition from Kipling, Conrad and Greene also link what they consider to be of value in the colonies to what they consider to be of value in their predecessors' texts, believing as well that more virtue might be claimed for some fictional techniques than for others. In this essay, I will present Kipling's, Conrad's, and Greene's valuations, both cultural and aesthetic, as they are presented in these colonial fictions. Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling's first collection of stories, brought colonial India home to England: those individuals who went out to India were for the British reading public suddenly endowed with faces, vices, virtues, and love affairs and disappointments, their administrative, military, and patriotic roles constituted as full lives. At one stroke, Kipling created for the English reading public the culture of Anglo-India: what the British in India do for leisure; what they value; where the best and where the worst posts are; how love and friendship differ in Anglo-India as compared to at home.(1) Though introducing a new culture is no small task, for the Victorians it could never be a solitary one. True to his Victorian fellows, Kipling sought, in capturing that culture, to justify its existence as well. Faced with such a task, where better to turn than Matthew Arnold, who had done the same for England itself nearly 20 years earlier. Thus Kipling invokes the famous Arnoldian binary from Culture and Anarchy: We may regard this energy driving at practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at those ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the ardent sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which man's development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and adjust them perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may regard as in some sense rivals. (107) Between the "intelligence driving at . . . ideas" and "the obligation of duty," Kipling situates Indian colonial culture. Not content with Arnold's pendulum swinging back and forth between the two, however, he adds to the binary a middle term. In the last story of his collection, Kipling brings Arnold's two forces together in the figure of McIntosh Jellaludin.(2) Mcintosh is a Hellenist: He was, when sober, a scholar and a gentleman. When drunk, he was rather more of the first than the second. . . . On those occasions the native woman tended him while he raved in all tongues except his own. One day, indeed, he began reciting Atalanta in Calydon, and went through it to the end, beating time to the swing of the verse with a bedstead-leg. …


Researchers in the field of crime desistance have recently focused on the strength-based role of the "wounded healer" or "professional-ex", as exemplified by former addicts and prisoners who desist from crime and recover through the professional practice of peer mentoring. Studies point to the many benefits inherent in the role of the "wounded healer" for incarcerated people employed in peer-based rehabilitation roles. These benefits can include opportunities to experience accomplishments and an increasing sense of ability and self-worth. Additional benefits include acquiring a new meaning and purpose in life, the development of a new self-identity, increasing feelings of belonging and satisfaction from life, and a stronger commitment to avoid crime. These findings suggest that formerly incarcerated individuals can form positive, pro-social relationships with their peers and serve as positive role models for them. The purpose of the present article is to review the current literature on peer-to-peer programs currently implemented in Western prisons, to establish and expand them, as a means of improving the rehabilitation efforts of present and past prisoners. It is recommended to examine the preservation of their benefits and effectiveness in the long run, both for aid providers and recipients.


Knowledge of natal dispersal and juvenile survival from parental independence until recruitment into breeding populations is an important aspect of population dynamics studies. Dispersal allows genetic connectivity and demographic compensation between neighbouring populations. These issues are particularly significant for species confined to mountaintops, as is the Rock Ptarmigan Lagopus muta in southern Europe. We studied natal dispersal and survival in juvenile Rock Ptarmigan in the French Alps and Pyrenees between 1999 and 2018 by radiotracking 113 young captured in September in two study areas. At both sites natal dispersal occurred in two discrete phases, in autumn (October-November) and in spring (late March-mid-May). Juvenile females dispersed twice as far as males in autumn at both sites but this difference decreased in spring and was not significant. Juveniles of both sexes dispersed further in the Pyrenees than in the Alps (males: 3.5 vs. 1.4km; females: 6.5 vs. 4.4km), a situation we attribute more to genetic differences between the two populations rather than to environmental factors. As to geographical barriers to dispersal, our radiotracking data along with extensive visual observations suggest that Rock Ptarmigan living in the Alps and the Pyrenees rarely fly across valleys 10-12km wide. For sexes and locations combined, the survival rate of juvenile Rock Ptarmigan during a ten-month period (September to June) was 0.636 (95%CI: 0.551-0.734). Long-distance dispersal tended to reduce the survival of birds during their first breeding attempt (April-June), a result that suggests a delayed effect of such dispersal.—Novoa, C., Resseguier, J., Muffat-Joly, B., Blanch Casadesus, J., Arvin-Berod, M., Gracia Moya, J. & Desmet, J.F. (2021). Natal dispersal and survival of juvenile Rock Ptarmigan Lagopus muta in the French Alps and Pyrenees. Ardeola, 68: 123-141.


A surgical site infection (SSI) surveillance module completed in 2014 highlighted that infection rates for breast surgery inpatients and readmissions at an acute trust had increased to 2.2%, from 0.5% in 2012. The national benchmark for 2014 established by Public Health England (PHE) was 1.0%. This demonstrated a greater than fourfold absolute increase in SSI for breast surgery during these periods. The infection rate could have been due to chance, but warranted investigation. The results were presented to the breast team and used to drive practice transformation through audit and observation, identifying areas of change to improve patient safety. The project used a recognised 8-step model for leading change developed by John Kotter, a professor at Harvard Business School and world-renowned change expert. The project presented opportunities to promote infection prevention while implementing care improvement strategies and behaviour change in partnership with the breast team.


Many trains of photosynthetic bacteria (PSB) were isolated from soils and further used for improving water quality for aquiculture at both laboratory and pond experiments scales, respectively. The experimental results showed that PSB could adjust water pH value with a range of 6.97~8.01 at the laboratory experiments and 6.82~8.52 at pond experiments, respectively. In addition, it was indicated that the bacteria could also increase oxygen contents in water from 2.01 mg/L to 11.10 mg/L and from 3.70 mg/L to 9.94 mg/L, and decrease toxic ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) from 0.30 mg/L to 0.01 mg/L, at lab and pond tests, respectively. The bacterium could decrease NH4+-N in water obviously, compared with control. The mechanism of water quality-adjusting with PSB was explained in the present paper.


Reinforced concrete structures may need repair in order to ensure the designed durability. Such necessity vary in cause and effect, but the structural diagnosis serves as the basis for adopting intervention measures. The assessment of the structural condition usually is made in loco, but sometimes numerical analyses are required as a low cost and effective preliminary diagnosis. In general, numerical analyses use hundreds or thousands of finite elements and nonlinear theories that are not often used in engineering practice. As an alternative, lumped damage mechanics (LDM) uses key concepts of classic fracture and damage mechanics in plastic hinges throughout well-known quantities such as ultimate moment and cracking moment. Such theory describes the concrete cracking by a damage variable, which can be used as a diagnosis criterion. Therefore, this paper presents LDM as a diagnosis tool to analyse actual structures. The case studies presented in this paper are a former bridge arch tested in China and a balcony that collapsed in Brazil. The results show that LDM numerical response of those structures are quite close to laboratory observations (former bridge arch) and in loco measurements (balcony).


EKKY KARMILA.The Influence Of Capital Adequacy Ratio And Non-Performing Loan In Conventional Bank's Performance Period 2013 – 2015.Skripsi, Jakarta:The Use Libraries And Interest Learning In Learning Outcomes Of The X Grade Student Of Accounting At Accounting Introductory Lesson At 14 Vocational High School Of Jakarta.Skripsi, Jakarta: Economic Education Study Program, Economic, Accounting Education Concentration, Faculty of Economics, State University of Jakarta, 2016.

