Quinine has been among the best known alkaloids for over 300 years, thanks to its antimalarial activity. In the last two decades, Cinchona alkaloids have emerged as powerful chiral auxiliaries, resulting in some well known landmark developments in asymmetric synthesis, but more recently these alkaloids themselves have been shown to undergo some remarkable transformations and skeletal shifts that are rapidly widening perspectives in the chemistry of Cinchona bases, embracing both basic and applied science. The alkaloids enter into a series of fundamental transformations that have given rise to the industrial manufacture of a host of new enantiopure materials showing promise for asymmetric syntheses and combinatorial chemistry. Stereochemical diversity, well developed conformational minima not encountered in conventional organic substrates, hydrophilic pockets and stereoelectronics contribute subtle mechanistic features and structural complexity. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2004)


Empirical estimates of trends in health expectancy throughout the nations of the developed world provide conflicting evidence on the debate whether increasing life expectancy is accompanied by a compression or expansion of morbidity and disability. Complicating this issue is the fact that various methods are available for calculating health expectancy, each requiring a unique and often difficult to obtain source of data. It is suggested here that to reliably communicate the policy relevance of the measure of health expectancy it is necessary for countries such as the United Kingdom to make a long-term commitment to developing longitudinal databases that permit the most reliable estimates of trends in the health status of the population.


This study examines the peculiarities of traditional religious beliefs of indigenous peoples of the Krasnoyarsk Krai — Dolgans, Nganasans, Nenets and Enets. The authors use comparative historical and historiographical methods, as well as rely on the results of field research conducted by employees of the Department of Cultural Studies at the Humanitarian Institute of Siberian Federal University in the territory of compact residence of these peoples in Krasnoyarsk Krai from 2010 to 2018. The study provides an overview of the main features of the traditional religious beliefs of each of the designated indigenous minorities with the definition of their current state. The results of the study make it possible to determine the general and specific features characteristic of the religious beliefs of Dolgans, Nganasans, Nenets and Enets who live in the Krasnoyarsk Krai, both in their traditional form and in their present state


The aim of the present work was to experimentally d etermine the parameters characterizing the pulse flow of liquids through be d i.e. the frequency of pulsation and the velocity of pulses travelling along the bed an next to work out the correlation equations enabling their assessment. The research was carried out in a pressure reactor (pressures up to 2 MPa) having 0.05 m in di ameter and being 1.5 m long. Physicochemical properties of the gas and liquid ph ases were changed in the research and the concentrations of water solutions of alipha tic lcohols were chosen in such a way so that the systems would form foams of various lifetime as a result of their contact with the gas in packing. The experimental data which were obtained as a result of the research were correlated depending on the operational parameters of the reactor and physicochemical properties of gas and l iquid phases. The knowledge of the examined in the present work parameters is extr emely important to model the operation of a three-phase system in the pulsing fl ow regime.


Effects of plasma beam surface hardening parameters on microstructure and hardness distribution of the hardening layer of boron cast iron at junction of two hardening traces were investigated.Experimental results show that the microstructure in the junction of hardened layers consists of cryptocrystalline martensite,retained austenite,flake graphite and boride,and its hardness and depth are higher than those in the single hardening trace.The highest hardness in junction of hardened layers does not present at the top surface,but at the sub surface in certain distance from the surface.The position where the highest hardness appears moves towards inside along the depth of hardened layer with increase of the electrical current.The hardness distribution is obviously non-homegeneous in hardened layer,the hardness gradient in both sides of top hardness is steeper,and reduces with increase of the electrical current.


A'ingae (or Cofán) is a language isolate spoken in the Ecuadorian and Colombian Amazon. This study presents a description and analysis of the language's morphologically conditioned verbal stress assignment. Specifically, I show that A'ingae verbal morphemes can be classified with two binary parameters: the presence or absence of prestressing and the presence or absence of stress deletion (i.e. dominance), which vary independently. I formalise my analysis in Cophonology Theory, a non-representational theory of the phonology–morphology interface, which captures morpheme-specific phonology with constraint rankings particularised to morphological constructions. I argue that while non-representational approaches such as Cophonology Theory can handle the facts of A'ingae stress deletion straightforwardly, representational approaches lack the expressive power necessary to capture the stress facts of the language.


Trade unions in the Czech Republic have experienced a steady decline in membership and, albeit less markedly, in bargaining coverage since the early 1990s, but much less decline in political influence. An assessment of the extent of their overall ability to influence society's development requires a division into three spheres: business, employment relations, and the state budget. Strength in one sphere is found to influence strength in others. The development of collective bargaining in workplaces and at the sectoral level took shape relatively early. Forms of political influence developed more gradually, by a learning process, to include a combination of participation in tripartite structures, organising mass protest demonstrations and lobbying MPs and ministers. The relative weights of these elements, and their effectiveness, have varied with different governments and balances of power in parliament.


Article history: Received 29 October 2013 Received in revised form 214 January 2014 Accepted 28 January 2014 Available online 25 February 2014


There is a delicate balance between processability, mechanical properties, and seal performance when LDPE/LLDPE blends are used. Choosing the right blend proportion is sometimes a very difficult job, and it can consume much resin and time. An easy-to-use selector that can run in most spreadsheet programs was devised based on the design of experiment (DOE) approach. This selector is intended to reduce the time and material needed to achieve a given set of properties.


Emerging preclinical data suggest that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP1RA) possesses cardioprotective properties against the pathophysiology of hypertension (HT). We sought to unravel the potential therapeutic application of GLP1RA in a clinically relevant large animal model of hypertensive cardiomyopathy (hCMP). A combination of angiotensin II (Ang II) and deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) pellets were used to induce sustained HT status and establish hCMP in porcine model. Changes in cardiac echocardiography, invasive hemodynamic parameters, neurohumoral biomarkers and inflammation-related cytokines were investigated in 23 adult pigs, among which 6 were serving as control, 9 were induced with HT, and the remaining 8 were HT-induced with GLP1RA treatment. Eight weeks after the study initiated, HT pigs have developed sustained high blood pressure (BP) at both systole and diastole. Phenotype of hCMP has also become significant as impairment in systolic/diastolic function, left ventricular remodeling and cardiac hypertrophy was determined by echocardiogram and invasive hemodynamics. Additionally, blood norepinephrine (NE) content, venoarterial NE gradient and pro-inflammatory cytokines in HT pigs were increased. GLP1RA treatment halted the elevation in BP, left ventricular remodeling and cardiac hypertrophy development; preserved the left ventricular systolic/diastolic function; reduced the venoarterial NE gradient as well as the pro-inflammatory cytokines at 18 weeks in pigs with hCMP. Our results demonstrate that GLP1RA treatment has a remarkable effect on BP decrease, inflammation suppression and left ventricular function improvement. Thus, we provide novel insight into the therapeutic potential of GLP1RA in HT-induced heart failure in a large animal model of hCMP.


The benefits of Big Data Analytics are cited frequently in the literature. However, the difficulties of implementing Big Data Analytics can limit the number of organizational projects. In this study, the authors evaluate business, procedural and technical factors in the implementation of Big Data Analytics, applying a methodology program. Focusing on organizations in the health sector, the authors learn that business and procedural factors are collectively more critical than factors of technology in managing Big Data Analytics projects that attempt to contribute discernable impact; and they further learn that managing for practical results than for strategy is more evident on the projects in the sector. The study will benefit educators in improving Big Data Analytics curricula with a methodology program and will benefit practitioners in the sector in initiating systems.


This study proves that the application of par-frying method and addition of calcium propionate able to prolong the shelf life and preserve the quality of frozen pastry curry puff during distribution and storage after exposure to fluctuating temperature. Par-fried curry puff added with 0.1% calcium propionate produce lower moisture content, oil uptake and weight loss than non-par fried puff. In addition, par fried curry puff was capable of preventing any visible black spots (after 4 weeks storage) which are related to the quality defect. No sensorial changes detected during sensory evaluation in terms of texture, appearance, taste and overall acceptability after addition of calcium propionate. There is a high possibility of frozen curry puff to be commercialized internationally without any deterioration.


We develop an asymptotic expansion technique for pricing timer options in stochastic volatility models when the effect of volatility of variance is small. Based on the pricing PDE, closed-form approximation formulas have been obtained. The approximation has an easy-to-understand Black–Scholes-like form and many other attractive properties. Numerical analysis shows that the approximation formulas are very fast and accurate, especially when the volatility of variance is not large.


PRAHA, Czecho~lovakia, May 27 (AP) The government toni~ht postponed inde!1 ni tely the special session of parliament called tor next Tuesday as 'i t faced slow progress in efforts to reconciLe differences with the autonomy-demanding Sudeten German minority. .,' It had expected 'at that time to submit for legislative ilPproval the nationalities statute designed to solve the country's problem with ils minorities. It was reported unofficially the Czechoslovaks hoped to have ready by tomorrow an outline Of thl! maximum concessions they would be willing to make for the sake of satisfying the demands of the 3,500,000 Sudeten Germans. Dr. Ernst ElsenlobJ:, German I1Hnister, again called the government's attention to alleged violations of the German border by Czechoslovak military units. Official quarters reported the Czechoslovak mInister in Berlin was instructed to make similar representations concerning aUeged German violations of the Czechoslovak frontier.


