Park City Municipal Corporation (PCMC) long before being recognized as an Olympic venue was known as one of the great American silver mining towns. As a result, during a century of active mining, the Park City mining district produced millions of ounces of silver in addition to a substantial amount of mine tailing waste. As a result, the City since 1985 has been remediating these impacts with state and federal oversight. One particular challenging CERCLIS site, that was previously a historic mine tailings pond is known as Prospector Square Development (CERCLIS Listing Silver Creek Tailings UTD98051404). This site has been very challenging due to the metals that impact shallow ground water that eventually drain into the Silver Creek Watershed. To address the water quality impairment the City and Missouri University of Science and Technology teamed-up to investigate the feasibility of constructing a horizontal-flow wetland to treat this pollutant source. This effort comprised of building a pilot cell in June of 2004, leading to the construction of a full scale horizontal-flow wetland in the fall of 2008. The design of the pilot and full scale biocell was based upon lab-scale research conducted by the Missouri University of Science and Technology. In October of 2008, the Prospector Drain effluent was introduced to the system and to date analytical results reveal that the biocell is treating the Prospector Drain outfall below the Silver Creek Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) endpoint goals for zinc .39 mg/L and cadmium .00075 mg/L. The water chemistry of the influent, that originates from the historic silver mine tailings pond, is impaired with zinc and cadmium and has low iron with a pH of roughly 6.5. The construction of this unit encountered many challenges related to constituent relations, regulatory scrutiny, constructability, and start-up. Nonetheless, this unit since implementation is considered a success for improving water quality within the Silver Creek Watershed.


Teaching practice is an important part of undergraduate education for the major of hydrology and water resources engineering. Taking the needs of the Society for the graduates, characteristics and conditions of Shandong University of Science and Technology, adjusted teaching practice contents to cultivate student's professional literacy, professional thinking, scientific research, innovation capabilities, and ability to serve the society. 水文与水资源工程专业教学实习改革 --以山东科技大学为例 冯建国*, 高宗军, 王敏, 田红, 张春荣, 夏璐 山东科技大学 地球科学与工程学院,山东青岛 266590


This paper introduces the computation step of the common channel's channel capacity simply on the basis of the conception of channel capacity,and proposes its limitation.On the basis of this,then elaborately introduces more widespread common channels capacity's computational method——iterative arithmetic and its realization process based on Java.


The main composition of social financing can be divided into RMB loans, direct financing, shadow banking and foreign currency loans. This paper tries to analyze the relationship between the structure of social financing and CPI index by theory and to establish links between the four main components and CPI index by VAR model. The empirical results show that RMB loans, direct financing, shadow banking and foreign currency loans is the Granger reason of CPI. RMB loans play a fundamental role and has great impact,while the direct financing has a significant influence on price fluctuation in the long run.


An index system was proposed for safety assessment of civil aviation systems. Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was used to calculate the safety degrees corresponding to management and to the human-machine-environment system composed of flight, support and maintenance subsystems. The comprehensive safety degree was obtained based on the above degrees, and divided into 5 grades. The system is not safe enough if the comprehensive safety degree is under grade 4. A further evaluation to the data can reveal the possible hints that cause the data to be evaluated as 'bad' or 'very bad', so that precautions can be taken accordingly.


The existence of forms of P-thalassemia with intermediate severity has been long known, and the name thalassemia intermedia is used to describe a widespread spectrum of patients. The criteria used were both clinical and hematological or, frequently, based on moderate transfusional needs. Nevertheless, characterization of molecular defect(s) in these cases has been only sporadic, made in individual cases or in short, ethnically homogeneous series. The principles of such characterizations are based on the knowledge that the factor determining the severity of the disease is the degree of globin chain imbalance, due to the deleterious effect of excess unpaired a chains on erythroid cells.' In theory at least, it is clear that there are three ways of reducing this effect: a reduction in a-chain production, the intrinsically mild nature of the &gene defect, or an unusually high production of y-chains able to combine with the excess a-chains. Examples have been given of all of these three mechanisms. In short, local series, there was apparently a predominance of a single pathophysiology.' '


Several studies have documented that colonies within subterranean termite populations display substantial variations in both their spatial and genetic organization. In our study, we used microsatellite molecular markers to characterize the spatial organizations and genetic structure in colonies of the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) collected from a wooded area in Nebraska. Based on molecular genetic analysis, we grouped termites collected from 18 different feedingsites into seven colonies. The three colonies from which we obtained sufficient numbers of samples to estimate foraging distances all spanned distances exceeding 100 m (106, 180 and 210 m, respectively). We also characterized the breeding system within all 7 colonies, of which five we identified as extended-families (headed by many neotenics), and two we identified as colonies that experienced colony fusion. The unusual spatial and genetic organization of this population make it one of the most extreme populations of R. flavipes studied to date within North America.


ABSTRACT In this study, triacontanol (TRIA) and nitric oxide (NO) interaction on arsenic (As)-induced oxidative stress tolerance in coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) plants was investigated. The results showed that As had a significant adverse effect on the plant's biomass. The seedlings pretreated with TRIA and NO significantly increased growth reduction induced by the metalloid. The obtained results indicated that the application of TRIA and sodium nitroprusside (SNP) generally reduced oxidative markers such as of electrolyte leakage percentage, malondialdehyde and H2O2 contents under As toxicity, while application of As treatment without TRIA + SNP increased these oxidative parameters compared to the control. The non-enzymatic antioxidant contents such as total phenol, anthocyanin, carotenoid, ascorbic acid and reduced glutathione (GSH) were extracted and assayed from both control and treated plants. It was found that TRIA + SNP treatments have a profound effect on the antioxidant metabolism and caused an enhancement in non-enzymatic antioxidant potentials under As toxicity in coriander. Moreover, the results revealed a mutually amplifying reaction between TRIA and NO in reducing As-induced damages.


Nowadays, the vulnerability of cloud environment exposed in security places Virtual Machine Introspection(VMI) at risk: once attackers subvert any layers of cloud environment, such as host, virtual machine manager(VMM) or qemu, VMI will be exposed undoubtedly to those attackers too. Nearly all existing VMI techniques implicitly assume that both VMM by which VMI accesses specific VM data and host which VMI is running on, are nonmalicious and immutable. Unfortunately, this assumption can be potentially violated with the growing shortage of security in cloud environment. Once VMM or host is exploited, attackers can tamper the code or hijack the data of VMI, then, falsify VM information and certifications to Cloud system's administrators who try to make sure the security of specific VM in certain compute node. This paper proposes a new trusted VMI monitor frame: T-VMI, which can avoid the malicious subversion of the routine of VMI. T-VMIguarantees the integrity of VMI code using isolation and the correctness of VMI data using high privilege level instruction and appropriate trap mechanism. This model is evaluated on a simulation environment by using ARM Foundation Model 8.0 and has been presented on a real development ARMv8 JUNO-r0 board. We finished the comprehensive experiments including effectiveness and performance, and the result and analysis show T-VMI has achieved the aim of expected effectiveness with acceptable performance cost.


Relationship between ginger bacterial wilt (GBW) and its soil microbial biodiversity of freshly ploughed soil, continuous cropping ginger field and freshly ploughed one applying organic fertilizer were studied by Random Amplification Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique. It was found through the results that GBW did not come on in freshly ploughed soil, while 100% occurred in continuous cropping field. However, the incidence of GBW dropped to 37.64% in continuous cropping field applying organic fertilizer. It was found also the number of fungi, actinomyces increased in the continuous cropping field that applying organic fertilizer. Analysis by diversity index found that Shannon index and Simpson index etc were greatly increased. The abundance of random amplification band appeared a fairly few of amplification DNA bands in continuous cropping soil, while the most in freshly ploughed field; the RAPD bands of continuous cropping field applied with organic fertilizer apparently more than continuous cropping field and close to freshly ploughed field, and appeared some new specific band that was non in the continuous cropping field. All of these indicated that the application of organic fertilizer could improve the structure of soil microbial flora, and increase microbial diversity, thereby to inhibit the coming on of the diseases.


. The article describes the basic methodological provisions of the project approach to financing. They are focused on management decisions on the development, evaluation and implementation of investment projects in the infrastructure of production, especially in logistics, and non-production areas. Attention is focused on such functions as planning of project financing. It is the most important sphere of activity of the Manager on decision-making process in the sphere of his competences. The authors used the Standard approved by the Supervisory Board of the industrial development Fund of Russia in 2018 as a methodological support for decision-making on financing investment projects. The Standard defines the basic concepts of project activities. The novelty of the approach to the study of project financing is that the authors propose and implement recommendations for the use of the Standard on a conditional example. The Standard serves as a basis for the development of author's schemes of algorithms for expert evaluation of projects, the process of project development. It has a practical importance for making informed decisions on financing investment projects from certain sources. These sources can serve as the Foundation for the support of development projects, venture capital, special investment contracts (SPICs).


Microcapsules are used in various fields of application, such as in pharmacy, medicine, agriculture, chemical industry, construction industry, food industry, biotechnology, electronics. Fragranced and PCM (phase change materials) microcapsules also found their use in the printing and the textile industries, where they are applied in the combination with the appropriate ink or varnish on the desired substrate material. Microcapsules are applied either by coating or by different printing techniques, which main advantage is the ability to transfer the microcapsules onto desired areas of the substrate material without or with as little damage as possible, thus allowing the deposited microcapsules to fulfil their basic functionality. The aim of this research was to investigate the morphologic characteristics of the fragranced microcapsules and the coated prints using selected varnish and different fragranced microcapsules concentrations, as well as to determine how variable concentrations of the applied microcapsules in the varnish affect the optical characteristics of the coated prints. Performed SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and spectrodensitometric analyses of the coated prints revealed that both the coating process without microcapsules, as well as the different fragranced microcapsules' concentration in the coated water-based varnish, significantly affected both the morphologic and the optical characteristics of the coated prints.