This research aims to determine influence of the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) And Non-Performing Loan (NPL) use non-probability technic and purposive sampling method. Data collection using secondary data were obtained in the form of documentation of annual report contained in each conventional bank's website. Affordable population in this research were 43 conventional bank with the total sample 39 bank. The research used the normality test, classic asumption, and hypothesis test. Base on the results showed the partial positive influence between Capital Adequacy Ratio and Conventional Bank's Performance. The results of data

analysis showed the value of thitung 3,274 more than ttabel 2,028. Non-Performing Loan have a negative influence to Conventional Bank's Performance, the results of data

analysis showed the value of thitung negative 2,089 more thanttabel 2,028. In the simultaneously have the influence between Capital Adequacy Ratio and Non-

Performing Loan to Conventional Bank's Performance. Base on the results showed
the value of Fhitung 10,152 more than Ftabel 3,26. The result showed the positive influence between Capital Adequacy Ratio and Non-Performing Loan to

Conventional Bank's Performance with the multiple correlation coefficient 0,601 and coefficient of determination (R2) 36,1%.


A simple method for antisperm antibody detection, which has a correlation coefficient of 0.88 with the Kibrick method and uses reduced quantities of sperm and macroscopic end-point detection, is described. Using this method, 12%-35% and 14%-18%, depending on the sperm donor, of infertile women and infertile men, respectively, had positive antibody titers while all children tested were negative. The dependence of the titer on the sperm donor was confirmed, indicating that titers should be expressed in terms of a internationally standardized antiserum.


In his own words, Herbert Gintis's latest book is "an analysis of human nature and a tribute to its wonders" (3). More prosaically, it is a collection of essays, some of which are original and others published elsewhere. Instead of being structured around topics in decision and game theory, like his previous book (2009), this book develops interrelated themes, such as the evolutionary origins of moral sense, its central role in political games, and the socially entangled nature of human rationality and individuality. Some chapters develop Gintis's vision of the unified behavioral sciences by model-building demonstrations; others do so by reflecting on history and methodology. The demonstrative part of the book models the evolution of human socio-political systems, power relations in markets, altruism, voter turnout, and Walrasian dynamics—drawing on decision theory, game theory, evolutionary theory, and complexity theory. This part offers readers familiar with formal apparatus an excellent overview of the Gintis's recent contributions to the field. The reflective part discusses the nature of rational actor models, provides an intellectual history of sociology and economics, and advocates the unification of the behavioral sciences. This part gives readers interested in history and philosophy of the behavioral sciences an insightful first-hand account by one of the leading figures in the field. In this review, I focus on Gintis's advocacy of interdisciplinarity, mostly commenting on the reflective part of the book. I also include a meta-review—a review of three reviews of the book, written by other scientists. Regarding the demonstrative part, I strongly recommend the readers to carefully study it themselves, because that is the only way to really appreciate the original insights of the formal work. (And if they are too busy to read all of it, they should at least read Chapters 3 and 9.)


The article is devoted to the coverage of the translation principles of the Russian poet Mikhail Sinel'nikov who made great contribution to the development of Russian-Armenian literary interconnections. Maro Markaryan's poetry was the measure of moral and spiritual purity for M. Sinel'nikov. Her images of mother-land and nature were the symbols of her lyrics which helped to place Maro Markaryan among the best poets of the ХХth century. M. Sinel'nikov's translations from Maro Markaryan's poetry are few but in them the translator revealed the psychology and world outlook of the Armenian poetess infinitely loving her country. Getting the feel of Maro Markaryan's poetry M. Sinel'nikov was able to recreate the large scale of the poetess's thoughts and feelings revealing her deep inner world. M. Sinel'nikov's poetical taste and word culture reflected in all his translations which were the stable foundation for his translation activity and presented the examples of the highest poetry which can be compared with the originals as the equals.


A simple four-stage model of the evolution of an AGN is proposed. Some similarities between the variability of AGNs and X-ray binaries, and between the jets of AGNs and of X-ray binaries are suggested. Some limitations on variability studies as probes of the central engine are pointed out, and the future of AGN monitoring is discussed. 1. A Possible Scenario for the Evolution of AGN The standard model of AGN central engine assumes there in its center there is a supermassive black hole (BH) surrounded by an accretion disk. The disk, in turn, is wrapped in an inhomogeneous atmosphere and surrounded by an outer cold gas/dust torus. Jets following the orientation of the axis of rotation may form. However, the matter does not initially exist in the form of supermassive black holes, and the problem of the formation of the first generation of objects in the Universe is still unsolved. At least in the nearest AGNs (for instance, in M87) a compact stellar core does exist. The first stage of AGN evolution is most probably a process of transformation of the stellar core into a supermassive BH. This process must have gone on differently in different objects, depending on the mass, rotation, angular momentum, etc. of the central core. Berezinsky & Dokuchaev (2001) have shown that over several million years the dense massive core goes through a stage of accumulation of a large number of stellar-mass black holes, encircled by a common envelope. Inside the envelope stellar mass BHs are merging. This region may emit high energy cosmic rays with energies up to 1022 eV. Several such sources located within 100 Mpc may be responsible for the most energetic cosmic rays. Once the first stage is over and the envelope disappears, we must be left with supermassive black holes of moderate mass (104–107 M⊙). The more distant parts of the stellar core, however, must remain and produce a strong accretion flow. As the BH mass is comparatively low, the value of the accretion rate must be near the Eddington limit. This second stage probably corresponds to the so-called Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1). This stage is probably best described by Vilkoviskij & Czerny (2002). Once the BH mass reaches 107–108 M⊙ the third (main) stage commences. At this stage the stellar core becomes considerably attenuated, the number of stars getting too close to the BH decreases considerably, and the accretion rate becomes unsteady. Sometimes, when the accretion decreases too much, the system goes through periods of deep minima (months, years, decades or more).


The front wing mechanization is used in lots of passenger aircrafts. Since it plays an important role during take-offs and landings, aerodynamics has the task of optimizing it. In this paper is examined one of the variants of mechanization of the leading edge of the wing, the Kruger's flap. The Kruger's flap geometric parameters were defined and then changed. They include: the size of the gap between the profile and the flap, the flap adjustment angle and location angle. Investigation of the geometric parameters of the Kruger's flap and their effect on the lifting force of the wing allow us to obtain the optimal geometry of the flap, which will create the largest lifting force among all the variants. The purpose of this master's thesis is to study the influence of the geometric parameters of the Kruger's flap on the lifting force of the wing of the aircraft, namely: - Influence of the adjustment angle of the Kruger's flap on the lifting force and the resistance force of the aircraft; - Influence of the gap between the Kruger's flap and the airplane's profile on the lifting force and the resistance force of the aircraft; - Influence of the Kruger's flap placement on the lifting force and resistance force of the aircraft. The object of the study is the process of airflow over the Kruger's flap. The subjects of the study are the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft with the Kruger's flap. The scientific novelty of the results is obtained due to the studies that have not yet been conducted, that allow us to make recommendations for improvement of the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft, and save money for aerodynamic performance researches.