This artical takes the stereo garage Auto control as a study object,uses single-chip computer as an overall design,designs the compositions and the functions of an auto car-accessing system and the optimizations of the car-accessing strategy.According to the garage control principle of the control system,we completed the control system software design.This system can functionally detect a parking space,find an empty parking space,calculate the number of empty parking space and access a parked car,it has all the basic functions of a auto stereo garage.


Air pollution is one of the major environmental problems. It can cause serious health consequences such as cancer, heart disease and high mortality rates. The people of Rajasthan contribute significantly to air pollution in urban and rural areas or areas. The first largest state in India, Rajasthan, the subject of this concept, is one of the most polluted areas in the country. Severe air pollution of concern particles and high hydrocarbons. The height of the Rajasthan industry is a major source of air pollution compared to the rest of India. This project provides an analysis of the practice of fixed respiratory tract (PM10) and fixed particle matter (PM2.5) throughout the city of Rajasthan, India. Filtering of air particles compares with national standards for air quality of last year's data. Prices for PM10 and PM2.5 were lower during the rainy season compared to the summer winter. The ARIMA Season Model (SARIMA) time analysis is used for air analysis and pollution forecasting. The data collection for PM10 and PM2.5 is well integrated. Cross-model validation was performed using residual analysis. The remainder of the difference between the observed value and the predicted number of PM10 is not significant at that time in few years. In this project data collection and data analysis should be done on the basis of the Indian standard. Index Terms – PM2.5, PM10, ARIMA, Air pollution


The purpose of this study is (1) to explain about background of sosio-historical Tere Liye, (2) to describe about the structure that build Amelia novel by Tere Liye, (3) to explain social aspect in Amelia novel by Tere Liye (sociology of literature survey), (4) relevance the result of this study as literature subject in senior high school. Descriptive qualitative research with the object is like social aspect in Amelia novel by Tere Liye (sociology of literature survey). The data of this research are the explanations in the novel, Amelia. The primary source of data is novel, Amelia by Tere Liye. The secondary source of data is like thesis, the author biography, and internet. Technique of collecting data is like library techniques, listen and note.. Technique of validiting data uses triangulation theory. Technique of analyzing data that is technique to analyze dialectically. The result of this study as follows: (1) background of socio-historical from author, Tere Liye is a Sumatran person. His work tells about the story of social life in his every literary work. (2) Structural in Amelia novel by Tere Liye can get theme about the struggle a young child. The plot in this study uses mixed plot. The main character in this novel is a girl, Amelia Setting in Amelia novel consists of three, that is setting of place, setting of time, and setting of social. (3) the analysis of social aspect in Amelia novel by Tere Liye as follows: a) poverty: poverty about structural and cultural, b) environment: the physical environment, biological environment, social environment which consists from caring, hard work, affection in family. (4) the result in this study of this novel, Amelia by Tere Liye can apply in education language and literature in senior high school.


Letter from M. Cherif Bassiouni to Frits Kalshoven in response to the May 28, 1993 fax regarding studies of the Battle of Sarajevo


The colour reaction of chromium with piperonal fluorone in microemulsion has been studied.Its apparent molar absorptivity is 9.5×10 4 L·mol -1 ·cm -1 (measurement wavelength 595 nm,reference wavelength 525 nm).Beer′s law is obeyed in the range of 0~7/25 μg/mL for chromium.This method can be applied to the determination of chromium in steel with satisfactory results.


Description: Wireless Power Transfer is the second edition of a well received first book, which published in 2012. It represents the state-of-the-art at the time of writing, and addresses a unique subject of great international interest in terms of research. Most of the chapters are contributed by the main author, though as in the first edition several chapters are contributed by other authors. The authors of the various chapters are experts in their own right on the specific topics within wireless energy transfer. Compared to the first edition, this new edition is more comprehensive in terms of the concepts discussed, and the range of current industrial applications which are presented, such as those of magnetic induction. From the eleven chapters of the first edtion, this second edition has expanded to twenty chapters. More chapters on the theoretical foundations and applications have been included. This new edition also contains chapters which deal with techniques for reducing power losses in wireless power transfer systems. In this regard, specific chapters discuss impedance matching methods, frequency splitting and how to deploy systems based on frequency splitting. A new chapter on multi-dimensional wireless power transfer has also been added. The design of wireless power transfer systems based on bandpass filtering approach has been included, in addition to the two techniques using couple mode theory and electronic circuits.


To cluster a data stream is a more challenging task than its regular batch version, having stricter performance constraints. In this paper an approach to this problem is presented, based on WiSARD, a memory-based artificial neural network (ANN) model. This model functioning was reviewed and improved, in order to adapt it to this task. The experimental results obtained support the use of this system for the analysis of data streams in an informative way.


The mechanism for sound production from flow over a rough surface is not well understood. Measurements of radiated noise and low-wavenumber unsteady surface pressures were carried out in order to better understand the sound production mechanism. The initial results of an ongoing experimental investigation of the sound produced by flow over a rough surface are presented. In order to investigate scaling relationships, the flow speed, roughness height, and roughness element distribution were varied. Previous investigations have reported roughness noise levels that scale on flow velocity, roughness height, and fetch area and have indicated that the sound production may be dipole or quadrupole in nature. Prevailing analytical models assume that both types of sources are present. The scaling of roughness noise for large roughness height (k+ = uτ k/ν of order 1000) has not been investigated previously and is part of the current study. The scaling behavior of low-wavenumber surface pressures is discussed, in addition to the comparison of radiated noise spectra obtained by phased microphone array measurements.


Orthogonal frequency division multiple access is a technique in which single data stream is transmitted with small rate of subcarriers. OFDM system needs FFT processor for generation of subcarriers. A Radix-2 Based 32 bit and 64 Point Pipeline FFT Processor Using bit parallel multiplication process for OFDM system is presented in this paper. Proposed architecture uses single path delay feedback FFT architecture. This is an ROM less architecture. In this architecture ROM is replaced by complex constant multiplier and all twiddle factors are multiplied using bit parallel multiplication module. Pipelining methodology provides good latency to the FFT processor. Propagation delay of proposed architecture is calculated by test bench waveform on Xilinx ISE simulator and it is equal to 630ns at 10ns clock period. Due to small propagation delay speed of the OFDM system gets increases and latency also gets improve.


Fluctuating operating load and speed conditions are found in many industrial applications and the standard condition monitoring techniques for stationary systems are often inadequate for accurately detecting and diagnosing faults under such conditions. Discrepancy analysis has been proposed to deal with such issues. The idea of discrepancy analysis is based on the similar concept of residual analysis where all healthy vibration components, such as meshing frequency and its harmonics, are removed from the signal, leaving only the damage related vibration components. However the discrepancy signal does not physically remove the vibration components. Instead, by statistically comparing a novel signal to a reference model, the discrepancy signal is formed by its likelihood with respect to the reference model. Since the reference model is solely based on a healthy system, any discrepancy is assumed to be purely as a result of the presence of a fault. By allowing the empirical model to take the non-stationary operating conditions into account, the effects of fluctuating load and speed can be removed as well. Thus the discrepancy signal significantly reduces the complexity of fault detection and enables the type and severity of the fault to be determined using standard signal processing techniques. To classify the operating conditions and detect the presence of a fault it is necessary to create statistical and classification models. These models are trained on data measured on the healthy systems over the full range of expected operating conditions. A novel signal can then be piecewise evaluated against the reference models in order to detect instantaneous deviations. These deviations are indicative of gear faults. This work offers a new method for detecting, diagnosing and determining the severity of faults in gearboxes under non-stationary operating conditions that are independent of historical fault data and not reliant on measures of either operating speed or load.


PURPOSE: To separate and recycle a fiber mixture by supplying the fiber mixture containing cellulosic fiber and the fiber composed of synthetic polymer and subjecting the mixture to a microbial hydrolysis in which the cellulosic fiber is completely degraded. CONSTITUTION: The material having the fiber mixture containing the cellulosic fiber is recycled. At this time, at first, in the first stage, the fiber mixture containing the cellulosic fiber and the fiber composed of the synthetic polymer is supplied. Then, in the second stage, the mixture is subjected to the microbial hydrolysis in which the cellulosic fiber is completely degraded. After the second stage, microbe and hydrolyzate may be removed or remaining synthetic polymer may be recovered and recycled. Moreover, the hydrolyzate may be anaerobically fermented to be converted to biogas. In this way, the fiber mixture containing the cellulosic fiber and the fiber composed of the synthetic polymer is separated and recycled. COPYRIGHT: (C)1995,JPO


I analyze the interaction between buyers' information acquisition and market liquidity in over-the-counter markets with adverse selection. If a buyer anticipates that future buyers will acquire information about asset quality, she has an incentive to acquire information to avoid buying a lemon that will be hard to sell later. However, when current buyers acquire information, they cream-skim the market, leaving a larger fraction of lemons for sale and giving future buyers an incentive to acquire information. A liquid market can go through a self-fulfilling market freeze when buyers start to acquire information. More importantly, if information acquisition continues for a long enough period of time, the market gets stuck in an information trap with low liquidity: information acquisition worsens the composition of assets remaining on the market, and the bad composition incentivizes information acquisition. This prediction helps explain why the market for non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities experienced a sudden drop in liquidity—as potential buyers realized the need for greater due diligence—but has remained essentially dormant despite a strong recovery in the housing market.


The results of the study show the fatten efficiency of winter green grass on local cattle and goats. Liveweight gain per day of cattle and goat fed with green grass increased by 69 80% and 73 4% compared with those fed with straw. Carcass weight, slaughter rate and lean meat percentage of goats were also improved obviously, profits of 1.42 yuan per cattle and 0.19 yuan per goat per day could be gotten through feeding with winter green grass.


