Based in Montevideo, and most recently valued at US$5 billion, the payments platform DLocal enables companies such as Booking.com, Amazon and Uber to transact in local currencies in 29 countries. It specializes in the "emerging economies" of Latin America, the Asia Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa. Among international lawyers, however, Montevideo is best known for another form of international infrastructure. That is the 1933 Montevideo Convention, or at least its first article, standardising the template of modern statehood. At the time, as scholars of international legal history have shown, this amounted to a radical reformatting of the fundamentals of international law, driven by semi-peripheral states, as part of a widespread effort of reconstructive codification after the Great War. Today, DLocal's Montevideo is emblematic of a very different kind of international legal reformatting now underway. A digital logic, and associated circuits of value and aggregations of power, are becoming embedded—even predominant—in many of international law's most routine operations. To shed light on this phenomenon, this lecture revisits each component of the Montevideo Convention's well-known formula for statehood—permanent population; defined territory; government; and the conduct of international relations. Taking efforts of so-called digital humanitarianism as illustrative, it examines how each of these Montevideo properties is being rerouted and recomposed digitally, often in tension with an analog logic characteristic of law. And in the ensuing dislocations sometimes in evidence between analog and digital aspects of international legal work, it identifies some possibilities for collective reworking.


For improving the pipeline construction quality of the water and electricity installation in the ceiling and solving the problem that the structure pre-buried pipeline location is incorrect,the author analyzes the disadvantages of the current construction state at present,puts forward two pre-control methods of the overlap of the professional drawings and the reference location of the architectural drawing combined with the water and electricity drawing, which effectively controls two quality problems in the building installation.


Using a broad set of stocks traded in Asian stock markets from 2000 to 2012, we document that firm-specific commonality in liquidity is positively related with firm-specific stock price synchronicity. Our result suggests that higher firm opacity due to stock price synchronicity increases uncertainty about firm intrinsic value, which in turn causes stock liquidity comovement. However, the adverse impact of firm opacity on commonality in liquidity is not apparent in countries with higher stock market capitalization, lower stock market volatility, higher funding liquidity, and higher interest rate. Concomitantly, higher firm opacity does not exacerbate firm-specific commonality in liquidity when the proportion of firm's stocks owned by investment firms is low, and the country where the firm is located have better governance quality. During the 2007-2009 crisis period particularly, higher stock market capitalization and funding liquidity as supply-side factors are no longer significant in tempering the positive link between synchronicity and liquidity commonality, while higher correlated trading behavior in exacerbating liquidity commonality is more prevalent in several types of institutional investors.


We prove that classical C1–solutions to phase transition problems, which include the two–phase Stefan problem, are smooth. The problem is reduced to a fixed domain using von Mises variables. The estimates are obtained by frozen coefficients and new Lp estimates for linear parabolic equations with dynamic boundary condition. Crucial ingredients are the observation that a certain function is a Fourier multiplier, an approximation procedure of norms in Besov spaces and Meyer' approach to Nemytakij operators.


Medicinal plants have been available in human societies since time immemorial. Indeed, the uses of plants were discovered by ancient people by the method of trial and error. The system of traditional medicine had their root in the uses of plants by these people and survived only by the oral communications from generation to generation. Obviously, plants have been prized for their aromatic, flowering and drug yielding qualities. Their drug values are lies in phytochemicals present in the plants. The forest and remote rural places have been the traditional sources of herbs. During the past decade, a dramatic increase in exports of valuable plants attests the worldwide interest in traditional health system. Most of these plants being taken from the wild, hundreds of species our now threatened with extinction because of overexploitation. Since past decade there has been a considerable interest towards the uses of herbal medicine. Tribal and rural communities use a number of plants for the treatment of various human diseases and disorders.


To support future manned missions to the surface of the Moon and Mars or missions requiring manipulation of payloads and locomotion in space, a training device is required to simulate the conditions of both partial and microgravity as compared to the gravity on Earth. The focus of this paper is to present the development, construction, and testing of a partial gravity simulator which uses a pneumatic actuator with closed loop mechanical amplification. Results of the testing show that this type of simulator maintains a constant partial gravity simulation with a variation of the simulated body force between 2.2 percent and 10 percent, depending on the type of locomotion inputs. The data collected using the simulator show that mean stride frequencies at running speeds at lunar and Martian gravity levels are 12 percent less than those at Earth gravity. The data also show that foot/ground reaction forces at lunar and Martian gravity are, respectively, 62 percent and 51 percent less than those on Earth.


With the use of silicon micromachining an inorganic membrane sieve for microfiltration is constructed, having a siliconnitride membrane layer with thickness typically 1 pm and perforations typically between 0.5 pm and 10 pm in diameter. As a support a -silicon wafer with openings of loo0 pm in diameter is used. The thin siliconnitride layer is deposited on an initial dense support by means of a suitable Chemical Vapour Deposition method (LPCVD). Perforations in the membrane layer are obtained through the use of standard microlithography and reactive ion etching (RIE). The flow rate behaviour and the pressure strength of the membrane sieve are calculated in a first approximation. A process for manufacturing is presented and some industrial and biomedical applications are discussed. Introduction Sieve Filters Sieve filters are characterized by thin membrane layers with uniformly sized pores and for most applications the membrane layer is sustained by a support. Until now lithographic techniques have not been used for the construction of micro filtration membrane layers made of inorganic materials as siliconnitride and silicon1. Inorganic membrane and in particular ceramic membranes* have a number of advantages above polymeric membranes like high temperature stability, relative inert to chemicals, applicable at high pressures, easy to sterilize and recyclable. However they have not been used extensively because of their high costs and relatively poor control in pore size distribution. Also the effective membrane layer is very thick in comparison to the mean pore size (typically 50 -loo0 times), which resiluts in a reduced flow rate. A composite filtrationmembrane having a relatively thin filtration or sieving layer with a high pore density and a narrow pore size distribution on a macroporous support will show good separation behaviour and a high flow rate. The support contributes to the mechanical strength of the total composite membrane. The openings in the support should be made as large and numerous as possible in Handbook of Industrial Membrane Technology, LPorter, C.Mark and H.Strathmann, 1990 Ceramic Membranes Growth Prospects and Opportunities, K.K. Chan and A.M. Brownstein, Ceramic Bulletin, vol70, 703-707, 1991 order to maintain the flow rate of the membrane layer and to reduce the interaction of the support with the fluid. An established use of inorganic membranes with very thin membrane layers, in particular microsieves with high flow rates, will result in an energyand cost-saving separation technology for present and future innovative applications, like micro liquid handling, modular fluidic systems or micro total analysis systems3. 'Track etched' membrane t 1 0 'Tortuous path' membrane .. .:. . Pore size Density Log scale 1.0 2.0 5.0 10 2 0 . Pore size in micrometer Figure I , Pore size distribution of various membrane f i l t ers . New Membrane Materials and Processes: A Survey of Work in The Netherlands, C.A. Smolders in 'Membranes' Oxford & IBH Publishing, 1992, ISBN 81-204-0686-9 83 0-7803-2503-6


The concept of a new ultrahigh resolution (UHR) positron emission tomography (PET) brain scanner featuring truly pixelated detectors based on the LabPET II technology is presented. The aim of this paper is to predict the performance of the scanner using geant4 application for tomographic emission simulations. The NEMA procedures for human and small animal PET scanners were used, whenever appropriate, to simulate spatial resolution, scatter fraction, count rate performance, and the sensitivity of the proposed system compared to state-of-the-art PET scanners that would currently be the preferred choices for brain imaging, namely the high-resolution research tomograph dedicated brain PET scanner and the Biograph Vision whole-body clinical PET scanner. The imaging performance was also assessed using the NEMA-NU4 image quality phantom, a mini Hot Spot phantom, and a 3-D voxelized brain phantom. A reconstructed nearly isotropic spatial resolution of 1.3 mm full width at half-maximum is obtained at 10 mm from the center of the field of view. With an energy window of 250–650 keV, the system absolute sensitivity is estimated at 3.4% and its maximum noise equivalent count rate reaches 16.4 kcps at 12 kBq/cc. The simulation results provide evidence of the promising capabilities of the proposed scanner for UHR brain imaging.


Department of Computer Science, RVS College of Engineering and Technology Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, INDIA ______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT In the recent years, trend of online shopping has gained momentum. But still there are many people who don't prefer electronic channel for shopping. In this study, a survey was done to categorize the non buyers in the context of business-to-consumer electronic commerce (B2C-EC), on the basis of their motivations for not purchasing on the Internet and also to find out which factors would make them a dedicated online shopper. In the survey, response of 250 persons of different age group and education level living in Jamshedpur were recorded and the data was analyzed with Latent Class Analysis (LCA) approach for grouping the consumer's motivations for the rejection of online shopping and possible motivations which would make them start buying from ecommerce websites. After defining both sets of groups, a mean clustering was performed in order to relate both groups in disjoint sets. From the result of the study we found that there are three reasons which discourage consumers for not shopping through the electronic channel. These reasons are: absence of physical presence of the goods or channel preference, security concerns and privacy risks, and lack of internet access and/or skills. Similarly, there are six reasons which can make these individual an online shoppers.


The sacroiliac joint and pain deriving from this complex region remains poorly understood in horses, although our understanding grows as the body of literature grows. A deeper understanding can be derived from the richer body of literature in human sacroiliac joint pain as the disease processes and biomechanics appear similar in both species. A highly specific and sensitive diagnostic test for this condition does not exist, so equine clinicians have to make presumptive diagnosis based on presenting signs, findings of clinical examination, diagnostic imaging and the response to blocking of the sacroiliac joint region. Many horses with sacroiliac joint region pain have concurrent orthopaedic injury or disease. Treatment is largely based on fundamentals, anecdotal evidence and translation of non-surgical techniques used in humans. Treatment for other orthopaedic conditions can conflict with rehabilitation for sacroiliac joint region pain, necessitating compromise.


