The institutions of slavery, slave raiding and the slave trade were fundamental in the rise and expansion of the Keira Sultanate of Dār Fūr. The development of a long-distance trade in slaves may be due to immigrants from the Nile, who probably provided the impetus to state formation. This process may be remembered in the 'Wise Stranger' traditions current in the area. The slave raid or ghazwa, penetrating into the Baḥr al-Ghazāl and what is now the Central African Republic, marked the triumph of Sudanic state organization over the acephalous societies to the south. The slaves, who were carefully classified, were not only exported to Egypt and North Africa, but also served the sultans and the title-holding elite as soldiers, labourers and bureaucrats. In the latter role, the slaves began to encroach on the power of traditional ruling groups within the state; the conflict between the slave bureaucrats and the traditional ruling elite lasted until the end of the first Keira Sultanate in 1874.


The subject matter of the research is concerned with the knowledge represented in the value stereotyped concept TABOO. The objective of the work: identification and description of types of knowledge, expressed in the concept TABOO. The main principle of the research is the cognitive principle aimed at studying language as a form of man's consciousness and thinking. Research methods used in the work are the cognitive analysis and contrastive method. The research conducted made it possible to obtain the following results: we found out that in the concept TABOO there are represented different types of knowledge: socio-cultural, national and pragmatic; we prove that the social-cultural knowledge contributes to the regulation of conduct of the members of society with the regulations and standards, developed in the society to protect it from the external and internal influences and social control over the behavior of a member of the society; we show that traditional knowledge acts as empirical knowledge accumulated by the people in the process of their cognitive and economic activities within specific ecological niches; we reveal that the pragmatic knowledge may be defined as a set of rules and postulates of communication used with the purpose of regulating communication of communicants; it is also found out that the pragmatic knowledge has a certain semantic content and expresses the intention of the communicants, in particular, friendly or polite attitude to the partner and members of the society; it is proved that all these forms of knowledge do not adequately reflect the peculiarities of national mentality and have differences in terms of expression. In conclusion it can be noted that a comprehensive cognitive-semantic and contrastive analysis of the concepts allows to more exactly describe them not only as cultural-mental formations, but also as structures representing various kinds of knowledge.


Actually, the world's car production is constantly on the increase. Approximately 2.9 cars are produced and sold every second, which is mainly linked to the strong demand for cars in a flourishing market all over the world. Nowadays, the car stands for an essential tool in the daily life of man (vehicle sales in world markets reached 90.68 million in 2015 and 89.7 million in 2014). Consequently, there has been rapid growth in terms of the implantation of automotive production plants with a view to meeting the market needs. However, this very motor vehicle production currently faces huge challenges, the most important of which are related to environmental issues and how manufactures can produce a sustainable and profitable industry for the future (through adopting more environmentally-friendly technologies such as the use of more sustainable fuel resources and new types of modular design with built-in reclability).Our study will mainly emphasize life cycle assessment (LCA) of a headrest for an automotive seat in Morocco. That is to say, this study is based upon the requirements of the ISO 14040 standards by means of OpenLCA software. Besides, this study aimed at evaluating the environmental impacts while adopting the CML 2001methodology in order to assessing the impacts of the manufacturing process of a headrest (raw material, cutting, sewing and injection). Therefore, this study will enable us to evaluate different environmental impacts, including ecology, toxicology, ecotoxicology and the depletion of natural resources. What is more, system boundary was fixed on the product manufacturing process (ranging from receipt the raw material to the final product) and the functional unit was selected as 1 headrest. As it turns out, the greatest environmental impact has been associated with the injection process, but, on reflection, we concluded that the manufacture of headrests for a car has negative environmental impacts. Accordingly, this study can be generalized with the aim of evaluating the impact of any headrest being manufactured anywhere in the world.


Laboratory tests were carried out to characterize the properties of municipal fly ash (MFA) samples collected from an incineration plant in Singapore over a period of 12 months. The laboratory test results show that the major elements present in all MFA samples are Ca, K, Na, Si, Al, and Mg. The specific gravity of the ash samples lies in the range of 2.12–2.58, generally lower than the value of 3.2 for ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of the MFA was found to be 6.03 m²/g, about six times higher than OPC, which has a BET surface area of 1.03 m²/g. In the investigation on the use of MFA as a blended cement material, 50-mm mortar cubes were cast with various percentages of the OPC being replaced by an equivalent weight of MFA. Compressive strength results indicate that up to 10% by weight of OPC could be replaced by MFA, with higher mortar strength being achieved than in the control cubes. A seven-day strength activity index of 123.6% achieved by the MFA, which is almost 50% higher than the requirement of 75%, suggests its contribution toward the strength development of the blended cements. Mercury porosimetry performed on hardened cement pastes indicated a reduction in the average pore diameter with an increasing percentage of cement replacement, indicating a pore refining capability of MFA particles. Leaching tests conducted on the blended cement mortars showed that the contamination levels in all leachate complied with the maximum limit set in U.S. EPA drinking water standards after 120 days of stabilization.


Intracoronary radiation therapy (IRT) is well established in clinical practice as an effective treatment for in‐stent restenosis. We aimed to determine if the 6‐month clinical outcome of patients treated postapproval for marketing [commercial radiation (CR)] is equivalent to those patients enrolled in the Washington Radiation for In‐Stent Restenosis Trials [Gamma WRIST and Beta WRIST; investigational radiation (IR)]. The 6‐month clinical outcome of 110 consecutive patients with 125 lesions who received IRT (gamma, 192Ir, 15–18 Gy, n = 6; or beta, 32P, 20 Gy, n = 20; or 90Sr/Y, 18.4–23.0 Gy, n = 99) in CR was compared with the 6‐month clinical outcome of 117 patients with 117 lesions who received IRT (192Ir, 15 Gy, n = 65, in Gamma WRIST; and 90Y, 20.6 Gy, n = 52, in Beta WRIST) in IR. Patients in CR were treated with wider radiation margins. The CR received antiplatelet therapy for at least 6 months and the IR for 1 month. The baseline characteristics of both groups were similar. Use of atheroablation devices was less in CR than IR (15.2% vs. 32.8%, respectively; P = 0.001). The overall major adverse cardiac events (death, Q‐wave myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularization; 18.2% vs. 29.1% in IR; P = 0.05) were significantly lower in the CR when compared with patients in the IR. The real‐world clinical practice of IRT demonstrates lower events and better clinical outcomes. This is most likely a result of implementation of the lessons learned from the clinical trials such as optimizing the dosimetry by using a higher dose, treating wider margins to minimize edge effect, and administering prolonged antiplatelet therapy to abolish late thrombosis. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv 2005;64:61–66. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


In this paper, we find the characteristic polynomial of the antiadjacency matrix of a line digraph. There are recent studies on the relation between the characteristic polynomial of the adjacency matrix and its line digraph, we are also interested in finding the connection between the antiadjacency matrix of a digraph and its line digraph. In this paper, we show the connection of characteristic polynomial of the antiadjacency matrix between an acyclic digraph and its line digraph.


Functional behavior of the brain can be captured using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Even though fMRI signals have temporal and spatial structures, most studies have neglected the temporal structure when inferring mental states (brain decoding). This has two main side effects: 1. Degradation in brain decoding performance due to lack of temporal information in the model, 2. Inability to provide temporal interpretability. Few studies have targeted this issue but have had less success due to the burdening challenges related to high feature-to-instance ratio. In this study, a novel model for incorporating temporal information while maintaining a low feature-to-instance ratio, is proposed. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the model compared to recent state of the art approaches.


Eight pollinators (as pollen parents) and four CMS lines (as seed parents) differing in salinity and drought tolerance were evaluated using agro-morphological traits and microsatellite markers. Root yield, leaf weight, sugar content, sodium content (Na + ), potassium content (K + ), α-amino nitrogen content, alkalinity coefficient, molasses sugar, white sugar content, extraction coefficient of sugar, dry matter, sugar yield, and white sugar yield were evaluated. The genetic diversity of 14 individual plants within each parent (a total of 168 genotypes) was also assessed using 18 microsatellite (SSR) markers. The results showed that 43 and 32.6% of the total variation in agro-morphological traits could be explained by the first 2 principal components, which could discriminate salinity and drought tolerant parents. Based on SSR analysis, a total number of 104 alleles were detected with an average number of 5.7 alleles per primer pair and an average polymorphism information content (PIC) of 0.64 with the highest PIC belonging to ESTSSR FDSB502 . Cluster analysis based on SSR markers clearly discriminated 112 plants belonging to pollen parents from 56 plants of seed parents. In conclusion, the SSR markers have been shown to be efficient and reliable for assessing genetic diversity in sugar beet crossing parents.


We examine whether and when publicly-legislated and privately-contracted dispute resolution mechanisms (DRMs) reduce risk for foreign investing firms. We theorize that publicly-legislated DRMs such...


The invention discloses a bionic crayfish capture device. The bionic crayfish capture device comprises a live box and a crayfish collector. The live box is provided with a water inflow pipeline. The water inflow pipeline penetrates into the live box from the side wall of the live box. A water outlet of the water inflow pipeline is located in the bottom of the live box. The other side wall of the live box is provided with an oblique water channel. A channel port in the upper end of the water channel is communicated with the live box. The lower end of the water channel is fixed to the live box through reinforcing ribs. The crayfish collector capable of being flexibly taken out is arranged in the live box. A crayfish inlet is formed in the crayfish collector. Drain holes are formed in at least one side wall of the crayfish collector. The bionic crayfish capture device is clear in structure and easy to manufacture, and can carry out capture work according to the water reversing habit of crayfishes, the requirements for reducing capture damage to the crayfishes and increasing the fry survival rate are met, and a good guarantee is provided for crayfish capture in culture production.


