This study is the first one among current studies investigating the near distance and suburban tourism in China, which resulted in the conceptual framework of Recreational Belt Around Metropolis, abbreviated thereafter as ReBAM. Taking Shanghai city, the largest metropolis of China, as a case, the study analyzes the location mechanism, formation process, land use patterns, accessibility, tourist behavior and spatial structure of ReBAM. The study reveals that travel cost to tourists and land price to investors determine simultaneously the location of ReBAM, where tourism planners find their favorite sites for city tourism development. Specifically, this study used Shanghai as a case to described the formation of ReBAM and examined the factors that affect such formation. These factors include demand on weekend recreation, investment preferences of developer, and regional development policy of local government. Three types of recreational land use were identified according to the entrance fee structures. These include 1) low-price section: public recreational facilities sanctioned by government, 2) medium-price section: joint ventures between government and private sector, and 3) high-price section: recreational facilities developed and operated by private sector. The results showed that the ReBAM exhibited three unique and elementary spatial features. They are 1) weak linkage network, 2) distance decay of travel behavior, and 3) activity density diffusion. The significance of the study's findings goes beyond the proposal of ReBAM. It presents practical implications for tourism planning and development. Based on the principles of ReBAM, the author proposed a three ring-shaped spatial structure for tourism development in Beijing, the capital city of China: central, urban fringe and rural outskirts.


Aaron Director was born in Charterisk, which is now in Ukraine, in 1901. He died in Los Altos Hills, California, on September 11, 2004. His life was long, his vita was short, and his influence on U.S. antitrust policy was profound. He was the intellectual progenitor of what is sometimes called the "Chicago School" of antitrust policy. Some of the seminal contributions of this school appeared in this Journal, of which Director was the founding editor. In this memorial essay I will review his life briefly, but I will focus mainly on his contribution to the economic and legal analysis of antitrust issues. Aaron Director came to the United States in 1913 with his family. He spent his formative years in Portland, Oregon, where the family ran a furniture store. In 1921 he was awarded a scholarship to attend Yale University, from which he graduated in 1924. At this time of his life, Director fancied himself a socialist and conducted himself accordingly, dabbling at various blue-collar jobs and teaching at a school affiliated with the Oregon Labor Party. These radical beliefs were eventually to be altered radically. This pattern of early infatuation with socialism and its subsequent rejection was later to be mirrored in several of his influential students. Director first arrived at the University of Chicago in 1927 with a fellowship to study labor economics under Paul Douglas (coparent of the Cobb-Douglas production function and later U.S. senator from Illinois). However, the greater intellectual influence on his life would come from Frank Knight and Jacob Viner. Director was a graduate student and part-time instructor at Chicago until 1934, but he never completed a doctoral dissertation. It was during this period that he persuaded his sister, Rose, to join him as a graduate student, where she met her future husband, Milton Friedman. This was also the time when Milton Friedman, Aaron Director, and fellow student George Stigler formed a powerful tripartite intellectual relationship that was to endure for the entirety of their careers.


Several methods have been introduced over the years to measure CT image noise magnitudes in vivo applying different image segmentation strategies, HU thresholds, and regions of interests in which the noise is calculated. Therefore, it is impossible to directly compare results obtained with different methods and to objectively evaluate image quality in CT. This study provided an unbiased comparison of two methods to estimate noise utilizing a Virtual Imaging Trials platform simulating 1800 image datasets representing different dose levels, anatomical areas, and reconstruction techniques. Only methods that measure noise magnitude in soft tissue can effectively inform protocol design and optimization.


In the years since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the popularly elected leadership of the Republic of Georgia has responded to organized protests with a variety of repressive tactics. These reactions suggest that former challengers to authoritarian elites may utilize similar methods of retaining power during crisis periods. Yet, the alleged involvement of agencies of the Russian Federation in fomenting domestic instability has also occupied a central position in the national security policies of the outgoing Saakashvili government. These conditions both preceded and were reinforced by the South Ossetia War of August 2008. This article proposes a theoretical model that represents the intervening effect of interstate conflicts on state–society relations in Georgia from 2003 to present. It presents several hypotheses and possible indicators, data sources, and techniques for analyzing the interaction between characteristics of opposition groups, external threats, and the domestic security practices of contemporary Georgian political elites.


Wax moths are a worldwide pest of honeybee colonies. They belong to the Galleriinae subfamily of the Pyralidae family in the order Lepidoptera. The Greater wax moth (Achroia grisella) and the Lesser wax moth (Achroia grisella) are the two species of wax moths (Galleria mellonella). The Greater Wax Moth is the most disastrous in apiaries causing annual financial losses. Furthermore, larval feeding deteriorates wax combs and destroys hive frames and wooden elements. Wax moths feed on hive products such as wax, cast-off honey bee pupal skin, larval bee remnants, pollen, encapsulated honey bee excrement found on brood cell walls, honey bee cocoon silk and honey bee cocoon silk. They produce massive amounts of the web by entering the comb's midrib. Almost all Asian honeybee, hives are infested with wax moths. In 2021-22, GWM and LWM activities were carried out in storage at Big Bee Farm, Atwal Bee Farm and Tiwana Bee Farm. Galleria mellonella and Achroia grisella seasonally began in March, peaked in July and August and then began to decline. The highest G. mellonella and A. grisella population densities were seen during the months with mean temperatures of 32–34 degrees Celsius and relative humidity of 70–80% (50–55 RH per cent). During the winter, the study found the fewest wax moth larvae, pupae and adults in all bee storage farms.


Examining the genealogy of the graphemes is useful for exploring the evolution of the writing systems, reading undeciphered inscriptions, and deciphering undeciphered scripts. Researching the evolution of various scripts needs sophisticated and automatized procedures for exploring the fine links among the different writing systems, which research belongs to the field of the computational paleography. The traditional method compares the whole grapheme repertoire of the scripts. However, it is inefficient if the graphemes in the writing system were borrowed from different scripts. The proposed, novel procedure is based on the topological comparison of each glyph of the graphemes. Its algorithm is based on the global minimization of the topological differences in each descent branch of the graphemes. The studies related to glyphs of a particular script are challenging topics for linguists, archeologists and anthropologists, one of them are deciphering undeciphered glyph discovered through excavation, reading patterns in glyphs transformation, etc. The effective software may accelerate the research time and to provide more accurate result through the automatic process. Producing that software needs a support of a solid mathematical model. Therefore, our main challenge is to develop such descriptive mathematical model as a useful framework for the archeologist and anthropologist in supporting their research. Such model can be used for describing how a glyph could transform from one shape to another, or try to estimate how other external parameters (e.g. writing instrument) could affect the transformation of a glyph. The chapter gives some results belonging to the field of the computational paleography. A detailed model for measuring the characteristicness of the glyphs called Glyph Complexity Parameter (GCP) is described. Moreover, a method of transforming the topological information of glyphs into numerical descriptions is also presented. Based on the elaborated numerical grapheme model, researching the genealogical ties of graphemes can be reached with solving a mathematical optimization problem. The efficiency of the proposed approach is demonstrated examples in the field of the Rovash (pronounced "rove-ash", other spelling: Rovas) script family. The specialty of the rovash paleography that the Rovash script family shows a vital evolution during the last centuries; therefore, it is ideal subject to test the models of the evolution of the glyphs. The rovash graphemes are used by nations in the Eurasian Steppe and in the Carpathian Basin. The five most important rovash scripts are the following: the Proto-Rovash, the Early Steppean Rovash, the Steppean Rovash, the Carpathian Basin Rovash, and the Szekely-Hungarian Rovash. The examples of the rovash grapheme ties prove the usefulness of the introduced grapheme descend exploring procedure.


ABSTRACT Humans naturally seek the pursuit of a meaningful, enriching life. Based on the literature on the role of leisure in meaning-making, this paper provides a conceptual framework for using a meaning-focused leisure practice. This framework suggests that leisure can promote a meaningful engagement with one's life through maintaining: (a) a joyful life, (b) a composed life, (c) a connected life, (d) a discovered life, and (e) a hopeful and empowered life. It has been documented that meanings or a meaning system represent a broader, more holistic concept to one's core values and inspiration for life than personal behaviours and experiences per se. Accordingly, a meaning-focused leisure practice focuses on the meanings that leisure activities can promote, which are appealing and important to people. Considering the multidimensionality of leisure-induced meaningful engagement with life is important so that leisure practitioners can purposefully engineer to derive multiple meanings from a single leisure engagement experience, while recognizing interconnectedness of the five themes identified.


The Indian growth process has been marked by the relative absence of structural change and the inability of faster output expansion to shift people out of low-productivity activities into higher value ones. Recent rapid growth has also been based on and resulted in growing inequalities. Private accumulation has relied upon existing social inequalities that create segmented labour markets that keep wages of certain social categories low, and on types of exclusion that allow large-scale displacement and dispossession without adequate compensation. The associated boom has required debt-driven bubbles to provide domestic demand since incomes of the masses have not risen in tandem, but such a strategy is inherently unsustainable. This growth process is now reaching the limits of its viability and is facing constraints posed by economic, social, political and environmental challenges.


In this paper, bus station design is presented as a component of public design to develop the integrated city public image of Daejeon Metropolitan City through the study of city characteristics and the direction of future development. Design concept is the mutual understanding of public image and human centered sense, and comfortable bus station which is correspond with future development direction and applicable for digital informationization is selected. Design components are bus shelter, information board, bench, vending machine, a wastebasket, billboards and so forth.


Women are more likely than men to experience depression, and they are particularly vulnerable to depression during the postpartum period. Postpartum depression is distinguished from normal postpartum adjustment, postpartum blues, and postpartum psychosis. Biological, psychodynamic, and diathesis-stress perspectives on postpartum depression are described. Counselors are encouraged to fashion individualized treatments for postpartum depression that are matched to the stressors and vulnerabilities of their clients.