Wilderness hiking and backpacking are enjoyed by many people as a fitness activity, an escape from daily routine, and as an educational experience. Due to the fact that this activity often occurs in a location far from shelter and emergency aid, wilderness backpackers must carry gear to provide their own shelter, food, and first aid in unpredictable weather and trail conditions. Consequently, injuries and illness that occur are of great concern. Among the illnesses or injuries confronting wilderness hikers, those related to the body's ability to respond to heat or cold exposure are particularly important, as the human body must maintain core temperatures within a narrow range for the body to function properly. Cold exposure can cause discomfort and distraction, which can lead to an increased risk of accidents,1 and more severe consequence, like hypothermia.


We consider indoor mobile access, a vital use case for current and future mobile networks. For this key use case, we outline a vision that combines a neutral-host-based shared small-cell infrastructure with a common pool of spectrum for dynamic sharing as a way forward to proliferate indoor small-cell deployments and open up the mobile operator ecosystem. Toward this vision, we focus on the challenges pertaining to managing access to shared spectrum [e.g., 3.5-GHz U.S. Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum]. We propose Iris, a practical shared spectrum access architecture for indoor neutral-host small-cells. At the core of Iris is a deep reinforcement learning-based dynamic pricing mechanism that efficiently mediates access to shared spectrum for diverse operators in a way that provides incentives for operators and the neutral-host alike. We then present the Iris system architecture that embeds this dynamic pricing mechanism alongside cloud-RAN and RAN slicing design principles in a practical neutral-host design tailored for the indoor small-cell environment. Using a prototype implementation of the Iris system, we present the extensive experimental evaluation results that not only offer insight into the Iris dynamic pricing process and its superiority over alternative approaches but also demonstrate its deployment feasibility.


This paper focuses on a scenario where a group of independently-operated investor-owned storage units seek to offer both energy and reserve in the day-ahead as well as the hour-ahead markets. We are particularly interested in the case when a significant portion of the power generated in the grid is from wind and other intermittent renewable energy sources. In this regard, we formulate a stochastic programming framework to choose optimal energy and reserve bids for the storage units. Our design takes into account the fluctuating nature of the market prices due to the randomness in the renewable power generation availability. We show that the formulated stochastic program can be converted into a convex optimization problem and therefore it can be solved efficiently. Our simulation results show that our design can assure profitability of the private investment on storage units. In particular, our design results in much higher profit compared to a similar but deterministic design that simply uses the expected values of the price parameters.


When low k HSQ (Hydrogen Silsesquiozane) with DOM (Direct-on-Metal) technique is employed for mass-production, an unusual HSQ-related problem of metal volume shrinkage might occur at relatively small metal patterns such as landing pads, leading to yield loss. In this work, we have set up a plausible model for the mechanism of the shrinkage, presented the results from some split experiments conducted on the basis of the model, and finally proposed some ways to solve the problem by optimizing both fabrication processes and layout design.


Paradoxical vocal fold dysfunction (PVFD) is one of many terms used to describe disorders of the upper airway where vocal folds do not present normal patterns during respiration, leading to significant respiratory distress. When symptomatic, patients show varying vocal fold patterns of closure during inspiration, expiration, or combinations of both. Constriction of supraglottic structures also may occur. The airway obstruction can result in life-threatening Emergency Room presentation, leading to intubation and even tracheostomy. Although PVFD affects few patients overall, 10% of those diagnosed with asthma may have PVFD alone or in combination with asthma. Correct diagnosis and treatment are vital to avoid costly and even unnecessary medications and hospitalizations.


Abstract Objectives To develop an isotope dilution-liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry-(ID-LC-MS/MS)-based candidate reference measurement procedure (RMP) for quantification of methotrexate in human serum and plasma. Methods Quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance (qNMR) was used to determine absolute methotrexate content in the standard. Separation was achieved on a biphenyl reversed-phase analytical column with mobile phases based on water and acetonitrile, both containing 0.1% formic acid. Sample preparation included protein precipitation in combination with high sample dilution, and method validation according to current guidelines. The following were assessed: selectivity (using analyte-spiked samples, and relevant structural-related compounds and interferences); specificity and matrix effects (via post-column infusion and comparison of human matrix vs. neat samples); precision and accuracy (in a five-day validation analysis). RMP results were compared between two independent laboratories. Measurement uncertainty was evaluated according to current guidelines. Results The RMP separated methotrexate from potentially interfering compounds and enabled measurement over a calibration range of 7.200–5,700 ng/mL (0.01584–12.54 μmol/L), with no evidence of matrix effects. All pre-defined acceptance criteria were met; intermediate precision was ≤4.3% and repeatability 1.5–2.1% for all analyte concentrations. Bias was −3.0 to 2.1% for samples within the measuring range and 0.8–4.5% for diluted samples, independent of the sample matrix. RMP results equivalence was demonstrated between two independent laboratories (Pearson correlation coefficient 0.997). Expanded measurement uncertainty of target value-assigned samples was ≤3.4%. Conclusions This ID-LC-MS/MS-based approach provides a candidate RMP for methotrexate quantification. Traceability of methotrexate standard and the LC-MS/MS platform were assured by qNMR assessment and extensive method validation.


Background: Telomerase as an enzyme with reverse transcriptase activity has an essen-tial role in telomere maintenance by adding a telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of chromosome and is important for regulating of many processes in embryonic develop-ment including cell proliferation and differentiation. Human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) with a self-renewal capacity are cells that can differentiate into various germ layer derivatives including neural cells and cardiomyo-cytes, and undergo biological changes during long-term cultivation. Hence, the passage number in which the cells expanded seems to be very important for proliferating and differentiating. This study was aimed at investigating the relationship between the telomerase activity and the growth rate of (hUC-MSCs) at different passages. Methods: This experimental study was performed in Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Iran, from March 2014 to December 2014. The umbilical cord samples were ob-tained from full-term neonate hospitalized in Alavi's Hospital in Ardabil under sterile conditions. The umbilical vessels were clear off and the small pieces of the umbilical cord were cultured in Dulbecco's modified eagle's medium (DMEM) supplemented with 20% fetal bovine serum (FBS). Then, the hUC-MSCs were harvested from passage one to three to calculate the population doubling time (PDT) and extract proteins by using CHAPS lysis buffer. Finally, the telomerase activity of the cells at different passages was measured by telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) and qRT-TRAP assays. Results: The hUC-MSCs population doubling time at passage from 1 to 3 were calculated as the average of 54.68±1.92, 55.03±1.71 and 69.41±2.54 hours, respectively, suggesting the higher cell passage number, the more extended PDT. The threshold cycles (CTs) for the telomerase activity also showed 30.58±0.51, 27.24±0.74 and 32.13±0.75 for the cell passage from one to three, respectively, representing the significant increasing in telomerase activity at passage two compared with the other passages (P= 0.021). Conclusion: Analysis of the growth curve, PDT determination and measurement of telomerase activity of the human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells showed that the long-term cell culture can affect on the cell proliferation and the telomerase activity. Abstract


This paper presents a new hyper-chaotic system derived from Van der Pol system. The system is a simple model for generating a hyper-chaotic attractor. The dynamics of the proposed system is demonstrated both in numerical simulations and electronic circuit realization.


The 21st century needs compound talents.This paper is to present the reasonable way to offer courses for English Major from the following four points of view