We analyze the light emission induced by the tunneling current flowing in a scanning tunneling microscopy experiment. In particular, we study the influence of organic ad-layers on the light emission on the initial monolayer of bismuth (Bi) on Cu(111) in comparison to the well-known case of organic ad-layers on Ag(111). On the Bi/Cu(111)-surface, we find that the scanning tunneling microscopy-induced light emission is considerably enhanced if an organic layer, e.g., the fullerene C60 or the perylene derivate perylene-tetracarboxylic-dianhydride, is introduced into the tip-sample junction. The enhancement can be correlated with a peculiarly weak interaction between the adsorbed molecules and the underlying Bi/Cu(111) substrate as compared to the Ag(111) substrate. This allows us to efficiently enhance and tune the coupling of the tunneling current to localized excitations of the tip-sample junction, which in turn couple to radiative decay channels.


This paper discusses approaches used in an AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) research project across a number of sites in the United Kingdom. The Disability and Community: Dis/engagement, Dis/enfranchisement, Dis/parity, and Dissent (D4D) project explores issues around disability and community, investigating diverse topics related to inclusion/exclusion. The D4D project is distinctive in the combination of academic and nonacademic Co-Investigators. One objective is to contribute to the evolution of a research language that is accessible to a wider public. Using arts-based approaches, the research team also seeks to develop research methods and an ethical framework that will be appropriate for co-constructed community research. This paper focuses on different ways of exploring and expressing participant experience. First, it considers the use of cultural animation (CA) as an alternative to the traditional interview, providing participant and researcher reflections. Cultural animation is a participatory arts-based and embodied methodology of community engagement and knowledge coproduction that draws on everyday experience of participants. Transcription poetry (TP) converts interview transcripts into poems. Short interview extracts and poems are selected here to illustrate the approach. D4D team members believe that CA generates authentic and rich data where there is not only fidelity to participant experience through the TP process but a greater resonance in the words than would have been the case in traditional representations.


Abstract We present a revised effective wavelength and photometric calibration for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer W4 band, including tests of empirically motivated modifications to its pre-launch laboratory-measured relative system response curve. We derived these by comparing measured W4 photometry with photometry synthesised from spectra of galaxies and planetary nebulae. The difference between measured and synthesised photometry using the pre-launch laboratory-measured W4 relative system response can be as large as 0.3 mag for galaxies and 1 mag for planetary nebulae. We find the W4 effective wavelength should be revised upward by 3.3%, from 22.1 to 22.8 μm, and the W4 AB magnitude of Vega should be revised from m W4 = 6.59 to m W4 = 6.66. In an attempt to reproduce the observed W4 photometry, we tested three modifications to the pre-launch laboratory-measured W4 relative system response curve, all of which have an effective wavelength of 22.8 μm. Of the three relative system response curve models tested, a model that matches the laboratory-measured relative system response curve, but has the wavelengths increased by 3.3% (or ≃ 0.73 μm) achieves reasonable agreement between the measured and synthesised photometry.


We report a robust methodology for synthesizing monodisperse alloyed Bi2S3–xSex nanorods (NRs) to tune optical properties with the variation of Se concentration. The intercalation of Cu(I) into the presynthetic Bi2S3–xSex NRs converted to ternary Cu3BiS3–xSex NRs via cation exchange process. The transformation was monitored through the formation of core/shell Bi2S3–xSex/Cu3BiS3–xSex nanorod heterostructures. Shape anisotropy results in near-infrared bimodal localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in Cu3BiS3–xSex nanorod over a broad range from 600 to 3500 nm with increase of Se:S ratio. The LSPR sensitivity, defined as the change in the LSPR peak wavelength per unit change in the refractive index (RI) of the medium, was estimated to be 250–350 nm/RI unit, much higher than other copper chalcogenides like Cu2S/Cu2Se. A fast photodetector was fabricated by Cu3BiS3–xSex NRs with high photocurrent gain value (∼125) with Se alloying. The intrinsic Cu vacancies and the effective mass of charge carriers play i...


In the context of a finite admixture model whose components and weights are unknown, if the number of identifiable components is a function of the amount of data collected, we use techniques from stochastic convex geometry to find the growth rate of its expected value. In addition, when the components are known but the weights are not, we provide an application of the classic Glivenko-Cantelli's theorem that allows us to retrieve the Choquet measure supported on the identifiable admixture components. In turn, this gives us the identifiable admixture weights. Finally, we propose a novel algorithm that estimates the model capturing the complexity of the data using only the strictly necessary number of components.


Abstract This paper presents a 2.4 GHz electronically steerable antenna array (ESAA) using a phase shifter based on the 4×4 Butler matrix which is suitable for the wireless indoor positioning system (WIPS). The low cost and simplicity are advantages of the proposed ESAA. The main beam of the antenna can be steered at four positions in the elevation plane, from −37°, −12°, 12° to + 36° with the narrow beamwidth in order to increase localization accuracy and wide-angle coverage of 240° in the azimuth plane. The ESAA is demonstrated as a base station antenna in a single-anchor indoor localization system experimentation. Two indoor localization algorithms, including fingerprinting and direction-of-arrive (DoA), are implemented and discussed in this paper. The indoor measurement setups and localization results using the proposed ESAA are proven in this paper to have better results than other similar approaches.


To facilitate the use of the adult form of the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity in Northern Ireland, the reliability and construct validity of the scale was examined among a sample of239 male and 459 female Northern Irish uni versity students. Respondents completed the Francis scale and also answered questions about the frequency of personal prayer and Church attendance. Support was found for the reliability, unidimensionality and construct validity of the scale among both male and female Northern Irish university students. The Francis scale is commended for research in Northern Ireland.


First is explained the substance of business process management and its implementation process. The part of business process management is process analysis, which is described in the next chapter. After explaining the process analysis have been taken to describe the combined bachelor's and master's degree at the Faculty of Economics and Administration. The course of study was modeled in terms of process management and any changes were proposed.


Abstract It is shown that the Kepler orbits both elliptic, hyperbolic, and parabolic ones, are solutions of the Schrödinger equation of the hydrogen atom, and can be inferred from a single wave function in the classical limit. The latter corresponds to large quantum numbers of the angular momentum. The mean initial values of position and velocity are implemented in the state. The orbits evolve by a curve parameter which in the elliptic case corresponds to the eccentric anomaly. The mean values, including mean square deviations, are first calculated for the hyperbolic case and, then, continued into the elliptic region by extending the curve parameter to purely imaginary values. Time dependence is introduced by the assumption that it enters through the curve parameter only. However, as it is shown, this assumption holds in the classical limit only and is violated to next leading order. The wave function is derived by a proper projection of a four-dimensional harmonic oscillator state onto the ordinary three-dimensional space, it appears in a compact form without the necessity of an additional constraint. The initial wave function is connected with a nearly minimum uncertainty product.


Background: Success is a central concept in project management (PM), yet the literature is relatively extensive and generalist concerning topics related to PM success. Several metrics and factors that influence the success of a project are common to diverse industries, although there are also particularities. In the case of projects and programs developed by public health action, the focus is on protection of the health of specific target groups or populations, and many of them are concerned with survival issues. Summary: As the result of a systematic literature review, this paper identifies general project success criteria and success factors and describes specific evidence for the public health field. Key messages: The success of public health projects needs to be managed systematically and evaluated with a set of comprehensive success criteria.


The current paper deals with the stress analysis of a helical coil compression spring, which is employed in three wheeler's auto-rickshaw belonging to the medium segment of the Indian automotive market. In the design of this kind of spring both the elastic characteristics and the fatigue strength have to be considered as significant aspects. In addition to this particular elastic property, as a consequence of the research effort in reducing the mass of components typical of the automotive industry, these springs have to face very high working stresses. The structural reliability of the spring must therefore be ensured. So for this purpose the static stress analysis using finite element method has been done in order to find out the detailed stress distribution of the spring.


The lightweight mask scheme is a new tendency of the mask countermeasures in Cryptographic Chips. RSM is a lightweight scheme with high security and low cost. With RSM scheme, we carry out a cryptanalysis on DPA Contest V4 and propose several profiled and non-profiled power analyses against the RSM and RSM-Like schemes. Furthermore, we propose MCPA, which is based on the cluster model to classify the power/EM traces according to the value of different mask bytes. MCPA only relies on the types of the mask sequences. The results of experiments on the reference traces show that our analysis is effective. We could recover the mask sequence and the round-key for the first round in AES-256 with about 100 power/EM traces. We also give some suggestions on the possible improvement of the RSM scheme to destroy the condition of SCA with different implementations.


Objective To investigate the effects of a pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) on cell proliferation,differentiation and the genetic expression of osteogenesis specific transcription factor-Osterix (OSX) in the calvaria-derived osteoblasts of SD rats.Methods Primary osteoblasts were separated from the calvarias of Sprague-Dawley rats 24 hours after birth by trypsinazation and collagenase digestion.The osteoblasts at passage 4 were randomly divided into a control group and a PEMF group,Cells in the PEMF group were placed onto PEMF therapeutic apparatus and exposed to 11 mT radiation at 12 Hz for 1 h per day for 3 days.The osteoblasts' proliferation ability was then detected via methylthiazdyl tetrazolium assay.Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity in the cell lysate and the supernatant fluid was assayed through disodium phenyl phosphate colorimetric determination to determine the cells'differentiation ability.OSX mRNA expression was determined using real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).Results The proliferation of osteoblasts in the PEMF group was significantly greater than in the control group.PEMF exposure suppressed ALP activity in both the lysate and the supernatant of the osteoblasts.The OSX mRNA expression in the PEMF group was significantly down-regulated compared with the control group.Conclusion PEMF at 12 Hz and 11 mT can promote the proliferation of osteoblasts,but it inhibits cellular differentiation and down-regulates the mRNA expression of OSX.

