Islamic finance is making waves as a rapidly growing industry within global finance. Experts are seeing numerous ingenious initiatives and activities to engage clear understanding of Islamic finance products. Nevertheless, the subject requires comprehensive and extensive reading to understand its applications in the real world. Hence, 'Puzzling the Arrows' is created to facilitate understanding and ease students' learning of the subject. Using the puzzle-based learning, this product conceptualizes a new teaching and learning methodology focusing on the development of quick memorizing skills. The modus operandi of Islamic finance products, in terms of their structure, content and process, can be easily understood by learners through the use of Puzzling technique. More importantly, they will become more knowledgeable in understanding and mastering the products of Islamic finance. This innovation draws upon a diverse literature on Islamic finance knowledge and builds upon numerous issues raised by academics and practitioners in providing attractive platforms for mastering the Islamic finance knowledge.


Nondegenerate four-wave mixing in fibers enables the tunable and low-noise frequency conversion of optical signals. This paper shows that four-wave mixing driven by pulsed pumps can also regenerate and reshape optical signal pulses arbitrarily.


As we are reading, again and in some cases for the first time, the learned essays of our late colleague Ricardo Benzaquen, one opening gesture strikes us that permeates the almost four decades they cover and that, quite inevitably, conjures up his voice and his face. It is the reiterated expression of regret and embarrassment with which Ricardo apologized for focusing "only on one, rather marginal aspect" of a given topic, sometimes due to a "lamentable lack of time," on other occasions for "private reasons that do not deserve to be mentioned" in the public sphere. He used such academicsounding formulas in the most heartfelt, almost romantically naive fashion -for nobody was more aware than him of the potentially "overwhelming complexity" hidden in any problem at stake and in any question raised by the dimension of intellectual history. Without a doubt, Ricardo was convinced, over and again, that more time to investigate and a greater erudition than his own (however hard this was to imagine) would have enabled him to produce more complete solutions and answers. This may also have been one of the reasons why, more frequently as his age was advancing, Ricardo refrained from casting his notoriously opulent and expert discussion remarks into written texts, and rather allowed editors to print them in the status of transcripts.


Pica is common in children with sickle cell anemia (SCA). We aimed to determine the frequency of pica and its characterization among Sudanese Children with SCA. This was a case-control, hospital-based study done over 6 months at a central children hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Children with SCA who presented to the sickle cell outpatient clinic age two years or older without handicap related to diseases other than SCA were enrolled in this study. Apparently healthy preliminary school children with genotype (AA) were enrolled as a control group. Demographic, socioeconomic and clinical data were collected using a questionnaire. Each patient had complete blood count, hemoglobin electrophoresis, serum zinc and serum iron level done. Pica was reported in 102(66.2%) out of 154 study patients. This was significantly higher than that reported in the control group (66.2% vs 40% p 0.001). Common ingested items included clay, ice and coal. More than one item were sometimes ingested. Hemoglobin level was significantly lower and reticulocyte count was significantly higher in those who had pica. Serum zinc was low in all studied patients but was significantly lower in those with pica (p 0.00). Patients with pica were significantly lighter and shorter.


AbstractIn this study, a fungus, Emericella nidulans (anamorph: Aspergillus nidulans), isolated from the sediments of a drain carrying effluent of pulp and paper mill, was used for biosorption of colour from pulp and paper mill effluent. The fungus turned dark brown in colour after treatment. Thus, its biosorption potential was studied in detail. The surface of the fungus was characterized by SEM and FT-IR analysis. The effect of change in pH, temperature, inoculum's size, contact time and initial concentration on colour adsorption was studied. The equilibrium data were studied using Freundlich, Langmuir, Elovich and Temkin equations. Best fitting model was Freundlich, used to describe heterogeneous systems. The pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order were used to fit adsorption data in the kinetic studies. The results showed that kinetics was best described by pseudo-second-order model. A detailed error analysis was undertaken. The mechanism of biosorption was governed by both external mass transport ...


With the rapid development of information technology, big data is gradually being popularized and promoted in various industries. Smart wearable devices have attracted much attention for their objective, accurate and continuous measurement of the amount of exercise. With the continuous improvement of intelligent equipment performance, large data analysis and intelligent wearable device technology can real-time capture the movement of the students in class data: trajectory, heart rate, speed, cost, etc., through data analysis, to monitor and intervene student's sports activities in the class at the same time, can help the teacher more scientific system of the training plan, a more comprehensive understanding of the students in the class level and performance, enhance the level of student's physical stamina and physical health and will bring far-reaching influence to sports research.


An experimental comparison of several similarity measures and preprocessing techniques used for the registration of temporally differing images is carried out. It is found that preprocessing of the images via a gradient operator improves the registration performance. This is in agreement with a derived optimal processor (described in the Appendix) based upon image and temporal difference characteristics.


In this study, a driving control algorithm based on route information is developed for a range extended electric vehicle (RE-EV). RE-EV investigated in this study is a series type PHEV and it has a range extender which is composed of a motor/generator1 (MG1) and an engine. The RE-EV system has an advantage that the engine can be operated on the optimal operating region with minimum fuel consumption. A driving control algorithm is proposed to improve the system efficiency, which minimizes the power transmitted through the battery from the engine. In this control, the engine is turned on only when the MG2 demanded power is higher than a threshold value ( ). The is determined by the battery SOC estimation model based on the route information. To validate the algorithm, a MATLAB/CarSim cosimulator is developed and the road environment is constructed based on CarSim and GPS log data. It is found that the proposed control algorithm provides the improvement of fuel economy for the target RE-EV.


1H-MRSI (proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging) is now widely used to assist physicists to analyze and quantify brain metabolites in a noninvasive way. In case of glioma, the brain tissue metabolite composition is not widely different but metabolites concentration are varying depending on the grade of the tumor. In the higher stage of the tumor, new metabolites could be detected such as lactate or lipids in the long and short echo time. These variations appear owing to brain tissue modification generated by the tumoral process and help to classify the tumor in grades. 1H-MRS provides crucial data to feed models in order to estimate the best treatment (surgical, etc). Initially, the spectrum is the result of a large number of acquisitions. With a sufficiently long acquisition time, the resulting signal resulting from about 150 mean filter appears to be very low in noise. Nevertheless in this case acquisition time is too long to envisage the study of different parts of the brain. That is why we need to propose an efficient and robust spectrum denoising method.


Phase shift nanodroplets are better alternatives to microbubbles due to their enhanced stability and smaller size distribution. These nanodroplets undergo phase transition from liquid to highly echogenic gaseous state under acoustic excitation through a process termed acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV). In this study, we synthesized lipid-coated perfluoropentane (PFP)-filled nanodroplets via sonication and mechanical agitation methods. We investigated the ADV threshold of these nanodroplets as a function of acoustic parameters such as excitation frequency and pulse repetition period (PRP). Experiments were performed at frequencies 2.25, 5, and 10 MHz. The acoustic signature of droplet vaporization was observed to be a broadband signal at all the studied frequencies. The ADV threshold was studied by increasing the excitation pressure in steps of 200 kPa. The ADV threshold at 2.25 and 5 MHz was found to be 1.8 and 2.2 MPa, respectively. The scattered response from droplets were studied at different PRPs of...


Lu-Xun is the great regional novelist in modern Chinese literary world.He criticizes and deconstructs the ragged,old society through his deep concern for human beings,enlightment as well as "curing the sick".His childhood,experiences,educational backgrounds,divergent local cultures determine his mood to hometown.This is what the cultural ecology believes that ecological condition decides the final look of a culture,which in turn would leave a mark on the literary expressions.


Migration trends in Europe since 1945 are described. The author identifies four types of migration during this period: refugee movements and other forms of population resettlement following World War II, migration resulting from decolonization, labor migration, and migration for political asylum or economic reasons.


Skip connections are fundamental units in encoder-decoder networks, which are able to improve the feature propagtion of the neural networks. However, most methods with skip connections just connected features with the same resolution in the encoder and the decoder, which ignored the information loss in the encoder with the layers going deeper. To leverage the information loss of the features in shallower layers of the encoder, we propose a full skip connection network (FSCN) for monocular depth estimation task. In addition, to fuse features within skip connections more closely, we present an adaptive concatenation module (ACM). Further more, we conduct extensive experiments on the ourdoor and indoor datasets (i.e., the KITTI dataste and the NYU Depth V2 dataset) for FSCN and FSCN gets the state-of-the-art results.


INTRODUCTION The modern educational space requires including highly professional teachers, whose level of training corresponds to European standards and world trends into the learning process of Ukrainian language students. Such provisions are set out in the laws of Ukraine "On Education", "On Higher Education", the National Strategy of Education Development in Ukraine for 2010–2021, the State National Program "Education" ("Ukraine of the 21 st Century"), the State Program "Teacher", European recommendations for language education. According to their dominant position, a teacherphilologist is an innovator who has excellent theoretical foundations of discipline, applies his knowledge in practice, conducts constant active scientific research, improves his/her own lingodidactic competency, because "the focus of the educational system on mastering the system of knowledge, which was traditional and motivated a few decades ago, no longer meets the modern social order, which requires educating independent, proactive and responsible members of the society, able to interact effectively in the performance of social, industrial and economic tasks" 1 . A modern teacher of Ukrainian and English languages must deeply master linguistic theory and linguodidactic principles of language learning, have the appropriate psychological, psychophysiological and practical training. Thus, we are talking about the formation of linguodidactic competency of a graduate of a higher educational institution as the main and fundamental competency, which should be formed in the process of mastering the educational program 014. Secondary education (Ukrainian language and literature. Language and literature English). The formation of linguodidactic competence of a modern graduate is a deep knowledge of approaches, principles, patterns, methods and techniques of teaching that represent a functional part of a language methodology. A student who has mastered the principles of language didactics is a specialist, a highly competitive teacher of Ukrainian and English, who has developed all key competencies (linguistic, professional, didactic, etc).