The Late Neoproterozoic Ouarzazate Group crops out on the north margin of the West African craton (WAC). In this group an important post-collisional magmatism is characterized by a great diversity in plutonic and volcanic rock types of the high-K calc-alkaline series. This series evolved mainly by crystal fractionation and by an important crustal contamination from an anomalous mantle source. The Early Cambrian magmatism began at the same time on both sides of the Anti-Atlas Major Fault, the southwestern side (Kerdous region) and northeastern side (Ouarzazate-Agdz region), interbedded in the Early Cambrian Basal Series and spread later to the Western High Atlas of the Morocco northern WAC outboard areas. This magmatism changes from a continental tholeiitic series (HPT and LPT) at the beginning to an alkaline series at the top (Adoudou and 'Lie de vin' formations). Fractional crystallization and pelagic or crustal contamination were the most important processes in the magma differentiation. The geochemical inversion from calc-alkaline to tholeiitic magmatism between the Late Neoproterozoic and the Early Cambrian is documented, as is the major extension of the tholeiitic activity on both sides of the South Atlas Fault. This geochemical variation indicates a transition of the tectonic regime from compressive to extensional. The late local Jbel Boho alkaline magmatism indicates the sink of the source and the mitigation or closure of the extensional cycle at this time. The precise boundary of the Moroccan outboard of the West African craton (WAC) is controversial. For some workers, the Anti-Atlas Major Fault (AAMF) marks this boundary (Fig. 1): on the southwestern side of the AAMF the Eburnean deformed and metamorphosed Precambrian basement (Choubert 1963; Charlot 1982; Ait Malek et al. 1998; Walsh et al. 2002) crops out, with a Neoproterozoic cover deformed by the Pan-African orogeny (Clauer 1976; Clauer et al. 1982); on the northeastern side of the AAMF the 'Pan-African Anti-Atlas mobile zone' crops out; this corresponds to the Pan-African deformed Neoproterozoic formations (Leblanc & Lancelot 1980; Saquaque et al. 1989; Hefferan et al. 2000). However, the findings of Eburnean material in Saghro sediments, as well as the old crustal isotopic signatures in some Neoproterozoic granitoids on both sides of the AAMF have led other workers to place the WAC northwestern margin boundary on the South Atlas Fault (SAF) (Fekkak et al. 2000; Ennih & Liegeois 2001; Errami et al. 2002). Furthermore, the recent aeromagnetic data of Soulaimani et al. (2006) suggest that the AAMF is an ophiolitic suture zone whose subduction plane dips to the south (Levresse 2001). The Bou-Azzer El Graara blueschist metamorphism seems to reinforce this hypothesis (Levresse 2001; Hefferan et al. 2002). The oblique collision of the WAC north margin and the Saghro volcanic arc (Saquaque et al. 1989; Hefferan et al. 1992; Thomas et al. 2002) produced the Pan-African heterogeneous deformation and metamorphism. These events have been dated respectively at 750–650 Ma (Inglis et al. 2005; D'Lemos et al. 2006) and 685 Ma (Clauer 1974). Late Neoproterozoic formations overlapping the Pan-African deformed Early Neoproterozoic are widespread in geological windows of the Anti-Atlas From: ENNIH, N. & LIEGEOIS, J.-P. (eds) The Boundaries of the West African Craton. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 297, 329–343. DOI: 10.1144/SP297.16 0305-8719/08/$15.00 # The Geological Society of London 2008. domain and outcrop, and also in some windows of the High Atlas domain (Fig. 1). The Anti-Atlas and High Atlas Late Neoproterozoic formations, locally knownas theOuarzazateGroup(or 'PrecambrianIII'), correspond to fluvial and lacustrine sequences with interbedded magmatic rocks unaffected by the Pan-African orogeny. The magmatic rocks of the Ouarzazate Group formations display geochronological ages of between 574+ 5 Ma (U/Pb) for the upper ignimbrite (Mifdal & Peucat 1985) and 543 + 9 Ma for the rhyolitic dyke in the eastern Anti-Atlas (Gasquet et al. 2005), and correspond to the late and post-orogenic magmatism (Youbi 1998; Ezzouhairi 2001; Thomas et al. 2002; Inglis et al. 2004). The Anti-Atlas and the High Atlas Late Neoproterozoic magmatic rocks display large petrographical varieties ranging from basalts, andesites, dacites, rhyolites–ignimbrites and pyroclastic tuffs to intrusive rocks such as gabbro–diorites and granites (Ezzouhairi et al. 1998; Youbi 1998; Ezzouhairi 2001; Zahour 2001; Thomas et al. 2002). The Adoudou Formation overlaps the Ouarzazate Group of those regions. The Adoudou Formation consists of a lower conglomeratic–siliciclastic Basal Member and an upper Limestone Member or ('Calcaires inferieurs'), essentially composed of limestone and dolostones (Fig. 2a). The mafic volcanic rocks interbedded in this formation have geochronological ages on the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary (e.g. Jbel Boho U–Pb data of Ducrot & Lancelot (1977) and Gasquet et al. (2005) respectively 534+ 10 Ma and 531+5 Ma) (Fig. 2). The Adoudou Formation is overlain by the 'Lie-de-vin' Formation (or Taliwine Fm, dated at 522+2 Ma and 521+7 Ma (Compston et al. 1992; Landing et al. 1998; Maalouf et al. 2005), and the Upper Limestone Formation ('Calcaires superieurs' Fm) (or Igoudine Fm) (Choubert 1963; Destombes et al. 1985; Buggisch & Flugel 1988; Geyer 1990; Benssaou & Hamoumi 2001; Thomas et al. 2002; Alvaro et al. 2006). These formations, the Adoudou Fm and 'Lie-de-vin' formations, which are about 1000 m thick in the Western Anti-Atlas but only a few hundred metres thick in the Eastern Anti-Atlas and High Atlas, are known to mark the Neoproterozoic–Cambrian transition (Benssaou 2005; Alvaro et al. 2006). The palaeontological discoveries in the lower limestone (Buggisch & Flugel 1988), and the geochronological dating (U–Pb) of the Aghbar trachyte (531+ 5 Ma) (in the Bou-Azzer region) as well as the intercalated Jbel Boho syenite at the boundary of the Adoudou–Lie-de-Vin formations (Leblanc & Lancelot 1980; Gasquet et al. 2005), confirm that the entire Adoudou Formation could Fig. 1. Simplified geological map showing the Early Cambrian formations in the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas Domains. 1, Fault; 2, Lower Cambrian; 3, Late Neoproterozoic; 4, Palaeoproterozoic and Early Neoproterozoic. H. EZZOUHAIRI ET AL. 330


There is a version of Lagrangian intersection theory in contact geometry [2]. But it works well only with very restrictive contact manifolds. For example, it does not work well with overtwisted contact 3-manifolds. Here we show the following. If we have an estimate on Hamiltonian functions of contact flow, then we can apply the theory to a much wider class of contact manifolds.


The interconnection of remote places is vital to the operation of some enterprise, therefore the use of VPN technologies is essential to the application of the enterprise strategies. To the enterprises utilize resources and personal on the implementation of these services is not always it's a viable solution, so \textitInternet providers are hire to realize the interconnection e implementation of the VPNs. A very important factor associate with all TI service is in the delivery of performance, delivery a correspondent throughput to the clients is necessary to avoid financial loss to the TI operator. With a large possibilities of choices in the implementation of VPN services, the factor of performance can be the key on this matter. Therefore in this paper will be present the analyze of performance of three types of technologies that support the VPN functionality on a level of data link and network layers, MPLS, Frame Relay, and IPSec.


For their helpful comments on a draft of this essay, I thank John Portmann, Michael Murrin, Howard Marchitello and members of audiences to my lecture version of this material, as presented at the University of Maryland, Cambridge University, University of Virginia, University of Newcastle, University of Liverpool, University of Leeds, the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham at Stratford‐upon‐Avon, the Pittsburgh Renaissance Consortium, and the University of Utah.


Early literacy for early childhood is important because it is related to reading provisions. This literation ability, should be owned by children at the age of 4-5 years. But the reality shows not all children have this ability. Some children still have difficulty recognizing the alphabet. These conditions need to get attention. This study aims to determine the effect of augmented reality (AR) flashcard media on early childhood literacy. The research design used quasi-experimental quantitative research with non-equivalent design. The research subjects were 24 children aged 4-5 years, which were divided into 2 groups, namely the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group used AR flashcard media that displays 3D images for early literacy learning, while the control group used 2D animation videos. Hypothesis testing used independent sample t-test with SPSS 22 for windows. The results showed that AR flashcard media had a greater influence on children's early literacy than 2D animated video media. This is evidenced by the more developed children's ability of early literacy in the experimental group than in the control group. The conclusion is AR flashcard media is a good media because of its superiority of insert an audio on 3D image that could explain a lot information and increase student's attractiveness. Children could see its shape, imitate it, and listen its name from displayed object. AR flashcard media was also a media with the use of ICT that could be delivered by guessing alphabet so that it became an interactive media and it could make that learning became fun for children.


Traditional strategies of resource use in lowland coastal areas may play a very significant role in modern environmental management since, in many ways, the cultural and biological diversity peculiar to these ecoystems that we now wish to protect are the product of human efforts rather than the product of nature alone. We will illustrate this using the example of the so-called closes (enclosures) in the Natural Park of the Aiguamolls de l'Emporda (Catalonia, Spain). Closes are pasture fields surrounded by tree screens that remain inundated part of the year but that can be used for cattle grazing during the rest of the time. Because of agricultural modernization in the 1960s and 1970s many closes were turned into permanent agricultural fields. Since the creation of the Natural Park in 1983, there has been an attempt to recover these traditional land uses although not without some opposition by the farming sector.


Introduction: Maternal satisfaction is a means of evaluating quality of maternal health care given in health facilities. The objective was to assess the level of maternal Satisfaction and associated factors at Abrade Swede Memorial Primary Hospital. Method: Cross-sectional study was conducted on 420 clients by systematic sampling method from February 8, 2017 to September 25, 2017. Structured questionnaire that was prepared by Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health was used. Pre-testing was done prior to the actual data collection process on a sample of 20 respondents and modified accordingly. The study was approved by Abrade Swede Memorial Primary Hospital Senior Management Committee. The collected data were checked for completeness and consistency before being coded, entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16. Logistic regression was used to assess the presence of association between dependent and independent variables using SPSS at 95% CI and 5% margin of error.


Life course is increasingly studied by social scientists, who have at their disposal longitudinal surveys and retrospective surveys. This paper presents a retrospective, quantitative survey, conducted in the northeast quarter of France, to identify the typical career paths of low-skilled adults and young adults involved in training programs. The results show situations that confirm the diversity of the direction they choose. Their concepts of training depend on their professional experience and level of qualification, although they all expect a lot of their training, especially in terms of school-to-work transition. Their hopes are often not met. In the short term, training programs meet the need for socialization, grant a kind of social legitimacy, and even contribute to development of a certain autonomy—all observations that question the training provided for low-skilled and poorly educated adults.