Key words:
Pulsed electromagnetic fields; Osteoblasts; Proliferation; Differentiation


New Forest National Park Authority, Forestry Commission, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, New Forest Association, New Forest District Council


Objective: To determine whether mannose-binding lectin(MBL) variant alleles were associated with frequent relapses in childhood nephrotic syndrome(NS). Methods: MBL alleles of codon 54 and promoter region at positions-550 and-221 were genotyped by means of Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restricted Fragment Length Polymorphism(PCR-RFLP)and PCR-Sequence-Specific Primers(PCR-SSP)assay in 32 China Han Nationality children with frequently relapsing NS(FRNS) and 31 with non-frequently relapsing NS(NFRNS),as well as in 32 healthy control subjects. Results: In patients with upper respiratory infections before relapses,the mutant genotype(GGC/GAC and GAC/GAC) frequency of MBL codon 54 was higher in children with FRNS(76.0%) than in children with NFRNS(42.9%).The B allele mutation frequency of MBL codon 54 was higher in children with FRNS than in healthy control subjects(34.4% vs 12.5%,P0.01).It was the same as the frequency of LYB haplotype and the risk of having FRNS given a mutated LYB haplotype assessed by odds ratio(OR)=3.66,95%CI:(1.49-)9.01.However,allele frequencies in promoter region were similar in children with FRNS and healthy control subjects. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that variant MBL genotypes coding for markedly diminished levels of MBL may be one of the genetic factors that determines susceptibility to FRNS and potentially amazing therapy may accrue from future interventions based on these genotypes.


Integrated circuits (IC) are vulnerable to hardware Trojans (HTs) due to the globalization of semiconductor design and outsourcing fabrication. Stealthy HTs which activate malicious aging operations are ususlly hide in normal behaviors.Therefore, it is a challenge to detect those HTs by general test and verification approaches. In this paper, we build an efficient machine learning (ML) framework to classify the genuine and Trojan-insert chips using instruction-level side-channel power characters. Different instructions and HTs are used as feature sets to construct the algorithm models. In order to evaluate the performance of the method, we implemented five HTs benchmarks of MC8051 micro-controller in Altera Stratix Ⅱ FPGA, and presented analysis on five formulated ML models in both supervised and unsupervised modes. The test results showed that the detection accuracy of supervised Naive Bayes is 95% in average, which is the highest among the ML models. The supervised SVM consumed the shortest running time, with an average of 0.04 s. We also verified that one-class SVM can be a valuable method without golden reference, which has accuracy in the range from 17% to 72% even in Harsh learning condition.


As IT and ICT are becoming increasingly important in modern society,IT products and services are rapidly growing.Sound testing process,as well as specifications and techniques,is vital to assure proper IT product quality,and getting more complex.While Web Service is coming of age,business based-on Web Service also brings new challenge and urge needs on Web Service Testing.It is necessary to construct a stand-ardized Web Service Testing system,refe'rencing traditional testing,for e-service industry development.This paper introduces fundamental concepts in relative standards,reviews progress of traditional testing and Web Service Testing,considers and suggests countermeasures on Web Service Testing standardization development.


Summary This episode of care illustrates many of the features of medicinein the information age. People in industrial societies who are, orbelieve themselves to be, ill can turn to a variety of sources ofadvice other than health professionals. In most cases theseresources, personal knowledge, and advice from family andfriends will be enough for people to resolve their healthproblems. In other cases, the information they obtain will beinsufficient or misleading. A primary care clinician is oftenneeded to provide additional information, interpret it, andindividualise advice for each of the problems brought to theconsultation by the patient. A few patients may seem reluctantto seek information or participate in decisions about treatmentoptions. They prefer being told what to do, but even thesepatients usually appreciate a paper leaflet or website addressthat they can give to family or friends who are more enquiring.In this example, some of the problems that had to be dealtwith included Ms Smith's presenting problems (tiredness andmuscle cramps); opportunistic health promotion (screening foranxiety and depression), managing ongoing problems(metabolic upset and hypertension caused by chronicpyelonephritis), and modifying help seeking behaviours (easingthe patient's uncertainty over electronic information sources).Dr McKay had to decide on and undertake seven actionsduring this consultation.x Explaining the cause of the patient's symptoms and availabletreatments in a way that Ms Smith could understandx Assuaging the patient's anxiety that she may have mercurypoisoningx Starting treatment for hypertension with a thiazidex Starting treatment for hypercalcaemia with bisphosphonatesx Referring Ms Smith to a consultant nephrologistx Referring Ms Smith to a community dietitianx Advising the patient on use of internet resources to obtainmore informationFortunately, clinicians in primary care teams no longer needto rely on memories of lectures or their old medical textbooks.Better informed patients, medical records that inform andteach, and electronic sources of reliable, well presentedinformation make it easier to make informed decisions onproblems presented in primary care. Informatics tools aregenerally less helpful in more complex situations, in whichthere may be uncertainty about the outcomes of interventionsor no professional consensus on the value of the outcomes thatare achievable.Better decisions in primary care should lead to moreappropriate referrals to secondary care and a more efficienthealth service. Research on the information needs of primarycare clinicians is informing the development of informationservices. Educational research is starting to show how to meetthose educational needs most effectively and in a mannercongruent with professional revalidation.


Despite recent breakthroughs in the fabrication of spin-coated small-area devices (≤0.1 cm2) with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of more than 17%, printed large-area organic solar cells (OSCs) are significantly less efficient because of the intrinsic differences between the coating dynamics of the two types of OSCs. The PCEs of printed large-area (~ 100 cm2) OSCs have typically been decreased compared with those of small area spin-coated devices. In this work, an efficient low-temperature printing method to fabricate high-efficiency large-area non-fullerene-based OSC modules is successfully demonstrated. A systematic study of the relationship between the concentration of the photoactive solution and the resulting film properties reveal that the large-area modules (85 cm2) produced in this work deliver excellent performance, yielding PCEs of up to 8.18% with a geometric fill factor of 85%. These novel OSC modules are ~87% as efficient as small-area printed single cells (cell PCE ~ 9.43% with 1 cm2).


The Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is the new arising sub-field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) that made the already existing conventional healthcare methods to reach a new level of smart human monitoring. The scarcity in terms of power supply to the network makes network lifetime to be one of the main challenge for which an energy efficient routing technique is required. In this paper, an energy efficient fuzzy based adaptive routing protocol is proposed which is a fuzzy based clustering protocol that makes use of direct transmission technique depending upon the criticality and the location of the Sensor Nodes (SN). The simulation results show that the proposed technique improves the stability period and lifetime of the network.


Regioselective ring opening of starting compound (I) with a variety of nucleophiles produces propan-2-ol derivatives which are readily oxidized to the corresponding ketones in excellent yields.


Entitled Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) drinking water and sanitation target A mid-term assessment of progress, the report details the progress of individual countries, regions, and the world as a whole between the MDG baseline year of 1990 and the half-way mark of 2002. It makes two significant predictions on reaching the 2015 goals, based on progress to date: • The global sanitation target will be missed by half a billion people – most of them in rural Africa and Asia – allowing waste and disease to spread, killing millions of children and leaving millions more on the brink of survival. • The world is on track to meet the drinking water target.


ак-The article is devoted to the issue of the innovativeness of tools in the context of the interaction of subjects in the markets of educational services, which contributes to the formation of an innovative educational environment in the region. Emphasis is placed on quality components: the innovativeness of programs and forms of training organization in the context of noospheric education, which can ensure the future effectiveness of the development of the domestic market of educational services, which is the subject of scientific research. The following results were obtained on the basis of the analysis of theoretical sources of the conducted sociological research, the respondents of which were teachers, the participants training courses based on Regional Institutes of Postgraduate Pedagogical Education. The results of the research confirmed that the modern tools of the interaction of subjects in the markets of educational services are the innovativeness of programs and interactive forms of organization of learning in the context of noosphere education, which will further outline the research from the point of view of the components of "value creation" of human capital in.


Room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) possessing negligible vapor pressure can be put in a vacuum chamber without vaporization. This fact enables to make wet condition even under vacuum condition although it is absolute common sense that vacuum conditions must be dry world. Based on this attracting fact, we have attempted to introduce RTILs to several kinds of instruments, which need to keep vacuum condition in their sample chamber for analyses and material productions. Introduction of RTIL to analyses requiring vacuum conditions including electron microscopy and energy dispersed X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy allows us to observe samples with wet condition and chemical reactions and to analyze these samples. Metal sputtering and quantum beam instruments are exploitable for production of metal nanoparticles. The resulting metal nanoparticles are quite stable and they keep their electrocatalytic activities. © The Electrochemical Society of Japan, All rights reserved.


Since 1997, two Ph.D. promotion programs initiated by the (former) federal government and by the Association of German Electricity Utilities (VDEW) have contributed importantly to the advanced training of young scientists in the nuclear field and, in this way, to preserving competence in this sector in Germany. Scientists at twelve scientific institutions, universities, and research centers work on topics in nuclear technology and adjacent fields as part of their post-graduate studies. Main areas of research are, especially, materials studies, reactor safety, innovative reactor systems, passive components, computer simulations, and the system comprising man, technology, and safety. The results elaborated so far were presented by the young scientists and discussed at the third workshop on Preserving Competence in Nuclear Technology within the Annual Nuclear Technology Conference 2000 in Bonn. The prize for the year 2000 awarded by Siempelkamp Nuklear- und Umwelttechnik was won by Peter Binkele of MPA Stuttgart for his presentation and his work on Atomistic Computer Simulation of the Generation of Copper Precipitates in Reactor Steel Grades.


This document describes architectural and operational issues that
arise from link-layer protocols supporting multiple Internet Protocol
encapsulation methods. This memo provides information for the Internet
community.


By analysing and evaluating the result of the test on carrying out the "Standards of Students' Physical Health" among 13338 students from 2002 to 2004,which includes the index of height and weight stamina,marks,long jump,achievement and their average index percentage.We can get some preliminary recognization.


