Naturally occurring van der Waals crystals have brought unprecedented interest to nanomaterial researchers in recent years. So far, more than 1800 layered materials (LMs) have been identified but only a few insulating and naturally occurring LMs were deeply investigated. Phyllosilicate minerals, which are a class of natural and abundant LMs, have been recently considered as a low-cost source of insulating nanomaterials. Within this family an almost barely explored material emerges: phlogopite (KMg3(AlSi3)O10(OH)2). Here we carry out a high throughput characterization of this LM by employing several experimental techniques, corroborating the major findings with first-principles calculations. We show that monolayers (1L) and few-layers of this material are air and temperature stable, as well as easily obtained by the standard mechanical exfoliation technique, have an atomically flat surface, and lower bandgap than its bulk counterpart, an unusual trend in LMs. We also systematically study the basic properties of ultrathin phlogopite and demonstrate that natural phlogopite presents iron impurities in its crystal lattice, which decreases its bandgap from about 7 eV to 3.6 eV. Finally, we combine phlogopite crystals with 1L-WS2 in ultrathin van der Waals heterostructures and present a photoluminescence study, revealing a significant enhancement on the 1L-WS2 optical quality (i.e. higher recombination efficiency through neutral excitons) similarly to that obtained on 1L-WS2/hexagonal boron nitride heterostructures. Our proof-of-concept study shows that phlogopite should be regarded as a good and promising candidate for LM-based applications as a low-cost layered nanomaterial.


The role of microRNA (miRNA)-452-5p in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) remains unclear. Therefore, the present systematic study was performed to investigate the clinical significance and the rudimentary mechanism of the function of miR-452-5p in LUSC. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases were utilized to confirm the expression level and clinical value of miR-452-5p in LUSC. Using online databases and bioinformatic software, gene ontology (GO), pathway and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analyses of miR-452-5p target genes were performed to examine the molecular mechanism of miR-452-5p. The association between the expression of miR-452-5p and that of its hub genes was verified using TCGA. Based on TCGA data on 387 clinical specimens, the expression of miR-452-5p in LUSC was significantly increased compared with adjacent lung tissues (7.1525±1.39063 vs. 6.0885±0.35298; P<0.001). The expression levels of miR-452-5p were significantly correlated with age (P=0.001) and tumor-node metastasis stage (P=0.028). Furthermore, the increased expression of miR-452-5p in LUSC compared with non-cancerous tissue [standard mean deviation (SMD), 0.372; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.020–0.724; z=2.07; P=0.038] was validated by a meta-analysis of 720 clinical samples. The GO and pathway analyses revealed that miR-452-5p target genes were mainly enriched in the 'regulation of transcription', 'nucleoplasm', 'protein binding' and 'cell cycle' pathways. A total of 10 hub genes were identified by PPI analysis, and 5 hub genes (SMAD4, SMAD2, CDKN1B, YWHAE and YWHAB) were significantly enriched in the 'cell cycle' pathway. The expression of CDKN1B was negatively correlated with miR-452-5p (P=0.003). It was concluded that miR-452-5p may serve an essential role in the occurrence and progression of LUSC by targeting CDKN1B, which is involved in the cell cycle.


A dye laser with a resonator containing a diffraction grating was constructed. It emitted two frequencies separated by an interval which could be varied continuously. Tests showed that this laser was suitable for two-wavelength holographic interferometry in which the sensitivity of interference measurements could be reduced.


This study is devoted to the improvement of the transformer oil quality, using a new inhibiting additive, since the extensively used inhibitory additive ionol is sensitive to organosulfur compounds of sulfur oils. From the earlier works, the organosulfur compounds are known to affect ambiguously the transformer oils characteristics. Therefore, it was of interest to study the individual sulfides as the inhibitory additives. The goal was achieved by the researches with the use of the model mixtures consisting of the selectively purified transformer oil (free from ionol) along with the individual sulfides, decylcyclohexylsulfide and decylfenylsulfide, at concentration of 0.5 %, Their effect on stability against oxidation of the selectively purified oil, on its electric strength and tangent of the dielectric losses' angle was studied. The primary results obtained were, firstly, the rate slowing down of water formation in oil and of water-soluble acids formation in oil upon its oxidation in the presence of the individual sulfides, and, secondly, an increase in the electric strength and decrease in the dielectric losses compared to the transformer oil, containing ionol. It was established that decylcyclohexylsulfide inhibitory properties are stronger compared to those of decylfenylsulfide, which was testified by less quantities (by 1.8 times) of the water formed and of water-soluble acids (by 2.22 times). The introduction to oil of 0.5 % decylcyclohexylsulfide and decylfenylsulfide increased the oil electric strength, correspondingly, by 2.6 and by 5.5 times, upon water concentration in oil equal to 15·10-2 g/kg. The significance of the results obtained is in improving the transformer oil quality produced from the sulfur oils with the use of a novel additive.


The invention of the cathode ray tube (CRT) is generally ascribed to Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897. His tube was the first to combining the basic functions of today's CRTs: electron source, focusing, deflection, acceleration, phosphor screen, and a sealed mechanical structure.

The basic components of a CRT used for color displays are electron gun, deflection yoke, phosphor screen, shadow mask, and glass bulb. There are many performance measures that can be used to characterize the quality of CRT displays. Some of the more important parameters and quantify the performance levels typically obtained in color television applications are described.

The design of a CRT typically starts with the selection of several basic parameters: screen size, deflection angle, and panel contour. These parameters are usually established by engineering and sales and allow a workable and manufacturable product to be delivered to the customer market.

Essentially all of today's direct view color CRTs use tricolor electron guns, which generate three electron beams, one to illuminate each of the primary phosphor colors. These generally use common grids for the three guns in which each of the grids have three apertures, one for each of the three electron beams. The cathodes are separated so that each of the three beams can be electrically modulated.

Keywords:

cathode-ray tube displays;
HDTV;
cathode-ray-tubes;
performance;
basics;
resolution;
sharpness;
brightness;
contrast;
design;
electron gun;
deflection yokes;
raster geometry


This paper from the realities and problems that exist in higher education,and make a brief reflection on how the admin-istrative system of higher education fair practice and innovation development in our country,and then make the administrative sys-tem to promote innovation and fair analysis of higher education.


Preliminary results from the usage of satellite digital ice data transmission technology for the purposes of an experiment over the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea are presented. The methodology and algorithms for computerized identification of ice types are discussed. The method of cluster-analyses has been used for ice field image segmentation in order to separate regions which are quasi-homogeneous in spectral-textural signatures and belong to particular ice types. The efficiency of this method is analysed. The cluster-analysis method has been used for processing satellite data from moderate spatial resolution scanners to generate ice charts automatically. On the contrary to standard subjective methods for ice chart generation, computer based systems enable to construct more detailed and objective ice classification maps. Examples of multispectral objective clustering of ice fields are given. Results from comparison between such clustering and operational ice maps are discussed.


An electronic control device comprises a bus connection for connection to a bus line of a current-controlled bus, an evaluation device for sensing the current flowing through the bus connection in order to detect a digital message from a sensor connectable to the bus line, and a current controller for generating a predetermined current pulse through the bus connection in order to shift the sensor into a predetermined synchronisation state. The current controller is designed to control the current through the bus connection in such a manner that it corresponds to an operating current through the sensor.