Objective: To review and discuss the rationale, technique and results of indocyanine green (ICG)-guided lymphadenectomy Background: In recent years, more radical surgeries such as complete mesocolic excision with central vascular ligation and the Japanese D3 lymphadenectomy have been increasingly adopted as the optimal approach for colorectal cancer. These approaches share a specific focus on the extent of lymphadenectomy. While lymph node metastases are a major determinant of prognosis and a key factor for deciding further management, it has been recognized that the extent of lymphadenectomy, which in turns affect the number of lymph node harvested, might have a therapeutic effect with improved survival in patients with a higher number of dissected lymph nodes. However, individual variations of the lymphatic flow pattern, with possible extramesocolic diffusion, have been described for all colonic area, in particular for tumors of the hepatic and splenic flexures. In addition, the definition of the area to dissect, in particular the D3 area, is based on anatomical landmarks that might vary due to frequent vascular variants. Therefore, the possibility of directly visualize the regional nodal basin might increase the precision of an individualized lymphadenectomy. ICG is a fluorescent fluorophore that, after direct tissue injection, migrates in lymphatics and lymph nodes providing an intraoperative map of the tumor-specific draining area. Methods: A through literature search was done to identify pertinent articles. Conclusions: Although few studies exist, data indicate the potential of using this technique to guide the lymphadenectomy: complex surgical procedures seem facilitated and the extent of resection is tailored to include, in up to 34% of patients, lymph nodes that otherwise would not be harvested, resulting in a higher lymph nodes yield. real-time visualization of the lymphatic map during CME CVL may help to prevent iatrogenic rupture of the lymph vessels and/or lymph nodes with consequent tumor spillage


The city gas companies in Japan sell 25, 400 million-cubic meter gas per year to 26million consumers. The amount of sale has increased favorably into 46% in the last ten years.Although there are more than 230 city gas companies in Japan, four companies with more than 1 million consumers occupy 80% of the amount of sale, and 70% of the consumers.The share of high calory gas has become 87% of the whole, and concentration to the highcalory gas is progressing. Local gas companies are tackling natural gas conversion and high caloryquantification which are big subjects with might and main.Nine gas companies in Akita supply city gas to 120, 000 consumers by using natural gasproduced in the prefecture. The gas business in the prefecture has reached a plateau in the numberof consumers and the amount of sale, because of reduction in population, deterioration of economicconditions, and intensified competition with other fuel.This time, I will talk about the outline of the city gas business in Japan, and the problemwhich the local city gas companies are facing. Then, I will mention the change of the environmentsurrounding local city gas companies, and the correspondence to such change.


The aim of the study was to identify the problems related to receptive and expressive language among learning disabled (LD) pupils in the city of Riyadh. The sample consisted of 300 pupils, (150 males/ 150 females).


The lightweight semantic segmentation network makes use of various excellent residual designs, and these residual modules not only improve the efficiency of semantic segmentation but also enhance the accuracy of semantic segmentation. Inspired by the structure of residuals, we propose a lightweight network, based on the modified BiSeNet V2 model, termed the Bilateral Residual Network (BRNet). Additionally, the Three Branches Residual Stem (TBR-Stem) module is also designed. Specifically, the two-branch structure of the original Stem Block is modified to a three-branch structure, and the asymmetric convolution operation is adopted, while depth-wise separable convolution and dilated convolution are introduced. As a result, TBR-Stem significantly reduces the computation, expands the receptive field, and enhances the feature extraction capability. Besides, the Channel Attention Module (CAM) is added to the Semantic Branch to reduce channel noise. The method achieves 73.3% MIoU on the CityScapes validation set and 143 FPS inference speed on a single NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti, finally, demonstrating that the method improves segmentation accuracy.


Applicants' job choices are influenced by pay level as well as non-pecuniary attributes, but no research has presented evidence regarding the compensatory effects of non-pecuniary attribute. According to selfdetermination theory, applicants would accept lower-pay jobs with favorable relatedness and growth attributes in order to fulfill basic psychological needs. In addition, the occurrence of this compensatory effect may depend on applicants' dispositions. Thus, the aim of the present study is to examine the effects of the difference in relatedness attributes and growth attributes between lower-pay jobs and higher-pay jobs on applicants' acceptance intention and choice for lower-pay jobs, and the moderating effects of applicant dispositions such as need for affiliation and need for growth. A2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design was conducted with 151 graduating students in Taiwan, and written scenarios were used to simulate a jobchoice setting. Results show that applicants (1) had greater intention of accepting and (2) were more likely to choose a lower-pay job when only the lower-pay job possessed favorable growth or relatedness attributes than when both jobs possessed favorable growth or relatedness attributes. In addition, applicants with a relatively high need for growth were more likely than participants with relatively low need for growth to accept the lower-pay job with favorable growth attributes when large growth-attribute differences were present between the two jobs.


Significance Control over the interaction between liquids and surfaces is used in numerous thermofluidic systems, with behaviors ranging from highly repellent to highly wetting. In this work, we demonstrate that surface engineering enables highly wetting behavior from liquid/surface combinations that are typically nonwetting, broadening the design space for thermofluidic systems. We present a surface-engineering approach that turns all liquids highly wetting, including ultra-high surface tension fluids such as mercury. Previously, highly wetting behavior was only possible for intrinsically wetting liquid/material combinations through surface roughening to enable the so-called Wenzel and hemiwicking states, in which liquid fills the surface structures and causes a droplet to exhibit a low contact angle when contacting the surface. Here, we show that roughness made of reentrant structures allows for a metastable hemiwicking state even for nonwetting liquids. Our surface energy model reveals that with liquid filled in the structure, the reentrant feature creates a local energy barrier, which prevents liquid depletion from surface structures regardless of the intrinsic wettability. We experimentally demonstrated this concept with microfabricated reentrant channels. Notably, we show an apparent contact angle as low as 35° for mercury on structured silicon surfaces with fluorinated coatings, on which the intrinsic contact angle of mercury is 143°, turning a highly nonwetting liquid/material combination highly wetting through surface engineering. Our work enables highly wetting behavior for previously inaccessible material/liquid combinations and thus expands the design space for various thermofluidic applications.


Context/Background : Fertility level in Nigeria remains high and currently, it stagnating at about six children per woman. Demographic literature had established the existence of preponderance of factors sustaining a high level of fertility in the country. Most previous studies on fertility had focused on women, and a few that examined male fertility behaviour focused mainly on individual-level factors, ignoring the influence of community contexts. This study, therefore, examined the influence of an individual, household and community level factors on male fertility behaviour in Nigeria. Data source and Methods: The study used male data from 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Results: Results showed that community variables like region, ethnic diversity, community family-size norm and community-level of education significantly influenced male fertility behaviour in Nigeria (p<0.05). Conclusion: The study thus established community contexts as an important factor influencing male fertility behaviour, and this factor must be taken into consideration in the efforts to reduce the fertility level in Nigeria


Research on regional innovation systems (RIS) suffers from two research gaps: The lack of focus on the entrepreneurial dimension and the dominance of empirical studies on "intra"regional networks and linkages between innovative actors. Referring to the agenda set by Oinas and Malecki, this paper deals with both interrelated issues. It is shown that while intraregional connections are without any doubt of great relevance for the functioning of RISs they bear the risk of lock-in effects. The complementary importance of extra-regional relationships for the innovativeness of economic regions is emphasised. Entrepreneurial migrants play a crucial role in such relationships. This paper provides a discussion of the five dimensions of proximity recently introduced by Boschma. It is argued that geographical proximity is only one, but often not the most important dimension. For international connections of innovative actors within RIS, cognitive and institutional proximity might be even more relevant. Copyright (c) 2007 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.


T o venture a sketch of early Scottish humanism in the present state of our knowledge is probably very rash. Nevertheless it seems necessary to attempt it if we are to make any sense of the intellectual state of Scotland before the Reformation. O n the other hand any such sketch can only be an interim account, raising many questions and answering com paratively few. It ought, however, at least to remove two prevalent misconceptions : that the Renaissance was only felt in Scotland for a very brief period at the court o f James I V ; or that it influenced a few and mainly Protestant figures like Buchanan shortly before 1560 and that therefore its full tide was not felt until after the Reformation had swept the clerical opposition out of control.


Corrosion can be defined as the degradation of materials in their environment. Materials failure at high operating temperatures clearly fits this definition. Peter Tait discusses by way of several case histories how New Zealand Synthetic Fuels Corporation and research organisations have worked together to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of high temperature failures to arrive at more accurate remaining life predictions.


Objectives: To examine parathyroid glands tumors in patients operated at CHC Osijek in the period from the introduction of Hospital information system between 2016 and March 2019 to investigate whether there is a difference in the localization, size and pathohistological finding of tumors between the examinees of both sexes. Study Design: cross sectional study with historical data. Participants and Methods: The examinees were patients affected by the diagnosis of parathyroid glands tumors that were operated in CHC Osijek in the period from 2016 until March 2019. The Clinical Institute for Pathology and Judicial Medicine CHC Osijek routinely examined histologically tumor samples of the parathyroid glands, which determines the size and degree of pathohistological differentiation of the tumors. While writing the thesis the existing medical documentation (archives) of the Clinic for otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery of CHC Osijek and the Clinical Institute of Pathology and Judicial Medicine with the diagnosis of tumors of the parathyroid glands was used. The analysis was performed on existing archival histological glasses with hemalaun-eozine staining. The results were processed by statistical software STATISTICA 188.8.131.52 Results: Parathyroid glands tumors are more common in women than in men. Pathohistological diagnosis has not diagnosed any parathyroid gland carcinoma, a few hyperplasia have been identified, while the benign parathyroid gland adenoma is the most commonly diagnosed tumor. Tumors are most commonly localized on the lower left parathyroid gland, and the lowest on the upper right. It wasn't noticed statistically significant difference in tumor size regard tumor type and localization. Conclusion: There is a statistically significant difference in the incidence of tumors between males and females, but there is no statistically significant difference in size, localization and pathohistological tumor findings.


To determine the optimal dose of ketorolac, investigators at a single U.S. emergency department conducted a randomized double-blind trial in 240


Mixture-of-experts based models, which use language experts to extract language-specific representations effectively, have been well applied in code-switching automatic speech recognition. However, there is still substantial space to improve as similar pronunciation across languages may result in ineffective multi-language modeling and inaccurate language boundary estimation. To eliminate these drawbacks, we propose a cross-layer language adapter and a boundary-aware training method, namely Boundary-Aware Mixture-of-Experts (BA-MoE). Specifically, we introduce language-specific adapters to separate language-specific representations and a unified gating layer to fuse representations within each encoder layer. Second, we compute language adaptation loss of the mean output of each language-specific adapter to improve the adapter module's language-specific representation learning. Besides, we utilize a boundary-aware predictor to learn boundary representations for dealing with language boundary confusion. Our approach achieves significant performance improvement, reducing the mixture error rate by 16.55\% compared to the baseline on the ASRU 2019 Mandarin-English code-switching challenge dataset.