The 20th century witnessed not only incredible advances in the model theory and proof theory of classical logic, but also a corresponding advance of non-classical (or, as they are also called, non-standard) logics—i.e. the logics that either non-trivially extend, or actually compete with, classical logic of the Aristotelian, Stoic and Boolean tradition. Since the beginning of the 20th century, various shortcomings of classical logic motivated the development of numerous families of alternative logical systems. Perhaps the earliest manifestation of a non-classical account of logic was in L. E. J. Brouwer's intuitionistic approach to mathematics in the beginning of the 20th century, later formalized by A. Heyting in the form of intuitionistic logic and followed by several schools of constructive mathematics. The first formally defined non-classical logic was the three-valued logic of Lukasiewicz, followed by a host of many-valued logics of wildly differing properties, finding applications in epistemology, the philosophy of vagueness or computer science (to name just a few). A criticism of material implication gave birth to modal logics, first axiomatized by C. I. Lewis; later the modal apparatus was applied to various other modalities, such as deontic, doxastic or epistemic, and extended to multimodal systems capable of formalizing multi-agent and dynamic aspects of reasoning. The non-discriminating treatment of contradictions in classical logic inspired, in view of various logical paradoxes, the development of paraconsistent logics. Considerations about belief revision, default reasoning, abduction and similar reasoning methods motivated the study of nonmonotonic consequence relations, or non-monotonic logics. Several families of logics of different origins have been recognized as branches of a broader family of substructural logics—among them, relevant logics as another reply to the criticism of material implication, linear logics as resourcesensitive calculi, fuzzy logics as the logics of gradual truth and variants of the Lambek calculus, originally formalizing categorial grammar. Furthermore, numerous possible distinctions regarding existence, denotation and quantification structured the field of non-standard logics of quantification, including partial and free logics, logics of generalized and branching quantifiers, as well as various intensional and higher-order formalisms. While some of the aforementioned logics—such as intuitionistic logic or some paraconsistent or higher-order systems—have from the outset been intended to serve as a basis for non-classical mathematical reasoning, most others were originally developed as primarily propositional logics, aimed at capturing only the most fundamental reasoning patterns regarding propositional combinations of basic propositions, perhaps illustrating some philosophical point, or satisfying algebraic constraints of some kind or other. Nevertheless, even most of the latter systems have later been extended to firstorder formalisms capable of supporting non-trivial mathematical theories. So, besides intuitionistic and constructive mathematics, which are without doubt the most advanced areas of non-classical mathematics, by the beginning of the 21st century there have been developed dozens of mathematical theories axiomatized in some non-classical logic, and so effectively using some non-classical mode of reasoning for the derivation of their theorems. To give an incomplete list of examples, there are books and papers on intuitionistic and constructive mathematics, inconsistent infinitesimal calculi and naïve set theories, relevant arithmetic, fuzzy arithmetic and fuzzy set theory, etc. with scores of researchers active in these areas.


OBJECTIVE: To determine the risk factors according to the age group, the gineco obstetric history, personal and family history of cancer, and to identify a p...


Recently, rare earth ternary coordination catalyst represented as Y(CCl(3)OO)(3)-Glycerin-ZnEt(2) has been used for producing poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC, an alternating copolymer of carbon dioxide and propylene oxide) in industry scale, but its catalytic activity needs further improvement. One reason for the relatively low catalytic activity lied in that only 11.7% of active center was efficient due to possible embedding of active center in the heterogeneous catalyst. In this report, supporting strategy was developed, where Y(CCl(3)OO)(3)-Glycerin-ZnEt(2) was supported on various inorganic oxides. Two supporting methods were carried out. One way was to mix Y(CCl(3)OO)(3)-Glycerin with inorganic oxide first and then ZnEt(2) was dropped to form the supported catalyst, and the other was to make Y(CCl(3)OO)(3)-Glycerin-ZnEt(2) at first and then mixing with inorganic oxides. The former showed decreasing catalytic activity compared with corresponding unsupported rare earth ternary catalyst, while an improvement of 16-36% in catalytic activity was realized in the latter. PPC with an average number molecular weight (M(n)) of over 100 kg/mol and carbonate unit (CU) content of higher than 96% was prepared by both supported catalysts. The catalytic activity of the supported catalyst depended significantly on the supports, which increased in the following order: alpha-Al(2)O(3) < MgO < ZnO approximate to SiO(2) <gamma-Al(2)O(3). gamma-Al(2)O(3) was the best support for rare earth ternary catalyst, which showed a remarkable 36% increase in catalytic activity, corresponding to the utilization of 17% of active center. Although MgO supported catalyst gave only an 8% increase in catalytic activity, the M(n) and CU content of PPC were raised to about 143 kg/mol and 99%, whereas the PPC from common rare earth ternary catalyst was about 108 kg/mol and 97%, respectively. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 49: 3797-3804, 2011


A pressure sensor may be provided and includes: an electrode; a drive unit which applies a drive signal to the electrode; a sensing unit which receives, through the electrode, a reception signal including information on a capacitance which is between the electrode and a reference potential layer and is changed according to a relative distance between the electrode and the reference potential layer spaced from the electrode; and a first impedance between the drive unit and the electrode, and a second impedance between the sensing unit and the electrode.


Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are the two idiopathic chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. Although these diseases may show substantial phenotypic overlap, it is widely accepted that these represent distinct pathogenic entities. The cause of neither ulcerative colitis nor Crohn's disease is known, and genetic as well as environmental factors have been implicated. Previous reports implicating single microbial pathogens ( Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, measles ) in Crohn's disease are controversial and have not been confirmed.1-11 On the other hand, evidence that antigen driven ill controlled activation of mucosal T lymphocytes is a major disease mechanism has accumulated in recent years, and this has led to novel therapeutic strategies. I here review the clinical results of anti-TNF antibody treatment against the background of current knowledge of the regulation of mucosal immune activation.

The incidence of Crohn's disease is increasing in Western Europe and the USA, and is now 6–10/100 000 inhabitants.12 13Because Crohn's disease is a lifetime disorder, the prevalence is at least 20-fold higher. The clinical symptoms and signs of Crohn's disease can be rather non-specific, including abdominal pain, weight loss, fatigue and (bloody) diarrhoea, but most patients with active disease have an increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) or raised circulating C reactive protein concentrations. Although commonly known as "terminal ileitis", only about 30% of patients have disease restricted to the terminal ileum, and most patients have isolated large bowel, or combined small and large bowel involvement. The disease may also involve the oral cavity, oesophagus and stomach, and can occur outside the intestinal tract, in particular in the perineal area (histologically characterised by granulomatous lymphangitis) or located in surgical wounds. About 20% of patients have perianal fistulas, and the presence of such lesions is a substantial risk factor for eventual complete loss of the large bowel and construction of a permanent …


Detecting persons in images or video with neural networks is a well-studied subject in literature. However, such works usually assume the availability of a camera of decent resolution and a high-performance processor or GPU to run the detection algorithm, which significantly increases the cost of a complete detection system. However, many applications require low-cost solutions, composed of cheap sensors and simple microcontrollers. In this paper, we demonstrate that even on such hardware we are not condemned to simple classic image processing techniques. We propose a novel ultra-lightweight CNN-based person detector that processes thermal video from a low-cost 32x24 pixel static imager. Trained and compressed on our own recorded dataset, our model achieves up to 91.62% accuracy (F1-score), has less than 10k parameters, and runs as fast as 87ms and 46ms on low-cost microcontrollers STM32F407 and STM32F746, respectively.


One of the new trends of nanomedicine is the application of nanoparticles for targeting tumors to achieve localized tumor cell destruction while producing minimal side effects on healthy cells. [1] However, the aggressive tumor microenvironment provokes resistance to nanoparticle penetration and tumor progression, while the extracellular matrix blocks diffusion of drugs and nanoparticles leaving them concentrated in perivascular regions. [2] Although the initial burst of in vivo tests with nanoparticles has shown their potential efficiency, confirming that they could be the next generation of cancer treatments, their application will not be feasible without a previous understanding of vectorcell/tissue interactions, possible toxicity and accumulation risks. [3] The enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR), provoked by the angiogenesis process of tumors, allows preferential concentration of nanosystems on the tumor periphery, making hyperthermia mediated by these systems a potential efficient therapy for producing confined tumoral cell death. [4] That is why among the new arising therapies, the hyperthermia of tumors has been investigated as a minimally invasive alternative to surgery that can induce lethal damage to cellular components at temperatures above 40 oC. Cancerous cells are subsequently removed by macrophages, causing the tumor to diminish. The benefits of thermal therapeutics are that these approaches are minimally invasive, relatively simple to perform, and have the potential of treating embedded tumors in vital regions where surgical resection is not feasible. Although hyperthermia is a well-known concept, [5] little is known about the type of damage, cell death and secondary effects that these nanosystems mediated therapies can provoke locally. Amongst hyperthermia potential agents, graphene oxide (GO) represents the most thrilling discovery of the last decade.[6] Graphene oxide has been proposed as an hyperthermia agent for anticancer therapies due to its strong Near-Infrared (NIR 700-1100 nm range) optical absorption ability and its unique 2-dimensional aspect ratio.[7] Restricting it's all dimensions at nanoscale could allow unique performing when compared to any other nanoparticle, but it is mandatory to deeply study the hyperthermia route and the kind of GO-cell interactions induced in the process. In previous studies we assessed the cell internalization kinetics (specifically for targeting tumoral osteoblasts on a bone cancer model) for producing a safe and efficient tumor cell destruction avoiding damage on untreated cells. [8,9] Herein, we present an evaluation of the type of tumor destruction that could be produced by this hyperthermia treatment. The type of cell damage and toxicity produced by NIR laser irradiation was evaluated as a function of exposure time and laser power in order to control the temperature rise and consequent damage in the GOs containing cell culture medium. The results showed that cell culture temperature (after irradiating cells with internalized GO) increases preferentially with laser power rather than with exposure time. Moreover, when laser power is increased, necrosis is the preferential cell death (Fig. 1). The results suggested that controlling the type of cell death, the threshold for producing soft or harmful damage could be precisely controlled and so, the increase of cytokine release to the medium, having this a direct impact on immune system reactions.[10]


