Haim Shimoni PC Services Problem Manager, Client Health Lead, Intel IT Executive Overview Managing PC health in any organization takes sustained focus and a welldefined process. At Intel, we have experienced fatal errors, such as the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), due to driver and other hardware issues. In 2009, we developed a proactive problem-management process to address these issues and improve the user experience, as well as decrease the cost of PC downtime. By collecting information, classifying and prioritizing problems, and conducting gap analyses, we were able to better manage problems and decrease errors.


The radial basis function (RBF), a kind of neural networks algorithm, is adopted to select cluster-heads. It has many advantages such as simple parallel distributed computation, distributed storage, and fast learning. Four factors related to a node becoming a cluster-head are drawn by analysis, which are energy (energy available in each node), number (the number of neighboring nodes), centrality (a value to classify the nodes based on the proximity how central the node is to the cluster), and location (the distance between the base station and the node). The factors are as input variables of neural networks and the output variable is suitability that is the degree of a node becoming a cluster head. A group of cluster-heads are selected according to the size of network. Then the base station broadcasts a message containing the list of cluster-heads' IDs to all nodes. After that, each cluster-head announces its new status to all its neighbors and sets up a new cluster. If a node around it receives the message, it registers itself to be a member of the cluster. After identifying all the members, the cluster-head manages them and carries out data aggregation in each cluster. Thus data flowing in the network decreases and energy consumption of nodes decreases accordingly. Experimental results show that, compared with other algorithms, the proposed algorithm can significantly increase the lifetime of the sensor network.


Simple Summary Exosomes are a class of extracellular vesicles released by cancer cells that play important roles in cancer progression and therapy resistance. Using RNA sequencing in plasma exosomes from patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), we investigated exosomal RNA expression profiles between initial recurrence and cancer progression after metastasectomy. The differential expression level of the exosome RNA was enriched in samples from patients with metastases to the liver, multiple metastatic sites and large tumor burden. In terms of liver metastasis, the interferon-α response gene set was enriched in a tumor burden of ≥1 cm3, and CXCL10, CXCL11 and SAMD 9 were highly expressed in the exosomal RNA which was validated using GSEA. High CXCL10 expression was associated with shorter progression-free survival (PFS), but CXCL11 and SAMD 9 were not correlated with PFS. Exosomal CXCL10 RNA could be a novel biomarker for liver metastasis from mCRC and a potential target for the prevention and treatment of these patients. Abstract This study aimed to identify novel biomarkers for metastatic colorectal cancer progression using exosomal RNA expression profiling. The exosomal RNA expression profiles of 54 patients with mCRC were investigated. Exosomal RNA profiling was performed at the time of relapse immediately before metastasectomy and cancer recurrence or progression after metastasectomy. The up- and down-regulated RNA expression profiles were screened and analyzed using H-cluster, principle component analysis and gene ontology. The tissue expression profile of the liver metastases was compared with the GSE 41258 set using GSEA tools. We identified two distinctive biological process gene sets (IFNA and PCDB families) related to metastatic progression. The interferon-α response gene set was enriched, especially when the tumor volume was ≥1 cm3. CXCL10, CXCL11 and SAMD 9 mRNA were highly expressed in the plasma exosome samples of patients with mCRC to the liver. Furthermore, high expression of CXCL10 but not CXCL11 or SAMD9 was associated with a poor prognosis and shorter progression-free survival. Conclusions: Cancer-derived exosomal CXCL10 may be a novel biomarker for liver metastasis of mCRC and a potential target for the prevention and treatment of mCRC with liver metastasis.


Movies caused a great pushing effect on the formation of movie and TV cultural circumstances. The adaption from modern Chinese literary masterpieces produces a great impact on the dissemination and acceptance of Chinese literature in the new century. This article aims to explore the historical track and the practical circumstances of the adaptation from modern Chinese literary masterpieces and analyze the predicament and reveal its way out both in theory and practice.


This study addresses the need for better understanding of personal selling quality, and focuses on buyers' quality perceptions regarding salespeople's behavior in services selling. Earlier research has explored salespeople's behavior concerning its quantitative outcomes, usually in industrial, business-to-business selling from a managerial perspective. This qualitative, narrative study concentrates instead on services sold in business-to-consumer, travel agency context. The data consisted of 48 narratives written by 46 mystery shoppers who observed salespeople's behavior in sales encounters. Thematic analysis of narratives was performed, and four themes regarding personal selling quality emerged: 1) delivering product information (sharing objective, factual and subjective, experiential information), 2) satisfying socio-emotional needs (creating a sense of comfort and a sense of closeness), 3) satisfying product-related needs (treating buyers as individuals, engaging in co-operative conversation), and 4) helping in the decisionmaking (making effort and showing initiative). The results show the importance of salespeople as knowledge brokers who are specialized in sharing versatile, subjective, and experiential information. Furthermore, the results indicate that salespeople also have social value as commercial sources of information. Another implication of this study is that the growth of online sales has confused salespeople's understanding of their work-related activities and tasks in sales encounters.


Based on the analysis of relevant literature studies on tourism service quality, this paper develops a theoretical model of the service quality of a package group of mainland students taking the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) in Hong Kong. The structural equation model (SEM) is utilized to analyze the dimensionality of service quality of this special travel mode and its relationships with important consequence factors. The results turn out a 6-dimension, 21-item scale for measuring service quality and positive relationships between the scale and customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions levels. This study not only fills the gap in the study of package groups of mainland students taking the SAT in Hong Kong, but also offers practical insights into better developing and operating products of this special travel mode.


North East India, with its unique geographical and cultural characteristics, bears a significant burden of infectious diseases. This mini review provides an overview of the prevalent infectious diseases in the region, highlighting the highest disease burden and the most endemic diseases. Malaria emerges as a major public health concern, with frequent outbreaks and substantial morbidity and mortality. Dengue fever, tuberculosis, Japanese encephalitis, Chikungunya, rickettsia diseases, waterborne enteric infections, hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS are also prevalent in the region. Challenges such as rugged terrain, limited transportation infrastructure, limited healthcare infrastructure, inadequate diagnostics, socio-economic factors and sharing of international border with four neighboring countries etc hinder disease control efforts. Strengthening vector control, improving diagnostics, expanding healthcare access, and raising community awareness are crucial strategies for reducing the burden of infectious diseases. Surveillance and research efforts are needed to enhance understanding and control of these diseases. Febrile illness like Scrub typhus stands out as the most endemic disease in the hilly regions, characterized by high prevalence, associated morbidity and mortality, and a lack of knowledge about its epidemiology and impact. Active surveillance is crucial to better understand the burden and distribution of the disease and address the challenges in the region.


Guerin, G.R. Distinguishing characters of Hemigenia rigida, a conservation significant species confused with H. pritzelii (Lamiaceae: Westringieae). Nuytsia 23: 467–474 (2013). Hemigenia rigida Benth. (sect. Homalochilus Benth.) is a species of high conservation concern from Western Australia's Avon Wheatbelt known from three collections made 150 and 20 years apart. Hemigenia pritzelii S.Moore (also sect. Homalochilus), a more frequent species from the Jarrah Forest of south-west Western Australia, has been frequently confused with H. rigida and both were previously confused with H. ramosissima Benth. The mis-application of the name H. rigida to the distinct and more abundant species H. pritzelii has hampered recognition of the potentially dire conservation status of H. rigida. To resolve longstanding confusion, distinguishing characters are provided for H. pritzelii and H. rigida along with morphological descriptions, distribution maps and information on ecology. An interim key to the species of sect. Homalochilus is presented for context and to aid identification.


Hydrophilid beetles from genus Sphaeridium colonize fresh cow pats. Their carnivorous larvae feed mostly on maggots of Musca autumnalis. Cannibalism and intrageneric predation among larvae of S. scarabaeoides and S. lunatum were studied in the laboratory to ascertain under which conditions such predation may occur in the field. The probability of predation among Sphaeridium larvae increased with increased size difference between the larvae or when larvae were starved before and during the trials. It is concluded that predation among Sphaeridium larvae is an adaptation to uncertain availability of fly maggots in cow pats. Sphaeridium females oviposit in fresh pats and their young develop quickly.


Petric net is a wise choice to model and analyze communication protocol for its solid mathematical foundations explicit structures based on graphic. This paper describes communication protocol in the computer-net communication, and puts forward a Petri-net-based model.


Birds are one of the largest groups of vertebrates hunted worldwide, and in the Brazilian semi-arid region bird hunting is of great economic and cultural value. We conducted a study in Jacana, in the Agreste Zone of Rio Grande do Norte State (Northeastern, Brazil) to provide information on the bird capture techniques used in this region, the purpose of the captures, and the species identity of hunted birds. Data were collected from July 2012 to June 2013 through semi-structured interviews with 35 local hunters, selected using a technique Snowball Sampling . We identified avifauna through checklist-interviews and guided tours. To determine the relative importance of each species, we calculated the value of use (VU).  A total of 45 species were cited, used for food consumption (35 spp.), commercialization (22 spp.) and breeding (26 spp.). VU ranged between 0.03 and 1.4, with Columbina talpacoti having the highest value. Fourteen capture techniques were identified, employed depending on the species and their intended use; shotgun, slingshot, and herding were the predominant techniques. The most commonly captured birds belonged to Passeriformes and Columbiformes. Hunting can alter animal community composition and may influence a multitude of ecological interactions, hence the results obtained here may serve as a valuable tool for conservation initiatives in the Brazilian semi-arid region.