The study aims to explain the important role of Minangkabau ulamas in the Islamization of the Bugis kingdoms in South Sulawesi. The historical approach was used in this study where the Heuristic activities were carried out to collect the main data. Document analysis of books, papers, journals and other relevant writings and interviews with customary figures were done. The results of the study found that the three ulamas came from Minangkabau and expertise in their respective fields and spread Islam. Datuk ri Bandang, who lived in Gowa had expertised in the field of jurisprudence, taught and propagated Islam by using Islamic sharia as its core teaching. Datuk ri Patimang, who lived in Luwu, had expertise in the field of tawhid, spread Islam by prioritizing the teachings of tawhid. Datuk ri Tiro, who lived in Tiro, had expertise in the field of Sufism, taught and developed Islam with Sufism teachings. It is recommended that the involvement of the three ulamas in Islamization in Gowa and Tallo can be seen in the diversity of the Bugis and Makassar communities.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons that mega‐events rarely realise their potential for host destinations and to suggest issues that need to be addressed in rectifying this issue.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a synthesis of the literature as well as the substantial event‐related experience of the authors.Findings – The key reason that mega‐events do not generate the expected benefits for the host destination is that event organisers and destination managers adopt a short‐term perspective rather than seeing mega‐events as part of a long‐term strategy for the destination. Even the planned legacies are often not realised as resource constraints in the lead up to the staging of the event often results in resources being shifted away from planning for legacies and being allocated to helping cover the more immediate needs of the event.Research limitations/implications – If the mega‐event knowledge portal that is proposed in this paper to help improve the overall c...


It has been observed that allowing source code changes to be made only after source code reviews has a positive impact on the quality and lifetime of the resulting software. In some cases, code review processes take quite a long time and this negatively affects software development costs and employee job satisfaction. Establishing mechanisms that predict what kind of feedback reviewers will provide and what revisions they will ask for can reduce the number of times this problem occurs. Thanks to such mechanisms, developers can improve the maturity of their code change requests before the review process starts. In this way, when they start the review, the process may advance quickly and more smoothly. In this study, as a first step towards this goal, we developed a mechanism to identify whether a change proposal would require any revisions or not for approval.


Electrical Discharge machining (EDM) is a nonconventional machining technique, which has been commonly used to create dies and mold. Harder Materials can be machined into complex shapes as long as they conduct electricity. Recent advances in the technologies brought the development of new engineering materials, which are hard to machine with traditional machining processes. EDM is capable of machining these materials; given these materials have an adequately high electrical conductivity. In EDM, Material removal rate (MRR) Tool Wear rate and surface roughness (Ra) are important performance measures. Numbers of ways are explored by researchers to improve and optimize MRR along with a reduction in tool wear rate (TWR) and surface roughness (Ra). This paper discusses researches on EDM, involving the enhancement of MRR in conjunction with a little insight into material removal mechanism.Electrical Discharge machining (EDM) is a nonconventional machining technique, which has been commonly used to create dies and mold. Harder Materials can be machined into complex shapes as long as they conduct electricity. Recent advances in the technologies brought the development of new engineering materials, which are hard to machine with traditional machining processes. EDM is capable of machining these materials; given these materials have an adequately high electrical conductivity. In EDM, Material removal rate (MRR) Tool Wear rate and surface roughness (Ra) are important performance measures. Numbers of ways are explored by researchers to improve and optimize MRR along with a reduction in tool wear rate (TWR) and surface roughness (Ra). This paper discusses researches on EDM, involving the enhancement of MRR in conjunction with a little insight into material removal mechanism.


The end point control for converter steelmaking is important operation in converter smelting later stage, and the end point control level directly affects the production efficiency and product quality. From the point of view of auxiliary resources operating characteristics, we analyzed the steelmaking end point control process, established the terminal forecast model based on DRNN type neural network, and established terminal optimization control model using improved particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve, and finally drew converter terminal optimization control strategy. Through the simulation, the optimal results show that: When the end forecast error (ω[△C]<±0.03%), hit rate is 93.1%, and with (ω[△T]<±12°C), hit rate is 94%, supplementary blowing oxygen time is 2.3 min, and materials resources saving 15%. For promoting the work of energy saving and emission reduction of Converter steelmaking process, it has important practical significance.


In OFDM transmission system, phase noise (PN) caused by non-ideal oscillator induces inter carrier interference (ICI), which is problematic for operation of high order modulation, especially in mm-wave frequency bands. This paper develops two low-complexity and effective ICI compensation algorithms: (i) Direct de-ICI filtering approach which is agnostic to the exact locations of phase tracking reference signal (PTRS), and hence it can readily operate with existing 3GPP Rel-15 PTRS and (ii) Circulant ICI filter approximation which exploits the circulant matrix constructed by a PTRS sequence with cyclic structure to reduce the complexity of ICI compensation algorithm. Our results reveal that both algorithms significantly reduce the negative impact of phase noise on the link performance.


INTRODUCTION In the midst of the chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia can continue its formal education system with an online learning system. However, the online learning system as an alternative to the classroom teaching system was dismissed, considering the risk of contracting COVID-19 to students and teachers. This research aims to determine the correlation between online learning readiness and high school students learning motivation. METHODS This study was a cross-sectional study with analytical observations on high school students who were studying online with the same subject and the same teacher. 62 male and female respondents aged 15-17 were collected by consecutive random sampling. The research tools were the Online Learning Readiness Assessment (OLRA), and Situational Motivational Scale (SIMS) questionnaires filled out by the respondents. SIMS was measured using the Self-Determined Index (SDI) to determine intrinsic and extrinsic motivation categories. The results were then tested using the Pearson correlation test. 54.8% of were "not 30.6% were "almost prepared", 12.9% were "not suited" for online learning, and 1.6% were "ready" for online learning. There was no statistically significant difference between students (53.2%) and intrinsically (46.8%). There was no correlation between online learning readiness and motivation of the students (r=-0.051, p=0.692). More students are not ready for online learning. However, it is not correlated between online readiness and students' learning motivation.


It is suggested that dark energy is the energy of the Hawking radiation from a cosmic horizon. Despite its extremely low Gibbons–Hawking temperature, this radiation could have the appropriate magnitude $O(M^2_{\rm P}H^2)$and the equation of state to explain the observed cosmological data if there is a Planck scale UV-cutoff, where H is the Hubble parameter.


With S7200 PLC as the controller,the process control experimental system is composed.The controlled ob-ject is an electrothermal boiler.Man-machine interface of the host computer is achieved with Kingview to monitor the process and provide process control experimental platform.The four parameters——temperature,pressure,level and flow are measured and inputted to PLC.Then the data is processed and the corresponding control algorithm is carried.The result is outputted to the actuators.The experimental device can fully simulate industry control field and be easily combined into a variety of experiments.The man-machine interface is friendly and the operation is simple.The theoreti-cal knowledge and engineering practice of the process control field can be combined and the students'engineering appli-cation ability is strengthened.


The rigorous formula of 3D rectangular coordinate transformation with 7 parameters are presented.The improved SQPM algorithm is used for 3D rectangular coordinate transformation with big rotation angles.The results show that the algorithm is stable in result,great in accuracy and wide in convergence which can adapt to big angle of 3D rectangular coordinate transformation.


Autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs) are typically deployed for long periods of time in the ocean to monitor different physical, chemical, and biological processes. Given their limited energy budgets, it makes sense to consider motion plans that leverage the dynamics of the surrounding flow field so as to minimize energy usage for these vehicles. In this letter, we present a graph-search-based method to compute energy optimal paths for AMVs in 2-D time-varying flows. The novelty of the proposed algorithm lies in the use of an adaptive discretization scheme to construct the search graph. We demonstrate the proposed algorithm by computing optimal energy paths using an analytical time-varying flow model and using time-varying ocean flow data provided by the Regional Ocean Model System. We compare the output paths with those computed via an optimal control formulation and numerically demonstrate that the proposed method can overcome problems inherent in existing fixed discretization schemes.