We study the problem of broadcasting a binary source over a two-receiver erasure broadcast channel with source-channel bandwidth mismatch under a Hamming distortion measure. Given the distortion constraints of both users, we establish a lower bound for the minimum latency required and show that this bound is at least as tight as the one obtained from the source-channel separation theorem. Our derivation involves adapting an outer bound given by Reznic et al. (2006) for the related quadratic Gaussian source broadcast problem. The key step in our outer bound is to replace the entropy power inequality used by Reznic et al. with a suitable inequality for erasure broadcast channels. For the special case in which the user with the better channel requires lossless reconstruction, we present a coding scheme based on a hybrid digital-analog transmission technique and numerically evaluate both inner and outer bounds.


The aim of this paper is to assess ownership and control of Jordanian listed firms by identifying group affiliations, control-enhancing mechanisms, and the wealth of controlling owners. Hand-collected data for 237 firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) is used to identify ultimate owners, construct affiliated groups, and compute the separation between cash flow rights and control rights created by pyramid structures and cross-holdings. The findings indicate that more than one-third of listed firms are group-affiliated, the majority of listed firms are controlled by families then by foreigners and a small number of firms are controlled by the state. They also indicate that family and foreign investors use pyramids to enhance their control of business groups creating a wedge between cash flow and control rights with pronounced use of pyramids among foreign firms. In addition, the top family and foreign owners control at least 22% of corporate assets with half of this control being exercised by foreign investors originating from the Gulf region. The latter finding has important implications regarding the ongoing impact of the Arab Gulf on capital formation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.


This paper presents the structure properties of cover sheet-metal parts used in driver's cab for series of HXD1 locomotive,and detailedly analyzes the key points of process planning used in cutting and shaping process for the parts.


Natural and Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (IEMI) on a network's communications nodes can cause combinations of short-term upset, long-term upset and permanent damage to equipment. In this paper we provide new theoretical principles based on random graph theory and percolation theory to evaluate the resilience of large random geometric ad-hoc networks formed with non-directed and directed graphs. By combining these graphical representations in a common theoretical framework we provide a theoretical basis for expanding the theory to inhomogeneous networks that are more closely connected to those found in nature and in the military. The proposed metric for survivability is the network's ability to remain radio-frequency connected with a suitable surviving fraction of nodes.


We studied 67 patients with multiple contact allergies to determine whether there was an association of this state with any particular HLA antigen. HLA‐A, ‐B and DR antigens were typed by standard serological methods. There was no significant HLA association, although there was an increased frequency of DR4 in those patients who included nickel as one of their sensitivities (64% compared with 33% in controls), and an increase in DR6 in those patients who included sensitivity to a rubber accelerator (45% compared with 16% in controls). However, when the probabilities were corrected for the number of HLA antigens tested and the number of substances in the patch test battery, these associations were no longer statistically significant. We also examined the morphology and numbers of Langerhans cells in epidermal sheets from six subjects with multiple allergies. There were no differences in appearance or numbers of Langerhans cells stained for ATPase, compared with 20 non‐allergic controls.


Reinforcement learning (RL) helps to select a strategy to execute by gradually predicting and learning according to the reward or punishment feedback given by the environment after selecting a particular strategy to optimize the benefits. The advantage of this model-free method is that it does not need to understand the environment, nor does it take a long time to build a model, but based on what the environment gives, wait for feedback, and take the next step based on the feedback. Reinforcement learning is also suitable for immediate problem-solving applications. This research uses reinforcement learning to solve the problem of searching for parking spaces in urban areas quickly. The proposed method only needs to set up sensors at the road intersections to sense the vehicles and count the number of vehicles passing through, and the probability of parking vacancy can be estimated based on the length of the road and the number of vehicles entering and exiting the road in a specific time interval. Then through the evaluation results of the policy-based A2C (Advantage Actor-Critic) and A3C (Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic), it provides vehicles with the most likely parking routes suggestions. This research uses the traffic flow and parking information of each time period in the road segment of the Taipei city. At last, we compare the expected searching time of A2C and A3C reinforcement learning in the parking space search problem in urban areas.


ABSTRACT Digital native advertising is a subtle form of digital advertising that is integrated closely with its context. Practitioners are increasingly assigning budgets to this advertising strategy. On the basis of 22 in-depth expert interviews with senior executives of advertising brands, publishing companies, and media agencies, this study provides new insights into the effectiveness of digital native advertising. We also shed light on factors in the field of content and context of digital native advertising that influence its performance. We present 10 key propositions that reflect practitioners' perspectives and form an agenda for further scientific research in the field of digital native advertising.


This paper discusses the orbital asymptotic properties of a topological dynamical system whose base space is a sequentially compact space,and proves the main theorem:Let f be a continuous self-map- ping on a sequentially space X,thenω-limit setω(x,f)of a point x∈X is a nonempty finite set if it is a periodic orbit of f.As inference,the authors get exactly the same conclusion when X is a compact(count- ably compact)space.


The decomposition method is currently one of the major methods for solving support vector machines (SVM). Its convergence properties have not been fully understood. The general asymptotic convergence was first proposed by Chang et al. [2]. However, their working set selection does not coincide with existing implementation. A later breakthrough by Keerthi and Gilbert [10] proved the convergence for practical cases while the size of the working set is restricted to two. In this paper, we prove the convergence of the algorithm used by the software SV M light [9] and other later implementation. The size of the working set can be any even number. Extensions to other SVM formulations are also discussed.


Chapter 1. The Role of the European Environment Agency in Ensuring Standardization of Environmental Information across Europe Chapter 2. The Environment and Industry: Legislation and Voluntary Standards Schemes and its Potential Effects on Environmental Employment Chapter 3. NGO Perspectives on Environmental Employment Chapter 4. Employment Implications of Environmental Action Chapter 5. Global Conventions and Agreements and EC Environmental Directives Chapter 6. The Mediterranean Region: The Problem of Integration of Environmental Issues in the Policies of Mediterranean Countries Chapter 7. The Environment and Industry: Legislation and Voluntary Standards Schemes Chapter 8. The Impact of EC Environmental Programmes and Legislation on Employment Chapter 9. Expansion and Professionalisation of the European Environmental Employment Sector Chapter 10. Sustainable Development and the European Jobs Market Chapter 11. Environmental Careers and Environmental Scientists Chapter 12. The Environment - New Qualifications, New Competencies: Challenges and Perspectives for Employment and Training Chapter 13. Environment: The Right Training for the Right Job Chapter 14. Two Pan-European Initiatives in Course Development and Networking Chapter 15. Qualifying for the Environment Chapter 16. Competencies in the Environment: the Role of Further and Higher Education Chapter 17. Changing Environment - No Blueprints for Education Chapter 18. The Evolution of Environmental Careers Chapter 19. Professional Recognition in the Environment Across Europe - First and Second Diplomas Directive Chapter 20. Career Routes of Environmental Professionals - UK Survey Chapter 21. Developing the Skills for Environmental Professionals in Europe Chapter 22. Skills for Environmental Professionals - Towards a European Framework Chapter 23. Reaching a Common Language of Skills, Qualifications and Professional Development


Ce0.8Gd0.2O1.9 (GDC) powders were prepared by a novel sol-combustion method using citric acid as the chelating reagent. The effects of different sintering temperatures were investigated on the evolution of crystalline phase, particle size, and lattice parameters of the resulted GDC powders. The results have shown that ultrafine GDC powders of around 40nm in diameter were successfully prepared by the sol-combustion technique. The powders showed a high sinterability, and a relative of 95.2% of the theoretical density was obtained at a sintering temperature of 1250oC. Electrochemistry measurements showed that the GDC ceramics had relatively high oxygen ionic conductivity in low-temperature range.


Objectives: A phase III clinical trial evaluating adjuvant vaginal brachytherapy (VBT) and three cycles of
chemotherapy for patients with at-risk surgical stage I-II endometrial carcinoma did not find a survival
advantage compared to standard pelvic external beam irradiation. We performed a retrospective review at
our institution examining our management approach to this patient population.
Methods: 54 patients with surgically resected at-risk stage I-II endometrial carcinomas were treated
adjuvantly between 1/1/2000 and 12/31/2014. Their medical records were abstracted retrospectively for
pathological, clinical and follow-up data. Patients were followed for a minimum of two years.
Results: Median follow-up was 47.6 months. 22 patients underwent 0-3 cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy
and VBT (Group 1), and 32 received > three (median: 6) cycles of chemotherapy with VBT (Group 2).
Toxicity was similar between treatment cohorts [2/22 (9.1%) in Group 1 vs 2/32 (6.3%) in Group 2, p=1.0].
The estimated 5-year disease-free survival rate (DFS) was 84.3% for all 54 patients. Patients in Group 1 had
an estimated 5-year DFS of 87.5% versus 81.3% for those in Group 2 (p=0.237). The estimated 5-year
overall survival (OS) was 97.9% for all patients.
Conclusion: In this retrospective study, there was no significant increase in patient toxicity or disease-free
survival with more than three cycles of chemotherapy coupled with VBT for women with at-risk stage I/II
endometrial carcinoma. A prospective clinical trial is recommended to further assess the efficacy of more
than three cycles of chemotherapy and VBT as an adjuvant treatment option for this patient population


Describes a broadcasting method in a wormhole-routed network, which begins by decomposing a source message into many small messages in a bisection style. Then it mixes them together at an exponential speed, by means of which it achieves less delay than current algorithms. The price is that it may require more external channels for flit transfer. To overcome this drawback, we combine it with the approach of Yu-Chee Tseng et al. (1999) in order to improve its efficiency. Moreover, we prove a theorem to demonstrate that our /spl gamma/ is optimal for the Exponential Symmetric Scattering Algorithm (ESSA). Finally, several applications are put forward. Further study is needed to make the method more complete, such as extending it to other network structures.


