Context: Atherosclerosis is considered as the important cause of death worldwide and especially among kidney-transplanted patients. It is said that an aggressive intervention is needed for preventing new atherosclerotic events post kidney transplantation. Our main purpose was to determine the effect of cytomegalovirus (CMV) exposure on the atherosclerotic events among kidney-transplanted patients using a systematic review and meta-analysis. Evidence Acquisition: Electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Web of Science) were systematically searched to find related studies for the effect of CMV exposure on the atherosclerosis in the kidney transplantation setting. Quality assessment was done and then because of existence of heterogeneity we used random-effect model to calculate risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the CMV effect on the atherosclerosis. Results: TenStudieswereincludedinoursystematicreview. Eightof themproposedCMVasariskfactorsforatherosclerosisamong kidney-transplantedpatients. Accordingtoavailabledataforanalysis,sevenpaperswereincludedinourmeta-analysisandshowed RR of 1.46 (95% CI: 1.15 - 1.85) for the mentioned effect and based on the trim and fill method the corrected RR was as 1.26 (95% CI: 1.01 - 1.65). Conclusions: Ourmeta-analysisshowedthatexposurewithCMVcanleadtoatherosclerosiseventsamongkidney-transplantedpa-tients. However,moreoriginalstudiesarestillneededtoexploretheassociationbetweenthetypeof CMVexposureandatheroscle-rotic events.


The site testing shows that Antarctic Dome A is one of the best site on earth for astronomical observations, for wavelength ranging from visible to infrared and sub-millimeter. Continuous observation for nearly four months in polar nights makes Dome A quite suitable for time domain astronomy. In the past decade CCAA already led a series of Antarctic astronomy activities and telescope projects which will be introduced in this paper. The first generation telescope is Chinese Small Telescope Array known as CSTAR, which was composed of four identical telescopes with 145mm entrance pupil, 20 square degrees FOV and different filters, all pointing to the celestial South Point, mainly used for variable stars detection and site testing. The telescope was deployed in Dome A in Jan. 2008, and followed by automatic observations for four consecutive winters. Three Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3) is the second generation telescope capable of pointing and tracking in very low temperature, with 500mm entrance pupil, 8.5 square degree FOV. AST3-1 and AST3-2 were respectively mounted on Dome A in Jan. 2012 and 2015, fully remotely controlled for supernovae survey and exoplanets searching. In Aug. 2017, AST3-2 successfully detected the optical counterpart of LIGO Source GW 170817. Now AST3-3 is under development for both optical and near infrared sky survey by matching different cameras. Based on the experience of the above smaller sized optical telescopes, the 2.5m Kunlun Dark Universe Survey Telescope (KDUST) was proposed for high resolution imaging over wide field of view. Currently the KDUST proposal was submitted to the government and waiting for project review.


Abstract The emerging US–Japan–Australia trilateral alignment is representative of a new archetype of "alliance" calibrated to the changed post-Cold War, post-9/11 security environment. This article considers how we might account for this new alliance formation and how we might conceptualize it. To accomplish this the article formulates an "intra-alliance politics" framework for analysis that juxtaposes competing "Realist" and "Pluralist" images of allied behavior in International Relations theory. This framework is then employed to uncover the motivations and behavioral dynamics driving the trilateral alliance seeking to reveal whether the alignment is predicated upon common "values" or sheer "expediency." It concludes that though the two different International Relations schools offer ostensibly competitive interpretations, the evidence suggests that they are in many ways complementary and mutually reinforcing. We must therefore consider the trilateral alliance an amalgam of both "expediency" and "values." The application of the intra-alliance politics framework expounded here thus enhances our understanding of this particular "alliance" and the phenomenon of "alignment" in general.


In most chemical reactions, reaction rates increase with increasing reactant concentrations. In this study, we report an unusual catalytic oxidation reaction with a negative reaction order, in whic...


Abstract : This contract provided funds to partially support the Clemson Mini- Conference ON(R) Discrete Mathematics (5th annual). This two day conference featured twelve speakers from the following colleges and universities: the Georgia Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, the College of William and Mary, Memphis State University, the University of Illinois (2), Ohio State University, the University of Tennessee, Wright State University, Vanderbilt University (2) and Old Dominion University. There were approximately 80 attendees. The conference has been sponsored by the Office of Naval Research for five years and in that time the conference has attracted most of the leading researchers in graph theory and discrete mathematics in the United States and some international visitors. The funds were used to pay part of the expenses of the speakers, for publication of the proceedings of the conference and for a small reception given during the conference.


The data of Marjury and Steacie on the photolysis of acetone and acetone-d6 in the presence of H2 and D2 respectively have been re-analyzed in terms of the integrated rate equations. It is concluded that only part of the discrepancy between the results for the methyl and hydrogen reaction can be accounted for in this way.In an appendix, it is shown that for high extinction coefficients, the integrated rate expression reaches a limit which may sometimes be attainable experimentally without undue complication from diffusion effects.


The effect of ceramic addition on the Sn-Cu-Ni solder alloy microstructure has been investigated. Sn-Cu-Ni/SiC composite solder samples were fabricated via powder metallurgy (PM) techniques. In this study, five different SiC composition were chosen (0 wt. %, .25 wt. %, 0.5 wt. %, 0.75 wt. %, and 1.0 wt. %). The results revealed that a small amount of SiC addition has well distributed along the grain boundaries which also refines the β-Sn phase.The effect of ceramic addition on the Sn-Cu-Ni solder alloy microstructure has been investigated. Sn-Cu-Ni/SiC composite solder samples were fabricated via powder metallurgy (PM) techniques. In this study, five different SiC composition were chosen (0 wt. %, .25 wt. %, 0.5 wt. %, 0.75 wt. %, and 1.0 wt. %). The results revealed that a small amount of SiC addition has well distributed along the grain boundaries which also refines the β-Sn phase.


MEMBERS: ADULT AND COMMUNITY SERVICES SCRUTINY FORUM Councillors Cranney, Griffin, Lawton, Loynes, A Marshall, Preece, Richardson, Shaw and Shields. Resident Representatives: Christine Blakey, Evelyn Leck and Michael Unwin. ALSO INVITED: MEMBERS OF THE HEALTH SCRUTINY FORUM Councillors S Akers-Belcher, Griffin, James, G Lilley, Preece, Robinson, Shields, Sirs and Wells. Resident Representatives: Maureen Braithwaite, Norma Morrish and Ian Stewart.


Laws in Indonesia, especially regarding criminal procedural law, are often unprofessional and overlapping or one-sided. The purposes of this paper are as to know the follow-up if there is a court request regarding a case but it is not processed legall, and to find out the follow-up to the problem if there is a case when the initial investigation is not enough. This research uses qualitative research. Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that the case was in the reporting stage, the police did not follow up on the case report. In this case, the reporter can submit a pretrial application as a basis for the case not being processed for one year. The reporter must first confirm the letter on the progress of the investigation results. Then, regarding the issue of sufficient evidence investigation, the Court considers the minimum requirement of two pieces of evidence and examination of a potential suspect for transparency and protection of a person's human rights so that before a person is declared a suspect he can provide a balanced statement.


Objective To study the application of vacuum sealing drainage(VSD) in treatment of spinal sinus tract tuberculosis accompanying infection.Methods Foci of spinal sinus tract tuberculosis accompanying infection in 20 patients admitted to our department in March 2006-April 2009 were removed and washed with placement of VSD.The VSD was pulled out and the patients were given anti-infection and anti-tuberculosis treatment after operation.The wound was closed after 10 days.Results The wound was healed quite well.The patients were followed up for 12-36 months(mean 24 months) during which no formation of sinus tract was observed in all patients.After closure of the sinus tract,the tuberculosis foci were removed with different procedures,internal fixation of the fractures was performed according to their different sites,and the spinal tuberculosis was then healed.Conclusion VSD is a simple,pain-free and efficacious procedure for spinal sinus tract tuberculosis accompanying infection with a rather good therapeutic effect,thus providing the preparation of operation for the treatment of sinus tract formation and relapsed spinal sinus tract tuberculosis due to the rupture of abscess.


Mixed-species forests in Fennoscandia are of increasing interest because they may improve resilience, biodiversity, and productivity. Currently there is scarce knowledge available of the early growth dynamics of mixed spruce–birch stands in even-aged managed production forests with artificial regeneration of spruce. The main objective of our study was to examine the present state and the past growth dynamics of current single-storied, young spruce–birch (Picea abies (L.) Karst., Betula pendula Roth, Betula pubescens Ehrh.) stands (age 17–29 years), where spruce was planted and birch naturally regenerated, and juvenile management practices (early cleaning and precommercial thinning) were carried out. We inventoried ten such stands in Southern Finland, for a total of twenty plots. For 160 spruces and 160 birch trees, we reconstructed the past diameter and height growth through stem analysis. We analyzed mean stand characteristics by tree species, and we modelled the individual tree height and diameter growth using the mixed effects Chapman–Richards model. Spruces had slower initial height growth, but by the age of about 20 years their height growth rate eventually approached and exceeded that of birches regenerated naturally at the time of spruce planting. The diameter growth of planted spruce exceeded that of birches even sooner (at the age of about 10 years). Thus, spruces are not suppressed by birches, and they may coexist in the same canopy layer in managed stands. Contrary to earlier guidelines, due to the fast growth of planted spruces, birch mixture needs to be maintained already in the first juvenile stand management (i.e., early cleaning). The growth dynamics of young, planted spruce, and naturally regenerated birch allow the establishment and management of such mixtures and also maintenance of the mixture in the future until the end of the rotation, thus improving biodiversity in boreal, planted spruce forests.