Abstract Experiments were performed with combined arrangements of wing tines and a rotor with tines. The forces acting between such a combined machine and the tractor were assessed. Attempts were made to measure the power demand of the elements of the combined machines singly. The dependence of the drawbar power and pto power on the forward speed of such combined machines was investigated and linear relationships were found to describe the power demand of the implements as a function of forward speed in the speed range used for the investigations. Various share widths were used for the wing tines and advantages in specific energy consumption were found if the whole cross-section was pre-loosened. Sieve analysis of the soil after the passage of the implements indicated that the rotor tines destroy mainly the large clods left by the wing tines. The influence of the distance between the wing tine and the rotor was investigated and the effects on power consumption were found to be small. The danger of blockage by straw could be reduced by increasing the distance between the wing tines and the rotor.


In order to meet the needs of the detection accuracy and speed of lithium-ion battery chip defects, this article proposes an improved algorithm based on deep learning YOLO5. First, introduce the coordinate attention mechanism (CA) to strengthen the study of the characteristics of the image area of the lithium-ion polar tablet so that the model focuses on the extraction of the characteristics of the polar defects and weakens the effects of complex background on the test results. Further, improve the accuracy of polar defect detection, and use the CIoU loss function to replace the GIoU function, so that the regression process focuses more on high-quality anchor frames and improves the convergence speed, regression accuracy, and robustness of the model. Based on the above experimental results, the two improvements were jointly added to the YOLOv5 model, the mAP was increased by 1.48%, and the detection speed FPS was increased by 2 f/s-1.The YOLOv5-CC algorithm proposed in this article is a lithium-ion with both detection accuracy and practicality. Battery pole defect detection algorithm has high application value.


, Line 25: "We provide the following recommendations for preservation of precipitation samples from coastal or marine environments intended for INP analysis . . . " Introduction, Line 100: "Enhancements and losses of INPs according to storage protocol and treatment are reported, as well as recommendations for storage protocols that best preserve INPs in untreated, heated, and filtered precipitation samples from marine or coastal environments." Finally, the estimated uncertainties associated with the 4 storage protocols are provided for untreated, heat-treated and filtered samples for INPs between -9 and 17 ◦ C. Conclusion, Line 398: "2. Estimates of uncertainty attributed to storage impacts and 95% confidence intervals for INP measurements obtained from stored samples are provided (see Tables 5-7)." Abstract : :likely Corrected. Abstract, Line 25: "We provide the following recommendations for preservation of precipitation samples from coastal or marine environments intended for INP analysis: that samples be stored at -20 ◦ C to minimize storage artifacts, that changes due to storage are likely an additional uncertainty in INP concentrations . . . " "Significant insights have been obtained: : :" 'highly uncertain" : please eliminate nonobjective terms like 'significant' (throughout paper) – these are reader dependent, not quantitative. These terms have been removed from the paper, except for instances referring to Fisher's Exact Test. A statement to clarify this has been added to the Results sec-tion 3.2.


Features of today's high producing dairy farms include the increasing use of new plant germplasm, the greater use of nitrogen (N) fertilizer and the expansion of irrigation, including effluent application. Alongside that, the industry is consistently moving towards higher than recommended soil P levels, as a potential safeguard against the risk of under-fertilizing pastures. This paper briefly summarises current knowledge on the nutrient requirements of legume based pastures and on critical and target soil P test ranges for dairy pastures, before reporting on some interim findings of a series of field studies, with locations in the Waikato, Manawatu, Canterbury and Southland exploring whether current recommended critical Olsen P levels apply to today's high performance dairy pastures. The implications of the findings to the interpretation of current soil test information for dairy farms are also discussed. Interim findings indicate that the critical Olsen P level for a high performance dairy pasture align with those reported and recommended by Roberts & Morton (1999) for those situations where current milk solids production/ha is in the top 25% for the supply area or it is intended to increase to that level. The initial findings also indicate that the source of added N (e.g. legume N versus Fertiliser N) influences the relationship between Olsen P and relative yield. It is important to note that the results were obtained in situations where regular irrigation was applied through late springautumn to avoid any moisture stress on plants.


The paper analyses some approaches to enhancing user interaction with high functionality systems such as geographical information systems. Graphical approaches derived from the direct manipulation tradition are compared and contrasted with intelligent systems approaches. An implementation of one particular approach, based upon AI planning, is presented, and alternative user interfaces to that system are analysed. The benefits of a quite novel form of goal based or declarative interaction are described.


Heavy metal pollution is one the major problems concerning environment and water sources in particular. Their stability and mobility in natural waters mark them as a great threat for the human health. The health concern raise from the fact that their LD50 is low as well as they can be accumulated in human body. Most of the heavy metals are known to cause illnesses affecting central nervous system and known carcinogens. In this study we present sorption of different heavy metal ions (Cu2+, Ni2+) as a method for their removal from polluted water. A comparative study of the sorption of different ions of activated carbon is conducted. We have investigated the effect of different parameters (pH, temperature, ionic strength) onto sorption capacity of the activated carbon.


Objective To assess the high risk factors of retinopathy of prematurity.Methods All neonates of 1365,Deliveried in the de-partment of the obatetric at our Hospital from September 2003 to December 2005 and who survived until discharge,were eligible for the study,205 cases of which received a retinal examination and the assessment of risk of retinopathy of prematurity.Results the retinopathy of prematurity was detected in 31 Prematures who had eye examinations.Conclusion In this preliminary study we have shown that the neonates32 weeks of gestational age,the neonates with≤2000 birth weigh,Multi-foetal,Prematures who performed oxygen therapy(Oxygen concentrations40%)and with low birth weight are termed as high risk factors of the retinopathy of prematurity.


In order to understand and possibly interfere/ treat neuromuscular disorders it is important to analyze the biological events that may be causing the disability. We illustrate such attempts on two examples of genetically determined neuromuscular diseases: 1) Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), and 2) Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). DMD is an x-linked hereditary muscle disease that leads to progressive muscle weakness. The altered gene in DMD affects dystrophin, a muscle membrane associated proteine. Attempts were made to replace the deficient or missing gene/ protein into muscles of Duchenne children. Two main strategies were explored: 1) Myoblast and stem cell transfer and 2) Gene delivery. The possible use of methods other than the introduction of the missing gene for dystrophin into muscle fibres are based on the knowledge about the adaptive potential of muscle to different functional demands and the ability of the muscle to express a new set of genes in response to such stimuli. Stretch or overload is now known to lead to changes of gene expression in normal muscle, and the success of muscle stretch in the management of Duchenne boys is most likely to be due to such adaptive changes. Electrical stimulation of muscles is also a powerful stimulus for inducing the expression of new genes and this method too has produced beneficial effects on the progress of the disease in mice and men. SMA is a heterogeneous group of hereditary neuromuscular disorders where the loss of lower motoneurones leads to progressive weakness and muscle atrophy. The disease subdivides into 3 forms according to the severity of the symptoms and age of onset. All three forms of SMA have been mapped to chromosome 5q11.2-13.2. Clinical features of all these forms of SMA include hypotonia shortly after birth, symmetrical muscle weakness and atrophy, finger tremor, areflexia or hyporeflexia and later contractures. In patients with SMA 1 and 2 the development of all parts of the motor unit is slower. The rate of maturation is critical for the survival of both motoneurone and muscle and that events that interfere with the time course of maturation cause both motoneurone and muscle fibre death. The proposal that the SMN gene/protein is involved in the process to developmental changes in cells and therefore crucial for their survival is put forward. The understanding of the developmental changes and their influence on motoneurone and muscle survival may help to devise therapeutic interventions. These may include a) protection of the motoneurone cell body during a critical period of its development by reducing its excitability or enhancing its defences by upregulating heat shock proteins, b) stabilizing neuromuscular junctions to enhance and prolong the retrograde influences from the muscle that affect motoneurone survival, c) protecting muscle fibres from apoptosis, as well as stimulating their maturation by activity appropriate to their younger age that results from their delayed development. These approaches should be considered in addition to or in conjunction with possible interference with the gene and its product. In order to understand and possibly interfere/treat neuromuscular disorders it is important to analyze the biological events that may be causing the disability. In this presentation I would illustrate such attempts on two examples of genetically determined neuromuscular diseases: 1) Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and 2) Spinal muscular atrophy.


Summary

A critical review is made of traditional approaches to occupationally-based alcoholism programmes (Employee Assistance Programmes: E.A.Ps). Methodological problems in E.A.P. research are briefly reviewed and major conceptual, ethical and practical difficulties underlying E.A.P. implementation are identified. Suggestions for improving the efficacy and efficiency of E.A.Ps include: (i) the integration of alcoholism services with more effective systems of employee performance-management and (ii) the extension of E.A.Ps to include interventions aimed at the'non-alcoholic'problem-drinking employee.


The comprehensive construction of the moderately-prosperous society is the fundamental interests of the people of all ethnic groups of China.In pursuit of that goal,the Communist Party of China(the CPC) has been experiencing a development progress from understanding to practice and from primary level to high level,in which they have achieved remarkable success and brought about real benefits for the Chinese people.All this lays a solid foundation for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.