New initiators for group transfer polymerization (GTP), triphenylphosphonium-containing ketene silyl acetals, were synthesized by addition of triphenylphosphine and chlorotrimethylsilane to methyl acrylate or methyl methacrylate, respectively, giving 3-methyoxy-3-trimethylsiloxy-2-propenyltriphenylphosphonium chloride (4a) and its 2-methyl substituted derivative (4b), together with their corresponding oligomers (8). These phosphonium salts initiate GTP of ethyl acrylate using zinc halides as catalysts. The resulting polymers, containing a terminal triphenylphosphonium group, show a small polydispersity. In the presence of zinc halides, triphenylphosphine and chlorotrimethylsilane can be used directly to initiate GTP of acrylates and methacrylates. In this case triphenylphosphonium terminated polymers with a larger polydispersity are obtained.


The ability to expand NK cells in vitro has led to the recent initiation of protocols incorporating adoptive NK cell infusions after HCT. Calcineurin inhibitors such as CSA are commonly used to prevent graft versus host disease (GVHD) in HCT recipients. Recently, Hong et al found the phenotype and function of fresh NK cells cultured in vitro with CSA was altered, with CSA treated NK cell cultures having enhanced cytotoxicity against tumor targets. However, the impact of CSA on in vitro expanded NK cell function and phenotype has not been explored. We analyzed cell proliferation, IFN-gamma production, cell surface immunofluorescent staining and cytotoxicity against K562 and renal cell carcinoma cell lines by in vitro expanded vs freshly isolated NK cells cultured in physiological doses of CSA (40ng/ml, 200ng/ml, 1000ng/ml for 18hrs). Fresh NK cells were obtained from the PBMC of healthy donors using immunomagnetic beads to isolate CD56+/ CD3− cells. NK cells were expanded in vitro using irradiated EBV transformed B cells as feeder cells in media containing IL-2 [500U/ml] for 12–14 days. Comparing CSA containing cultures to controls, there was a significant reduction in IL-2 stimulated fresh NK cell proliferation (stimulation index 0.51± 0.1) and TRAIL expression (MFI 10.4 vs 3.01). Furthermore, an ELISA assay showed fresh NK cells treated with CSA had a significant reduction in IL-2 induced IFN-g production compared to controls (median 231 vs 57 pg/ml, p=0.025). In contrast, in vitro expanded NK cells cultured in CSA showed no significant reduction of proliferation or TRAIL expression. At the highest doses of CSA (1000ng/ml), minimal inhibition of K562 killing of freshly isolated NK cells was observed. In contrast, expanded NK cells cultured in CSA for 18 hours compared to controls had a significant reduction in the killing of K562 cells (E:T=10:1, median 66 vs 43% lysis, p=0.011) and RCC tumor cells (E:T=20:1, 14.8 vs 8.8%, p=0.043). These data confirm CSA alters the phenotype and function of CD3−/CD56 + NK cells. Importantly, CSA appears to have a deleterious effect on expanded NK cell tumor cytotoxicity that was not observed with fresh NK cells. These finding suggest the anti-tumor effects of in vitro expanded NK cells could be hindered when adoptively infused in HCT patients receiving CSA.


Our Museum was initiated in 2016. It is a five-year Danish national research and development programme comprising seven university departments at five universities and eight museum partners. The project aims to facilitate new forms of citizen engagement and inclusion by developing and studying how museums communicate with audiences in innovative ways. In this text the background, aims, hypothesis and organization are presented.


In 1980's,Feng Xianguang was the first to research in the literary and art theories of "Western Marxism" in China,and compared them with the Chinese counterpart.Using the contemporary western cultural theory as a reference,he explored in ways to formulate a China's contemporary Marxist literature theory.


In this file was formulated and evaluated the feasibility of opening extension courses for productivity center of the UMNG; analyzing market, technical, administrative and financial factors; in order to annex these courses to the services portfolio of macro project "Uniting for Peace".


A fundamental aspect of engineering is the desire to design artifacts that exploit materials to a maximum in terms of performance under working conditions and efficiency of manufacture. Such an activity demands an increasing understanding of the behaviour of the artifact in its working environment together with an understanding of the mechanical processes occurring during manufacture.


The marine oyster Flemingostrea elegans, n. sp., appears suddenly in lower Coniacian (Upper Cretaceous) strata of central New Mexico. It has no immediate ancestor in the Western Interior of the United States and has not been found anywhere outside central New Mexico. Flemingostrea elegans occurs in nearshore sandstones in the Mulatto Tongue of the Mancos Shale in Socorro County and the Gallup Sandstone of Lincoln County. This medium-sized oyster, with its distinctive terebratuloid fold, is an excellent guide fossil to the lower Coniacian, and is a great aid in distinguishing the Mulatto Tongue from other tongues of the Mancos Shale in Socorro County and in differentiating Coniacian from Turonian sandstones in Lincoln County. It occurs in great numbers, often as articulated shells, and is easily distinguished from all other Turonian through Coniacian oyster species by the fold in its lower valve. Its presence above coal beds in the lower part of the Crevasse Canyon Formation provides definitive evidence for a third cycle of transgression/regression of the western shoreline of the Late Cretaceous Seaway as far south in New Mexico as central Socorro County. The Santonian dwarf species, Flemingostrea nanus (Johnson 1903), known only from Santa Fe County, New Mexico, is redescribed and illustrated. Flemingostrea nanus, F. elegans, n. sp., and the upper Cenomanian F. prudentia (White 1877) are the only species of Flemingostrea known from the Western Interior. Ostrea elegantula Newberry 1876, which has been confused in the literature with F. elegans, n. sp., should be considered formally as a nomen oblitum (a forgotten name) and not used again. Ostrea elegantula was named but not described or illustrated by J. S. Newberry in his geological report of Captain J. N. Macomb's 1859 San Juan exploring expedition. F. B. Meek, who wrote the paleontological report on the Cretaceous fossils collected on that expedition, did not describe, illustrate, or mention it. Newberry's type specimens were illustrated in 1883 by C. A. White, again without description. Attempts to recover Newberry's type locality along the Canadian River, Colfax County, New Mexico, were unsuccessful.


This paper summarized three development types and built a global multi-regional CGE modeling platform based on the hybrid programming pattern. And then,it analyzed its system structure,functions and coding method in depth. The CGE modeling platform had been applied in the analyzing some policy problems,such as the carbon tariff and the regional economic integration. Independent development and application can strengthen the preciseness and confidence level of the analysis,and should be attached more importance.


The channel assignment problem has become increasingly important in mobile telephone communication. Since the usable range of the frequency spectrum is limited, the optimal assignment problem of channels has become increasingly important. Two optimization methods, the neural networks and the genetic algorithms are applied to the channel assignment problem. To avoid falling into the local minima in the neural networks, certain techniques such as forced assignment and changing the cell list order, are used. In the genetic algorithms approach, the proper genetic operators are developed. All three constraints are also considered for the channel assignments: the co-channel constraint, the adjacent channel constraint and the co-site channel constraint. As simulation results, the average iteration (or generation) numbers, the convergence rates and the CPU times according to the various techniques for the two approaches are presented and compared.


Little research has, to date, explored students' coping in the academic domain. Yet, children and adolescents frequently refer daily academic difficulties as a common source of stress. The ways children respond to academic demands have the potential to make a difference in their learning and achievement. Therefore, the availability of a measure of academic coping is of critical importance to expand educational research and practice in this area. The current study adapted and validated the Portuguese language version of the Multidimensional Measure of Coping (MMC). Cognitive interviewing, confirmatory factor analysis, and measurement invariance testing using calibration and validation samples provided sound support for the validity of the MMC to measure academic coping among Portuguese elementary and middle school students. Furthermore, the external and discriminant validity of the scale was established based on the relations found between adaptive and maladaptive coping and their differential functionality for academic performance.


Defects introduced by 65 MeV proton irradiation into Czochralski-grown Si were investigated by the positron annihilation technique. Doppler broadening profiles of the annihilation radiation and lifetime spectra of positrons were measured as a function of isochronal annealing temperature. Divacancies introduced by the irradiation were found to migrate above 200° C and they formed stable vacancy-oxygen complexes such as V3On (n=1–3). These defects annealed out at ∼500° C. After the recovery of vacancy-oxygen complexes, oxygen clusters were found to be the predominant defect. The aggregation of the oxygen clusters started above 800° C.


The recently devised National Comprehensive Cancer Network International Prognostic Index (NCCN‐IPI) appears superior to the revised IPI (R‐IPI) in delineating outcome in diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma. We examined the outcome of a population‐based cohort of 223 consecutive patients treated with R‐CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisolone) or R‐CHOP‐like immuno‐chemotherapy between January 2005 and December 2011 by both the NCCN‐IPI and R‐IPI, and further stratified outcome by the achievement of both computerized tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET)‐CT complete remission (CR), with the latter reassessed using blinded central review by an independent nuclear medicine and radiology specialist. The NCCN‐IPI was superior to the R‐IPI in identifying patients at very high risk of systemic and/or central nervous system relapse. Notably, both the NCCN‐IPI and the R‐IPI remained strongly predictive of relapse irrespective of CT or PET‐defined remission status following R‐CHOP. Patients with high‐risk NCCN‐IPI scores (≥6) have a dismal outcome following R‐CHOP therapy regardless of PET‐defined response to R‐CHOP. Moreover, such patients appear refractory to salvage chemotherapy and thus require alternative therapeutic approaches, although age and performance status may, for many patients, preclude the safe delivery of a primary intensified regimen. By contrast, patients with NCCN‐IPI 1–5 who achieve PET‐CR following R‐CHOP have excellent outcomes and may merit reduced follow up frequency.