MEC technology provides a distributed computing environment in 5G mobile networks for application and service hosting. It allows customers with different requirements and professional competencies to use the services offered by external suppliers. We consider a service access control framework on 5G MEC networks that is efficient, flexible, and user-friendly. Its central element is the MEC Enabler, which handles AAA requests for stakeholders accessing services hosted on the edge servers. The JSON Web Token (JWT) open standard is a suitable tool for the MEC Enabler to manage access control credentials and transfer them securely between parties. In this paper, in the context of access control, we propose the token reference pattern called JSON MEC Access Token (JMAT) and analyze the effectiveness of its available protection methods in compliance with the standard requirements of MEC-hosted services in 5G networks.


This master thesis aims to investigate the visual characteristics of Late Bronze Age tholos tombs in the region of Messenia, Greece by comparing tholos tombs from two study areas: the Pylian hinterlands and the Soulima Valley. The study utilises cost surfaces and viewsheds created in a GIS-environment as heuristic devices to do so.
With the common assumption that the tholos tombs were erected as visual socio-economic statements, which therefore were placed in visually prominent places, as a starting point the study attempts to analyse the visual attributes of the tholos tombs' spatial locations as they may have been perceived in relation to contemporary settlements and the wider surrounding landscape. Were they all placed in visually prominent places? Is it possible to discern any spatial or temporal patterns? What does the tholos tombs' visual characteristics tell us about how they were perceived by the Messenians?
The results from the study show that the tholos tombs cannot be considered to be a homogenous group of constructions. While there are few real temporal or spatial patterns within the two study areas, it is clear that the tholos tombs in the Pylian hinterlands were located in places that could be described as 'hidden' compared to the rest of the landscape, while tholos tombs in the Soulima Valley vary from being hidden to extremely prominent.
It is argued that it is necessary to develop more advanced and theoretically aware methodological frameworks in order to properly place the tholos tombs in relation to other monuments, settlements and human movement/action in the landscape if we want to further our understanding of the tholos tombs.


In this article, we discuss the optimal allocation problem in a multiple stress levels life‐testing experiment when an extreme value regression model is used for statistical analysis. We derive the maximum likelihood estimators, the Fisher information, and the asymptotic variance–covariance matrix of the maximum likelihood estimators. Three optimality criteria are defined and the optimal allocation of units for two‐ and k‐stress level situations are determined. We demonstrate the efficiency of the optimal allocation of units in a multiple stress levels life‐testing experiment by using real experimental situations discussed earlier by McCool and Nelson and Meeker. Monte Carlo simulations are used to show that the optimality results hold for small sample sizes as well. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007


A treatment of the subject of negative resistance and the application to the problem of nonlinear oscillations shows the necessity of clarifying the meaning attached to the commonly used term "average" negative resistance. An average effective resistance Rn, based on a simple energy consideration, is introduced which when applied to the above problem affords a correct prediction of the amplitude of oscillation and supplies a meaning for the term "average" negative resistance. An earlier method known as the secant method of predicting the amplitude of oscillation is investigated and found to yield results not in accord with experimental behavior. The quantity Rn, being a function of the oscillation voltage V suggests a new type of curve called the Rn-V curve which serves to predict the possible amplitudes of oscillation when the negative resistance device is connected to a parallel R, L, and C circuit. Following this a criterion for amplitude stability is deduced which allows one to determine whether or not a possible amplitude is also stable by simply observing the slope of the Rn-V curve at the point corresponding to the possible amplitude. A problem of so-called "oscillation hysteresis" earlier reported in the literature is described, and it is shown how the Rn-V curve for this particular case offers a simple explanation of the phenomenon.


Modern management styles are a response to the changing environment, chaos, turmoil and reality, including generational changes and the resulting different requirements and approaches to reality. Therefore, it is obvious that more and more is expected from leaders. In the countries of the European Union the necessity of changes is being noticed not only in the environment, but also in all areas of economic life, management, social relations and political conditions. More and more often we hear about the "new normal", about a chaotic and uncertain reality in which the old, known and liked solutions cannot be used. All this has to do with the new challenges and modern approaches emerging in organizations, which are forced by, among other things: the new space of state devices, diversity of generations, digitalization, globalization and technological acceleration. Every day we witness the appearance of a huge amount of new information and it is increasingly difficult to select those most important for the organization. Permanent change makes marketing strategies and the whole strategic planning process shaky. Practically, in the world of managers, the statement "the world has gone mad" or "the world is standing on its head" is no longer used, more often we hear "VUCA World".


recommends a method whereby two sets of dental models are mounted on semiadjustable articulators, one as a control and one as a working articulator. In the first stage, LeFort I model surgery is performed and its position determined according to the cephalometric prediction tracing. An interocclusal wax bite is fabricated and later processed into an acrylic splint. The splint is used to fix the maxilla into the new predetermined position by closing the intact mandible in hinge axis interior rotation. The second step is model surgery in the lower model, moving the mandible into Class I canine occlusal relationship. Overcorrection may be done at this stage. The second interocclusal wax bite is fabricated with the same technique as the first wax bite and processed into acrylic splint. During the surgical procedure, the second splint is used to fix the maxilla and the mandible together in the predetermined final position and it remains in position through the whole period of fixation. With this jaw procedure, the surgeon will not lose the orientation during the fixation of simultaneous repositioned jaw bones, thereby effecting a better result. Alex Jacobson


This paper analyzed the relationship between Networked Readiness Index and Global Competitiveness Index published by the World Economic Forum through regression model. It is verified that the global competitiveness of a country is closely related to its degree of informatization. So in the context of China's "new normal", keeping rapid development in information technology may help China to keep the rapid development in global competitiveness. Keywords—informatization, global competitiveness, relevance Information network technology is the key strategic technology concerning the future development and security of the country. Whether or not the promotion of the national level of information can promote its international competitiveness is the question discussed in this paper by analyzing the data of 133 economies about their informatization level and global competitiveness in 2016 . Networked Readiness Index (NRI) [1]attaches importance to the government's information policy, information application and the impact of informatization development on social and economic development (not only the statistical objective indicators but also subjective indicators of the research) [2]. This article will also analyze the question based on the NRI calculation results in 2016. This paper also uses the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to assess the global competitiveness of an economy[3]. Firstly, data of information technology index and the global competitiveness index in this paper were collected respectively from "2016 Global Information Technology Report" of World Economic Forum and "2016-2017 Global Competitiveness Report". In 2016, WEF measured the NRI of 139 countries and the GCI of 142 economies, in which 133 were regarded as valid.Scatter diagram (Figure1) was formed after analyzing the relationship of NRI and GCI data of 133 countries. Fig. 1. NRI and GCI diagram As shown in the figure, NRI and GCI are highly correlated. With the rise of NRI, GCI basically showed an upward trend. Linear regression was performed to establish the following model: x refers to the level of NRI. y refers to GCI, is the intercept of the model, and is the regression coefficient. Using SPSS to establish a single linear regression model, the regression analysis results is shown in Table 1: TABLE I. ANALYSIS OF LINEAR REGRESSION MODEL WITH NRI AND WEF Parameter Coefficient Significance R F


The differential cross section ($\frac{d\ensuremath{\sigma}}{\mathrm{dEd}{\ensuremath{\Omega}}^{2}}$) for the $\mathrm{D}(p,2p)$ reaction at proton laboratory energies of 20, 45, and 100 MeV is calculated in an exactly soluble model of the three-nucleon system. The model is essentially that of Aaron, Amado, and Yam with the exception that the spin-dependent $S$-wave separable two-nucleon scattering amplitude is modified to fit two-nucleon elastic scattering data at energies above 20 MeV. The coupled integral equations for the model three-nucleon system are solved iteratively, so that the Faddeev-Watson nuclear multiple-scattering series is generated. The multiple-scattering series, itself, is found to diverge at all energies below 100 MeV. The diagonal Pad\'e approximates, which converge quite rapidly, are employed to sum the series. The results of the calculations are in reasonable agreement with experiment.


In this paper, performance of joint transmit and receive antenna selection in each hop of dual hop amplify-and-forward relay network is analyzed over flat and asymmetric Nakagami-m fading channels. In the network, source, relay, and destination are equipped with multiple antennas. By considering relay location, we derive exact closed-form cumulative distribution function, moment generating function, moments of end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio and closed form symbol error probability expressions for fixed and channel state information-based relay gains. We also derive the asymptotical outage probability and symbol error probability expressions to obtain diversity order and array gain of the network. Analytical results are validated by the Monte Carlo simulations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


To the Editor: There are several reports of childhood malignancy identified during acute illness, but little guidance on how to balance treatment of the acute illness and newly diagnosed cancer. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been case reports detailing the simultaneous diagnosis of pediatric malignancy and acute COVID19 infection.1–3 However, to our knowledge there are no reports of simultaneously diagnosed malignancy and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), and thus no guidance for timing of tumor-directed treatment. We present a case ofWilms tumor (WT) incidentally diagnosed concurrently withMIS-C.We hope our experience with parallel treatment of both conditions will inform the management of future patients with this combination of illnesses. A 5-year-old healthy female developed a febrile illness with pharyngitis, vomiting, poor intake, and dysuria. She initially presented to her pediatrician on day 3 of illness, was diagnosed with acute otitis media, and prescribed amoxicillin. On day 5, she developed a rash on her torso and extremities. Amoxicillin was discontinued for presumed drug reaction, and the rash resolved. Given persistent fevers, poor oral intake, and urinary symptoms, she presented to an emergency department on day 6 of illness. Exam was significant for fever, tachycardia, oropharyngeal erythema, and cervical lymphadenopathy. Laboratory evaluation revealed hyponatremia (130 mmol/L), hypokalemia (3.1 mmol/L), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) elevation (63 mg/dl), creatinine elevation (3.48 mg/dl), mild leukocytosis (13,900/μl), with neutrophilia (absolute neutrophil count 12,410/μl), 58% bands, and lymphopenia (absolute lymphocyte count 120/μl). C-reactive protein (CRP: 346 mg/L) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR: 103 mm/h) were elevated. Renal ultrasound was performed due to acute kidney injury (AKI) and demonstrated a solid circumscribed left kidneymassmeasuring 6.7× 4.4× 6.7 cm. The patient was transferred to a tertiary care center. Additional studies were notable for hyperbilirubinemia (total 1.8 mg/dl, direct 1.2 mg/dl), mildly prolonged prothrombin time (PT: 15.7 seconds) and partial thromboplastin time (PTT: 38.5 seconds), and elevated uric acid (15.5mg/dl). Respiratory viral panel (including SARS-CoV-2) was negative. The patient was initially treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics,