This report describes training programs for paraprofessionals to accommodate the rapid growth of special education services in rural Kansas. Developed and implemented by state and local education agencies, the programs are based on the performance competencies established for paraprofessionals, and certification is enforced through the State Department of Special Education. Two federally funded grants have been awarded to the Kansas State Department of Education and the Kansas Association of Community Colleges to provide further support in meeting the training needs. Development of materials are under way to provide skills tra.ming at the community college level for special education paraprofessionals who work in integrated, cross-categorical, and early childhood classroom environments. Specific objTctives of training programs are addressed. The State of Kansas purchased a licensure and several sets of media material for the First Start Program, which prepares paraprofessionals to care for children with special needs and to assist parents of special need children. In addition, many media resources are available for loan through the state department of education to supplement training programs. Facilitators develop and ...mplement programs and recruit trainees in their geographical areas. Interactive television courses are used in th.: training program. (LP) ***********1*********************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** ACRES PRESENTATION PRESENTER: CO-PRESENTER: DAY: TIME: Community College Preservice Training FRAN LEE MARYLYN O'ROURKE March 17, 1991 4:00PM 5:00PM for Paraprofessionals and Related Services Personnel in Rural Kansas 9 U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office Educanonai Research and improvement EDU ATIONAL RESOURCES 'NFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Tiles doCument ha$ been reprodvord ss recettved [tom the person or organitstion orioinal.np .1 C Minor changes nave been made lo impeove reproduction gummy POMISOf v.ew Of Opmcns silted this document clo not necessarily represerd otticiai OE RI position or policy Marylyn O'Rourke, Ph.D. KACC Paraprofessional Programs 714 S.W. Jackson, Suite D Topeka, KS 66603 COMMUNITY COLLEGE PRESERVICE TRAINING FOR PARAPROFESSIONALS AND RELATED SERVICES PERSONNEL IN RURAL KANSAS


Numerous data indicate that hyperhomocysteinemia is a risk factor for cardio‐ and cerebrovascular diseases. At least in part, homocysteine (HCY) impairs cerebrovascular function because it generates large numbers of free radicals. Since melatonin is a well‐known antioxidant, which reduces oxidative stress and decreases HCY concentrations in plasma, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of melatonin in preventing HCY‐induced protein and lipid oxidation in rat brain homogenates. Brain homogenates were obtained from Sprague–Dawley rats and were incubated with or without HCY (0.01–5 mM) or melatonin (0.01–3 mM). Carbonyl content of proteins, and malondialdehyde (MDA) and 4‐hydroxyalkenals (4‐HDA) concentrations in the brain homogenates were used as an index of protein and lipid oxidation, respectively. Under the experimental conditions used, the addition of HCY (0.01–5 mM) to the homogenates enhanced carbonyl protein and MDA+4‐HDA formation. Melatonin reduced, in a concentration‐dependent manner, protein and lipid oxidation due to HCY in the brain homogenates. These data suggest that preserving proteins from oxidative insults is an additional mechanism by which melatonin may act as an agent in potentially decreasing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases related to hyperhomocysteinemia. J. Cell. Biochem. 102: 729–735, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to investigate how preparation for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse children influences early childhood teachers' motivation to remain in teaching. This study is grounded in Bandura's self-efficacy theory. Early childhood teachers were sent an online survey and asked about their teacher preparation, job satisfaction, self-efficacy for teaching diverse children, and motivation to remain in teaching. Teachers who reported high motivation to remain were compared to teachers with 1) low motivation to remain and 2) teachers unsure about remaining. The teachers were compared on their years of teaching experience, job satisfaction, self-efficacy for teaching diverse children, and diversity education using one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc test. The results suggest early childhood teachers with high motivation to remain had significantly more undergraduate coursework focused on diversity, felt their teacher education programs better prepared them for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse children, and did an effective job working with children from diverse backgrounds. Moreover, early childhood teachers with high motivation to remain had fewer years of teaching experience than teachers unsure about their motivation to remain. Implications will be discussed.


In this study we investigated the role of mast cells in granuloma-associated angiogenesis in rat. Since the release of several stored and newly synthesized mediators from mast cells may induce the angiogenic process, we investigated the role of a mast cell membrane stabiliser, ketotifen, on granuloma-associated angiogenesis. Moreover, among all the pre-stored mediator we investigate the role of rat mast cell chymases, a serine proteases from mast cell granules exhibiting pro-inflammatory and pro-angiogenic properties. In this light, the strategy we used was to design a novel antisense oligonucleotide (AS-ODN) against the rat mast cell chymase-1 (RMCP-3). Formation of granulomatous tissue was evaluated, as wet weight, four days after implants of two polyether sponges soaked with 1% λ-carrageenin as previously described (1). Angiogenesis was evaluated as haemoglobin (Hb) content in the tissue and the level of the proangiogenic cytokine TNF-α in the exudates. Daily administration of ketotifen (1-5-25 mg/kg/i.p.) significantly reduce granuloma formation by 17.3%, 28.1% and 38.2 % respectively and angiogenesis. Notably, ketotifen was more effective (31.6, 44.6 and 71.9% of weight reduction) when administred in a single injection at time 0 (i.e. at the day of implantation), suggesting that release of the pre-stored mediator(s) from mast cells plays an important role in modulating the process. Chymostatin, an inhibitor of chymase activity, was able to strongly reduce granuloma-associated angiogenesis, indicating that mast cell chymase plays a key role in our model. AS-ODN against RMCP-3 (2.5, 5.0, 10.0 nmol/site) strongly inhibited both granuloma weight (26, 45 and 56%) and Hb content (22, 50, 62% respectively). RT-PCR analysis showed that RMCP-3 mRNA amounts were significantly reduced by AS-ODN 1.25-2.5-5.0 nmol/site (68%, 75% and 79% respectively). In conclusion, our data suggest that inhibition of mast cell secretory granule release may represent a novel strategy for the modulation of angiogenesis.


In this study, a comprehensive examination of pertinent literature concerning the determinants and metrics of industrial structural adaptation has enabled us to distill the intricate interplay between industrial structural adjustment and economic growth. At present, the primary findings have coalesced around a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between these two factors, shedding light on the pivotal direction and determinants of industrial structural adaptation amidst the ever-evolving landscape of economic development. The present study focuses on the relationship between the low-carbon perspective and identifies that low-carbon factors primarily influence the relationship between industrial restructuring and economic growth in five key aspects. This paper focuses on exploring the relationship between industrial restructuring and economic growth under a low-carbon perspective, revealing that low-carbon factors predominantly influence their interaction in five key dimensions. Lastly, this study provides a forward-looking analysis on how to effectively conduct industrial restructuring for achieving sustainable low-carbon economic development in the future, aiming to stimulate further research in related fields.


Spectroscopic photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) requires a pulsed nanosecond laser with tunable wavelength, but such lasers are expensive and have poor wavelength switching speed. We are developing a rapidly tunable system based on a high repetition rate supercontinuum source. A supercontinuum is produced by propagating 0.6 ns duration pulses from an 7.5 kHz Q-switched Nd:YAG microchip laser through 7 meters of photonic crystal fiber (PCF). Wavelength selection is achieved with a rapidly tunable prism-based monochromator, where an actuator-controlled mask selects the desired wavelength band. Ten different wavelength bands (570 to 930 nm) are acquired in less than 1 second for each image pixel. Each wavelength has a bandwidth of 40 nm. The PAM system employs optical focusing of the excitation beam and detection with a 25 MHz spherically focused f/3 transducer. Multiwavelength imaging is tested on phantoms with different color inks. The inks were correctly identified by processing the multiwavelength images with a linear discriminant analysis. A major advantage of our tunable source is the high repetition rate and rapid access to widely separated wavelengths. These promising results suggest the potential of our wavelength agile source for spectroscopic photoacoustic microscopy.


Football is one of the most popular sports in the world, in which is the largest number of people participate, especially four years of a world cup will stimulate the upsurge of the fans all over the world. While the people are enjoying the game, they will pay more attention to the competition result, and because the foot matches could bring the tremendous economic benefits. Thus, it becomes very important to stimulate the football matches process and predict the competition results. The paper is studied from the two aspects. On the one hand, in this paper, the data mining technology is used to analyze the present situation of a football team and present the competition results on the basis of predicting the trend of development. On the other hand, the homogeneous Markov chain is introduced into the football match and the state transition probability matrix is established to obtain the main impacting data. Meanwhile, the paper uses the homogeneous Markov model to predict the future development of the football match and get the reasonable conclusions, that is, the situation of a good football match is stable. This method can be used to not only predict the competition result of the football match, but also to predict the competition results of the other matches.


Nonadherence to hypertension treatment was reported as a major problem, leading to the increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases. A qualitative exploratory case study in four patients was designed to identify factors influencing treatment nonadherence for hypertensive patients as member of BPJS Health at a selected community health centre (Puskesmas) with the highest prevalence of hypertensive patients in Surabaya. Semistructure interview was collecting data method in this study that was used to four patients who were not beneficiaries of the contribution (non PBI) as BPJS Health member that were classified into BPJS Askes and BPJS Mandiri. Four patients were selected based on criteria such as age, blood pressure readings, gender and frequency of visits to the Puskesmas, as recorded in the Puskesmas' system for information and management (SIMPUS). Thematic analysis showed that misperception to hypertension, forgetfulness to consume medicines and busyness were mostly identified as barriers to nonadherence. Lack of family support was reported a social factor that was influences patients' adherence. Health system factors such as inadequate capacity of health service for all patients and limited number of medicines given to each patient was identified as treatment nonadherence barriers. Hypertension a chronic condition with no specific symptom was reported as a cause to patients' nonadherence. Additionally, patients' knowledge about BPJS program for patients with chronic conditions (Prolanis) was low. Therefore, rearrangement of national health system programs is a necessary to offer great benefit to hypertensive patients.