The green leafhopper Empoasca vitis Goethe (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) is an important pest of grapes in Europe. Its feeding activity may cause a reduction in photosynthesis, mesophyll conductance and transpiration rate with implication for yields. For these reasons insecticides are widely used to
control this pest with potential effects on beneficial arthropods. Field experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of a number of insecticides (chlorpyriphos, flufenoxuron, thiamethoxam, and indoxacarb) on E. vitis populations. Pesticide side-effects on the predatory mite Typhlodromus pyri were assessed. Thiamethoxam was the most effective towards E. vitis. Pest population levels were slightly reduced by chlorpyriphos, suggesting that this strain was resistant to organophosphates. Indoxacarb and flufenoxuron were associated to intermediate effects. The predatory mite populations were affected especially by thiamethoxam.


Sweet oranges (Citrus sinensis) occupies a prominent position in the citrus sector in the world.  The objective of this study was to determine the extent of genotype × environment (G×E) interaction that influences oranges fruit quality. The experiments were conducted in three location namely: El Menzeh, SidiAllal Tazi, and Sept Garden. 20 orange variants from apomictic seedlings of three varieties of orange (Sangunilli, Grosse Sanguine, Salustiana) were evaluated for fruit quality. The results revealed that there were significant differences (P < 0.05) among locations. For the first variants group of Sanguinilli, no significant  difference  were  found  among  the genotypes  for  the  all  characters  studied  at  the  three locations. While, there was significant difference among genotypes between the environment. Genotypes   x   environment   interaction   also   did   not showed significant effects for the variables except of average fruit weight. In Grosse Sanguine variants, no significant difference between genotypes for all studied traits. Also, interaction (GXS) is not significant. But, Sites reveal significant difference. For Salustiana variants, no significant difference between genotypes for all studied traits. These results have shown an environmental effect on the variability of fruit quality. The majority of quality characters are relatively stable in Tazi and Menzeh than in Sept Garden. The study of the genotypes selected based on the parameters studied indicates the existence of a great diversity of response to the three environments complicated by the interactions of the genotypes with the environment.


The effect of the wetness on steam turbine efficiency and the etching effect on the blade were very complex.For investigating the effect of steam condensation on the flow,the steady flow on large power condensing turbine last stage was numerical simulated with commercial computational software CFX-5.Although the mixing plane approach which adopted by the steady computation could not accurate predicted the effect of the turbulent fluctuation and the wake eddy that generated by the relative motion of the guide vane and the rotor blade on the condensing process and the water drop growth process,but it was necessary to simulate these process approximately.


A software package, DOLORES, for synthesis and design of feedback controllers for centralized and decentralized systems is presented. The design methodologies and the algorithms utilized are described. Several examples are given to illustrate how the software package works.<<ETX>>


Returning to the community after incarceration can be a difficult challenge. These issues are exacerbated for sex offenders, who reenter society carrying strong stigmas and who are subject to a variety of both legal and extralegal restrictions. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 24 incarcerated, soon-to-be released sex offenders, this study examines their perceptions and expectations of reentry challenges and opportunities. Analysis shows that sex offenders have very limited understandings of reentry legal restrictions. In addition, offender accounts revealed sex offenders generally held positive expectations for community reentry. They reflect the belief that they will be able to draw upon personal, familial, and social resources to avoid the consequences of stigmatization.


To the current methods of project economic evaluation,this paper analyzed the insufficiency contributed by using dynamic indicators or static indicators on project investment decision-making.Then it established the multi-objective model of project investment decision-making and discussed the methods to the characters of real estate development project,it provide a basis for promoting the correctness and precision to explore the investment decision of the items.


Over the past decade, tremendous strides have been made in the design, manufacture and measurement of optical thin film filters. Driven in part from the challenging demands of fiber optic communication (telecom) filters, the manufacture of optical coatings has advanced significantly through improved optical monitoring technologies and algorithms; improved deposition technologies; and, very importantly, the ability to fully automate all aspects of the coating process. This improvement in optical coating technology has since been applied to filters used in other diverse fields ranging from bio-medical instrumentation to sensors to astronomy. In this paper, advanced optical thin film filters will be described along with their applications, both in telecom and spectroscopic fields.


Historically, gasoline has commanded a premium over diesel, but that changed in mid-to-late 2007, when diesel rose above gasoline. In 2007 and 2008, however, gasoline traded higher than diesel only 21.1 percent of the time. This deviation from historic norms raises an interesting question--what drives diesel prices? As with virtually all petroleum-derived products, the story begins with oil prices. Seasonal patterns also play a significant role. Demand for a range of oil-based products changes with the weather, and prices fluctuate as refiners adjust their output mix. Government regulations are another source of price variability. Earlier this decade, new standards aimed at reducing diesel fuel's sulfur content required further processing that increased refinery costs and prices for consumers. Finally, short-term changes in supply and demand--including imports--factor into pricing on a day-to-day basis. Our model suggests that spot diesel should rise 25 cents a gallon over the next six months and 41 cents a gallon over the next 18 months.


Author(s): Daniels, JILLIAN | Advisor(s): McKeegan, Kevin D | Abstract: The luminescence characteristics of a variety of feldspars were investigated using the post-IR IRSL signal to facilitate the understanding of the origins and behavior of signals used in luminescence dating. These feldspars were characterized in terms of major composition, Al,Si ordering, and minor impurities, and compared to the luminescence decay parameters of brightness, bleachability, and kinetic order calculated from the pIRIR decay signal. The behavior of these parameters over varying preheat temperatures, pIRIR measurement temperatures, IR50 measurement times, and first IR measurement temperatures were analyzed. Correlations between the physical and the luminescence characteristics were noted, as well as the general behavior of similar feldspar samples over different dating protocol parameters. Variations in Al,Si order were found to have the largest effect on K-feldspars, although some luminescence parameters were surprisingly insensitive. It may be that bond length has a fundamental effect on the luminescence origin of all feldspar species.


To evaluate main traits of sugarcane germplasm resources with high sucrose content and provide theoretical foundation for parental selection of sugarcane breeding, taking ROC22 as the control, the one-year plant and ratoon were planted in the field experiment with the collected 42 samples, and evaluation and survey were carried out on the agronomic traits. The results indicated that the effective stems of 35 strains including GT07-104, GT08-743, and GT04-1029 were higher than that of ROC22, reaching the significant difference and reached extremely significant difference with GT08-1533. The average Brix of new ratoon of GT02-901, GT07-110 and GT09-53 was the highest in October, close to 21.89%, 21.40% and 21.24% respectively, which was 17.3% higher than that of the control R22. The Brix weight of 39 samples including GT04-1001, GT08-898 and GT04-1029 was higher than that of the control group, but the Brix weight of GT02-901, GT08-221, GT07-548 and GT02-237 was lower. In conclusion, in 42 sugarcane germplasm samples with high sucrose, GT07-104, GT04-1029, GT04-1001, GT07-110, GT07-135, GT08-743 and GT07-5A have more effective stems, stronger ratoon ability, and excellent comprehensive early-maturing traits. In view of characteristics of these samples, these germplasm resources can be used as parental crossing and combination ratio, to select target sugarcane varieties.


This article represents the results of long-term observations, devoted to the problems of chronic non-specific pulmonary diseases (CNPD) in children. In dynamics, for the period 2007-2017, high morbidity and invalidation levels were registered. For the improvement of treatment quality and regular check-in definite estimation of CNPD structure is necessary. Well-time diagnostic of the concrete clinical variant and individual approaches are very important in such patients. The main risk factors for the formation and structure of CNPD in children were studied. The main group of 522 cases (45.8%) consisted of patients with lung malformations complicated by secondary bacterial process. On the basis of clinical and morphological comparisons, there was noted the possibility of developing tissue dysplasia in children, not provided by the approved classification of clinical forms of bronchopulmonary diseases in children. It is also noted that disorders of lung growth and development in children with secondary forms of CNPD, along with defects in the development of anatomical structures, are accompanied by the formation of interstitial processes in the lungs. Different clinical variants of CNPD in children as outcomes of bronchopulmonary dysplasia were noted in 22.8% of cases. There were studied possible causes of the formation of conditionally primary chronic forms of CNPD (23.7% of observations) as the outcome of complicated forms of community-acquired pneumonia, taking into account genetically determined predisposition to chronization of the process, the peculiarity of immune intercellular interactions, disturbance of energy supply of immunocompetent blood cells, the formation of tissue dysplasia of pulmonary tissue. Genetically determined lung diseases were identified in 7.7% of cases. Children with allergic lung diseases and hereditary diseases were not included in the development. The presented structure of CNPD in children is due to the regional peculiarity of hospitalized children, possibly underdiagnosed genetically determined lung diseases. The etiological structure of CNPD was studied, which determines the possibility of targeted antibiotic therapy and specific immunotherapy. The effectiveness of treatment and quality of life depends on the quality of topical diagnosis, clinical, etiological variant of CNPD in children.