Concept algebra is a denotational mathematics for rigorously manipulating formal concepts and their algebraic operations in knowledge representation, semantic analyses, and machine learning. Properties of concept algebra are formally studied in order to elaborate the nature of formal concepts and their algebraic operations. This leads to a set of algebraic rules in the categories of relational, reproductive, and compositional operations on formal concepts. Relationship between algebraic operations of concept algebra is rigorously described. Proofs are provided for the algebraic rules of concept algebra elaborated by examples. This work enables a rigorous implementation of concept algebra in cognitive knowledge base manipulations and cognitive machine learning.


Charleston, SC—Use of a particular computer-driven microkeratome (Amadeus II with EpiBlade, Advanced Medical Optics) results in a better-quality separation of the corneal epithelium compared with an alcohol-assisted technique, according to a laboratory study reported by Luis E. Fernandez de Castro, MD.


In 2013,a kind of disease with high mortality and abortion occurred in a warren of Binzhou.To dignose and treat the disease,one strain of pathogenic bacteria was obtained from the dead rabbit lung.The bacterial isolation,colony morphology observation,physiological and biochemical tests,hemolytic test and animal pathogenicity test were done.The results showed that the pathogen isolated was identified as Diplococcus pneumoniae withα-hemolytic,the isolated Diplococcus pneumoniae was highly sensitive to penicillin,cefepime,Amikacin.Animal pathogenicity test showed the same typical symptoms and pathologic lesions with rabbit pneumonia.According to the clinical symptom and drug sensitivity,penicillin and other medicines were used,and the disease was controlled.


Faith can play an important role in the lives of people with dementia and their family caregivers. Attending a service may be one of the few outings people with dementia and their family caregivers make throughout the week. Maintaining a connection to faith-based activities can prevent isolation and improve quality of life. It is likely that a faith community has members who care for someone with dementia or have dementia themselves. Becoming dementia-friendly will allow a more open and welcoming environment to better serve all within the community.


In this paper is presented an IR imaging technique allowing one to retrieve quantitative concentration and temperature maps with relatively fast acquisition times of samples evolving in time. A model study is realized based on the drying of a drop of colloidal dispersion in confined geometry and quantitative maps of colloid volume fraction and temperature everywhere in the dorp are retrieved. Finally, a secondary technique of IR tomography is presented to extend the setup sensitivity to the thickness of the sample and 3D tomographs of both thermal emissivity and IR absorbance of a silica gel are constructed numerically.


Parkinson's disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases of old age, with 120 000 people suffering from the disease in the UK alone. As populations across the world age, the number of people with Parkinson's disease is set to increase markedly and is a growing concern to healthcare systems everywhere. Despite the current and future impact of this disease, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying it, which makes targeting Parkinson's disease a difficult task. A watershed moment in our understanding of Parkinson's disease was the 1997 description of a mutation in a-synuclein causing Parkinson's disease in a Greek family, changing Parkinson's from the archetypal non-genetic disease to one that has a substantial genetic component. Since then, a large number of genetic loci have been linked to Parkinson's disease, and multiple cellular processes have been highlighted as being involved in the aetiology of this disease. In contrast to Alzheimer's disease, where the mutations in APP, PS1 and PS2 were quickly linked into a common pathway, it is still not clear how the different Parkinson's disease genes are related. A major question is, therefore, whether the different genes that have been described in Parkinson's disease map to the same universal pathway, all resulting in cell death in the substantia nigra by the same route. Or are we observing multiple, parallel disease aetiologies – converging only in the eventual phenotype that is observed following cell death? In this minireview series, we have sought to summarize the different pathways that have come to light as more genes have been linked to Parkinson's disease. In the first minireview, we tackle three of the autosomal-dominant genes that can cause Parkinsonism – those encoding a-synuclein, tau and LRRK2. Although the link between these is not yet clear, LRRK2 cases may bring together two of the standout pathological markers for neurodegeneration, as patients with LRRK2 mutations can present with a-synuclein or tau pathology – suggesting that LRRK2 may lie upstream of these proteins in a pathogenic cascade. Fitzgerald and Plun-Favreau then review a number of Parkinson's disease genes which seem to be coalescing into a common pathway: Pink1, Parkin, Htra2 and DJ-1. Several of these are linked to a young-onset Parkinsonism that is phenotypically distinct from idiopathic Parkinson's disease, and are marked by an absence of Lewy body a-synuclein pathology in the brain. Finally, Bras et al. review a novel pathway that has recently been linked to Parkinson's disease – that of ceramide metabolism. Intriguingly, several mutations in genes linked to this pathway can present with a-synuclein pathology, although how they link to the classic autosomal-dominant Parkinson's disease genes remains unclear. As Parkinson's disease genes assemble into pathways, there is an increasing excitement that junctions in these processes can be targeted, yielding several new ways to attack Parkinson's disease and change advances in research into real advances for patients.


This volume is a companion monograph to an earlier work of the author, How Economics Forgot History. Each is an historical narrative that covers roughly the same period from the 1890s to the mid 1940s, principally but not exclusively in the United States. The previous volume was 'about the limits of general theory in the social sciences. It favoured approaches that are sensitive to key differences in socio-economic systems through time and space' (p. xiv). We are presented, in this, the following volume, with a most extensive, perceptive and significant analysis of and commentary on historic developments in institutional economics. For Hodgson, 'the relationship between individual agency and social structure [in this volume] is uppermost and equal in importance to the problem of historical specificity for all the social sciences. It involves key questions of ontology and explanation. What is social structure and how does it relate to and effect individual agents?' (p. xiv). As such, this volume continues Hodgson's intellectual project that was initiated in earlier works such as Economics and Institutions and Economics and Evolution. Accordingly, Hodgson provides us with an original, exceptional and extensive review and appraisal of developments in institutional economics in the first half of the twentieth century. His characterisations and assessments are instructive, inclusive and persuasive. He rejects claims that the older institutionalism, based on, for example, the work of Thorstein Veblen and J.R. Commons, is not theoretical, that its theorists were 'muddled and slightly disturbed spirits'. It is true that institutionalists have been 'hostile to the narrow vision of economics as a science of choice' and to the utility-maximising version of 'economic man', which have prevailed for the second half of the twentieth century. But their constructive alternative analyses cannot be ignored or idly dismissed. Indeed, it is Hodgson's mission, drawing on this tradition, to recast the character of contemporary institutionalism in important respects and to demonstrate therewith its continuing relevance for problem solving. Among other things, this will involve a shift away from characteristic institutional reasoning in economics New Political Economy, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2005


Organizations are now aware of maintaining all the activities in an environmental friendly way. With this view, they are now trying to translate all their practices into greening concept. Green HRM is one of the greening concepts that transform the HRM activities into green practices. Nowadays, many sectors focus on two termssustainability and eco-friendly and therefore, contemporary researches were attracted by Green HRM. The majorintention of this study is to explore the most recent researches in this regard as well as to identify and discuss the functions,benefits and challenges of Green HRM including the factors affecting Green HRM with a review of contemporary researches. This study only collected data from secondary sources and it was fully based on theoretical framework. It also tried to find out the gaps of recent studies and discussed the future scope for the prospective researchers and contributors. This study was also supposed to facilitate industries to gain knowledge about how to transform traditional HRM practices into green one and how to maintain its sustainability to promote employment.


A methodology is presented that demonstrates the potential of pretrained artificial neural networks (ANN's) as generators of membership functions for the purpose of transient identification in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). In order to provide timely concise and task-specific information about the many aspects of the transient and to determine the state of the system based on the interpretation of potentially noisy data, a model-referenced approach is utilized, where pretrained ANNs provide the model. Membership functions -- that condense information about a transient in a form convenient for a rule-based identification system -- are produced through ANN'S. The results demonstrate the extremely good noise-tolerance of ANN's and suggest a new method for transient identification within the framework of Fuzzy Logic.


To explore the l ev els of soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor(sTNFR)measured in patients with es ophageal cancer before and after radiochemotherapy and the impact on response to therapy.sTNFR-Ⅰand sTNFR-Ⅱwere measured by ABC-ELISA assay in60pat ients with esophageal cancer before and after ra-diochemotherapy.Levels of them were compared with tumor regression.The level of serum sTNFR-Ⅰwas si g-nificantly higher in patients with esophageal cancer than that in controls.Th e level of sTNFR-Ⅰdecreased after ra-diochemotherapy.Yet the level of sTNFR-Ⅱin patients was lower than that in controls.After radiochemotherapy it in-cre ased.[Conclusion]The serum level of sTNFR-Ⅰand sTNFR-Ⅱis useful to evaluate tumor response to ra-diochemotherapy in patients with esophageal cancer.