A new human fetal antigen, common to several types of carcinomas was found in fetal serum and fetal gut extract. Because this antigen was shown to have an isoelectric point of 9.3, it has been designated basic fetoprotein (BFP). BFP was purified from ascites of a patient with hepatoma by the techniques of QAE‐Sephadex A‐50 chromatography. affinity chromatography. isoelectrofocusing and gel filtration. The purified BFP had a γ‐mobility by electrophoresis and a molecular weight of 124,000 by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Monospecific anti‐BFP was prepared by immunizing a rabbit with the purified BFP.


The internal carotid artery arises at the bifurcation of the common carotid artery and continues upwards within the carotid sheath. It has no branches and passes straight up in the carotid sheath and beside the pharynx to the carotid canal in the base of the skull. This division of the internal carotid artery is defined as the cervical part. Variations in the course of the cervical part have been found in the different studies and have been classified as kinking, coiling and tortuosity. It is known that these variations are associated with cerebrovascular failure and transient ischaemic attack. During routine dissections of the cervical region for educational purposes, bilateral course variations with a marked kinking on the right and distinctive tortuosity on the left side were found in the internal carotid artery of a 75-year old male cadaver. The case is of interest since variations in the course of the internal carotid artery have been shown to be related to cerebrovascular failure.


Using an atomistic technique consistent with continuum balance laws and drawing on classical fracture mechanics theory, we estimate the resistance to fracture propagation of amorphous silica. We discuss correspondence and deviations from classical linear elastic fracture mechanics theory including size dependence, rigid/floppy modes of deformation, and the effects of surface energy and stress.


The invention provides a detection device for a state of an automobile storage battery, and belongs to the field of electronics, wireless communication and the like. The detection device comprises an automobile storage battery electrical parameter acquisition module, an embedded processor module and a bluetooth communication module which are arranged in an automobile, wherein a mobile phone is internally provided with a storage battery voltage display module; a data output end of the storage battery electrical parameter acquisition module is connected with a data input end of the embedded processor module; an output end of the embedded processor module is connected with the data input end of the embedded processor module, and connected with a data input end of the bluetooth communication module; the storage battery electrical parameter acquisition module acquires a charge-discharge state of the automobile storage battery, and detects whether the automobile storage battery can work normally; if a requirement is not met, the embedded processor module drives the bluetooth communication module to send relevant information immediately; the mobile phone receives the corresponding information through a bluetooth communication module of the mobile phone; and the storage battery voltage display module displays the relevant information on the mobile phone.


Schlieren, shadowgraph and other types of refraction-based techniques have been often used to study gas flow structures. They can capture strong density gradients, such as shock waves. Shock wave detection is a very important task in analyzing unsteady gas flows. High-speed imaging systems, including high-speed cameras, are widely used to record large arrays of shadowgraph images. To process large datasets of the high-speed shadowgraph images and automatically detect shock waves, convective plumes and other gas flow structures, two computer software systems based on the edge detection and machine learning with convolutional neural networks (CNN) were developed. The edge-detection software utilizes image filtering, noise removing, background image subtraction in the frequency domain and edge detection based on the Canny algorithm. The machine learning software is based on CNN. We developed two neural networks working together. The first one classifies the image dataset and finds images with shock waves. The other CNN solves the regression task and defines shock wave position (single number) based on image pixels tensor (3-D array of numbers) for each image. The supervised learning code based on example input-output pairs was developed to train models. It was shown, that the machine learning approach gives better results in shock wave detection accuracy, especially for low-quality images with a strong noise level. Software system for automated shadowgraph images processing and x-t curves of the shock wave and convective plume movement plotting was developed.


The marketing has as an essential objective the orientation of firms' activities based on the market needs. This presupposes, necessarily, the existence of an informational system very well established, that observes any rapid changing market environment: the consumer, distributor and competition. Marketing services is a marketing specialized domain, autonomous, clearly differentiated, in the process of consolidation and development. The services characteristics such as: immateriality, inseparability, variability, inability of storage, they normally lead to a discussion on whether the marketing of services is similar to or different from that of physical goods.


Azacytidine (AZA), the mainstay of therapy in high risk Myelodysplastic syndromes (HR-MDS), affects CD4+ T-cell polarization and function, but the effect of these changes on tumor immunity is unclear. Signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) proteins are key regulators of differentiation and polarization of CD4+ T-cells in both health and cancer, but the STAT signaling architecture of CD4+ T-cell subsets in HR-MDS and its modulation by AZA are currently unknown.
 We applied single-cell phosphospecific flow cytometry in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 67 HR-MDS patients at various time-points during AZA therapy. Unsupervised clustering of pretreatment STAT signaling profiles (SPs) of CD4+ T-cells revealed three signaling clusters (SCs), mainly differing in the potentiated responses of STAT3 to IL-6 stimulation (IL-6/STAT3 node). Compared to SC#1 and SC#3, patients in SC#2 displayed higher IL-6/STAT3 levels, higher levels of naïve (TN, p=0.05) and lower levels of PD1+ (p=0.04) and central memory ( TCM, p=0.04) CD4+ T-cells, and longer median overall survival (mOS, p=0.028, fig 1A). Moreover, comparisons of single signaling nodes revealed that the IL-6/STAT3 node correlated inversely with PD1+ (p=0.02) and IL-4+ (p=0.04) and positively with naïve CD4+ (p=0.04) and IFNγ+CD8+ T-cells (p=0.01). No other differences in clinicobiologic parameters, CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell subpopulations (FOXP3, IFNγ, IL-4, IL-17, Perforin and Helios) were noted among the 3 SCs and all other single nodes. To assess the effect of AZA on STAT signaling, we clustered the fold fold-change of pre- versus 6-month post-AZA SPs in CD4+ T-cells. Again the IL6/STAT3 node was the only differentiator among the clusters, and, by single node analysis, downregulation of IL6/STAT3 at 6th cycle (n=26) was associated with better response to AZA (p=0.02) and longer mOS (p=0.03), compared to upregulation of the same node (n=22); the latter also accompanied by an increase of IFNγ+CD8+ cells after AZA, (p=0.02, fig 1B). Further supporting a direct and beneficial modulation of the IL-6/STAT3 axis in CD4+ T-cells by AZA, the kinetics of IL-6/STAT3 during AZA therapy revealed a marked downregulation of the former node both at day15 (p=0.04) and cycle 6 after AZA (p=0.04) in responders (n=5), while no changes were observed in non-responders (n=7).
 We further compared the transcriptional profiles of isolated bone marrow CD4+ T-cells between responders (n=4) and non-responders to AZA (n=4) by RNA-seq, both prior and after AZA. No significant differences in pretreatment gene expression were identified. By contrast, 105 genes were differentially expressed at cycle 6 compared to pretreatment in responders (FDR<0.2) and 145 genes in non-responders. Gene set enrichment (GSEA) revealed a significant downregulation of the IL-6/STAT3 pathway and the overall inflammatory response after AZA in responders, but a marked upregulation in non-responders, confirming the flow cytometry results (fig 1C).
 To trace the molecular background associated with the differential regulation of the IL-6/STAT3 pathway we constructed mutational profiles by targeted DNA sequencing of 156 genes in blood mononuclear cells. No associations were found between pre or post-treatment IL-6/STAT3 node and mutational burden. By contrast, mutations in RNA splicing and STAG2 correlated with lower (p=0.02) and higher (p=0.017) pretreatment levels of IL6/STAT3, respectively. Notably, all 5 patients with NPM1/DNMT3A double mutation upregulated significantly IL6/STAT3 after AZA (p=0.03, fig 1D).
 Collectively, our results reveal for the first time that downregulation of the IL-6/STAT3 signaling axis in CD4+ T cells may represent an immune-mediated mechanism of action of AZA. However, the antileukemic activity of IL-6/STAT3LowCD4+ T-cells appears to be independent from modulation of common metrics of tumor immunity, as, paradoxically, the detrimental IL-6/STAT3 upregulation was linked with an expansion of antitumor T cell subsets and decrease of the immunosuppressive ones. The IL-6/STAT3 axis is notoriously pro-tumorigenic and pharmacologic inhibition of various individual modules of this pathway in cancer is under development. Our findings may serve as a guidepost for the ongoing investigation of IL-6/STAT3 axis inhibition as a therapeutic strategy to overcome azacytidine resistance in HR-MDS.
 Figure 1

 Vassilakopoulos: Celgene / GenesisPharma: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Novartis: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Takeda: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Roche: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Abbvie: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; WinMedica: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Amgen: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees. Pappa:Gilead: Honoraria, Research Funding; Roche: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Abbvie: Research Funding; Novartis: Honoraria, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Janssen: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Takeda: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Celgene / GenesisPharma: Honoraria, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Amgen: Research Funding. Papaemmanuil:Celgene: Research Funding. Kotsianidis:Celgene: Research Funding.