This paper explores technology's pivotal position at the intersection of control and uncertainty. It examines two areas: Intensive Care and a Labour Ward. Building on the work of Davis (1960), it argues that certainty and uncertainty are socially constructable and reconstructable. This is actively achieved by the deployment of strategies involving particular paradigms (the biomedical model) and artefacts (medical technology). Power lies in control over knowledge and the structures and practices which sustain it, including those embedded in advanced technology. The contribution of medical technology to the achievement of certainty in Intensive Care and end-game Obstetrics (the Labour Ward) is considered. Achieved certainty in medical situations is seen as: the structured masking of uncertainty by the application of medical iconography, artefacts and techniques to create the illusion of certainty. The accomplishment of uncertainty in Obstetrics (as a precursor to technological intervention) is also explored. The accomplishment of uncertainty in medical situations is seen as associated with the structured projection of uncertainty, involving using medical discourse rooted in the medical paradigm to exaggerate the generality of risk and the probability of pathology. It is argued that the highly structured and routinised settings of ICU and the labour Ward, not only aid control by the medical profession but diminish perceptions of uncertainty.


Traditional high-level synthesis systems generate a single schedule, and try to minimize the allocation cost for that schedule. Since there are often a large number of schedules for a given problem, this approach prematurely prunes the design space and it may miss many better solutions. The multi-schedule synthesis approach overcomes this deficiency by producing a number of schedules and generating a complete data-path for each schedule. In most cases multi-schedule synthesis not only produces better results but also runs faster than well-known synthesis systems such as HAL, SALSA, and SE.<<ETX>>


This report follows a workshop with the same name held on June 4 and 5, 2009 at Denison University and funded by a Mellon Cluster1 Faculty Career Enhancement (FCE) grant. The 32 faculty in attendance represented eleven selective liberal arts colleges,2 and the disciplines of Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geosciences, Mathematics, and Physics. Our keynote speakers were Dr. Malcolm Campbell, a biologist from Davidson College and Dr. Daniel Kaplan, a computer scientist from Macalester College.


Advanced organizational intelligence in complex business applications requires integration of machine intelligence and human intelligence. However, little research on this issue has been reported in the literature thus far. As the first step, we envision the concept of "cognitive processes" that consist of sequences of tasks that encompass the elements of human and machine learning, knowledge, and reasoning in a cognitive system. In this paper, we first identify the gap between the current state of the cognitive computing and the requirements for an agile learning organization. Then, we propose a modeling method for Agent-Based Cognitive Computational Process (ABACUS) and demonstrate how the ABACUS method can be used in a business organization.


The interaction of two excited hydrogen atoms at large separations [ital R] is governed by the dipole-dipole term ([congruent][ital R][sup [minus]3]). The potential-curve asymptotes are obtained by diagonalizing the dipole-dipole-interaction operator in the subspace of the degenerate unperturbed states. The symmetry properties are used for the reduction of the matrix size. In some special cases the eigenvalues are found analytically. For the interaction of highly excited atoms an approximate semiclassical quantization procedure is developed. The problem is reformulated via the three-dimensional three-term recursion relations. The discrete (index) variables are converted into continuous variables and approximate (adiabatic-type) separation of variables is achieved. This makes the problem effectively one dimensional and provides a qualitative interpretation of the spectrum structure. The simplest explicit expression for the spectrum is obtained by using the harmonic approximation in the index space. It applies for the extreme eigenvalues.


It is estimated that 30 to 40% of children in Malaysia have allergies that also involved breastfed infants. Maternal diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding was found to be one of the factors that may lead to allergy reaction in infants. The increasing trends of allergy among infants leads to the question whether mothers have a sufficient knowledge. One of the sources of information is via breastfeeding peer counselor. Objective: This study aimed to identify knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of breastfeeding, maternal diet and infant allergy prevention among Breastfeeding Peer Counselor (BPC) in Pahang.

Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional questionnaire study carried out among 67 BPC with mean age 40.94±8.87 that live in Pahang. The convenient sampling method was used with the inclusion criteria will be among Kumpulan Sokongan Penyusuan Susu Ibu Pahang (KUSSIP). All the data was analysed using SPSS Version 12.0.

Results: In total, 82.1% of participants had moderate knowledge, 67.2% had good attitude and 80.6% had good practice towards breastfeeding, maternal diet and infant allergy. The knowledge of BPC showed significant positive correlations with attitude score (r=0.659, p=0.001), knowledge and practice (r=0.480, p=0.001) and attitude of BPC towards practice score (r=0.643, p=0.001).

Conclusion: This study reveals that majority of the BPC had moderate level of knowledge towards breastfeeding, maternal diet and infant allergy. An improvement of knowledge on this issue is highly recommended as they will be the centre of information for mothers to prevent allergy among breastfed infants through knowledgeable BPC.


Measurements of flow in retinal vessels is presented and compared with in vitro measurements on whole blood in capillaries ranging from 75 to 200μm diameter. The viewing angle of the capillaries and their range of size allows size-dependent effects to be investigated when estimating flow within actual vessels. Retinal measurements show a pulse effect. When this is removed by synchronisation, multi-exposure measurements show different spectral signature from single speed scatterers. Multi-exposure measurements of the retina demonstrate a varying contribution of stationary scatter across the field. Unlike scattering in dermal tissue, photons in retinal vessels must return by multiple scatter from moving Red Blood Cells, whose motion is directed. Speckle estimates of flow in retinal vessels are therefore possible.


Cloud federation provides computing services of internal and external cloud providers. These computing services (e.g., virtual resources or services etc.) are collectively owned, accessed and controlled by one or more federating participants like user, broker, cloud providers, service provider etc. Thus, subjects are subsets of federating participants for use, execution, deployment and management of computing services. Each such subject must be authenticated before authorisation of computing services. Identity management solutions cannot address authentication of subjects comprising of more than two federating participants. In this paper, we propose a protocol for authentication (called as caucus authentication protocol) of subjects as a subset of one or more federating participants using a variant of multi-party computation (MPC). Theoretical study attempts to prove liveness and safety properties of proposed caucus authentication protocol (CAP) for the validation of dead-lock-free communication. The simulation results show that the protocol provides authentication of subjects in acceptable response time.


This paper deals with four negative patterns of deontic, epistemic, dynamic and boulomaic modals in modem Taiwanese Southern Min. Deontic and epistemic modality involves the notion of necessity and possibility, and its negation is nonnecessity and impossibility. Negation of dynamic modality bears on the issue concerning the actor's inherent inability to carry out an action or incapability to do so due to outer circumstances. Negation of boulomaic modality indicates the lack of intention or desire to do something. As put forward in the paper, the negation of some modals such as tioh8 and gau5 can only be expressed in terms of suppletion. Negation of modals shows both synthetic and analytic tendencies manifested in fusion and compounding, two balancing morphological processes.


The purposes of this article were 1) to present the Buddhist art as depicted in the Khmer castles, to examine the valueof Buddhist art as depicted in the Khmer castles. Historical documents and archaeological evidence were used. The resultindicated that: When Buddhism was spread into the Suvarnabhumi region during the 3rd century AD, there was a devotee anddedication to create art related to Buddhism. Thus, this art is called Buddhist art. Among all the important civilizations in thisworld, the Khmer civilization, which is one of the important civilizations in Southeast Asia. The forms of Khmer architecture orLopburi architecture can be divided into 3 types: (1) Devalai or temple (2) Dhammasala, accommodation for travelers, or houseswith lights (3) Arogayasala (Chapel of the hospital). Surin province is located in the northeast of Thailand. There are a largenumber of Khmer castles. In this province, the castles of Brahmanism and Buddhism had been settled. The Buddhist arts hadreflected through architecture. It was indicated that this area used to have Mahayana Buddhism. Although the Buddhist Mahayanasect at present has deteriorated. Historical evidence and values still exist nowadays


By this work, it's wanted to analyze the code-switching and calque of children's oral production in bilingual areas. This phenomenon is caused by the contact between two languages, in a common place where they coexist. In the influential area between Basque and Spanish languages, I'm focusing on, in this work. The oral production of 6 to7 years old children, students of a D model school in Iruna, have been taken as main concept to get to this point. A data classification has been made, by records and observational work, to analyze the functions and features of this phenomenon. The code-switching and calque created in the orality of those children, have been classificated according to the typology and the functions they accomplish. After the analysis, it must be underlined, the superiority of calque, and the strength and affectation of the Spanish over the oral production in Basque.


[Objective]To understand the infection status of HBV among food and public places employees in Changping District of Beijing City.[Methods]ELISA method was adopted to conduct HBsAg detection on employees.[Results]Of 76 654 employees received health examination in Changping District in 2009,the HBsAg carrying rate was 1.83%,that of male was higher than female(χ2=55.44,P0.01),The HBsAg carrying rate of employees from local areas or other places was 0.74%,2.18%,respectively;the difference was significant(χ2=163.52,P0.01).[Conclusion]The HBsAg carrying rate of food and public places employees in changing district was lower than national average levels(4.4%~8.0%),but it is still necessary to implement annual health examination and vaccination of hepatitis B vaccine among employees of this industry.