Case overview/synopsis
In the 1980s and 1990s, Nintendo was dominating the video game industry with a market share of 90 per cent. Since that time, market share has dropped substantially with new competitors, new technology and changing consumer preferences. This case examines the history of Nintendo including its loss of market share in a rapidly changing industry.

Complexity academic level
This case is suitable for undergraduate courses in strategic management where an instructor's focus is on strategic decision-making.


STEPHEN P. HEYNEMAN is on the staff of the Education Division, World Bank, Washington, D.C. DEAN T. JAMISON is on the staff of the Education Division, The World Bank, Washington, D.C. THOMAS J. LA BELLE is associate professor of education and associate chairman of the Department of Education, University of California, Los Angeles. He is president-elect of the Comparative and International Education Society.


incorporate comorbidities, and dichotomous classification of patients as frail or non-frail, which hinders adequate identification of frail older adults. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the frailty profile of outpatients seen at a secondary geriatric care service in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, as measured by the Visual Scale of Frailty, and describe the five levels of health status proposed by this instrument in terms of function, disabilities, and comorbidities. METHODS: The medical records of patients who attended the clinic between February 2011 and February 2014 were evaluated, and the patients classified in accordance with the Visual Scale of Frailty. Continuous variables were analyzed by ANOVA or the Kruskal-Wallis test, and categorical variables, by the χ2 test. Analyses were performed in SPSS Version 19.0. RESULTS: A total of 813 medical records were evaluated. Among these patients, 5.2% were considered robust, 31% at risk of frailty, 24.6% as frail, 34.8% as highly complex frail, and 4.4% as frail individuals in the final stage of life. Analysis of the health status categories demonstrated an association between these categories, greater functional impairment, and greater presence of disabilities and comorbidities. CONCLUSION: The Visual Scale of Frailty is a useful tool in assessing the health status of older adults and indicated a high prevalence of frailty in the studied population.


Taking an ancient landslide control engineering in Guilin as an example,two supporting schemes,prestressed anchor cable lattice beam and prestressed anchor cable anti-sliding pile, were designed for landslide control,in respect of which FEM numerical simulation was conducted,then the results were analyzed from the aspects of the landslide displacement and stability factor. Combining with the construction difficulties,project cost and effects on the environment,the supporting schemes were compared and analyzed comprehensively,as a result,the optimal design was confirmed to be anchor cable anti-sliding pile. It may be referred to by similar engineering.


Objective: To demonstrate to the general practitioner the importance of the use of rubber dam during endodontic treatment through a case report where was described the monitoring employed with a patient who accidentally ingested a rotary file S1 ProTaper ® (Dentsply Maillefer, Switzerland) during the root canal preparation. Case report: A 28 years-old patient underwent root canal treatment without rubber dam and during the root canal therapy, swallowed a ProTaper ® S1. He was accompanied to the hospital where, at first, was performed a gastrointestinal high endoscopy and a CT scan. He remained asymptomatic after these two early interventions, was monitored over four days, through X-rays of chest and abdomen, until the foreign body was eliminated. Conclusion: General practitioners who do endodontics should be aware of the risks involved in swallowing and/or accidental aspiration of foreign bodies during endodontic treatment, and know how to avoid this problem by adopting a simple measure, the use of rubber dam.


We have demonstrated previously by cDNA vinalysis that VIP is derived together with PHI-like peptide (PHM) from a common precursor (preproVIP) in a humain neuroblastoma cell line called NB-OK-1. The humain neuroblastosma cell line produces and releases the large variants (8K and 18K dalton) of VIP-like immunoreactivity (IR-VIP) in response to dibutyryl cAMP stimulation. The purpose of the present study is to purify the 8Kd vind 18Kd forms of VIP-relaited peptides from the human neuroblastoma culture media and to characterize their structure. IR-VIP in the culture media was fractionated with 40% to 60% of saturated ammonium sulfate (SAS)


The working training needs of the general workers (not teaching staff) from the universities of pedagogical sciencies are not common issues in pedagogical research. This article deals with the theoretical grounds of the general workers environmental working training, a limited area within the general training these workers from the University of Pedagogical Sciencies "Rafael Maria de Mendive", should receive. Such grounds are identified in the philosophy and the sociology of education, the historical-cultural approach by L. S. Vigotski and his followers, the Theory of Advanced Education, and the contents of the environmental education, along with the parameters to qualify an environmentalist educator.


The Intel Programmable Integrated Unified Memory Architecture (PIUMA) system maps collective operations directly into the network switches and supports pipelined embeddings for high-throughput collective computation. Utilizing these features and PIUMA's network topology, we develop a methodology to generate extremely low latency embeddings for in-network Allreduce. Our analysis shows that the proposed in-network Allreduce is highly scalable, with less than 1.5-μs single-element latency on 16K nodes. Compared to host-based Allreduce, it exhibits 36× less latency and 3.5× higher throughput. With deep neural network training as an example, we further demonstrate the benefits of our in-network Allreduce on end-user applications.


During a 12-month period ending on November 30, 1988, data on 133 pediatric patients visiting a pediatric emergency department with water-related injuries were collected. Of these patients, 70% were male. There were 13 submersions, seven cases of head trauma, three cases of neck trauma, 88 cases of external injury, and 34 other injuries. Incidents took place at beaches (75%), in public pools (12%), in friends' pools (4%), and in home pools (4%). Eighty-six percent of the cohort knew how to swim. Swimming, playing, and surfing activity accounted for most of the injuries. Measures for prevention are described.


The conflicts involved in the decision of a transexual between his decision to submit to a surgery to change sex or taking care of a son is focused in this work. The differential diagnosis and the problems concerning the surgery are considered on a psychoanalitic point of view with the background of the film


Looking over the state of faculty in high vocational colleges,we find that there exists a wide gap between the reality and the desired target of cultivating teachers with two combined functions they seek.To solve this bottleneck problem completely,it is necessary to innovate in the mechanism and establish the perfect systematic faculty cultivating mechanism targeting tough problems in order to cultivate the teachers who can meet the standards that high education requires for the sustainable development.


Under the background of new cultural industry, short video, as an important carrier of cultural industry, has injected fresh blood into its development. Based upon the online data report, taking the cultural spread of the cultural relics derivatives of the Shenyang Palace Museum as the main as the study object, this paper analyzes the advantages of cultural communication that the communication mechanism of the short video platform produces, combs and analyzes the video data of Shenyang Palace Museum on the short video platform. Finally, on the basis of the good-quality dissemination mechanism of the short video platform, this paper studied the cultural dissemination path of the cultural relics of the Shenyang Palace Museum from four perspectives: IP construction, content production, cultural dissemination, and remaining users.


have bcen perfonlled, the intracellular signals that mediate skelet,al muscle wasting due to muscular disuse are not completely comprehended, L)ndcrstanding the triggers oi' atrophy and the mechanisms that regulate protetn loss in unloaded muscles may lcad to the development of cffective countermeasures such us exercise t]nd dietary intervention. The objective of the presenL review is to provide a window into the molccular processes that underLie skeletal muscle rcmodeling and to examine what we know about exercise und nutrition countermcasures designed to minimize rnuscle atrophy


A novel and efficient synthesis of pyrimidine from p-formyl enamide is described. The key step involves samarium chloride catalysed cyclisation of β-formyl enamides using urea as source of ammonia under microwave irradiation.


Split magnet systems for hybrid imaging, such as positron emission tomography-magnetic resonance imaging (PET-MRI) and Radiotherapy-MRI, require gradient coils designed with similar shapes as their corresponding main magnet. This introduces challenges in the gradient coil design of good performance and manufacturing. In this paper the effect of the gap size in shielded transverse split gradient coils and split cryostat "warm" bore over the coil efficiency, shielding efficiency, wire spacing, cryostat ohmic power loss and mechanical vibration have been simulated and studied. A "free-surface" gradient coil design method was used to design the split, actively-shielded transverse gradient coils with an axial gap. A network method was used to calculate the eddy currents induced in the split cryostat "warm" bore. The shielding efficiency and the minimum wire spacing were found to decrease when the size of the central gap is increased. The ohmic power loss and the amplitude of the radial vibrations in the split cryostat "warm" bore increases when the gap size in the gradient coil and "warm" bore is increased. It is hoped that these investigations will be useful for the development of new hybrid imaging modalities involving MRI.


The annual Physics in Collision International Conference reviewed and updated key topics in all areas of elementary particle physics, ranging from neutrino physics to recent results obtained from colliders.


A 16-year old Caucasian girl was evaluated for scoliosis 9 years after bone marrow transplant (BMT) and 13 years after her initial ALL diagnosis. A chest radiograph showed a lesion of the right third rib. Histopathology was consistent with a high-grade OS. She died 5 months after OS diagnosis. There is no family history of cancer. Prior therapy comprised BFM standard risk for de novo ALL, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital regimen and cranial-spinal radiation for central nervous system (CNS) recurrence, Children's Cancer Group (CCG) 1941, and matched unrelated allo-transplant (conditioned with TBI and thiotepa, cyclophosphamide, and ATG) for bone marrow recurrence. Two years after transplant GH therapy commenced. A 15-year-old Hispanic girl with RAPADILINO syndrome experienced left lower extremity pain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a destructive lesion and biopsy was consistent with OS. At 11 years of age short stature was diagnosed. Growth hormone therapy was started and discontinued once OS was diagnosed. There is no family history of cancer. The Childhood Cancer Survivor Study reported the 25-year follow-up among survivors of childhood ALL. The cumulative incidence of SMN of 5.2% (6.2% for those receiving radiation therapy) at 25 years from diagnosis [2]. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH) investigators reported the incidence of SMN as a first event in 2169 patients treated between 1962 and 1998 [3]. The cumulative incidence of SMN was 4.17% at 15 years and 10.85% at 30 years. Two cases of OS constituting 1.2% of SMN were observed.