The First National Conference of the Adult Education Association (Los Angeles, Oct. 22-25) was, in a very real sense, a continuation of the Founding Assembly (Columbus, May 1315). First, there was both need and opportunity to continue the formation of the Association by development of its organizational structure and by further exploration of its basic policies. Second, the great majority of the 487 conference registrants


FIELD: medicine. SUBSTANCE: therapeutic agent containing an activated-potentiated form of antibodies to the brain-specific S-100 protein, and an activated-potentiated form of antibodies to endothelial NO-synthase as an additional exalting component is administered. EFFECT: effective treatment of Alzheimer's disease by the synergetic action of the components. 11 cl, 5 tbl, 3 ex


Following extensive process testing and machine development, a spray-cleaning facility utilizing the semiaqueous terpene hydrocarbon Bioact EC-7 was installed at AT&T's Merrimack Valley manufacturing location in North Andover, MA. This facility, which represents a viable alternative to chlorofluorocarbon cleaning, is used to remove rosin-based-solder paste residues after reflow soldering of surface-mount devices to printed circuit (PC) board assemblies. The authors describe technology developments and operating experience gained during the implementation of semiaqueous terpene hydrocarbon cleaning. The EC-7 spray development/production machine will be used for further technology improvements in semiaqueous cleaning. The provisions incorporated in this machine, including the nitrogen inerting system, will enable the machine to handle almost any semiaqueous or aqueous material that may be developed.<<ETX>>


Objective. To assess adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Dutch and non-Dutch HIV-infected patients. Design. Observational, cross-sectional study. Methods. Consecutive HIV-infected patients taking ART and visitingthe internal medicine outpatients' clinic at the Rotterdam Dijkzigt University Hospital between I February until 30 April 200I were interviewed by a multilingual interviewer using a standard questionnaire. Classification of adherence was based on the interview data. Multivariate analysis was used to determine independent predictors of adherence. Nationality was defined as 'Dutch' if the person was born in the Netherlands, and otherwise as 'non-Dutch'. Results. The 203 patients included in this study comprised I3I men and 69 women with an average age of 42 years. There were no data available on treatment adherence for 3 of the patients. Of the 8I Dutch patients, 60 (74%) adhered to the treatment compared with 68 (57%) of the II9 non-Dutch patients. However, after correction for sex, risk group, race and duration of treatment, there was no difference in treatment adherence between these two groups (OR: 0.6; 95% CI: 0.2-1.9). Failure to adhere to treatment was seen most frequently in the I09 heterosexually infected patients (OR: 2.6; 0.98-6.7), the 22 intravenous drug users (OR: 3.3; 1.04-I0.I), as well as in the group of Negroid patients (OR: 3.5; 1.11-11.3) and Latin-American patients (OR: 8.5; 1.7-42.7).


A systematic approach to cooling system management was taken at InterGen's Rocksavage Power Station with the objective of improving the overall performance of the cooling tower and condenser under varying conditions. The approach included a combination of engineering, operational and chemistry initiatives that led to measurable performance improvements. This paper will present the path taken by the Rocksavage Power Station to not only improve condenser performance, but also to quantify the impact on plant heat rate and CO 2 emissions.


Low back pain, one of the skeletal and muscular system problems, is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. Chronic low back pain is an important disorder that affects the daily, social, and work-life of individuals. The majority of people experience low back pain at least once in their life. In this sense, it affects both social and economic life. Low back pain can be acute or chronic, depending on the duration of the syndrome. Interventional, medication, rehabilitation, and exercise methods can be used in the treatment of chronic low back pain. In this study, it was investigated which exercise among the exercise models was more effective in the treatment of non-specific chronic low back pain. "Exercise" and "Chronic low back pain" were used as keywords in database searches. As treatment approaches, the effects of Abdominal Hypopressive exercise, Pilates, Yoga, Tai Chi, McKenzie, Gait, Dynamic and Static Stabilization Exercises, Motor Control and Gradual Activity Exercises in patients with low back pain were investigated. It has been determined that all the exercise models investigated reduce non-specific chronic low back pain and positively affect the mental state and quality of life of the patients. The fact remains that, it can be said that Pilates exercises come into prominence more than other exercises in terms of the stated effects.


Transportation systems and the environment are conflicting issues in nature with the main factor behind emissions of most pollutants and their impacts on the environment. The public transportation contributes by reducing negative effects of traffic and environmental pollution, as well as, its positive effects on the total transport economic costs. The aim of this paper focuses on managing the transportation network for public buses, by implementing some scientific planning techniques such as, working networks to reach maximum flow of the passengers, and minimum path method to choose the shortest way. Three parameters are considered in the problem solution these are; the maximum flow of passengers, the minimum distance and the minimum CO2 emissions. The case study of the research focuses on two main crowded areas in Baghdad governorate and theirs group transportation lines to be managed; these areas are The University of Technology and Al Mustanseria University in Baghdad/ Al Risafa. The flows of passengers between the two campuses were studied with the aim of getting minimum distance and maximum flow of passenger. Distance in kilometers and Population Density for each path were studied to calculate CO2 Emissions in Tons to fulfill the third parameter. The results shows that for minimum distance the best route is route no.15; while for maximum passenger flow, the best route is route no.10. For minimum CO2 emissions, the best route is route no.15. The conflicting results emphases on the choice for the most important target according to the governorate strategies decisions.


Adult Mesembrinellidae feeds on decomposed organic matter; their mouthparts are adapted to collect soft or semi-liquid food, including microorganisms. It is known that this family is attractive for feces, and animal substrates. They are potential bioindicators of environmental quality, with some species already evaluated for such use in certain forest environments, and can help to solve ecological problems and diagnose the causes of environmental changes, being an inexpensive way to indicate the conditions of an environment. Muscomorpha is supported by the presence of posterior spiracles, both immature forms, not the last abdominal segment. This infraorder shelters the so-called Muscoid Diptera, insects that are among the groups of greatest economic and medical-veterinary importance. The objective of this work is to verify the biological characteristics of the family Mesembrinellidae (Insecta: Diptera). In terms of the type of research source, we worked with scientific articles published in national and international journals. This modality of production, in addition to being commonly the most valued in the set of bibliographic production, is the most easily accessed. Access to articles was through virtual libraries such as SCIELO, ResearchGate, Hall, USP, UNB, CAPES, and LILACS.


Modern people have paid great attention to the environmental space design.People should build a green and harmonious ecosystem with the surrounding environment constantly,and know the cognitive process of environmental space,and those features of environmental space design including functionality,information communication,artistry and culturality.


Traveling waves having helicoidal wavefronts are cylindrically symmetric except for an azimuthal angular dependence of exp(imφ−iωt), where m is an integer. The amplitude vanishes at the screw‐phase dislocation [J. F. Nye and M. V. Berry, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A 336, 165–190 (1974)] on the z propagation axis. Examples of paraxial helicoidal waves are the Laguerre–Gaussian beam solutions of the parabolic wave equation. Some potentially useful properties of acoustical helicoidal waves are analyzed. Just as for linearly polarized optical Laguerre–Gaussian beams [L. Allen et al., Phys. Rev. A 45, 8185–8189 (1992)], the ratio of the axial angular momentum flux to the acoustical beam power is found to be m/ω so that axial radiation torques are generated when the acoustical energy is absorbed. Helicoidal waves are predicted to backscatter in a way which reveals the axisymmetry of the scatterer when combined with a helicoidal mode‐selective detector. Some strategies for acoustical helicoidal wave generation an...


Qualitative status of the environment is signaled by a group of indicators, known as bioindicators, several of which are responsible for showing progressive impacts of different types of pollutants. Having addressed the influence of various bioindicators in environmental pollution, it has been revealed that bioindicators are sensitive to any disturbance in any environment. With regards to the pollution, the quality of an ecosystem can be judged by an organism, which is actually an indicator and play a key role in monitoring its changes. A reliable and cost effective way to evaluate the changes in the environment is possible by means of indicator species as ecological indicators, yet selecting a specific indicator poses a real challenge, followed by its identification as well as relation among indicators and their particular applications. As a result, environmental, ecological, and biodiversity indicators fulfill their goal of monitoring environmental quality. The current situation requires cost effective bioindicators along with their reliability to detect and mitigate the impacts of pollution in our environment.


The paper provides an overview of modern trends in Russian retailing with a special emphasis on the process of international production in the sector. The paper asserts that international production in Russian retailing is expanding despite the consequences of economic crisis. During last five years there were some news in the modes of penetrating and consolidating in the Russian market. Organic expansion of foreign retail chains to Russia proved to be difficult and costly. But Russia's retail market continued to consolidate through M&A, particularly among local and foreign companies. Due to the character of value chain we assume that in Russian retailing there is developing the form of "foreign production" with elements of internal outsourcing. Under "foreign production" foreign retailers' chains are working in Russian market as rather independent foreign affiliates. The specific feature of supply chain in modern Russian retailing is that the governance of the chain is carried out by the retailer but not by the supplier. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.17.1.2275


The Korean Gynecologic Oncology Group (KGOG) Symposium and Workshop has been held biannually in the spring and autumn. The 9th KGOG Symposium and Workshop was held in Seoul, November 12, 2009, and over 150 participants joined.

The KGOG Symposium consisted of four Sessions; KGOG papers published, review lectures, special lecture and statistics. For the first session, two topics conducted by KGOG published in the peer-review journals were presented; KGOG-1010, about validation of vulvar cancer nomogram, and KGOG-3004, clinicopathologic characteristics of malignant germ cell tumors. Second session consisted of three review lectures; First lecture was on the revised FIGO staging for gynecologic cancers which was issued in May 2009. Second was the updates of GOG Surgical Manual, and the last was on the retrospective study for grouping intermediate risk factor in patients with FIGO stage IB-IIA, protocol KGOG-1021.

In this Symposium, professor Gavin C.E. Stuart from University of British Columbia was invited as a former chair of Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup (GCIG). He performed two lectures; What can you do within the scope of GCIG?, and clinical trials on epithelial ovarian cancer conducted by National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) Clinical Trials Group (CTG). The first lecture was on the importance of conducting collaborative clinical trial in developing oncologic strategies. Second lecture focused on the development of protocols by NCIC CTG and the trial and error in conducting trials. The experiences of NCIC CTG may be an actual guide for KGOG in developing study protocols and conducting trials. Last session of Symposium was lecture on statistics by doctor Byung-Ho Nam from National Cancer Center, Korea; Clinical trial design with biomarkers.

KGOG workshop was held in the afternoon, and the Workshop consisted of two parts; International protocols and KGOG protocols. A total of 6 protocols of international clinical trials were presented including GOG-0263, which was proposed by doctor Sang-young Ryu, and accepted as GOG protocol. GOG-0263 is a randomized phase III trial of adjuvant radiation versus chemoradiation in intermediate risk, stage I/IIA cervical cancer treated with initial radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy, which is the first KGOG proposal accepted by GOG, and will be activated soon.