Morphological and genetic diversity of several populations of Vipera (Pelias) renardi in the Saratov region and other regions is considered. Our analysis of morphological characters has shown homogeneity of the tested samples of V. (P.) renardi. 39 variants were identified by the location nature of the main flaps between the frontal and supraorbital ones. The greatest variety of combinations is typical for V. (P.) renardi of Kalmykia. 8 and 4 haplotypes were revealed by the cytochrome c gene region and the 12S rRNA gene region, respectively. The greatest number of changes was detected in V. (P.) renardi of Ciscaucasia, the Crimean Mountains, and the north of its habitat along the Volga River.


This book examines the importance of the Pacific region to the Malaysian economy. Particular emphasis is placed on the contributions of the Pacific to Malaysia's trade expansion and industrial development through foreign investment, and trade in manufactured goods and direct foreign investment in the manufacturing sector have been singled out for closer scrutiny. In addition, the book also traces the trends in the Pacific, discusses the possible impact of such trends on the Malaysian economy in the years ahead, and draws policy implications for the 1990s and beyond. The main message conveyed through this work is simple and straightforward: the Pacific influence on the Malaysian economy is profound and growing stronger, as Malaysia gravitates away from the Atlantic and towards the Pacific. Malaysia cannot afford not to take advantage of the many opportunities that the Pacific offers, though there are dangers and pitfalls to be guarded against in a Pacific bias. This book underscores the need for Malaysia to play a proactive rather than a reactive role in the Pacific process. The book is aimed at third-year undergraduate and postgraduate students of economics as well as researchers and policy-makers.


The liver develops as a diverticulum from an endomesodermal rudiment of the foregut,' a restricted area of tissue that also gives rise to the ventral part of the pancreas. If these tissue differentiation options are applied at the cellular level, this means that the two organs are most probably derived from a common progenitor cell. While the exact nature of this cell is unknown, one can hypothesise that at a first approximation, it would possess several phenotypic features of stem cells. The concept of stem cells has largely been derived from findings made on adult gut and skin, two epithelial tissues undergoing continuous cell renewal.2 In both tissues, the committed progenitor (stem) cells irreversibly differentiate toward a terminal state and the specialisation process is associated with a gradual loss of the capacity of the specialising cells to proliferate. The liver, as is the case in the pancreas, exhibits a very low turnover at the adult stage. With regard to cell specialisation, the adult liver is composed of hepatocytes, biliary epithelial cells, mesothelial cells, and several types of non-epithelial cells, for example, Ito cells.3 With regard to cell growth, a remarkable feature of mature hepatocytes and mature biliary epithelial cells lies in the fact that both cell types are capable of active proliferation in the regenerating liver in response to tissue damage.6 Thus, the need for a progenitor (stem) cell compartment is not obvious. A definitive answer to this issue is particularly important within the context of studies that aim at defining the precursor(s) of liver cancers.78 While several findings have been made on the emergence of the various cell populations in human liver,9 10 much of our knowledge about the relations between hepatocytic and biliary epithelial cell lineages in developing liver comes from studies in the rat or mouse."-'3 In the rat, the organ emerges at embryonic day (E) 10 5 and acquires clear anatomic limits at around E12. At E10.5-12, the cells are morphologically homogenous, but differ from those at E16, when most of the phenotypic features become those of immature hepatocytes. Biliary ductal structures are clearly identifiable at around the


Intra-class testing refers to the testing of the interaction among methods and data structures encapsulated within a single class. Our approach to intra-class testing is to execute sequences of instance methods that are derived from sequencing constraints and evaluate their results for correctness. These constraints impose restrictions on method behaviors and can be derived from a formal or informal specification of a class. We present an empirical evaluation of different method sequence generation approaches, and analyze their effectiveness in detecting software faults. In addition, we define a number of coverage criteria based on method sequencing constraints for a class and examine the differences between them.


In this paper, we obtain new results on the estimation of the maximum amount of information in material objects. Is considered for comparison and analysis, the limit of entropy of Bekenstein-Hawking. In the final part of the article derived the formula of the maximum amount of information for any physical system.


Paul's letter to the Romans highlights the significance of volunteers to the mission of Jesus in the church. Acts 18 introduces a married couple, Priscilla and Aquila, late of Rome and now of Corinth. Initially they house and employ Paul, thereby giving voluntary service to Paul. Priscilla and Aquila's generosity remains a feature of contemporary Catholicism, clearly identifiable in the parishes. As an everyday part of church life, volunteering is worthy of recognition and nurture. Contemporary ministers might reflect on the development of Priscilla and Aquila as volunteers as first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps these two lay people were instructed by Paul around the meal table during the eighteen months they were together. Priscilla and Aquila provide an example of volunteering and the focus of this paper is on the formation of volunteers.


Andreas Wimmer is a professor of sociology at UCLA. He previously held positions at the universities of Bonn, Neuchâtel and Zurich. His most recent book is Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and he is principal editor of the forthcoming volume Facing Ethnic Conflicts. Toward a New Realism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, 5 May 2003.


To obtain low field magnetoresistance (MR) in manganites, we have introduced a geometrically constrained magnetic domain wall (DW) in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 micrometric devices. Nanoconstrictions artificially induced using high resolution e-beam lithography are shown to effectively reduce the DW width leading to strongly enhanced DW resistance. Sharp and large resistance switches result from the appearance and annihilation of the DWs. Room temperature sharp resistance switches, with a MR of 16%, are evidenced in a manganite-based device.


Based on the survey data of 1,216 young couples,the paper described and analyzed young couples' match status from four perspectives of age,educational level,occupation and urban-rural background.The results showed that the traditional age pattern of husbands being older than wives remains the current mainstream of spouse choosing and marriage of the urban youth;the educational pattern of husbands being higher-educated than wives is changing into the pattern of both genders enjoying the same education level;a reletively high proportion of marriage occurs among people engaged in the occupations with the same social status;and majority couples share the same urban or rural background,that is,few youth of urban background intermarry with those of non-urban background.These results revealed that only the couple's age pattern be interpreted by the ladder theory,while the homogamy theory can explain the other patterns.


Methods for generating multizone soundfield have a wide range of applications. The desired dominant frequency bands to be generated and perceived, however, are not the same for different applications. Previous work proposed a low complexity algorithm for multizone wideband sound field generation using a frequency variable dictionary in a Lasso-LS optimization. This work demonstrates the flexibility of the novel algorithm in imposing variable number of active speakers to provide the desired reproduction accuracy at variable frequency bands. The deployment of this technique can lead to the customization of multizone sound system design based on both signal frequency content and listeners' perception.