THERE ARE MANY WAYS IN WHICH LORD BYRON'S NARRATOR DEFENDS THE cause of slavery's abolition in Don Juan. We frequently read the speaker's pronouncements of political allegiance to the cause of William Wilberforce, the greatest parliamentary leader on behalf of abolition and the "moral Washington of Africa"; in the same vein, the speaker vilifies false Christian "bigots" who make their "pure creed" into the "sanction" for slavery's "ill." (1) In this essay, however, I want to show that Byron's opposition to slavery and the slave trade is a great deal more complicated than we might think if we were merely to take at face value the poet-narrator's claims to be "born for opposition" (15.22). While generally voicing support for abolition (a support that Byron openly expressed elsewhere), Don Juan nevertheless depends upon a subtle yet profound logic that insistently privileges the purity and beauty of white bodies. This is not because the poem merely expresses a racist ideology, but rather because its intertwined configurations of political and aesthetic value are inseparable from a self-consciously constructed racial hierarchy. Byron is fully aware of this hierarchy's artificiality, but this awareness cannot detract from the sway of race over the poem, and from the sway of race within a cultural history that the poem brilliantly and comically instantiates and endorses. The work of David Theo Goldberg has shown how conceptions of rights (which include rights expounded upon in abolitionist discourse) have been historically inseparable from raced conceptions of the political subject. Such conceptions have aimed at discriminating between those subjects who are, and those who are not, capable of civilization and self-government. (2) Helen Heran Jun has continued this line of argument to show how even recent twentieth- and twenty-first-century views of citizenship depend upon exclusionary understandings of racial difference. (3) Such accounts, and others like them, collectively show how attempts at liberal inclusiveness depend upon still deeper inequalities; to some extent, they therefore might lead us to see why Byron's poem could appear to be politically progressive in some respects, even while it compromises or complicates its commitments in others. Still more than even these accounts allow, however, I wish to show how and why white bodies are so crucial for the poem's aesthetic project. It turns out that the crux of Byron's Don Juan--its celebrated ability to represent "life's infinite variety" (15.19)-depends upon the preeminence of white flesh. Whiteness is the ground for registering gorgeous articulations of features on the body's alabaster surfaces; whiteness is the condition for capturing the seductive altering hues that demarcate mood and solicit desire. Simultaneously, and most important, the white body is analogized at key moments to the poet-narrator's own work--printed on white "foolscap"--as if poetic composition and the raced subject were finally inseparable. By exploring the dynamics of race in the poem's political aesthetics, I embark on a discussion that merges with a long-standing interest, among many of Byron's critics, in his political or ideological affiliations. For a few readers, Byron adheres to the most traditional of values. Malcolm Kelsall argues that, in the Whig tradition, he upholds "aristocratic oligarchy"; (4) Marilyn Butler, though acknowledging his sympathies with less conservative causes, also sees him as a "liberal" who is only "superficially rebellious." (5) The vast majority of critics take his rebellions more seriously, however. From the time of the poem's appearance, Byron and his publisher John Murray feared prosecution; it was denounced in reviews of the day for its "infidelity and licentiousness"; the pirated cantos of Don Juan appearing under the auspices of radical publishers fueled suspicions of the author's affiliation with radicals like Paine and Carlisle. (6) And recent critical opinion has essentially agreed with and updated those accounts, while of course siding with, rather than against, the author. …


Two case studies are presented showing the potential of remote sensing focusing on advanced semi-automated Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) methods to support the monitoring of conflict affected areas where traditional field assessments are hampered by security concerns or other hindering factors making field access very difficult.
First, the exploitation of natural resources is examined by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) polarimetry. Decomposition of polarimetric SAR data is applied to extract polarimetric parameters which have strong relation to the physical scattering mechanisms of the ground
target. Then, a hereon based unsupervised land cover classification is conducted. Next, the result of the aforementioned pixel-based classification is improved by OBIA post-processing procedures.
The second method described in this article concentrates on the application of state of the art machine learning techniques in order to provide a generic OBIA approach for the extraction of very small scaled features such as dwellings in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) or refugee camps. Based on current Very High Resolution (VHR) optical data, a comprehensive set of descriptive attributes is derived comprising spectral, geometrical and relational information in order to characterize the features of interest. In the next step, the target features are identified and specified applying the non-parametric classification
algorithm Support Vector Machines (SVM).


ion and flatness as the exemplary characteristics of animation as a medium. Paul Wells describes how, "in many senses, Disney had aligned animation with aspects of photographic realism, and misrepresented the form's more distinctive characteristics" (Understanding 24). While Mickey Mouse has been linked to modernism and the avant-garde, Disney's brand of realism is often used to illustrate a form of animation "fallen" from its original potential and to demonstrate how, as in the live-action cinema, "an ideology of the realism of depicted events had taken over" (Thompson 108). Spatial realism is not only naive but directly contrary to the imperatives of the avant-garde and critical theory, which, according to Esther Leslie, "has always been . . . to flatten out, to bring to the surface in order to make the base show itself for what it is" (297). Although the cel technique and multiplane camera greatly expanded the aesthetic capabilities of animation, Disney's particular appropriation of it, in Leslie's opinion, constitutes a betrayal of the radical potential of his early cartoons. She writes, in reference to the multiplane camera, that this movie-style technique negates flat space and the self-referentiality of the drawn cartoon and substitutes a deep cartoon space. It was the definitive reversal of the modernist revelation of materials. If the modernists used the illusion of depth, it was to investigate the illusion. The modernist return to zero, stripping away all the clutter and effects of culture, was reversed in the refurbishing of the screen with objects stretching into every corner (Leslie 148). A portion of Leslie's screed against Disney derives from the need to assert the importance of animation in the face of its scholarly marginalization, and she rightly points out that the reflexivity of McCay's Gertie is notably absent from Disney features. Leslie continues to criticize the development of realism: The feature-lengths, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs onwards, reinstitute the laws of perspective and gravity, and lead a fight against flatness, while producing traditional dramaturgical characters. They no longer explode the world with the surrealistic and analytical cinematic dynamite of the optical unconscious. There is no doubt about their "naive realism"—a derogatory tag that Adorno and Benjamin had devised together. Cartoons, whatever they were before, surrender through commercialism—and become Adorno's commodity form that offers a false appearance of integration and wholeness, and that magically conceals the labor which went into its production. (121) Leslie is exactly right that spatial realism serves to obscure the animator's labor, which had been so central to McCay's and Fleischer's cartoons. We can see in her celebration of flatness a productive tension between the spatial transparency of Disney's "illusion of life" aesthetic and the spatial opacity of a modernist sensibility in which all objects exist in the foreground. The ongoing discussion of the "superflat" aesthetic in contemporary animation and visual art provides an insightful corollary to this debate. Thomas Lamarre remarks on how superflat exploits the conventions of cel layers without the conceptual or spatial separation of the multiplane camera. Instead, background objects come to the fore instead of fading beyond the viewer's notice; this results in the ultimate planarity of the superflat image, in which "no element within the image is more important than any other element. The result is a visual field without any hierarchy among elements. You could also call this a distributive visual field, since elements are distributed rather than hierarchized" (Lamarre 136). The value of this discussion of flatness is that a deconstruction of spatial realism should proceed by an analysis of that which becomes transparent, namely, the background. Moreover, an acknowledgment of the background reveals the importance of the gap in complicating the interaction between naturalism, realism, and animation technology. The choice to focus on the background derives partially from the relative paucity of attention devoted to analyzing what in fact occupies the majority of the frame. But the backgrounds directs us, as does cel technology itself, to the issues of transparency and the static—or, more specifically, the way an animated image exploits the combination of these elements to achieve its claim to realism. Indeed, even Earl Hurd's initial patent application for cel technology emphasizes its use of a background: In my process a single background is used for the entire series of pictures necessary to portray one scene. The background shows all of those portions of the scene that remain stationary and may conveniently be drawn, printed or painted on cardboard or other suitable sheet. I prefer to paint the figures of the background in strong blacks and whites upon a medium dark gray paper and when the transparent sheet carrying the movable objects is placed over this gray tone of the background, the objects on the transparent sheet appear to stand out in relief, giving what may be termed a "poster effect." (Qtd. in Crafton 150) Hurd's comments make clear the fundamental interpenetration of space with movement in the cel technique: those things that are motile exist in the animate foreground,


Sir Ð In their letter, Wiedermann et al raise some queries about the attribution of the clinical features reported in our case to the antiphospholipid syndrome. Answering their speci®c enquiry, our patient has demonstrated persistently high levels of IgG anticardiolipin antibodies since her recovery. However, she has had no further clinical manifestations while she has been anticoagulated with warfarin to maintain an INR of between 3.5 and 4.5. Antiphospholipid antibodies were not looked for prior to the episode that we reported and I agree that, at the time of her acute illness, she did not ful®ll the classi®cation criteria for antiphospholipid syndrome. However, these criteria, like the classi®cation criteria for other autoimmune rheumatic diseases, are not intended for the diagnosis of the individual case and the point of our report was to raise the index of suspicion for the diagnosis of CAPS in cases of multisystem failure like ours even if antiphospholipid antibodies cannot be detected in the acute phase. Clearly, each of the manifestations we describe carries a differential diagnosis but it was the particular combination of features which suggested CAPS in this case. Like many patients in intensive care, our patient was exposed to multiple insults that could have contributed wholly or in part to the clinical picture. The axonal neuropathy is an example. As pointed out by Wiedermann et al, critical illness neuropathy is a feature of a long intensive care unit stay and we have no proof that it was a manifestation of CAPS. However, ischaemia of the vasa nervorum has been postulated to be important in the aetiology of critical illness neuropathy and thus we speculate that widespread small vessel thrombosis associated with antiphospholipid antibodies might have had a role in the neuropathy in this instance.