Five KGOG protocols were presented briefly at the last session including KGOG-3019, development of Korean ovarian cancer prevention and control program through prospective multicenter patient-control study, and supported by government. There are currently 2 active phase II trials comparing the efficacy of chemotherapeutics in ovarian cancer; KGOG -3016 and KGOG-3017, and recruitment is ongoing as scheduled.

The 15th Korean Society of Gynecologic Oncology and Colposcopy (KSGOC) Symposium was held in Seoul, November 13, 2009 following KGOG's Workshop and Symposium. Two invited speakers from Canada presented updated clinical trials and development of basic research in the gynecologic oncology field.

The Symposium consisted of 4 sessions, and each session was composed in the form of presentation & discussion. The theme of first session was 'Recent advances in the treatment of gynecologic cancer'. In this session, topic on recent advances in the therapeutic HPV vaccine was presented. Professor Gavin C. E. Stuart from University of British Columbia gave 2 lectures; 'mTOR inhibitor application in endometrial cancer management', and 'Emerging first-line regimen for ovarian cancer patients after cytoreductive surgery'. In the first presentation, he showed the prospect and limitation of clinical application of mTOR inhibitor in endometrial cancer. Second presentation summarized the updated knowledge of various regimens as a first-line choice in patients with ovarian cancer followed by cytoreductive surgery.

The second session was on the 'Novel molecular target therapy in ovarian cancer', and 3 topics were presented. Doctor Benjamin K. Tsang from University of Ottawa presented two lectures on the mechanism of chemoresistance in ovarian cancer; 'Non-gnomic action of p53: possible mechanisms of dysregulation in chemoresistance in ovarian cancer', and 'X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP): a potential therapeutic target for chemoresistance ovarian cancer'. In the first presentation, he showed evidence for p53-mediated apoptotic pathways important in the regulation of chemosensitivity and modulated by the PI3K Akt pathway in the conference of chemoresistance. In the second talk, XIAP was summarized as the promising molecular target for ovarian cancer treatment. The last topic of this session was 'Molecularly targeted chemotherapy using immunoconjugate in gynecologic cancer' presented by professor Jung-Won Lee. Luncheon seminar focused on the current opinions and the potential role of HPV vaccination presented.

Session III, subtitled as 'How to publish a good paper in the international journal?' was prepared for the young investigators. Tips and talks on English writing and the methods of using various databases were summarized in this session.

Last session was on the hot issues in the gynecologic oncology. First topic was the summary of gynecologic cancer session in ASCO 2009. In this talk, updated data and knowledge were systematically reviewed. The rest topics were the role of integrated molecular-anatomic imaging in cervical cancer, and the role of autophage with chemotherapeutics in ovarian cancer.

The 2010 KGOG Symposium & Workshop is scheduled for April 29, 2010 and KSGOC Scientific Meeting for April 30, 2010 in Jeju, Korea.


The phase mask optimized by the genetic algorithm loaded on the spatial light modulator for mode conversion is proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that modes are accurately excited with the correlation coefficient greater than 0.99.


The paper introduces the origination,definition and development of computer viruses,discribes their types and harm,analyzes the development of anti-virus technologies.It also details the means of cleaning viruses through an example.Finally gives some experience to protect computers from danger.


AbstractSeismicity generated from the Chicxulub impact has been postulated as the cause for the dramatic alteration of basin margin morphology and catastrophic movement of sediments in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Immediately following the impact, the formation of the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary deposit (KPBD) was widespread and caused considerable erosion as portions of the Florida Escarpment collapsed, inducing sediment failure on the northern Florida Platform and formation of the ancestral De Soto Canyon. Overlying the more prominent KPBD existed a distinct, younger, post-Cretaceous/Paleogene carbonate slope deposit (CSD) confined within the De Soto Canyon bathymetric feature. Presence of this discrete unit provided insight into the post-impact history of De Soto Canyon and its long-duration connection to the Suwannee Strait, which linked the GOM with the Atlantic Ocean for almost 40 ma. We have postulated that the bathymetric low of the De Soto Canyon acted as a conduit for west to east sediment moveme...


A study has been conducted to find out the effect of different methods of lifting and stumping of Teak seedling on stump quality. Teak seedling were lifted manually done by hand using crow bar (digging / pulling) and by using back hoe loader in 10 month old Teak mother bed (each 10 beds- size 1m length and 5m width) nursery.Variable costs such as machinery and labour were of interest in this study. Other inputs were assumed to be equal across treatments. Hiring charge of back hoe loader, machine hour, labour type, working hour and wage rate were measured. From this experiment it could be concluded that lifting the Teak seedling by back hoe loader resulted in reduce the human drudgery, lifting of more seedling with lesser time and cost without impairing the seedling growth.


The Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) basalts are plagioclase‐rich, while olivine and pyroxene are very few. The analyses of 41 samples reveal high FeOT (∼10–18 wt%) and TiO2 (∼1.4–2.7 wt%) indicating a ferrobasaltic composition. The basalts have high incompatible elements (Zr 63–228 ppm; Nb ∼1–5 ppm; Ba ∼15–78 ppm; La ∼3–16 ppm), a similar U/Pb (0.02–0.4) ratio as the normal mid‐oceanic basalt (0.16±0.07) but the Ba/Nb (12.5–53) ratio is much larger than that of the normal mid‐oceanic ridge basalt (∼5.7) and Primitive Mantle (9.56). Interestingly almost all of the basalts have a significant negative Eu anomaly (Eu/Eu*=0.78–1.00) that may have been a result of the removal of feldspar and pyroxene during crystal fractionation. These compositional variations suggest that the basalts were derived through fractional crystallization together with low partial melting of a shallow seated magma.


The color filter substrate and the thin film transistor substrate, and facing, a liquid crystal which is oriented in the twist angle between 72 degrees is injected. To the outside of the color filter substrate and the thin film transistor substrate is λ / 2 compensation films and λ / 4 compensating film are disposed, respectively, a compensation film to the outside is disposed the upper and lower polarizing plates. λ / 2 compensation film and λ / 4 compensating film having a predetermined retardation is arranged to stretching toward the predetermined azimuth.


Differences in developmental trends of symptomatology between 30 adopted children (aged 6-13 years) and a matched control group of biological children, all referred to a child guidance clinic and reared within the kibbutz communal educational system, are examined. Results indicate that kibbutz adoptees' symptoms show a specificity different from that reported in other studies for city adopted children; they convey significant feelings of insecurity and rootlessness, manifested in low concentration ability, restlessness, and possible lack of energy in testing out social relationships. Their behavior contrasts the more aggressive interactions of biological problematic children. Since differential parental attitudes are not significant enough to explain findings, several alternative suggestions, embedded within the life system of the kibbutz, are offered.


The theoretical basis of the research for the most advantageous way for isolation of the circuit clusters are given. The formal description of the circuit information net model, being the basis on the inference engine about the testability of the circuit are presented. The work has the goal of improvement of the computer-aided design of the digital circuits with the redundancy and/or built-in self-test.


We have measured susceptibilities and searched for EPR in solutions of 1 at.% or less of the elements of the second half of the 4f series in silver of gold, in order to study local moments on the rare earth ions. EPR lines have been found in AgEr, AuEr, and AuYb. The departures from Curie's Law found in the susceptibilities, and the positions (or absences) of EPR lines can be understood and fitted primarily in terms of crystal field effects. In some of the more concentrated alloys impurity‐impurity interaction effects are seen. The temperature‐dependent part of the EPR linewidth in 0.28 at.% ErAg corresponds to an exchange coupling | Js−f | = 0.15 eV.


Solid state ethanol fermentation was conducted on apple pomace in a 40 L capacity horizontal batch reactor at 30°C using apple pomace moisture contents of 77 and 85% wb, mixing speeds of 2, 20 and 40 rpm and Saccharomyces cerevisiae ATCC 24702. A higher mean maximum ethanol concentration of 19.26% db was obtained at 85% wb moisture, whereas a mean ethanol of 18.10% db was produced at 77% wb pomace moisture. Mean ethanol concentrations during fermentation of 10.79 and 10.27% db, at bioreactor mixing speeds of 2 and 20 rpm, respectively, were significantly higher than the corresponding value of 9.30% db obtained at 40 rpm mixing speed. Maximum ethanol concentrations were attained earlier at 2 and 20 rpm than at 40 rpm. A linear regression model for fermentation efficiency was fitted as a function of initial glucose and moisture.


In this paper, we consider a Partial Spectrum Reuse (PSR) scheme, namely "β-PSR", to improve spectrum efficiency of two-tier heterogeneous cellular networks, in which each micro Base Station (BS) occupies a uniform portion β of the whole system spectrum randomly and independently. We analyze the optimal PSR factor β to minimize service outage probability, which is not in an explicit form. Then a closed-form limit of the PSR factor is derived when the ratio of the user data rate requirement over the system bandwidth is approaching zero. This limit is an explicit function of the traffic intensity, the macro/micro BS density and their transmit power. Our numerical results also show that for most current rate requirements, the optimal PSR factor is well approximated by our derived limit. This motivates the design of an adaptive PSR scheme with near-optimal performance, which only depends on statistical network information.1.


The time evolution of a pulse-excited charge qubit in a semiconductor double quantum dot is investigated. All-electrical initialization and coherent gate control of the system are achieved, and coherent charge oscillation is observed through the transport measurements. The oscillation frequency and decoherence time T/sub 2/ are estimated by fitting the transport data with a simple model. Possible decoherence mechanisms in a charge qubit system are pointed out and discussed in detail.