A monthly section highlighting the impact of technological development on consumers and the blindness/visual impairment field. '1% n~~ your support. Please send news, review~, and descriptions of new hardware, software, interfacing Ideas, prototy~s, tr.urung programs, job opportunities, volunteer usage, user evaluations, educational opportunities, exhibits-in short. anythmg and everything-to the Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 15 W. 16th .St , New York, NY 10011. In addition, we will attempt to direct reader queries to the appropriate experts, and publish questions and answers of general interest. Ideas and suggestions are welcomed.


SYSTEMS that operate in real-time have stringent operational requirements and are particularly vulnerable to failures in their controls. Accurate fault diagnosis and speedy repairs are essential in such systems. A microcomputer based expert system, CHAMBER2, for control failure diagnosis support in a system of environmentally regulated plant research chambers has been developed. It is a dynamic system and is sufficiently autonomous to be used regularly. The expert system development environment used in this project has the capability to exit the heuristic knowledge base and run high-level language programs, passing information to and from the knowledge base. Using this feature CHAMBER2 has access to data bases and has communications links with the control computer that give it direct access to sensor measurements in real-time. These features minimize the requirement for data entry from the user and increase the availability of accurate data to the expert system. The shell software also provides for cycling through the knowledge base, facilitating real-time operation. When it (CHAMBER2) polls the sensors and finds no problems, it reinitializes the knowledge base and looks again without requesting user observations. The emphasis in this development was on the integration of data bases, sensor data, and cycling in real-time. Future work will emphasize development of feedback from the expert system to the control program.


Abstract The purpose of this research is to understand the stress of and the satisfaction of the current condition of work concerning the director of educational affairs at elementary schools. In addition, it compares the directors of educational affairs with different backgrounds to understand the difference in the stress and satisfaction derived from the position. Meanwhile, it attempts to understand related situations further as a reference for the education administration institutions, elementary school principals, and directors of educational affairs in elementary schools, in order to promote the administration efficiency in the elementary school. This research regards all the directors of educational affairs, numbered 354, in the elementary schools in Taipei City and County as samples. A questionnaire and semi-structure interview are adopted for the goal. Regarding the questionnaire, there are 286 valid samples. The research tool, "Stress and Satisfactory Questionnaire concerning the Role of Directors of Educational Affairs in Elementary Schools," which is designed by the research, is employed. The data yielded from the questionnaire are analyzed by SPSS 10.0 for Windows (Chinese Version). The data are further verified with arithmetic mean, estimated standard deviation, t-Test, 1-Way ANCOVA, Pearson's Product moment Correlations, and multiple stepwise regressions. Concerning case interviews, there are 10 interviewees in total; they are interviewed in a semi-structure manner. Moreover, the results of the interview were summarized. It is expected that the questionnaire will be the major part of the research and the interviews will be support. Employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, the result is expected to be more objective and complete. Summarizing the research results, the research proposes the conclusions as follows: 1. The stress concerning the role of the directors of educational affairs in elementary schools in Taipei City and County is below the average. The feel of "role burden" is the highest; the feel of "fuzzy role" is the lowest. 2. The degree of satisfaction regarding the directors of the elementary schools to their work is above the average. They have a higher feel concerning the "principal's leadership" and "interrelationship." The degree of satisfaction concerning "work conditions" is the lowest. 3. There is an obvious difference between "age and the length of service" and "adjusting to the stress of the role" concerning the directors of educational affairs in the elementary schools in Taipei City and County. There is a significant difference between "age, marriage, and the length of service" and "fuzzy role" concerning the directors of educational affairs in the elementary schools. In the aspects of "age", "role conflict", and "role burden", there is a significant difference. 4. There is a significance between "age", "satisfaction for overall work", "work itself", "social status", and "interrelationship" concerning the directors of educational affairs in the elementary schools. In the matters of the "highest qualifications and length of service", "work environment", and "interrelationship", there is significant difference. 5. The overall role stress concerning the directors of educational affairs in elementary schools is negatively related to a medium degree to the overall working satisfaction. Concerning "fuzzy role" and "principal's leadership, work itself, work environment, interrelationship", they are negatively related to a medium degree. Concerning the two facets – "role conflict and role burden" and work and the five facets of satisfaction, they are negatively related to a minimum degree. 6. Concerning overall role pressure and effective prediction in overall satisfaction of work, it is of a low degree of prediction. However, concerning "principal's leadership", it appears to have a high degree of predictability. Concerning the three facets of stress, only the "fuzzy role and role burden" in relation to overall work satisfaction can be predicted. Meanwhile, regarding "fuzzy role", it is of mid degree predictability. Regarding the predictability of "role burden", it is the lowest. The research would like to present the following suggestions: 1. Suggestions to education administrative institutions: (1) Clarify the responsibility of the directors and the allocation of personnel to promote the operation quality of education affairs. (2) Enhance the counseling mechanism of the educational executives to cultivate more professionals. (3) Establish the rotation shift of job assignment to activate multidimensional participation and accomplishments. (4) Increase the funding to enrich software and hardware in order to construct a quality working environment. 2. Suggestions to the principals of elementary schools: (1) Establish the fair rotation system to promote the team's concentric force. (2) Construct a righteous and harmonious atmosphere for the organization in order to cultivate in the schools the morals of truth, perfect, and beauty. (3) Develop professional ethics and the morals of leadership in order to activate the authorized behavior. (4) Pay attention to clear job distinction in administrative work in order to consolidate the inheritance of experience. 3. Suggestions to the directors of educational affairs in elementary schools: (1) Perfect the emotional management strategy in order to transform stress into a helping force actively. (2) Participate in related professional courses actively in order to deepen the directions of the duty. (3) Get familiar with the nature of administrative work and the goal of growth in order to elevate the professional image. (4) Build up a good interrelationship and supportive network in order to promote the team's operation. Keywords: role stress, satisfaction of work, director of educational affairs


Attitudes toward statistics play an important role in statistical understanding, postsecondary decisions, and a lifelong relationship with statistics. Unfortunately, the average undergraduate student tends to view statistics as less interesting and less valuable after completing an introductory statistics course. The product of several decades of statistics education reform, a statistical reasoning learning environment (SRLE) has shown some positive early results in cognitive domains and may impact attitudes as well. In this study, four classes of introductory undergraduate statistics (two fully online, two face-to-face) were designed as SRLEs. Students (n = 83) completed a pretest and posttest version of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics-36©. Both online and face-to-face sections showed average gains in Interest and Value that were higher than those reported in a large reference group, and these gains were practically significant.


INTRODUCTION. The list and the contents of branch (special) principles of IHL are considered to be a current subject of study. Along with the traditional legal approaches, the study forward additional theoretical arguments to include the environmental protection and the responsibility of officials and militaries for war crimes in the system of IHL principles. Besidesthat, it is obvious that the record of IHL prohibitions to belligerents as general international legal rules to conduct hostilities, is refined.   MATERIALS AND METHODS. The above study is based both on scientific researches of Russian and foreign authors in the field of IHL and analysis of international legal acts on universal level. Methodological basis of research includes general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, modeling and systematization) and special legal methods (legal comparativistics, formal legal).   RESEARCH RESULTS. Completed systematization of IHL principles shows combination of different legal concepts, either of which has a certain scientific value. It looks important to summarize the international legal sources and trends taking place in UN system in order to expand the list of the mentioned principles.   DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. In frames of this study the author is proposing the impartial assessments of established scientific approaches to definition and contents of IHL branch (special) principles. Both the forms of international legal cooperation of states to create an institution of responsibility for war crimes and the results of Nuremberg military tribunal regarding prevention of IHL violations are examined separately. The complimentary legal grounds of modern international courts functioning are determined by combination of national and interstate jurisdiction in the above field.


Examination revealed minimal swelling over the right shoulder. His shoulder was protected in a sling and he performed limited pendulum exercises for the first two weeks. His range of motion on the right side was significantly decreased, particularly to abduction, external rotation and internal rotation. His supraspinatus was also weak and very painful to strength testing but both anterior and posterior portions of the deltoid were intact. Neurovascular exam revealed no deficits. Preliminary x-rays showed subluxed shoulder joint. An MRI was done to evaluate the patient's rotator cuff and glenoid labrum which showed an antero inferior labral tear, a supraspinatus, infraspinatus and subscapularis tears. A CT scan was done to check other bony pathologies. It showed a Hill sach's lesion and coracoid process fracture which was displaced.


Peptic ulcer disease is one of the main sources of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Many medicinal plants showed gastroprotective activity by many mechanisms, in addition some medicinal plants possessed anti Helicobacter pylori activity. This review will discussed the medicinal plants showed gastroprotective activity.


This paper studies the robust tracking control problem for a class of uncertain nonlinear dynamical systems subject to unknown disturbances. A robust trajectory tracking control law is designed via a simple learning-based control strategy. In the developed design, the cost function based on the desired closed-loop error dynamics is minimized by means of gradient descent technique. A stability proof for the closed-loop nonlinear system is provided based on the pseudo-linear system theory. The learning capability of the developed robust trajectory tracking control law allows the system to mitigate the adverse effects of the uncertainties and disturbances. The numerical simulation results for a planar PPR robot are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the developed control law.


Improved diagnosis, prognosis and disease follow-up is a fundamental procedure and a constant challenge in medicine.  Among the different molecular biomarkers, proteins are the essential regulatory ...