Differential mode delay (DMD) modelling and measurements provide a means to characterise the modal structure of graded-index multimode fibres. In order to compute DMD output time pulses, we need to solve the modal propagation coefficients, modal group velocities and modal chromatic dispersion, compute the weighted modal amplitudes which are dependent on the excitation, and construct time pulses after propagating a specified distance in the fibre. Based on the measurement specifications in the DMD standard [1], we present a robust full-wave numerical approach and discuss various approximations in the modelling of differential mode delay. INTRODUCTION For the implementation of networks at 10 Gb/s ethernet and beyond, fast channels are required. In comparison with a single-mode fibre network implementation, a multimode fibre network setting comprises an attractive alternative owing to the ease of connecting a multimode fibre to affordable optical transducers. Unfortunately, the capacity of multimode fibres regarding the bandwidth is significantly limited due to intermodal dispersion. Further, in multimode fibre data transfer measurements isolated modes can neither be excited nor detected, and hence the specific amplitude distribution of the excited modal fields must be incorporated in the definition of the bandwidth. An overfilled launch by a light-emitting diode comprises an observable measure for the bandwidth, albeit that with the pertaining excitation the specifications cannot be met. Alternatively, the multimode fibre can be connected to a short single-mode fibre that is excited by a laser. Thus, the spot size of the launch is reduced to roughly . In that setting, the bandwidth can be defined in terms of the differential mode delay (DMD [1, 2]) observed upon gradually moving the single-mode fibre transversely away from the centre of the fibre under test. The pertaining bandwidth can be increased by tuning the refractive-index profile so as to reduce both the travel-time drift of the mode ensemble observed upon increasing the transverse offset, and the pulse broadening due to intermodal dispersion between mode groups. In numerical modelling for optical fibres, it is common practice to employ the so-called weak guidance approximation. Although that approach is very successful in describing the phenomenology, the severe bandwidth specifications prompt for a cautious attitude. To steer clear of pitfalls regarding DMD simulations, we prefer to commence with an accurate and robust full-wave numerical approach. Subsequently, we discuss the influence on the DMD of neglecting instantaneouspower mode coupling, polarisation-dependent excitation and chromatic dispersion. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM The multimode fibres under consideration are assumed circularly symmetric, isotropic and translationally invariant. A fibre consists of a radially inhomogeneous core, and a homogeneous cladding of infinite radial extent. The permittivity of the fibre material, ( time-harmonic fields), is characterised by the Sellmeier coefficients for doped, bulk, fibre glass, taken from [3]. The Sellmeier coefficients for a three-term harmonic oscillator model are used; the damping coefficients are neglected to a good approximation in the relevant wavelength bands. We shall present numerical results pertaining to two profiles, depicted in Fig. 1(a). We employ a vectorial field model to compute the properties of the and modes, where !#"%$ &' )( +* *+* and , "-&. )(/ *+* * are the azimuthal and radial modal indices, respectively. In circularly cylindrical coordinates the modal field M. Bingle thankfully acknowledges the financial support received from Draka Fibre Technology BV. B. P. de Hon thankfully acknowledges the fellowship grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.


[1] Short-wave directional distributions estimated using HF (high-frequency) radar are compared with model predictions. The short-wave directional distributions are estimated on the basis of HF radar using two- and four-parameter parametric models to describe short-wave directional distributions. The model-predicted short-wave directional distributions are computed using the energy balance equation. The nonlinear interaction source function in the energy balance equation is calculated from both the exact computation and the discrete interaction approximation (DIA). The predicted short-wave directional distributions from the exact computation and the DIA are compared with those estimated using HF radar. The energy balance equation is simplified by neglecting the propagation term, and the validity of the simplification is investigated. It is found that the four-parameter model is more accurate than the two-parameter model to estimate short-wave directional distribution using HF radar. The model-predicted mean short-wave directions with respect to wind directions are correlated with those estimated from the HF radar. The short-wave direction change associated with a sudden wind shift can be reproduced both from the exact computation and the DIA. The predicted second-order moments of short-wave directional distributions are also correlated with those estimated from the HF radar. This result shows that the model can reproduce transient short-wave directional distributions associated with changes of wind direction. The short-wave directional distributions predicted by the exact computation are narrower than those predicted by the DIA and estimated using the HF radar. The simplification of the energy balance equation is not the main source of the short-wave prediction error.


Townsend describes the personal as a basis for proposition in photographic representations by three Montreal women artists. Biographical notes. 23 bibl. ref.


Last year, JJCO stepped forward into a new phase and is placing more emphasis on clinical trials and activities in Asia. To reflect our commitment, we have published a review series which introduces trends in cancer in Asia, namely China, the Philippines, Turkey and Taiwan. Further reviews from other regions are expected to be published in future issues. As reported in the 2010 Journal Citation Reports published by Thomson Reuters, JJCO has increased its impact factor to 1.865, which is a 24% increase from 2009. The number of papers submitted to JJCO increased by 15% from 2009 to 2011. The acceptance rate has remained steady at about 30%, indicating the sustained good quality of accepted JJCO articles. Authors of recently published articles come mostly from Asia, reflecting our geographical focus on research results from the entire region. Most of the published articles are from Japan, followed by China, Korea, Turkey, Taiwan and India. We are experiencing a welcome expansion to different Asian countries. In the fast-moving world of information technology, JJCO places much emphasis on the online accessibility of its articles. JJCO introduces free access to all articles 6 months after publication. In addition to this, JJCO welcomes you to publish articles as 'Open Access' with 'Oxford Open', which is an option that renders articles as open access at some cost to the author. JJCO now has a 'mobile-optimized' website (http://m.jjco.oxfordjournals.org/) which has been developed to provide simpler, more intuitive browsing on mobile devices including iPhone and iPad, Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones, and Blackberry. I would like to announce the JCOG (Japan Clinical Oncology Group) review series which commenced publication in 2011. JCOG was started in 1990 and is the only governmental clinical trial group in Japan. The ultimate purpose of JCOG is to establish gold-standard therapies for each tumor type based on scientifically and ethically scheduled investigator-initiated clinical trials. Recent publications included JCOG reviews on gynecological tumors, gastrointestinal surgery, and radiation therapy. JCOG reviews on breast cancer and lymphoma are scheduled for early 2012. We shall continue publishing cutting-edge and informative review articles vigorously in the future. At the beginning of 2012, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the editorial board members, authors who submitted the significant papers to the journal and subscribers for their great contribution. I thank you again for all your long-lasting and kind support and contribution, and I deeply appreciate your continuing support of JJCO.


The overall goal of education is also character formation and transformation among others. Furthermore, no subject should be integrated into the school curriculum as an end in itself. Nevertheless, the history of a country and its political missions ought to guide its educational policy and curriculum objectives. The author of this article intends to show that, Religious Education in the secondary school curriculum of Rwanda can play a major role in achieving the intended national goals. He further describes the scope of Religious Education and finally underlines the pertinent question as to whether it is deviating from the nationally intended goals or is in agreement with them. He uses a language of questions because he feels that his personal opinion cannot be absolute and that it is the best way of arousing education leaders' interests in finding a new or/and alternative course of action. Key words: Curriculum, policy, objectives, Religious Education


Objective
To understand the behavioral characteristics, strength on suicide ideation and mental disorder diagnosis among suicide attempers, so as to provide consultation for crisis intervention of suicide.

Methods
232 suicide attempters from emergency of 5 general hospital in south-west of Shandong province were enrolled. They were assessed using questionnaires on attempted suicide behaviors and scale on the strength of suicide ideation, and were diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders axis I for patient (SCID/I-P).

Results
(1) In the total of 232 cases, female was more than male with the gender ratio of 2.87 (female vs male). The highest proportion rate (56.9%) existed between 16 years old to 35 years old. Oral application pesticide was the most commom suicide pattern (83.2%), 91.4% of the suicide attempt occurred in the their homes. The top three reasons leading to suicide were family contrary (61.2%), depressive mood (15.1%) and fail in love (9.5%). (2) In all cases, 83.6% did not think if they were found, 84.1% did not adopted any precaution measures, over 60.0% did not tell anyone their attempted plans, and 90% had no dying structions and /or dying testaments before their attempted behaviors. At the moment of attemp behaviors, 62.9% did not contact with someone. The 60.0% of all the cases had wanted strongly to die, otherwise 7.3% had wanted to manipulate others. (3) The diagnosis rate of mental disorder on DSM-IV was 45.3%, in which the mood disorder was most.

Conclusion
There are no changes on the behavioral characteristics among the suicide attempters in the south-west rural area of Shandong province.Their strength of suicide ideation are moderate, and a certain proportion of suicide attempters may be impulsive suicide attempters. There is more relationship between mental disorder and suicide attempt.