Titanium nanoparticles were synthesized by gas condensation method, where the particles with different average diameters were obtained by varying the gas pressure in the atmosphere of argon and helium, respectively. The structure, morphology and compositi


Diploid and androgenetic haploid hybrids have been made with eggs of Rana pipiens from the Mexican locality Oaxaca and sperm from individuals of the pipiens-complex from nine localities in Mexico and the United States. The diploid hybrids are normal or nearly so when the males are from localities as distant as Florida, Vermont, or Wisconsin. They are very abnormal when the males are from a locality in the nearby Gulf Coast lowlands, San Andres Tuxtla. Haploid hybrids on the other hand are almost always very abnormal. This suggests that there has been considerable evolutionary divergence in the local populations of the pipiens-complex and that androgenetic hybridization is a useful technique for detecting this divergence. A few experiments with eggs with another Mexican locality, Zamora, are also reported.


Against the current background of successes it is sometimes forgotten that already more than 50 years ago there were Jamaican athletes who captured the attention of sports fans worldwide. The sparkle started at a time when Jamaica was not even an independent nation but still a colony of Britain. At the 1948 Olympics in London, Arthur Wint won Jamaica's first gold medal in the 400m. Four years later at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, the quartet of Leslie Laing, Wint, Herb McKenley and George Rhoden edged out the favourite US team in the 4 x 400m relay by a tenth of a second and set a new world record of 3:03.9 seconds. In 1962 Jamaica became independent, and since then its presence at the Olympics under the black, green and gold flag has been remarkable: In 1968, Lennox Miller won silver in the 100m in Mexico City, in 1976, Donald Quarrie joined him in the rank of medallists, winning gold in the 200m and silver in the 100m, Merlene Ottey took the Jamaican women close to the pinnacle in 1980 with a bronze in the 200m in Moscow and other women followed her with silver medals (Grace Jackson, Juliet Cuthbert) until 1996 when Deon Hemmings became the BOOK REVIEW


Nearly 7% of the $168 billion spent by Medicare Part D in 2018 before rebates and other discounts went toward inhalers for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (1). These expenditures were due, in part, to the high burden of disease; more than 1 in 20 Medicare beneficiaries has asthma, whereas more than 1 in 9 has COPD (2). However, high prices also play a role, as generic competition for inhalers remains limited, and overall prices for brand-name drugs have increased beyond the rate of inflation in recent years (3). As policymakers seek to rein in excessive Medicare spending, it is critical to understand how pricing and prescribing patterns impact expenditures on a class of drugs as widely used as inhalers. We analyzed Medicare Part D expenditures on inhalers between 2012 and 2018 to characterize how spending has evolved and to assess the extent to which change has been driven by costs per inhaler versus utilization. Our analysis provides needed context for targeted legislative and regulatory efforts aimed at reducing spending and improving outcomes for seniors with asthma and COPD.


Citrullus lanatus , commonly known as watermelon, is most nutritious fruit belong to Cucurbitaceae family and originated from Kalahari Desert of Africa for more than 4,000 years. Being comprises of more than of 92% water, it is considered as a refreshing, thirst-quenching appetizer with significant nutrient balance. The white part of the rind is a good source of fiber, which aids in digestion. Since the rinds are lower in sugar and higher in fiber than the actual melon, when eaten together they help slow down sugar absorption in the gut. Not only do watermelon rinds contain all the same nutrients as is found in the juicy fruit, but even higher concentrations of certain antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and active ingredients. Various studies have reported that the peel of watermelon is rich source of fibers and nutrients and possess ability to be utilized in various food products. The purpose of this review is to highlight the underutilized portion of watermelon with its chemical properties and provide way for future research with it


Submitted for the DFD09 Meeting of The American Physical Society Effect of vertical flow on the break-up of an underwater bubble DANIEL C. HERBST, WENDY W. ZHANG, University of Chicago — Previously, the break-up of a fluid drop was believed to evolve towards a universal singularity, with little dependence on initial or boundary conditions. Recent studies reveal that the break-up of a bubble while it is immersed in another liquid follows a different scenario, one preserving detailed information about the initial state. When the bubble neck is nearly cylindrical, the leading-order dynamics has a simple two-dimensional form: the initial shape is advected inwards by a focusing flow in the exterior until break-up. Asymptotic analysis indicates that such a memory-preserving evolution is possible only when the vertical flow out of the minimum remains far weaker than the focusing flow within a horizontal plane. Here we explore what happens to this memory-preserving dynamics when the vertical flow becomes comparable with the horizontal flow. An axisymmetric boundary integral code is used to track the shape evolution. We alter the surface profile at break-up, in particular the upper and lower cone angles, by changing the initial neck shape. For large angles, the vertical momentum flux becomes significant and the velocity evolution is strongly coupled to the surface evolution. We also study the effect of an up-down asymmetry in the initial shape on the final break-up. Wendy W. Zhang University of Chicago Date submitted: 06 Aug 2009 Electronic form version 1.4


THE M. OLEIFERA TREE is a native of Northern India which now grows widely throughout the tropics. English vernacular names include 'drumstick' (shape of the pods) and 'horseradish' (taste of the roots). It may be propagated from seeds or cuttings, even in poor soils, requiring minimal horticultural attention and is able to survive long periods of drought. It grows rapidly - growth of up to 4 metres in height, flowering and fruiting were all observed within one year during trials near Nsanje, Southern Malawi. Extended and multiple harvests in a single year are evident in many parts of the world. The many products and numerous uses of the tree are given: Vegetable • Green pods, leaves, flowers and roasted seeds are highly nutritious. Oil • Seeds contain 40% vegetable oil by weight - may be used for cooking, soap manufacture, cosmetics base and as a lamp fuel. Coagulant


Classes of linear dynamical systems characterized by high multiplicity of Halkel singular values: all-pass, monosuingular and bisingular systems are considered. Fault detection and isolation algorithms based on amplitude-frequency characteristics are proposed for each class.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) market focusing on pension and life insurance companies. The purpose is to understand how the companies work with SRI and if there is a process in place to follow-up the investments and their possible impact. In the thesis a qualitative research method is conducted as the purpose is to understand the behaviour of the different companies relating to SRI. The empirical study consists of interviews with representatives from larger companies in the pension and life insurance space focusing on how they conduct their SRI work. The finding in this paper is that there are similarities regarding SRI strategies in place however the type of insurance being offered affects how they work. This thesis found that all companies follow-up their investments to ensure that they are sustainable. Further the process of measuring the impact of SRI is very much still in its early stage but there are initiatives taken to measure both soft and hard measurements. The future of the SRI market seems to be moving towards more transparency, both from possible legislation as well as initiatives. The other key area of focus when looking to the future of SRI in Sweden, is the sustainable development goals created by the UN. Key-words Sustainable and responsible investments, SRI, pension and life insurance, ESG factors, impact investment, the principal-agent relationship, stakeholder theory, asymmetric information, economics, green economics


PREVIOUS CYTOLOGICAL studies among the Leguminosae, with a few exceptions, have been confined to groups from temperate regions. The data on chromosome numbers, as reviewed by Senn (1938) include 436 species of 74 genera, principally among the subfamily Papilionatae. The present survey includes 114 species among 55 genera. Although no attempt is made to summarize interim reports here, these would not increase the number of genera by more than 10, the species by more than 200. Thus the total number of genera and species studied cytologically is small when considered in relation to the estimated size of the family, over 500 genera and 12,000 species. However, the information on chromosome number and morphology has now been considerably extended among the subfamilies Caesalpinioideae and Mimosoideae, and may indicate the positive or negative value of the cytological approach to genetic, taxonomic and phylogenetic problems within smaller groups than the family as a whole. MATERIALS AND METHODS.-Somatic and meiotic chromosome counts and camera lucida drawings (fig. 1-56) were made from acetic orcein smears of, young, rapidly growing leaves or buds, fixed in the field in chloroform-acetic acid-alcohol. Unless distinct numerical or morphological differences in the chromosome complements were observed, only one species from each genus is figured. Herbarium specimens were made in triplicate from the same plant used for cytological material, and were identified, in so far as possible, by comparison with collections in the Gray Herbariumn. These specimens have been deposited in the Gray Herbarium, National Herbarium, and the Atkins Research Laboratory.


he digital rights management problem of protecting data from theft and misuse has been addressed for many information types, including software code, digital images, and audio files. Few technological solutions are designed specifically to protect interactive 3D graphics content. Demand for ways to protect 3D graphical models is significant and growing. Contemporary 3D digitization technologies allow the efficient creation of accurate 3D models of many physical objects. For example, our Stanford Digital Michelangelo Project [3] has developed a high-resolution digital To prevent the theft of 3D models, these methods defend the high-resolution geometric detail of their physical shape, while still allowing interactive display and manipulation.


Photograph of Mrs. Lankford at St. Elmo School writing on a chalk board. She is wearing a light-colored dress, and visible from the waist up. The board reads, "Our Earth's Neighbors / Mercury," and is in the process of writing Venus.


Summary The present work is part of a research project aiming at full implementation of robots for underwater welding at great depths (beyond 600 m). This study discusses preliminary results from basic investigations on the weld metal microstructures and toughness of the flux‐cored C‐Mn‐1% Ni wire used for welding under hyperbaric conditions. Under the conditions studied, the chemical composition of the weld metal was not much affected by differences in the working depth. The limited variations in weld metal oxygen content (approximately 620 to 720 ppm) led to small but significant changes in the volume fraction of the various microconstituents and in the transition temperature for a Charpy impact energy of 41 J. The prior austenite grain size, on the other hand, was not apparently affected.