In the autumn of 1958 a doctor's wife initiated in the London area the first practical investigation into the problem of the widow and her family. It is perhaps strange that while every conceivable group of handicapped people has long had its individual representation, several million women undergoing similar emotional, economic, and social difficulties have only just been recognized as a group in special need. In England and Wales alone there are two and a half million widows, and of every five married women in this country one is


Nurses play a key role in improving patient safety culture due to their continued presence around patients. Nurse performance in implementing a patient safety culture is influenced by the level of nurse work engagement. A low patient safety culture can also occur as a result of inadequate nurse staffing. This study aims to analyze the relationship of work engagement and dimensions of nurse staffing with patient safety culture at the inpatient room of RSU Porsea. The method used in this study is quantitative with a cross sectional approach. Sampling techniques used are a purposive sampling of 64 respondents. The data analysis used is Chi-Square test. The results of this study showed an overview of the level of work engagement in nurses which 21 nurses (32.8%) include in high category and 43 nurses (67.2%) in low category. The staffing dimensions revealed that 31 respondents (48.4%) answered appropriate and 33 respondents (51.6%) answered inappropriate. This study also proved that 48.4% of patient safety culture is in positive category and 51.6% is in negative category. There is a significant relationship between work engagement (p value = 0.001) and nurse staffing dimension (p value = 0.001) with patient safety culture. Hospital management is expected to provide recognition and appreciation to nurses, as well as improve the management of nurse staffing so that work engagement in nurses can be enhaced which make the application of patient safety culture can be more optimal.


"Propriety" obtains unprecedented importance in Ching Dynasty's academics. From the early Ching scholars Ku Yanwu (顧炎武), Zhang Erqi (張爾歧) and Wan Sitong (萬斯同) to the late Ching scholars such as Zeng Guofan (曾國藩), Sun Yirang (陳詒讓) and so on, they all regard propriety as the top issue at studies. At the mention of propriety the Ching scholars discuss in general, they mostly deliberate on propriety establishment from the side of national institutions during the Ming-Ching periods and afterward increasingly focus on social rituals and customs such as ceremonies of grown-up, marriage, death and funeral as well as the network of human relations in practice. Ling Tingkan (淩廷堪) is particularly expert in both of Huizhou Neo-Confucianism (Huizhou Li-Hsueh) and Qian-Jia Textology as the twofold background of Propriety Theory. He, master of propriety, not only incorporates the strong points of different propriety schools but also becomes the first one to advocate "Propriety in substitution for Metaphysical Principles", straightforwardly giving a challenge to Cheng-Zhu's Neo-Confucianism. Meanwhile, he establishes a thought system of propriety in substitution for Neo-Confucianism. His maintenance sets off a scholastic trend of discussion on propriety instead of metaphysical principles among the Qian-Jia academic circles, also promotes an array of propriety thought in the late-Ching.


Currently, more and more emphasis is being placed on reducing energy consumption in buildings to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Building performance simulation is very useful to predict energy demand and indoor environment quality. An indispensable element of the simulation is the validation and calibration of the model, which is an arduous process. The aim of the study was to present a four-level validation (using measurement results) and calibration of a thermal model of a naturally ventilated single-family house. Numerical calculations using co-simulation between EnergyPlus and Contam were performed. The results of the one-year simulation measurements of the indoor temperature and ventilation airflows were compared. After the calibration was performed, a high convergence of the results was found. The normalized mean bias error for hourly and monthly values did not exceed 1% and the coefficient of variation of the root mean squared error was a maximum of 7% with a simultaneous high correlation of the results in the range from 0.85 to 0.89. It was found that the final results were significantly influenced by the appropriate modeling of air exchange in the building, including the opening of windows.


Compacted (SiO2)100−x(Pb0.6Bi0.4)x (x=20–80 at. %) materials, prepared by mechanical alloying (MA) of amorphous SiO2, fcc Pb, and rhombohedral hexagonal Bi followed by hot pressing of the MA powder at 473 K for 1.8 ks under an applied stress of 250 MPa, were found to have a unique layered structure consisting of amorphous SiO2 and hexagonal close‐packed (hcp) e(Pb‐Bi) phases which developed along the direction perpendicular to the uniaxial applied load. The thickness and interlayer distance of the layered e (Pb‐Bi) phase are about 1.5 and 7 μm, respectively, for (SiO2)50Pb30Bi20. Furthermore, the multilayered compacts exhibited a strong anisotropy of electrical resistivity and superconducting properties when their properties are measured along the directions parallel or perpendicular to the layer. Electrical resistivity at 300 K, superconducting critical temperature (Tc), and upper critical magnetic field (Hc2) at 4.2 K are 10.5 μΩ m, 8.5 K, and 2.29 T, respectively, for the parallel direction and 950 μΩ ...


Given a dataset $V$ of points from some metric space, the popular $k$-center problem requires to identify a subset of $k$ points (centers) in $V$ minimizing the maximum distance of any point of $V$ from its closest center. The \emph{robust} formulation of the problem features a further parameter $z$ and allows up to $z$ points of $V$ (outliers) to be disregarded when computing the maximum distance from the centers. In this paper, we focus on two important constrained variants of the robust $k$-center problem, namely, the Robust Matroid Center (RMC) problem, where the set of returned centers are constrained to be an independent set of a matroid of rank $k$ built on $V$, and the Robust Knapsack Center (RKC) problem, where each element $i\in V$ is given a positive weight $w_i 0$, the algorithms return solutions featuring a $(3+\epsilon)$-approximation ratio, which is a mere additive term $\epsilon$ away from the 3-approximations achievable by the best known polynomial-time sequential algorithms for the two problems. Moreover, the algorithms obliviously adapt to the intrinsic complexity of the dataset, captured by its doubling dimension $D$. For wide ranges of the parameters $k,z,\epsilon, D$, we obtain a sequential algorithm with running time linear in $|V|$, and MapReduce/Streaming algorithms with few rounds/passes and substantially sublinear local/working memory.


A driving circuit applied to a display panel includes a driving unit for generating a plurality of driving signals to drive a plurality of pixels in the display panel, and a plurality of multiplexers coupled to the driving unit and the plurality of pixels. Each multiplexer of the plurality of multiplexers is utilized for sequentially transmitting a plurality of driving signals to a plurality of Sub-pixels of a corresponding pixel, where two adjacent pixels utilize different driving sequences of the sub-pixels to drive their sub-pixels.


As Internet becomes part of our daily life, Botnet (BotNetwork) attacker take advantage of it to misuse in different ways. Botnet is a collection of interconnected compromised computers (Bots) which are remotely controlled by its owner (BotMaster) under a common command-and-control(C&C) infrastructure. Botnets can be innovatively designed propositionally for technology improvement, which makes the bonet detection a challenging problem. As P2P (peer to peer) Botnet has a unique distributed attacking behavior, it is difficult to detect this bot. Thus to build an efficient botnet detection system we coined a framework that combines host level information and network level information for p2p botnet detection.


Genetically Modified (GM) foods hold the key to ending hunger and malnutrition in Africa.   Due to the increasing number of GMOs cultivation and delay in the approval of biosafety law in Nigeria, it has become necessary to screen maize products in order to determine the identity of the consumed daily foodstuffs. In this study, DNA extraction from raw and processed maize foods sold commercially in Sourthen Nigeria was carried out using the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method, followed by qualitative PCR to detect genetically modified maize. The recombinant DNA target sequences were detected with primers highly specific for each investigated transgene such as CAMV35S, nopaline synthase (NOS) terminator, Bt-176 and NK603 genes separately. Certified reference materials were used as positive controls while 2008-DTMA-W-STR Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB) organic maize grains and absence of template DNA, served as negative control. Based on the gel electrophoresis results, Bt- 176 maize event for insect resistance was detected in two samples, with 420 bp and, the NK603 Maize event for herbicide tolerance was detected in 3 samples, with 320 bp fragments. The GM-positive samples were found in 4 imported raw maize samples, 4 cereal food brands (2 manufactured in Nigeria, 2 imported) and 3 imported canned corn brands. The results confirm that Nigerians are already consuming GM maize, despite the absence of a biosafety law.


We have reported previously that low‐dose UVB radiation (UVBR, 50‐200 J/m2) perturbs the antigen‐presenting cell (APC) function of murine Langerhans cells (LC) by interfering with yet undefined costimulatory signals. In this study, we investigated (1) the effects of UVBR on the expression of the costimulatory molecules B7‐1 and B7‐2 on murine LC, (2) the functional consequences of defective B7‐1 and B7‐2 signalling on primary and secondary T‐cell responses induced by LC and (3) the mechanism by which UVBR interferes with B7‐1 and B7‐2 expression. Ultraviolet‐B radiation dose‐dependently inhibited the culture‐induced upregulation of B7‐1 and B7‐2 on LC from both UVB‐susceptible (UVBs, C57BL/6) and UVB‐resistant (UVBR, Balb/c) mice and abrogated their capacity to stimulate proliferation of naive alloreactive T cells and of the KLH (keyhole limpet hemocyanin)‐specific T helper (Th)1 clone HDK‐1. The UVBR‐induced suppression of B7‐1 and B7‐2 on LC and their perturbed APC function were related, because exogenous triggering of the B7/CD28 pathway with a stimulatory monoclonal antibody (mAb) for CD28 to UVB‐irradiated LC partially restored T‐cell proliferation. Such reconstitution was not observed when the mAb was added to killed LC, indicating that the UVBR‐induced suppression of APC function was not due to lethal effects on LC. Conditioned supernatants from UVB‐irradiated epidermal cells did not inhibit the functional upregulation of B7‐1 and B7‐2, suggesting that UVBR inhibits B7‐1 and B7‐2 upregulation by acting directly on LC and not by altering LC costimulatory function via release of soluble immunosuppressive factors. In conclusion, UVBR distorts the functional expression of B7‐1 and B7‐2 on LC from both UVBs and UVBR mice, thereby contributing to the failure of UVB‐irradiated LC to stimulate resting alloreactive T cells or KLH‐specific Thl cells.