Key words:
Suicide attempt; Clinical characteristics; Mental disorder diagnosis


The Resource-Based View describes processes in which business corporations develop competitive advantages. Dierickx & Cool (1989) identifies the imitability in an asset stock as dependent of the process in which it is accumulated. The authors highlight different situations which aggravates the imitability in an asset stock. Two of these are Asset Mass Efficiencies and Interconnectedness of Asset Stocks, and in this study specialization is interpreted as a possible driver of these situations. This is not mentioned in RBV. Based on this the study identifies the relation between competitiveness and the model of financing where mechanisms of the credibility cycle are valued as enhancing of established hierarchies. The financing of centres of learning is partly based on performance. Therefore this study investigates the correlation between economic input and performance. Based on this result it is of interest to study variables that can lead to better performance and thereby higher financing. Variables of great interest are year of establishment, specialization and status. Specialization was chosen due to impressionableness (centres of learning), measureability (the study) and differentiation (analysis unit). The study shows a very strong correlation between economic input and performance. The correlation between specialization and performance is not quite as strong, but still significant. (Less)


In today's world, customer service is becoming increasingly important in various industries, and providing excellent customer service is a key factor in ensuring business success. One aspect of customer service is the ability to recognize and respond to customers' emotions, as well as their satisfaction levels. However, this can be a challenging task, particularly when dealing with large volumes of customer interactions in different acoustic environments. This Paper focuses on the classification of emotions and evaluation of customer satisfaction from speech in real-world acoustic environments. The aim of the study is to develop an effective method for automatically recognizing emotions and determining customer satisfaction levels from speech data in different acoustic environments. To achieve this goal, a dataset consisting of customer service calls is used to train machine learning models that can accurately classify emotions and evaluate customer satisfaction. The models are evaluated using various metrics, such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, to assess their performance. The results show that the proposed method achieves high accuracy in both emotion classification and customer satisfaction evaluation tasks, indicating its potential for real-world applications in industries such as customer service, marketing, and healthcare.


This paper is concerned with a new self-repairing control system (SRCS) for plants with faulty actuators. The proposed SRCS can automatically detect an abrupt actuator failure and switch from the faulty actuator to the healthy one. The switching logic (repairing policy) is based on only the evaluation of the output and the designed input of the plant. Hence, it is not necessary to exploit the observers and/or the accurate mathematical models of the plant for fault detection.


Introduction: Recent studies have demonstrated that as ventricular fibrillation (VF) persists past the first 1-2 minutes, 3 distinct patterns of activity can be present subendocardially: chaotic, r...


The present invention provides a storage capacitor and its manufacturing method increase in aperture ratio, is first provided a substrate on which is provided a metal layer sequentially covered with the first dielectric layer and second dielectric layer on the metal layer, and then to the first two dielectric layer is formed on the photoresist layer First thickness, again on the metal layer positive photoresist layer over sequentially exposed and developed, a thickness less than the original thickness, then by etching the photoresist layer and the portion a second dielectric layer removal, the second dielectric layer is positioned directly above the metal layer is less than the original thickness, and the etching depth is larger than the etching depth in the remaining area of the second dielectric layer, and finally formed on the second dielectric layer an electrode layer to complete the production. The present invention can maintain sufficient capacitance capability, the reduced area of the electrode layer, thereby increasing the aperture ratio of the panel pixels of.


Precision agriculture is gaining popularity in both commercial and research and development applications recent days. Plant management systems are constantly evolving, taking into account real-time or offline data collecting and processing in order to fully account for the geographical and temporal fluctuations of plant and soil components. This step can be achieved by lowering energy use, reducing the use of chemicals, fertilizers, and greenhouse gases (GHG), while simultaneously increasing output. To address the food and fibre needs of a rapidly rising population, sustainability is critical. With this in mind, the goal of this study is to not only present a complete picture, but also to elucidate the context by highlighting major scientific research and applications related to optoelectronics proximate sensors. Is to attempt to create a 360-degree vision. Agriculture. The reviews are divided into categories based on the most common sensor types and applications (grayscale / RGB imaging, Visible Near Infrared (VisNIR) and NIR, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDRE) sensors, stereo). That's precisely the Point that the Vision, thermography, composite sensors, phenotypic sensors, and other technologies are being developed. Two distinct chapters on the use and development of specialised analytical methodologies, as well as term map analysis to visually identify major clusters based on certain subject areas are studied.


I begin with a story about how Kumarila Bhatta--an eighth-century C.E. defender of the infallible, authorless Veda and upholder of Brahmanic social order--lost his eye. Legend has it that Dharmakirti, a Buddhist philosopher monk, disguised himself as a common laborer and entered into the service of Kumarila, who had 500 male and 500 female servants on his estate. The same legend tells us that Dharmakirti performed the work of twenty men and was elevated to Kumarila's right hand. Taking him into confidence, Kumarila divulged all of the deep doctrines of the Vedic sacrificial ritual tradition to Dharmakirti, who, upon learning the system, revealed his true identity and challenged Kumarila to a public debate. Kumarila debated and conceded his defeat but only because of bis opponent's unfair advantage, yet Kumarila was no fool; another legend has Kumarila return the favor. He shaved his head, donned a monk's robe, and knocked on the monastery door. Having gained admission, Kumarila sat, slept, ate, and studied with the Buddhists until the day the curriculum called for a critique of the Veda. When the class ridiculed the Veda as the babbling of buffoons and charlatans, Kumarila could take it no longer and shed a tear. His Buddhist classmates witnessed the tear, which blew Kumarila's cover. Recognizing him for the Vedic sympathizer he was, the monks forced Kumarila to the edge of the monastery roof and pushed him over. As he fell, Kumarila shouted: "If the Veda is authoritative, I shall live." He hit the ground alive but lost one eye. (1) What is the moral of the story? Why did Kumarila lose an eye, and what does it all mean? The tradition, I believe, misunderstands its own legend. Hindus have said that Kumarila lost an eye because of his utterance of the word "if," as in "if the Veda is authoritative, I shall live." The word "if" implies doubt, for which Kumarila suffered the loss of an eye. However, doubt is a sacred category for Kumarila's tradition, not a sin for which to lose an eye. Doubt is the first impulse to obtaining knowledge; without doubt there is no inquiry, no investigation, no discovery; without doubt there is no knowledge. No, it was not for doubting that Kumarila lost an eye. Rather, I suggest, Kumarila's loss of one eye symbolizes the inability for any human being to embody two totally incompatible ways of seeing and being in the world. One of Kumarila's eyes tended to the Vedic flame, while the other gazed introspectively into emptiness. To lose one eye is not to go blind but to see things more clearly, through a single lens--no two truths, no double vision of reality. Between Kumarila and his Buddhist opponents there is no third eye, no middle ground on which to mediate differences or universalize commonalities. Kumarila would rather go to heaven (svarga) with a single eye than to Nirvana with two eyes wide open and nothing to see but the endlessness of emptiness. One thing is clear. Kumarila would be banned from modern interreligious dialogue because dialogue is not debate, (2) He would be disqualified by virtue of his argumentative tone and method. The mies of modern interreligious dialogue require that each discussant have a position, that is, that each belong to one religious tradition or another. At the same time, discussants must come to the table ready to listen and learn and be transformed in the process. The apologetic impulse central to many of the world's religions must be held in abeyance. In other words, for Kumarila to enter into the circle of modern interreligious dialogue, either he would have to deny a fundamental dimension of who and what he is-a defender of the beginningless and authorless revelation of reality, the Veda, and advocate for the Brahmanic social order--or he would have to disguise himself in political correctness and find a strategic way to carry out his mission undercover, a covert operation of infiltration and espionage, a "dialogue of deception." Dr. …


The synthesis of 12 new 4-[(N,N-disubstituted thiocarbamoylthio)acetamido]antipyrines and their antifungal activity are reported. Of these compounds, only 3e, showed good antifungal activity against C. tropicalis KUEN 1021, C. krusei KUEN 1001, C. stellatoidea KUEN 1018, C. pseudotropicalis KUEN 1012, C. albicans ATCC 10231 when compared with clotrimazole and miconazole (MIC = 12.5 micrograms/ml).


Analysis of plankton sample recorded a total of 5 classes' phytoplankton viz Bacillariophyceae, Chlorophyceae, Cyanophyceae, Dinophyceae, and Polyhymenophorea. Total 50 phytoplankton species were identified. Among the
phytoplankton 18 species belonged to Bacillariophyceae, 12 to Chlorophyceae, 8 to Cyanophyceae, 7 to Dinophyceae, and 5 to Polyhymenophorea. Bacillariophyceae was the dominant group of phytoplankton throughout the study period. Toxin producing dinoflagelates were recorded from the shrimp ghers. A total of 11 kinds of different zooplankton genera were recorded, 4 of which were belonged to Copepoda, 3 to
Cladocera, 3 to Rotifera and 1 to Decapoda. Copepoda was the dominant group among the zooplankton which was followed by Rotifera and Decapoda. Temperature varied from 27°C to 32°C, transparency 24.5-29.6 cm and pH 6.7 to 9. Salinity fluctuated from 12 to 32.5‰ in both ghers. PO sub(4)-P and NO sub(3)-N ranged from 0.9 to 4.2 ppm.