The paper presents some possibilities of using chokeberry pomace as raw material in production of infusion. In this work the influence of drying methods on anthocyanin contents and infusion colour was estimated. In comparison to the traditional air drying of fruit, using other methods (drying in vacuum, microwave or liofilization) or using poI. Bober, J. Oszmianski


To detect and track eye images, distinctive features of user eye are used. Generally, an eye-tracking and detection system can be divided into four steps: Face detection, eye region detection, pupil detection and eye tracking. To find the position of pupil, first, face region must be separated from the rest of the image using bag of pixels, this will cause the images background to be non effective in our next steps. We used from horizontal projection, to separate a region containing eyes and eyebrow. This will result in decreasing the computational complexity and ignoring some factors such as bread. Finally, in proposed method points with the highest values of are selected as the eye candidate's. The eye region is well detected among these points. Color entropy in the eye region is used to eliminate the irrelevant candidates. With a pixel of the iris or pupil can be achieved center of pupil. To find the center of pupil can be used line intersection method in the next step, we perform eye tracking. The proposed method achieve a correct eye detection rate of 97.3% on testing set that gathered from different images of face data. Moreover, in the case of glasses the performance is still acceptable.


Introduction Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) has been widely used to evaluate anti-angiogenic and anti-vascular agents in clinical trials [1]. Data acquisition in DCE-MRI is mostly based on the application of FLASH protocols either as multi-slice 2D or 3D with long repetition times. However, tumors of the liver (or lung) on the one hand show fast Gd uptake kinetics with a time to peak enhancement phase in some cases in the order of ~10-15s, while on the other hand are affected by spatial variation due to patient breathing motion. We developed a DCE-MRI protocol using an Inversion Recovery trueFisp (IR trueFISP) sequence for DCE-MRI of liver metastasis. The approach is based on the application of an inversion pulse followed by the acquisition of a single 2D slice with a fast repeated data acquisition period to freeze breathing motion. The increased image contrast with a high contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between tumor and surrounding healthy tissue allows an accurate tracking of the tumor during breathing. Moreover, T1 quantitation allows direct determination of contrast agent concentration values.


A U.S. National Research Council committee has found that a revised strategic plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) includes elements "that could permit it to effectively guide research on climate and associated global changes over the next decades."

However, the committee noted that the revision, issued by the CCSF faces major hurdles related to funding, program priorities, management structure, and maintaining political independence.


This paper analyses the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector in Malaysia from eleven countries during the period 1988 to 2000. The empirical results indicate that gross domestic product, lending interest rate, labour productivity, exports to home country and imports from home country significantly influenced the level of FDI inflows into Malaysia. However, exchange rate, exchange rate variation, wage and openness index were not important in influencing FDI.


Myogenin plays a crucial role in myoblast differentiation and maturation. In the present study, the myogenin gene structure and expressional patterns in Siniperca chuatsi were characterized. Sequence analysis indicated that the myogenin shared a similar structure and the conserved bHLH domain with other vertebrate myogenin genes. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that Siniperca chuatsi myogenin shared homologous with Epinephelus coioides, Sparus aurata, Takifugu rubripes and Salmo salar. Whole-mount in situ hybridization revealed that myogenin expression was first detected in the gastrula stage embryos and high levels of expression at the 24 somite stage. After the 24 somite stage, myogenin expression began to decrease in the anterior somites where somatic cells were differentiated. Further, the muscle structural gene, MyHC, and myogenin, are concomitantly expressed during S. chuatsi embryonic development as assayed with whole-mount in situ hybridization. In the adult fish, the myogenin showed the highest levels of expression in the brain compared with the kidney, spleen, liver, heart and white muscles. Our work on the myogenin gene from the mandarin fish has provided useful information for fish molecular biology and fish genomics.


To accurately render a two-dimensional image of a three-dimensional scene, global illumination information that affects the intensity of each pixel of the image must be known at the time the intens...


Welcome to the 17th Asia-Pacific Web Conference (APWeb 2015). APWeb has become a leading conference hosting top researchers as well as industrial players to exchange experiences with edge-cutting technologies for Web-based applications and Web data processing. The prosperity of big data has also propelled the technical advances of computer science on Web technologies, which is reflected by the passionate interest shown by the attendants and speakers at APWeb conferences. For the first time in the history of APWeb, China Telecom, one of the largest telecommunication companies in China, participated as a main sponsor and organizer of this academic conference, and actively contributed to the first data challenge competition in APWeb. Driven by the huge interest from industry, research investigations on web technologies are moving toward practical technologies to support businesses in the real world. Text analytics and recommendation systems were the most popular topics discussed during the research track of the conference, which contained both research and practical experience with the emergence of the Internet economy around the world. The APWeb conference provides a unique venue for researchers and practitioners from all over the world. The conference successfully attracts submissions from Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Luxembourg, and other countries. The Program Committee accepted 66 submissions in the research track, three submissions in the industrial track, and 7 submissions in the demonstration track. All these high-quality works cover a wide spectrum of Web-related data management problems, and provide a thorough overview of the rapid advances in technical solutions. We would like to thank all authors for their contributions. We would like to express our gratitude to the Program Committee members for their huge effort in reviewing and discussing the submissions. Special thanks to our keynote speakers, Prof. Elisa Bertino, Prof. Wenfei Fan, and Prof. Xindong Wu. We also would like to express our gratitude to the local organizers and sponsors. We hope the success of APWeb 2015 enhances the research on Web-based data management technologies, consolidates the connections between academia and industry, and creates an exciting exchange of ideas between all participants.


Peritoneal biocompatible dialysates (low GDPs, neutral pH) seem to sustain more steady peritoneal membrane characteristics compared to conventional ones. However, various brand biocompatible dialysates have different composition (e.g. in lactate concentration) and there is no published study comparing their effects on membrane characteristics in long peritoneal dialysis (PD). Our PD unit has been using solely two brands of biocompatible dialysates (Balance, Fresenius© and Physioneal, Baxter©) since 2000. The aim of our study was to compare longitudinal data on peritoneal membrane function between these two different brand solutions

 Membrane characteristics were assessed by uni-peritoneal equilibration test (uni-PET, a combination of modified and mini PET), which is performed at least annually on every patient. Patients with no less than two PETs were included. We estimated dialysate to plasma (D/P) creatinine, ultrafiltration (UF) at 4 h, sodium seiving expressed as Dip/DPNa = [(dialysate sodium time 0/plasma sodium)–(dialysate sodium time 1 h/plasma sodium)], sodium removal (in 1 h) and free water transport (FWT). We collected clinical and lab data of the patients too.

 A total of 85 patients (age 61.1 ± 15.1 years) were included—38 patients on Balance and 47 on Physioneal. The main characteristics of the patients are shown in Τable 1. Baseline membrane characteristics presented no differences between the two groups (D/Pcre 0.75 ± 0.125 versus 0.745 ± 0.11, P = 0.71—UF 660 ± 285 mL versus 651 ± 252 mL, P = 0.86—DipDPNA 0.05 ± 0.03 versus 0.047 ± 0.046 P = 0.54—sodium removal 30 (15.7, 42.3) mEq versus 38 (17.3, 46)mEq, P = 0.31—FWT 149 ± 85 mL versus 140 ± 109 mL, P = 0.69).
 The patients were followed up for a median of 36 months (range 2.4–143). A total of 219 PETs were performed. Analysis for repeated PET tests was performed by using generalized linear regression models. The membrane characteristics (D/Pcre, Dip/DPNa, FWT and UF) of both groups remained stable longitudinally and overall no differences between the two different solutions were observed (Fig. 1). Only at the fourth year of follow-up, patients on Balance solutions had lower D/Pcre compared to Physioneal (0.62 versus 0.72, P = 0.003).

 Different biocompatible solutions had no differences on peritoneal membrane characteristics longitudinally.


Bovine babesiosis is a disease with a febrile and hemolytic course, which together with anaplasmosis form the so-called bovine parasitic sadness complex (TPB). In Brazil, babesiosis is transmitted to cattle by the tick Ripicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, which occurs in practically the entire national territory. The economic impacts of babesiosis include the drop in animal performance, with reduced milk production, weight loss, abortion and mortality. Infection with the Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina protozoa causes intravascular hemolysis with potentially fatal effects. In infections by B. bovis, a severe neurological condition can be observed due to congestion of the brain capillaries, with parasitized red blood cells. The consequent hypoxia in the central nervous system culminates in manifestations of motor incoordination, aggressiveness and pedaling movements. In addition to fever and prostration, babesiosis caused by B. bigemina has hemoglobinuria. Knowing aspects of epidemiology, clinical signs, therapeutic conduct and forms of control and prophylaxis related to bovine babesiosis is essential for field veterinarians. In view of the great importance of bovine babesiosis and its deleterious effects on livestock, this review addresses aspects about epidemiology, the biological cycle of protozoa, clinical signs, post-mortem injuries and subsidies for the diagnosis of the disease.


We propose a new interpretation of the behavior of the notable X-ray binary source Centaurus X-3. Based on both theoretical and observational arguments (using EXOSAT data), we suggest that an X-ray excited wind emanating from the O star is present in this system. Further, we suggest that this wind is responsible for the mass transfer in the system rather than Roche-lobe overflow or a normal radiatively driven stellar wind. We show that the ionization conditions in Cen X-3 are too extreme to permit a normal radiatively driven wind to emanate from portions of the stellar surface facing toward the neutron star. In addition, the flux of X-rays from the neutron star is strong enough to drive a thermal wind from the O star with sufficient mass-flux to power the X-ray source. We find that this model can reasonably account for the long duration of the eclipse transitions and other observed features of Cen X-3. If confirmed, this will be the first example of an X-ray excited wind in a massive binary. We also discuss the relationship between the excited wind in Cen X-3 to the situation in eclipsing millisecond pulsars, where an excited wind is also believed to be present.


The European Dimension of Education (EDE) is a significant issue for current European education policy. The article presents the evolution of the interest and policies of the European Communities regarding education and training in general and the EDE in particular. Four periods of increasingly more active interest in education, as well as the current strategic emphasis on education as a means to reach the most advanced knowledge society, are briefly described. Furthermore, the concept of the EDE is analyzed in terms of: (a) its general scope, principles and goals; (b) its curriculum content; (c) its curriculum approach; (d) its relation to educational administration and organization. Different approaches to the issues are examined; more specif¬ically, the emphasis on the political, socio-cultural or economic dimensions leads to different views of the EDE. Similarly, the extent of students' criti¬cal political action encouraged by schools is also a controversial issue. Finally, the writers express their belief that the European educational sys¬tems should seek a balance between their national and European dimen¬sions.