Populations of Alsophila pometaria (Harris) are largely gynogenetic and composed of asexual females that must mate with a conspecific male to reproduce. Within this asexual contingent, there are a variety of electrophoretically defined multilocus genotypes. In this study we found that populations differ in sex ratio. We also found that there is an indication of differential mating success among asexual genotypes in a population of A. pometaria.


The theoretical analysis was conducted systematically for the altitude performance of the oil pump from fluid dynamics.The principles of altitude performance were explained and the relationship between various influence factors was derived.The following conclusions are obtained: the less of inlet pump total drag coefficient,oil density and pump design flow and the larger of the inlet pipe diameter,the more benofit to sustain the altitude performance For the rotor pump,the less of inner gear tooth swept area,tooth number,rotor speed and rotor width,the more benefit to sustain altitude performance.For the gear pump,the less of modulus and tooth number,rotor speed and rotor width,the more benefit to sustain altitude performance.On the contrary,the altitude performance can't be sustained.


We study periodic, deterministic aperiodic (Thue-Morse, Fibonacci, Period Doubling, Rudin-Shapiro, Cantor, generalized Cantor, Kolakoski) and random binary sequences within the framework of the Tight-Binding wire model. We use B-DNA as our prototype system, where all sequences have purines on the same strand and start with guanine. We investigate the interplay between structure, magnitude of parameters, and spectral, localization and charge transport properties. To this end, we comparatively study relevant quantities such as autocorrelation functions, integrated density of states, Lyapunov exponents, transmission coefficients and current-voltage curves, using the Landauer-Buttiker formalism. Our results reveal that there is a correspondence between the degree of structural complexity and the presence of correlations in the sequences and the aforementioned properties. Apart from periodic segments, which display enhanced transport properties, there are several cases of deterministic aperiodic sequences that can support significant currents, depending on the Fermi level of the leads. Random segments represent the less efficient category. Finally, we discuss factors that influence the results and examine homogeneous sequences, for which transport efficiency is maximal.


In the Gell-Mann--Levy sigma model, although the soliton by itself is unstable to collapse, the author finds a stable self-consistent solution of a valence (single-particle) nucleon bound state in a soliton (hedgehog) configuration of the meson fields. This solution has baryon number 2 and in the neglect of quantum fluctuations its energy is found to be less than m/sub N/ = g( = gf/sub ..pi../), the mass of the usual plane-wave nucleon.


Automobile noise contains a variety of different noise. It can be divided into the engine noise and chassis of noise. The engine noise is main noise sources of automobile noise, and can be roughly divided into pneumatic noise, combustion noise, and mechanical noise. These are caused by the recruit vibration of the students in air, when a car engine exhausts fan rotation, these voices, the light into the air directly. No, the largest into exhaust muffler for automobile engine exhaust noise, another kind is the source of the intake noise. Fan noise, usually main noise sources especially air-cooled engine. Combustion noise, mechanical noise is difficult to disaggregate. Study on emission of vehicle noise frequency characteristics and energy distribution characteristics, with the optical image automatic overlapping, obtained the vehicle noise source frequency, spatial location and origin. The test results show that, the microphone array technology is an effective way for noise diagnosis and sound localization, for noise control of vehicle to provide a scientific basis.


The domestic loan issued in 1894 was not the first Chinese domestic loan. It is only the first Chinese domestic loan issued by government. The non-issued domestic loan was in existence in ancient society . In morden times, some printed tickets given to renters and domestic loans borrowed from the financial institutions appeared. It indicated that the domestic loan issued by government would appear.


Abstract There is a robust argument in the state politics literature over whether the citizen-initiative per se engenders a Tocquevillian Tyranny of the Majority. For example Barbara Gamble's disagreement with Todd Donovan and Shaun Bowler in the AJPS in the late 1990s centers around whether the citizen-initiative is bad for minority rights. A fairer assessment of the ills or otherwise of the citizen-initiative can be made by comparison to the legislative-referral. Constitutions have to be amended and the legislative-referral is the only institution other than the initiative that is widely used. Critics of the citizen-initiative have to fall back on representative democracy and in this case a hybrid representative-direct-democratic institution -- the legislative referral. This paper asks if politicians can be relied upon more than the citizen initiative to defend the rights of minorities. Moreover there are three times as many constitutional amendments referred to the ballot by legislatures than there are citizen-initiatives, each constitutional change with equal potential for the majority to disadvantage minorities as a citizen-initiative. This paper is the first to compare the outcomes of the referral process, which is available in all 50 states but Delaware, to that of the Citizen-Initiative. Using multi-level event count models to take advantage of the diversity of state institutions. The data is modeled to assess whether the legislative-referral is used to the detriment of minority rights more frequently or under different conditions to the citizen-initiative and whether there is a significant difference in the rate of passage of the set of amendments detrimental to minority rights.


Pestalozzi and Tao Xing-zhi both have been outstanding democratic educators in history of human education. Coincidentally,they have a very similar part of the educational theory and practice in spite of living in different culture areas. And they all,quietly,pursue for their own educational ideals with sincere heart. In this paper,it will give a brief exposition of Pestalozzi's life education,outline its theoretical framework and system,and make a comparison with Tao Xing-zhi. By comparison,we find that the essential difference of them lies in:Pestalozzi deems that life is the principle of education; Tao Xing-zhi holds that life is the context of education. The rest are the resulting of this difference.


More and more hospitals are now deploying mul-tiple cameras in trauma room for a multi-perspective remote observation. but video surveillance system can cause privacy breach by showing and storing sensitive information of patients and staff. We use OpenPose which is a state-of-the-art human body skeletons estimation framework to extract 18 human key skeleton points. For privacy preservation, we can apply the image obfuscation techniques to human heads, we also can use human skeleton to replace the human body in the truth background. we proposed a head detection method based on the 5 key points of each head output from OpenPose. We applied the st-gcn algorithm to recognize human actions, we propose a interactive algorithm for multiple cameras to recognize and trace the same person in different cameras, Based on multi-view action recognition for the same person, we can take action recognition accuracy to a high level. Our experiment results prove that our proposed technique has a high performance in privacy protection applications. Now we focus on the interactive algorithm for multiple cameras.


The invention discloses a sandblasting PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) hot-pressing cushioning material and a preparation method thereof. The sandblasting PET hot-pressing cushioning material comprises a PET layer and a heat-conducting silica gel layer, wherein the surface of the PET layer is subjected to single-sided sandblasting treatment, and the heat-conducting silica gel layer is formed by mixing heat-conducting silica gel, a conducting material, alumina, ceramic powder and a bridging agent. The PET material is subjected to sandblasting treatment and then the PET material and the heat-conducting silica gel layer are flattened, dried and glued together; when the PET material is used, the PET layer can be removed by virtue of external force; gluing of the PET material and the heat-conducting silica gel layer is easier after the sandblasting treatment; and the PET material has the following characteristics that the PET material is heat-resistant, good in heat conductivity, good in release property and long in service life, and the pressing times are increased to above three times than those of the original product.


A microwave tube having at least one electronically frequency-tunable cavity (3) defined by a conductive wall (10) and containing a conductive element (8) provided with at least one switching element (39) controlled by radiation (32)) from a light source outside the cavity (3). When the switching element (39) is open, the cavity (3) resonates at a first frequency, and when it is closed, said cavity (3) resonates at a second frequency. Applications: frequency-tunable magnetrons in particular.


Based on the contrast between reflection method and autocollimation method in measuring the vertex angle of triple prism,we think that the autocollimation method is a more suitable method for accuracy of measurement and operability.


Dissociated vertical deviation (DVD), first described in 1894, is commonly encountered in the infantile strabismus syndrome. The vertical position of the eyes in DVD depends on fixation effort and luminance differences. The neural mechanism behind DVD is still not clear. Visual and oculomotor pathways in the brainstem are phylogenetically old pathways which in origin are basically monocular: the eye projects to the contralateral brainstem. Cortical visual and oculomotor pathways on the other hand are only found in birds and mammals and are basically binocular: the visual field projects to the contralateral cortex. In primates, stereopsis driven pathways were found to dominate gravity driven brainstem pathways. In early onset strabismus stereopsis fails to develop. The cause of latent nystagmus which also occurs in infantile strabismus syndrome has been tied to a changed hierarchy between cortical and brainstem velocity tracking systems. The same may hold true for DVD. With scleral search coil recordings in individuals with DVD, we showed that motor characteristics in DVD are similar to disparity induced vertical vergence. Vergence is a phylogenetically new system that facilitates binocular vision and is even weaker in cats than in primates. Vergence pathways from the cortex to the superior colliculus are strictly unilateral. The rostral pole of monkey SC projects to omnipause neurons. Both stimulation of the rostral pole of the superior colliculus and stimulation of omnipause neurons result in changes in vertical vergence. At least for torsional eye movements, it is shown that by equally activating populations of neurons in the right and left interstitial nucleus of Cajal, the head is kept in position. It is likely that disparity induced vertical vergence is realized by weighted activation of right and left omnipause neurons. The nasal bias in ocular dominance columns and interocular suppression found in infantile strabismus may give rise to vertical vergence known as Dissociated Vertical Deviation.