Starting from the spectral problem and Lenard operator,a new nonlinear evolution equation was found,and its Hamiltonian structure was constructed by applying the trace identity.


The immune system is exposed to a countless number of potentially antigenic proteins, yet only some of those proteins elicit IgE antibody responses, hence referred to as allergens. Although allergens, such as those from house dust mite and pollen, are normally innocuous foreign proteins, they could have devastating effects in those individuals who are predisposed to producing large amounts of allergenspeci®c IgE. Therefore there must be a common structural feature (e.g. topology) or intrinsic property (e.g. hydrolytic activity) which enable allergens to elicit powerful Th2 responses and a consequent bias towards IgE-mediated allergic disease. We have recently suggested that nonimmunological properties of some allergens, such as proteolytic activity, might contribute to their allergenicity [1]. This is best exempli®ed by the house dust mite Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus allergen Der p 1 which, in addition to acting as immunogen, has the intrinsic ability to subvert the regulatory process controlling IgE synthesis, thereby favouring an allergic outcome [2].


In this article corporating with practice we introduce the development of digital television broadcasting system,and the necessity of constructing digital system,the advantage of digital system and the new features,some problems solved in broadcasting system design and realization.


An attempt was made in this study to answer 2 questions: which factors contribute to the development of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) in longterm users; and are there any events during the period of IUD use which predict the serious episodes of PID in those women. The characteristics of IUD users who developed PID requiring removal of IUD were compared to those of other IUD users. For this purpose the IUD records of previous Family Planning Institute and clinical records of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of Ljubljana Yugoslavia were used. The data were collected retrospectively from 8088 women who had 1st IUD insertions in the period 1964-1972. To these women 9995 IUDs were inserted. The IUD were in uterus from 1-16 years. 16% of women have used 2 IUDs and 3% used 3 IUDs. In the 1st segment 24 different types of sizes of IUDs were inserted. Half of the women were younger than 30 at time of 1st insertion. Another quarter were 30-34 years of age. Only 1% of the women were nulliparous. Diagnosis of PID was based primarily on physical examination and corresponding laboratory findings. During the observation period the IUD was removed from 378 users because of PID. For final analysis there were 378 women in the PID group and 381 corresponding women in the control gorup. The significant differences among the 2 groups were found in the number of spotting bleeding and PID episodes before IUD removal. In the PID group 38% of the women experienced 1-2 episodes of bleeding; the figure was 34% in the control group. There were 3 or more episodes of bleeding among women in the PID group (19%) compared to 13% in the control group. 3 or more episodes of spotting during the IUD use appeared among women in PID group in 50% and among controls in 41% with less than 5% probability this difference would appear by chance. The most evident prediction symptoms seems to be the frequency of PID episode before removal. 1-2 PID episodes have been found among women in PID group in 79% and in control in only 21%; 3 and more episodes of PID appeared among PID group in 10% and in control group only in 1%. The most frequent IUD used in severe PID cases was Margulies (29%) compared to 10% in other PID cases and controls. The study results indicate that recurrent bleeding spotting and PID episodes are important in the development of PID which requires.


Thermal regime and thickness of the active layer respond rapidly to climate variations, and thus they are important measures of cryosphere changes in polar environments. We monitored air temperature and ground temperature at a depth of 5 cm and modeled active‐layer thickness using the Stefan and Kudryavtsev models at the Abernethy Flats site, James Ross Island, Eastern Antarctic Peninsula, in the period March 2006 to February 2016. The decadal average of air and ground temperature was −7.3 and −6.1°C, respectively, and the average modeled active‐layer thickness reached 60 cm. Mean annual air temperature increased by 0.10°C y−1 over the study period, while mean annual ground temperature showed the opposite tendency of −0.05°C y−1. The cooling took place mainly in summer and caused thawing season shortening and active‐layer thinning of 1.6 cm y−1. However, these trends need to be taken carefully because all were non‐significant at p < 0.05. The Stefan and Kudryavtsev models reproduced the active‐layer thickness with mean absolute errors of 2.6 cm (5.0%) and 3.4 cm (5.9%), respectively, which is better than in most previous studies, making them promising tools for active‐layer modeling over Antarctica.


Objective: Granulomatous mastitis (GM), including idiopathic granulomatous mastitis (IGM) and tuberculous mastitis (TBM), is a rare and benign disease of the breast. Our aim is to highlight the nonspecific clinical presentations, diagnostic difficulties and therapeutic approaches of GM. Methods: Sixty-eight women with GM (52 with IGM and 16 withTBM) were included in the study. All clinical characteristics, diagnostic methods, and therapeutic approaches were evaluated in detail. Results: The patients with IGM had earlier onset in comparison to the patients with TBM. Suspicion of malignancy clinically was more frequent in patients with TBM than in those with IGM. While anti-TB therapy was quite effective in TBM patients, surgical excision had the lowest recurrence rate in patients with IGM. Conclusion: GM usually poses a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for the physicians. TB is still an important cause of GM, and should be always kept in mind in the differential diagnosis. Due to the diagnostic and therapeutic challenges, a multidisciplinary approach is needed to avoid mistakes and to obtain well outcomes.


—American Bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbeianus) are considered important reservoirs and vectors of the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), which can cause the disease chytridiomycosis in many amphibian species. In this study, we assessed the potential of bullfrog farms as centers for Bd dispersion. Specifically, we compared the incidence of Bd in captive and wild populations of bullfrogs by sampling six frog farms and eight natural ponds located at different distances from frog farms in southern Brazil. All sampled frog farms and natural ponds had infected individuals, but frog farms had a higher prevalence of Bd than natural ponds. While prevalence was high, infection intensity was low. In contrast, infection intensity was similar across natural ponds and frog farms. The distance of natural ponds to frog farms had no influence on Bd infection prevalence or load among bullfrogs; however, considering the higher prevalence of Bd in frog farms, the data suggest that frog farms might act as a constant source of this pathogen to the natural environment via escape and releases of frogs and through the release of contaminated water. Therefore, we emphasize the need for additional studies to assess the effect of the different types of frog farm management on the incidence of Bd in natural environments and encourage efforts to monitor free-living populations in surrounding areas. We also highlight the need for urgent measures to tighten the control and regulation of frog farms throughout Brazil to reduce their impact on native amphibians.


Rapidly growing volume of electrophysiological signals has been generated for clinical research in neurological disorders. European Data Format (EDF) is a standard format for storing electrophysiological signals. However, the bottleneck of existing signal analysis tools for handling large-scale datasets is the sequential way of loading large EDF files before performing signal analyses. To overcome this, we develop Hadoop-EDF, a distributed signal processing tool to load EDF data in a parallel manner using Hadoop MapReduce. Hadoop-EDF uses a robust data partition algorithm making EDF data parallelly processable. We evaluate Hadoop-EDF's scalability and performance by leveraging two datasets from the National Sleep Research Resource and running experiments on Amazon Web Service clusters. The performance of Hadoop-EDF on a 20-node cluster achieved about 26 times and 47 times faster than the sequential processing of 200 small-size files and 200 large-size files, respectively. The results demonstrate that Hadoop-EDF is more suitable and effective in processing large EDF files.


A parabolic equation with nonstandard growth condition is considered. A kind of weak solution and a kind of strong solution are introduced, respectively; the existence of solutions is proved by a parabolically regularized method. The stability of weak solutions is based on a natural partial boundary value condition. Two novelty elements of the paper are both the dependence of diffusion coefficient bx,t on the time variable t, and the partial boundary value condition based on a submanifold of ∂Ω×0,T. How to overcome the difficulties arising from the nonstandard growth conditions is another technological novelty of this paper.


» Insurance is a fundamentally important institution for lowering uncertainty between two parties so that they can exchange value. As such, it is a suitable target for disruption by a technological means of managing risk and minimizing complexity.

» Most industries hesitate to blow up their own business models. Decentralized insurance (e.g., social insurance) would do just that—disintermediate many of the functions of the classic insurance company—and so the industry itself will not likely start there. Nor do we foresee blockchain disruption of traditional insurance products.

» The commercial insurance sector is ideal for blockchain disruption because it has evolved to underwrite risk in a decentralized way, so as to avoid moral hazard. Its key systems (e.g., claims processing and insurance fraud detection) are already distributed. There is no incumbent system of intermediaries to displace. In the insurance industry's risk-averse culture, blockchain pioneers would be wise to avoid exotic niche products and focus on use cases that employ blockchain among permissioned partners to gain efficiencies in back-end business processes, such as those in business-to-business property and casualty insurance.

» There are blockchain use cases throughout the insurance process flow: in contracting (Maersk's Insurwave), facility operations management (Willis Re's shared network state), financial accounting (AIG and Standard Charter's master policy pilot), claims agreement processing (Suncorp and ANZ bank's shared network state), payments and treasury management (Allianz's internal token pilot), and statutory/regulatory reporting (AAIS' Open Insurance Data Link).

» More forward-looking initiatives such as Sweetbridge and Mattereum are insuring the risks inherent in using such blockchain technologies as digital wallets, tokenized assets, and smart contracts. These risk are not yet well understood.