A gas chromatographic procedure has been developed for the quantitative determination of terpin hydrate. The procedure may be applied to any of the NF dosage forms containing this compound. The terpin hydrate is extracted with chloroform from a saturated sodium chloride solution and chromatographed as intact terpin on a hydrogenated castor oil column. Degradation products of terpin hydrate, other terpenes, and formulation excipients do not interfere. The method is specific, rapid, and accurate. A coefficient of variation of less than 1 percent was determined from replicate analyses.


Nowadays, technology is evolving rapidly; the computers are getting smaller, portable, and faster, and because of that, many new wearable devices are coming into the market, which is changing the lifestyle of society. You can see in earlier time computer were large in size and too costly, and now a day it's becoming portable and cheaper than before so it can be carried anywhere to make life easier and manageable in less effort and less time.
These upgrading technologies play a vital role in our daily life, so these compact gadgets do our work systematically and make our work complete in a few minutes, just like kitchen appliances, industry robots, etc. These wearable gadgets are the future computer that will make our life fabulous and awesome. This wearable gadget can wear in a finger or in hand as a pulse checking system. These wearable gadgets are so compact that they can fit in a small pocket and easy to carry anywhere, so that makes our daily life simpler, easier, fashionable, and healthy.


Changes in the physical development over the past 40 years of pupils of Kyiv region by 1620 survey of school children in comparison to studies conducted in the 60-ies by Professor V.P. Nedelko were studied. It was revealed that the growth performance of modern primary school children are somewhat lower his peers last century, but since the age of 9 and 17 years modern boys and girls significantly greater than in the comparison group. Particularly large jumps are observed in puberty. As concerns to changes in growth and its increment, the tendency to decrease in 7 - 8 - year old and a substantial increase in puberty can be marked. Indicators of weight of school children nowadays show weight loss in their early school years, later on a positive trend in weight gain among boys under 17 years of age and a negative trend in girls downward it is observed. Indicators of vicinity of the chest show that in 7-9 years of age decrease and in 17 years of age the rise of this indicator is marked. The analysis of dynamometry shows a significant decrease in muscle strength of hands in all age groups of children today.


Abstract Safflower is a minor oilseed crop in Australia where the market is dominated by canola, cottonseed and sunflower. Safflower however offers an alternative oilseed crop in marginal areas. This study was designed to evaluate current safflower lines and to determine their potential value both for edible oil and meal for animal feed. Two sets of samples were analysed. The first was a collection of cultivars to test varietal differences. The second was two cultivars sown at two sites with different sowing rates and row spacings. Both sets were analysed for the important chemical components to show cultivar, site and sowing effects. Components tested included moisture content, oil content, meal protein, tocopherols, Rancimat induction time, total polyphenols and fatty acid profile of the oil. As the moisture content varied between 4-8%, with an average of 5%, all analyses were done on a dry basis to ensure consistency. Oil contents on the varietal trial varied from 27-40% indicating significant potential for cultivar improvement by plant selection. Protein in the oil-free meal ranged from 25-36% and showed similar variability to oil. Of particular interest was the range of oxidative stability results from 1.4 to 5.3 hours. This could be attributed to the different levels of antioxidants; polyphenols 74-212 mg/kg, tocopherols 320-650 mg/kg. Fatty acids would also contribute to oil stability with palmitic acid from 4.3-8.1% and linoleic acid from 75.2-83.7%. Ranges on all of the fatty acids are discussed. Site variation also contributed significantly to many of the chemical components. Oil content, oxidative stability, total polyphenols and tocopherols showed large differences between sites although protein levels and fatty acid differences between sites was not as large.


PurposeThis paper aims to address the supplier selection problem based on a developed framework capturing the essence of the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, sustainability and providing services to customers. Specifically, the authors consider planning, manufacturing, delivery, sustainability and customer service attributes to evaluate and select suppliers.Design/methodology/approachRelevant literature is reviewed, a framework capturing the essence of major supply chain functions was developed and suitable measurement attributes were identified. An integrated fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution method are employed to obtain the final ranking of the attributes and suppliers. The proposed methodology is illustrated through a real case of an Indian automobile company.FindingsThe authors observed that planning, manufacturing, customer service, sustainability and delivery are preferred in decreasing order to select component suppliers for an automotive company. The impact of suppliers on planning and manufacturing is most important to consider while assessing suppliers. Interestingly, concerns about sustainability and delivery are the least cared factors when selecting suppliers. The top five criteria contain measures of operational efficiency rather than purchasing cost.Originality/valueThis paper proposes and demonstrates a supplier selection framework harmonizing supply chain functions of the SCOR model, sustainability and customers service that adds a valuable wing to literature that expounds on the connection of purchasing strategy to corporate strategy. A case study in an automotive company throws unique and valuable managerial implications for purchasing and supply chain performance.


wounds, and in the ward air, dust and bedding. Phage typing seemed a suitable method to unravel the epidemiological connections, if any, between the staphylococci in the infected wounds and those found in the wards. Unfortunately, not all the phages were viable when they arrived from London. However, sufficient were available to show that half of our isolates were probably identical. and were of a single type. What was even more PHAGE TYPING OF STAPHYLOCOCCI


It is in the works of Ammianus Marcellinus that we find the last echoes of the presence of Rome as the great Capital of the empire. However, while Rome remains as the indisputable center of the Roman Empire, the facts narrated by Ammianus reveal the real character of the city of almost complete irrelevance as political center. Indeed, what stands out for Ammianus is ultimately the symbolic character of the city of Rome, urbs aeterna. Constantinople is the new center of power, but remains for the historian an inexpressive place. This paradox stems from the fact that the centers of power for Ammianus are not physical places anymore, but rather the emperors themselves, their courts and armies.


Considerable research has been conducted on head or helmet-mounted displays (HMDs) for aviators, but little, if any, for ground soldiers. This study investigated the ability of individuals to perform combined tasks of walking over irregular terrain (simulated) and processing information from an HMD. Volunteers performed reaction time tasks while either standing or walking on a treadmill, with and without obstacles. Results show uniform effects of obstacles on three levels of cognitive difficulty. Walking on level ground with no obstacles had no more effect on information processing than merely standing, whereas minor and moderate levels of obstacle avoidance had equal impact. Spatial displays were easier than verbal and numeric displays during all levels of mobility. Subjective effort matched reaction time performance. Results support existing models of attention and will help provide guidance for unique applications for the ground combatant.


The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Bipolar Prodrome Symptom Interview and Scale–Prospective (BPSS‐P), the first specific interview for emerging bipolar disorder (BD) symptoms.


The current patterns around zygotic embryos of the oil palm embryo (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) were investigated. Ionic currents around the embryo were measured at different stages in its development using a two-dimensional vibrating probe system. The average current density was found to be in the order of 1-2//A cm"2. In the early developmental stage, the current was found entering the cotyledon and leaving the radicle. Both the magnitude and direction of this current changed when embryos at different developmental stages were observed. The currents were found to enter the region in the process of differentiati on or elongation, and in some cases this could be the reverse of the current direction in the preceding stage. Within one of the stages of the embryos, current density was correlated with the rate of elongation. A very large inward current (up to 20/iAcm"2) was also detected at the point where the shoot was breaking through the surface. This was probably caused by the so-called 'injury current'.


The KM procedure takes nondetects at their face value, so instead of substituting one half the method detection limit, nondetects are expressed as their method detection limit. TABLE 1 shows an example calculation for one of the sport fish samples. With the KM procedure, the method detection limit values for NDs are multiplied by the congener's TEF so that the congener TEQ for HpCDF, 1,2,3,4,7,8,9in the right-hand column is expressed as <0.000496 rather than as a detected 0.000248 resulting from substitution of one-half the method detection limit. The KM procedure takes NDs at face value, therefore, the five nondetect TEQs are combined with the 11 detected values (OCDD, 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9value which historically contributes 11% (TABLE 2), was rejected due to blank contamination) to produce an estimated mean of 0.0128. If we transform the equation for calculating the mean (μ =(x0 + x1 + x2 + ... + xn-1)/n), then the sum is equal to the mean multiplied by n. Therefore, multiplying the estimate of the mean (0.0128) by the number of observations (n = 16), the KM sum obtained without substituting any values for nondetects is 0.2052.


In this paper, performance analysis of Location Aided Routing (LAR), AODV and DSR protocol in city scenarios has been done. The mobility model considered is Manhattan model. This mobility model used to emulate the movement pattern of nodes i.e., vehicles on streets defined by maps. Our objective is to provide a comparative analysis among LAR, AODV and DSR protocol in city scenarios in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks. The simulation work has been conducted using the Glomosim 2.03 simulator. The results show that LAR1 protocol achieves maximum packet delivery ratio is 100% in the sparsely populated network. The delay is maximum in AODV 121.88 ms when the number of node is 10 in the network. The results show that LAR1 outperform DSR and AODV in term of packet delivery ratio and end to end delay.


Wireless ad hoc networks with Bernoulli nodes provide a unified model of various important problems including fault-tolerance, randomized construction of virtual backbone, randomized broadcast routing, and randomized wake/sleep management. We assume that the wireless ad hoc network consists of n nodes which are distributed independently and uniformly in a unit-area disk and are active (or available) independently with some constant probability /spl rho/. Let /spl rho//sub n/ denote the random variable which is the smallest transmission range at which the active nodes form a connected network, and p/sub n/' denote the random variable which is the smallest transmission range at which the active nodes form a connected network and each inactive node is adjacent to at least one active node, /spl rho//sub n/ is referred to as the critical transmission range for connectivity of active modes, and /spl rho//sub n/' is referred to as the critical transmission range for connectivity of all nodes. In this paper, we derive the precise asymptotic distributions of /spl rho//sub n/ and /spl rho//sub n/'.