E VEN AMONG CATULLUS' CARMINA MAIORA, 68 stands out as unusually convoluted, unusually dependent on similes and images that seem unconnected to the poem's main theme, unusually complex.' The basic narrative of the poem is simple to the point of banality; Denis Feeney sets the question, "What actually happens in 68?" and answers, "A man provides a house, a woman arrives-the rest is analogy and reflection, nested within the expression of thanks to Allius."2 Feeney's observation that the similes of poem 68 "are no added ornament to the poem," but rather "they are the poem, they are what the poem is saying," is surely no exaggeration.3 In this elaborate web of "analogy and reflection," almost any strand, once pulled, reveals connections and patterns running backwards and forwards throughout the whole poem. It is this very complexity that gives 68 perhaps the largest bibliography of any Catullan poem; its nuances seem virtually inexhaustible. This article will address one of the most vexed and vexing passages of all, lines 51-66, presented here without any punctuation but with several standard emendations of the manuscript readings:


TiO_2 thin films were prepared with a spinodal phase separation structure ranging from hundreds of nanometers to micrometers in size by the sol-gel dip-coating method from a titanium tetraisopropoxide solution containing polyoxyethylene (20) nonylphenyl ether (NPE-20). It was possible to change the titania domain size of the spinodal phase separation structure by selecting alcohol as the solvent because the polycondensation and the phase separation are severely influenced by its evaporation rate from the surface of the coated film. It was also observed that the titania domains became larger in size as the film thickness increased in the bottom area of the substrate when the dip-coating method was applied, while uniformly sized titania domains were possibly formed by a spin-coating method. Furthermore, the contrast between the TiO_2 phase and the air phase was not sharp when the titania domain size was smaller than several hundreds of nanometers. It was possible to prepare TiO_2-air interconnective films with the spinodal phase separation structure 200–300 nm in domain size by subsequent HF etching. In addition, combining spinodal phase separation structure (SPSS) TiO_2 thin film with different skeleton size has the potential to create TiO_2 thin film with high photo-electron conversion efficiency due to its particular structure, higher surface area, and lack of bottleneck for electron transfer.


The effect of the whistler turbulence on anisotropic electrons in a thermal barrier is examined. The electron distribution function is derived self‐consistently by solving the steady state quasilinear diffusion equation. Saturated amplitudes are computed using the resonance broadening theory or convective stabilization. Estimated power levels necessary for sustaining the steady state of a strongly anisotropic electron population are found to exceed by orders of magnitude the estimates based on Fokker–Planck calculations for the range of parameters of tandem mirror (TMX‐U and MFTF‐B) experiments [Nucl. Fusion 25, 1205 (1985)]. Upper limits on the allowed degree of anisotropy for existing power densities are calculated.


The communication and utilization of scientific findings is a multi-step process, with data originating with the scientists and terminating with the lay public, but mediated by practitioner groups who work with the public. The present study was designed to measure the extent to which practitioner groups who are (or who could be) intermediaries between sociologists and the public are informed concerning some findings of sociology which have practical implications for their own work. The study revealed that the health and social workers held a very limited amount of correct information concerning the "culture of poverty" and its relation to health.


Abstract The effects of increase of the ionic strength by addition of calcium (Ca2+) and sulfate (SO4 2‐) on the activity of monomer aluminum (Al3+) specie and its toxicity on the root growth of maize plants were studied in nutrient solution. The concentration of elements of the nutrients solutions were made from the analysis of the tropical acid soils solutions. Plants of maize were cultivated for seven days in controlled conditions. The ionic strength values of soil solutions were lower than 4,000 μM. The increase of Ca2+ and SO4 2‐ concentrations in nutrient solution resulted in a increase of Ca2+ and SO4 2‐ activities and ionic strength values. With the increase of Ca2+ and SO4 2‐ activities, there was a reduction of Al3+ activities and thus the root growth was increased. The root growth of maize was better correlated with the Al3+ activity values than with Al3+ concentrations.


Chimonanthus grammatus M.C.Liu is an endangered and national-protected medicinal plant species with highly restricted geographical distribution and disjunctly locates in the border area of Anyuan and Huichang county of Jiangxi province, China. In this study, we developed ten microsatellite loci for this species for the first time. Nine of them was screened by combining biotin capture method to enrich (CA)15 /(GA)15 microsatellites, and one primer is designed from one EST sequence (DW222670) of Chimonanthus praecox. Ten microsatellite primers were found to be polymorphic through screening 30 individuals. Na was from two to eighteen. Ho and He ranged from 0.233 to 0.933 and 0.326 to 0.898, respectly. Polymorphic information content (PIC) was from 0.316 to 0.890. Ten microsatellite primers will be useful to investigate the genetic structure of Chimonanthus grammatus M.C.Liu and to explain its morphological differentiation from another species in Chimonanthus.


This was a pioneer study whose purpose was to investigate the auditory processing abilities of inmates residing in a medium security prison using the SCAN-A: A Test for Auditory Processing Disorders in Adolescents and Adults. Subject selection criteria was met if the subject passed an otoscopic examination and a pure tone threshold hearing screening. Forty-one inmates, with a mean age of 33.1, met the selection criteria. The SCAN-A was administered according to the examiner manual specifications. Responses were recorded for later quantitative analysis. Scores for the auditory figure-ground, competing words, and competing sentences subtests, and the total test were significantly lower than scores for the nonnative sample. Subjects were judged to have \questionable to disordered\ central auditory processing abilities. Findings should be interpreted cautiously because of questions raised regarding the structure of the SCAN-A. Further investigation of the prevalence of central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) within the prison system is warranted.


Handbook of Pediatrics. Fourth Edition. By Henry K. Silver, M.D.; C. Henry Kempe, M.D., and Henry B. Bruyn, M.D. Price, $3.50. Pp. 576. Lange Medical Publications, University Medical Publishers, Box 1215, Los Altos, Calif., 1961. When this handbook first appeared in 1955, a reviewer for the Archives of Diseases in Childhood praised it lavishly. He concluded, "On the shelf beside a multivolumed system of pediatrics, one is reminded of Jack the Giant Killer. Amazing value for 3 dollars." Six years later, the fourth edition\p=m-\foronly 50 cents more\p=m-\continuesto warrant acclaim. As the authors specify, their objective is "... a concise and readily available digest of the material necessary for the diagnosis and management of pediatric disorders." It is ".


The polarimetric characteristics of X-Band sea clutter are investigated using data from the DSTO Ingara airborne radar operating in a circular spotlight geometry. An analysis of the Doppler spectrum as a function of azimuth geometry with respect to the wind direction shows the difference in the surface velocity between the HH and VV scattering components reaches maxima in the upwind and down wind directions and the cross polarized HV channel has very similar Doppler characteristics to the VV channel. The Cloude-Pottier polarimetric decomposition parameters are in agreement with predominantly Bragg signal surface scattering with an additional HH sea spike component in the upwind direction.


This survey- correlational study was conducted to find out the relationship of Decoding and Vocabulary Skills to the comprehension skills of Junior High School students. One hundred Twenty- five (125) students were the subjects of this study from Infant Jesus Academy, Kalibo in the School Year 2016- 2017. The dependent variable in this study was the Comprehension Skills while the independent variables were Decoding and Vocabulary Skills. Primary data were used in this study. It underwent validation and analysis. The descriptive statistics used were frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation and the inferential statistics used were the Pearson r and linear regression to correlate the results of Decoding and Vocabulary skills to Comprehension Skills of students. The level of significance was set at 5%. Major findings of the study revealed that the students' Decoding skills is "very competent" while the level of Vocabulary and Comprehension skills of students is "competent". On the other hand, there is no significant relationship between the Decoding Skills and Comprehension Skills of the students. However, there is a significant relationship in the Vocabulary Skills and Comprehension Skills of students. The results of the students' Vocabulary Skills are significant predictors to the Comprehension Skills of Junior High School students.


Style representation learning builds content-independent representations of author style in text. Stylometry, the analysis of style in text, is often performed by expert forensic linguists and no large dataset of stylometric annotations exists for training. Current style representation learning uses neural methods to disentangle style from content to create style vectors, however, these approaches result in uninterpretable representations, complicating their usage in downstream applications like authorship attribution where auditing and explainability is critical. In this work, we use prompting to perform stylometry on a large number of texts to create a synthetic dataset and train human-interpretable style representations we call LISA embeddings. We release our synthetic stylometry dataset and our interpretable style models as resources.