As per Blockchain Research Institute policy, this paper is made available in the public domain six months after publication date


Recently a number of electrophoretic techniques have been applied to reveal the presence of additional genetic variation among the electrophoretic mobility classes of the highly polymorphic xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH) and esterase-5 (est-5) loci. We examined the hexokinase loci of Drosophila pseudoobscura and D. persimilis using a variety of techniques to determine whether further allelic variation could be revealed for these much less polymorphic loci and to analyze the nature of the known variation at the hexokinase-1 (hex-1) locus. The following studies were conducted: 135 strains of the two species from six localities were examined with buffer pH ranging from 5.5 to 10.0; 40 strains of D. pseudoobscura and 9 strains of D. persimilis from Mather were studied using staxh gel concentrations ranging from 8.5 to 15.5% and were examined for differences in heat stability and reactivity to the thiol reagent pCMSA; strains were also tested for susceptibility to urea denaturation and differences in relative activities. Major findings of the work are: (1) No additional allelic variation could be detected at any of the hexokinase loci by applying these techniques. The finding of abundant hidden genetic variation in XDH and est-5 does not extend to all enzyme loci. (2) Evidence from studies using pCMSA indicates that the hex-1 alleles 0.6,0.8,1.0 and 1.2 of the two species form a series of unit charge steps. Since the 0.94 allele of D. persimilis has mobility intermediate between 0.8 and 1.0, it is argued that routine electrophoretic techniques are sensitive to at least some conservative amino acid substitutions. (3) Strong correlations were found at the hex-1 locus between low allelic frequency, reduced relative activity and reduced stability to heat and urea denaturation. Since the three sibling species, D. pseudoobscura, D. persimilis and D. miranda, all appear to share a common high frequency allele (1.0) at that locus, these findings are taken as evidence that the observed allelic frequencies are a result of directional selection and mutation, rather than any form of balancing selection. ONSIDERABLE attention has been directed toward obtaining a more refined to the question of how much genetic variation exists in natural populations. Recently, by employing a large number of techniques coupled with electrophoresis, several studies have revealed a considerable amount of allelic variation that could not be unambiguously distinguished by using routine techniques of electrophoresis (usually 5% acrylamide gels at pH 9.0). For example. COBBS (1976), MCDOWELL and PRAKASH (1976) and COBBS and


This article aims to discuss theoretically changes in personality aspects caused by neurocysticercosis. An unsystematic narrative literature review aiming to present an open issue was used as research technique. Neurocysticercosis is a disease whose infestation usually depends on poor hygienic, health and education conditions. The infested patient has a lower self-esteem in addition to numerous psychological, medical and social consequences. It directly affects the ego, weakening the personality in its structure, which may cause a significant social and occupational deterioration or a deterioration of other important aspects of life.


We report a novel method for making 13C n.m.r. assignments using lanthanide ion-induced pseudocontact shifts in the 1H spectrum to separate out the different absorptions and thus to facilitate the use of C–H selective heteronuclear spin decoupling experiments.


There has been a significant amount of interest in conversion from oil/gas fired boilers to coal-fired equipment since the Arab oil embargo of 1973. The CRA Incorporated Coffeyville Refinery decided in 1977 to proceed with the installation of a 86.183 Kg/h coal fired boiler to generate process steam at 650 psig (4,482 k Pa) 596/sup 0/F (313/sup 0/C). A significant portion of this steam is passed through steam turbines to obtain mechanical power. Building and operating a coal-fired steam plant is a ''Different Kettle of Fish'' from building and operating an oil/gas-fired steam plant. The intention of this paper is to deal with some of the ''Why's and Wherefores'' of the conversion to coal-fired equipment.


In the deep submicron integrated circuit,the shallow trench isolation(STI) effect will affect the circuit performance.After increasing the length of N MO S source active region,the influence of STI effect will decrease,and the power delay product(PDP) of D flipflop will also decline.The TCAD device simulation shows that the decrease is not unlimited.This is because the STI isolation has irrational factors,the leakage current between devices will increase with the decrease of STI width.The simulation of circuit of D flip- flop with decrease of STI effect is carried out,the PDP is decreased by 3% when the length of N MO S active region is increased by 0.1?m.by using the building tool,the time sequence and power dissipation of D flipflop is extracted as the library file,which is used for digital circuit synthesis.The flipflop standard cell with low PDP is introduced into SMIC 65nm CMO S libraries,which can be applied to the low- dissipation semi custom digital integrated circuit design.


We reviewed the occurrence of Abbott's Babbler Trichastoma abbotti on Borneo as a first step towards understanding why this species, which is common in most of its range, is so rare on the island. We were able to find only 21 documented Bornean records, most of which derived from areas of scrub habitat at low altitudes, especially near the coast.


To investigate the correlation between MR findings and the histological diagnosis of incidentally detected lesions in candidates for breast‐conserving therapy.


Graphs model several real-world phenomena. With the growth of unstructured and semi-structured data, parallelization of graph algorithms is inevitable. Unfortunately, due to inherent irregularity of computation, memory access, and communication, graph algorithms are traditionally challenging to parallelize. To tame this challenge, several libraries, frameworks, and domain-specific languages (DSLs) have been proposed to reduce the parallel programming burden of the users, who are often domain experts. However, existing frameworks to model graph algorithms typically target a single architecture. In this paper, we present a graph DSL, named StarPlat, that allows programmers to specify graph algorithms in a high-level format, but generates code for three different backends from the same algorithmic specification. In particular, the DSL compiler generates OpenMP for multi-core, MPI for distributed, and CUDA for many-core GPUs. Since these three are completely different parallel programming paradigms, binding them together under the same language is challenging. We share our experience with the language design. Central to our compiler is an intermediate representation which allows a common representation of the high-level program, from which individual backend code generations begin. We demonstrate the expressiveness of StarPlat by specifying four graph algorithms: betweenness centrality computation, page rank computation, single-source shortest paths, and triangle counting. We illustrate the effectiveness of our approach by comparing the performance of the generated codes with that obtained with hand-crafted library codes. We find that the generated code is competitive to library-based codes in many cases. More importantly, we show the feasibility to generate efficient codes for different target architectures from the same algorithmic specification of graph algorithms.


Pesantren as an informal institution of education has been growing from recent years. Nowadays, the development of pesantren has been progressed. In these days, most people know Pesantren because of its success in making our nations have a better generations. Pesantren has gotten many respect from the society and another formal institutions because of their organized and neatly plans in their programs. Regardless of whether it is possible or not that their format and concept of education have been found, this phenomenon clearly indicates that the symptoms to establish Pesantren educational institutions are interesting to study.Generally, this study is having a goal to describe integrated boarding innovation management in Pesantren Terpadu and Pesantren at al-Karimiyah Darussalam and to acknowledge the format of an ideal concept of integrated management of schools in both of Pesantren. The design of this study is using a qualitative approachment with multicases design. In this study, our data have been collected through interviews, participant observation and documentation. The results of this study indicated the existence of an integrated management of Pesantren in Al-Karimiyah boarding schools and Daarussalam boarding schools. Both schools are also incorporate the concept of curriculum of the National Education Ministry and Religion Ministry, while maintaining the tradition of reviewing the books of yellow as a characteristic of the Pesantren. Pesantren Al-Karimiyah managed their education and their technique of teaching by assimilating the three systems of education management, such as management of education based on the Ministry of Religion curriculum, education management based on Pesantren Salaf, and management of education that refers to the modern Pesantren Gontor. Based on that three types of management education assimilation, They are synthesized into a pattern of innovation management education and technique of teaching which are interesting to study. With their way, Pesantren Al-Karimiyah and Daarussalam are able to make their education and technique of teaching more vibrant and competitive with the times.


Around the subject construction,this paper systematically expounds the targets,methods and effective ways of giving play to the functions of the library,and puts forward some constructive suggestions on the development of university library.


From the watchtowers of the process of globalization it has been a question of putting end to the history, but the response has been the destruction of the proper attempt: the history has returned the ball to them. The modernity has constructed itself on two pillars –towers– that have fallen down for having the feet of mud, as the giant of Daniel's book. Subject and Reason, from a perspective, have been the ideological sustenances of the whole process that has led to the construction of a great empire in west, but the days of this empire are ending, because his offers could not answer to the human need of everlasting happiness.