Throughout
the history of humankind, people have migrated from one location to another.
For many decades, one of the most heavily traveled migratory routes in the
world has been the one from Latin America north toward the United States (US).
Millions of people from Mexico, the Northern Triangle region of Central
America, and other parts of Latin America have traveled north in search of
economic opportunity, to reunify with family members, to seek refuge from
violence, insecurity, and persecution, or for various other reasons. However,
in recent times, particularly during the last decade, the demographic profile
of migrants moving through Latin America toward the US has significantly
changed and diversified. A growing number of migrants originating from
countries in Africa have traveled to Latin America seeking to transit northward
to the US. Despite the recent growing
number of arrivals in Latin America, as well as the fact that Africans are
among the fastest-growing groups of US immigrants, African migrants' transit
through Latin America has received scant attention and remains poorly
understood. What are the recent trends and factors helping to drive this
phenomenon? Moreover, what are some of the experiences and general challenges
faced by African migrants undertaking the journey? Guided by a comprehensive
review of the literature and an examination of materials collected from an
assortment of sources, public open access databases, and various secondary data sources, the present paper examines
African migration through Latin America to the US. Significantly, the present
paper contributes to the relatively small body of work focused on this topic,
helping to increase awareness of the geopolitics of the phenomenon and
providing a better understanding of the movement of African extracontinental
migrants. In particular, it explores the diverse set of factors underlying
African migration in the region, and
offers insight into the array of challenges they face on their long journey
through Latin America. Possible scenarios for the near future and a number of potential areas for further study
are also discussed.


IntroductionRegardless of the textbook training that students receive in their field of study, it is a commonly held notion that people develop their skills best during the first year of practical experience. This is especially true in the field of healthcare as new graduates of nursing schools must adjust from their role of a student to their role of a provider (1). Although textbook knowledge has been imparted through lectures and presentations, confidence and clinical sense are left for the novice nurses to develop through practice and experience.Similarly, graduates of nurse practitioner programs are equally as inexperienced unless they have been exposed to clinical situations through employment or certain practicums. One area that is all too often overlooked in graduate programs is the home health care field despite the fact that "the need grows for nurse specialists to oversee home-care settings" (2). According to the National League for Nursing "disparities in morbidity, mortality, and access to care among population sectors have increased, and nursing practice, education, and research must embrace these changing demographics." One way to embrace such changes is to include clinical experience in the home environment of the patients who visit primary care offices. Without experiencing this unique perspective, especially the limitations of low resource home settings, health care providers cannot expect to be effective when advocating for medication compliance and healthy lifestyles to their patients.Currently, there is an increasing need for holistic, primary care providers due to the addition of 11 million previously uninsured patients. Unfortunately, the American Academy of Family Physicians has estimated only 10% of medical school graduates are choosing jobs in the primary care field (3). While even physicians agree that nurse practitioners can provide a solution to this impending health care crisis due to shorter training and cost-effective salaries, new graduates may still lack experience in the primary care realm of home health (4). Thus, a learning curve needs to happen before nurse practitioners can actually be effective with their patients.In Atlanta, Georgia, despite being home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Grady Healthcare, and Emory University Healthcare, there are countless low resource communities with inadequate access to health care. With such an abundance of healthcare services concentrated in an urban area, it is an embarrassment that poor access to quality health care services persists for some populations. Unless these communities are identified and connected to health care networks, the cycle of disadvantage and vulnerability will endure through generations.There are over 2.8 million grandparents in the United States who are the primary guardians of their grandchildren (5). Furthermore, almost 25% of these families are living below the federally defined level of poverty. Project GRANDD, (Grandparents Raising and Nurturing Dependents with Disabilities) is the only program in Georgia to provide support, care and resources for caregivers raising grandchildren with disabilities or chronic illnesses.With this in mind, faculty of the pediatric and geriatric nurse practitioner programs at Emory University partnered with Project GRANDD in order to provide service learning opportunities for students while addressing the needs of low resource, at risk families and familiarize students with the challenges that these families face. This collaborative partnership has been in operation for two years and has become the highlight of many Emory students' clinical experience. The knowledge acquired and mutually beneficial relationship between Project GRANDD families and Emory students is difficult to quantify, but this article will attempt to describe the importance of the partnership.MethodsSeventeen pediatric and geriatric nurse practitioner students from Emory University paired with nine grandparent families starting in September 2012. …


The National Trauma Data Bank reported that in 2016, fall-related injury was the leading cause of traumatic death—accounting for 44.18 per cent of cases recorded in the National Trauma Data Bank.1 Ground-level falls (GLFs) in particular are the most common mechanism of injury in the geriatric patient population (age $ 65 years), with an annual incidence of 30 per cent by age $ 65 years increasing to 50 per cent by age$ 80 years. Hip fracture, head injury, and pelvic fracture are all common sequelae of a GLF, and the 2014 Centers for Disease Control data reported 29 million falls resulting in seven million injuries in the elderly United States population. This was associated with an estimated 31.1 billion dollars in annual Medicare expenditures.2 Consequently, chest, abdomen, and pelvic CT (CAP-CT) is often used in the workup of a GLF patient. A recent study documented a 2.5-fold increase in CT utilization since 2001 in patients sustaining a GLF, and over 14 billion dollars in imaging services for patients sustaining GLFs were reportedly spent in 2014.3 However, a universal protocol has yet to be adopted for the management of these patients as some centers are restricting the workup to only a head CT and a cervical spine CT, whereas other centers are including a completion CAP-CT as well. The increasing utilization of CT imaging in patients experiencing a GLF continues to increase health-care costs and radiation exposure in these patients, and often provides no additional information that would alter medical decisionmaking. This issue was addressed in a recent study by Kelleher et al. in 2015. The authors sought to determine the frequency of acute traumatic findings in CAP-CT examinations in the setting of low-velocity trauma, which included GLFs as well as low-speed motor vehicle crashes and assaults. However, patients were excluded from the study if they had a positive physical examination (PE) finding of the chest, abdomen, or pelvis. The authors documented that no patients in the study (n 4 115) were found to have an acute traumatic injury to the chest, abdomen, or pelvis based on the CT examination and concluded that CAP examinations are rarely, if ever, required in lowvelocity trauma in the absence of bodily injury.1 Therefore, we sought to expand on this study by determining the risk factors associated with traumatic torso injury in patients sustaining GLFs in hopes to eventually reduce the overall cost and radiation exposure in this patient population and better identify which patients who sustained GLFs would benefit from additional torso imaging. Prospective data on 301 patients admitted to a rural Level 1 trauma center over a three-year period from 2014 to 2016 were collected and retrospectively reviewed. All patients sustained a GLF. Data variables included age; Injury Severity Score (ISS); Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS); systolic blood pressure; presence of alcohol (EtOH) or drugs; PE findings pertaining to the chest, abdomen, and pelvis; and radiology findings from CAP-CT. All initial CAP-CT studies were reread by the study radiologists and original findings were confirmed. Pertinent radiological findings were documented and included splenic laceration, liver laceration, renal laceration, $ 3 contiguous rib fractures, pneumothorax/hemothorax, pelvic fractures, hip fractures, and active hemorrhage. Multivariate regression analysis was performed to determine the risk factors for traumatic torso injury. Odds ratios (OR) were calculated using data from the 301 patients to quantify the association between certain risk factors and positive CT scan findings. An additional iteration of calculations was performed excluding patients who presented with positive EtOH/drug screens and patients with GCS < 13 to eliminate possible factors distracting from an accurate PE. A P value < 0.05 was considered significant. The mean age of the study cohort was 69.9 years, mean ISS was 11.3, mean GCS was 14, mean pulse was 85.7, and mean systolic blood pressure was Address correspondence and reprint requests to Emma Graf, M.S., Memorial Health University Medical Center, 4700 Waters Avenue, Savannah, GA 31404. E-mail: email@example.com.


ABSTRACT An efficient method for the generation of cellulose di- and tri-acetate nano-structures is obtained through testing ferric chloride hydrate (FeCl3·6H2O) as a valuable Lewis acid catalyst with acetic anhydride under microwave irradiation. Our target was to evaluate the effects of the reaction conditions on the products' properties such as surface area and particle size distribution. It was found that changes in the degree of substitution (DS), the surface area, the degree of polymerization and the particle size distribution of the products correlated with reaction conditions. Cellulose tri-acetate nanofibers with DS of 2.94 with 98.03% yield was prepared using 200 mg of FeCl3·6H2O, 25 ml of Ac2O and 4 minutes of microwave irradiation. Also, cellulose di-acetate nanofibers were prepared with DS values ranged between 2.37 and 2.72 with yield ranged between 78.92 and 90.58%. The percentage of acetyl groups (Ac%) as well as the BET specific surface area, total pore volume, mean pore diameter, mono layer volume and the mean particle size of the products were determined. The maximum specific surface area obtained for the acetylated cellulose was about ten times larger than that measured for the commercial cotton cellulose and about six times larger than that of the commercial cellulose acetate. The lowest mean particle size (34.90 nm) was about eleven times smaller than the mean particle size of the commercial cellulose acetate (394 nm). The present work has proved that FeCl3·6H2O was a highly active catalyst for the esterification of cellulose with unexpected yields and for the formation of nanofibers with low molecular weight.


The research on "cultural shock" is of great significance to cross-cultural communication.Based on a review of present researches carried out by the academic circle in China,the definition,the causes,the countermeasures,and the relationship between "cultural shock",English teaching and the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language have been explored herein.It is concluded that "human" is the subject and the object in cultural communication,and the comprehensive quality improvement of "human" is the key point to the further study of "cultural shock".


Farmers cannot take care of their farms 24x7 so when farmer is far away from the field, he cannot take care of his form so this will cause in the production of the yield when the animals like buffaloes or cows and some animals from nearby forest areas may enter the field and destroy it. The device we proposed will help farmer to overcome this problem this device will work with Arduino, PIR motion sensor, Buzzer, LED lights and GSM module. Whenever the animal is detected by the PIR motion sensor Arduino will be activated and buzzer will sound to get rid of animal entering the field simultaneously LED lights will flash and send message to the farmer within 10 seconds of the detection of the animal. This will protect the crop from animals and farmer from loss.