Hemochromatosis is a chronic disease characterized by the presence of large quantities of hemofuscin and hemosiderin in the tissues, particularly in the liver and pancreas. The iron in this pigment is apparently of both endogenous and exogenous origin. The exact mechanism of this dysfunction of iron metabolism is, as yet, not known. Mallory 1 has produced a pigment cirrhosis of the liver in animals by means of the prolonged administration of copper salts and also finely divided metallic copper. In a large number of human cases there has been a history of chronic copper poisoning either through occupational contact or through the prolonged ingestion of beverages or foods containing copper. The following case has been under observation for almost six years, during which time some interesting features have been observed, particularly those associated with the diabetic manifestations: REPORT OF CASE A white man, aged 42, single, a cabinet maker, admitted


Aim. To study the structure of somatic and genital pathology of women receiving spa treatment. Materials and methods. On the basis of the Pogranichnik clinical sanatorium, a continuous retrospective study was carried out, covering women who received spa treatment in 2019-2020. The material for the study was 837 case histories of patients. The criteria for inclusion in the study were: the patient's appeal to an obstetrician-gynecologist in a sanatorium, consent to the examination. Exclusion criteria from the study: absence of examination by an obstetrician-gynecologist in the patient, informed consent. For statistical analysis, the programs Micrisoft Exel and Statistica 13 (methods for small series of observations) were used. Results. Among all age categories of women observed by an obstetrician-gynecologist of a clinical sanatorium, a fairly high somatic polymorbidity was noted. It was revealed that in the structure of extragenital pathology, the percentage of women with arterial hypertension is significant. Obesity of various degrees also prevails, and with age, the proportion of women with higher degrees of obesity increases, as well as the number of diseases that have a direct relationship with obesity: among somatic diseases, from disorders of carbohydrate metabolism and diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism to arterial hypertension, to gynecological diseases in the form of uterine fibroids and various types of mastopathy. Among gynecological pathology, inflammatory diseases traditionally prevailed in the form of various kinds of vaginitis and vaginal dysbiosis, in second place is uterine myoma and fibrocystic mastopathy, which have a close relationship with the above somatic pathology. Conclusion. Even at the stage of sanatorium-resort treatment of women, the view of an obstetrician-gynecologist is not narrow in relation to gynecological pathology, but considering a specific patient with her concomitant diseases in a complex An integrated approach to patients made it possible to fully implement the principles of modern medicine.


Electromagnetic fields tend to be in the lowest energy state consistent with the constraints of the system. This relaxation property of fields is discussed from the viewpoint of a variational principle. The study encompasses many closely related theorems, widely dispersed throughout the literature, whose origin is traced to a single variational principle derivable from Maxwell's equations. Kirchhoff's voltage law is also shown to follow from the variational principle. This leads to an interesting interpretation of a fundamental law in circuit theory, and also permits the derivation of the principle of conservation of flux.


Four new species of the genus Lycodon (L. alcalai, L. bibonius, L. chrysoprateros, and L. solivagus) are described from Batan, Camiguin, Dalupiri, and Luzon islands of the northern Philippines. These species are similar to L. dumerili and L. muelleri but distinct from other Philippine congeners by having a slightly arched maxilla, medially divided nasal, and an entire anal shield. Lycodon alcalai and L. chrysoprateros differ from all other Philippine species of Lycodon in lacking transverse light bands on all of the body and tail. Lycodon alcalai differs from L. chrysoprateros in having more than 200 ventral scales (less than 195 in L. chrysoprateros). Lycodon bibonius is distinct from other Lycodon species in the Philippines in having 22-25 and 16-21 pale bands on the body and tail, respectively; L. solivagus is characterized by 13-14 pale bands occurring only on the anterior three-fourths of the body.


AMERICA'S security and future rests, to a great extent, upon the best development of the potentials of scholarship, creativity, and leadership in our young people. At present, when much attention is focused upon re-evaluating and redirecting education in terms of the maximum development of the able student, the Advanced Placement Program is one of the provocative and realistic approaches to the problem. By providing challenging experiences to meet the needs and abilities of these students the program is effectively serving the welfare of the nation. The Advanced Placement Program is a flexible plan provided especially for capable and ambitious students in secondary schools; some school systems have already come to consider it a continuous process throughout the child's education. Extensive and intensive work of high quality by students, under careful guidance of teachers in the secondary schools, entitles them to take college-level objective and essay examinations given nationally, during the month of May, under the supervision of the College Entrance Examination Board.


A photovoltaic (PV) systempsilas power output fluctuates with the change of weather conditions. Frequency deviations, tie line voltage fluctuations etc. are caused by fluctuating PV power when large PV power from several PV systems is penetrated in the utility. In this paper, to overcome these problems, a simple coordinated control method for leveling the fluctuations of combined PV power from multiple PV systems is proposed. Here, output power command is generated in two steps: central and local. Fuzzy control is used to generate the central leveling output power command considering insolation, variance of insolation and absolute average of frequency deviation. In local step, a simple coordination is maintained between central power command and local power commands by producing a common tuning factor. Power converters are used to achieve the same output power as local command power employing PI control law for each of the PV generation systems. The proposed method is compared with the method where conventional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control is used for each of the PV systempsilas power output. Simulation results show that the proposed method is effective for leveling output power fluctuations and feasible to reduce the frequency deviations of the power utility.


Study of the organic thin film solar cell has been evaluated with the solar battery of the light receiving area of around 1 square centimetre. Upsizing of organic thin film solar cell is expected in future. When the organic thin film solar cell is modularized, the solar battery must be patterning to be connected to series and parallel. A PCDTBT or a PTB1 is used as a target. These organic thin films are made by the spin coating process. Femtosecond laser and YAG laser is respectively focused on organic thin film on the XY stage by a parabolic mirror. The hole size and the processing section are measured. The influence of the laser power, the wavelength and the pulse width to process the organic thin film is investigated.


Some traditional methods,such as the velocity-azimuth display(VAD) and the velocity-azimuth processing (VAP),have been widely used to retrieve the 3-D wind field from single-Doppler radar data because of their relative conceptual and practical simplicity.The advantage of VAD is that it is not affected by small-scale perturbations of the radial wind along the azimuth,to which the VAP method is very sensitive. Nevertheless,the spatial resolution of the VAD method is very poor compared to the VAP method. We show,in this study,that these two retrieval methods are actually related with each other and they are two special applications of a retrieval function based on the azimuthal uniform-wind assumption for a given azimuthal interval[θ_1,θ_2].When using this retrieval function to retrieve wind fields,the azimuthal interval used in retrieval can be adjusted according to the requirement of smoothness or resolution.The larger(smaller) the azimuthal interval is,the coarser(finer) the horizontal resolution of retrieved wind field is,and the more insensitive(sensitive) the retrieval method is to small-scale perturbations.Because the full information within the azimuthal interval[θ_1,θ_2],instead of the information at two terminal points only, i.e.,azimuthsθ_1 andθ_2,is used to retrieve the wind fields,this method is referred to as the integrating VAP (IVAP) method,wherein the horizontal wind field is retrieved by using the Doppler velocity over the part of circumference,delimited by the given azimuthal interval times the scan radius.By contrast,the VAP method uses only the velocities at two terminal points of the given azimuthal interval.Therefore,the IVAP method has a filtering function,and the filtering rate can be controlled by adjusting the azimuthal interval. The filter such as that used in the pre-processing of the VAP method is no longer necessary for the IVAP method.When the retrieval azimuthal interval is as large as a whole circumference,the IVAP becomes the VAD.On the other hand,if only two neighboring azimuthal data are used,the IVAP becomes the VAP. The frequency response function of IVAP indicates that the IVAP method can filter out shortwaves,and a larger azimuthal interval leads to stronger filtering ability,therefore a smoother retrieved wind field. The shortwave filter function of the IVAP method is tested by an ideal experiment wherein the radar observations are artificially created by a uniform flow superposed with random disturbances.The VAP and IVAP methods are used in wind retrieval,respectively,and give different results for different azimuthal intervals(i.e.,6°,12°,24°,and 48°).Because the VAP method is sensitive to small disturbances,the retrieved winds have larger errors for all different azimuthal intervals.However,the retrieved wind by the IVAP method has smaller errors when the azimuthal interval is larger due to its shortwave filter function. An experiment for an idealized linear wind field is also carried out to demonstrate the effect of the retrieval azimuthal interval on the IVAP method.The results show that a short interval gives the retrieval close to the"true"wind field with a linear distribution.When increasing the interval,the retrieval is smoothed and can represent only the mean wind field.


Background: Brugada syndrome (BrS) is a severe inherited arrhythmia syndrome which can be unmasked by fever.

Methods: A clinical analysis was performed in 134 probands diagnosed with fever-induced BrS, including 59 patients who received next-generation genetic sequencing. We employed a biophysics-based computational protocol to investigate whether protein structure destabilization contributes to Nav1.5 variant-mediated fever-induced BrS.

Findings: Among all cases enrolled, the symptoms at diagnosis were syncope in 26 (19.40%) and major arrhythmic events (MAE) in 16 (11.94%). SCN5A variant carriers were significantly younger than probands free of SCN5A variants. Compared with a historical cohort of non-fever BrS probands carrying SCN5A variants, carriers with fever-induced BrS were prone to MAE at younger age, and had a higher proportion of variants localizing at the interdomain linkers. Modeling result showed that most variants are destabilizing when temperature increases, suggesting that Nav1.5 structure destabilization is the cause of fever-induced BrS associated with SCN5A
variants.

Interpretation: In our cohort, SCN5A variant carriers with fever-induced BrS present at a younger age and harbor SCN5A variants predominantly localized to interdomain linker regions of Nav1.5. These SCN5A variants typically induce destabilization of Nav1.5 structure at higher body temperatures. Patients with SCN5A mutations present within interdomain linker regions may warrant more aggressive monitoring and management of fever.

Funding Statement: The current work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation Project of China (Grant No. 81670304); the National Institutes of Health of USA (NIH R56 - HL47678], NIH R01 [HL138103]), NIH R01 [HL152201], the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust and the Wistar and Martha Morris Fund.

Declaration of Interests: The authors report no relationships that could be construed as a conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of each hospital and performed in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki. All participants gave written informed consent.


Pronouns are used by the politicians in order to make significant effect in their speeches. This study is designed to describe the rhetorical devices of pronoun used by Donald Trump in his presidential speech to March For Life participants and pro-life leaders and to explain how the use of pronoun reflects the intended meaning. The research design of this study is document analysis resting on the principle of phenomenology. The finding shows that pronouns I, My, You, We, Our, and Us are used (1) to create the sense of closeness, informality, no social distance relationship, and togetherness, (2) to claim and demand for shared responsibility, and (3) to show his personal quality in addressing the event. The essence of intended meaning is that to gain trust and to persuade people to accept his vision and ideas.