Description: Features a simplified presentation of numerical methods by introducing and implementing SAGE programs An Introduction to SAGE Programming: With Applications to SAGE Interacts for Numerical Methods emphasizes how to implement numerical methods using SAGE Math and SAGE Interacts and also addresses the fundamentals of computer programming, including if statements, loops, functions, and interacts. The book also provides a unique introduction to SAGE and its computer algebra system capabilities, discusses second and higher order equations and estimate limits, and determines derivatives, integrals, and summations. Providing critical resources for developing successful interactive SAGE numerical computations, the book is accessible without delving into the mathematical rigor of numerical methods. The author illustrates the benefits of utilizing the SAGE language for calculus and the numerical analysis of various methods such as bisection methods, numerical integration, Taylor's expansions, and Newton's iterations. Providing an introduction to the terminology and concepts involved, An Introduction to SAGE Programming: With Applications to SAGE Interacts for Numerical Methods features:


There is constantly increasing demand of nanocarriers systems in the field of nanotechnology from the last two decades. The nanocarriers systems are widely used in the delivery of biotech drugs for the improvement of bioavailability and target delivery. Nanocarrier systems provide several advantages over the conventional formulations. This review describes an approach which encapsulates drug compounds within biodegradable and biocompatible nanocarriers such as Nanosuspensions, Polymeric, Lipid and Inorganic Nanocarriers along with their advantages and role in drug delivery. Development of new drug delivery systems always remains a challenging approach in the field of biotechnology that targets the drug to a specific site and provides the desired therapeutic effect at the required time. Due to low solubility, poor membrane permeability, or extensive pre-systemic metabolism, the drug compounds are not suitable for the conventional oral formulations. This article presents an overview of various types of nanocarriers including the method of Nanoparticles preparation. The problems arises in the drug delivery can be overcome by use of pharmaceutical nanocarrier systems.


A novel type of diffusion barrier, consisting of a conducting layer whose surface is enriched with silicon nitride, was developed. The new barrier was prepared by thermal decomposition of a metal-organic precursor, tetrakis(dimethylamino) titanium (TDMAT), followed by in-situ silane anneal and subsequent surface nitridation. It combines the conformality and conductivity advantages of the underlying diffusion barrier with the good barrier properties of silicon nitride. The new barrier films were characterized by sheet resistance measurement, secondary electron micrographs (SEM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The thermal stability of Cu/capped barrier/Si multilayer structures was demonstrated.


The purpose of this study is to examine whether financial reporting comparability affects the relation between tax avoidance and firm value. There are two conflicting views on the relation between tax avoidance and firm value. One is the traditional perspective that views tax avoidance as value-enhancing transfer of corporate resources from the government to the shareholders. The other is an agency theory perspective that views tax avoidance as an effective monitoring vehicle for managerial private interests, and thus the effect of tax avoidance on firm value varies depending on the size of non-tax costs of tax avoidance.
Using 3,123 firm-year observations listed on Korea Exchange over 2006~2015, we find that the negative relationship between tax avoidance and firm value weakens as the level of comparability increases. Investors place a price discount on tax avoidance on average because the increase in non-tax costs due to tax avoidance is more severe than tax savings itself. However, as comparability increases, the decline in corporate value is partially alleviated due to a decrease in non-tax costs of tax avoidance. In short, financial reporting comparability has a positive impact on the relationship between tax avoidance and firm value. These results can be seen in both accounting-based and market-based comparability.
This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between tax avoidance and firm value by focusing on the effect of comparability. As the comparability among firms enhances, it will increase market participants'' understanding of the economic consequences of tax avoidance. Further, this study provides evidence of the role of Peterson, Schmardebeck, and Wilks''s (2015) text-based accounting consistency beyond De Franco, Kothari, and Verdi''s (2011) market-based comparability in explaining the relationship between tax avoidance and firm value. measure, it has limitation in that it is highly influenced by stock returns.1) In contrast,


This paper provides a comprehensive list of about 472 authentic vegetable crude drug samples belonging to about 375 plant species that are housed in the Crude Drug Museum (CDM) of Pharmacognosy Section, Botanical Survey of India (BSI), Howrah. This museum is a repository of raw drug samples or vegetable crude drug samples such as rhizomes, roots, stems, wood, bark, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds etc. that are commonly used in the Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM). It provides a baseline information on these raw drugs. The various uses of this museum have been highlighted in this paper.


Objective:To investigate the relationship between the expression of UPⅢ and pathogenesis of cystitis glandularis.Methods:Study the expression of UPⅢ in 92 cases of cystitis glandularis patients, 21 cases of normal control patients and 16 cases of transitional cell carcinoma of bladder with immunohistochemistry.Results:UPⅢ expressed in totol layer of adenal cpithelium in cystitis glandularis, UPⅢ expressed mainly around papilla and in cyst cavity in transitional cell carcinoma of bladder. The expessing rate of UPⅢ in cystitis glandularis was 63.0%(58/92) and that in normal control was 100%(24/24). The difference between them had significance (P=0.0004). That in cancer control was 75%(12/16). The difference between them had no significance (P=0.355). UPⅢ didn′t express in 34 cases of cystitis glandularis patients, and 85.3%(29) had some symptoms after operation, only 14.7%(5) had no symptom. Conclusions:UPⅢ originates from urothelium, which is consistent with epithelium transitional theory. UPⅢ negative is related to symptom relapse after operation of cystitis glandularis.


During the long historical development,Uygur people have established their own ethnic identity,religious identity(Islam) and National identity(China).Since the founding of PRC,the awareness of national identity of Uygur people has been greatly strengthened,their ethnic identity has also been enhanced,and their religious identity has great influence too.It is suggested that we should reasonably adjust the relations among them so as to promote long-term peace and stability of Xinjiang.


Abstract Playa wetlands are the major habitat for amphibians in the Southern Great Plains, USA. Agricultural cultivation causes playa sedimentation and related hydroperiod reduction in this intensively-farmed region, which in turn affects amphibian community structure. The goals of our study were (1) to investigate the influence of landuse on larval salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum mavortium) occurrence and densities in playas and whether hydroperiod length is an environmental influence on that occurrence, (2) to examine the polymorphic structure (cannibal, intermediate, and typical morphotypes) of larval salamanders and whether the frequency of occurrence of intermediate and typical morphs is associated with the presence of cannibal morphs and variations in hydroperiod length and conspecific density, and (3) to investigate morphological and life history trait differences among morphotypes (i.e., larval periods, growth rates, and body sizes). Cultivation of watersheds negatively affected presence and density of larval salamanders in playas, and this effect was associated with reduced hydroperiods. Although cannibal morphs were rare in playas, their presence negatively influenced presence of intermediate morphs and, thus, in this situation the majority of larvae were typical morphs. When cannibal morphs were absent, intermediate and typical morphs developed in similar proportions among playas with a tendency for intermediate morphs to predominate. Larval density and hydroperiod length were positively associated with the presence of cannibal morphs. Intermediate morphs had distinct growth patterns compared to cannibal and typical morphs and had body size measures (snout-to-vent length and stomach size) in between the two extreme morphs. Cannibal morphs grew faster and reached larger body size at metamorphosis than non-cannibal morphs. When cannibal morphs were absent, intermediate and typical larvae reached larger sizes than when cannibal morphs were present. We conclude that cultivation surrounding playas can negatively influence Ambystoma occurrence in general and especially the cannibal morphotype by reducing wetland hydroperiod. Moreover, a polymorphic community structure in larval amphibians may be important to a properly functioning playa food web.


The invention relates to a battery (1), comprising a housing (3) for receiving at least one electrolyte (4), at least one electrolyte (4) received in the housing (3), at least one device (5) for dissipating and/or collecting gases or vapors from the battery (1), wherein the battery (1) is provided with at least one means (8) for replenishing the at least one electrolyte (4).


This papers aims at sheding light on a specific issue of non-violent collective action against war in Colombia, the high cost that has been paid by those who are involved in it. The analysis focuses on two cases that occurred at the beginning of 2005: the paramilitary attack against the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado (Antioquia), and the guerrilla take over of Toribio (Cauca). In order to carry out this analysis, concepts from the study fields of Collective Action and Non Violence are used. The analysis will be based on primary information from newspapers and some complementary sources.