Protein-energy-malnutrition is gaining increasing importance in end-stage-renal-disease. Among other laboratory findings in this group, changes of plasma albumin concentrations, prealbumin concentrations as well as phase angle measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis have high predictive value for patient mortality. Therapeutic interventions should be initiated immediately and with every effort, they should include dietary counselling as well as nutritional supplementation. End point studies revealed good therapeutic response to intradialytic parenteral nutrition, sustained response however requires ongoing oral nutritional supplementation thereafter. Unsolved questions remain for indication of nutritional supplementation preceding dialysis cost-benefit analysis especially for improvements in morbidity and hospitalization, therapeutic efforts of nutritional status for diabetics, they do not improve from nutritional supplementation.


The distribution static compensator (DSTAT-COM) has benefitted from computer aided-design simulations. But its performance has been hampered by inadequacies in linear models of the power quality problem due to variations in system parameters, uncertainties and often missing gradient information. To address this problem, this paper applies model-free predictive control (MFPC) and describing functions in nonlinear modelling to DSTAT-COM control, using a simplex optimisation approach to online tuning. The MFPC offers the advantage of bypassing the computationally over-burdened state-space model and can sufficiently handle constraints, while arresting voltage quality violations online at high speeds against changes in customers loads. The effectiveness and efficiency of the novel method is compared against the proportional-integralderivative as well as the fuzzy proportional-derivative controllers in a simulink environment.


We combine matched Danish worker-firm-trade data with detailed individual-worker training data. We find: 1) workers displaced from offshoring firms take up more vocational-training and have a harder time getting re-attached to the labor-force than other displaced workers, and they also exhibit higher vocational-training take-up rates 2 years before layoffs; 2) the staying workers with offshoring firms take up more vocational-training than those with non-offshoring firms; and 3) the post-secondary-training take-up rates for displaced workers are no different than for the general population.


who attended, or is due to attend, the meeting of Meeting of Cabinet on Wednesday, 14th September, 2016, 6.00 pm


Self-regulated learning (SRL) plays an important role in successful learning with hypertexts. The use of appropriate SRL strategies helps students acquire new knowledge more efficiently. We investigated the use of SRL strategies in individual learning from expository science hypertext, the correlations between different measures of self-regulation, and the differences in SRL between more and less successful students. A sample of 443 ninth graders from 15 different schools participated in the study. A variety of off- and online measures were used to measure SRL. Data were collected from student traces, questionnaires, tests scores, and notes. Low correlations between the off- and online measures of SRL suggest that they measure different aspects of SRL use in learning digital science texts. Student achievement in science positively correlated with their use of SRL strategies. Students with higher knowledge gains reported the higher use of deep cognitive strategies, higher motivation for learning, and used a higher number of strategies in note-taking while learning. The results of this study may have practical implications for teachers to support student SRL and for developers of digital learning materials to incorporate SRL scaffolding into learning topics.


A theoretical model describing the transport and kinetic processes involved in heterogeneous redox catalysis of solution phase reactants at electrode surfaces coated with redox active monolayers is presented. Although the analysis presented has quite general applicability, a specific focus of the paper is concerned with the idea that redox active monolayers can be used to model an ensemble of individual molecular nanoelectrodes. Three possible rate determining steps are considered: heterogeneous electron transfer between immobilized mediator and support electrode ; bimolecular chemical reaction between redox mediator and reactant species in the solution phase, and diffusional mass transport of reactant in solution. A general expression for the steady state reaction flux is derived which is valid for any degree of reversibility of both the heterogeneous electron transfer reaction involving immobilized mediator species and of the bimolecular cross exchange reaction between immobilized mediator and solution phase reactant. The influence of reactant transport in solution is also specifically considered. Simplified analytical expressions for the net reaction flux are derived for experimentally reasonable situations and a kinetic case diagram is constructed outlining the relationships between the various approximate solutions. The theory enables simple diagnostic plots to be constructed which can be used to analyse experimental data.


To verify whether WehnTrust have the expected detection and prevention function of buffer overflow attacks,experiments are designed to test it.First,the source code of the intrusion prevention system is analyzed and debugged.On this basis,five experiments are presented to simulate buffer overflow attack;and,aiming at the features of WehnTrust,experimental environment is built to simulate attacked test of the C++ virtual function,structured exception handing attack and format string attack.By analyzing and summarizing the experimental results,it is indicated that WehnTrust are not fully capable of intrusion prevention of the developers claimed.


Objective To further understand the duplication and evolution of Sox genes of the fish,the HMG boxes of Sox genes were cloned from genomic DNA of the red crucian carp. Methods Genomic DNA from the red crucian carp was used as the template for PCR amplification using degenerate primers designed on the basis of the amino acid sequences of the HMG boxes.PCR products were subcloned and sequenced. Results The sequencing results showed that two sequences were obtained(sequence Ⅰand sequence Ⅱ).At the amino acid level,sequence Ⅰand sequence Ⅱ shared the highest identities with the mouse Sox4,88.9% and 90.1%,respectively.Alignments of amino acid sequences indicated that sequence Ⅰand sequence Ⅱalso shared the highest identities with the human Sox4.The results suggest that both sequence Ⅰand sequence Ⅱ are orthologues of the Sox4 gene of mouse and human,which were named RcSox4-1 and RcSox4-2,respectively. Conclusions Sox4 gene has been duplicated during the evolution of the red crucian carp lineage.The duplication of Sox4 may occur before the divergence of red crucian carp,zebrafish and grass carp.


In the title compound, C27H23Cl3N4O2, the seven-membered diazepine ring adopts a boat conformation. The triazole ring makes dihedral angles of 17.24 (8) and 82.86 (8)°, respectively, with the chlorobenzene ring and the benzene ring of the benzodiazepine unit.


Livers of rats fasted for 48 h were perfused with [2-14C]fructose, [6-14C]fructose or [U-14C]-fructose in a non-recirculating perfusion system.

From the 14C-labeling patterns of the metabolites glucose and lactate, which were isolated from the effluent perfusate, as well as from the labeling patterns of lactate, phosphoglycerate and phosphoenolpyruvate, which were separated from the tissue extract, the following conclusions were drawn:

1
The 14C activity of lactate in the perfusate leaving the liver is almost independent of the position of 14C label in the fructose, which was infused. This indicates that this lactate originates from a metabolic pathway in which both triose units of fructose are converted to lactate. On the other hand the 14C activity of cellular lactate depends on the position of the 14C label in the infused fructose. This lactate seems to be formed only from the C4-C5-C6 unit of the fructose. These two pathways of fructose metabolism are postulated to be located in different cell compartments of liver tissue and are initiated by phosphorylation of fructose at carbon position 6 and 1, respectively. We refer to them as the "glycolytic" and "gluconeogenic" compartments.

2
In experiments with [2-14C]fructose there is no correlation between the specific 14C activities of phosphoglycerate, phosphoenolpyruvate and intracellular lactate indicating compartmentation of these metabolites.

3
By comparing the specific 14C activities of the C4-C5-C6 triose unit of newly formed glucose (taken as representative of the specific 14C activity of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate in the "gluconeogenic" compartment) with the specific 14C activity of cellular lactate, the following can be postulated. Glyceraldehyde is transformed into lactate either by a pathway not involving glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate as an intermediate or a glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate which is spatially separated from the intermediate glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate pool of gluconeogenesis. The measured high tissue levels of 2-phosphoglycerate in our experiments support the first concept.

4
In experiments with [2-14C]fructose, the specific 14C activity of newly formed glucose corresponds to the 14C activity of fructose infused, while in experiments with [6-14C]fructose a high dilution of the 14C activity of glucose was observed. This dilution must originate from a crossing over of some intermediate metabolite in the conversion of fructose to glucose with the inactive intermediate metabolite of some other metabolic pathway. An interaction with the citric acid cycle as possible source of this dilution was excluded.


R. Jensen and Q. Shen. Interval-valued Fuzzy-Rough Feature Selection and Application for Handling Missing Values in Datasets. Proceedings of the 8th Annual UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence (UKCI'08), pp. 59-64, 2008.