The amount of photovoltaic (PV) generation that can be hosted by existing radial distribution feeders is inherently limited by system constraints and operating conditions. This paper discusses an analysis to determine the photovoltaic hosting capacity of an existing radial distribution feeder. This analysis also visualizes the location-dependence of hosting capacity, and tests the effectiveness of modifying inverter power factor on hosting capacity. The analysis was performed using python scripts to run a large number of power flow simulations in OpenDSS with successively increasing amounts of PV generation. Results indicated that when PV generation is installed in proportion to load, circuit hosting capacity is overwhelmingly limited by overvoltage conditions. Also, modifying inverters to generate at a fixed, slightly lagging power factor can effectively reduce overvoltage condition and increase the feeder hosting capacity.


People with Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) have sometimes been found to show a local-processing bias on certain visual tasks. This bias has been associated with superior task performance on tasks where it confers an advantage. However, this finding is far from universal; especially when the research participants with ASC have an average to above average level of general intellectual functioning. This thesis comprises a literature review of research examining the processing of visual information by people with ASC, and an empirical paper examining the performance of people with ASC on the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure. The literature review considers various models of ASC with the predictions they make for processing of complex visual stimuli. The evidence which supports or refutes these theories is described. Several methodologies have been used to explore visual processing in people with ASC and the information and understanding which each methodology has provided is discussed. Finally, the literature review considers what still remains unknown, and potential directions for future research. The empirical paper is a quantitative study using the Boston Qualitative Scoring System and eye tracking methodology to investigate the potential presence of a local-processing bias, evidenced by increased lower level cognitive processing during completion of the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure. A local-processing bias was not found. This study does not support the presence of this bias in high functioning individuals with ASC. The study findings are discussed in relation to the existing literature and the Underconnectivity Hypothesis of ASC.


Received 14 February 2012; received in revised form 23 July 2012; accepted 31 July 2012ABSTRACTModeling and simulation is inportant for military training. People can feel perspective whenstereoscope images are created using multi-channel visualizations. A submarine oscillateswhen the submarine is just below the surface of the sea, so that the reconnaissance becomesdifficult. Also, the operator should read the information of the target within 6 seconds usingthe periscope. The operator must have experience. To solve these problems, stereoscopicmulti-channel visualization has been tested. The iCAVE system of KAIST provides a large-scale screen, 7 PCs, and 14 projectors to create the stereoscope images. To simulate themotion of a submarine just below the ocean surface, a 4-DOF motion platform is used. Themotion data is transmitted to the visual system and the motion platform through the UDPprotocol. Variety of weather conditions are created using the Vega Prime software. The ste-reoscopic multi-channel visualization and the motion platform system created a realistic simu-lation system.Key words: Motion platform, Multi-Channel visualization, Submarine, Stereo, UDP


Who is to be responsible for all this? Tears streamed down C's face. How could she help feeling bad? Other people cannot get married because they have no house to move in. She has a house but cannot get married. As a marriage certificate is unobtainable, she could only go to hospital to get rid of the unborn baby in her womb and avoid people's scorn.


Does expanding the suffrage to a larger share of the population impact the electoral outcome of an election? In this paper, I attempt to answer this question by studying how the 1928 Equal Franchise Bill affected the results of the 1929 General Election in the UK. Under the 1918 Representation of the People Act, British women could only vote at legislative elections if they were above 30 and met some property qualifications. The 1928 Bill abolished these specific barriers, thereby enfranchising millions of women many of them below 30, whose liberated manners had gained them the name of flappers. My identification builds on the fact that parliamentary constituencies differed greatly in these women populations, and hence in their level of new enfranchisement. Using a novel dataset, which includes election expenses, I find that enfranchisement was detrimental to Conservatives in term of votes cast, and beneficial to the Labour and Liberal Parties, in line with the aggregate results. This was not, however, the be attributed to flappers as the Conservatives were prompt to do who favoured the Liberal candidates only, at the expense of Labour ones. I find that incumbency helped a great deal in capturing these new electors' votes, but so did the fact of having run and lost the previous election. Counter-intuitively, I also find that enfranchisement is positively correlated with Conservatives likeliness of keeping a seat. I explain this diverging pattern by showing that Conservatives' shares in votes were more affected by large enfranchisement in 'safe seat' constituencies, where it affected less their likeliness of winning/losing the race. Finally, I find that when Conservatives increased their spending per voter, this had nothing but a detrimental effect on their score. This suggest that the positive impact of money on votes can be undermined by adverse electoral reforms such as suffrage extensions. All these findings point out that pre-reform political configuration is key in predicting the effect of increasing the electorate in a democracy. Acknowledgments I am immensely grateful to my supervisor, Julia Cagé, for her constant support and advice, which made the writing of this thesis a truly learning and enjoying experience. I thank SciencesPo's Doctoral School for its Mobility Grant that allowed me to travel to British archives where I thank all members of the staff for their precious help. I am also thankful to Augustin, Luis, Jeanne and Samuel for their suggestions and fruitful discussions, and of course to all the loving women around me, without whom none of this would have been possible. All errors are mine.


A start is made by considering why the subsonic propeller was abandoned when aircraft speeds approached the shock stall. It is true that the shock stall also occurs on the propeller blades under these conditions, causing a loss of lift and an increase of drag, but this is not the predominant effect which produces the marked decrease of propeller efficiency associated with high-speed aircraft. The main aerodynamic difficulty associated with the shock stall on the wings of an aircraft is due to the separation of flow caused by the shock wave rather than the presence of the shock wave itself. This difficulty is reduced on a propeller, as any separation of flow which might occur on a propeller blade due to the shock stall, would tend to cause the air to be stagnant relative to the blade, and would thus experience a large centrifugal force by virtue of the propeller rotation. Thus the propeller shock stall would never develop to the same degree that it does on the wings of an aircraft in steady flight.


Single-stranded conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of Rubisco spacer plastid haplotypes was used to assess population differentiation in the mangrove-dwelling red alga Caloglossa leprieurii (Montagne) J. Agardh. Over 1000 samples from 16 populations in northern and eastern Australia were scored with SSCP. Seven haplotypes were discovered, three of which were only found in single populations. The haplotypes formed three phylogenetically distinct lineages. A haplotype found only in north Australia (haplotype N) has closer affinities with a haplotype previously found in Japan than with any other Australian haplotypes. One haplotype (B) was dominant in northern populations and another (C) was dominant in southern populations. Haplotype A was found in geographically intermediate populations but never in high abundance (≤10%). Population analysis of haplotype frequencies revealed that many populations were significantly differentiated from each other. These data indicate that populations of C. leprieurii in Australia are genetically isolated from each other, as many individual populations, probably due to limited gene flow.


Physiotherapy for people with stroke has been found to be beneficial but details of the most effective interventions are unclear. Further development of the evidence base for stroke physiotherapy is limited by a lack of clinical practice models, sensitive clinically based outcome measures and effective stratification techniques to characterise homogenous groups of subjects. These issues are addressed here with regard to balance and posture. These aspects were chosen because they form a cornerstone of stroke physiotherapy as they are thought essential for the rehabilitation of functional activities. A systematic review of assessment methods in the literature revealed a lack of measurement tools which met the utility criteria: reliability, validity, sensitivity to short-term change, suitability for a wide range of abilities. ease of use and suitability for different settings. This prompted the development of a new measurement tool. Firstly, a model of the clinical assessment process was developed using an adapted focus group method with neurological physiotherapists. This informed the content of a new measurement tool which combined an ordinal scale with functional performance teststhe Brunel Balance Assessment. The tool was evaluated in a series of studies involving 92 stroke patients. It was hierarchical (coefficient of reproducibility= 0.99, coefficient of scalability = 0.69), reliable (100% agreement) and valid as a measure of balance disability (r=0.58-0.97). The psychometric properties of the individual functional performance tests were also tested and found to be reliable (ICCs =0.88-1) and valid (r=0.32-0.63). Measurement error ranged 0-40% and the minimum change needed to detect true clinical change was calculated for each test. Balance disability, measured with the Brunel Balance Assessment, is heterogeneous with sitting, standing and stepping balance forming distinct levels of ability (p<0.027). Consequently. the BBA could be used to stratify people with stroke according to balance ability. Weakness, sensation and age were significant independent contributors to balance disability (r2=82.7%). Balance ability was a strong contributor to independence in ADL (p<0.0001). The findings of this thesis address the issues that have limited research into stroke physiotherapy with regard to balance disability. In relation to clinical practice, a robust measurement and stratification tool has been developed. Table of


The invention discloses a small steam turbine exhaust steam cold source loss recovery system which comprises a backpressure small steam turbine, wherein the backpressure small steam turbine is connected with an exhaust steam cold air heat exchanger through a connecting pipeline; the exhaust steam cold air heat exchanger is connected with a drain tank through a connecting pipeline, and the drain tank is connected with a drainage recovery system through a connecting pipeline; condensed water passes through the drain tank so as to enter a condensate system through the drainage recovery system, and the exhaust steam cold air heat exchanger is connected with an air preheater through a pipeline; the air preheater and a multilevel economizer heat recovery system are respectively provided with two bypass flues which are parallel, and the connecting pipeline between the economizer and the air preheater is provided with a counter air exhaust pipeline; and the counter air exhaust pipeline is provided with a regulating air door and a turn-off air door. An application method is utilized the system, the small steam turbine exhaust steam cold source loss recovery system effectively recovers the exhaust steam heat of a small steam turbine and provides a new pathway for recovering the cold source loss of a heat engine plant; and the fire coal of a generating station is effectively saved, and the economic benefits are notable.