To elaborate past research, this study examines the course of specialization and versatility with maturation and contends that specialization develops in a nonrandom manner, as suggested by the orthogenic principle of human development. To examine the development of specialization and versatility, forward specialization coefficients were disaggregated for three age cohorts over a 20-year follow-up period in a sample of high-risk youth (n = 3,652) with 54,175 arrests. Results show that forward specialization coefficients were generally of moderate magnitude and, across age cohorts, developed modestly in an age-graded manner for the youngest cohort. In conclusion, the results provide preliminary support for the orthogenic theory among early first-admission youth.


Polya's four phases have been well-known worldwide and have improved our problem solving skills through the years. However, it has been hard for us to find good examples of solutions obtained by using Polya's recommendations that could be useful in our courses, we start to develop some by ourselves. In special, the looking back seems to be most neglected one among all four phases. This article shows how looking back, a la Polya, at the classical Leibniz's integrating factor lead us to an integrating factor method for first order linear difference equations.


Nut butters and nut spreads are spreadable products made from nuts that are ground into paste. Roasting and grinding of nuts affected on the overall quality of these nut products. A proper combination of ingredients is required to ensure a stable nut products is produced. Nut butters and nut spreads are susceptible to autoxidation due to their high unsaturated fatty acid content. Apart from taste or flavor, lipid oxidation negatively affects odor, color, and nutritional value of nut products during storage. Free fatty acids as well as peroxide and anisidine values increase during storage of these products. The evaluation of oxidative status is occasionally combined with sensory evaluation for which the formation of secondary oxidation products (including pentanal, hexanal, and octanal) result in the loss of nutty flavor and development of a paint-like flavor. The predominant fatty acid in most nut oils is oleic acid, followed by linoleic acid, palmitic acid, and small amounts of other fatty acids. The rate of fatty acid oxidation increases with the degree of unsaturation and decreases in the presence of lipid soluble antioxidants such as tocopherols.


Data collected from Canadian central test stations were used to obtain estimates of genetic progress for test station average daily gain (ADG-T), height at hooks (HH), ultrasonically measured backfat thickness midway between the 11th and 12th ribs (FAT) and scrotal circumference (SC). Where possible, records for preweaning average daily gain (ADG-W) from the Federal-Provincial Herd Record of Performance program were obtained for tested bulls. Estimated breeding values were regressed on year of birth to obtain estimates of genetic trend for each trait, for the six principal breeds enrolled in the testing program: Aberdeen Angus (AA), Charolais (CH), Hereford (HE), Limousin (LM), Shorthorn (SH) and Simmental (SM). Estimated trends were generally significant with the exception of those for the LM breed, and the trait of SC. For FAT, trends were generally positive for the exotic breeds, and negative for the British breeds. Significant positive trends were observed for HH, ADG-W and ADG-T for most breeds. Exam...


Introduction 1. Aesthetic value, objectivity and the fabric of the world John McDowell 2. The possibility of aesthetic realism Philip Pettit 3. The pleasures of taste Eva Schaper 4. The communicability of feeling Barrie Falk 5. Solid joys or fading pleasures R. A. Sharpe 6. Beauty and attachment Anthony Savile 7. Jokes Ted Cohen 8. Belief and sincerity in poetry Malcolm Budd 9. Autobiography and philosophical perplexity J. M. Cameron Index.


An algorithm based on Lemarechal's e-subgradient bu nd le method for nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization is proposed. The convergence result is given and proved in detail. The algorithm's numerical implementation i s discussed. Finally, some numerical results are presented to show its efficienc y.


This study is an attempt to reexamine the causal ordering between the two variables in the developing countries. The study investigates unit root, cointegration and exogeneity tests between military expenditure and economic growth in 14 developing countries for the period 1981-2006 considering panel data analysis. Results reported herein suggest that military expenditure is an exogenous variable and this variable influences economic growth in these countries.


Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a convoluted autoimmune and inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) in which the protective myelin sheath is eroded and the underlying nerve fibers are damaged. There is no conclusive knowledge on the role played by different etiological factors in its development, and studies have shown that it primarily results due to complex interactions between the genetic, geographic and infectious components. Among the risk factors reported to have a possible role in MS development, retroviruses also appear to influence it. Studies suggest human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection to be inversely related to MS risk, but to date, the association between the two remains enigmatic. This protec‐ tive inverse association has become an area of active research and the most plausible explanations for this may be immune suppression and/or antiretroviral medica‐ tions. The purpose of writing this chapter is to provide background information on the unfathomable relationship between HIV infection and the risk of developing MS while at the same time providing description of the insights garnered from recent studies. While highlighting the application of ART (antiretroviral therapy) as budding future alternative for MS management, this chapter provides momentum for further studies.


Introduction: Diet is a description of the regulation of the quantity, frequency, and type of food consumed daily by a person. The purpose of this study was to analyze the correlation between the type, quantity, and frequency of eating and the bowel pattern and digestive complaints of Muslim students during Ramadan fasting. Method: the research design used a cross-sectional study approach with type, number, and frequency of feeding as the independent variables and bowel pattern and indigestion as the dependent variables. The sample comprised of 107 college students. The data were collected by questionnaires and analyzed using the Chi-square test. Results and Analysis: The statistics test regarding food typed and defecation patterns obtained a p value of 0.000 at α≤0.05. The quantity of food and defecation patterns obtained a p value of 0.577. The frequency of eating with defecation pattern obtained ap value of 0.778. The food types with indigestion obtained a p value of 0.015. The quantity of food and indigestion obtained a p value of 0.339. The frequency of eating with indigestion obtained a p value of 0.368. Discussion and Conclusion: There was a correlation between the type of food and bowel patterns and indigestion. There was no correlation between the number of meals and the frequency of eating with bowel patterns, and the same applied to the number of meals and the frequency of eating with digestive complaints.


This paper is concerned with the impacts of new technologies on urban sustainability. First, it briefly presents those new technological developments affecting urban life of individuals. Then, it focuses on new spatial phenomena which are encouraged by new technologies and opposing urban sustainability: (a) urban sprawl, exurban new centralities and the 'dispersed city', and (b) the socio-demographic restructuring and diminishing of inner city areas. It finally discusses green architecture and energy-save buildings which nowadays are feasible by new technological developments, and in this sense, they may moderate the negative impacts of new technologies on cities.


We present a systemic study on the tailoring of light emission properties of the InGaN/GaN quantum wells (QWs) with nanoparticle-assembled on-top layers. A layer of silver nanoparticles was deposited on the top of the quantum wells in gas-phase with a dielectric spacer layer of 15nm thickness grown between them. Time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy was used to study the radioactive recombination of electrons and holes in the QWs from 15 K to room temperature. A significant increasing of the internal quantum efficiency of the QWs is achieved at room temperature with a suitable nanoparticle coverage. The coupling of the spontaneous emission from InGaN QWs into the surface plasmon modes of the silver nanoparticle layers was demonstrated. (© 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


Homeobox (Hox) genes play crucial roles in hematopoiesis. Alterations of Hox gene expressions are found in patients with hematological malignancy. Nup98-Hoxa9, a fusion protein combining the N-terminus of Nup98 and the C-terminus of Hoxa9 resulting from t (7; 11) chromosomal translocation, is the first evidence of Hox gene involvement in human leukemia. We have shown that BMP specific R-Smads and Smad4 interact with Hox proteins including Hoxa9, and the interaction blocks binding of Hox proteins to their DNA elements. Here, we show that Smad4, the common signal transducer of both TGF-β and BMP, interacts with the homeodomain of Nup98-Hoxa9 in a coimmunoprecipitation assay. Furthermore, this interaction abolished the DNA binding ability of Nup98-Hoxa9 to DNA in both EMSA using purified GST fusion protein and in in vivo chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. Subsequent mapping data revealed the MH1 domain of Smad4 mediated the interaction. These findings suggest that Smad4 could be used to inhibit Hox-induced leukemia. We then attempted to examine whether Smad4 could inhibit the downstream target gene by Nup98-Hoxa9. Although Nup98-Hoxa9 is believed to function as an aberrant DNA-binding transcriptional activator, downstream genes that contribute to leukemogenesis are largely unknown. It has been reported that Nup98-Hoxa9 induces Hoxa9 expression in murine primary bone marrow cells. Accumulating evidence suggests that Hoxa9 plays important roles in normal and malignant hematopoiesis. Enforced expression of Hoxa9 causes proliferative expansion of primitive hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells and subsequently inhibits their differentiation. Aberrant expression of HOXA9 due to retroviral integration induced acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in mice. By visually scanning the sequence of the Hoxa9 promoter, we found many TGAT and TTA (T/C) consensus sequences, which are preferentially recognized by the heterodimer of PBX protein and the proteins of the Abd-B-like gene family, including Hoxa9, respectively. To test whether Hoxa9 could be a direct transcriptional target for Nup98-Hoxa9, we used a Hoxa9 promoter/luciferase reporter construct along with the expression plasmid pcDNA-Nup98/Hoxa9 to transiently transfect NIH/3T3 fibroblast cells and Ba/F3 murine hematopoietic progenitor cells. Nup98-Hoxa9 showed substantial transcription activation on Hoxa9 promoter in these cell lines. This activation is further enhanced by cotransfection of PBX1a, which stabilizes the binding of Nup98-Hoxa9 to DNA. Nup98-Hoxa9 also bound to radiolabelled DNA oligo from the Hoxa9 promoter in vitro by EMSA assay. These data indicate that Nup98-Hoxa9 directly activates the Hoxa9 promoter. Interestingly, Smad4 removed the binding of Nup98-Hoxa9 to the Hoxa9 promoter. Co-overexpression of Smad4 inhibited the transactivation activity of Nup98-Hoxa9 on the Hoxa9 promoter regardless of the presence of PBX1a. In NIH/3T3 cells, Smad4 inhibited Nup98-Hoxa9-induced Hoxa9 expression both at the mRNA and protein levels. In summary, we show that Smad4 inhibited DNA binding activity of Nup98-Hoxa9 by interacting at Hox homeodomain. This interaction abolished the transcription activity of Nup98-Hoxa9 on its target gene, thus preventing Nup98-Hoxa9 from working as a transcription factor, which could lead to a new therapeutic target for the treatment of myeloid leukemia caused by Nup98-Hoxa9.


Genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) are often from populations with European ancestry (EA). To test whether the variants identified from recent GWAS are associated with age of onset for AD in an African Americans and Africans, we performed associations studies using data from the Indianapolis‐Ibadan Dementia Project (IIDP).


Paul Allatson is a cultural studies scholar in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is the author of Latino Dreams: Transcultural Traffic and the U.S. National Imaginary (Rodopi, 2002), Key Terms in Latino/a Cultural and Literary Studies (Blackwell, 2007), and co-editor of Exile Dreams, Misplaced Identities (Rodopi, 2008). firstname.lastname@example.com Volume 2: edited by Margot Blum Schevill, Textiles and Folk Art Consultant, USA. Consulting Editors: Blenda Femenías, George Washington University, USA and Lynn Meisch, St Mary's College of California, USA


on. Drawing from international data sources, he provides as good an explanation of the military mind as one can find ; but, more importantly he devotes detailed data to an explanation of more fundamental issues affecting military professionals: nationalism, pessimistic beliefs in the nature of man, alannism, authoritarianism, and political conservatism. From this he draws conclusions designed to explain a military set of values and these are related to normative influence (the ability to affect the diffusion of certain values among the public) and political power to implement military objectives. These activities are enhanced by the greater attention now paid to officer education in political questions; and a US Army Command and General Staff College paper containing a strategic appraisal of the internal situation in Cambodia is included as an example of this political training. Results: pi creates a highly efficient, politically oriented, independent social structure, and p2 molds the individuals who are to serve it. What does this mean? Abrahamsson convincingly argues that to the extent pi and p2 are effective-and to the extent that differences result between military and civilian values-civilian control of the military establishment will be impaired. One can argue that this is not conducive to sound national defense policy and further hampers civil/military cooperation at the highest levels simply by the military's persistent use of their own values orWeltanschauung in which they pursue political actions that are inconsistent with the society's beliefs and interests. This certainly results in a significant lack of, or even absence of, civil/military goal congruence on possible key issues-witness the &dquo;Lavelle Case.&dquo; In situations where no countervailing power exists, chaos may result. Abrahamsson's book requires thoughtful, professional reading, particularly his challenge of Huntington's concept of military professionals with its well established civilian control thesis and the development of his major conclusions concerning military alarmism and political conservatism. This is not a book about the military-industrial complex, the military mind, nor a critique of the US Army. It is a book about military professionalism and political power and the interaction between pi and p2 that could have significant impact on the western democracies with their developing amilitarism which may eventually lead to a chaotic separation of the military from the civil society which it exists to serve.


This paper presents a zeroth order metamaterial substrate integrated waveguide antenna. The antenna is designed to have a compact size based on employing only one composite right/lefthanded cell. The antenna resonates at 6.1 GHz with overall radiator size of 14.4mm × 8 mm which represents 50% size reduction compared to conventional microstrip patch antenna that operates at the same frequency. The zeroth order mode of the antenna has been verified using analytical explanation and full wave simulations. Moreover, the full wave simulations and experimental measurements have been employed to confirm the antenna matching properties and radiation characteristics.


When an etching liquid for etching, with a single liquid, a multilayer film formed of a copper layer and a molybdenum layer is to be used in mass production, it is important that the post-etching cross-sectional shape of the edge meets the morphological demand of having a forward tapered shape without any undercuts and that a precipitate does not develop in the etching liquid. This etching liquid for multilayer films including a copper layer and a molybdenum layer contains hydrogen peroxide, an inorganic acid, an acidic organic acid, a neutral organic acid, an amine compound, and a hydrogen peroxide decomposition inhibitor. Since the etching liquid does not contain an azole compound, the etching liquid does not generate a reactant with hydrogen peroxide and a precipitate is not produced in the etching liquid. In addition, the cross-sectional shape of the edge after the etching can be formed in a preferable forward tapered shape. Furthermore, since the etching liquid also does not contain a phosphorus compound or a fluorine compound, the etching liquid has a small environmental load upon being discarded.


Bridgman growth of Nd:SGG (Sr3Ga2Ge4O14) crystals has been investigated for the first time. Pt crucible of ∅25mm×250mm with a seed well of ∅10mm×80 mm is used, and seed is SGG crystal of ∅10mm×50mm grown by Bridgman method in advance. The growth parameters are optimized as the furnace temperature is set to 1450∼1500°C, temperature gradient in the crystal‐melt interface is less than 25 K/cm and growth rate is less than 0.5mm/h. The Nd:SGG crystals with 25mm in diameter and 60mm in length are grown successfully from 1.5 to 8at% Nd3+ doped stoichiometric Sr3Ga2Ge4O14 melt. The distribution coefficient and concentration of Nd3+ in Nd:SGG crystals are obviously higher than those of Nd:YAG crystal. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


thema multiforme. Cytomegalovirus blood PCR became positive at 3922 UI/mL. Oral valganciclovir was started with no improvement of skin lesions and fever. All other analyses for opportunistic and viral infections were negative. On day 29 of ART, the syphilis serology was repeated and showed a TPHA titre of 1 : 10 240 and VDRL titre of 1 : 64. A prozone phenomena had been eliminated on the first serology. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis was normal, and TPHA and VDRL were negatives on it. Syphilis nPCR was positive in the synovial fluid but negative in the skin biopsy. Immunohistochemistry of the skin biopsy showed treponema in the papillary dermis and epidermis. By day 29 of ART, CD4 cell count increased to 329/mm (30%), whilst plasma HIV RNA decreased by 3 log10 copies/mL. After 2 weeks of benzathine penicillin infusions, the arthritis and the skin lesions resolved completely, and the patient was discharged. We conclude it was not just syphilis because of the severe and atypical presentation with arthritis and the speed of apparition after the serology became positive. We diagnosed an unmasking IRIS linked to syphilis in the setting of rapid increase in CD4 and important reduction in viral load quickly after ART introduction, persistent high-grade fever, very high non-treponemal titres with a negative serology 1 month prior, severe infection quickly after the serology became positive. Although polyarthralgia is described in around 10% of secondary syphilis cases, infectious arthritis have rarely been reported. We found two reported cases of knee arthritis and skin rash related to secondary syphilis, which were diagnosed only by serological tests. In one of these cases, serological tests were negative at admission despite the presence of arthritis. Documentation of syphilis by PCR on the synovial fluid has not been previously reported. In the case of tabetic arthropathy described by Bernard et al., the PCR was positive on the bone biopsy. The latest European guidelines on the management of syphilis (2014) recommend that PCR can be performed in tissues, CSF and blood in cases of negative serology. IRIS due to ART might have contributed to the acute and atypical presentation of this case. Funding: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.


The federally funded Magnet Schools Assistance Program was funded to eight magnet schools in the Wake County (North Carolina) Public School System (WCPSS) to reduce minority group isolation and to strengthen academic offerings, by integrating technology into instruction as a key element. In 1993-94 and 1994-95 grant monies were provided to six elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. This evaluation examined factors related to the goals and objectives of the program. Parent survey data, student achievement data, and enrollment and magnet school application data were used. The grant provided a fullor half-time instructional technology resource teacher for each school. A variety of technology program components were implemented at grant schools. Teacher attitudes towar6 technology improved in the grant period, and parent attitudes became more positive. There was moderate success in terms of improved racial balance at five of the schools. Baseline data had shown large differences between majority and minority achievement in these schools; the greatest successes in improving achievement were at the elementary level. The two schools with the full-time instructional technology resource teachers had the greatest success in reaching academic goals in both reading and mathematics. The grant program has demonstrated that technology can improve instruction and achievement if well implemented. Six attachments present overall evaluation results, a glossary, and supplemental materials about the program. (Contains 29 tables and 3 references.) (SLD) *********i if ) i. Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the originl document. * *********,.:*************************************************************


Abstract : A study of the droplet gasification and combustion characteristics of hydrocarbon fuel droplets was conducted at sub- and supercritical. The experimental setup provided quiescent and convective environments under supercritical pressure and temperature conditions. The droplet combustion experiment hardware consisted of: a liquid pressurizing and transfer system; a high pressure and temperature combustion chamber; a droplet formation, deployment and ignition system; and a high speed CCD imaging system. The gasification and combustion characteristics of droplets of several hydrocarbons under quiescent environments were studied. Specifically, the mass emission rates and combustion characteristics of 1.5-mm-diameter suspended droplets of a series of hydrocarbons ranging from hexane (C6) to tetradecane (Cl4) were measured at sub- and supercritical pressures and temperatures using the high-speed image system. The images of droplet gasification and combustion revealed interesting phenomena and provided better understanding of the droplet behavior in sub- and supercritical pressure and temperature environments.


Background
Oxidative stress is involved in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia (PE). Dysregulation of SOD1 may be involved in the pathogenesis of PE. We examined and compared the methylation level of the promoter region (PMR) of the SOD1, gene expression, and enzyme activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in both placenta and maternal blood in PE women.

Methods
A total of 140 blood samples and 40 placental tissue samples from PE and healthy pregnant controls were studied. The PMR of the SOD1 (Methylight PCR method), the expression (Real-time PCR), and its enzyme activity were investigated and compared in two groups.

Results
The PMR of the SOD1 gene in the placental tissue of the patients was significantly increased compared to the control group (P= 0.008); this result was accompanied by a decrease in the expression of the gene and a decrease in the activity of the SOD enzyme. Meanwhile, the PMR of the SOD1 gene did not significantly change in the blood samples of the patients (P= 0.95), while a significant decrease in the expression of SOD1 (without a significant change in the SOD activity) was observed.

Conclusion
The results showed significant changes in the PMR of the SOD1 gene and gene expression in placenta tissue. The results highlight the role of the placenta in complications during pregnancy and also revealed epigenetics as an important regulatory pathway in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia.