1 The first eight lists were prepared by Dr. Douglas E. Scates with the assistance of Mrs. Helen C. Ellis on lists six through eight. Lists nine and ten were prepared by Dr. William D. Spears and Mrs. Ellis. The eleventh annual list was prepared by Dr. Dorothy C. S. Laird and Mrs. Ellis. cent; and in Seotion XI (Teacher Education in Other Countries), 4 to 5 per cent. (3) A marked increase was shown in Section V (Student Teaching), 14 to 18 per cent; in Section VIII (Beginning Teachers and Administrators), 5 to 11 per cent; and in Section IX (In-service Education), 3 to 10 per cent. (4) A decrease in the twelfth


These authors critically evaluate the reports of treatment regimens that have been proposed recently. They then go on to outline a plan which in their opinion combines the benefits of earlier plans with attractive practicality.


Micro fabrication of polymeric materials becomes increasingly important. And it is considered as a low-cost alternative to the silicon or glass-based Micro Electro-Mechanical System(MEMS) technologies. In the present study, micro channels were fabricated via LiGA(Lithographie, Galvanoformung, Abformung) process used for Capillary Electrophoresis(CE) chip. Taguchi method was applied to investigate the effects of process conditions in injection molding(melt temperature, injection speed, mold temperature and packing pressure) on the transcription characteristics of the micro channel. It was found that the skin layer disturbs a formation of micro channel. Furthermore, mold temperature and injection speed were two important factors to affect the replication characteristics of micro channel.


Apples of Red Chief variety after stabilization at room temperature (20±2 °C) were initially washed with chlorinated water (100 ppm sodium hypochlorite) to prevent surface contamination. After manual peeling, apples were cut in to disc shaped slices of 2 and 3 mm thickness (having uniform diameter of 20 mm) and treated with 1% ascorbic acid and 1% citric acid (anti browning agents) for studying their effect on drying time and quality of apple slices. Slice size and pre-drying treatments of ascorbic acid and citric acid has resulted in significant (P<0.05) variation for drying time, rehydration, dry matter contents, firmness, quality and total colour change. Significantly minimum time (300 minutes) for drying of apple slices, maximum rehydration ratio (4.9), and maximum firmness (11.9 RI) was recorded in case of 2 mm slices treated with 1% ascorbic acid and 1% citric acid. Maximum TSS (18.9° Brix) was recorded in 2 mm slices and 3 mm slices (18.7° Brix) treated with citric acid and ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid and citric acid were effective to stabilize the ascorbic acid content and maximum (18.0 mg/100g) was recorded in case of slices of 2 mm thickness treated with 1 % ascorbic acid and 1% citric acid. Similarly size of slices and anti browning agents were significantly effective to reduce the total colour change in apple slices and minimum colour change was observed in 2 mm slices (10.0) treated with 1 % ascorbic acid and citric acid and 3 mm slices (12.25) treated with 1% ascorbic acid and 1% citric acid. It can be concluded that apple slices of 2 mm thickness and pre drying treated with 1% citric acid and 1% ascorbic acid as anti browning agents took minimum time for dehydration with minimum changes in colour, firmness, quality, and retained maximum compositional attributes with minimum browning.


Description of a class of simple, extremely fast random number generators (RNGs) with periods 2 k − 1 for k = 32 , 64 , 96 , 128 , 160 , 192. These RNGs seem to pass tests of randomness very well.


Two misspecification robustness properties are obtained by exploiting a connection between certain patterned matrices and 2 k–p designs. Firstly, the ordinary least squares estimator is shown to be robust to misspecification of the errors whenever the correlation depends only on the distance between the standardized design points. Secondly, first order designs which are locally robust to model misspecification are characterized. These turn out to be minimum aberration designs which minimize the overall confounding of factorial effects.


This report documents the results of a Phase I study on the effects of aging degradations on pr internals. Primary stressers for internals an generated by the primary coolant flow in the they include unsteady hydrodynamic forces and pump-generated pressure pulsations. Other stressors are applied loads, manufacturing processes, impurities in the coolant and exposures to fast neutron fluxes. A survey of reported aging-related failure information indicates that fatigue, stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and mechanical wear are the three major aging-related degradation mechanisms for PWR internals. Significant reported failures include thermal shield flow-induced vibration problems, SCC in guide tube support pins and core support structure bolts, fatigue-induced core baffle water-jet impingement problems and excess wear in flux thimbles. Many of the reported problems have been resolved by accepted engineering practices. Uncertainties remain in the assessment of long-term neutron irradiation effects and environmental factors in high-cycle fatigue failures. Reactor internals are examined by visual inspections and the technique is access limited. Improved inspection methods, especially one with an early failure detection capability, can enhance the safety and efficiency of reactor operations.


PurposeCotton soliton is a newly introduced notion in the field of Riemannian manifolds. The object of this article is to study the properties of this soliton on certain contact metric manifolds.Design/methodology/approachThe authors consider the notion of Cotton soliton on almost Kenmotsu 3-manifolds. The authors use a local basis of the manifold that helps to study this notion in terms of partial differential equations.FindingsFirst the authors consider that the potential vector field is pointwise collinear with the Reeb vector field and prove a non-existence of such Cotton soliton. Next the authors assume that the potential vector field is orthogonal to the Reeb vector field. It is proved that such a Cotton soliton on a non-Kenmotsu almost Kenmotsu 3-h-manifold such that the Reeb vector field is an eigen vector of the Ricci operator is steady and the manifold is locally isometric to.Originality/valueThe results of this paper are new and interesting. Also, the Proposition 3.2 will be helpful in further study of this space.


The invention provides an arsenic-chelated immune compound, and a preparation method and an application of the arsenic-chelated immune compound. The arsenic-chelated immune compound is one of the following compounds: a compound formed from an immune compound combined with arsenic ions, or a compound formed from carrier protein combined with arsenic and an antibody specifically binding to the carrier protein, or a compound formed from immune globulin combined with arsenic and carrier protein. The arsenic-chelated immune compound is an immune compound with relative specificity. Whether the arsenic-chelated immune compound is contained in serum of people in an area and the content of the compound are detected, so that the arsenic pollution degree in the area is indirectly reflected.


Management of Company always doing the function, for control all activities has happened in company,one of is Cost Control. The Cost Control need standardization as basic for control cost was used as "measuring rod control".


An approach for the deformation analysis of three-dimensional monitoring networks is investigated. Heterogeneous observations are used to derive coordinates of all monitoring points for each epoch in a local level frame. A Multi-Parameter Transformation is then performed to identify any significant movements and determine their magnitude. The mathematical model is discussed in detail. This method is applied to observations of a large monitoring network spread out over two hillsides, North Hill and Rom Hill, located at a river which serves as a water reservoir for a power plant. Failure of these slopes could potentially affect the productivity of the power plant or even cause damage to personnel and equipment. Satellite-based as well as terrestrial observations are available. The investigation found that only 7 out of 48 points remained stable over a four-year period. Results show that on North Hill horizontal movements indicate that the slope slides into the water reservoir, while on Rom Hill significant vertical movements at all target point locations indicate a settlement of the hill.


The aim of this systematic review is to answer the question: Is substantial, stable, and long‐term weight loss a viable goal for adults with obesity? To answer this question, we conducted a broad systematic search of non‐surgical and non‐pharmacological obesity treatment studies with the following strict criteria: (a) minimum 3‐year follow‐up, (b) 5% body mass lost, (c) no continued interventions in the follow‐up‐period, (d) prospective design, and (e) less than 30% attrition from the start of the follow‐up period. While the search revealed a very large number of published articles, only eight studies met the inclusion criteria. Several of the nonincluded studies report a majority of participants achieving satisfactory weight loss and little regain, especially among studies with continued interventions during the follow‐up period. In contrast, the eight high‐quality studies included in this study demonstrate a trend of weight regain towards pretreatment baseline. This review concludes that the majority of high‐quality follow‐up treatment studies of individuals with obesity are not successful in maintaining weight loss over time. The results suggest that excess weight can be lost but is likely regained over time, for the majority of participants.


The measurement method and error influence factor for capacitance and dielectric loss angle tangent value are analyzed through introducing the principle and basic structure of 750 kV capacitor voltage transformer.It is concluded,throughout comparison and analysis between on-site test result and delivery test result,that the errors generated by such test method is small,which can fully meet the need of actual operation,have a positive guiding significance to determine accurately site equipment status and improve the measurement accuracy and efficiency of high voltage class CVT parameter.


Brahman and Brahman-influenced cattle provide integral adaptations that benefit the cattle herd in the sub-tropical United States. Their heat tolerance and parasite resistance make them ideal for warmer climates; however, they tend to exhibit less desirable carcass and palatability traits. When compared to Angus, Brahman are lower marbling, less tender, and have more connective tissue. The objective of this study is to determine influence of Brahman genetics on muscle metabolic phenotype and postmortem proteolysis.