Thin asphalt pavements were developed to meet the public's demand for paved roads under limited road construction budgets. Measurement of the quality of service provided by various surface types, indicated that thin asphalt pavements provided the most cost effective service to the public for low to medium traffic volumes. The 20 mm thin asphalt pavement laid directly on a 7.4 M wide subgrade costs $9600/km to construct. The maintenance cost including required rehabilitation is $2500/km per year. The service life averages 14 years although many have lasted for up to 20 years. Densification of the subgrade under thin asphalt pavements by traffic compaction and desiccation is the main factor contributing to the durability of thin asphalt pavements. Construction procedures emphasize careful subgrade preparation. The asphalt mix can be prepared on the road or in drum mixers. Preventive maintenance procedures are described. Their major purpose is to prevent moisture from penetrating into the subgrade and to preserve acceptable riding quality. A riding quality monitoring system employing a car road meter is used to monitor the effectiveness of the maintenance effort. The authors believe that thin asphalt pavements could be cost effectively used in many arid and semi-arid areas of the world under low to medium traffic volume conditions. (Author/TRRL)


Layout of manifold on copper water supply pipe in residence is technically feasible and economically reasonable method. After determination of the requirement for pipe design, the flow velocity of the manifold after reducing was analyzed, and the technology for branch reducing in layout of manifold was defined. It is proved that reducing of branch is feasible.


Incorporating the disturbance frequency into system analysis and synthesis, this paper is dedicated to the quantized ${H_\infty }$ static output control of linear Markov jump systems. The output quantization is transformed into a sector bound form, and the finite frequency performance is handled by Parseval's theorem. With the aid of Finsler's lemma, sufficient conditions for the resulting closed-loop system are first established to satisfy the required finite frequency performance. To treat the static output feedback control problem in the framework of linear matrix inequalities, a new strategy is developed to decompose the coupling among Lyapunov variables, controller gain, and system matrices. In contrast to the existing results in the literature, no additional assumptions are imposed on the system matrices. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the validity of the established results.


The purpose of the present study, which was conducted in Flanders, was to investigate the relationship between religious social identity, racism and four religious dimensions. As a measure of religious social identity, we used the 'religion/spiritual life' subscale, taken from the 'commitment to social identity' scale constructed by Jackson (1981). As a measure of racism, we used the relevant part of the 'ethnocentrism' scale constructed by Billiet & De Witte (1991). The religious dimensions were orthodoxy, external critique, historical awareness and relativism (Hutsebaut, Fontaine & Duriez, 1998). Results showed that religious social identity in itself has become remarkably insufficient to predict racist opinions and that the religious dimensions are necessary intermediating variables. This shows that what is important for predicting racism is how people deal with their 'religion' and the associated contents, rather than their religious social identity.


We present a numerical implementation of the renormalization group (RG) for partial differential equations, constructing similarity solutions and traveling waves. We show that for a large class of well-localized initial conditions, successive iterations of an approximately defined discrete RG transformation in space and time will drive the system towards a fixed point. This corresponds to a scale-invariant solution, such as a similarity or traveling-wave solution, which governs the long-time asymptotic behavior. We demonstrate that the numerical RG method is computationally very efficient.


THIS ARTICLE OFFERS A SURVEY ABOUT CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW IN ITALY. FIRST, IT DESCRIBES THE TRAITS OF ITALIAN SYSTEM OF CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW, ACCORDING TO THE 1948 CONSTITUTION AND ITS REALIZING STATUTES: IT IS A KELSENIAN CENTRALIZED SYSTEM, WHICH CENTER IS THE A POSTERIORIREVIEW, WHICH ARISES OUT OF A SEPARATE JUDICIAL PROCEEDING. SECOND, THE ARTICLE DESCRIBES THE EVOLUTION OF THIS MODEL FROM 1956 UNTIL TODAY, STRESSING THE STRICT RELATION BETWEEN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND JUDICIARY, AND THE RELEVANT CREATIVITY OF THE COURT CONCERNING THE TYPES OF JUDGEMENTS. PARTICULARLY, THE ARTICLE DISCUSSES A JUDGEMENTS CATEGORY RECENTLY CREATED TO REMEDY THE LEGISLATIVE OMISSIONS, WITHOUT INVADING HIS SPHERE, THE "ADDITIVE DI PRINCIPIO" JUDGEMENTS.


Abstract In this paper, we propose a jackknife method to determine the type of fixed effects in three-dimensional panel data models. We show that with probability approaching 1, the method can select the correct type of fixed effects in the presence of only weak serial or cross-sectional dependence among the error terms. In the presence of strong serial correlation, we propose a modified jackknife method and justify its selection consistency. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the excellent finite sample performance of our method. Applications to two datasets in macroeconomics and international trade reveal the usefulness of our method.


The main objective of the research is to specify two dimensional passwords that can possess much more strength as compared to linear passwords. These passwords are strong enough to provide effective and secure authentication under certain alarming situations. The alarming situations are the situations where the possibility to breach the system security exists. The specification of the two dimensional nxn passwords has been provided based on NIST standards. The strength of nxn password has been calculated that has proven to be much more as compared to the linear passwords. It is proposed that these passwords should be used under alarming situations such as the protection requirement for some critical resource, special authentication when the system is in unsafe state or protection of sensitive data. Therefore it has been recommended to move from linear passwords to the passwords defined in two dimensional space, whenever some alarming situation arises.


Optical microphone is an acoustic sensors that convert acoustic vibrations into variations of light waves. For that prlu pemodulasian process energy intensity of light by acoustic vibrations important specifications of an optical microphone include sensitivity, frequency response, and the maximum of minimum acoustic vibrations can dterima (dynamic range). Among those parameters, the sensitivity is the most important parameters. Intensity modulation in optical microphone imply the existence of selective removal of the light energy from the optical path, so the photo diode can respond directly to the intensity modulation type is divided into two, namely the moving gate and the membrane. Moving the gate is a gap (hole) of light that can bounce up and down in accordance with the variation of intensity of sound and widely used in hidropon while the membrane is a thin membrane, where entry of light into optical fibers.


This communication proposes a design method to synthesize a quasi-isotropic radiation pattern with a planar antenna structure. The proposed method is based on the combination of triple current line sources. As a demonstrated example, a pair of out-of-phase line sources is combined with another orthogonal line source for radiation pattern synthesis. By optimizing the spatial distance in the proposed triple current line source model, quasi-isotropic radiation performance can be realized with theoretical analyses, showing that the gain variation (i.e., the maximum gain minuses the minimum gain) of the proposed method is 0.53 dB. As a proof of concept, a folded dipole antenna is designed and fabricated to verify the proposed method. Full-wave simulation shows the gain variation of the folded dipole antenna is 1.37 dB and measured result is 3.62 dB.


Concrete is manufactured by mixing cement, water, fine aggregates and coarse aggregates in certain proportions to obtain a desired strength. In addition, fly ash, super plasticizers, retarders are added to enhance any desired property depending upon the function of use of concrete in structures. Compressive strength of concrete is dependent upon several parameters most likely to be water-cement ratio, cement strength, quality of concrete material, and quality control during production of concrete. In this work, we present a neural network model for prediction of compressive strength of concrete. Different sets of data based upon several concrete design mixes were taken and were fed to the model. The model is then such trained for prediction, which are being influenced by several input attributes and were jotted down a linear regression analysis.


As a continuation of our study in the GABAA receptor modulators field, we report the design and synthesis of new 8-chloropyrazolo[1,5-a]quinazoline derivatives. Molecular docking studies and the evaluation of the 'Proximity Frequencies' (exploiting our reported model) were performed on all the final compounds (3, 4, 6a–c, 7a,b, 8, 9, 12a–c, 13a,b, 14–19) to predict their profile on the α1β2γ2-GABAAR subtype. Furthermore, to verify whether the information coming from this virtual model was valid and, at the same time, to complete the study on this series, we evaluated the effects of compounds (1–100 µM) on the modulation of GABAA receptor function through electrophysiological techniques on recombinant α1β2γ2L-GABAA receptors expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes. The matching between the virtual prediction and the electrophysiological tests makes our model a useful tool for the study of GABAA receptor modulators.


Jiang Zemin's scientific thesis on "the theoretical quality of Marxism's marching along with the times" is the penetrating exposition and scientific generalization of the essence and soul of Marxism, and the amplification and development of the thinking route of "liberating the minds, and seeking truth from facts". The premise for "Marxism's marching along with the times" is its basic principle. Its theoretical basis is materialist dialectics. Its meaning and livingness lie in the conscious creativity and development.


Accuracy and interpretability are two important objectives in the design of Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference model (ANFIS). In many real word applications, expert experiences usually have good interpretability, but their accuracy is not always the best. Applying expert experiences to ANFIS model can improve accuracy and interpretability. In this study we propose an accessible tool that helps medical interpretation of suspect zones in MRI. This paper describes a methodology to locate precisely different kind of lesions in cancer patients. The use ANFIS improves the diagnostic efficiency in tumor progression. Some of the images show feasibility of the propose methodology. The same is then implemented on DSP TMS320C6711 which provides real time implementation.