Background Synovitis-associated pain is an important aspect of arthritis pathology. Several inflammatory mediators released by the synovium have been implicated in the regulation of pain, including S100A8 and S100A9. These mediators may regulate pain either via direct stimulation of TLR4 on the nerve endings in the synovium or via stimulation at the site of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG), thereby enabling an increased phagocyte infiltration that may cause sensitisation. Objectives To elucidate the role of S100A9 in the pain response after induction of an acute synovitis using streptococcal cell walls (SCW) as a trigger, by comparing S100a9-/- mice and their wild type controls. Methods Acute synovitis was induced by a single intraarticular injection of SCW in the knee joint of C57Bl/6 (WT) mice and S100a9-/- mice (also functional knockouts for S100A8). Control mice received a saline injection. Serum S100A8/A9 levels were investigated by ELISA. Joint swelling and cell influx was assessed by 99mTc accumulation and histology. Pain response were investigated using an Incapacitance Tester (weight bearing), Catwalk (gait analysis) and von Frey's filaments (mechanical allodynia). Gene expression of inflammatory mediators and neuron activation markers in DRG were determined by q-PCR. Monocyte influx and protein expression was monitored by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results A single intraarticular injection of SCW resulted in acute synovitis, accompanied by a strongly increased synovial expression of S100A8 and S100A9 and increased serum S100A8/A9 levels at day 1, which returned to basal levels at day 7. However, joint swelling and cell influx were similar in WT and S100a9-/- mice at day 1, excluding a role for S100A8/9 on pain perception via increased synovitis. WT mice showed a marked and significant decrease in the percentage of weight bearing on the SCW injected hind paw (28%) compared to saline injection (47%, p<0.001) at day 1, whereas S100a9-/-mice did not. In addition, the stand-phase of the unaffected paws was significantly increased in WT mice 1 day after injection, while in S100a9-/- mice these parameters were not altered. Both mouse strains showed a similar reduction of paw withdrawal threshold, excluding a role for S100A8/9 in allodynia. Analysis of DRG showed no increased phagocyte infiltration after SCW injection and no change in gene expression of the chemokines MCP-1 and KC (for monocytes and neutrophils respectively), and pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and TNF was measured. In addition, F4/80 staining was comparable between WT and S100a9-/- mice. However, expression of the neuron activation markers NAV1.7, ATF3 and GAP43 was significantly increased at 1 day after SCW injection in WT mice as compared to saline injected mice (p=0.022, 0.004 and 0.030 respectively) while no regulation of these factors was found in S100a9-/- mice, which is in line in with the reduced pain response observed earlier in S100a9-/- mice. The difference in NAV1.7 expression in the DRG was further confirmed at protein level with IHC. Conclusions These findings show that S100A9 is an important mediator of inflammatory nociceptive pain response in the knee, rather than being involved in peripheral sensitisation. During the acute phase of inflammation S100A8/A9 is likely regulated via direct activation of TLR4 on nerve endings in the synovium and not via monocyte infiltration in the DRG. Disclosure of Interest None declared


This paper generalizes the Maurer--Pontil framework of finite-dimensional lossy coding schemes to the setting where a high-dimensional random vector is mapped to an element of a compact set of latent representations in a lower-dimensional Euclidean space, and the reconstruction map belongs to a given class of nonlinear maps. Under this setup, which encompasses a broad class of unsupervised representation learning problems, we establish a connection to approximate generative modeling under structural constraints using the tools from the theory of optimal transportation. Next, we consider problem of learning a coding scheme on the basis of a finite collection of training samples and present generalization bounds that hold with high probability. We then illustrate the general theory in the setting where the reconstruction maps are implemented by deep neural nets.


Effects of the gel size on the thermal behavior and the shrinking profile of a chemically cross-linked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (NIPA) gel in water were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and the volume measurement at the same heating rate as used for the DSC. The DSC thermogram of NIPA gel depended on the shrinking process at the transition. The DSC thermogram of the NIPA gel of the smallest size (0.3-mm diameter at the preparation) gave double endothermic peaks, and the gel underwent a discontinuous volume shrinkage (i.e. a volume transition) at about 34.5 °C in the DSC run with a heating rate of 0.1 °C/min. This suggests that the two-step cooperative dehydration of NIPA chains takes places in the volume shrinkage. It was proposed that the peak at the low temperature (peak 1) originated from the dehydration of NIPA chains without the volume transition while the peak at the high temperature (peak 2) was associated with the discontinuous volume shrinkage. A single broad endothermic...


Phosphorus doping is an effective strategy to simultaneously improve the electronic conductivity and regulate the ionic diffusion kinetics of TiO2 being considered as anode materials for sodium ion batteries (SIBs). However, efficient phosphorus doping with high concentration in well-crystallized TiO2 nanoparticles is still a big challenge. Herein, we propose a defect-assisted phosphorus doping strategy to selectively engineer the surface structure of TiO2 nanoparticles. The reduced TiO2-x shell layer that is rich of oxygen defects and Ti3+ species precisely triggered high concentration of phosphorus doping (~7.8 at%) and consequently a TiO2@TiO2-x-P core@shell architecture was produced. Comprehensive characterizations and first-principle calculations proved that the surface functionalized TiO2-x-P thin layer endowed the TiO2@TiO2-x-P with substantially enhanced electronic conductivity and accelerated Na ions transportation, resulting in great rate capability (167 mA h g-1 at 10000 mA g-1) and stable cycling (99% after 5000 cycles at 10 A g-1). Combining in/ex situ X-ray diffraction with ex situ electron spin resonance clearly demonstrated the high reversibility and robust mechanical behavior of the TiO2@TiO2-x-P upon long-term cycling. This work provides an interesting and effective strategy for precise heteroatoms doping to improve the electrochemical performance of nanoparticles.


The paper considers the possibility of improving the technical
 characteristics of gas surge arresters for the co-ordination of insulation
 at low voltage, medium voltage and high voltage levels. The idea for
 improving the characteristics of a gas surge arrester is based on the
 application of the radioactive source 241Am in the area of the surge
 arrester cathode. Intensive ionization with alpha particles significantly
 increases the number of free electrons in the space between electrodes,
 which shortens the time of their transition to initial electrons. This
 changes the Paschen curve of the gas surge arrester, narrows and flattens
 its impulse characteristic and reduces the stochasticity of the response of
 the gas surge arrester. All this results in a significant improvement in the
 characteristics of the gas surge arrester at all voltage levels. This
 improvement is particularly noticeable in the case of low voltage surge
 arresters. The paper is basically theoretical-experimental research. The
 experiments were performed under well-controlled laboratory conditions. The
 combined measurement uncertainty of all measurements was acceptable.


Background Protected learning time (PLT) has become an established method of learning for many primary care teams in the UK.Co nsiderable resources are used to provide protected time for practice teams to enable them to learn.Members of the primary care team appear to value PLT differently, and the reasons for this are unclear.The aim of this research was to explore the perceptions of practice managers towards PLT.Method A qualitative community based study using three focus groups of practice managers from semi-urban and rural general medical practices within three local healthcare co-operatives (LHCCs) in Ayrshire, Scotland was undertaken.Results Managers perceived that PLT was of benefit to the team, and gave examples of how the team had learned from each other and from neighbouring teams.This learning was welcomed by managers. An emerging theme was the level of involvement of the pharmaceutical industry in the planning and provision of team-based learning.There was also some confusion over the responsibility for providing learning for attached staff such as health visitors anddistrict nurses.Managers wanted clearer guidance on how to develop educational events for their teams.They wanted to improve communication with the LHCC on evaluation feedback and developing a resource database.Man agers also felt that they were working during the PLT sessions, rather than learning, and that they should have additionaltraining to compensate. Managers need more support with the planning and preparation of PLT sessions, which they undertake on behalf of the primary healthcare team. Improved communication with the managers of attached staff would encourage full attendance at meetings.Practic e managers and LHCC managers need to build a stronger network to develop PLT  further.Imp roved funding by primary care organisations would reduce the involvement of thepharmaceutical industry.


The author recalls the extensive use of deflection measurements as a non-destructive means of testing pavements for the design of new pavements and control of application during construction. The measurements give highly representative results of the mechanical behaviour of the pavements. The technique is widely utilized in french speaking Africa and in madagascar. Details are given of the evolution of the technique and of some results obtained on flexible pavements. Precautions to take while carrying out measurements are mentioned. /TRRL/


A linear time-invariant discrete-time state regulator problem is addressed, where the weighting to the control input in the performance index tends to zero. It has been shown that this type of so-called discrete cheap control problem possesses a singular perturbation property in the closed-loop system. Using the discrete singular perturbation technique, an asymptotic series solution of the Kalman gain matrix is obtained and it has been shown that the feedback gain matrix can be obtained by solving the reduced order problems of the singularly perturbed system. Asymptotic solutions up to the second order approximation terms are developed and their closeness with the exact solution are compared using suitable examples.


We examine the determinants of trade credit for a sample of U.S. public firms while controlling for supply-side and demand-side factors. Our dataset contains characteristics of suppliers and their key customers matched with data on their access to short-term financing through lines of credit. We find that suppliers that have access to a bank line of credit and a lower probability of financial distress have higher amounts of outstanding trade credit to their customers. Further, we find that supplier firms have higher amounts of outstanding trade credit when their customers lack access to a bank line of credit, have a higher probability of bankruptcy, and are more financially constrained. We also show that liquidity shocks to supplier firms influence the amount of trade credit outstanding.


The number of mothers giving birth with sectio caesarae delivery at BLUD R.S H.M Djafar Harun North Kolaka in 2015 was 254 people, then increased in 2016 to 521 people. The purpose of this study was to analyze the risk factors for the incidence of Sectio Caesarea delivery at H.M Djafar Harun Hospital, North Kolaka. This type of research is an analytic observational study with a case-control study approach. The study population was 68 with a sample of 136 people using the Accidental Sampling Technique. Data analysis using the Odds Ratio test. The results of the risk analysis based on narrow pelvic factors showed the value of OR= 9,681; LL= 2,728; UL= 34,355, and then placenta previa factor showed the value of OR= 6,484; LL= 0,759; UL= 55,385. In conclusion, narrow pelvis is a strong risk factor and placenta previa is not a strong risk factor for Sectio Caesarea delivery. It is hoped that the hospital will seek to identify high-risk pregnancies, complications or pregnancy abnormalities so that they can be detected early so that they are able to more optimally handle complications during childbirth.


Although edge detectors are useful for delineating the road areas in an image, no previous work in road extraction has demonstrated a comprehensive use of edge information. In this paper we propose a semi-automatic scheme that makes use of edge information to extract roads in high-resolution satellite images. A novel edge thinning and division algorithm is first applied to process edges in an image. With such processed edges, texture information, color information together with the user assistance, the proposed scheme is able to extract roads from an image with high reliability. This scheme can also make use of knowledge about road network topology to locate road areas. Experiments on high-resolution satellite images of different environmental settings show that our proposed scheme achieves high accuracy in identifying road areas.