The present study is a systematic literature review that identifies the context of consumer behaviour and analytics in business to forecast the future of consumer behaviour with changing business trends through TCCM (theory, context, characteristics, method) guidelines. The authors identified that prior research used theories in different disciplines to explain the phenomenon in customer behaviour and analytics literature. When considering the theory, these phenomena often can be segregated based on the industry (e.g., marketing, advertising, sales, healthcare, human resource management, tourism), focusing on status-based mechanisms (e.g., cross-gaming predictive models), inertia-based mechanisms (e.g., theory of rational expectations and adaptive learning), or relationship-based mechanisms (e.g., theory of consumer engagement behaviour).


The invention discloses a kind of methods of quickly detection rechargeable battery capacity, it include: that S1. charges to normal cell with constant current I, obtain the normal cell to charge under the conditions of constant current I the increased corresponding relationship of voltage at any time, i.e. the charge graph of normal cell under constant current I;S2. to mesuring battary constant current I charging a period of time T, mesuring battary present battery capacity C x2=C2 × △ Cx/ △ C is extrapolated.Originally method of quick detection rechargeable battery capacity samples cell voltage, charging time, current value etc., is analyzed in the process by constant-current charge, calculation processing, just to obtaining mesuring battary present battery capacity, without discharging rechargeable battery, battery current capacities can faster be measured, be conducive to user and accurately grasp the current actual battery capacity of rechargeable battery during the charging process, suitable for fields such as lithium batteries, to not only improve energy conservation and environmental protection, detection efficiency and practicability are improved again, and there is wide application prospect.


The influence of emitters, heat pump size and building envelope thermal inertia was investigated on the energy consumption of a heat pump-based heating system with a numerical study performed with the dynamic software TRNSYS. An algorithm based on a Thermal Inertia Control Logic (TICL), which can exploit the capability of the building envelope to store thermal energy, has been applied. When the proposed algorithm is employed, the indoor air temperature set-point is increased when the outdoor temperature is larger than the bivalent temperature of the building-heat pump system. Different configurations of the heating system were simulated considering either convective (fan-coil) or radiant (radiant floor) emitters coupled to a variable-speed air-to-water heat pump. Simulations have been carried out considering a reference building derived from the IEA SHC Task 44 and evaluating the influence of the proposed control logic on both the heat pump seasonal energy performance and the internal comfort conditions perceived by the building users. The obtained results highlight how the introduced TICL can guarantee the use of downsized heat pumps, coupled to radiant emitters, with a significant enhancement of the seasonal performance factor up to 10% and a slight improvement of comfort conditions. On the other hand, when convective terminal units are considered the proposed logic is not effective and the overall energy consumption of the system increases up to 15%.


Background: Anaemia in pregnancy accounts for one fifth of maternal deaths worldwide and is a major factor responsible for low birth weight. In India, 16% of maternal deaths are attributed to anaemia. Prevalence of anaemia is higher among pregnant women and it persists in India despite of the availability of effective, low-cost interventions for prevention and treatment. The objective was to study the prevalence of anaemia among rural pregnant women and also to study various socio-demographic factors associated with anaemia in pregnancy. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out between February to July 2016 amongst 400 pregnant women residing in PHC Handignur were interviewed using pre-tested pre-designed questionnaire. Hb percentage was estimated by using Sahli's method. Results: Total of 291 pregnant women were found out to have Hb levels less than 11 gm%. 9 pregnant women were found to have severe anaemia, 149 had moderate anaemia, 133 had mild anaemia. Factors such as literacy status, open air defecation were found to be significantly associated with the prevalence of anaemia in pregnancy. Conclusions: Prevalence of anaemia among the pregnant women was found to be 72.75%. Early detection and effective management of anaemia in pregnancy can contribute substantially to reduction in maternal mortality.


Development of geochemical mapping was from local geochemical prospecting to regional geochemical exploration, and regional geochemical mapping, then to national and global geochemical mapping. Discussion is made about the evolution of aims, ideas and methodology of geochemical mapping in Western countries, Russian and China. The sophistication of geochemical mapping methodology including its unification and diversification will made great contributions in solving resources and environmental problems in the 21st century.


Purpose: The purpose of this research is to discover the effects of REBT group counseling on the self-efficacy and organizational effectiveness of nurses with high scores on dysfunctional attitude scale. Method: There wewe 21 subjects in the experimental group and 25 subjects in the control group. This treatment lasted for eight weeks. Each week, a two and half hour long session was cinducted. Results: The experimental groups showed that significant statistical differences compared with the control groups in the score of self-efficacy, job-satisfaction, organizational commitment, and nursing performance. Conclusion: These results imply that REBT group counseling could be utilized as good nursing intervention to enhance self-efficacy, organizational effectiveness at the general hospital.


In 1700, a grand embassy, headed by the voievode of Łęczyca, Rafał Leszczyński, set out on its way to Istanbul. As it was the fi rst embassy of this rank to move between the two capitals after the peace between Poland-Lithuania and the Sublime Porte had been restored in 1699, the mission was crucially important. Leszczyński was to push for the revision of some arrangements stipulated in the Karlowitz treaties, demand the incorporation of the Moldavian towns of Hotin (Ukr. Khotyn; Pol. Chocim) and Cernăuţi (Ukr. Chernivtsi; Pol. Czerniowce) to the Polish Crown, keep an eye on the peace negotiations between the Porte and the envoys of the tsar, and ransom the Polish captives from the Ottomans. In order to achieve all these objectives, he was ordered to organise post service between the Polish court and Istanbul for the duration of the mission, mostly by winning over the favour of the Moldavian hospodar, Antioh Cantemir. It seems that all these goals were secondary to the ceremonial rights that Leszczyński demanded from his hosts, both in Moldavia and in Istanbul. Those ceremonial confl icts led to the aggravation in relations with the hospodar and signifi cantly threatened the success of negotiations. The dominating approach to ceremonial disputes in Polish-Ottoman relations was the one presented by Władysław Konopczyński in the 1930s. According to him, the 'proper' political goals of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were to fall victim to the excessive ambition and absurd vanity of its diplomat.1 When we look closer at the guidelines that Leszczyński received from the king,


A mini thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science (Integrated Water Resource Management)


The electoral districting is a problem of classification under size constraint. Its objective is to classify voters according to their traveling distances to fixed election units which are limited in capacity to support voters. Thus the goal of this paper is to propose a new classification algorithm to satisfy two conditions: size constraint and minimum traveling distance to election units. We modify k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) classification to support size constraint and combine with discriminant analysis. The experiment was tested on electoral districting of a district in Chiang Rai, Thailand. The result showed that our proposed algorithm satisfied the size constraint and the average traveling distance was 10% better than the manual classification and 0.82% better than modified k-NN and SVM with size constraint.


Investigations into the kinetics of primary radicals produced in photochemically and thermally induced decomposition of peroxides of type R 1 C(O)O-OR 2 are presented. The correlation of peroxide structure with decomposition rate and with initiator efficiency in radical polymerizations is discussed. Termination rate coefficients, k t , as a function of temperature, pressure, polymer content, and of chain length may be deduced from two types of time-resolved experiments in which, after applying an excimer laser pulse, either monomer conversion is measured via near-infrared spectroscopy or the decay in radical concentration is monitored via electron spin resonance.


In analogy with the Hartogs theorem that separate analyticity of a function implies analyticity, it is shown that a separately normal family of holomorphic maps from a polydisk into a Riemann surface is a normal family. This contrasts with examples of discontinuous separately analytic maps from a bidisk into the Riemann sphere. The proof uses a theorem on pseudoconvexity of normality domains, which is proved via the following convergence criterion: a sequence {fj} of holomorphic maps from a complex manifold into a Riemann surface converges to a nonconstant holomorphic map if and only if the sequence {f7 }of set-valued maps, defined on the Riemann surface, converges to a suitable set-valued map. Extending Osgood's theorem, it is also shiown that a separately analytic map (resp. a separately normal family of holomorphic maps) from a polydisk into a hyperbolic complex space is analytic (resp. normal). 1. A convergence criterion using divisors and level sets. By convention, all complex spaces (in particular complex manifolds) are connected and second countable; a Riemann surface is a 1-dimensional complex manifold. We endow the family A(M, N) of all holomorphic maps from the complex manifold M into the complex space (usually a Riemann surface) N with the compact-open topology [5, Definition 1.1, p. 257]. Convergence of sequences of holomorphic maps will always refer to this topology. Now A(M, N) may be regarded as a subspace of the space C(M, N*) of continuous maps from M into the one-point compactification N* = N U {co} of N, again endowed with the compactopen topology. A sequence in A(M, N) is said to diverge compactly if it converges to the map identically co in C(M, N*) [18, p. 197]. The topological spaces N and N* are metrizable. Equipping N and N* with metrics, we see that convergence in A(M, A) and C(M, N*) is equivalent to uniform convergence on comReceived by the editors April 4, 1974. AMS (MOS) subject classifications (1970). Primary 32A17, 32F15, 32H99; Secondary 32H20.


Materials and Methods: A total of 26 pancreatic masses were subjected to FNAC from January 2000 to December 2001. Adequate aspirates were obtained in all the cases, without any discrimination of age and gender. The smears were stained with Haematoxylin and Eosin (H & E), Papanicolaou staining (PAP) and May Grun-wald Giemsa stain (MGG). Results of FNAC were categorized as benign tumours (group I), malignant tumours (group II) and non-neoplastic/inflammatory lesions (group III). Tissue biopsy specimens from the same 26 patients were also obtained at the time of FNAC and stained with routine H & E staining. Histology was taken as the gold standard.