A kind of portable intelligent instrument based on photoelectric integral is developed independently. It has mainly used in measuring chromaticity of liquid. The instrument uses pulse xenon arc lamp as the illuminant and it has high luminance and low energy consuming. And it also uses optical fiber to conduct light. What this article has done consists of:① design a double-light-route using pulse xenon arc lamp and optical fiber, ② a probe has been designed which can immerge in liquid,③ modify the photoelectric sensor of the instrument to CIE standard color stimulus function. ④ produce a sample using Micorcontroller, E2prom, LCD, A/D and so on.


The media forms a chain of information affecting the dissemination of information in the society. This chain is an evidence that the verbal production levels influence the dissemination of information in the society. It also plays an indirect role in the construction of public opinion and behavior. One of the factors in the construction process is the news source validity. This research discussed the validity of terrorism discourse news sources in French and Indonesian media using the paradigm of the metacommunication, metalinguistics, and metapragmatic. The theory used is Denis Benoit (2005) and Oswald Ducrot's (1996) discourse of communication. The data were taken from the news of the act of terrorism and shooting in Paris published in the French electronic newspaper " Le Monde" and Indonesian electronic newspapers "Detik News" and "Kompas" on November 13-18, 2015. The supporting data used to discuss the construction of public opinion on the political phenomenon in France were collected from the results of a public questionnaire completed by francophonie , the people who are learning the French language and in possession of cognitive knowledge on all things French, especially the French culture. The result of this research is a discursive framework model containing the relationship between the validity of news sources and the construction of public opinion and behavior. Keywords: media, news source, validity, public opinion, terrorism


Abstract : While the United States has been relatively free of terrorist incidents within its own borders, U.S. military and diplomatic personnel abroad have not been as fortunate. American tourists, businessmen, and facilities overseas have also been the targets of international terrorists over the years. This has led to growing frustration and anger on the part of the American public and pressure on the government to on the part of the American public and pressure on the government to do something about the terrorist threat. However, it is extremely difficult to counter a threat that is worldwide in scope, that is characterized by a multitude of diverse groups with varying tactics, and that stems from a complex array of political, economic, and ethnic/religious causes. Misperceptions of the terrorist threat to U.S. national security have led to attempts to design high-level policies to counter what are essentially low-level threats. Acknowledging that terrorism is not likely to threaten the nation's vital interests unless each episode is allowed to be perceived as a crisis may be the first step toward creating an effective and practical response.


Aim: To evaluate the levels of serum Ferritin in different stages (I, II, III& IV) of Breast Cancer (BRCA) patients and comparing them with the gold standard tumor marker CA 15-3. Methods: Total subjects included were 90, of which 70 females were premenopausal BRCA patients and 20 females were taken as healthy controls. Results: The BRCA patients showed increased levels of serum CA 15-3, along with serum Ferritin with respect to controls. These levels increased in parallel with the severity of the disease, reaching higher levels in patients with advanced disease.CA 15-3 was also correlated with serum Ferritin in all the stages (I, II, III& IV) It was found that CA 15-3 had a positive correlation with serum Ferritin in BRCA. Furthermore, it was also observed that Ferritin was increased in early stages of the disease, unlike CA 15-3 which lacked the sensitivity for early diagnosis. Conclusion: These results indicate that serum Ferritin correlate closely with advancing stages of BRCA. Hence, they may prove to be sensitive, cost effective and relatively simple biochemical parameters for the early diagnosis as well as prognosis of BRCA.


an employee health service merely another item in the cost of production or is the industrial nurse a legitimate and profitable employee ?" Although there is ample evidence that a health service for employees is a remunerative investment, potential employers of nurses continue to ask these questions, particularly in some of the smaller firms where the tendency is to feel that big plants can afford these "extras" but small plants cannot.' We have tried to assemble informa-


The surface of partially reduced V2O5 has been studied by photoemission techniques of different sampling depths (ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), V (2p) X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and valence-band XPS excited by Mg Kα) in order to investigate the distribution of V4+ species in the near-surface region. Reduction was performed by evacuation in ultrahigh vacuum or treatment with flowing hydrogen (10% H2 in Ar) at temperatures between 373 and 923 K. Average reduction degrees were derived from V4+ (3d) and O (2p) signals in the valence-band region and from the V (2p3/2) signal (V4+/V5+ ratio). Comparison of average reduction degrees obtained from different sampling depths showed that pronounced depth profiles of the V4+ concentration develop during reduction. At low reduction temperatures, the reduction degree decreases monotonically with the distance from the surface. At higher temperatures, when oxygen mobility in the solid competes with oxygen removal from the surface, the depth pr...


We have introduced the notion of conductance in discrete dynamical systems using the known results from graph theory applied to systems arising from the iteration of continuous functions. The conductance allowed differentiating several systems with the same topological entropy, characterizing them from the point of view of the ability of the system to go out from a small subset of the state space. There are several other definitions of conductance and the results differ from one to another. Our goal is to understand the meaning of each one concerning the dynamical behaviour in connection with the decay of correlations and mixing time. Our results are supported by computational techniques using symbolic dynamics, and the tree-structure of the unimodal and bimodal maps.


In this paper, a flexible graphene film with high conductivity of 1.1×106 S/m is proposed. The graphene film has the density of 1.45 g/cm3, which is only one sixth of copper. A microstrip antenna based on the graphene film is designed, fabricated and measured. The graphene film based antenna has excellent |S11| of -30.33 dB at 2.47 GHz and high gain of 2.11 dBi. In addition, the measured radiation patterns of graphene antenna are similar to the copper antenna. The simulated and measured performances of graphene antenna indicate that the flexible and lightweight graphene film is a good substitute for metal.


AbstractThe paper explores the issue of managing knowledge in a very small non-profit organization. A pilot study was conducted with a very small non-profit organization to understand the current state of knowledge management, issues in managing knowledge and tools being employed for knowledge management. The paper identifies the issues and suggests the potential technological solutions from open source software products and free online tools, such as wikis, youtube and flickr, that could be used to share the knowledge for better productive use of time and resources of a small low budget non-profit organization. The study also presents the power of a lightweight pilot study for understanding the issues for future knowledge management systems design for such organizations and potential use of open source software for such noble causes.


Introduction: cervical cancer is the third type of cancer that causes more deaths in women, affecting mainly those with lower socioeconomic status and who have difficulties in accessing health services, such as quilombola women. Objective: to understand how health education proposals can contribute to the self-knowledge of quilombola women about the prevention of cervical cancer. Methods: this is an excerpt from an end-of-course work for the undergraduate nursing course from the Federal University of Campina Grande, performed in 2019, based on the action research method and analyzed through the methodological process of the Collective Subject Discourse. Results: After the situational diagnosis, three meetings were held with the quilombola women, in which knowledge about cervical cancer was constructed and feelings related to the disease were confronted, using active methodologies associated with the representations and characteristics inherent to preventive habits, especially the Pap smear. Conclusions: The educational actions provoked a change in the knowledge of women about cervical cancer and its preventive methods, thus showing that educational activities are a possibility for the self-knowledge of women about the prevention of cervical cancer, making them holders and multipliers of knowledge in their collective reality.


In the late '80s, large electronics manufacturers installed tremendous capacity of the "turret" SMD (Surface Mount Device) placement equipment variety. This type of equipment is fast when placing, on one PCB (Printed Circuit Board), SMD components which are of like sizes, but slows down when placing components with a large size spread, thereby reducing its effective throughput capacity. The 90's have seen several developments which further aggravate the problem-greater polarization of package sizes (very small "0402" vs. very large Quad-Flat-Packs), recessionary pressures which prevent companies from upgrading equipment, competition from small SMD contract manufacturers with low overhead, to name a few. This paper suggests novel techniques to squeeze more throughput out of existing installed SMD placement capacity with minimal additional investment.<<ETX>>


Purpose: To determine the role of Fragile X-related protein-1 (FXR1) in colon cancer progression and its relationship to patients' survival.Methods: A total of 164 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China between 2006 and 2008, were included in this study. Immunohistochemistry was used to semi-quantitatively analyze the intensity and extent of immunological staining of diaminobenzidine-stained paraffin blocks of CRC samples. The study also retrieved COAD mRNA and patients' clinical data from TCGA and cultured human colon cancer cell lines (SW480, SW620, HCT8, HCT116, and Caco2) in RPMI 1640 medium to assess the propensity of CRC cells to proliferate, invade the tumorigenicity in BALB/c nude mice.Results: The prognosis of CRC patients was inversely linked with the expression of FXR1. Additionally, FXR1 knockdown in CRC cells reduced cellular growth, colony development and tumorigenesis. After presenting BALB/c nude mice with tumors in FXR1 knockdown, the cells displayed higher E-cadherin levels (p < 0.01) as well as decreased TGF-1 (p < 0.01) and N-cadherin levels (p < 0.001).Conclusion: Fragile X-related protein-1 is an oncogene in colon cancer and its knockdown inhibits HCT116 cells from behaving malignantly. Thus, FXR1 is a potential treatment option for CRC.