The inadequacy of processing technology involved in the palm fruit processing has been attributed to the manual method and individualized processing machinery. This imposes the need to develop an all-in-one machine to increase efficiency, reduce time, space and drudgery. The palm fruit bunch chopper and spikelet machine comprise of the frame, chopping, stripping and cleaning chambers and the outlets (fruitlets, spikelet and dirt). Evaluation of the machine was varied on the level of ripeness of fresh palm fruit bunch, fermentation time of 24, 48, and 72hours, shafts speed (stripper shaft 320, 350, 500rpm and blower shaft 1300, 1500, 2100rpm). The stripping and quality performance efficiency with output capacity of stripping increased with level of ripeness, shafts speed and fermentation time from 15.949 – 94.015%, 12.843 – 79.943% and 59.208 – 249.056kg/hr respectively. The optimum chopping, stripping, quality performance and cleaning efficiency was obtained from the over-ripe fresh fruit bunch, 72hours fermentation time, 500rpm shafts speed and moisture content of 46.16% (db). The cost of producing one unit of the combined palm fruit bunch processor as at the time of fabrication was estimated to be ₦85,000 not including the cost of electric motor and the power required when operated with electric motor of 5.5hp.


PURPOSE
A prospective clinical study was conducted to assess whether sub-mSv cerebral CT perfusion (CTP) imaging can be achieved using the Prior Image Constrained Compressed Sensing (PICSS) reconstruction algorithm.

METHODS
Following a standard dose (SD) CTP acquisition, 31 patients (median age, 62 years; 15 M/16 F; median BMI, 27) underwent an additional reduced dose (RD) CTP acquisition at 20% of the standard dose level. Several algorithms (PICCS, ASIR, and FBP) were used to reconstruct CTP source images of the RD series. SD-FBP served as the reference standard. Two clinical observers (one neuroradiologist and one neurosurgeon) scored CTP maps using qualitative scoring system and quantitative noise measurements were performed. Statistical analyses were performed to interpret the qualitative and quantitative assessments.

RESULTS
The CTDIvol and effective dose for the RD series was 44.5 mGy and 0.75 mSv respectively, compared with 222.6 mGy and 3.74 mSv respectively for the SD series. The average image quality scores of the RD-PICCS series were 3.8±0.7 for CBF, 3.5±0.9 for CBV, 3.9±0.9 for MTT. In comparison, subjective image quality scores of SD-FBP were 3.5±0.8 for CBF, 3.5±0.9 for CBV, 3.3±0.8 for MTT. The average noise of RD-PICCS (CBF, 5.8±1.9 mL/100 g/min; CBV, 0.74±0.26 mL/100 g; MTT, 5.5±1.2 s) were lower than those of SD-FBP (CBF, 8.1±2.5 mL/100 g/min; CBV, 0.86±0.28 mL/100 g; MTT, 6.4±1.2 s) with statistical significance (p < 0.001). Both subjective scores and objective noise of RD-ASIR and RD-FBP were significantly inferior to those of SD-FBP (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
PICCS enables sub-mSv cerebral CTP imaging without compromising diagnostic image quality. Funding Support: 2015 AAPM Research Seed Grant. Disclosures: J. Tang: Employee, GE Healthcare; H. Rowley: Research Consultant, Bracco Group, Guerbet SA, GE Healthcare, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, W.L. Gore & Associates, Lundbeck Group; C. Strother: Research Consultant, Siemens AX; G.-H. Chen: Research funded, GE Healthcare, Siemens AX.


Mind, it is increasingly fashionable to assert, is an intrinsically embodied and environmentally embedded phenomenon. But there is a potential tension between two strands of thought prominent in this recent literature. One of those strands depicts the body as special, and the fine details of a creature's embodiment as a major constraint on the nature of its mind: a kind of new-wave body-centrism. The other depicts the body as just one element in a kind of equal-partners dance between brain, body and world, with the nature of the mind fixed by the overall balance thus achieved: a kind of extended functionalism (now with an even broader canvas for multiple realizability than ever before). The present paper displays the tension, scouts the space of possible responses, and ends by attempting to specify what the body actually needs to be, given its complex role in these recent debates.


The approximate phase characteristics of the space-charge waves in bounded plasmas are developed assuming the charge density to be statistically distributed. The influence which the correlation function of the charge distribution has on the phase characteristics is also found.


Introduction: Discussions related to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide by professionals working in palliative care often bring discomfort due to its sensitivity. Aim: Promote an ethical reflection on assisted death requests in a palliative care context. Materials and Methods: Based on a clinical case, ethical principles and the literature regarding euthanasia and medically-assisted suicide, a reflection on the theme and its complexity is intended. Results: To question basic ethical principles can lead to situations which are difficult to control. Some questions immediately stand out: is euthanasia a truly free and autonomous decision, if the individual is suffering? Is it honest to offer its legalization in a context where access to viable and quality alternatives to relieve suffering, such as palliative care, are not available for everyone? Isn't suffering itself a hindrance to free choice? Conclusion: The ethical problem of legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide does not have right or wrong answers, and as it is based on values as absolute as dignity and respect for human life, it deserves a thoughtful reflection and discussion.


The helminth fauna in the examined population of foxes comprises 4 nematode species and 1 cestode species which spread elsewhere in foxes as well as 2 nematode species which have a focal prevalence.


The electronic structures of zigzag bilayer graphite nanoribbons (Z-BGNRs) with various ribbon widths N are studied within the tight binding approximation. Neglecting the inter-layer hopping amplitude γ4, which is an order of magnitude smaller than the other inter-layer hopping parameters, there exist two fixed Fermi points ± k* independent of the ribbon width with a peculiar energy dispersion near k* as ε(k)∼ ± (k−k*)N. By investigating the edge states of Z-BGNRs, we notice that the trigonal warping of the bilayer graphene sheets is reflected in the edge state structure. With the inclusion of γ4, the above two Fermi points are not fixed but drift toward the vicinity of the Dirac point with increasing width N, as shown by the finite scaling method, and the peculiar dispersions change to parabolic ones. The edge magnetism of Z-BGNRs is also examined by solving the half-filled Hubbard Hamiltonian for the ribbon using the Hartree–Fock approximation. We have shown that within the same side of the edges, the edge spins are aligned ferromagnetically for the experimentally relevant set of parameters.


The method of manufacturing a semiconductor integrated circuit device is provided. A method for fabricating a semiconductor integrated circuit device as the first opening on the low-dielectric insulating film in the first region and a second region providing a semiconductor substrate defined, and, to form a low-dielectric insulating film on a semiconductor substrate a first region formed 1 to form a mask layer pattern, and forming a second mask film pattern on the low dielectric constant insulating film formed of a first opening second opening is wider width than that of the second region the first and the second mask film pattern as an etching mask, but it proceeds a first etching step of etching the low dielectric constant insulating film to form a first trench in the low dielectric constant insulating film exposed by the first opening and forming a second trench in the low dielectric constant insulating film exposed by the second opening, the first so that the etch rate of the trench is faster than the etching rate of the second trench, and a first and a second etching to form the deeper the first and second trenches the mask film pattern as an etching mask, But the process proceeds, so that involves the etching rate of the second trench is faster than the etching rate of the first trenches. The semiconductor integrated circuit device, the trench, the low-dielectric insulating film


Preface Introduction by Chris E. Stout Theories and Approaches Behavioral Systems Approach by Douglas H. Ruben Family Systems Approach by Thomas C. Todd and Anthony W. Heath Psychoanalytic Approach to Addictive Disorders by Alan M. Jaffe Assessment of Addictive Disorders Assessment of Substance Abuse: An Integrated Approach by Margo Jacquot Diagnosing Alcoholism: Toward a Multisource Approach by Amy Lauderback Lee Assessment of Eating Disorders by John Levitt Treatment of Addictive Disorders Smoking Modification: Research and Clinical Application by Norman Hymowitz Treatment of Alcohol and Drug Abuse by Douglas H. Ruben Multifaceted Treatment of Patients with Severe Eating Disorders by David Lansky and John Levitt Minorities and Special Groups Native American Substance Abuse by Thomas J. Young The Elderly and Alcohol and Medication Abuse by Douglas H. Ruben Addiction and Traumatic Brain Injury by Frank R. Sparadeo, Jeffrey T. Barth, and Chris E. Stout Etiology and Treatment of Adult Children of Alcoholics by Douglas H. Ruben and Rhonda Sheared Substance Abuse and Teenagers: A Review by Chris E. Stout Clinical Issues Countertransference in the Treatment of Addictive Disorders by Alan M. Jaffe and Karen L. Jaffe Supervision of Substance Abuse Counselors by Thomas C. Todd and Anthony W. Heath Clinical Supervision of Substance Abuse Therapy by James C. Overholser and A. Michael Ricciardi Appendix A: The Resource Guide Appendix B: Credentialing for Substance Abuse Counselors by State Further Reading Index


The research project "New Faces of the Folk Church – Lived Religion, Spiritual Practices and Theological Legitimacy" aims at investigating everyday spiritual activities laypeople engage in within an ecclesial institution, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden, and how these practices are linked to notions about religion and health. In this article we give an account of our preliminary findings. In a netnographic survey of the websites of the parishes in the diocese of Stockholm, counting all activities except services and concerts, we found that there is a plethora of new activities going on which have emerged during the last fifty years. Many of these activities were geared towards community building, and 15 percent of them fall into the category of holistic practices. Such practices, comprising of, for example, meditiation groups, yoga classes, and dance, can be found in eight out of ten parishes. Our material indicates that the church has quadruple functions: (1) theological, (2) life cycle related, (3) ordinary community building, and (4) holistic everyday spiritual practices. These new spiritual practices were first offered in exclusive settings like retreat centres, but have now moved into ordinary parish life, accessible to all parishioners. Some of the practices, like zen meditation and yoga, have been contested but are now broadly accepted. In the next step of the project, we will conduct interviews and participatory observation to investigate how these practices are integrated in individuals' lives, as well as how they are negotiated and legitimized on the institutional level.