The low-grade metasedimentary rocks of the Fuzikuang Formation,Penglai Group in Changdao,Yantai,Shandong Province are mainly composed of metamorphic quartz sandstones,with metamorphic siltstone and mud rock intercalations.The depositional age of the Penglai Group has long been dabeted.Based on the U-Pb age spectrum of detrital zircons,the authors conjecture that the age of the Fuzikuang Formation,Penglai Group in Changdao is Neoproterozoic.There are two age peaks,~1600Ma and 1200~1100Ma,in the age spectrum of the detrital zircons.The younger age peak shows that the Fuzikuang Formation was sourced from a provenance with typical Greenville-period tectono-thermal events,which is different both from the North China and Yangtze blocks in geological evolution characteristics.Hence further work is needed to decipher the special source region.


Background: Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS) is a brief cognitive test, appropriate for people with minimum completed level of education and sensitive to multicultural contexts. It could be a good instrument for cognitive impairment (CI) screening in Primary Health Care (PHC). It comprises the following areas: recent memory, body orientation, praxis, executive functions and language. Research Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the construct validity of RUDAS analysing its internal consistency and factorial structure. Method: Internal consistency will be calculated using ordinal Cronbach's α, which reflects the average inter-item correlation score and, as such, will increase when correlations between the items increase. Exploratory Factor Analysis will be used to arrange the variables in domains using principal components extraction. The factorial analysis will include the extraction of five factors reflecting the neuropsychological areas assessed by the test. The result will be rotated under Varimax procedure to ease interpretation. Exploratory factor analysis will be used to arrange the variables in domains using principal components extraction. The analysis will include Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity. Estimations will be based based on Pearson's correlations between indicators using a principal component analysis and later replicated with a tetrachoric correlation matrix. The variance in the tetrachoric model will be analysed to indentify convergent iterations and their explicative power. Preliminary results of the ongoing study: RUDAS is being administered to 321 participants older than 65 years, from seven PHC physicians' consultations in O Grove Health Center. The data collection will be finished by August 2021 and in this poster we will present the final results of the exploratory factor analysis. Conclusions: We expect that the results of the exploratory factor analysis will replicate the results of previous studies of construct validity of the test in which explanatory factor weights were between 0.57 and 0.82, and all were above 40%. Confirming that RUDAS has a strong factor construct with high factor weights and variance ratio, and 6-item model is appropriate for measurement will support its recommendation as a valid screening instrument for PHC.


• At present, the common cross-border cost allocation practice is that each country pays for the assets on its territory. The recently adopted Regulation (EU) No 347/2013 on guidelines for the implementation of European energy infrastructure priorities is an opportunity to improve this practice by introducing innovative cross-border cost allocation (CBCA) agreements. The Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) that will now be available for all so-called Projects of Common Interest (PCI) is a tool that can be used to design this type of agreements.


The dangers of airbags to children have been almost as well publicized as the benefits. Prospects for moderating the former and emphasizing the latter are improving.


Research into the fabrication of negative permeability and negative index metamaterials has focused on intricately-shaped metallic constituent particles. However, a simpler design for a magnetic metamaterial could instead use non-magnetic spheres with a large permittivity [1]. This is possible because each sphere acts as a cavity resonator with a fundamental magnetic dipole resonance, operating in the long wavelength limit due to the large permittivity. Furthermore, coating the spheres with a metal or semiconductor shell would result in a negative index metamaterial [2]. Depending on the choice of materials, this design can be applied at microwave, infrared, or visible frequencies.


Topological phase imprinting is a unique technique for vortex formation in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of an alkali-metal gas, in that it does not involve rotation: the BEC is trapped in a quadrupole field with a uniform bias field which is reversed adiabatically leading to vortex formation at the center of the magnetic trap. The scenario has been experimentally verified by Leanhardt et al. employing {sup 23}Na atoms. Recently similar experiments have been conducted by Hirotani et al. in which a BEC of {sup 87}Rb atoms was used. In the latter experiments the authors found that fine-tuning of the field reverse time T{sub rev} is required to achieve stable vortex formation. Otherwise, they often observed vortex fragmentation or a condensate without a vortex. It is shown in this paper that this behavior can be attributed to the heavy mass of the Rb atom. The confining potential, which depends on the eigenvalue m{sub B} of the hyperfine spin F along the magnetic field, is now shifted by the gravitational field perpendicular to the vortex line. Then the positions of two weak-field-seeking states with m{sub B}=1 and 2 deviate from each other. This effect is more prominent for BECs with a heavymore » atomic mass, for which the deviation is greater and, moreover, the Thomas-Fermi radius is smaller. We found, by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation numerically, that two condensates interact in a very complicated way leading to fragmentation of vortices, unless T{sub rev} is properly tuned.« less


Background: Controversy exists regarding the optimal bony fixation technique for lateral meniscal allografts. Purpose/Hypothesis: The objective was to quantify knee joint contact mechanics across the lateral plateau for keyhole and bone plug meniscal allograft transplant fixation techniques throughout simulated gait. It was hypothesized that both methods of fixation would improve contact mechanics relative to the meniscectomized condition, while keyhole fixation would restore the distribution of contact stress closer to that of the intact knee. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: Six human cadaveric knees were mounted on a multidirectional dynamic simulator and subjected to the following conditions: (1) native intact meniscus, (2) keyhole fixation of the native meniscus, (3) bone plug fixation of the native meniscus, and (4) meniscectomy. Contact area, peak contact stress, and the distribution of stress across the tibial plateau were computed at 14% and 45% of the gait cycle, at which axial forces are at their highest. Translation of the weighted center of contact stress throughout simulated gait was computed. Results: Both bony fixation techniques improved contact mechanics relative to the meniscectomized condition. The keyhole technique was not significantly different from the intact condition for the following metrics: contact area, peak contact stress, distribution of force between the meniscal footprint and cartilage-to-cartilage contact, and the position of the weighted center of contact. In contrast, bone plug fixation resulted in a significant decrease of 21% to 28% in contact area at 14% and 45% of the simulated gait cycle, a significant increase in peak contact stresses of 34% at 45% of the gait cycle, and a shift in the weighted center of contact, which increased forces in the cartilage-to-cartilage contact area at 45% of the gait cycle. Conclusion: While both keyhole and bone plug fixation methods improved lateral compartment contact mechanics relative to the meniscectomized knee, keyhole fixation restored contact mechanics closer to that of the intact knee. Clinical Relevance: Method of meniscal fixation is under the direct control of the surgeon. From a biomechanics perspective, keyhole fixation is advocated for its ability to mimic intact knee joint contact mechanics.


Objective. To compare the results of an online survey of mothers of children aged 0–12 months and outpatient observation of children of the same age using a parental questionnaire for the identification of functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) according to the Rome IV criteria. Patients and methods. A total of 387 questionnaires completed by mothers of children aged 0–12 months were analyzed, as well as the results of observation of 61 children performed at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months of age. Results. Analysis of the results of an online survey of mothers of children aged 0–12 months and observation of children of the same age revealed no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of FGIDs between these groups. The prevalence of regurgitation, infant colic, and dyschezia gradually decreased by 12 months of age in contrast to constipation, which debuted at the age of 3 months and by 12 months occurred with a prevalence of up to 14.9 and 8.2%, according to questionnaires completed by mothers and outpatient examinations, respectively (p > 0.05). Conclusion. The results indicate the potential use of online surveys of mothers as a screening diagnostic tool for FGIDs in children of early age. Key words: children, functional gastrointestinal disorders, Rome IV Criteria, online survey, regurgitation, colic, dyschezia, constipation, first year of life


@vishae cool no need to organize. Just wanted to make sure interest in Aussie timezones before plsnning some events friendly to your time zone.


A weight-age growth curve was studied in 160 bovine Hereford males. It was fitted to the Brody, Gompertz, Logistic, Richards and von Bertalanffy functions. The parameters estimates for the nonlinear regression model were calculated by the Weighted-Least-Square through MODEL procedure (SAS/ETS, 1995). An animal individual adjustment was obtained by the two models: non-weighted and weighted by the inverse of variance. The comparison with the previous models was made by the parameters biological interpretations and by fit quality evaluators (Adjusted determination coefficient, error mean square, mean predicted error, Student's t-test for the parameters A and K estimates and convergency percent). The best fitted model was the weighted by the inverse of variance. The functions that best fitted the data were those of von Bertalanffy and Gompertz followed by Logistic. Brody and Richards functions presented a low convergency percent, being  inadequate to describe the data in study.


Running an independent journal takes much effort, even if only focusing on managing the process of moving articles through the process of submission, review, and publication. Yet publishing an article is not the only goal. Even a great article has little impact unless it can easily be discovered for people to read and cite. Without visibility, even a journal with a terrific editorial board will not get the high quality submissions its editors seek.


Abstract This article presents a methodology for reliability prediction during the design phase of mechatronic system considered as an interactive dynamic system. The difficulty in modeling reliability of a mechatronic system is mainly due to failures related to the interaction between the different domains called Multi-domain interaction. Therefore in this paper, after a presentation of the state of the art of mechatronic systems reliability estimation methods, we propose a original approach by representing multi domain interactions by influential factors in the dysfunctional modeled by Dynamic Bayesian Networks. A case study demonstrates the interest of the proposed approach.