In this paper, the current status of China's energy development, since the first half of 2004, has been reviewed briefly, and then it also relates the policy efforts and countermeasures adopted by Chinese government to solve the problems of energy supply, and its achievements as well. Finally, the recommendations regarding the sustainable energy development are given.


From 1869 until the founding of the diocese of Singapore in 1909, the missions and chaplaincies in Singapore and what is now West Malaysia were within the jurisdiction of the diocese of Labuan, which itself had been founded as a legal fiction in 1855 as the stock onto which the bishopric for Rajah James Brooke's Sarawak could be grafted. Although the diocese and the bishopric were constitutionally distinct, as succeeding bishops were often reminded by the rajahs of Sarawak, the bishops looked at the whole area of their spiritual leadership, and regarded the staffing of it as one problem—or opportunity. G. F. Hose himself, bishop of Labuan 1881–1908, and of Sarawak 1882–1908, had served in the Straits Settlements from 1868, and had been archdeacon of Singapore for his predecessor, Bishop Chambers. For sixty-two years the St Andrew's Church Mission in Singapore, the base for work among Asians, had as superintendent two priests, W. H. Gomes, 1872—1902, and Richard Richards, 1902–34. Both had previously worked in Borneo, for more than fourteen and twelve years respectively. In the opposite direction Bishop Hose transferred to Kuching in 1898 A. F. Sharp, who had worked for six years in Singapore.


Herein, we have measured the phase dispersion of a cavity polariton in a single-crystalline anthracene microcavity via interference spectroscopy. Results show slow-light dispersion at the cavity polariton's lower polariton resonance, which agrees well with the transfer matrix method calculation results. According to the theoretical calculations, the slow-light dispersion's group refractive index is 24. We found that the structural dispersion due to a phenomenological photon cavity and material dispersion caused by the exciton contributed to the large group refractive index. These efforts will aid in realizing optical buffer memories for organic microcavities.


The IGCP-637 project on Heritage Stone designation was approved by UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) in 2015 and ended in 2019. The main objective was to facilitate the development of a new International Standard for building and ornamental stones. This was achieved by building an extensive international network of collaborating researchers and publications to extend knowledge on internationally important Heritage Stones. The final report is presented in this paper.


Structure formation in fluoroplastic-aluminum composites obtained by static and explosive pressing has been investigated. The concentration of dispersed aluminum was 50 and 70% vol. In fluoroplastic-aluminum composites, after static pressing, spalling of metal particles, formed during the preparation of a microsection, was found, which indicates low adhesion of the polymer and metal. The production of fluoroplastic-aluminum composites using explosive pressing leads to the formation of a monolithic material with a high adhesive interaction of the components and the formation of a metal frame.


The coupled effect of wall heat loss and viscosity friction on flame propagation and deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) in micro-scale channel is investigated by high-resolution numerical simulations. The results show that when the heat loss at walls is considered, the oscillating flame presents a reciprocating motion of the flame front. The channel width and Boit number are varied to understand the effect of heat loss on the oscillating flame and DDT. It is found that the oscillating propagation is determined by the competition between wall heat loss and viscous friction. The flame retreat is led by the adverse pressure gradient caused by thermal contraction, while it is inhibited by the viscous effects of wall friction and flame boundary layer. The adverse pressure gradient formed in front of a flame, caused by the heat loss and thermal contraction, is the main reason for the flame retreat. Furthermore, the oscillating flame can develop to a detonation due to the pressure rise by thermal expansion and wall friction. The transition to detonation depends non-monotonically on the channel width.


Nutritional and extractable oil profile in seeds of Sesamum indicum L. and Moringa oleifera Lam. were investigated using standard biochemical procedures. Proximate analysis revealed % crude protein contents of 24.32% in S. indicum while M. oleifera had 27.66%. Crude lipid contents were analyzed and 47.78% was obtained in S. indicum while 28.87% was obtained in M. oleifera. Crude carbohydrate analysis revealed S. indicum with 37.89% while in M. oleifera, it was 34.51%. Crude fibre obtained was 11.32% in S. indicum while 9.37% was identified in M. oleifera. Higher ash content of 9.13% was obtained in M. oleifera while 7.62% was obtained in S. indicum. Available energy (k/cal.) was analyzed in the samples with obtained values in S. indicum 692.22 k/cal. While M. oleifera had 545.91 k/cal. With significant difference (P=0.05) between the two species in terms of available energy (k/cal.). Results of extractable oil profile of S. indicum and M. oleifera revealed appreciable amounts of the oil with 54.65% found in S. indicum while M. oleifera had 39.33% with significant difference (P=0.05) between the two species. Physico-chemical properties of the seed oils analyzed include, acid value determined with 34.32 mg KOHg-1 for S. indicum and 29.98 mg KOHg-1 obtained in M. oleifera. Saponification value of the two samples indicated that S. indicum had 148.82 mg KOH/g while M. oleifera had 127.88 mg KOH/g. Kinematic viscosity was determined and S. indicum had 0.97 mm2/s while 0.78 mm2/s was identified in M. oleifera. Iodine value was determined and S. indicum had 128.56 g l2 /100 g while M. oleifera had 103.68 g l2/100 g. Specific gravity was determined with 0.89 g/cm3 obtained in S. indicum while 0.84 g/cm3 was obtained in M. oleifera. Cetane number was determined; S. indicum had 34.00 while 30.00 was obtained in M. oleifera. Oil colour was determined and the colour ranged from yellowish-brown to creamy-yellow for S. indicum and M. oleifera respectively with no significant difference (P=0.05) in iodine number, acid value, kinematic viscosity and cetane number. State of the oil at room temperature indicated that the oils from the two seed types are liquid at room temperature. Mineral analysis of the two samples indicated that they comprise of appreciable amounts of minerals with phosphorus 385.51±4.96 mg / 100 g obtained in M. oleifera while in S. indicum, 254.54±4.06 mg / 100 g was obtained. Calcium was richly obtained in the two samples with 95.20 mg / 100 g obtained in M. oleifera while 66.70 mg / 100 g was obtained in S. indicum. However, potassium, manganese, copper, and magnesium were appreciably contained in the seeds with significant difference (P=0.05) between the two samples. Thus, it can be recommended that seeds of M. oleifera especially and that of S. indicum should be properly incorporated in the diets especially in the developing countries where hunger and malnutrition ravage the growing children and pregnant women.


In the spring of 1949, Kenneth Burke sent his vanguard rhetorical treatise A Rhetoric of Motives off to the publishing house Prentice Hall for review and eventual publication. The manuscript, immea...


This paper studies the influence of the interaction of two factors on the important air quality monitoring index PM2.5. Specifically, the GAM model based on the interaction of air pressure and temperature and the PM2.5 value is used to obtain the nonlinear relationship between air pressure, temperature and PM2.5. The GAM model has a high degree of fit, that is, the interaction of air pressure and temperature has a greater impact on the PM2.5 value. Therefore, the interaction between pressure and temperature can be used to predict the response variable PM2.5 accurately. Keywords: GAM model;interaction;PM2.5


The author focuses on developmental theory and current research with implications for the Greek experience, and offers practical suggestions for student affairs generalists with fraternity and sororiry responsiblities.


ABSTRACT Teachers' negative emotions began to receive attention in the Hong Kong context in the mid-1990s. As negative emotions may affect both teachers' well-being and the quality of their teaching, Hong Kong education policy-makers and educators have used psychological approaches to determine the reasons why teachers experience negative feelings. However, these approaches fail to accommodate the social causes of negative emotions. Therefore, this study investigates the possible social causes of teachers' negative emotions from the perspective of alienation theory. In-depth interviews with 21 teachers in Hong Kong reveal that Hong Kong teachers may be suffering from alienation (characterised by a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and self-estrangement) due to their experiences of teaching, their employment status, and their structural position in schools, which are related to the occupational and organisational structure of teaching. The findings also indicate that patterns of alienation may differ between more and less experienced teachers.