While the COVID-19 pandemic forced a temporary closure of higher education institutions internationally, distance education was widely adopted as a solution in Quebec. Administrators and instructors made considerable efforts to allow a prompt transfer of learning and assessment at a distance, while students had to quickly adapt to the new learning environment. This paper presents both questions and possible solutions advocated for assessment tools at two Quebec universities recognized for the quality of distance education. The advantages and disadvantages of three main tools are first presented according to the literature, followed by a more practical description of decisions made in practice. As a conclusion, main lessons to be learned are explained.


Abstract One hundred and twenty-three dust samples from a variety of sampling instruments were analyzed chemically and by a phase contrast dispersion staining method. Some 40 of these were also analyzed by x-ray diffraction. A high degree of correlation exists among the three methods of analysis for quartz except in the case of samples having a large percentage of the quartz content contained in the small particle size range. The x-ray diffraction method was found to yield values higher than the hot phosphoric acid method for samples having small average particle diameters. The microscopic technique is recommended, particularly for field applications.


Production system programs have been notorious for their inability to handle large data sets. The primary cause of their poor scalability is the combinatorial explosion in the number of possible matches which arises from the need to match conjunctive conditions where each conjunct can match the whole data set. The primary limitation on parallelism in production system programs is the data-dependent nature of the computation combined with a lack of information about the run-time contents of working memory and what instantiations might be chosen. This dissertation investigates two approaches for handling large data sets in production system programs—scalable parallelism and scalable match algorithms. The Rete match algorithm was parallelized for the match phase, and three different approaches were studied for the select phase: sequential firings, partial parallelized firings, and fully parallelized firings. Our experiments on an IBM SP2 demonstrate that the approach fully parallelized firings improves significantly the performance over partial parallelized firings, which in turn was better than sequential firings. We obtained super-linear scalability on several benchmark programs (when executing them on between 1 and 32 nodes). We also ported this compiler to an HP Itanium2 cluster to demonstrate the platform independence of our MPI-based approach. Both versions show similar speed-ups.


This paper represents a study of thermal characteristics for the flame of a liquid-fuel vaporizing burner during diesel fuel combustion in a high-temperature air jet, using the IR thermography. A thermal imaging camera FLIR (JADE J530SB) was used in the experiments. The studies carried out for different operating parameters have revealed the dependence of the effective flame emission coefficient on the air flow rate. The influence of the air flow rate on the temperature of external flame of the burner has been found. Comparison of the results was conducted for combustion in an air jet and in a jet of superheated steam.


Abstract Theoretical predictions for the electronic properties of a new class of organic polymers, polyarenemethides, are discussed. These polymers are designed to possess a degenerate ground state analogous to that in trans-polyacetylene. The parent polymer backbone is given by the unit cell: (-phenyl-CH=quinoid=CH-). Calculations are presented for the geometric and electronic structures of the "undimerized" and "dimerized" chains, as well as those corresponding to soliton and polaron excitations in the "dimerized" chain. Significant differences with respect to polyacetylene are found.


Multiple myeloma mainly affects the skeleton and may cause marked derangement of mineral metabolism. Hypercalciuria is frequently present and hypercalcemia may be a very serious, and at times fatal, complication of the disease. Estrogens have been shown to decrease urinary calcium excretion 1 and to relieve bone pain in metastatic bone disease 2 and in osteoporosis. 3,4 In the study of the metabolic effects of newer synthetic hormones, it was found that a weak estrogenic compound, 3-methoxy-16α-methyl-1,3,5 (10)-estratriene-16β, 17β-diol, Mytatrienediol, is effective in decreasing urinary calcium excretion, and the incidental observation of relief of bone pain was made in a patient with multiple myeloma. 5 The effect of this hormone was further investigated in a larger number of patients afflicted with this disease, especially in regard to relief of bone pain and to changes of urinary calcium excretion. This hormone was also administered to patients with metastatic bone disease caused


Cyclometalated Ir(III) complexes tethered to 18-mer oligonucleotides through a functionalized dipyridophenazine ligand have been used to study the distance dependence profile of hole and electron transport along DNA. These DNA assemblies allow a direct comparison of hole and electron transport with a single donor coupled into the base stack. Interestingly, both processes, monitored with modified bases as hole or electron kinetic traps incorporated in the strands, appear to have similarly shallow dependences in their reactions with distance. As with hole transport, perturbations to the base stack also attenuate electron transport.


Meditative poetry has the ability to reproduce aspects of the meditative experience. In this paper we explore this ability, trying to clarify the phenomenon by pointing out the cognitive processes involved. We focus on Christian Jesuit meditation and pinpoint one of its most effective elements: ?the composition of place?. We argue that three main abilities associated with ?the composition of place? are responsible for the meditative quality detected in poetic meditative texts: The text?s ability to evoke an orientation process; the text?s ability to support diffuse perception and encourage divergent ways of processing; the text?s ability to generate the mental set required for this experience, the absence of purpose, and to supply the conditions that enable such a mental set to exist over time. We illustrate our theoretical discussion through a close reading of two meditative poetic masterpieces: Donne?s Holy Sonnet No. 7, and the Spanish anonymous sonnet ?A Cristo Crucificado?.


When exposed to light, boron doped monocrystalline Czochralski grown silicon suffers from degradation of the minority carrier lifetime due to the formation of recombination active boron-oxygen related defects. The so called regeneration procedure is able to convert these recombination active defects into a new less recombination active state characterized by a higher minority charge carrier lifetime and stability under illumination. However, the exact working principle on microscopic scale is still unknown even though some influencing factors were identified. The role of hydrogen in the regeneration process is investigated in this work. We find that the characteristic regeneration time constant is subject to variation depending on the process parameters of a Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition a-SiNx:H deposition, namely the applied gas flows, as well as on the thermal history of the sample prior to applying the regeneration procedure. The positive effect of a short high temperature (800–900 °C) ste...


Herein, we report research regarding the Ln–Cu(II)–Hpic–H2BDC system, where Ln, Hpic, and H2BDC are lanthanide ions, picolinic acid, and 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, respectively. Under different reaction temperatures (160°C and 170°C), the self-assembly of Gd2O3, CuCl2, Hpic, and H2BDC in water at pH = 2 adjusted by HClO4 generates two Ln-containing coordination compounds, GdCu(pic)(PhCOO)4 (1) and Gd(pic)(BDC)(µ-H2O)2(H2O) (2) (PhCOOH = benzenecarboxylic acid). Under the same reaction conditions, if Gd2O3 is replaced by Pr3O4, then polymer Pr4(BDC)6(µ-H2O)2 (3) is obtained. The structural features are 1-D tape or 2-D irregular (6, 3) net. We also explored their phase purity by X-ray diffraction analysis and evaluated their thermostability by thermogravimetric analysis studies.


Courses of Proceedings by Electronic Means Masanori Kawano.- Applied technology in litigation proceedings Zoltan Ambrus.- Some Remarks on the Course of Polish Electronic Proceedings by Writ of Payment Robert Kulski.-Electronic Justice in Tehran Majid Pour-Ostad.- Electronic Service of Documents. National and International Aspects Fernando Gascon Inhausti.- Enforcement of a Claim with the Support of the New Information Technology. Protection of the Creditor and the Debtor Michele Angelo Lupoi.- Enforcement of a Claim with the Support of the New Information Technology in the EU, Romanian Case Study Rikhard-Arpad Pantilimon.- Electronic Documents. Security and Authenticity Helmut Russmann.- Uber die Beweiskraft der elektronischen Dokumente Dimitris Maniotis.- Taking of Evidence - Electronic Means of Proof and Estimation of Evidence. A few notes and suggestions for country reporters Georg E. Kodek.- Do DNA Databases Allow More Efficiency in Combating Domestic and Cross-Border Crime? Maria Jose Cabezudo Bajo.- The Impact of Digital Information on American Evidence-Gathering and Trial. The Straw that Breaks the Camel's Back? Richard L. Marcus.- Applications and Trends of Digital/Electronic Evidence in China's Litigation Baosheng Zhang and Huangxun Chen.- Virtual Civil Litigation: a Visit to John Bunyan's Celestial City Paul D. Carrington.- The Future of the Traditional Civil Procedure Petronio Calmon.- Proceedings on the Web Jose Eduardo de Resende Chaves Junior.- Electronification of Civil Litigation and Civil Justice - The Future of the Traditional Civil Procedure facing the Electronification Nikolaj Fischer.- Digital Technology and the Character of Civil Procedure Viktoria Harsagi.


Introduction Most children who need palliative care in resourcelimited countries will require identifi cation and treatment in the community rather than in hospital. Moreover, in the presence of effective care and support networks, home has frequently been demonstrated to be the best setting for palliative care for both the child and the family. A high proportion of children do not reach hospitals in Africa. This percentage ranges from approximately 57% in Uganda to 85% in Ethiopia. Also, hospitals need to be aware that most families would wish for their child to die at home, where they can look after them and they can be buried with their ancestors near to the home. The cost of transporting a body is very high, so economic factors also play a part. Therefore any treatment that is given in the hospital must be of a kind that can be continued at home, otherwise the child will never be able to leave the hospital. Healthcare workers in hospital, with the support of Ministries of Health and community leaders, must set up systems to help community health workers to provide care in the community, including the safe management of morphine treatment when it is required. Allowing the family and child to choose the setting for palliative care is of great importance. However, it is recognised that the necessary resources may be minimal or absent in many locations, and local conditions will determine what options are available.


Sports social science should speed up the foundation and development of discipline system and actively meet the requirement of modern social development.Among of them,the establishment of new discipline was very important.This paper explored the basic factors,character,rule,model,drive system and theoretical issues of new discipline formation.The main purpose was to speed up the establishment of new discipline of sports social science.Based on current condition,the developing countermeasure was put forwarded.