Parsley or other leaves were homogenized in ammoniacal acetone. The homogenate was ground with quartz and centrifuged and the sediment was discarded. Cold acetone was added, and the dark green precipitate produced was washed with ammoniacal acetone to remove chlorophyll and free carotenoids. After fractionation ammonium sulfate, dialysis and high-speed centrifuging, an orange-red solid was obtained. It was soluble in water, contained 9.5 per cent. nitrogen and gave typical colour Other CABI sites 


We have proposed that the prediction of protein subcellular localization sites can provide a good clue for the characterization of open reading frames of unknown function [1, 2]. Our program, PSORT, has been used by a number of researchers through the Internet [3]. PSORT was originally written in the style of a 'if-then' rule-based system. Although this style has the merit of a great versatility in coding inference pathways, re-optimization of numeric parameters for either given training data or expanded rules needs an expert's manual work. Clearly, this character is not well suited for the rapidly-progressing state of genome analyses. Thus, we have been studying other mathematical models for inference that allow at least semi-automatic optimization of numeric parameters. Last year, we introduced a simple model, the waterow model, that automatically nds required threshold parameters [4]. This model showed su ciently high discrimination power for model data. Here, we describe an improved model and report its predictability when applied to more realistic data. We rst collected E. coli amino acid sequences of known subcellular localization sites from the PROSITE database (Rel. 31). Excluding hypothetical information, 336 sequences were collected in total. They were classi ed into the following 8 groups: lipoproteins at the inner membrane (imL), lipoproteins at the outer membrane (omL), inner membrane proteins with a cleavable signal sequence (imS), typical outer membrane proteins (om), periplasmic proteins (pp), inner membrane proteins with a signalanchor 中井謙太:大阪大学細胞生体工学センター,〒 565吹田市山田丘 1-3 signal (imU), inner membrane proteins with an internal signal (im), and cytoplasmic proteins including peripheral inner membrane proteins (cp). Since the precise information for topogenic signals is lacking in the database, this classi cation partly uses the prediction result of PSORT. The number of members varies from 2 to 143 for each group. Currently, the reasoning tree is the same as the one used in the previous study [1]. However, we employed a probabilistic inference model. Basically, the model is a kind of \waterow model", as is the model proposed last year [4]. The most important di erence is the use of a discrete set of conditional probability values for categorized ranges of the characteristic value at each node. These categories are de ned such that each category roughly contains a uniform number of data points. However, since we still leave some room for eyeball inspection in this process, the calculation is semi-automatic. Although there remains some room for improvement in the characteristic values (for example, the parameters used in MeGeoch's method for signal sequence recognition) at each node, we tested the predictability of the current model by the cross-validation method. The 336 data were randomly divided into a training set of 302 and a testing set of 34. This trial was carried out 10 times and the resultant values were averaged. The overall prediction accuracy marked 79.1% which does not di er much with the accuracy for discriminating the training data. We expect that the method can be applied to a much more complicated eukaryotic problem without terrible di culty because of its conceptual clearness. Thus, this method seems very promising for upgrading the PSORT system in the near future.


A positive attitude of teachers and psychotherapists towards children with ADHD can both support their mutual relationship and support reducing ADHD-related symptoms. According to Fishbein and Ajzen's rational-choice approach, attitude formation is based on a person's expectations and the appraisal of these, thus attitude, therefore, differs individually. The present study aimed to identify different attitude profiles based on our participants' answer patterns on the ADHD-school-expectation questionnaire's (ASE) subscales, and to examine which attitude profile would be desirable for professionals working with children with ADHD. We conducted a latent profile analysis and investigated differences between the latent profiles. Our analysis revealed three attitude profiles characterized by negative, moderate and extreme ratings of expectations. The attitude profiles differed in further variables such as the use and effectiveness of rating classroom management strategies, knowledge of ADHD, perceived control, stress and strain, as well as some personality traits. The extreme rating profile seems to be beneficial for children with ADHD, whereas the moderate rating profile might appeal to certain professionals.


The present study examines the efficiency of the Indian foreign exchange market in its weak form using autocorrelation test, runs test and augmented dickey fuller test. It considers daily foreign exchange data for INR- USD exchange rate for a period of eight years i.e. from April 2002 to March 2010. The finding of this study is that the Indian foreign exchange market is efficient in its weak form and therefore follows a random walk process. Therefore, the opportunity of making excess returns in the market is ruled out.


The analysis of migrates from the internal coatings of food cans showed that the present regulation is not sufficient to ensure safety of food contact polymers. The migrates often consist of complex mixtures of reaction products and impurities, and their harmlessness cannot be deduced from the use of non-toxic starting substances compiled in positive lists. The regulation proposed herein asks producers to analyse the composition of the migrates. It includes an upper limit for the molecular weight (e.g. 1000 Da) and thresholds defining concentrations in the foods down to which components must be identified and evaluated. Primarily considering feasibility at reasonable costs, thresholds of 30 micrograms/kg for individual components and 300 micrograms/kg for the sum of the unidentified materials are proposed. Producers must be able to demonstrate that the individual components or mixtures exceeding this limit, including reaction products with food components, have no toxic effect.


Nuclear safety is reviewed in relation to safety in the community as a whole. A method is proposed which points to an optimum expenditure on nuclear safety measures as opposed to the present open-ended situation. At this optimum point the cost of saving extra lives in the nuclear field is equal to the cost of saving extra lives in other activities in the community. The method requires that the present level of safety be estimated, and this is done by relating the work of Rasmussen, Farmer and Beattie; and the recent German study to the actual record of accidents. The analysis indicates that present expenditures on reactor safety are far in excess of the optimum. An even more striking conclusion is reached when the possible effect of the wealth-generated by the nuclear industry on the general safety of the community is considered. The application of the theme to the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is developed.


An array (10) of transducers (12) for a sodar system, and the operation of the array (10) in a monostatic sodar system. The array (10) is made up of a number of individual sound transducers (12). Each transducer (12) emits sound into the atmosphere and senses emitted sound that has been reflected by the atmosphere. The transducers (12) have a generally circular cross-sectional shape. The transducers (12) are arranged in a generally planar, generally hexagonal grid packing arrangement.


The testing process for power MMICs today is expensive and slow because it is done in a fixtured environment. The chip is usually diced up from a wafer, mounted on a carrier, and wire-bonded to an off-chip matching network (OCMN) before being tested. In this paper we demonstrate an integrated known-good-die testing solution at the wafer level, for a high-power S/C-band power amplifier. Fixtured and on-wafer results are compared.


The Tandem 16 system is a novel solution to the problem of providing a cost-effective and reliable computer system for commercial transaction processing. The system design goal is to continue operation in spite of any single component failure.This paper presents an overview of the hardware structure of the system. It is a multiple computer system, with no shared main memory. The software structure that implements "NonStop" (or fault-tolerant) computing is then described. The key concept is "paired processes". For every software module that is to run "NonStop", there is a backup copy sleeping in an alternate processor module. On detection of a failure, the backup copy is activated, and it takes over processing at the last checkpoint. All system processes are fault-tolerant, and considerable care is taken to avoid duplication of I/O operations during recovery.


Background: In the light of the current national guidance to reduce the number of inpatient learning disability beds, a review was completed of the quality of lives of the people who had been former inpatients in Cornwall at the time of closure of the learning disability inpatient facilities almost 10 years before transforming care. Materials and Methods: All former inpatients who were discharged from the learning disability inpatient setting in Cornwall were invited to participate either directly or through their carers or family members. Measures of current activity levels and semi-structured interviews on quality of life were conducted. Results: The majority interviewed had person-centred plans, health action plans and positive behaviour support plans. Guernsey Community Participation & Leisure Assessment showed overall the study group did not meet comparative standards laid out by the scale in any of the subdomains ( p < .05).


[ANGLES] Intraocular scattering is the cause of most patient complaints that affect the normal daily activities when they have a cataract. This is the reason why it is important to evaluate when it is the right moment to perform cataract surgery. Nowadays, a variety of subjective methods for classifying opacity, which can allow a somehow standardized procedure, are used by ophthalmologists to diagnose cataracts. Procedures commonly used for this purpose are the visual acuity test, the cataract gradation by means of direct observation of the crystalline lens through a slit lamp, and the Lens Opacity Classification System III (LOCS III). The goal of this study is to perform clinical measurements of intraocular scattering by means of different available commercial instruments that have become common in clinical practice. Specifically, the instruments to be compared will be the C-Quant system, which allows performing a subjective psychophysical assessment, and the OQAS, which is based on the double-pass technique and is totally objective. In this study we analyzed 78 patients with cataracts of different degree and type. The scattering results obtained by means of both instruments and parameters were compared by means of a statistical analysis. The results of the study show that both instruments are good predicting methods of the gradation of different types of cataracts in the clinical practice, although the OSI parameter has shown more statistically significant results. Nevertheless, future studies in this field should focus on a larger number of patients with cortical and subcapsular cataracts in order to find better conclusions.


The study by Professor David Cumin of the Jean Moulin University in Lyon focuses on one of Schmitt's forgotten books: Staatsgefuge und Zusammenbruch des Zweiten Reiches , 1934. According to the author's interpretation, Schmitt introduces the figure of "Jurist of the army". Original version of the manuscript: French


John Boyages speaks to Joanna Milburn, Commissioning Editor: John Boyages is a cancer specialist with 30 years' experience in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. He was the founding director of the Westmead Breast Cancer Institute (Australia) and has published more than 135 research and clinical articles. He is committed to the dissemination of research findings to lay and professional audiences. He trained at Westmead Hospital and the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston (MA, USA). He was appointed Director and Professor of Breast Oncology at the Macquarie University Cancer Institute (Australia) in November 2011. He is a clinician and a radiation oncologist at Genesis Cancer Care at the Macquarie University Hospital. He is the author of 'Breast Cancer: Taking Control' (for patients) and 'Clinical Breast Examination: Taking Control' (for health professionals) and the soon-to-be-published 'DCIS of the Breast: Taking Control'. In 2013, he was one of four finalists for the New South Wales Austral...


In military manufacturing enterprises, exceptionally high product performance standards are generally met by using heat treatment followed by machining. These procedures are typically parallel batch-processing (BP) scheduling problems and job-shop problems, respectively. A mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is created to describe the problem with a machine availability constraint, which is divided into two stages: BP and machine processing (MP). Furthermore, an auction-based approach is developed in which jobs are categorized into batches during the BP stage and resources are allocated to operating machines during the MP stage. A local search operator is then applied to optimize the obtained feasible solutions. Benchmark instances are enlarged to adapt to the proposed problem. The approach is tested and compared to existing algorithms, and statistical analysis is performed using SPSS Statistics. The results show that the auction-based approach is effective and stable, and has absolute advantages in solving large-scale instances.