The majority of inherited breast cancer (BC) is attributed to pathogenic variants in BRCA1 and BRCA2.1 The remaining are due to pathogenic variants in other individually rarer "non-BRCA" genes (eg, PALB2, CHEK2, and ATM).2 "Multigene panel testing" (MGPT) assesses for variants in both BRCA and non-BRCA genes and is the gold standard for BC genetic testing (GT).3 MGPT with inclusion of the BRCA genes became widely available in 2013. Women tested prior to 2013 who were found not to carry pathogenic BRCA variants are eligible for "update" MGPT. MGPT may be particularly important for young Black women; statewide data from Florida demonstrate a higher-than-expected 12.4% BRCA mutation frequency in this group.4 The contribution of non-BRCA mutations to BC disparities is less established. Prior research demonstrates high levels of interest in MGPT.5 However, <1% of the study sample identified as Black. Furthermore, MGPT outcomes were not examined. To our knowledge, no studies report on MGPT acceptability or outcomes in Black BC survivors. This study addresses these gaps. 2 | METHODS


I often bring to mind Ida Parini, my grandmother, who had come from Liguria in 1913 to Manhattan, where she was married (by prior arrangement) to a son of a friend of her father's from Rome. A fine boned girl with fiery red hair, she was fifteen, and spoke no English. Her parents left her after the wedding, travelling on to Argentina, where they were almost at once killed by an earthquake. Five years later, Ida was the mother of five sons: Nello, Leo, Julius, Tony, and Gino. My father was Leo, and he used to take me to visit her every Sunday afternoon in rural Pennsylvania. She was, almost instinctively, a gardener, and her vegetable patch was vast: row upon row of beans, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and corn. Well into her eighties, she worked from dawn till dusk in that garden from late spring into fall. In October, she would begin canning: a process that left her cellar stacked with enough vegetables to last throughout the winter. I can still see the jars of tomatoes lined up on her kitchen counter. She would cut her own pasta at the same counter: long white strips laid out on wax paper. Her sauce was distinctly hers, and to this day I wonder what sort of spices gave it that originality and edge. The fact that she used her own tomatoes and wine may have something to do with the uniqueness. Then again, don't all Italian Americans believe their grandmother's marinara sauce was unique, brilliant, beyond repetition? Ida would sit with a gun on the back porch of her little farmhouse and shoot rabbits as they tried to nibble her precious crops, and these would provide the protein ? her second course, after the pasta. I don't think I've ever eaten rabbit since those days; in fact, I never see it in the supermarkets, or I might buy it. (I'm certainly not about to shoot my own.) Especially in summer, her salad courses were memorable. Each of us was served a teeming bowl of fresh greens (dandelion greens, arugula, and a variety of lettuces), which she combined with bell peppers and mozzarella bits. There was a huge keg of olive oil in her basement, and she replenished it several times a year. I think the particular flavor of this oil added to the strange charm of those salads.


The University's design project, the Unmanned Probe to Pluto, is reviewed. Forty-two students divided into seven groups, participated in the program. A presentation, prepared by three students and a graduate teaching assistant for the program's summer conference, summarized the project results.


There is greater demand on schools to provide autonomy to the learners in the learning process. Diverse strategies are suggested by academicians to achieve the desired autonomy. One such strategy is inquiry-based teaching which provides students with enhanced autonomy in the learning process. This study explores how inquiry-based teaching could be introduced in mathematics classroom in a lower secondary school of Pakistan through an action research process? Analytic memos, sample of students work, reflections from critical friend, observations, field notes and interviews were the main tools of data generation during the study. The results of the study report that inquiry-based teaching in mathematics classroom in lower secondary school of Pakistan could be initiated through change in physical setting of the classroom, changing role of students and teachers in the learning process, focusing autonomy rather than efficiency of the students in the learning and modifying the current examination system.


It has been shown that it is possible to obtain significant room temperature tensile ductility in FeAl alloys using iron-rich deviations from stoichiometry. A comparison of the room temperature tensile and compressive behaviors of Fe-50 at. pct Al and Fe-40 at. pct Al shows that FeAl is brittle at higher Al contents because it fractures along grain boundaries before general yielding. Lower aluminum contents reduce the yield stress substantially and hence some ductility is observed before fracture. Addition of boron results in measurable improvements in ductility of Fe-40 at. pct Al and is accompanied by an increase in transgranular tearing on the fracture surface, suggesting a grain boundary strengthening mechanism. Increasing the cooling rate following annealing at 1273 K results in a large increase in the yield strength and a corresponding decrease in ductility.


Abstract Purpose: vascularized fibular grafting has been used to treat osteonecrosis of the femoral head in younger patients. Although the results described in the literature are promising, the failure rate is still significant, especially in steroid users. This study was undertaken to learn more, on a histopathological level, about the mechanism of vascularized fibular graft failure. Methods: fifteen femoral heads removed at conversion to total hip arthroplasty were analyzed. The case load comprised 10 men and 5 women. They ranged in age from 28 to 39 years and had a median age of 35 years. The interval between the vascularized fibular implant procedure and the conversion to total hip arthroplasty ranged from 22 months to 30 months; the median interval was 26 months. All the patients were steroid users. The heads were sectioned and axial and coronal sections were taken and stained using the WHO method (hematoxylin, phloxine, saffron and Alcian green). A quantitative and qualitative analysis of graft-host interaction at the head (zone 1), neck (zone 2) and epiphysis (zone 3) was performed. Results: all the specimens showed recognizable collapse of the articular surface over the area of necrosis. Thirteen femoral heads showed the presence of an osteochondral flap attached only at the margins of the area of avascular necrosis, and 10 of these 13 femoral heads also showed loss of the articulating surface with an ulcer crater corresponding to the exposed area of avascular necrosis. Conclusions: vascularized fibular graft failure seems to be related to a negative effect of creeping substitution: the revascularization becomes a negative force as it supports unbalanced bone resorption, which, as is well known, is enhanced by corticosteroids. Clinical relevance: creeping substitution is an undermining force in the repair and revascularization of the necrotic area in the femoral head.


Major element, rare-earth element (REE), trace element and heavy metal geochemical analyses were performed on the waste rock dump of the Taojiang manganese deposit. Field observations and analysis indicate that the main materials of the waste rock dump are the host rock Middle Ordovician black shale and primary carbonate manganese ore. The waste rocks contain heavy metals such as Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, Tl, Sb and U. They are subaerially exposed to weathering and disintegration, resulting in leaching and removal of Sc, V, Cr, U, Cd, Th and other heavy metallic elements. These elements show the features of migration to different degrees and, among these, V, Cd and U show the strongest mobility. Additionally, it is evident that Ni, Cu, Zn, Pb, Tl and Sb in black shale are also leached. These heavy metallic elements, such as Cd and Tl, have very strong toxicity. When they enter the mining area and are accumulated continuously, they can exert serious influence on the environment. So great attention should be paid to the waste rock dumps as the pollution sources of heavy metals distributed in the area.


Children admitted to hospital with severe asthma attacks generally receive "very effective and efficient" treatment and care, but more attention must be given to asthma education and review at discharge to help prevent future attacks and readmission, says a national audit by the British Thoracic Society.

The society's National Paediatric Asthma Audit,1 published on 29 November, reviewed data on more than 5500 children over the age of 1 admitted with severe asthma attacks to 153 UK hospitals in November 2015 and found that most aspects of discharge from hospital were less than optimal.

Some 15% of the children were readmitted to hospital by 31 …


This paper introduces inverse active filters employing operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and grounded capacitors. The filter circuits can realise inverse low-pass, inverse band-pass and inverse high-pass transfer functions by addition of the circuit currents. Additionally, the circuit parameters ω0, Q and H can be set orthogonally or independently by adjusting the bias currents of the OTAs. The inverse filter circuits enjoy very low sensitivities to active and passive components. The achievement examples are given together with simulation results by PSPICE.


Development of novel electrocatalysts for PEFC has been paid attention to due to the fact that they have a major role to determine whole PEFC performance. We have been studying electrocatalysts made of nanostructured carbons, called mesoporous carbon (MC), which have ordered 8-nm nano-channnels. They are not only scientifically interesting but also practical materials in terms of easy synthetic process through the selforganization of surfactants (Pluronic F127) and carbon precursors (resorcinol and formaldehyde). Such nanochannels are treated as reaction sites, and electrocatalysts in this study are developed after the introduction of 2-nm Pt particles (see the image in Figure 1). In the previous study, we studied electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in such nano-space. In comparison to larger nano-space (over 30 nm), different phenomena were observed. Both proton and oxygen were effectively provided, and further successful drain of water through the hydrophobic pores was achieved. Due to all these combined conditions, the promotion of ORR reactions has been accomplished. Regarding to hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR), a similar effect was observed, and HOR was also enhanced within 8-nm nano-channels. This enhancement on electrocatalytic reactions was also seen when PtCu particles were introduced in nano-channels. The 2-3 nm of Pt/Cu alloy particles, fitted into 8 nm nano-space , were successfully synthesized. Pt/Cu alloys were further dealloyed on the potential cycling between 0 and 1.2 V and formed a core-shell structure. The core-shell structure of PtCu and the distinct mass transfer inside nano-channels together improved the mass activity toward ORR. Therefore, it is proven that nano-channels excellently work for nano-reaction sites. Based on such a background, now we are interested in the control of nano-space size. Recently, we have successfully enlarged the diameter of nano-channels to 12 nm. The pore diameter can be also controlled through changing the kind of surfactants. On the other hand, we can modify the length of nano-channels by varying particle size of MC. The other key factor besides the size of nano-channels is hydrophobic/hydrophilic nature of the pore surface. Those properties can be controlled by changing carbonization temperature or acid treating. Such challenges on the control of nanoenviroments and their effect on electrocatalytic reactions will be discussed.