This study examines the factors that account for patterns of economic aid distribution by authoritarian donors. The aid allocation decisions of four types of authoritarian political systems—Soviet Union, Eastern European countries, People's Republic of China, and members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries—are compared with those of the United States for the period 1976–1989. A model of donor decision-making incorporating political, trade, and developmental objectives is applied to the aid activities of each donor type, using a pooled cross-sectional time series design. The results indicate substantial variation in the objectives underlying the economic aid activities of different types of authoritarian donors, as well as some similarities between types of authoritarian donors and the US. These differences make it difficult to generalize about the aid allocation behavior of authoritarian regimes and pose a challenge to cumulation of research about the bilateral aid allocation process.


Significance Technological advances enable increasingly comprehensive profiling of the molecular landscapes of cells, and these data can inform the personalized treatment of complex diseases. Two major obstacles are the complexity of these data and the high degree of person-to-person heterogeneity. We develop a highly simplified, personalized data representation by comparing the profile of an individual to the range of landscapes in a baseline population, thereby mimicking basic clinical diagnostic testing for departures of selected variables from normal levels. Moreover, our method can be applied to any data modality and at any level of granularity, from single features to any subset of features treated as a single entity, for example the gene expression levels in a pathway. Experiments involve both healthy human tissues and various cancer subtypes. Data collected from omics technologies have revealed pervasive heterogeneity and stochasticity of molecular states within and between phenotypes. A prominent example of such heterogeneity occurs between genome-wide mRNA, microRNA, and methylation profiles from one individual tumor to another, even within a cancer subtype. However, current methods in bioinformatics, such as detecting differentially expressed genes or CpG sites, are population-based and therefore do not effectively model intersample diversity. Here we introduce a unified theory to quantify sample-level heterogeneity that is applicable to a single omics profile. Specifically, we simplify an omics profile to a digital representation based on the omics profiles from a set of samples from a reference or baseline population (e.g., normal tissues). The state of any subprofile (e.g., expression vector for a subset of genes) is said to be "divergent" if it lies outside the estimated support of the baseline distribution and is consequently interpreted as "dysregulated" relative to that baseline. We focus on two cases: single features (e.g., individual genes) and distinguished subsets (e.g., regulatory pathways). Notably, since the divergence analysis is at the individual sample level, dysregulation can be analyzed probabilistically; for example, one can estimate the probability that a gene or pathway is divergent in some population. Finally, the reduction in complexity facilitates a more "personalized" and biologically interpretable analysis of variation, as illustrated by experiments involving tissue characterization, disease detection and progression, and disease–pathway associations.


Abstract Integrating local and Indigenous knowledge into land-use planning and the assessment of ecosystems services requires reliable, quantitative data. We tested two approaches to obtain such data by quantifying farmer opinion of different land-covers in Eastern Panama using (1) the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and (2) a simpler ranking and scoring technique. Both methods produce a set of numerical values reflecting the ability of land-covers to deliver ecological and socio-economic criteria. We present our experience with both methods and offer recommendations for researchers looking to quantify landholder opinion. The AHP survey was relatively long (on average it took 19 min to complete per criterion) and we faced problems with inconsistent responses. In contrast, the ranking and scoring method was much quicker (only 3 min per criterion) and therefore may be more suitable for gathering more data from a larger number of farmers.


Observations show that nearly all star clusters and stellar populations contain blue straggler stars (BSs). BSs in a cluster can significantly enhance the integrated spectrum of the host population, preferentially at short wavelengths, and render it much bluer in photometric colours. Current theoretical simple stellar population (SSP) models constructed within the traditional framework of single and binary stellar evolution cannot fully account for the impact of these objects on the integrated spectral properties of stellar populations. Using conventional SSP models without taking into account BS contributions may significantly underestimate a cluster's age and/or metallicity, simply because one has to balance the observed bluer colours (or a bluer spectrum) with a younger age and/or a lower metallicity. Therefore, inclusion of BS contributions in SSP models is an important and necessary improvement for population synthesis and its applications. Here, we present a new set of SSP models, which include BS contributions based on our analysis of individual star clusters. The models cover the wavelength range from 91 A to 160 μm, ages from 0.1 to 20 Gyr and metallicities Z= 0.0004, 0.004, 0.008, 0.02 (solar) and 0.05. We use the observed integrated spectra of several Magellanic Cloud star clusters to cross-check and validate our models. The results show that the age predictions from our models are closer to those from isochrone fitting in the clusters' colour–magnitude diagrams compared to age predictions based on standard SSP models.


This paper mainly introduces a kind of alterable encryption technique for database.The encryped passwords store into database file, and decode when get password. This method make password much more security and difficult to be destroyed.


Significance The cellular mechanisms governing tRNA stability in bacteria are not well understood, and in contrast to eukaryotes, a bacterial system for degradation of mature tRNAs has not been described. We investigated the effect of thiolation on tRNA stability in Vibrio cholerae and found that this widespread posttranscriptional tRNA modification modulates the stability of a subset of tRNAs in a stationary phase-specific manner. Additional tRNA modifications were also found to promote tRNA stability. Mechanistic analyses revealed that hypomodified tRNAs can be degraded by the RNA degradosome, a multicomponent RNA degradation complex. Thus, the degradosome serves as a previously unrecognized bacterial tRNA quality control system that mediates clearance of hypomodified tRNAs. The factors and mechanisms that govern tRNA stability in bacteria are not well understood. Here, we investigated the influence of posttranscriptional modification of bacterial tRNAs (tRNA modification) on tRNA stability. We focused on ThiI-generated 4-thiouridine (s4U), a modification found in bacterial and archaeal tRNAs. Comprehensive quantification of Vibrio cholerae tRNAs revealed that the abundance of some tRNAs is decreased in a ΔthiI strain in a stationary phase-specific manner. Multiple mechanisms, including rapid degradation of a subset of hypomodified tRNAs, account for the reduced abundance of tRNAs in the absence of thiI. Through transposon insertion sequencing, we identified additional tRNA modifications that promote tRNA stability and bacterial viability. Genetic analysis of suppressor mutants as well as biochemical analyses revealed that rapid degradation of hypomodified tRNA is mediated by the RNA degradosome. Elongation factor Tu seems to compete with the RNA degradosome, protecting aminoacyl tRNAs from decay. Together, our observations describe a previously unrecognized bacterial tRNA quality control system in which hypomodification sensitizes tRNAs to decay mediated by the RNA degradosome.


Phospholipid analogues of the anticancer agent PALA (N-phosphonoacetyl-l-aspartate) with varying alkyl chain lengths were synthesized: diC12-, diC14-, diC16-, and diC18-PALA. Their aptitude to form vesicles was tested using two different preparation techniques: sonication and extrusion. The particles obtained were characterized from cryogenic temperature transmission electron microscopy imaging, showing a continuous morphological evolution when increasing the alkyl chain lengths. Spherical vesicles were obtained for the smaller chain lengths, which evolve toward disklike vesicles, faceted objects, and flat disk structures for longer chain lengths. This evolution was correlated with the transition temperatures, Tm, from the gel state to the liquid crystalline state, which were independently determined. The sonication method was found to lead to smaller objects and increased particle fragmentation compared to extrusion. Particle size measurements and glucose entrapment experiments provided additional result...


Attention is drawn to the occurrence of Philonthus parcus Sharp in both cave and epigean habitats in Australia, and diagnostic features of the species are figured and described.


PCT No. PCT/FR96/00940 Sec. 371 Date May 8, 1998 Sec. 102(e) Date May 8, 1998 PCT Filed Jun. 18, 1996 PCT Pub. No. WO97/00413 PCT Pub. Date Jan. 3, 1997Provided is a process for melting a charge in a furnace. Energy of fusion is supplied to the charge, and gases including at least one combustible gas are generated during the the melting. A post-combustion of the combustible gas is performed by injecting an oxidant gas containing more than 25% by volume of oxygen during at least some periods of the process. The oxidant gas is injected above the charge, in the form of at least one oxidant gas jet. Each jet has a flow rate of between approximately 50 and 1200 Sm3/h and a speed of injection into the furnace of between approximately 5 m/s and 150 m/s. The process has particular applicability to an electrical furnace for melting scrap for the production of steel.


The effects of the climatic change in the agricultural sector are more perceptible each day, this is reflected basically through the periods of drought that are increased in frequency and intensity. This reality forces us to carry out an efficient use of the available water; the inadequate water use pumped for the irrigation implies the low efficiency of the electric power for this activity. With the objective of valuing the effectiveness of the energy used in this activity in practice, a pilot study was conducted in Victoria II belonging to the Camagüey Agrarian enterprise. The electric power consumption in the irrigation was controlled in all the irrigation systems of the productive unit during the campaign of the cultivation of the bean in the year 2017, the productivity of the energy used in the irrigation in all irrigation systems of the technologies of pivot machines and sprinkler irrigation systems was determined, the obtained values were compared taking like reference the most favorable result. The evaluations demonstrated that during the cycle of the cultivation, losses take place in the use of the water due to the imperfect irrigation programming and low uniformity of distribution of the water, which is reflected in the low productivity of irrigation water and energy together with the concern about planting. This shows that the efficiency index of pivot machine is only 76%, and the efficiency index of sprinkler system is 63%.


Objective:To investigate the effect of human psychological care in the treatment of patients with mental illness.Methods:According to the random number method 58 patients were randomly divided into two groups.The control group received routine primary care and psychiatric care and observation group received human psychological care on the basis of the control group.Results:The study group SANS,NOSIE scores before and after the humanistic nursing had significant change by comparing with the control group(P0.05).Conclusion:The human care services in line with peopleoriented modern nursing philosophy,can effectively promote the improvement of schizophrenic illness,rehabilitation and improvement of social function.It also can improve physical and mental health.