P38

 Both short-term and long-term survival of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients have improved remarkably during the 1980s and 1990s. We investigated the contribution of greater utilization of thrombolytic therapy to these secular trends, and compared the survival trends among AMI patients who received thrombolytic therapy to survival trends among their counterparts who did not. The sample included 4,515 patients aged 30-74 years (2743 men, 1772 women) who were discharged from Minneapolis-St. Paul hospitals in 1985, 1990, or 1995 and determined to have had a definite AMI by the study criteria. Age-adjusted three-year mortality following hospitalized AMI decreased significantly over that period from 30% in 1985 to 25% in 1990 to 20% in 1995, with no evidence of heterogeneity of the secular trend by gender. The regression-derived hazard ratio of death - adjusted for age, gender, and history of MI - was 0.61 (95% CI: 0.52,0.71) for AMI patients in 1995 as compared with their counterparts in 1985. The frequency of administration of thrombolytic therapy increased dramatically from 1985 to 1990 (13% to 28%) but did not increase further in 1995 (27%). We estimated the contribution of more frequent administration of thrombolytic therapy to the time trend by modeling an indicator variable for thrombolytic therapy use and computing the percentage decrease in the coefficient for the "year effect" (1995 vs 1985). According to this method, only 11% of the secular trend in AMI mortality could be attributed to greater use of thrombolytic therapy. There was no statistical evidence of differential secular trend by thrombolytic therapy status (p=0.57). However, the estimated reduction in three-year mortality (1995 vs 1985) was larger among AMI patients who did not receive thrombolytic therapy treatment (31% to 22%) than among their counterparts who received that therapy (21% to 16%). Although more frequent use of thrombolytic therapy accounted for some of the favorable trend in AMI survival, other components of AMI care and secondary prevention measures appear to have played an important role.


: As the use of chemical products increases in daily life, the removal of dye waste has also emerged as an important environmental issue. This dye waste can be decomposed using a photocatalyst, and the photocatalyst can be synthesized very cost-effectively by using the sol-gel technology. The sol-gel technology is not only very useful for nanoscale film formation, but also can simply form multilayer structures. Using a multiple spin coating method, in this study, a ZnO film with a multilayered structure (3 layers, 5 layers) was formed by using zinc oxide (ZnO), which is effective in decomposing various dyes. For performance comparison, a ZnO film having a single layer structure by a single spin coating method was prepared as a control. Structural and elemental analysis of ZnO film was performed using an X-ray diffraction analyzer and an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer. A nanowire-like surface morphology could be observed through a scanning electron microscope. Additionally, UV-Vis spectrophotometer was used to measure the absorbance of UV light. The ZnO film with a five-layer structure degraded the simulated methylene blue by 49% more than the ZnO film with a single-layer structure. In conclusion, it was found that ZnO having a multilayered structure is useful as a photocatalyst that decomposes methylene blue dye more effectively.


The problem treated here is that of detecting faults in digital equipment by applying input sequences at the input terminals and observing output sequences at the output terminals. The checking of digital equipment by input/output tests applied at the terminals is motivated by current and future usage of large-scale integration techniques which make internal test points generally inacces~ible for testing purposes. The mod~l ing of digital equipment by finite-state sequentIal machines and then designing fault-detection tests based on the state table is a general approach. The difficulty is that it results in very long experiments for large state tables, particularly for the case in which the state table does not possess a distinguishing sequence, that is, an input sequence for which the response uniquely identifies the initial state. This paper presents a strategy for designing more efficient fault-detection tests for machines not possessing distinguishing sequences. The fault-detection problem may be viewed as a special case of the machine identification problem. The general machine-identification problem consists of determining a state table for an unknown finite-state machine by applying inputs and observing outputs. The fault-detection problem consists of determining whether the possibly faulty machine is describable by the state table of the known fault-free machine. The fault-detection test either verifies that this is the case or that it is not the case. If the test shows that the possibly faulty machine is not describable by the state


Transection of the lateral prolongation of the alar cartilage allows the nasal tip to move posteriorly. However, it leads to a collapsed external valve when the sub-alar crease is deep. Cephalic (not caudal) rotation of the lateral prolongation of the lateral crus into the area of the sub-alar crease solves this problem. This procedure has been extended to correct alar (external valve) collapse after previous rhinoplasty.


Catalog from the exhibition, "Concentrations I: Richard Shaffer," March 1–April 12, 1981, held at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.

Includes: list of artworks in the exhibition, essay, artist information.


Objective To investigate the short-term efficacy and safety of 125I seeds implantation in the treatment of primary liver cancer.Methods A total of 75 lesions (16 with the longest diameter of 5 cm or less,the longest diameter of remaining lesions greater than 5 cm) were derived from 63 patients with primary liver cancer who underwent CT-guided 125I seeds implantation in The First Affiliated Hospital,Sun Yat-sen University and The 458th Military Hospital between April 2010 and March 2011.The efficacy was determined at 2 months postoperatively.The changes in liver function before the opteration and within 3 days,and 1,2 months postoperatively.Complications within 6 months postoperatively were examined.Results Among all lesions,4 obtained complete remission (CR),10 partial remission (PR),39 stable disease (SD) and 22 progression of disease (PD),corresponding to the total effectiveness rate of 18.7%.However,these figures were 4,8,3 and 1 for the lesions with the longest diameter of 5 cm or less,resulting in the total effectiveness rate of 75%.The levels of alanine transferrase (ALT) and aspartate transferrase (AST) at 1 and 2 months postoperatively,but not day 3 (P>0.05),were statistically higher than those before the surgery (both P<0.05).And there was not statistically significant between the various time points after surgery.There was no marked difference in the levels of serum bilirubin and albumin between preoperative and postoperative time points (both P>0.05).After a follow-up period of 6 months,24 cases developed seeds migration and 2 needle tract implantation,2 cases developed pneumothorax and 1 digestive tract reaction,including nausea,vomiting and loss of apetite.Conclusions Radioactive 125I seeds implantation is effective for the treatment of unresectable primary liver cancer with the longest diameter of 5 cm or less.However,this treatment may induce adverse events and complication,but fatal complications are rare.

Key words:
Liver neoplasms;  Iodine radioisotopes;  Tomography, spiral computed


Abstract 4848

Objectives: the prognosis of patients with cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) is highly variable and can be influenced by several clinical and biological variables. Nevertheless, some biological data may be conflicting and difficult to combine with the clinical ones.

Methods: in order to propose a simple scoring system, we retrospectively analysed the clinical data of 337 patients newly diagnosed with CN-AMLs, aged less than 65 years, consecutively treated in eleven hematological Italian Centres from 1990 to 2005. Two hundred nineteen patients (65%) received a fludarabine-based induction regimen. All the other patients received a conventional induction regimen, including cytarabine, one anthracycline with or without etoposide. Univariate and multivariate analysis on event free survival and overall survival (EFS and OS) were performed. Patients addressed to allogeneic stem cell transplantation were censored at the time of transplant. Factors found to be significant in univariate analysis were tested in multivariate analysis. A numerical score was derived from the regression coefficients of each independent prognostic variable. The Prognostic Index Score (PIS) for each patient was then calculated by totalling up the score of each independent variable. Patients could thus be stratified into low-risk (score = 0–1), intermediate-risk (score = 2) and high-risk group (score grater than 3). The score obtained in this group of patients ( training set ) was then tested on 193 patients with newly diagnosed with CN-AMLs, aged less than 65 years, enrolled in the GIMEMA LAM99p clinical trial ( validation set ).

Results: the clinical variables that were independent prognostic factors on EFS in the training set of patients were: age > 50 yrs (regression coefficient: 0.39, HR 1.5, score = 1), secondary AML (regression coefficient: 0.90, HR 2.5, score = 2) and WBC > 20 × 10^9/L (regression coefficient: 0.83, HR 2.3, score = 2). For what concerns the OS, the same variables showed the followings statistical data: age > 50 yrs (regression coefficient: 0.48, HR 1.6, score = 1), secondary AML (regression coefficient: 0.99, HR 2.7, score = 2) and WBC > 20 × 10^ 9/L (regression coefficient: 0.87, HR 2.4, score = 2). In the training set of patients, the median EFS was 22, 12 and 8 months in the low, intermediate and high-risk group (p<0.0001). The median OS was not reached in the low-risk group and was 20 and 10 months in the intermediate and high-risk group (p<0.0001). In the validation set of patients, the median EFS was 66, 16 and 3 months in the low, intermediate and high-risk group (p<0.0001). The median OS was 66, 16 and 4 months in the low, intermediate and high-risk group (p<0.0001).

Conclusions: this simple and reproducible prognostic score may be useful for clinical-decision making in newly diagnosed patients with CN-AMLs, aged less than 65 yrs. Moreover, it can be clinically useful when the molecular prognostic markers are lacking (e.g. in emerging laboratories of some developing countries) or give contradictory results.

Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This work presents a simulation of the speed control of a DC motor using fuzzy logic control (FLC) at MATLAB environment. The fuzzy logic controller designed in this study applies the required control voltage based on motor speed error (e) and its change (ce). The performance of the driver system was evaluated through digital simulations using Simulink toolbox of Matlab/spl reg/. The simulation results show that the control with FLC outperforms PI control in terms of overshoot and steady state error.


produce westernized music in a society lacking sophisticated instrumentalists but able to provide an unlimited number of serfs capable of performing on primitive instruments. The mutual absorption of the native and Italianate in the last third of the century is evident in the collaboration between Maksim Berezovskii, instructed by Italians in St. Petersburg, and Baldassare Galuppi, who arrived in the capital in 1765. For Ritzarev, the former's works were a pattern for the latter's creative handling of the Russian liturgical style. In exchange, Berezovskii's popular Obednia integrated innovative classical harmony with the partes singing tradition; it was a blend, as Jacob von Stahlin approvingly noticed, of "fiery Italian harmony and soft Greek melody" (91). The just due given to immigrant virtuosi in this study is balanced by a full reappraisal of the leading Russian contributors to eighteenth-century Russian music—Berezovskii, Ivan Khandoshkin, Stepan Degtiarev, and, above all, Dmitrii Bortnianskii. Music making is constandy placed in its contemporary social and political context, with the personal predilections of Russia's rulers shown to be crucial. Even Catherine II's personal indifference to matters musical, as well as sacred, was vital in allowing an unfettered development of spiritual choral concertos that spread over the country in her reign. This was indeed benign neglect. Less assured are the forays into the history of ideas, such as the reference to "the revolutionary wing of the Russian enlightenment" (155) and the attempt to suggest an ideological link between Nikolai L'vov's 1790 Collection ofRussianFolk Songs and Aleksandr Radishchev's fourneyfrom St Petersburg to Moscow. But these flaws do not diminish the weight of detailed information on individuals; the roles of court, nobility, and serfs; genres; the interaction between incoming trends and native traditions; the process of acculturation; and the shifts in public taste in an impressively comprehensive study richly illustrated with over a hundred comparative music examples.


We investigated the effects of the age of cabbage plug seedlings on the initial growth and carbohydrate partitioning after transplanting. Seedlings grown in 9-ml cells were transplanted into 350-ml pots 14, 21 or 28 days after sowing. Analyses for soluble sugar and starch revealed that they accumulated more in leaves than in roots. Starch concentration in leaves was higher than that of soluble sugar; it increased with seedling age. During seven days after transplanting, the relative growth rate decreased with increasing seedling age; this decrease was greater in shoots than in roots. Lower leaves enlarged more slowly after transplanting than did leaves at upper positions. The accumulated starch in the 1st leaf decreased rapidly after transplanting. Root growth of 28-day seedlings after transplanting was retarded less by shading of the 1st leaf than by leaf removal, while that of 14-day seedlings was retarded equally by both treatments. In 21-day seedlings, the distribution rate of 14C-photoassimilates from the 1st leaf to roots increased after transplanting. These results indicate that starch, accumulating in leaves before transplanting, hydrolyzed to sugars that rapidly translocated to the roots after transplanting.


Recent developments in direct injection foam processing using styrene–maleic anhydride (SMA) copolymer have resulted in a distinct and significant increase in the performance of foam packaging for food service applications. There are several problems that a consumer could experience when using a traditional polystyrene (PS) foam takeout container. To begin with, the heat of food at serving temperatures can cause warping of the package. In addition, oils and other ingredients from particular foods can quickly weaken a PS foam container making PS foam containers unsuitable for microwave reheating of food. SMA foam packages improve performance in all of these areas. Data are presented on the thermal stability of injection molded samples. Extruded foam sheet flexural properties are studied. Finally, microwave re-heat performances of clamshell containers made from rubber modified SMA copolymers are compared to containers made from PS.


One of our last topics concerns perfect graphs. These are a fairly general class of graphs with a nice polyhedral characterization of the convex hull of independent sets. We can find maximum independent sets and minimum colourings in such graphs in polynomial time, but to date the only polynomial-time algorithms that do so utilize semidefinite programming! To further motivate our discussion, we take a polyhedral perspective. For a graph G = (V ;E), consider the following "convex relaxation" of the set of independent sets of G: P = {x ∈ R≥0 : xu + xv ≤ 1 for each uv ∈ E}. Earlier we saw P has integral extreme points if and only if G is bipartite. This is a fairly weak relaxation in general graphs. Setting xv = 1 2 for each v ∈ V is feasible even if G is a large clique! We consider a stronger polytope now, based on the observation that a clique can contain at most one vertex from any independent set.


Objectives Rapid antigen tests have been used to prevent the spread of the COVID-19; however, there have been concerns about their decreased sensitivity to the Omicron variant. In this study, we assessed the sensitivity and specificity of the rapid antigen test compared with the PCR test among the players and staff members of the Japan Professional Football League and clubs. Furthermore, we evaluated the relationship between the sensitivity and the duration from the onset of symptoms to testing or vaccine status. Design This was a retrospective observational study. Methods We used 656 results from both the rapid antigen and PCR tests for COVID-19 using samples collected on the same day from 12 January to 2 March 2022, during the Omicron variant outbreak in Japan. Results The sensitivity of the rapid antigen test compared with the PCR test was 0.63 (95% CI: 0.53 to 0.73) and the specificity was 0.998 (95% CI: 0.995 to 1.000). There were no significant associations between the sensitivity and the duration from the onset of symptoms to testing (including asymptomatic cases in the category) or vaccination status (p>0.05) with small effect sizes (Cramer's V or φ: ≤0.22). Conclusions Even during the Omicron outbreak, the sensitivity of the rapid antigen tests did not depend on the duration from the onset of symptoms to testing.


In order to further elucidate the mechanism of electron solvation in polar liquids we have determined the rate of electron attachment to solute methanol aggregates, as a function of methanol concentration, in two nonpolar solvents. An infrared technique was used to measure the extent of methanol aggregation in the solutions. The methanol is present as monomer at low concentration but at high concentration forms aggregates which are mostly pentamers. The electron in unreactive with monomer but reacts at high rate with aggregate species. The reaction with pentamers is reversible, but the electron reacts irreversibly with larger aggregates. The results indicate a dynamic nature for the electron which can autodetach from shallow traps.


Attenuated end-diastolic and end-systolic left ventricular counts which obtained from cardiac gated blood pool scan were corrected using experimentally calculated attenuation coefficient and depth of center of left ventricle. This method was confirmed to be correct experimentally using phantom balloon. To compare the accuracy of attenuated and attenuation-corrected left ventricular volume measurement, authors studied 10 patients with ischemic heart disease who underwent both gated blood pool scan and X-ray contrast ventriculography within a week. The attenuated and attenuation-corrected left ventricular volume measured by count method correlated with contrast ventriculographic volumes; however, attenuation corrected measurement was correlated more closely.


An optimization model is developed for scheduling electricity and heat production in a microgrid under a day-ahead market environment considering the operation constraints and the volatility of wind power generation.The model optimizes the total operation costs from energy and heating consumption,meanwhile considers the minimization of the actual flow deviation at the point of common coupling(PCC) from scheduled values.The stochastic nature of wind output is represented by different scenarios with the help of scenario generation and reduction techniques.The model is finally formulated into a mixed-integer programming(MIP) problem.Numerical simulations present the efficacy of the proposed model for day-ahead scheduling of a microgrid with wind penetration under the deregulated environment.


Innovation and technological change are important drivers of economic growth. There is strong evidence that various types of innovation, whether they differ by source, goal, or field, have differing implications for economic outcomes. These arise primarily because of differences in the level of associated externalities (spillovers) and in the ability of innovators to internalize the public benefits from these activities (appropriability). In my research, I focus on identifying the nature and magnitude of these spillovers. Additionally, building on recent advances in the structural modeling of firm incentives, I quantify the extent of appropriation by innovators, particularly as it varies across innovation types. This allows one to provide a detailed accounting of misallocation in the economy and consider policies which can alleviate this. In the first chapter, entitled "Technological Interdependence", I study theoretically and empirically how the level of interdependence between new and old technology affects firm dynamics and the incentives for innovation. In the second chapter, entitled "Back to Basics" (joint work with Ufuk Akcigit and Nicolas Serrano-Velarde), we propose and utilize a novel strategy for quantifying the spillovers associated with basic research as they differ from applied research. Finally, in the third chapter, entitled "Transition to Clean Technology" (joint work with Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, and William Kerr), we construct and estimate a joint model of the climate-economy system and investigate the effects of various carbon policies. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Economics First Advisor Ufuk Akcigit


To improve the computational efficiency of Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), in this paper, LBM with doule meshes is presented, whose basic ideology is borrowed from the Finite Difference Method (FDM). Taking merits of both the coarse and fine meshes, the presented method speeds up the convergence, and increases the computational efficiency. Three numerical examples, two-dimensional Poiseuille flow, backward-facing step flow and flow in channel with a rectangular slot, are illustated, proving that time cost by double-mesh LBM is much less than that by commonly used uniform-mesh LBM, and the results obtained are correct and dependable.


Simple Summary Chorioptes mites are particularly common in goats, with infestations usually subclinical and often asymptomatic. In the present case, many animals had a severe clinical presentation, possibly due to the associated dermatophyte infection (Trichophyton verrucosum), since a concurrent or underlying disease may exacerbate clinical response. Goats were treated topically with pour-on Eprinomectin (1 mg/kg), while an enilconazole solution was used for environmental disinfection against dermatophyte spores. Abstract A concurrent chorioptic mange and dermatophytosis outbreak occurred in a goat flock in northwestern Italy. Sanitation of the flock was obtained following pour-on eprinomectin application at a dose of 1 mg/kg; enilconazole was used for environmental disinfection against dermatophyte spores.


This paper shows that there are some problems during the development of the Guanzhong city group such as slow industrial development,unbalanced industrial structure and irrational industrial distribution,through the indicator system of regional economic quantitative analysis,especially from the city herarchy,regional industrial structure and industrial distribution of the Guanzhong city group.The results is to strengthen the function of Guanzhong city group as a central city,relocate the urban function and make a sensible layout.


In presented article denominated attempt of the cognition to essence such notion, as state and person, by means of synergic of the approach with inherent its method of the system analysis of the processes and phenomenas.


In 0-1 scored CAT,a new item selection strategy is proposed to improve the MIS-B method by introducing the Modified Multinomial Model.The results of Monte Carlo simulations show that compared with MIS-B,the approach proposed in this paper can reducing item overexposure rate,balancing item usage within the item bank,and maintaining measurement precision.