Welcome to the Library guide for Biokinetics, Sport Science and Recreation. Here you will find a OneStop service to assist you in your studies or research at the Potchefstroom Campus. Click here for research support on the NWU PUK campus


Summary

The protein, amino acid, ash, and mineral composition of different Brassica spp. grown in several areas of Galicia (Northwest Spain) were studied. The highest protein values were observed in Galega kales (crude protein: 29.66 g per 100 g) and turnip greens and turnip tops (27.74–31.46 g per 100 g), whereas the leaves showed higher protein contents than the stems. Glutamic acid was the most abundant amino acid present (14.53% in turnip greens to 18.45% in white cabbage). Other amino acids such as arginine, aspartic acid, lysine, alanine and glycine were also observed in higher quantities. The stems contained the same amino acid as the leaves but at a lower level. Furthermore, differences in amino acid contents were observed among varieties. The proportion of essential amino acids was high (41% in leaves of turnip top to 47% in external leaves of oxheart cabbage). The studied varieties are also a good source of some minerals, which include as main element potassium (27.24–37.57 mg g−1 in whole plants), followed by calcium (4.27–17.48 mg g−1 in whole plants) and magnesium (1.62–2.92 mg g−1 in whole plants). Significant differences among varieties and edible portions were found concerning ash and mineral contents.


doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfx122 In the MATERIALS AND METHODS section (subsection Assessment of cytotoxicity), we stated the concentrations of all the compounds used: "All the compounds were obtained from Sigma–Aldrich, St. Louis, MO; concentrations used were shown in Supplementary Table 5." In Supplementary Table 5, we correctly described the exposure range for acetaminophen ranging from 50 mM down to 50 mM. The RESULTS section text also correctly stated, "Acetaminophen showed a TC50 of approximately 6.1 mM (HepaRG spheroids) and approximately 5.8 mM (PHHs) after 24-h exposures, while repeated exposure of 3D HepaRG spheroids produced significantly more potent response with TC50 of approximately 2.9 mM". However, in Figure 7, which corresponds to the text referenced above, a copy/paste error occurred for one of the curve overlays. In the final version, troglitazone "dose-response image" was copied twice in Photoshop. The correct version of the figure is shown below.


Lie's (1980) method of increasing the counts of animals from osteological samples is simplified by using the normal approximation to the hypergeo‐metric distribution, but it is shown that the results of neither formula can be relied upon to produce an estimate approaching the original number of animals in a deposit.


Introduction New markers associated with angiogenesis and tumor metastasis, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), are opening up new avenues in cancer management from the laboratory. The Aim of this work is to determine the number of CTCs in patients included in waiting list for liver transplantation of hepatocellular carcinoma and to study its possible association with the alpha fetoprotein tumor marker (AFP) and with clinical variables such as number of tumors, presence of tumor vascular invasion, waiting list time, time from diagnosis and post-transplant tumor recurrence. In addition, we intend to compare the pre-transplant levels of CTCs with those obtained one month, six months, one year and two years after the transplant. Materials and Methods Peripheral blood of 36 patients suffering hepatocellular carcinoma once included in waiting list for liver transplant was obtained. 29 of them were transplanted, 27 of whom had blood extracted one month after the transplant, 19 of them after 6 months and one year after the transplant and 11 of them two years after the transplant. In order to study the correlation between the concentration of CTCs and the concentration of AFP, number of tumors, time on waiting list and from diagnosis in the patients, the Rho Spearman test was used. The study of the association of the CTCs levels with vascular invasion and presence of post-transplant recurrence was conducted with Mann-Whitney U test. For the variation in the levels of CTCs before and after the transplant, the Wilcoxon (SPSS 15.0) test was used. Results The average concentration of CTCs in the 36 patients before transplant was 11.50 CTCs/10mL (RI=2.25-42). A statistically significant positive correlation was found between the pre-transplant levels of CTCs and the days on waiting list (Rho= 0,376 p=0,024). The CTCs were not correlated in a significant way with the AFP concentration, number of tumors and time since diagnosis. (p>0,05). Out of the 29 transplanted patients, 2 showed vascular invasion in liver. Differences in the levels of CTCs were found between the patients with and without vascular invasion (U=0,00 p=0,020), these being significantly higher in the patients with vascular invasion. However, no significant differences were found in the levels of CTCs of the patients with recurrence after transplantation (4 patients) as opposed to those who didn't (U=42 p=0.611). Conclusions Our conclusion is that the levels of tumor cells in peripheral blood could be an unfavourable prognostic factor associated to longer waiting times and to the presence of vascular invasion by tumor with an increased risk of relapse and post-transplant metastasis. In addition, we can see how their levels decrease significantly after transplantation. However, it would be necessary to increase the number of patients in the study, as well as the follow-up time, in order to achieve greater clinical evidence for its utility.


This article relates the foundation of the Rio de Janeiro city at the end of the 16th century with the role played by the Society of Jesus in this process. Because of its participation in the struggles for conquest of Guanabara, the Order was one of the biggest receivers of political and financial support. In a first moment, will seek to introduce the geopolitical environment of the locality and the role played by alliances between Europeans and indigenous to the consolidation of the city. In a second phase, will be shown as the Society of Jesus structured in the region, maintaining relations with the authorities and with the residents, as well as their mechanisms of social integration in the economic life of the captaincy by implementing, in the 17th century, the engenho Velho and the production of sugar cane.


: This study aims to produce an instrument for measuring the creative habits of mind for prospective elementary school teachers in relation to developing creative teaching and learning ideas. This study is development research using the ADDIE model, which consists of analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The study was conducted by involving one expert validator and one practitioner validator. At the implementation stage, trials were carried out on a number of 15 prospective elementary school teacher students. Data collection was carried out using a questionnaire and analyzed using qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The results of the instrument validations for measuring creative habits of mind show that creativity development and creative pedagogy development experts consider the instrument to be well qualified and suitable for measuring the creative habits of mind for prospective elementary school teacher students. The average test results in small groups of both lecturers and students show that the resulting instruments are in good qualifications. The end result of this development research is an instrument for measuring the creative habits of mind for prospective elementary school students who are well-qualified, appropriate, and ready to use.


The current study examines the influences of intonation and syllable structure on accentuation and final lengthening in a corpus of articulatory data. While consistent kinematic patterning across speakers was not observed for intonation differences, it is apparent that different articulatory manoeuvres are employed to bring about accent-related duration change in open and closed syllables.


As bioinformatics has evolved from a reductionistic approach to a complementary multi-scale integrative approach, new challenges in ultra-scale visualization have arisen. Even though visualization is a critical component to large-scale biological data analysis, the ultra-scale nature of systems biology has given rise to novel problems in visualization that are not addressed by existing methods. Visualization is a rich and actively researched domain, and there are many open research questions pertaining to the increasing demands of visualization in bioinformatics. In this paper, we present several broadly important ultra-scale visualization challenges and discuss specific examples of ultra-scale applications in systems biology.


In 2005, Nagler and Claussen (Phys. Rev. E, 71 (2005) 067103) investigated the time series of the elementary cellular automata (ECA) for possible (multi)fractal behavior. They eliminated the polynomial background atb through the direct fitting of the polynomial coefficients a and b. We here reconsider their work eliminating the polynomial trend by means of the multifractal-based detrended fluctuation analysis (MF-DFA) in which the wavelet multiresolution property is employed to filter out the trend in a more speedy way than the direct polynomial fitting and also with respect to the wavelet transform modulus maxima (WTMM) procedure. In the algorithm, the discrete fast wavelet transform is used to calculate the trend as a local feature that enters the so-called details signal. We illustrate our result for three representative ECA rules: 90, 105, and 150. We confirm their multifractal behavior and provide our results for the scaling parameters.


Laser optics being used in space laser systems are usually exposed to high vacuum conditions under the absence of air or oxygen. In the past, several space-based laser missions have suffered from anomalous performance loss or even failure after short operation times. To mitigate the risks involved with long-term operational conditions, a laser damage test bench has been developed and is operated at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to test laser optics in the IR, VIS, and in the UV spectral range. The testing is performed under application oriented conditions, i.e. under high-vacuum using dry pump systems. The main goal of the test campaign is to identify the critical components in terms of their laser damage threshold for very high pulse numbers applied per site. Characteristic damage curves according to ISO 11254 are evaluated for each component under investigation for up to 10 000 shots per site. The characteristic damage curves are used for the estimation of the performance at very high pulse numbers.


This paper gives an extension of the absolute stability analysis of systems whose forward path contains a linear time-invariant subsystem with uncertain coefficients and whose feedback path contains a conic nonlinearity. The results provide a simple frequency domain interpretation of stability that can be of importance in compensator design and robust stability analysis in nonlinear systems. >


In this paper, we discuss an on-going research carried out to create smart auditory based pervasive game environments by using open street map and social media data. Two examples are provided, the first showing how data from Twitter could be used to generate talking NPC (Non Player Character) as a way to represent the social presence of people who frequent different areas. In the second prototype, we show how a context aware storyteller could be developed to tell stories from books based on the characteristics of the physical world locations where the user is located. Natural Language processing and Machine learning techniques such as clustering and word embedding based modeling were used to develop the prototypes. The approaches discussed in this study would be particularly useful in developing pervasive games with serious purposes and we hope to apply these techniques to create pervasive games for mental healthcare and education.