Airtightness of modern buildings has been increased and people are staying indoors about 20 hours a day. As indoor residence time increase, effect of indoor air quality on health got higher. Deposition rate and penetration factor are important factors for predicting indoor particle concentration. However, these values can be determined differently during analyzing process. In this paper uncertainty of determining deposition rate and penetration factor that comes from entering different input data is experimentally examined. As a result, deposition rate got higher as particle size increase and penetration factor got lower as particle size increase, but these value could be changed as input data changes even if experiment was passed off in same place. For calculating correct deposition rate and penetration factor, standard for setting input data has to be established and experiment has to be repeated many times.


Different types of instability arising in the helical electron beam formed by the magnetron injector gun are investigated experimentally. It is shown that these instabilities affect spectral characteristics of the output radiation of the gyroklystron amplifier. The decrease in the starting current in the input cavity of the first drift tube of the gyroklystron due to a weak nonuniformity of the stationary guiding magnetic field is estimated. It is shown that a group of slow electrons located near the magnetic mirror and having a high pitch factor makes the major contribution to the self-excitation of the amplifier.


The α phase oriented PVDF thin films were deposited using vacuum evaporation technology with a DC electric field applied on substrate holder during deposition process. X-ray Diffraction was used to examine the structural variations as a function of applied electric fields. DSC data allowed measurement of the melting temperatures and enthalpies of the PVDF granules and films deposited at various bias voltages, providing information on the changes in the crystallinity of the films. The thermo-optical (t.o) coefficient of α phase oriented PVDF thin films with different degree of crystallinity, which obtained by regulating the applied electric voltages varying from 0 to 5KV, were determined by using spectroscopic ellipsometer (SE) equipped with a heating stage. At temperatures ranging from 20 to 100°C the refractive index of all the PVDF films was negatively correlated with the temperature between 600 and 1600nm. The value of the t.o coefficient of PVDF films was calculated at all temperatures. During the deposition process, a decrease in the degree of crystallinity was observed with the increase of applied electric voltage. Furthermore, the absolute value of t.o. coefficient for film deposited at 5kV was slightly higher and decreased with increase in the degree of its crystallinity.


Background and Objective: Isl-1 plays a central role in cardiac development. However, the precise mechanism(s) of its regulation are unknown. We examined transcriptional/posttranscriptional mechani...


Knowledge is diffused through both the citation and the collaboration of authors. This paper em-ploys the social network analysis to study the structure of knowledge diffusion in the field of CI in Chinaand to investigate the features of the knowledge diffusion network, which is created by the core authors' citation and collaboration behaviors. The method used in this paper could probably provide a new prospec-tive for the research about the structure and law of knowledge diffusion.


This article argues that the account of the English diplomatic mission to Rome in 1061, which appears in the Vita AEdwardi regis, is modelled on the account in Pope Nicholas II's letter to Archbishop Ealdred of York. Rejecting the hypothesis that the two accounts could be independent or related at one remove, it demonstrates that the Vita's account of the mission retains the narrative framework provided by the letter. It also shows that it shifts the political emphasis and reworks the parent text in ways Folcard of St. Bertin (the author of the Vita) is known to have reworked Bede's account of St John of Beverley. The discovery sheds light on Folcard's sources for the Vita and on his techniques in reworking Latin narrative.


The inhibition of acid phosphatase activity in rat liver homogenates after fixation in different lots of commercial glutaraldehyde is determined and compared with the inhibition following fixation with a distilled product. It is shown that commercial glutaraldehydes inhibit more of the enzyme activity than the distilled product. The acidic products of oxidation of glutaraldehyde do not increase the inhibition of the enzymatic activity. The presence of high concentration of inorganic phosphates in different lots of commercial glutaraldehyde, as presented here, suggests that probably such impurities may be responsible for increased inhibition of phosphatase activity noted after fixation in commercial glutaraldehydes.


Purpose – The paper discusses the "narrative practices" utilised by women leading in a small sample of Early Years services in the North East of England. These Early Years settings are presented as an alternative site for studying women's experiences of leadership. It examines the way in which these women use narrative strategies and approaches to work in collaborative, community based services for young children and their families.Design/methodology/approach – The study is drawn from a larger study into narratives of professional identity and their relation to interactional contexts. The study follows an interpretive paradigm, and used narrative and participative methodology and methods to work with a small number of participants purposively sampled from cohorts of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL). Participants were involved in reflective conversations about their leadership supported by interactive, visual methods in five extended sessions over the course ...


In this paper, we propose new method for the task of pushing an object by a humanoid robot. First, a humanoid robot leans against the task object whose mass and shape are known, and it makes multipoint contact states which the whole body is supported by both hands and feet. We focus on two support polygons which consist of the both hands and one foot, and we make them include the center of mass (CoM). In this case, the humanoid robot doesn't need to move the CoM for walking and it is easily possible to make stable gate motion. The force control considering the pushing force and the acceleration control of the CoM are implemented for the gate velocity control. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.


The coal used as a primary fuel in an Indonesian power plant produces sulfur dioxide emission from its burning process. Several testing and monitoring methods developed, from laboratory analysis, CEMs based instrument, and absorption spectroscopy method developed for this purpose. Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) method based on Lambert-Beer law used as emission quantification. DOAS instrumentation developed in this research to measure sulfur dioxide as one of the emission parameters. Sulfur dioxide generated from the reaction between the sulfuric acid and dilute sodium sulfite. CCD spectrometer used to measure sulfur dioxide spectrum intensity at 260 to 350 nm absorption cross-section. There is a high correlation between sulfur dioxide gas produced by that reaction to spectrum intensity, with coefficient determination (r2) 0.9783, 0.9822, 0.9866, 0.9928 or coefficient correlation (r) 0.989, 0.991, 0.993, and 0.996 from lowest range concentration to highest range concentration. Precision analysis from gas calibration standard using Horwitz ratio indicates instrument setup precise enough with 0.504 Horwitz ratio, according to its acceptable range. The suspended particulate matter may interfere with UV penetration into CCD detector in emission simulation test using gasoline generator exhaust that causes 2.5 times deviation error between typical 800 ppm concentrated sulfur dioxide from chemical reaction and gasoline generator exhaust.


Causal conditional reasoning means reasoning from a conditional statement that refers to causal content. We argue that data from causal conditional reasoning tasks tell us something not only about how people interpret conditionals, but also about how they interpret causal relations. In particular, three basic principles of people's causal understanding emerge from previous studies: the modal principle, the exhaustive principle, and the equivalence principle. Restricted to the four classic conditional inferences—Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Denial of the Antecedent, and Affirmation of the Consequent—causal conditional reasoning data are only partially able to support these principles. We present three experiments that use concrete and abstract causal scenarios and combine inference tasks with a new type of task in which people reformulate a given causal situation. The results provide evidence for the proposed representational principles. Implications for theories of the naïve understanding of causality are discussed.


The instantaneous and informal nature of e-mail makes it easy to hit the send button without considering the consequences. Litigation practitioners are used to dealing with discovering and cross-examining on electronic communications during the trial process. One only has to think of the uncomfortable position in which Bill Gates found himself while being cross-examined on his personal e-mail in the case of United States of America, Appellee v. Microsoft Corporation, Appellant, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001).