(ABSTRACT) License plate recognition/identification (LPR/I) applies image processing and character recognition technology to identify vehicles by automatically reading their license plates. In the United States, however, each state has its own standard-issue plates, plus several optional styles, which are referred to as special license plates or varieties. There is a clear absence of standardization and multi-colored, complex backgrounds are becoming more frequent in license plates. Commercially available optical character recognition (OCR) systems generally fail when confronted with textured or poorly contrasted backgrounds, therefore creating the need for proper image segmentation prior to classification. The image segmentation problem in LPR is examined in two stages: license plate region detection and license plate character extraction from background. Three different approaches for license plate detection in a scene are presented: region distance from eigenspace, border location by edge detection and the Hough transform, and text detection by spectral analysis. The experiments for character segmentation involve the RGB, HSV/HSI and 1976 CIE L*a*b* color spaces as well as their Karhunen-Loéve transforms. The segmentation techniques applied include multivariate hierarchical agglomerative clustering and minimum-variance color quantization. The trade-off between accuracy and computational expense is used to select a final reliable algorithm for license plate detection and character segmentation. The spectral analysis approach together with the K-L L*a*b* transformed color quantization are found experimentally as the best alternatives for the two identified image segmentation stages for US license plate recognition. Acknowledgements iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Ehrich, for embarking with me on this project. There is nothing greater than the gift of working in a field one loves, and you allowed for this to happen. This has been an amazing learning experience. Thank you for your time, your patience and generous access to your library and equipment. kind advice brought me closer to the realization of this project. Thank you, Dr. Ribbens, for easing the transition into Graduate studies. You have been a remarkable teacher and caring committee member. Thank you, Dr. Abbott, for your assistance and sincere interest in my work. My deepest gratitude goes to Dr. William Devenport. Your help has been invaluable, as a professor, advisor and family friend. Thank you for your trust, encouragement, and for creating opportunities and directing them my way. I will be in eternal debt to you. Thanks also to the honorable members of the Advanced Turbulence Flow Research Group, for the laughter. I …


Based on the results of goniospectrophotometric measurements, physically based mathematical models of the spatial angular distributions of the luminous intensity and brightness factor are proposed for the coatings of structural materials. The models adequately describe the main scattering regularities of optical radiation by a rough surface in the visible and near-IR regions of electromagnetic waves and require no significant computing costs. Regularized regression dependences are obtained for the parameters of the model of the angular distribution of the luminous intensity on the cosine of the angle of incidence of the radiant flux.


We introduce a simple dynamic model to investigate the fragmentation of transport networks. The transport properties like as the size of largest connected cluster, the length of the minimum paths and the optimal paths between a pair of nodes of the network were evaluated upon continuously increasing the load on the system. We use two load insertion strategies: an uniform random distribution of loads and a Cohen-like immunization strategy (one node is selected with a uniform probability p and one of its first neighbours, randomly selected, receives the load). Both strategies may be classified as local strategies but the resulting effects are qualitatively different. Evaluating the physical quantities as a function of time we observe that for the random distribution strategy there is a crossover from a fully connected cluster to a non-connected state in the sense that all links become unavailable. On the other hand, following the Cohen-like strategy we found a sudden change in transport properties which is may be interpreted as a percolation-like transition induced by the cumulative process of load.


Objective To investigate the effect of preemptive intrathecal neostigming in a rat model of postoperative pain. Methods ①Investigation of the ED50(median effective dose) value of antinociception of preemptive intrathecal neostigming by Dixon's up and down method in a rat model of postoperative pain;②the efect of preemptive intratheca1 neostigming on the nociceptive behaviorsin rats of postoperative pain;②immuno-histochemistry technique was involved in observing c-fos protein expression at spinal level. Results ①The ED50 value of antinociception of preemptive intrathecal neostigming in the rat of model of postoperative pain was 8. 36 μg,CI (6. 68 ~ 10. 70) μg;②the cumulative pain scores of rats in operation group were much higher than those of F-operation rats and preemptive intrathecal neostigming decreased cumulative pain scores significantly; ③when neostigming were used at the dose of ED50,they could significantly repress the expression of c-fos protein. Their functional positions were at the Layer Ⅰ-Ⅱ and Ⅴ-Ⅵ. Conclusions Preemptive intrathecal neostigming at the dose of 1 to 10 μg can produce dose-dependant antinociception;②the antinociceptive effects of preemptive intrathecal neostigmine are mediated partly by inhibition of c-fos protein.


Firstly analyses the reasons for why ship accidents happen frequently,and then suggests that in order to do well in safety navigation,we should strengthen the leadership,manage strictly,take the training seriously,and particularly attach great importance to the training of high quality captains.


By improving the simulation method of contact and contact forces, the function of tracing the propagation of Multi-cracks, the Numerical Manifold Method proposed by Genhua- Shi is developed which can simulate the discontinuity of block system, the tensile or shear failure, and the crack propagation. The least-square method to calculate SIF is presented in this paper for broken cracks. Also the calculation method of contact stiffness matrix is modified. For edge- to-edge contact, correct distribution of contact stress is guaranteed, namely the contact stiffness and contact length make direct proportion. The structure failure problems inducing by crack propagation in different engineering domains are simulated. It shows that the method put forward and the program developed in this paper can effectively simulate the structure failure and can give scientific suggestion for engineering supporting.


The study examined the effect of absorption and marginal cost on corporate performance in Nigeria, it specifically examined the effect of absorption costing on corporate performance of selected manufacturing firm in Nigeria and it also ascertained the significant influence of marginal costing on corporate performance of selected corporate performance in Nigeria. The population of the study consisted on twenty-one (22) manufacturing companies listed on the Nigeria exchange group, however, eighteen (18) samples were selected from the population. A total number of 540 were randomly sampled from the companies in the samples. Data were collected with the use of questionnaire. Collated data were analyzed using descriptive method of analysis. Specifically, the study made use of percentages and frequency analysis. Result revealed that to a large extent the absorption costing has significant and positive effect on corporate performance of the selected companies in Nigeria. Also, result reflected that there is evidence across the manufacturing that marginal costing has positive and significant relationship with corporate performance of selected manufacturing in Nigeria. This study therefore concluded that absorption and marginal costing has positive and significant effect on corporate performance of selected manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Hence, the study therefore, concluded that absorption and marginal costing have strong statistical relationship with the corporate performance of selected manufacturing companies in Nigeria. The study recommends that profitability, business size, liquidity situation, and asset tangibility are important variables to consider when the management of selected manufacturing firms in Nigeria decides to adopt absorption and marginal costing


In this paper, we present a propositional sequent calculus containing disjoint copies of classical and intuitionistic logics. We prove a cut-elimination theorem and we establish a relation between this system and linear logic.


In this report, we reproduce the results of a novel learning method for Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) proposed by 3 Zhang and Li (2020) [23]. The proposed learning method utilises biologically more plausible neuron interactions 4 than existing SNN algorithms. The original paper claims that the method can produce higher performance than other 5 state-of-the-art SNN learning algorithms on ML benchmarking datasets whilst utilising many fewer timesteps. In order 6 to test this claim, we reproduced the results of two datasets; MNIST and CIFAR-10. 7


The authors have created modern effective methods for controlling the vitamin content of highly productive lactating cows during the first period of lactation. The results were obtained on the content of vitamins in the diet, milk and blood when feeding with supplements Vitaminol and phytocomplex at 10, 15 and 20 g per animal unit daily separately and with mixed feed. The authors monitored the levels of vitamins A, carotene, D and E in cow's milk and serum. Scientific research was carried out for the agricultural enterprise "Novgorodsky Becon" of the Novgorod region. The cows ration was balanced by 50 nutrients and biologically active substances in accordance with the recommendations for animal feeding (Moscow, Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 2003). Studies of the content of vitamins were carried out using the silage-concentration type of ration fed to lactating black-and-white cows in conditions without grazing. We conducted 2 scientific experiments and 2 physiological experiments with cows during the first 100 days of their lactation. The increase in the level of vitamin A in milk and blood was due to the use of feed additives in the diets. The use of feed additives increased the vitamin D levels in milk and serum. The balance of calcium and phosphorus metabolism in cows is positive. The use of "Vitaminol" together with compound feeds increased the level of calcium by 5.6 6.3 and phosphorus by 4.4 4.9 grams per 1 kg of milk with the natural fat content. The diets were admixed with the "Vitaminol" and phytocomplex ratio of Ca: P (1.3: 1) and Na: K (0.2: 1). With the same doses of feed additives, the ratio of acid and alkaline elements in the diets was the same: Vitaminol was 0.743 and phytocomplex was 0.709. Due to the use of "Vitaminol", the concentration of vitamin E in milk is 4.6-6 times higher than that in the control group, in blood and blood serum.


Based on the questionnaire sampling and documents provided by the Tourist Bureau of Gansu Province concerning such tourist spots as Lanzhou,Wuwei,Dunhuang and Tianshui,the paper analyses,from the perspectives of time,space,tourist purpose and population,the resource market of tourism and proposes strategies for encouraging tourism of Gansu Province.


Do growth spells in Africa end because of bad realizations of the same factors that influence growth spells in the rest of the world, or because of different factors altogether? To answer this question, we examine determinants of growth spells in Africa and the rest of the world using Bayesian Mode Averaging techniques for proportional hazards models. We define growth spells as periods of sustained growth episodes between growth accelerations and decelerations and then relate the probability that a growth spell ends to various determinants including exogenous shocks, physical and human capital, macroeconomic policy, and sociopolitical factors. Our analysis suggests that determinants of growth spells in Africa are different from those in the rest of the world. The majority of the identified robust determinants have a distinct impact in only one of the two samples: initial income, terms of trade, exchange rate undervaluation and inflation, influence spells only in the world sample, while openness and droughts seem to only affect Africa. In addition, a few common determinants - proxies for human and physical capital and changes in the world interest rate - have very different marginal effects in the two samples.


Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of diltiazem in intravenous treatment of hypertension acute disease. Methods 30 patients with hypertension acute disease were received intravenous treatment of diltiazem to observe the changes of their blood pressure and heart rate before and after treatment. Results The blood pressure began to lower after 5 to 10 minutes,reached its height in 30 minutes and remained a stable level. The overall effective rate was 95%. The heart rate also lowered apparently in a safe range and remained a stable level after an hour. Conclusion To use diltiazem in intraverous treatment of hypertension acute disease can produce an instant effect. The effects of lowering blood pressure are significant and stable. The side effects are slight. Therefore, it can be used as one of the best drugs in treatment of hypertension acute disease and is worth popularizing clinically.


Given the particular context of party organizational emergence in Eastern-Central Europe (including historical, cultural and conjunctural factors), a number of dissimilarities in the organizational development of parties are expected, as compared to the internal structures of parties in Western Europe. On the other hand, some comparative researches have pointed out evidences of convergences in the challenges facing party organizations in both European contexts. Typically, the impacts of European integration could be considered as one among those common factors of change. Building upon recent studies, this paper analyses how European integration influences the development of party organizations in Eastern-Central Europe, and to what extent the concept of Europeanization can be used in order to study the new realities of contemporary party organizations across 'Greater Europe'. The main propositions are reviewed in both theoretical and empirical perspectives, with a core focus on methodological difficulties such as the comparability of political parties across advanced European democracies, the asynchronic nature of enlargement processes in the various countries, or the isolation of the European integration impacts from the domestic ones. Furthermore, in this methodological perspective, a multi-level approach is necessary to assess the most appropriate level for a dynamic comparison of party organizations. Four macro- hypotheses are formulated in this respect: the effects of the Europeanization on political parties depend on a) party-specific features; b) nation-specific features; c) particular political- institutional patterns across sets of countries (e.g. majoritarian v/s proportional systems), cutting across broad cultural areas within Europe; d) clusters of countries also tapping broad cultural areas (Eastern-Central Europe, Southern Europe, Nordic countries, etc.).


Objective To investigate the effect of Zishengyutaiwan (ZSYTW), a kind of traditional Chinese herbal medicine, in treating occult hyperprolactinemia (OHP) with early recurrent abortion. Methods Fifty-six cases of OHP were detected from 151 cases with cause-unknown recurrent abortion by thyroid-releasing hormone (TRH) load test, who were randomly divided into two groups, one group (31 cases) was treated with ZSYTW and the other (25 cases) with bromocriptine as controls. Serum levels of estradiol (E_2) and progesterone (P) were measured and vaginal ultrasound scanning was performed on the 21st to 25th days of menstruation to measure their endometrial thickness for all the subjects before and after treatment. And, serum levels of P, prolactine (PL) and chorionic gonodotrophin (CGT) were measured within eight weeks of conception. Results There was no significant difference in serum level of E_2 before and after treatment in both groups. But, serum level of P and endometrial thickness showed significant difference before and after treatment between two groups (P0.05 and P0.01, respectively). Serum level of P indicated insufficient luteal function in one (3.4%) of 29 cases with ZSYTW after conception, with 27 successful pregnancy (87.1%) and two abortions, and insufficient luteal function in four cases (20.0%) of 20 cases with western medicine after conception, with 19 successful pregnancy (76.0%) and one abortion (P0.05 and P0.05, respectively). Conclusions SOHP closely related to recurrent abortion. OHP in cause-unknown recurrent abortion could be detected by TRH load test. Traditional Chinese herbal medicine ZSYTW could improve luteal function and intro-environment of endometrium more than bromocriptine could.


Originally published in the "International Quarterly of Community Health Education", this work presents twenty-one chapters about the state of HIV/AIDS prevention programs in a global context.


Retired Dana Pensiun Perkebunan Defined Benefit Pension Plan (PPMP) participants are required to certify annually that they still meet the criteria for being a valid pensioner. The retiree uses the Dapenbun online application to take a photo of himself and her ID card and wait for the data to be processed by the administrator. Pensioners who do not report will have their pension entitlements suspended. The number of retirees managed by the Plantation Pension Fund is over 216,000, and managers are overwhelmed with approval at the start of the re-data period. For this reason, authors design systems that can run automated approval and classification systems to facilitate data approval. Applying the FSA concept to this system reduces the processing of participant data as automation is applied to the first process of automatic termination of pensions for children aged 21 and over, second data with criteria for automatic approval. It will be faster. Categorizing data reduces approval errors and makes it easier for users to approve data.


Hydrothermally prepared La2(SeO3)3 contains a three-dimensional network of LaO10 polyhedra [dav(La—O) = 2.622 (3) A] and SeO3 pyramids [dav(Se—O) = 1.691 (3) A]. One of the SeO3 pyramids is in a general position and the other has crystallographic m symmetry. There are pseudo-channels in the [010] direction which are probably associated with the SeIV lone pairs.


A hundred years ago Emile de Laveleye, in what was destined to become a historical classic, albeit a flawed one, lamented the passing of rural communal institutions which, he said, had secured to countrymen "from the most remote times the enjoyment of liberty, equality and order, and as great a degree of happiness as is compatible with human destinies."' Later students disavowed Laveleye's theories about the history of property, but many of them shared his regret for the demise of communalism. Dying or recently dead institutions sometimes inspire a romantic nostalgia even among supposedly sophisticated scholars, and peasant life of times gone by has not escaped this fate. Not that all historians have succumbed to the "good old days" syndrome. A French historian recently observed that "nothing was less egalitarian than the French village. Jacques Bonhomme never existed save in the imagination of pamphleteers and novelists.'2 That judgment, too, needs tempering. It seems reasonable to assume that the old peasant community, like most other human institutions, had both its blessings and its shortcomings, although even for this, as for every other generalization about these communities, only an assumption is possible. Their great number, the many differences among them, the obscurity which veils so much of the history of Europe's peasantry, are a sampling of the obstacles which conspire to make definitive conclusions about the village community difficult if not impossible. The village community as a corporate body managing communal resources, directing the economic activities, and supervising the communal life of its residents first emerged in Europe during the later part of the Middle Ages and spread across the Continent in the succeeding centuries. Its disintegration began in the eighteenth century and completed itself in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its con-


Introduction:
The potential of wood welding as a fast and cost-effective alternative to gluing for Australian hardwood species has been demonstrated in recent studies (Belleville et al. 2016, 2017). The technique consists in assembling solid wood pieces by mechanical friction to generate heat, which induces the thermochemical changes in lignin which lead to wood welding. The results so far confirm the importance of density and occurrence of anatomical features in the weld line strength and consequently the definition of optimal welding parameter (Leban et al. 2005; Properzi et al. 2005; Belleville et al. 2016). Polymeric material and other compounds present in woods studied previously have commonly been identified to explain observed differences between Canadian wood species (Rodriguez et al. 2010; Sun et al. 2010; Belleville et al. 2013, 2016).


It is established that the quality of the engine start depends on the delay time of the supply of engine oil to the friction pairs of the engine, especially under conditions of negative temperatures, therefore pre-start thermal preparation of the engine is necessary. It is proposed to use thermal accumulators that do not require additional fuel consumption and electrical energy from standard accumulator batteries.
Keywords: engine, start, temperature, rotation speed, wear, engine oil, delay, pumping, hydrothermal accumulator, thermal email@example.com, email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com


Often we hear that modernism is all about speed. Better to say that modernism marked the age of acceleration, an explosion in rates of change. Today we routinely link capitalism and the metaphor of explosive growth. Capitalism threatens to consume everything in its path, producing great destruction along the way. This is conspicuously so with the advent of modern war epochally transformed by the modernist acceleration of technical innovation. Appalling loss of human life and systematic destruction of productive capacity inspired a world order movement obdurately modern in its conceptual underpinnings. It counted the League of Nations and then the United Nations among its institutional successes, while imagining that a world federal republic would duly emerge. Precipitous decolonization preserved the colonial legacy of accidental borders and divided peoples, thereby accommodating the global expansion of international society with surprising ease; dreams of a world federal republic faded away.


A biogeochemical model was used to estimate air-sea CO₂ exchange over the East China Sea. Since fresh water discharge from the Changjiang River and relevant chemistry were not considered in the employed model, we were not able to produce accurate results around the Changjiang River mouth. This factor aside, the model showed that the East China Sea, away from the Changjiang River mouth, takes approximately 1.5~2 mole m?² yr?¹ of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The model also showed that biological factors modify the air-sea CO₂ flux by only a few percent when we assumed that biological activity increased two-fold. Therefore, we can argue that the biological effect is not strong enough over this area within the framework of the current phosphate-based biological model. Compared to the preindustrial era, in 1995 the East China Sea absorbed 0.4~0.8 mole m?² yr?¹ more CO₂. If warming of the sea surface is considered, in addition to the increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration, by 2045 the East China Sea would absorb 0.2~0.4 mole m?² yr?¹ less CO₂ compared to the non-warming case.