This review article highlights the detailed chemistry of coffee including its components; chemical constituents like carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and caffeine; aromatic principles; oil and waxes; and minerals and acids. The high extent of caffeine can be found in the coffee plants; hence, in the second part of the study, various analytical methods are designed for the proper identification, separation, optimization, purification, and determination of caffeine present in coffee, tea, and marketed coffee. These analytical methods are appropriated for the separation and quantification of caffeine. The various analytical methods include spectroscopy methods like UV, IR, and NMR spectroscopy; chromatographic methods like paper, TLC, column, HPLC, and gas chromatography; and hyphenated techniques like LC–MS, GC–MS, and GC–MS/MS. This article compares and contrasts the amount of caffeine by various analytical methods.


1. Introduction. 2. Simple Regression. 3. Multiple Regression. 4. The Special Case of One-Dimensional Location. 5. Algorithms. 6. Outlier Diagnostics. 7. Related Statistical Techniques. References. Table of Data Sets. Index.


The invention discloses a power cable insulation monitoring system which is composed of a shell, an electric leakage electric-verification contact, a voltage-tolerance electric-verification contact, a controller and an alarm. An elastic connecting strip is arranged at the outer surface of the shell, at least two electric leakage detection binding posts and at least two voltage-tolerance electric-verification binding posts are arranged on the upper surface of the shell, at least one alarm is also arranged, a displayer, an adjustable boosting transformer, a storage battery set, an A/D converter, a microprocessor, and a wireless data transmitter form the controller and are all arranged in the shell, wherein an adjusting block of the adjustable boosting transformer is embedded in the upper surface of the shell. The power cable insulation monitoring system is simple in structure and convenient to operate, can randomly detect the insulation grade change situation when the cable is in working state during the whole process, gives an alarm in time, and overcomes the defects that operation staff must be closed to the detection equipment to operate the detection equipment, and therefore the potential safety hazard of electric shock during the detection process is eradicated.


The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved was first published in serial instalments (from 1 October to 17 December1892) with illustrations by Water Paget; see Figure 6) in the Illustrated London News and were published simultaneously with the same title in the American magazine Harper's Bazar. It then appeared in book form, with substantial revisions, as The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament in 1897, and was, in fact, the last of Hardy's novels to appear (Jude the Obscure being published in 1895).


Technology of automatic text summarization plays an important role in information retrieval and text classification, and may provide a solution to the information overload problem. Text summarization is a process of reducing the size of a text while preserving its information content. This paper proposes a sentences clustering based summarization approach. The proposed approach consists of three steps: first clusters the sentences based on the semantic distance among sentences in the document, and then on each cluster calculates the accumulative sentence similarity based on the multi-features combination method, at last chooses the topic sentences by some extraction rules. The purpose of present paper is to show that summarization result is not only depends the sentence features, but also depends on the sentence similarity measure. The experimental result on the DUC 2003 dataset show that our proposed approach can improve the performance compared to other summarization methods.


The article by Jayatilleke and Mackie 1 on reflective practice in public health offers a useful and timely overview of a key topical challenge for public health professionals; particularly given its current prominence in appraisal and revalidation processes. The authors advise that evidence of reflective practice is growing in allied health professions but not in public health. It may be argued that with regard to 'reflective continuing professional development (CPD)' there has been however relatively little evaluation despite the opportunities and methods that were proposed from several interested public health colleagues in 1997. 2 There was however notable absence of reference to the research report covering the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) pilot project of CPD diaries in 1996. 3 That FPH report, while acknowledging mixed enthusiasm for CPD diary keeping and reflective notes, identified various styles of public health reflection. The diary entries were built around the first FPH 're-flective cycle', using the following steps: identification of needs and problems, discussion with colleagues/design of plan, CPD activities/diary keeping, evaluation of process and outcomes, feedback to colleagues and revision of framework/ priorities for future CPD. The diary review showed interesting examples of reflective practice and that 'some public health doctors are seeking more reflective and practice-based approaches to professional learning'. 4 Jayatilleke's and Mackie's conclusions may be because of their restricted literature search criteria and methods. It would be incomplete to fail to recognize such historical evidence of how FPH public health specialists then filled in diaries and reflected on their CPD (S. Brigley, personal communication). Diary keeping is a useful tool for reflective practice. For instance , there was a helpful analysis of unstructured daily work diaries kept by public health nurse practitioners in Finland, which illustrated work pressures and dilemmas, and scope for support and further skills. 5 Analysis of 'reflective journaling' was used to help evaluate a programme for medical practitioners gaining global health competencies that are of relevance for public health. 6 Localized analysis of public health CPD programmes may add to our understandings and gather feedback and reflections. 7 Reflective inputs played a role in one local public health department conducting their practical model of risk analysis. 8 While I agree that empirical evidence is still limited and that this echoes earlier comments made in 1996 on paucity of relevant research, 9 it would nevertheless be prudent nowadays to take a wider view of public …


In order to analyze the influence of phase random fluctuation on the far field of coherent combined beams, the theoretical ways of Fourier optics method and ergodic hypothesis were employed to study the fringe contrast. The analytic expression of the fringe contrast ratio of coherent combined beam was deduced and the influence of random fluctuation of field phases on the contrast ratio of the far field pattern was numerically simulated successfully. Results show that with the quantity η increasing, the contrast ratio of coherent combined beams increase accordingly. The fringe contrast ratio of the far field pattern decreases when the root mean square of phase δφ enhances. For a fixed standard deviation of the phase' s fluctuation and the quantity η, the larger the number of the constituent fields is, the bigger the fringe contrast ratio is. These results are useful for understanding of the characteristic of coherent combined beams.


[1] The long-term resilience of Amazonian forests to climate changes and the fate of their large stores of organic carbon depend on the ecosystem response to climate and weather. This study presents 4 years of eddy covariance data for CO2 and water fluxes in an evergreen, old-growth tropical rain forest examining the forest's response to seasonal variations and to short-term weather anomalies. Photosynthetic efficiency declined late in the wet season, before appreciable leaf litter fall, and increased after new leaf production midway through the dry season. Rates of evapotranspiration were inelastic and did not depend on dry season precipitation. However, ecosystem respiration was inhibited by moisture limitations on heterotrophic respiration during the dry season. The annual carbon balance for this ecosystem was very close to neutral, with mean net loss of 890 ± 220 kg C ha−1 yr−1, and a range of −221 ± 453 (C uptake) to +2677 ± 488 (C loss) kg C ha−1 yr−1 over 4 years. The trend from large net carbon release in 2002 towards net carbon uptake in 2005 implies recovery from prior disturbance. The annual carbon balance was sensitive to weather anomalies, particularly the timing of the dry-to-wet season transition, reflecting modulation of light inputs and respiration processes. Canopy carbon uptake rates were largely controlled by phenology and light with virtually no indication of seasonal water limitation during the 5-month dry season, indicating ample supplies of plant-available-water and ecosystem adaptation for maximum light utilization.


Peoples and states in the Asia-Pacific face acute and overlapping insecurities: competition between countries; domestic violence, instability, and poverty; normative contestation between local and global values; and susceptibility to climate change and natural disasters. Tensions in the region are amplified by complex issues of history and memory, with scholars playing important roles in defending and challenging competing narratives. Meanwhile, universities have become increasingly neoliberalised, which has led to considerable revisions in terms of how the core functions of academics—research, teaching, administration, and outreach—are framed, measured, and rewarded. What does this all mean for those of us working in these contexts? This broad question motivated a pair of roundtable discussions held on 25th–27th June 2016 at the ISA (International Studies Association) Asia-Pacific conference at University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and at the Seventh Oceanic Conference on International Studies in Brisbane at University of Queensland, Australia on 4th–6th July 2016. The intent was not to outline or defend a specific ethic of scholarship, but to reflect on how each of us understands our own role and responsibilities. One unresolved issue is how relevant the specific context of the Asia-Pacific is: are there unique or distinct features to this region that create specific demands on us as academics? Here the contributors diverge: for some, regional issues clearly shape their reflections; for others, their responses connect to more general disciplinary concerns. There is now a growing debate about whether the discipline of International Relations (IR) has lost its way, with concern about it splintering into narrow sub-fields while failing to provide influential ideas or big theories (Dunne, Hansen, and Wight 2013; Jahn 2016; Rosenberg 2016). These big questions remain important, but so do the seemingly smaller but equally significant ones about how each of us reconciles the competing demands we face as researchers, as teachers, as employees, as colleagues, as friends, and as people. In presenting these reflections, the aim of the forum is to show how some of us engage with these basic dilemmas, and in doing so, encourage further discussion around how we should study and practice IR.


The hypothesis explored in this paper is that the amount of object mass nouns (e.g., furniture, jewelry ) in a given language is related to the amount of morphosyntax that indicates the countability of nouns (e.g., many, much ) in that language. This hypothesis, together with the analysis of Sutton & Filip (2016) best captures the occurrence of object mass nouns across languages. The analysis of Sutton & Filip (2016) accurately predicts which class of nouns will have object mass nouns across languages—collective artifacts—and the novel hypothesis provides a means of predicting the amount of object mass nouns in a given language: languages with many morphosyntactic reflexes of the mass/count distinction will likewise have many object mass nouns—e.g. English—and languages with few morphosyntactic reflexes of the mass/count distinction will likewise have few object mass nouns—e.g., Greek, Hungarian, and Japanese.