Rock art paintings present high sensitivity to light, and an exhaustive evaluation of the potential color degradation effects is essential for further conservation and preservation actions on these rock art systems. Microfading spectrometry (MFS) is a technique that provides time series of stochastic observations that represent color fading over time at the measured points on the surface under study. In this work, a reliable and robust modeling framework for a short and greatly fluctuating observation dataset collected over the surfaces of rock art paintings located on the walls of Cova Remigia in Ares del Maestrat, Castellón, Spain, is presented. The model is based on a spatially correlated spline-based time series model that takes into account prior information in the form of model derivatives to guarantee monotonicity and long-term saturation for predictions of new color fading estimates at unobserved locations on the surface. The correlation among the (spatially located) time series is modeled by defining Gaussian process (GP) priors over the spline coefficients across time series. The goal is to obtain a complete spatio-temporal mapping of color fading estimates for the study area, which results in very important and useful information that will potentially serve to create better policies and guidelines for heritage preservation and sustainable rock art cultural tourism.


Background: although coronary calcium has predictive value in the general population, in patients who are to undergo surgery for heart valve disease its true usefulness is unknown.


Ship meteorological navigation is based on hydrometeorological data of a certain time scale, considering the ship's motion characteristics and its own characteristics. First, we provide the best route for the ship and then use real-time local weather information to correct the route during the ship's navigation. It can also be expressed as follows: it is based on the hydrological and meteorological conditions of the ship during its voyage and the seakeeping characteristics of the ship itself, and the route planning method is used to select the best route for the ship. The best route is a balance between economy and safety, that is, based on ensuring the safety of ship navigation, the route that meets the shortest navigation time, the least fuel consumption, or the least navigation risk is obtained. Weather navigation includes the optimization of the initial route before sailing and the correction of the route after sailing. As there may be errors in hydrometeorological forecasts, especially in the accuracy and real-time performance of medium and long-term forecasts, the optimal initial route may not achieve the best results. Therefore, after the ship sails, it is necessary to adjust and correct the preferred initial route based on the meteorological information detected by the sensors or the continuously updated hydrometeorological forecast data to ensure the best effect of meteorological navigation. This paper proposes a weather route planning method based on the improved A-star algorithm. The convex shape of the concave obstacle and the expansion of the obstacle are carried out; according to the position of the target point relative to the starting point, the search direction of the A-star algorithm at each node is restricted, and an improved A-star algorithm is proposed. The simulation of global weather route planning shows that the improved A-star algorithm can not only find the optimal path but also effectively reduce the number of nodes that the algorithm needs to search during operation. Compared with the classic algorithm, the improved algorithm reduces the number of node searches by 29.25%.


Polyisoprenyl lithium free from n-butyl lithium was prepared from isoprene and n-butyl lithium in benzene. This was used to initiate the polymerization of further isoprene. Kinetic studies at various initial concentrations of polyisoprenyl lithium [PLi]0 and isoprene [M]0 were carried out at 35.1°C and less extensively at 25.2 and 45.2°C. The results at 35.1°C are summarized in the equation –d[M]/dt =k′[PLi]r0[M], where [M] represents the concentration of isoprene at time t and r lies between 0.21 and 0.40 with a probability of 0.9. Consideration of the random and systematic errors suggests that the most likely integral value of the degree of association of polyisoprenyl lithium is 4.


In the second part of the book, I argue that the four biggest mysteries of modern physics and astronomy—dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and the Big Bang—sink their roots into the physics of the infinitely small. And I argue that gravitational waves may shed new light on, and possibly solve, each of these four mysteries. I start here by introducing the problem of dark matter, the mysterious substance that permeates the Universe at all scales and describe the gravitational waves observations that might soon elucidate its nature. The next time you see the Sun shining in the sky, consider this: what blinds your eyes and warms your skin is an immense nuclear furnace, which transforms millions of tons of nuclear fuel into energy every second. And when you contemplate the night sky, try to visualize it for what it essentially is: an endless expanse of colossal natural reactors, forging the atoms that we, and everything that surrounds us, are made of.


A reaction model for the epitaxial growth of GaAs by chemical beam epitaxy using triethylgallium and tris(dimethylamino) arsine is presented. The model is developed by properly combining surface decomposition mechanisms of the two metalorganic species. Computer simulations based on the model are carried out to make comparison with the experimental observations for this growth system. The model is shown to provide very good agreement with the growth kinetics observed.


The present paper concerns the study of SOI MOS transistors RF performance for 0.35-μm domestic digital SOI CMOS technology. A specialized library of RF elements and comprehensive set of SOI RF IP-blocks, including mixers, VCO's, amplifiers, ADC, PLL and frequency divider have been designed and measured. The possibility to design radiation-hard RF transceiver LSI's based on the domestic SOI CMOS technology is confirmed as per the total dose, dose rate and SEE testing results.


Author: Henrik Härkönen Title: Simulation of solid processes by Aspen Plus Bachelor's Thesis 2017 Lappeenranta University of Technology School of Engineering Science Chemical Engineering Supervisor: Ritva Tuunila 42 pages, 20 figures, 14 tables


This paper describes the characteristics of primary soil forming under mosses in city environment. Petrochemical modules and clarke concentration calculated from the data derived by X-ray fluorescence analysis were used to determine the soil content. Primary soil forming between joint of granite blocks of embankments and building basement in Saint Petersburg and the town of Vyborg were analysed and compared with analogous depositions in natural environment (quarry).


A. study was carried out to determined farmer characteristics and level of technology inputs for beef husbandry at Prafi Valley, Manokwari Regency. This study was conducted at three districts: Warmare, Prafi, and Masni. Stratification technic was applied base on farmer tribes (Java, Flores and Arfak). Eighty nine (89) farmers were involved in this study: Java tribe: 39 farmers, Folres and Arfak tribes: 25 farmer each. Data collection was done through a structured interview based on questioner. Statistic description technic, Mann Whitney Test, Kruskal Wallis Test, and Spearman Correlation were adopted for data analysis. Result of the study showed a high variation among tribes in level of beef farmer characteristies: age, education level, husbandry experience, and cattle ownership, at Prafi Valley. Tribe or etnic backgrounds were significantly influenced the technology level inputs for husbandry. Farmer characteristics had no correlation with the level of technology inputs for beef husbandry. The level of technologi inputs at Prafi Valley mostly low to average. The best inputs technology was found among Java tribe farmers. Key words: beef husbandry, technology inputs, farmer characteristic, prafi valley


It is well-known that polyphenolic compounds are found abundantly in fruit, but various kinds of diseases lower these levels. This work measures total polyphenolic content, antioxidant activity and the levels of specific important antioxidants in fruits of the genetically modified (GM) plum variety HoneySweet, trees which were previously inoculated with a range of different virus infections. These were the Plum Pox virus (PPV), Prune Dwarf virus (PDV) and Apple Chlorotic Leaf-Spot virus (ACLSV). Uninoculated trees were used as controls. Antioxidant activity was measured using four different photometric methods – DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), DMPD ( N-dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine) , ABTS (2,2-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) and FRAP (Ferric reducing antioxidant power). Total polyphenol content was measured using the Folin–Ciocalteau method. The profiles of 10 specific antioxidant constituents in the fruits of the GM plum variety HoneySweet were detected and analyzed, since these are of interest for their role in human diets and could play a role in the resistance of plants to viruses. Detection was made using HPLC with UV-VIS detection. They were: gallic acid, p-coumaric acid, 4-aminobenzoic acid, chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid, vanillin, rutin and quercetin. The compound with the highest concentration was chlorogenic acid (587 mg/100 g), and that with the lowest was p-coumaric acid (0.95 mg/100 g). Of the four methods of antioxidant activity used, in three the lowest levels of antioxidant activity were seen where the PPV virus was combined with ACLSV, and in three the highest levels were seen in the un-inoculated control without any infection. The highest values of total polyphenols were seen in the control (65.3 mg/100 g), followed by infection of PPV, then treatment PPV, PDV and ACLSV, then treatment PPV and PDV and finally the lowest levels were seen in treatment PPV and ACLSV (44.2 mg/100 g), which was also that with the lowest antioxidant activity. Normal 0 21 false false false SK X-NONE X-NONE


This paper reports the reliability assessments of 600 V rated GaN-on-Si based depletion mode prototype MIS power transistors under reverse bias operation. In this study, the impact of two gate module processes on the device reliability was investigated through the accelerated tests conducted at voltages > 600 V and temperatures < 150 °C. These tests established gate dielectric breakdown as the failure mode and a probable mechanism triggering this failure type has been hypothesized. And the related failure activation energies of 0.90 eV and 0.71 eV for the two processes were extracted. The results unveil that device reliability in reverse bias operation can be improved with gate module optimizations. There is no existing GaN specific industry HTRB qualification standard. We present the methodology of translating the hypothetical application profiles to equivalent qualification HTRB duration using the GaN failure degradation models.