The parametric array loudspeaker (PAL) is known for its ability to generate highly directional audio beams. It has been widely used in a variety of audio applications, such as the sound field reproduction and active noise control. Fast and accurate computations of the audio sound field generated by a PAL are challenging due to the complexity of nonlinear interactions between airborne ultrasonic waves. This paper presents an overview of the commonly used computational methods in the frequency domain under the quasilinear assumption, which include the direct integration method, convolution directivity model, Gaussian beam expansions, cylindrical expansions, spherical expansions, and finite element methods. The computational efficiency and the accuracy of these methods in the near field, Westervelt far field, and the inverse-law far field are compared. Future challenges and perspectives are discussed.


It would seem that Dissenters and others on the left have a hard time getting over the cold war. Pieces about the cold war not only filled the Summer 2006 issue but have appeared before in the magazine's pages- including my own reconsideration of Arthur Schlesinger's The Vital Center (Winter 2005) and Jeffrey Isaac's brilliant defense of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (Summer 2002). There was also George Packer's fine collected set of essays (it included pieces by Dissent editors Paul Berman and Todd Gitlin) that evoked the memory of 1930s fascism and 1940s communism and made explicit linkages between cold war liberalism and the sort of liberalism that Packer hoped to recover.


Employment rights are important constitutional rights.The protection of the employment rights are closely related to social harmony.The constitutionalization of the employment rights has experienced a process,which represents the double attributes of freedom rights and social rights in the employment rights.The improvement of constitutional employment rights must be based on these double attributes.It should further refer to "International Covenant of Economic,Social and Cultural Rights" so as to activate constitutional rights of employees,which is of great significance to China in social transformation.


An outbreak of a particularly virulent form of Clostridium difficile -associated diarrhea (CDAD) and enterocolitis is affecting multiple hospitals in Montreal, resulting in higher-than-expected numbers of intensive care unit admissions, colectomies and deaths. In this issue, Dial and colleagues[1][


A Monte Carlo simulation was developed for esophageal PDT. It was tested on a photosensitized pig esophagus model and compared to a published account of stricture formation in pigs. The simulation correctly predicted the damage.


The results of a study on national minorities in Baranya county Hungary are presented. The data which were collected in conjunction with national censuses cover the period 1930-1980 and primarily concern the German-speaking and Southern Slav populations. Problems of definition and of mixed nationality are considered. The results indicate that the demographic characteristics of the minority populations differ from those of the Hungarian population as a whole with regard to age distribution marital status educational status economic activity housing and fertility. (summary in ENG GER SCR)


ABSTRACT - Two experiments were carried out to determine nutritive value and verify performance of growing andfinishing swine feed high moisture corn silage (HMCS) and reconstituted silage (RS) of higher oil corn. The digestibility assaywas carried twelve cross breed barrow, were allotted in metabolism cages, in a completely randomized design. The values ofdigestible dry matter (DDM), digestible protein (DP), digestible starch (DS), digestible ether extract (DEE), digestible organicmatter (DOM), digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) were for DG, HMCS and RS; 83.42, 7.54, 63.90, 4.40,82.28%; 3,587 and 3,513 kcal/kg; 60.80, 4.85, 45.01, 3.10, 59.50%; 2,647 and 2,509 kcal/kg; 66.48, 6.16, 49.04, 3.41, 65.67%;2,853 and 2,797 kcal/kg, respectively, based on natural matter. In the performance experiment thirty-two cross breed swinewere distributed in four treatments in a completely randomized design, with four experimental units and two pigs per experimentalunits. The treatments consisted of a basal corn and soybean meal diet and three diets with total replacement of common cornby DG, HMCS and RS higher oil corn based on the digestible energy. No differences were found among the treatments in the growin gphase. In finishing phase, daily feed intake increased for the HMCS when compared with the control diet. The price of the dietper kilogram gain of body weight for the HMCS had decreased, in growing phase and finishing phase. It was concluded that theDG, HMCS and RS, could totally replace the common corn on growing and finishing diet, without impairing performance. Dietswith high moisture corn silage resulted in smaller cost per kilogram of produced animal.Key Words: carcass traits, digestibility, energy values, performance


Plenoptic PIV offers a simple, single camera solution for volumetric velocity measurements of fluid flow. However, due to the novel manner in which the particle images are acquired and processed, few references exist to aid in determining the resolution limits of the measurements. This manuscript provides a framework for determining the spatial resolution of plenoptic PIV based on camera design and experimental parameters. This information can then be used to determine the smallest length scales of flows that are observable by plenoptic PIV, the dynamic range of plenoptic PIV, and the corresponding uncertainty in plenoptic PIV measurements. A simplified plenoptic camera is illustrated to provide the reader with a working knowledge of the method in which the light field is recorded. Then, operational considerations are addressed. This includes a derivation of the depth resolution in terms of the design parameters of the camera. Simulated volume reconstructions are presented to validate the derived limits. It is found that, while determining the lateral resolution is relatively straightforward, many factors affect the resolution along the optical axis. These factors are addressed and suggestions are proposed for improving performance.


Purpose: We conducted a comparative study to evaluate the diagnostic values of Tl-201, Tc-99m MIBI and I-131 scans in the follow-up assessment after ablative I-131 therapy in differentiated thyroid cancer. Materials and Methods: The study population consisted of 20 patients who underwent surgical removal of thyroid cancer and ablative radioactive iodine therapy, and followed by one or more times of I-131 retreatments (33 cases). In all patients, Tl-201, Tc-99m MIBI, diagnostic and therapeutic I-131 scans were performed and the results were analyzed retrospectively. Also serum thyroglobulin levels were measured in all patients. The final diagnosis of recurrent or metastatic thyroid cancer was determined by clinical, biochemical, radiologic and/or biopsy findings. Results: Positive rates (PR) of Tc-99m MIBI, Tl-201, diagnostic and therapeutic I-131 scans in detecting malignant thyroid tissue lesions were 70% (19/27), 54% (15/28), 35% (17/48) and 63% (30/48), respectively. The PR in the group of 20 cases (28 lesions) who underwent concomitant Tl-201 and I-131 scans were in the order of therapeutic 131 scan 71%, Tl-201 scan 54% and diagnostic I-131 scan 36%. There was no statistically significant difference between Tl-201 and diagnostic I-131 scans (p>0.05). In the group of 20 cases (27 lesions) who underwent concomitant Tc-99m MIBI and I-131 scans, the PR were in the order of Tc-99m MIBI scan 70%, I-131 therapeutic scan 52% and I-131 diagnostic scan 33%. The PR of Tc-99m MIBI was significantly higher than that of diagnostic I-131 scan (p<0.05). Conclusion: Tc-99m MIBI scan is superior to diagnostic I-131 scan in detecting recurrent or metastatic thyroid cancer following ablation therapy in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer. Tl-201 scan did not showed significantly higher positive rate than diagnostic I-131 scan. Instead of diagnostic I-131 scan before the I-131 retreatment, Tc-99m MIBI scan without discontinuing thyroid hormone replacement would be a prudent and effective approach in the management of these patients.


Although India was the 1st developing country to adopt a positive population policy (in 1951-2) it has not been successful so far. The history of the policy and the underlying philosophy to each stage of the Indian population program are reviewed. The first Five Year Plan allotted only small funding to the population program and concentrated on popularization of rhythm and mechanical and chemical contraceptives. The 2nd plan added voluntary sterilization to the previous emphases. The 1961 census counts surpassed all previous estimates and resulted in a shift of emphasis to extensive education under the Third Five Year Plan. This new concentration on measures of social change through increased family planning education and efforts to upgrade the status of women resulted in a total of 1 1/2 million sterilization acceptors by 1966. The Fourth Five Year Plan treated family planning programs as the cornerstone and family limitation as necessary for national development. Under the Fifth Five Year Plan family planning services were integrated with all other basic welfare programs. There are 2 basic approaches to family welfare/population programs: long-term socioeconomic development measures and short-term measures aimed at immediate increases in births averted. Both approaches must be followed simultaenously in India to achieve success in reducing the rate of annual growth.


Since the 1960s, one of the major reform efforts in law enforcement has been to increase the number of Black Americans within police agencies and on patrol in the streets. The general premise behind these efforts has been that increased diversity will improve police–community relations and will decrease biased police behavior, particularly against Black citizens. Policies seeking to reform policing through increasing the numbers of African American officers have been implemented with little empirical evidence that an officer's race (or ethnicity) is actually related to their behavior towards citizens, in particular arrest decisions. Using data from systematic social observations of police–citizen encounters in Cincinnati, OH, this study examines the influence of officer race on arrest outcomes, focusing on the behavior of Black officers. Findings suggest that officer race has direct influence on arrest outcomes and there are substantive differences between White and Black officers in the decision to arrest. In general, White officers in our study were more likely to arrest suspects than Black officers, but Black suspects were more likely to be arrested when the decision maker was a Black officer.


In asset management of infrastructures, it is important to forecast their deterioration conditions. A multi- stage Weibull deterioration hazard model and its maximum likelihood estimation were developed in 2005 as a deterioration forecasting method considering elapsed years from initial time points. However, this method requires enormous estimation time. Hence a Markov deterioration hazard model, which expresses the deterioration process assuming its time stationarity, has been employed in the majority of practical cases owing to smallness of a computational load. In this paper, the authors propose a Bayesian estimation method (MCMC method) of the multi-stage Weibull deterioration hazard model using a quasi Monte Carlo method in order to reduce the computational load. Lastly, the effectiveness of this study can be discussed in the case study targeting expansion joints.