Introduction T problem of support interference has, of course, existed as long as the wind tunnel. Although numerous investigations of support interference have been performed since the one reported by Per kins, very few review reports have been published. The well-known one by Whitfield only considered the effects of the support in static wind tunnel tests. In this paper, the early work on static support interference will be reviewed very briefly before going into the more complex present-day problems, i.e., dynamic support interference and the special problems associated with static and dynamic tests at very high angles of attack.


The effect of copper, oxygen and their combined effect on the yields of individual nitroparaffins in the vapour phase nitration of gas propane–butane with nitric acid is studied. It is found that the presence of copper or copper and oxygen in the reactor does not change the total yield of nitrocompounds, while in the presence of oxygen higher yields are obtained. All the additives investigated move the proportion of single nitroparaffins in the product mixture towards higher molecular species, while in the case of nitration without additives this proportion moves in the direction of the nitromethane. With regard to the primary and secondary nitroalkanes, copper does not change their yields, but oxygen increases the yield of secondary ones.


Collective foraging is a canonical problem in the study of social insect behavior, as well as in biologically inspired engineered systems. Pheromone recruitment is a well-studied mechanism by which ants coordinate their foraging. Another mechanism for information use is the memory of individual ants, which allows an ant to return to a site it has previously visited. There is synergy in the use of social and private information: ants with poor private information can follow pheromone trails; while ants with private information can ignore trails and instead rely on memory. We developed an agent-based model of foraging by harvester ants, and optimized the model to maximize foraging rate using genetic algorithms. We found that ants' individual memory provided greater benefit in terms of increased foraging rate than pheromone trails in a variety of food distributions. When the two strategies are used together, they out-perform either strategy alone. We compare the behavior of these models to observations of harvester ants in the field. We discuss why individual memory is more beneficial in this system than pheromone trails. We suggest that individual memory may be an important addition to ant colony optimization and swarm robotics systems, and that genetic algorithms may be useful in finding an adaptive balance between individual foraging based on memory and recruitment based on communication.


In the routine analysis of water, to determine its potability, the presence of B. coli in 1 c.c. is taken as an index of pollution. The real danger from a polluted or infected water supply is typhoid fever. The colon bacillus is easily determined if present. The determination of the typhoid bacillus is much more difficult. The typhoid organism is never present in a fecally polluted stream or source of water supply without the colon organism's accompanying it. If the colon bacillus is present, the typhoid bacillus is likely to be present also. It is for this reason that the presence of B. coli is taken as an index of pollution in determining the potability of water. The colon organism occurs in the intestines of all warm-blooded animals, and is always present in their excrement. Up to the present time, the colon bacilli in the different animals have not been shown to exhibit any marked or distinguishing features. If some feature or features peculiar to the colon bacilli of one animal could be discovered, it might be of material value in water analysis, as indicating the source of fecal pollution. Acid-forming streptococci, which are also an index of pollution, have been shown by Winslow and Palmer1 to exhibit marked differences in their ability to ferment carbohydrates. A summary of this work is given in the following table.


Trollius chinensis Bge.was used for the test materials which produce from Saihanba Mechanized Forest Farm of Hebei.Collecting bud,open 3~5 d,open 5~8 d and open 10 d for biomass and flavonoid content determination.The result showed that the highest of yield per unit of area and total flavonoids content were opening 3~5 d flowers.The total flavonoid content in 50℃ of artificial drying was higher than the natural air.Therefore,the appropriate harvesting time was opening for 3~5 d.And using processing methods of artificial drying at 50℃ can improve the medical value.


The paper presents results of dissemination of a novel method of synchronized pulsewidth modulation (PWM) for control of dual (cascaded) neutral-point-clamped inverters for photovoltaic generation. Basic system topology includes two insulated strings of photovoltaic panels, feeding two cascaded neutral-clamped inverters, connected to grid by a three-phase transformer with the open winding configuration on primary side. Algorithms of synchronized PWM provide in this case continuous phase voltage synchronization. Simulation results present behavior of the systems. Spectral assessment of quality of the phase voltage for the systems with three basic versions of synchronized PWM has been performed.


Abstract Physical activity and sport programs have been promoted as a strength-based way to enhance social and emotional wellbeing in young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. However, there is limited evidence that describes how these programs may be tailored for girls. Semi‐structured interviews with health promotion stakeholders (N = 11) explored organizational perceptions of the needs and preferences of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls in relation to physical activity and social and emotional wellbeing. Interviews also investigated best practice approaches for implementing holistic health programs for the population. Thematic analysis revealed two overarching themes: (1) Perceived physical activity and health service needs, preferences and behaviours and (2) Best practice engagement strategies and associated challenges. A need for culturally safe, youth-friendly services was emphasized, where physical activity and sport may play an influential role. Program development recommendations included focussing upon health literacy, utilizing co-design and creating culturally secure, fun environments.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to explore Congolese refugees and asylum seekers' survival strategies in South Africa, the focus of this paper will be on the role of the social worker. The paper is part of the study that was conducted on Congolese refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa post-war or conflicts. The study employed a qualitative research method and a descriptive case study of 10 female Congolese refugees living in Yeoville, Johannesburg South Africa. The participants have lived in South African for less than five years and there were 30–40 years of age. Data were collected by means of one-on-one in-depth interviews in the form of semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling and snowball sampling techniques were used in the selection of participants. Thematic content analysis was used in analyzing the data collected. The paper provides recommendations on what role can social workers play can in mental wellbeing interventions. This study also contributes to a better understanding of mental wellbeing issues of Congolese refugees and asylum seekers. Ethical approval for this research study was obtained from the Department of Social Work Human Research Ethics Committee (Non-medical) of the University of Witwatersrand.


Particulate Ba fluxes have often been used for providing a quantitative palaeo-productivity proxy (Franqois et aI., 1995, Nurnberg, 1995, Sarthein et al., 1988). In continental margin environments, the flux of Ba has been proposed to trace labile organic matter exported from the euphotic zone because it turns out to be affected by input of more refractory carbon from continents (Frangois et al., 1995). However previous trap studies in the Pacific Ocean (Dymond and Collier, 1996) have documented an increasing trend in the excess Ba fluxes in deep traps, suggesting either a formation of baryte within deep waters or an additional input by lateral transport. Working on the NE Atlantic margin, our aim is to verify the hypothesis of excess Ba advection and to estimate its influence on the export production estimation.


Background : Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen causing varieties of mild to life threatening community and hospital on-set infections. This study was carried out to determine the antibiotic susceptibility profile of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from wounds of patients at a tertiary healthcare facility in Sokoto, Nigeria. Methods :  All wound swabs obtained from patients with wound infections during the study period were cultured on mannitol salt agar media. The isolates were identified using standard microbiological methods. Antibiotic susceptibility test was carried out on the identified isolates using the modified Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) test was carried out using Oxacillin agar screen test as described by Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI, 2016). Results :    A total of twenty (20) Staphylococcus aureus were isolated from thirty-eight (38) wound specimens investigated. Out of which, five (25.0%) were found to be MRSA. The isolates were resistant to most of the antibiotics tested and susceptible only to Gentamicin (85%), Norfloxacin (80%) and Amoxiclav (50%). Conclusion :    The high incidence of Staphylococcus aureus isolates resistant to the commonly used antibiotics in the hospital calls for urgent need to put in place measures to curtail the spread of MRSA infections in the hospital.


This file contains a photograph of Ramsey's original manuscript, written in 1929. The page numbers and pencilled alterations were made by R. B. Braithwaite after Ramsey's death in 1930, in preparing it for publication. The article, which is now out of copyright, is republished in two later collections of Ramsey's papers: Foundations: Essays in Philosophy, Logic, Mathematics and Economics, edited by D. H. Mellor, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978, pp. 133-51; and in F. P. Ramsey: Philosophical Papers, edited by D. H. Mellor, Cambridge: Cambridge Unversity Press, 1990, pp. 145-63.


As a legal process to standardize administrative power,administrative procedure establishes the subjective role of the object of administration and even if he is deprived of freedom or property,his dignity as a human being can still be guaranteed.


The international system since the Congress of Westphalia (1648) is marked by declines and ascensions of hegemony and brings to the new 21st century great prospects regarding new rising economies, among them China. This country has strengthened mainly from the second half of the 20th century, and it is today a great economic power. Since its Revolution (1949), China has sought support in the "non-aligned" countries, the so-called Third World countries, such as the African countries. The Bandung Conference (1955) was the beginning of an intense struggle between the Asian and African countries in the search for independence, being one of the great pillars of the current Sino-African relations.
China's "peaceful" economic rise since 1970, especially when the Chinese Communist government invested heavily in its economy, is what brings up the discussion of a possible decline in US hegemony. The African continent, whose countries are rich in natural resources, many of which are essential to maintain the economies of the countries, have long been targets of the interests of the developed countries and, currently, the Sino-African relations and the growing Chinese interest in these resources, collide with the United States' need to maintain hegemonic control. In order to understand the Sino-African relationship of today and understand the Chinese interest in Africa since the Bandung Conference, it is necessary to understand how this relationship have been formed, in order to understand the place of Africa amid the disputes between powers. Thus, in addition to the history of these countries and the African continent, the concepts of hegemony and imperialism today will be taken into account.


The present invention relates to the technical field of terminals. Provided are a picture display method and device, the method comprising: acquiring the current attitude information of a terminal; according to the attitude information, selecting a target area in a preset picture as the current wallpaper picture of the terminal; and displaying the wallpaper picture in the screen display area of the terminal. By acquiring the attitude information of a terminal, and selecting, according to the attitude information, a corresponding target area in a preset picture as a wallpaper picture for display, the present invention improves the interactivity between a user and the terminal when using the wallpaper function.