We describe a novel method for ensuring cooperation between human and robot. First, we present a flexible and hierarchical framework based on POMDPs. Second, we introduce a set of cooperative states within the state-space of the POMDP. Third, for ensuring an efficient scalability, the framework partitions the overall task into independent planning modules. Lastly, for a robust execution of the POMDP policies we use Petri Net Plans, which have already been used to execute MDP policies. To this end, we describe how to convert a POMDP policy into an executable Petri Net Plan. We implement our approach and develop experiments on simulation and on a real robot in an escorting task where the robot guides a customer to the desired place in a public space.


Since there is huge population in the world, we need to maintain the record of each and every individual. From the day we are born until the day we day, we need to keep track of all the records. Hence we need to store the data of each and every thing related to our personal health. For this Big Data can be used which deals with the seven Vs. Those seven Vs are volume, variety, velocity, validity, veracity, value, volatility. In order to get enormous benefits in the form of savings, improved healthcare quality, and better productivity, we need to manage theses seven characteristics carefully. According to the government regulations doctors, hospitals, insurance companies keep record of all the data of every individual. But even in some cases they are just recorded on paper which may not exist forever. Hence this problem can be solved by Big Data Cloud Computing process. In this all the information of the healthcare industry like workflow management, patient care and treatment, scientific research, and education are stored and saved in detail for further references and best results.


We compared the high-end Intel Xeon processor X5570 (2.93 GHz) with the low-end Intel® Xeon® processor E5504 (2.0 GHz) for two Intel IT computing environments: design and enterprise. In real-world application testing with Intel's electronic design automation (EDA) workloads, two-socket servers based on the 2.93GHz processor delivered the same performance for an estimated 42 percent lower TCO over four years, as shown in Figure 1. For enterprise computing, analysis confirmed a similar relationship: A two-socket server based on the 2.93-GHz processor delivered 87 percent better performance for an estimated 8 percent increase in TCO.


The main feature of Magnus wind turbine is the ability to produce energy at low wind speed. This benefit lets to use such types of turbines in smart homes, which are an important part of the development of distributed energy systems, growth of blockchain electricity technology and needs for duplication of the solar energy system in the private buildings. This paper presents topology of two cylinders Magnus wind turbine in order to ensure the highest values of power coefficient and the Magnus force. The optimal ratio of wind speed and cylinder rotation speed were detected to eliminate the oscillations caused by the Von Karman vortex street phenomenon.


The interfacial area density in a gas-liquid two-phase flow is measured by a wire-mesh sensor. The Euclidian norm of the gradient of the measured volumetric gas fraction is interpreted as local instantaneous interfacial area density. Averaged over a sequence of measurements, the interfacial area density of the two-phase flow is found. A three-layer sensor is used, which consists of a transmitter grid in the center and two orthogonal receiver grids above and below the transmitter grid. Such a sensor has two sensitive layers: (1) between the first receiver grid in flow direction and the transmitter grid and (2) between the transmitter and the second receiver grid. Two lateral components of the local instantaneous gas fraction gradient are approximated by the difference of the measured gas fractions between a pair of adjacent points in the measuring matrix of the first sensor, while the third component is obtained from the difference between the both sensitive layers. For experimental validation, a sensor was exposed to solitary air bubbles rising in a water tank at ambient conditions. The results are compared to information from high-speed camera images of the bubbles. Besides the interfacial area, also the bubble size extracted from both camera and sensor data was compared. Furthermore, alternatives are discussed, which may be used to estimate the interfacial area density in cases where only a wire-mesh sensor with a single measuring plane is available.


Endothelial cells (EC) synthesize and secrete von Willebrand factor (vWF), a multimeric glycoprotein required for normal hemostasis. Within human endothelial cells, vWF multimers of extremely high molecular weight are stored in rod-shaped organelles known as Weibel-Palade bodies. Inflammatory mediators, such as interleukin-I, induce in vitro a variety of procoagulant responses by EC, including the secretion of stored vWF. We postulated that other inflammatory mediators might act to balance this procoagulant reaction, thereby assisting in the maintainence of blood fluidity during immune activation. Both y-interferon (7-IFN) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) were found to act independently and cooperatively to depress the stimulated release of vWF from EC. Analysis of stored vWF in either


Soil attenuation and damping ratio are important parameters in soil dynamic analysis and design of structural dynamic. Both parameter can be obtained from the field measurement using the seismic measurement, e.g., the spectral analysis of surface wave (SASW). The SASW is one of seismic methods based on the dispersion of Rayleigh waves (R-waves) which is used to determine the shear wave velocity, shear modulus and depth of each layer of the soil profile. Seismic surface wave data detected in the seismic measurement are non-stationary in nature i.e. varying frequency content in time. Especially in the low frequency range measurement, i.e., in soft soil, the interested frequency of surface wave can be relatively low which can be less than 20 Hz. In these frequency values, the noisy signals may disturb in the identical frequency level of the surface wave signals generated from the source. In this paper, an improved technique of continuous wavelet transform (CWT) of derivative Gaussian function was employed in the seismic surface wave analysis in order to calculate the soil attenuation and damping of soft soils. The technique is then called as the wavelet spectrogram analysis of surface wave (WSASW). There are two procedures used in the analysis, i.e., first, time-frequency wavelet spectrogram was utilized to select the response spectrum of interest from recorded surface waves. Second stage is a time-frequency wavelet filtering which was used to remove noisy distortions in the selected spectrogram based on simple concept of wavelet filtering. Detected strong ground noises were able to be filtered out from the signals. Consequently, denoised signals representing the interested waveform of surface wave were reconstructed by inverse wavelet transform algorithm. Finally, clear pattern of phase spectrum can be easily calculated. Results showed that the wavelet spectrogram analysis of surface wave (WSASW) method is able to identify and reconstruct better spectrum seismic and phase velocity dispersion curve from surface wave measurement. Based on reconstructed seismic spectrum and velocity dispersion curve, soil attenuation and damping ratio can be obtained well. This technique can be applied to solve problems related to non-stationary seismic wave at soft clay soil.


This paper introduces an XML-based data integration scheme,presents the system structure chart and discusses its main technologies.The way of integration scheme is the combination of virtual approach and materialized approach.We use ontology to solve heterogeneous semantic information and use the data replication to solve the substantiation of data.This scheme solves the using of multiple heterogeneous databases and improves query efficiency.


Far from being senseless acts perpetrated by barbarous savages, ISIS's heritage destruction has been carefully staged and sends clear and deliberate messages.