Leukocyte alkaline phosphatase was measured by a biochemical method in a group of 58 mongolian idiots. The mean activity found in the 41 children less than 10 years of age was equivalent to 89 mg. of phosphorus per 1010 neutrophilic leukocytes per hour. This was compared to the value of 66 mg. of phosphorus per 1010 neutrophilic leukocytes per hour obtained in a group of 41 control children in the same age group (after correction of the control mean to the same mean age). The difference is significant at the 0.5 per cent level of confidence.

This difference was interpreted as confirming (but not proving) the hypothesis that leukocyte alkaline phosphatase formation is controlled by a gene on chromosome number 21—the chromosome for which mongolian idiots are trisomic. The hypothesis arose because of the known deficiency of this enzyme in the leukocytes of patients with chronic granulocytic leukemia, and the known partial deletion of chromosome 21 in this disease.

This finding should provide a stimulus to further investigations into the content of alkaline phosphatase in leukocytes, possible polymorphism of leukocyte alkaline phosphatases, linkages with other inherited traits, and relationships between leukocyte and other tissue phosphatases.


An HPLC method was established for the determination of eriocalyxin B in rat plasma.Eriocalyxin B was extracted by liquid-liquid extraction.A C_(18) column was used with the mobile phase of acetonitrile-water(43:57) at the detection wavelength of 233 nm.The calibration curve was linear in the concentration range of 40-8 000 ng/ml.The recoveries were 1 01.6%-106.5%with intra-and inter-day RSDs of 4.3%-12.4%.


Introduction At the start of a complex negotiation process, the relevant issues and actors to join the negotiation process have to be identified. Although the need to identify issues and actors for negotiations has been acknowledged (Lim 1999, Thiessen Loucks and Stedinger 1998, Rangaswamy and Shell 1997) and discussed (Keeney 1992) in the literature on decision making and negotiation analysis, no analytic procedure has been proposed for how to configure the negotiation settings in terms of which actors should negotiate about which issues. In this paper, we propose an integrated analytic approach for the identification of a negotiation configuration (NC), which comprises the relevant issues and actors to be included in a negotiation setting in policy decision making. NC is derived as a subsystem of a social or political system, characterized by a set of decision issues and a set of negotiation actors


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to modify the surface property of polyacrylate latex films using only small amounts of fluorinated acrylate and to optimise the results of such a modification.Design/methodology/approach – The core‐shell particles with polyacrylate rich in core and containing fluorinated polymer rich in shell are prepared by a two‐stage semi‐continuous emulsion polymerisation under kinetically controlled conditions. The surface properties of the latex films produced from the core‐shell particles are investigated by optical goniometer measurement as well as contact angle method.Findings – The latex films produced from the core‐shell particles exhibited surface energy of around 10 mN/m. The angle resolved X‐ray photoelectron spectrum measurements showed an increased average fluorine concentration in a surface layer thickness of a few nanometres, when compared to the fluorine concentration in the bulk.Research limitations/implications – Methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate and N‐methylol...


Empowerment is a concept difficult to define in a clear and precise way. In the literature of the subject empowerment is referred to as a management strategy, management philosophy, management method, as an organizational phenomenon, as well as a process or a set of managerial activities and practices. Without a solution to the definitional dilemma, the authors treat empowerment as both a management concept, i.e. a set of coherent ideas to explain a specific fragment of organizational reality and a management method, which is a coherent set of organizational activities that some organizations have successfully implemented and turned into management practice. The purpose of this article is to present the scope and manners of implementation of empowerment as a management method in enterprises. The study was conducted in north-eastern Poland.


Intelligent autonomous control and intelligent information application are the main features of an intelligent launch site. The features put forward high demands for the construction of the control system in ground support facilities. The paper analyzes the main characteristics of the ground support control system in the intelligent launch site and the corresponding crucial technical development as well as its application. The construction of ground support control system involved in the crucial technologies that mainly have three aspects: data acquisition and processing, system application and system assessment. The architecture of ground support control system is proposed as a three-dimensional general framework in an intelligent launch site. The architecture is designed by five layers including equipment level, platform level, algorithm level, management level, and application level. Based on the architecture, the operation mechanism of the ground support control systems is presented.


Work conditions in the construction industry are notoriously demanding. In Australia, construction workers are required to work long hours, typically over six days. Project-based workers work significantly longer hours and experience higher levels of work-life conflict, job stress and burnout than their counterparts in the corporate offices of construction firms. Problems of job dissatisfaction increased turnover intention, lack of general well-being, substance abuse and psychological and psychiatric problems have all been associated with a lack of balance between work and non-work life. This paper presents a post-hoc evaluation of a three-pronged employee healthy lifestyle promotion intervention which was introduced at a large Australian infrastructure construction project. The results highlight the benefits associated with the adoption of an integrated approach to the management of employees' work-life balance, health and well-being. The authors argue that construction organisations should broaden the scope of their occupational health and safety (OH&S) management activities to address issues of work-life balance and general employee wellness.


The utility model relates to an inclination angle regulable child safety chair for car use. The chair includes a chair assembly composed of a chair back, a chair base and a chair coat and suitable for child, and a 5-point life belt system. The chair back and the chair base are in rotating connection. A regulating device for regulating the inclination angle of the chair back is composed of a position-limiting block, a position-limiting shaft, a connecting block, a spring and a handle and is arranged between the chair back and the chair base. The chair has the advantages of beautiful appearance, convenient assembling and application, comfort, safety, and wide application range.


Mobile Ad hoc network(MANET) is an emerging research area with practical applications.However,MANET is particularly vulnerable to attack due to its fundamental characteristics,such as open medium,dynamic topology,distributed cooperation and constrained capability.Routing security in MANET plays an important role in the security of the entire network.This paper presented the concept and research situation of the black hole problem,which was one type of routing attack,exploration function component and execution mechanism,and then gave the critical techniques of black hole prevention in detail.At last addressed some major problems and research trends in this area.


Estimated variations in mineral concentrations across leucosomes suggest that leucosomes are generated during anatexis by a diffusive exchange between the leucosome and the mesosome, and not by the migration of melt from the mesosome. However, the presence of melt is a precondition for the diffusive exchange to take place. Initially a crack is formed due to shear stress. The formation of a crack allows a diffusive exchange to take place through the melt, which causes melting of minerals situated near the crack. The diffusive exchange of material is less efficient in the mesosome where the melt is isolated at grain corners and edges. The microcline enrichment of some granitic leucosomes is thought to be due to the diffusive depletion of the mesosome caused by growth of alkali feldspar during the consolidation of the migmatite. In general, it seems unnecessary to invoke concentrations of water in the leucosome or the intrusion of external fluids or magmas for migmatite formation.


Novolac resins having two different mole ratios of cardanol-to-formaldehyde (1:0.6 and 1:0.8) were prepared by using aliphatic tricarboxylic acid as catalyst at four different temperatures ranging between 100 and 130°C with an interval of 10°C. The synthesized novolacs were confirmed by infrared spectroscopic analysis with the appearance of characteristic groups of the novolac resin. The reaction between cardanol (C) and formaldehyde (F) was found to follow second-order rate kinetics as determined by two different approaches. The over all rate constant (k) increased with the increase of C/F molar ratio. Based on the value of k, various other kinetic parameters such as activation energy (Ea), change in enthalpy (ΔH), entropy (ΔS), and free energy (ΔG) of the reaction were also evaluated. The values of Ea and ΔH were found to be decreased with the increase of C/F molar ratio from 1:0.6 to 1:0.8. These values revealed the nature of the condensation reaction between cardanol and formaldehyde in presence of tricarboxylic acid catalysts. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102:2730–2737, 2006


CK into ghosts made from Dl'if8-treated lells fully restored K-Cl cotranspon. Therefore, DNFB afto; b\' inhibiting CK and not the cotransporter itsdf. 'Though dog red cells possess the BB (brain-derived) isoenzyme of CK, both BB and \tM (muscle-derived) isoenzymes of CK lrnm rabbit full)· restored cotranspon. CK activil\' of the ghosts wao; demonstrated by electrophoresis in agarose gels. The complete inhibition of natin· CK by llNFB and the incorporation of active CK were demonstrated. 'lbe dose/response cur\'e for CK and K-Cl cotransport was determined in a CK rewnstitution experiment. We estimate that 550 molerules of rabbit CK (88) per resealed ghost restored 50C...t of the controlle\el of cotranspon. Because phosphocreatine i'i the substrate for only one enzyme, CK. it " likd)· that CK i' providing ATP to a site which is inaccessible to bulk cytoplasmic ATP. 'The exalt n.ttun· of this site and its role in swelling-activated K-CI cotranspon are uncertain. However the n·suh'i of this study establish <m essential role for CK i-; this system. (Supported by Nlll grant' DK- 11 :\56 and DK-:t\640.) appears to be different. lnt• determinants of the thiol-anivated K-Cl mtransponcr may be either uucial thiol group(s) in the tarrier molcmlc whirh bcwme unav.tilable upon CDNB tre.ttment, or oxidized GSII, GSSG, whifh arts through thiols in the regulatory moiety of the K-CI wtranspon complex. (Supported by N Ill L>K 3 7 ,160.)


There is clearly a close association between the endocrine system and acne as this condition, in its mildest form, develops almost universally at the time of puberty. In addition, the well-recognized premenstrual acne of women is further evidence of its connexion with the hormonal system. Despite a considerable amount of animal experimentation and clinical evaluation ofhormonal preparations the precise hormone or hormones responsible for the development of acne remain unknown.