An important issue in water management is to adequately respond to extreme events. Floods often cause large disasters, which may include casualties, loss of properties, damage and economic losses. One way to respond to such disasters is to anticipate to its occurrence, such that people can be warned in time, enabling them to secure valuable properties and evacuate in time. Therefore, hydrologic models and/or hydraulic models can be used to predict discharge volumes, flood extents and heights. However, as models are prone to errors, external data may be used to improve the model output and increase the prediction accuracy. One source of external data is remotely sensed information. In the HYDRASENS project, new strategies were explored to integrate radar remote sensing, hydrologic, and hydraulic modelling for water management purposes through data assimilation. The project also aims at demonstrating the applicability of advanced data assimilation schemes for a set of water management problems. As soil moisture determines the partitioning of precipitation into infiltration and direct runoff, the retrieval of this variable from remote sensing received major attention within this project. At the micro-catchment scale, this is achieved using a combination of advanced hydro-geophysical techniques, focusing on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), which is optimized and integrated for fast and high resolution soil moisture measurements. At the catchment scale soil moisture is derived from radar remote sensing through a new retrieval scheme which omits the use of detailed measurements of surface roughness. Alternatively, possibility theory is explored for the retrieval of soil moisture from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data in order to assess the uncertainty in the soil moisture retrievals. Further, it was validated whether time series of radar images can be used to obtain soil moisture information. Besides soil moisture, another important variable for water management is the extent of floods. Remote sensing of floods was generally thought to be unfeasible within urbanized areas and beneath a vegetation cover. Through fusing of SAR data and high accuracy digital elevation models a solution for these problems was found. Furthermore, the uncertainty of the flood maps due to speckle in the radar image was studied. In order to better understand the relationship between ground- and satellite-based radar data, the link between nearby (GPR) and satellite-based radar (SAR) remote sensing was partly explored. Scaling properties of soil moisture were studied and the soil moisture values derived from both these sensor types at different observation scales were examined and compared. The remote sensing and modelling aspects of the proposal are then integrated in a number of hydrologic modelling and data assimilation studies. At the micro-catchment scale, the impact of the small-scale variability of GPR-derived soil moisture on hydrologically modelled runoff was quantified. At the catchment scale, soil moisture information, obtained through the newly developed retrieval technique, the possibilistic retrieval algorithm and change detection techniques, are incorporated in the hydrologic and hydraulic model through adequate data assimilation algorithms, aiming at improved predictions of soil moisture fields and discharge. Methodologies to assimilate flood extents and inundation depths into hydraulic models have been developed. Finally, a coupled hydrologic/hydraulic model was developed and different data assimilation systems were implemented for this coupled model. Finally, a number of scenarios relevant to water management were identified and were analysed based on state-of-the-art methodologies developed within this project.


Focusing on the development trend of maize breeding technology, this paper uses the methods of bibliometric analysis, co-word network analysis, visual analysis and content analysis to retrieve the papers and patents in CNKI literature database and incopat patent database, uses Excel, network analysis integration software, visual analysis system to from the aspects of article load, high-frequency authors, research hotspots, core journals, patent layout, Carry out in-depth mining and visual analysis of research situation in this field, and prospects for the future research. The results show that the number of literatures on maize breeding technology has increased year by year since 1957, and researchers' attention to this field has gradually increased. Under the strategy of fighting a turnaround in the seed industry, it will continue to receive attention. Relevant research is mainly focused on crop disciplines, and the fund support obtained is relatively diversified, basic and applied basic research institutes account for the largest proportion, and more than 50% of the literature is mainly published in professional journals, Patent applications are mainly applied by scientific research institutions and enterprises, supplemented by colleges and universities. Research hotspots mainly focus on maize genetic breeding, biological breeding, waxy maize, sweet maize, breeding technology, disease resistance breeding. In the future, it will be a research hotspot in the aspects of 'machine harvest + transgenic', industrialization of biological breeding and digitization of maize production.


The effect on pilot scan behavior of both advanced cockpit and advanced manuevers was assessed. A series of straight-in and curved landing approaches were performed in the Terminal Configured Vehicle (TCV) simulator. Two comparisons of pilot scan behavior were made: (1) pilot scan behavior for straight-in approaches compared with scan behavior previously obtained in a conventionally equipped simulator, and (2) pilot scan behavior for straight-in approaches compared with scan behavior for curved approaches. The results indicate very similar scanning patterns during the straight-in approaches in the conventional and advanced cockpits. However, for the curved approaches pilot attention shifted to the electronic horizontal situation display (moving map), and a new eye scan path appeared between the map and the airspeed indicator. The very high dwell percentage and dwell times on the electronic displays in the TCV simulator during the final portions of the approaches suggest that the electronic attitude direction indicator was well designed for these landing approaches.


Pillow-plate heat exchangers (PPHE) represent an innovative heat exchanger design and are a promising alternative to conventional shell-and-tube and plate heat exchangers. However, no reliable design methods for PPHE are available in the open literature. The aim of our work is to close this gap by carrying out a comprehensive study on fluid dynamics and heat transfer in PPHE. In this contribution, the results of a CFD-based investigation of single-phase turbulent fluid flow and heat transfer in pillow plates are presented. The genuine pillow-plate geometry is reproduced using deformation simulations. This method adequately imitates the hydroforming process during the real manufacturing of pillow plates and thus permits an accurate reconstruction of the wavy pillow-plate channels. The generated geometry is then used to carry out CFD simulations for the investigation of fluid flow, pressure loss and heat transfer in pillow plates. The simulation results are successfully validated against experimental measurements performed by our group. Finally, the use of oval welding spots instead of circular ones, as a possibility for improving the thermo-hydraulic performance of pillow-plates, is investigated.


Endometriosis represents a multifaceted disease with controversial pathogenesis. Effective medical therapy for endometriosis is still urgently needed. In this study, we attempted to reveal the association between CCL27 and endometriosis to investigate new approach in the endometriosis etiology and treatment. We examined the expression of CCL27 in endometriotic tissue and serum samples. Then we analyzed the effects of CCL27 on cell proliferation, migration, invasion, adhesion and signaling pathway in endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) separated from ectopic endometrial tissues after CCL27 knockdown. We found that CCL27 was aberrantly elevated in endometriosis. And the knockdown of CCL27 suppressed endometriosis progression by inhibiting cell growth, metastasis and adhesion in ESCs. And these repressed processes might be mediated by the JAK2/STAT3 pathway inactivated by silencing CCL27 in endometriosis. In conclusion, this study suggests that abnormal expressed CCL27 may function as a stimulative factor in the development of endometriosis.


Abstract Rights are commonly distinguished in African ethics from Western rights according to the distinct ideas of personhood which ground them. However, this sacrifices universality for cultural specificity. Against this approach, I argue that universal rights are better supported by consensual rights recognition. I show how normative justification of rights from consensual recognition is consistent with deliberative ideas of justice in African ethics. Africanist criticism, of individualist bias in Eurocentric interpretations of rights, supports the contention that rights are justified between people, not in personhood. Consensually accredited, recognized critical norms are preferable to rules derived from personhood, for the normative justification of universal rights from African ethics.


Due to long period natural evolvement,real terrain surface is an anisotropic and nonlinear field.Moreover,terrain surface is not always so perfect that it keeps invariable self-similar characteristic in whole scale space.Traditional construction method based on isotropic single self-similar field has weaker ability to describe such complex surface.Consequently,multi-scale self-similar random field are used to construct isotropic multi-scale self-similar surface.And then,a structure filter,which transforms an isotropic field to an anisotropic field by spectrum filtering,is introduced to construct anisotropic multi-scale self-similar terrain.Simulation results show that presented approach not only constructs the orientation of mountain but also accord with varying degrees of roughness at different scales.


Abstract The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been developing the 150 MWe Prototype Generation-IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (PGSFR). The design concept is highly based on passive safety mechanisms, minimizing the need for engineered safety systems. Presently, it is of primary importance to assure the reactor dynamics and stability against small reactivity disturbances under power operating conditions. KAERI has therefore developed the NuSTAB code for stability analysis of the PGSFR. In NuSTAB, the neutron-kinetic and thermal-hydraulic coupling equations are linearized to form the characteristic equation, which is solved as a generalized eigenvalue problem for determining the decay ratio, an indicator of the system stability. In this paper, the stability of the PGSFR was analyzed by applying the point kinetic and spatial kinetic options in the NuSTAB code. System responses to temperature feedbacks including the Doppler effect, thermal expansion, coolant density change, and overall feedback were studied. The results indicate that the initial U and final TRU cores of the PGSFR are both inherently stable thanks to the temperature feedbacks.


A new species of sinamiid fish, Sinamia liaoningensis, is described from the Barremian-Aptian Yixian and Jiufotang formations of western Liaoning, China and the morphology of the sinamiid fishes is reviewed. The new materials reveal three synapomorphies of the Sinamiidae proposed by Grande and Bemis (1998): the presence of only a single median parietal; three pairs of extrascapular bones; and short dermopterotic about equal in length to parietal length. The new species was attributed to Sinamia because it has three synapomorphies of the genus: relative small postinfraorbitals, a long dorsalo n and rhombic scales. The new species is a big podgyo sh and it differs from all other species of the genus in the shape of the rostral, nasal, preopercle, the size and shape of infraorbitals, more subinfraorbitals (3), less dorsalo n rays (18), more caudalo n rays (16), more scale rows (32) between the origin of the analo n and the dorsal margin of the body, and lack of serrated scales. The anterior half of the caudalo n rays of S. liaoningensis sp. nov. has remains of thin o brous actinotrichia.