The present paper is an investigation of the motion induced in the ocean by breaking waves. The theory that is presented here addresses two related problems concerning such motion. First, several parameterizations for transfer of momentum during breaking are examined. Second, attempts are made to describe the surface drift and the vertical structure of motion that results from multiple breaking events. It is shown that the various parameterizations of breaking events are robust in the sense that they qualitatively and quantitatively give similar results. However, for description of the vertical structure of the current, the Reynolds stresses must be parameterized. For this purpose, we will here adopt the concept of eddy viscosity. It is demonstrated that wave breaking enhances motion close to the surface and retards motion in the deeper parts of the ocean. Also, the drift induced by multiple events of breaking is significant, and it is only slightly deflected from the direction of wave propagation.


Objective To understand the epidemic characteristics of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) in Zhongshan, and provide information for hand-foot-mouth disease prevention and control. Method Analysis was made on the data of HFMD cluster cases in 2010-2011, and descriptive epidemiology was used to analyze the data. Results From 2010 to 2011, a total of 71 HFMD cluster cases were reported,and 2 cluster cases met the standard of public health emergent events.The peak of outbreaks was in April-May, contributed 67.6% (48/71) to the total number of cluster cases. 91.3% (65/71) of the cluster events occurred in nurseries and kindergartens. The median of attack rates in nurseries was 3.8%, which was higher than the median of attack rate (1.5%) in kindergartens (Z=2.61,P0.01). The average number of infected children was smaller with early prevention and control. Conclusion From April to May,the peak period of HFMD cluster cases,HFMD surveillance among nurseries and kindergartens should be strengthened to discover the cluster cases promptly,and to adopt control measures in time.


Understanding heat transport at solid-solid interface is crucial for both the fundamentals of thermal science and the engineering applications such as thermal management in semiconductor devices. The role of anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering at interface has been investigated by the classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and also by quantum modeling via the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism recently. However, the investigations on the role of lattice anharmonicity on heat transport at interface remain inconclusive.


Processes of rubber aging in the different kinetic modes and mathematical models of the processes including aging and destruction processes under extreme conditions have been studied. The aging process for rubbers as thermodynamically open nonlinear systems has also been considered in the paper. It has been revealed that the aging process can be controlled by the internal physical-chemical processes organization and by creation of external influences (by organization of thermodynamic forces and flows). According to the Onsager principle, in certain conditions of aging the conjugation of thermodynamic forces and flows is possible. The diffusion and structural aspects of aging in elastomeric rubbers and articles thereof have been considered. The composite antiaging systems of prolonged action based on the use of microparticles with a saturated solution of the antiagers migrating into an elastomeric matrix at the exploitation have been proposed.


This volume presents nearly 250 of Lincoln's most important speeches, state papers and letters in their entirety. Here are not only the masterpieces- the Gettysburg Address, the Inaugural Addresses, the 1858 Republican State Convention Speech and the Emancipation Proclamation - but hundreds of lesser-known ones, including excerpts from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, letters to Grant, McClellan, Stanton and his wife, and various meditations, verses and fragments.


This work presents a design and analyzes of performance of Voltage Controlled Oscillator based Analog-to-Digital converter (VCO based ADC) in the presence of the nonidealities such as jitter, nonlinearity, mismatch and the metastability of the D-flip-flop. A VCO based ADC involves two operations Voltage to Frequency conversion and Time to digital conversion. A Voltage Controlled Oscillator based Analog-to-Digital converter (VCO based ADC) also called as VCO based quantizer or Frequency Delta sigma Modulator (FDSM) is a time-based architecture with first order noise shaping ability that converts an analog input signal into digital output signal. The VCO converts the analog signal to phase domain by producing a continues output signal whose frequency is proportional to the average analog input signal. A counter, that follows the VCO, counts the edges from the outputs of the VCO on each sampling clock period. The counter values correspond to be a quantized estimate of the analog input signal. Due to the fact that the VCO produces a continues-phase output signal, quantization error of the previous sample affect that of the current sample. It is used in gamma ray cameras, sensor applications and ultra sonic applications. The advantage of the VCO based ADC is high Sampling rate, Resolution is high. In this proposed work Time to digital converter (TDC) is used instead of using counters. TDC is used for time Quantization in VCO based ADC. It was implemented using PSPICE.


Unsupervised dataset alignment estimates a transformation that maps two or more source domains to a shared aligned domain given only the domain datasets. This task has many applications including generative modeling, unsupervised domain adaptation, and socially aware learning. Most prior works use adversarial learning (i.e., min-max optimization), which can be challenging to optimize and evaluate. A few re-cent works explore non-adversarial flow-based (i.e., invertible) approaches, but they lack a unified perspective. Therefore, we propose to unify and generalize previous flow-based approaches under a single non-adversarial framework, which we prove is equivalent to minimizing an upper bound on the Jensen-Shannon Divergence (JSD). Importantly, our problem reduces to a min-min, i.e., cooperative, problem and can provide a natural evaluation metric for unsupervised dataset alignment. We present preliminary results of our framework on simulated and real-world data.


Gas Immersion Laser Doping (GILD) is a very attractive technique to realize the ultra-shallow and highly doped junctions required by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors for future CMOS technologies. In this paper, we present some results of junctions realized by GILD and we show the interest of excimer laser annealing. The laser-processed samples have been characterized by four-point probes and Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy. Junction formation has been controlled using in-situ transient reflectivity. These results show that this technique could be an attractive solution for CMOS ultimate junctions.


Abstract : Contents: Wave Resistance of Ships in Uniform Forward Motion; Hydrodynamic Forces on Oscillating Slender Ships; Wave Pressure on Slender Ships; Added Resistance in Waves; Concluding Remakrs; Appendix A - Oscillation of a Ship with Six Degrees of Freedom. Appendix B - Theorem of Tuck and Relations Derived Therefrom.


Abstract   Podcasts are one of the fastest growing communication channels globally with more than 850,000 podcasts available globally through all the different podcast distributors. Furthermore, Health-related podcasts are gathering steam on their own front and herein lies the opportunity for public health and digital health professionals to embrace this channel and develop the necessary skills to start communicating their visions in a world that is plagued by misinformation and disinformation. This skills building workshop intends to cover the experience of three public health professionals in their involvement as co-hosts of three different podcasts that have their own voice with differences in their setup and availability of resources. Furthermore, the authors intend to cover the following aspects: Getting started with your own podcasts The typical setup for Podcast Recording Promoting and growing your podcasts Ensuring sustainability and consistency in your approach Tips and Tricks for Podcast Success Key messages • Podcasts are a unique opportunity to create a meaningful connection with a wide audience in a world plagued by misinformation and disinformation. • Setting up a Podcast has gotten much less complicated and this workshop will provide the basic knowledge to get you started with tools that you already own.


Background: Cognitive decline is the result of a combination of different factors; although the presence of non-modifiable risk factors, there are physical, cognitive and environmental factors, potentiallymodifiable, that influence the development of the disease and that therefore represent a potential to reduce the incidence of cognitive decline. Although many studies have focused on factors affecting the onset of cognitive decline; the aim of the present study is to analyse which specific risk factors influence specific cognitive domains examined through the MoCA neuropsychological test. The second aim is to analyse if these risk factors would also compromise the functioning of alpha and beta band EEG measurements. Methods: The sample analysed for this study included fifty subjects affected by mild cognitive impairment or major neurocognitive diseases (MMSE score between 12 and 24) and 50 healthy partecipants. All participants were subjected to neurological consultation, an EEG test, and the MoCA neuropsychological test and "CSHA Risk Factor Questionnaire" were administered. Results: Level of education, qualification achieved, practicing or having regularly practiced physical, leisure or mental leisure activities, engaging in regular exercise, excessive smoking or the presence of specific physical, psychological or psychiatric conditions such as stomach ulcer, stroke, epilepsy, the presence of paralysis of some kind, learning difficulties and depression were all associated in some measure with cognitive decline and have an impact both on MoCA global scores and, in a different way, on the subscales of the latter. Other predisposing factors (like diabetes, thyroid disorders) correlated only with the individual subscales of MoCA but not with the global MoCA. With regard to frequency EEG bands, the experimental group showed significantly lower levels of alpha and beta values than the control group. No significant correlations were found whereas predisposing factors affected neurophysiological measures. Conclusions: Significant correlations between performance in each subscale of the MoCA neuropsychological test and some lifestyle factors, past or current, were revealed. Furthermore, also regarding neurophysiological measurements, in alpha and beta band EEG measurements, significant differences were recorded between subjects with cognitive decline and heathy subjects.


This chapter studies the Advanced Placement (AP) program in charter schools. Because America's seven thousand charter schools primarily serve disadvantaged urban populations, and because the charter sector contains far more elementary and middle schools than high schools, AP has not loomed large there. Yet a handful of prominent charter networks beg to differ, for they have placed AP near the curricular center of their high schools and, sometimes, their middle schools. Unsurprisingly, the tightest embrace has come from networks that obsess about getting their graduates into colleges, especially competitive four-year colleges. For the most part, however, they also focus on poor and minority youngsters and thus can fairly be said to partake of the widening view that AP is no longer just for privileged kids. It is also a way to accustom disadvantaged students to challenging academic work, give them confidence that they can handle such work, incorporate college aspirations and possibilities into their own sense of reality, and, when successful, propel those young people forward with a nationally recognized credential attesting to their capacity to engage in heavy-duty academics and perhaps speeding their progress toward a valuable, marketable degree and the upward mobility that often follows.


This study is concerned with the service provided to adolescent patients with eating disorders admitted to private hospital. The patients' parents were asked to evaluate the service. Parental satisfaction was assessed by means of questionnaire devised for this purpose and comments were elicited as to how the service could be improved. Parents of consecutive series of 56 patients were asked to complete the questionnaire 6 months after admission; 82% (N=46) responded. Most parents were pleased with the service provided but nevertheless many made some criticisms (35%) or suggestions for improvement (37%). The parental responses were discussed with the staff involved in treatment, resulting in changes to the service.