In this paper, we consider a framework with two groups of agents. Both groups use least squares learning to make their forecasts. However, both groups either have the same or heterogeneous information sets and the less attentive group (Group L) uses the expectations of the more, or highly, attentive group (Group H) to update their forecasts. The E-stability condition remains unchanged. In the case of heterogeneous information, the inaccuracy of Group L's forecasts leads to what we call the boomerang effect: the inaccurate forecasts of Group L now confound and delay Group H's convergence to the rational expectations equilibrium. (JEL D83, D84, E17)


In conventional model predictive torque control (MPTC), only one voltage vector (VV) is applied during a whole control period, thus causing a large torque ripple. To improve the steady-state performance, some two-vector-based control schemes have been proposed. However, the selection of the optimal VV pair is complex as well as has a large computational burden, and the improvement of performance is still limited by the direction and amplitude of the output VV. This article proposes a low-complexity three-vector-based MPTC for SPMSM drives, which can precisely determine the appropriate active voltage vectors (AVVs) with the predicted torque error. Then, a modified switching table is developed to directly select the AVVs, thus greatly reducing the complexity and computational burden of the algorithm. To obtain a better steady-state performance, a duty cycle calculation method based on torque and stator flux difference parameters is newly proposed to achieve the deadbeat control of torque and stator flux. And then, the experimental comparisons with the double-vector-based MPTC are conducted. The results show that the proposed MPTC can effectively reduce the steady-state torque ripple while maintaining a good dynamic performance as well as almost a fixed switching frequency for all speed ranges.


Oil-extracted poppy seed meal was examined for its value as a pig-feed protein source. The material had a crude protein content of 37.8% and digestible energy content of 13. 1 MJ/kg dry matter. A trial using growing pigs indicated the absence of any growth-depressing factors and, apart from a lower lysine content, a protein quality similar to that of soybean meal.


vol 25 no 8 august 2012 Boyle, J. (1977). A sense of freedom. London: Handbooks. Cooke, D.J. (1989). Containing violent prisoners: An analysis of the Barlinnie Special Unit. British Journal of Criminology, 29, 129–143. Cooke, D.J. & Wozniak, E. (2010). PRISM applied to a critical incident review. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health Services, 9(3), 159–172. Cooke, D.J., Wozniak, E. & Johnstone, L. (2008). Casting light on prison violence. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35(8), 1065–1078. Coyle, A.G. (1987). The Scottish experience of small units. In A.E. Bottoms & R. Light (Eds.) Problems of long-term imprisonment. Aldershot: Gower. Cregg, M. & Payne, E. (2010). PRISM with incarcerated young people. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health Services, 9, 173–179. Gadon, L., Johnstone, L. & Cooke, D.J. (2006). Situational variables and institutional violence. Clinical Psychology Review, 26(5), 513–534. Hart, S.D., Sturmey, P., Logan, C. & McMurran, M. (2011). Forensic case formulation. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health Services, 10, 118–126. Johnstone, L. & Cooke, D.J. (2008). PRISM: Promoting Risk Intervention by Situational Management: Structured professional guidelines for assessing situational risk factors for violence in institutions. Glasgow: Northern Networking. Johnstone, L. & Cooke, D.J. (2010). PRISM: A promising paradigm for assessing and managing institutional violence. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health Services, 9(3), 180–191. Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and Violence prevention is a key role for psychologists working in forensic settings. The last decade has witnessed dramatic improvements in approaches to risk management. Psychologists, by training and predilection focus on individual factors that serve to increase risk – personality pathology, relationship instability and addictions, for example. This misses half of the equation; individuals are violent not merely because who they are but also because of where they are. An alternative approach to violence risk management can be predicated on a systematic understanding of the ways in which the functioning of the institutions – prisons and secure forensic settings – affects the level of violence in that institution. Such an approach is outlined here, using case studies to illustrate its utility. It was all a bit of a mystery – Scotland's 'most violent men' were not being violent. As a young clinical psychologist, your first author was confronted by this mystery while working in the Barlinnie Special Unit (Boyle, 1977; Cooke, 1989). The unit was a small experimental facility that contained violent prisoners who had proved themselves unmanageable in other prisons. The majority had killed, at least once: however, murder was only part of the pattern of persistent and serious violent acts they perpetrated. They had been brought up in a subculture in which violence was normalised; starting at an early age they had progressed through diverse and prolific criminal careers. They suffered from many forms of dysfunction; personality pathology, substance misuse and, in some cases, episodes of major mental illness. Despite this concentration of risk, over the Unit's 21-year history only two assaults took place. The prisoners as a whole remained dominant, forceful, challenging, impulsive and prone to anger, yet their violence was curbed. Perhaps, in retrospect, this should not have been a surprise, over four decades ago Mischel (1968) told us that the situations in which individuals find themselves have as much, if not more, influence on their behaviour as individual risk factors. But as psychologists – by inclination and training – our focus is on the individual and not the situation. Reflecting on the Special Unit suggested that a mosaic of situational factors probably underpinned this change in behaviour; these factors range from improved staff selection, training and morale, through a focus on relational rather than structural security, to access to a rich variety of activities (Cooke, 1989). To some the Barlinnie unit was a brave penal experiment; to others it was 'Porridge with Cream'. Whatever perspective is taken, the radical and rapid change in the violence of these high-risk prisoners demonstrated the putative power of situational factors. The saliency of situations was driven home by two other vivid and formative experiences. In the late 1980s the Scottish prison system was wracked by rooftop incidents; prison officers were taken hostage and threatened with death; control was lost. Directly observing four of these incidents as part of the incident management team, it became apparent that there was something rotten in the state of Scottish prisons. Other commentators pointed up the role that ill treatment by staff, limited privileges, impoverished regimes, and inadequate visit facilities played in fomenting unrest (Coyle, 1987; Scratton et al., 1991). Perhaps more startling, at least in retrospect, is the fact


The problem of continuity in fine arts training on the basis of the academic drawing arises in the article. The significance of continuity of the academic school of drawing is not only in training, but also in education of the aesthetic relation to the world.


A computer program that interacts with and reponds to real world processes in a timely fashion, and must com plete execution prior to its scheduled deadline, is called a ''hard" real-time program. It is not sufficient for the implemented algorithm to be correct. The real-time pro gram must provide the correct response (computation) on time. A late computation is usually no better, possi bly even worse, than one that is on time but imprecise. The timing behavior of each real-time program compo nent (task) must be predictable if one is to build reliable deterministic real-time systems. Much of the research in real-time scheduling assumes that the execution lime of each task is known (e.g., Liu and Layland [2]). Work by Mok [3], on the use of semaphores, rendezvous, and monitors in real-time systems assumes that the (worst case) execution time of code segments is known. Stoyenko's work [8] on the schedulability analyzer for Real-Time Euclid addressed the problem of worst case timing analysis of tasks, by assuming the execution time of each instruction is con stant. However, even the hardware builders [4] concede that the exact execution time of a given instruction may vary, depending upon the surrounding instructions and the current 6tate of the machine. Park and Shaw [5] implemented a timing tool for a subset of C, which is based on the notion of a timing schema presented in [7]. A method very similar to that of Shaw is presented by Puschner and Koza [6]. Shaw acknowledges that al though his approach seems to work well when applied to determinisitic hardware, more research is needed to determine timing predictability on contemporary ma chines.


Cancer is a group of cells that lost regulation of body.Hormone is a kind of important modulating material.Hormone is related to tumor's generation,development and metastasis.Some hormone may play important roles as clinical parameters in tumor's diagnosis and recurrence.One kind of hormone is not only related to one kind of cancer,and vice versa.This study is about relationship of some kinds of hormone and some concerned tumor.These hormones include sex hormone,thyroxine,glucocorticoid,human chorionic gonadotropin,prostagladin,melatonin and so on.


This article is concentrated the relation between business intelligence and strategic decision-making. Business intelligence is an important issue to collect and bring the data together that decision-making is depended on. Managers in today's organizations are still to know how to apply business intelligence in strategic decision-making. The main aim of this study is to explore the impact of business intelligence on strategic decision making. Strategic decision making defined as gradual and interdependent, which is formed by a variety of impacts contextual to the past events arising in present-day conditions and finally the future views.Using questionnaires applied at four different communication companies in Iraq, the experience managers have participated from top level managers and those in the middle-level management. The SPSS software used to analyze the result, when the result indicated that business intelligence has a great impact on strategic decision-making and improved the efficiency and effectiveness. The relation between business intelligence parts and strategic decision shows different result, business intelligence tools, business intelligence Use, business intelligence system infrastructure flexibility improved the efficiency of strategic decision making. Keyword: Business intelligence, Strategic Decision


The CES-D scale is used to investigate depression of 201 aging parents who lost their only child in China. The results show that the bereaved parents have greater depression than the elder individuals in the general population. The results also indicate that sudden death and poor health have a significant positive relationship with depression of older parents who lost only one child. There is significant negative relationships between PTG and depression of older parents who lost only one child. The findings suggested the necessity of exploring psychological well-being of child-deceased elders and importance of developing interventions to assist these elders achieve posttraumatic growth from loss of their child.


This paper examines whether infrastructure investment has contributed to East Asia's economic growth using both a growth accounting framework and cross-country regressions. For most of the variables used, both the growth accounting exercise and cross-country regressions fail to find a significant link between infrastructure, productivity and growth. These conclusions contrast strongly with previous studies finding positive and significant effect for all infrastructure variables in the context of a production function study. This leads us to conclude that results from studies using macro-level data should be considered with extreme caution. The Authors suggest that infrastructure investment may have had the primary function of relieving constraints and bottlenecks as they arose, as opposed to directly encouraging growth.