PURPOSE
The aim was to analyse the consumption of selected strong opioid analgesics during a seven-year period of 2003-2009 in order to compare Slovak consumption with that in six other European countries and to determine our position.

METHODS
Drug consumption data from the State Institute for Drug Control in Slovak Republic were used. As to the data from other countries, annual health statistics published on websites were used in comparison.

RESULTS
Obviously the consumption of one of studied opioid drugs with transdermal aplication route, particularly fentanyl, tended to increase in all countries during the observed period. Oxycodone tends to yield a rapid increase in consumption as well. As opposed to the latter drugs, the consumption of morphine was decreasing throughout the observed period. The consumption of these drugs in Slovakia remains low (except for that of fentanyl).

CONCLUSION
Our analysis confirmed a clear shift from oral to transdermal therapy as well as usage of newer drugs. Drug consumption data are a relatively new source of information for health research. Our analysis showed increasing trends in fentanyl (patch opioid) consumption in all compared countries as well as an increasing consumption of oxycodone and decreasing consumption of morphine (Fig. 3, Ref. 17).


The spatial variability of soil attributes has received attention more than the temporal variability, but the latter is very useful and important for the management of water and soil. This study aimed to analyze the temporal stability of water storage in the soil to determine the area of parts may constitute the humidity mean value of the studied area. The study was conducted in an area with Quartzarenic Neosol, cultivated with vine and irrigated by micro, in the city of Petrolina, PE. The monitoring of the water in the soil was accomplished by probes 11 and 11 TDR probes neutron access tubes, distributed side by side in different points of the area. The techniques suggested by Vachaud et al were used. (1985) and Kachanoski and De Jong (1988) to evaluate the temporal stability of the water storage in soil, over time. The results showed that the TDR and neutron probes estimated storage values very similar to the soil profile analyzed during the study period. The storage values in the studied dates showed excellent stability over time, to the 11 sampled points. Through the analysis of average relative differences were identified among the monitored points, for each device (TDR and neutron probe), which is the best point of the storage medium, according to their greater temporal stability. For TDR, point 3 was the most indicated as representative of the average of the area; already for neutron probe was the point 1 that best represented the average. Therefore, these points would be the best representatives for carrying out a moisture sampling the soil with their equipment; Furthermore, could be used to monitor the soil water to the irrigation purposes.


This paper is an exploratory study of the demand for travel by the urban poor. It is the first step in an effort to understand how changes in the cost and extent of public transport services and infrastructure affect poor urban households. It examines transport as a means for the poor to travel to and from work, search for jobs, and access public services - including schools and health facilities - that are required to increase the productivity of this population. The paper goes beyond the simple modal choice model of transport demand to encompass interpersonal constraints arising from the allocation of tasks among household members and spatial constraints facing the urban poor. It evaluates Bank transport policy from the perspective of the use of transport services, rather than from the perspective of the municipal government or public transport operators. Of particular concern is how rising fares for public transport and deregulation of formal and informal transport affects the mobility of the urban poor.


Kalimeris indica samples were dried using the following drying regimes;hot air drying(52,56 and60℃at 1.5m/s);microwave drying(150,225 and 300Wpower).The drying of Kalimeris indica took place in the falling rate drying period with convection drying taking the longest time.Higher drying rates were observed with the higher power level.These results show that the drying time of Kalimeris indica sample was shortened form 200~400min by hot air drying to the 5~8min range when dried by microwave energy.Microwave finish dried Kalimeris indica was better in colour and had the highest rehydration value.


Bioinspired optimization is concerned with the development and implementation of algorithms and devices based on our understanding of nature. In contrast to learning from nature by imitating natural designs, Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) mimic natural processes to find optimal designs. In the successful translation of the natural evolution process into efficient and robust computer algorithms, model building plays a central role. Modern EAs incorporate methods from machine learning to build models of the problem at hand. These efforts include models in the form of probability distributions used to sample new search points, and meta-models used to replace costly evaluations of the objective function by cheap estimates. This thesis focuses on the development of EAs incorporating model building techniques and their application to challenging fluid mechanics problems. In the first part we address model building in EAs for continuous parameter domains by both analyzing existing algorithms and developing new methods. The goal is to enhance the efficiency and robustness of continuous EAs in order to increase their application range to more expensive optimization problems. In the framework of Estimation of Distribution Algorithms, we assess different approaches for learning the probability distributions used to sample new search points. Our investigations indicate that the key features for robust and efficient search are the ability to control the overall variance of the search distribution and capability to model correlations between variables of the search space. Following this work we develop a method to incorporate meta-models based on locally weighted regression into Evolution Strategies. The local meta-model can considerably speedup the search while the performance of the underlying Evolution Strategy is not jeopardized when the prediction quality is insufficient. The first part is concluded with an investigation of the role of the population size for global optimization with the Evolution Strategy with Covariance Matrix adaptation. We find that large populations can greatly improve the search performance of the algorithm on highly multi-modal problems. In the second part of this thesis, we apply EAs in a reverse engineering framework for the investigation of complex fluid mechanics problems. We optimize motion patterns of a simulated self propelled eel-like swimmer. In this procedure, objectives such as swimming


In this work, three novel carboxyphenylporphyrins (TcPP-M, M= H, Cu y Zn) have been synthesized and their efficiency in the photooxidation of anthracene under visible light (l> 500 nm) through generation of oxygen singlet (1O2) has been evaluated. The presence of 1O2 was evidenced by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR), where  it reacts with 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidone-N (TEMP) to produce 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidone-N-oxyl radical (TEMPO). The catalytic results indicated that the incorporation of the metal in the porphyrin ring strongly affects their efficiency on the anthracene oxidation. The TcPPH showed a higher photonic efficiency (31%) in the anthracene conversion than TcPPZn (13%) and TcPPCu (9%). This result may be related to the disruption of the planarity of the porphyrin ring. Finally the formation of anthraquinone and oxanthrone was detected as the oxidation products in the anthracene oxidation with 1O2.


Design of a Heat Exchanger for a Supercritical CO2 Turbine System Kehinde Adenuga This research aims at designing a shell and tube heat exchanger which will drive a turbine operated on supercritical CO2. Hot gases from boiler (simulated using air) at 1500 K is introduced into the shell to heat up the supercritical CO2 at 10 MPa flowing within tubes from 450 K to 1050 K. The design was done using selected shell and tube heat exchanger empirical equations at predefined boundary conditions. The effect of shell and tube diameter on other design parameters was examined. It was observed that the number of tubes, tube external and internal side surface area, volumes of shell and tube, overall surface area and mass of tube material increases as the shell diameter increases from 6 m to 18 m at 2 m interval and this is due to the increase in cross sectional area. The shell length, the number of baffles, overall heat transfer coefficient, the pressure drop in both shell and tube sides all decreases as shell diameter increases at same rate as described previously, and this is attributed to a reduced velocity caused by the increased cross section area of tubes and baffle space. The increase in tube diameter from 0.0092 m to 0.12 m at 0.02 m intervals however leads to an increase in shell length, volume of tube material, number of baffles, shell side pressure drop, tube side pressure drop, overall area of the device ,tube external side surface area and tube internal side surface area. However, the overall heat transfer coefficient, total length of tubes and number of tubes decreases as the tube diameter increases at same rate as described previously. A decision was made on the selected heat exchanger based on fewer tubes, reduced mass of tube materials , low shell and tube pressure drop, and a high heat transfer coefficient. A selected geometry of shell diameter 8 m, shell length 51.62 m, tube diameter 0.102 m, number of tubes 1509 and overall heat transfer coefficient 60.51 W/mK was considered. A CFD analysis was conducted using ANSYS 18.1 on the prototype of the selected heat exchanger device. The device geometry was built using the design modeler and it consist of the shell, tubes, air fluid, CO2 fluid and baffles The meshing and naming of unit parts was done while the set-up stage was achieved with the predefined boundary conditions and properties. The temperature distribution and thermal analysis of the heat exchanger was reported.


Expatriate adjustment research has identified a number of challenges that expatriates experience when adjusting to the host country such as spousal influence, cultural training/understanding, fluency in the host language and personality or emotional readiness of the expatriate need to be accounted for. These challenges are amplified when it is considered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which has large cultural distance when compared to an average Western culture and therefore provides a setting for an interesting study. This ongoing study has thus far proposed a theoretical model derived by following Glaser's Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). This paper will report on a specific aspect of this proposed model namely the substantive category "degree of flow" which extends the previous discussion of "degree of isolation". This paper describes how the Flow Theory was operationalized at affective level to aid the understanding of the emotional relationship expatriates in KSA have with the Internet. An expatriate flow model was developed based on the generally accepted three stages of Flow Theory namely: Antecedents to Flow, Experience of Flow and Consequences of Flow.


: Although the single valued neutrosophic sets (SVNSs) are effective tool to express uncertain information and are superior to the fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, Pythagorean fuzzy sets and q -rung orthopair fuzzy sets, there is not yet reported an operation which can provide desirable generality and flexibility under single valued neutrosophic environment, although many operations have been developed earlier to meet above such eventualities. So, the primary aim of this paper is to propose the concept of m-generalized q-neutrosophic sets ( mGqNSs ) as a further generalization of fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, Pythagorean fuzzy sets and q -rung orthopair fuzzy sets, single valued neutrosophic sets, n -hyperspherical neutrosophic sets and single valued spherical neutrosophic sets. Under the m-generalized q -neutrosophic environment, we develop some new operational laws and study their properties. Using these operations, we define m -generalized q -neutrosophic weighted aggregation operators. The distinguished features of these proposed weighted aggregation operators are studied in detail. Furthermore, based on these proposed operators, a MADM (multi-attribute decision making) approach is developed. Finally, an illustrative example is provided to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.