ABSTRACT In this paper we evaluate a unified and general finite integral involves the product of the multivariable I-functions defined by Prathima and Nambisan [1] and the general classes of multivariable polynomials with general arguments. On account of the most general nature of the functions and the classes of the polynomials and their general arguments occuring in our main integral, several new and known integrals follow as its simple specials cases. We shall study the particular case concerning the multivariable H-function defined by Srivastava et al [6,7],the Srivastava-Daoust polynomial [4] and the I-function of two variables defined by Rathie et al [2]. Keyworlds : Multivariable I-function, general class of multivariable polynomials, multivariable H-function, I-function of two variables 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 33C45, 33C60, 26D20.


This study explores a novel channel---endogenous health investment---through which monetary policy impacts growth and welfare. We use a scale-invariant Schumpeterian growth model with a cash-in-advance (CIA) constraint on R&D investment. We find that the effect of an increase in the nominal interest rate on long-run growth crucially depends on the form of the CIA constraint. When the CIA constraint does not apply to medical expenditure, long-run growth does not depend on the nominal interest rate. The result remains robust when health capital does not need medical expenditure to produce (i.e., health capital only needs leisure to produce). By contrast, when the CIA constraint applies to medical expenditure, an increase in the nominal interest rate leads to a decrease in R&D and health investment, which in turn reduces the long-run growth rates of technology and output. Nevertheless, welfare is always a decreasing function of the nominal interest rate, and the welfare loss is larger under the CIA constraint on medical expenditure. The results hold up with the health-in-the-utility function (HIU).


We observed a 17 ′ × 17 ′ region of the ρ Oph molecular cloud, using the ACIS-I array onboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO). A 100-ks exposure observation revealed ∼ 100 X-ray sources above the detection limit of ∼ 10 28 ergs s − 1 . About 2/3 of the X-ray sources are identified with an optical and/or infrared counterpart, including significant numbers of Class I, II and III sources and a few brown dwarfs. The X-ray detection rate of Class I sources is a surprisingly high 70 %. Many X-ray flares, possibly due to the magnetic activity, are found from all of the classes. We make systematic spectral studies of the quiescent and flare X-rays for all the X-ray sources. The X-ray temperatures and absorptions of Class I sources are generally larger than those of Class II and III sources. Also X-ray flares from Class I sources show slightly higher duty ratio, temperature, and luminosity, than those of more evolved classes. We further give brief results on brown dwarfs, sources in a younger phase than Class I, unclassified, and unidentified sources. Details for several selected young stellar objects, including the first detection of a neutral iron line (6.4 keV) from a Class I source (YLW 16A), are separately addressed.


A high performance 500MHz~3.5GHz broadband and dual-polarized quadruple-ridge horn antenna was designed which serves as a low frequency band feed antenna. The design process was divided into the process of preliminary design which is substituting the quadruple-ridge horn to double-ridge horn and the process of optimum design using HFSS which covers parameter and structure optimization. Firstly, The corresponding impact on the VSWR when each of the parameters changes is analyzed. Secondly, a variety of structure optimization is adopted: gradual increase in waveguide cross-section, adding metal pins at the end of the ridges, and using special thin probes as source of excitation. The results of measure at the end of this paper show that the antenna has good patterns and low-VSWR performance in a broad band, and the two ports have very similar performance.


The power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of spin-coated organic solar cells (OSCs) have increased rapidly in recent years. However, spin-coating shows poor reproducibility for large-scale production. Slot-die coating, a lab-scale version of roll-to-roll fabrication, has been considered as the most suitable technique for the production of future large-area commercial devices. For this, highly efficient slot-die fabricated devices are required to approach the performance of spin cast OSCs. We present here, a non-fullerene OSC device utilizing PBDB-T:i-IEICO-4F blend, fabricated by slot-die coating without post treatment in the ambient conditions. Device showed an impressive PCE of 12.5%, which is one of the highest reported performance for slot-die coated OSC devices. Compared to spin-coated and blade-coated films with optimized thermal annealing time, the films fabricated by slot-die coating (without any treatment) exhibit not only the highest degree of crystallinity and face-on orientation, but also the smallest domain size and the purest phase, towards enhanced and balanced carrier mobilities. An enhanced excited state charge generation has been attributed from transient charge kinetics using ultrafast spectroscopic signatures. Optimized slot-die coated devices exhibit excellent tolerance for increased thickness of photoactive layer, attributing to favorable molecular packing. We used slot-die coating as one simple fabrication technique, being capable of yielding highly efficient OSCs.


The prostate cancer is the critical health problem, increasing of its related death in worldwide. Unfortunately present surgery and chemotherapeutic choices seem to be impossible in curing or controlling prostate cancer, because metastasis occasionally advances even after these potentially curative therapies. Therefore, there is immediate need to alternative chemoprevention and chemotherapeutic agents. Over one hundred species of dried medicinal herbs were tested for proliferation inhibitory effects on prostate cancer cell line, PC-3. One of them, Anthriscus sylvestris was selected because of potent anti-proliferation effect. The dried root of A. sylvestris was extracted with 100% methanol for 2-3 days and its extract was fractionated by using ethyl acetate. And ethyl acetate layer was subjected to column chromatographies on silica gel, reverse phase-18 (RP-18) and Sephadex LH-20, in turn. Finally, the pure compound was obtained by crystallization in methanol at 4℃ for overnight and identified as deoxypodophyllotoxin by NMR spectorscopic and physico-chemical analyses. In addition, it was confirmed that deoxypodophyllotoxin clearly inhibits the proliferation of PC-3 cells in a doseand time-dependent manner.


By the GC,HPLC,physiological and biochemical indices,the resistant and signal substances which induced by spraying copper against potato virus Y-vein necrosis strain(PVYN) were studied.The results showed that when treated with copper at the concentration of 0.8mg.L-1,the symptom appearing was postponed,vein necrosis degree was lightened,the disease index and the content of virus sharply down.The content of proline and soluble sugar in tobacco leaves were increased,and the leakage rate of electrolyte restrained.The content of salicylic acid(SA) reached the high peak at the 15th day after inoculation,which 1.3 times than that of inoculation control.The release of ethylene(ETH) was much higher than that of control in a short time.At the 12th day,ETH released from control was sharply increased,which was much higher than that of copper treatment,because the signal pathway in tobacco leaves was activated when treated with copper solution in early time.In conclusion spraying copper solution could induce tobacco plant resistance to PVYN and activate the signal pathway.Those indicated that the induced resistance was promoted and the symptom was lighten.


It is all informative, and illuminating, and it is good to see it in print. But does it dispel the doubt whether Horsley or his like were anything near as influential as Clark and his followers would like to suppose? Hone tells us that the church in which Horsley, the clerical colossus, was buried in 1806 was later demolished to make way for a railway, and wonders whether the symbolism is apt. Assuming we are supposed to think not, it can of course be observed that there was no revolution in England in the decade after Horsley's death. Are Horsley and his kind to be given posthumous credit for this? Recent work by Peter Nockles and Richard Brent has certainly shifted the focus in examination of the issues of the 1820s and beyond. Brent sees the hand of liberal Anglican theology, perhaps almost as much as Benthamism, behind the Whig governments of the 1830s. How could this be, if the framework which had held up the intellectually moribund Anglican exclusivity had been dismantled in 1827? It is seemingly open to speculation whether the public letters of the propagandist John Bowles, and the movement of Bishop Marsh against Unitarianism presented at the time as a sort of Anglican MacCarthyism, show the period from 1804 to 1827 to be indicative of a strong Church in a central position on the political map, or of a party noisily bewailing its decline to impotence. Hole had done excellent work in clearing the muddy canal waters of this period of Church history. If in this process he is a little guilty of Clark's besetting vice in claiming that everything printed at the time was read seriously (assuming it was read at all), and that reprintings of necessity token deep influence, he has none the less carried out the task allotted him by the sage. And he gives in addition a fascinating bibliographical index. The sermonisers, charge-givers and polemicists who stood in the way of Wilkesite disorder and in particular the French Revolution await their historian a little less pressingly.


Nowadays the interest of breeders, producers and consumers is going back to ancient wheat species, such as Triticum spelta, which are often considered as more valuable for healthy nutrition. In this light, we compared spelt cultivars and breeding lines with commercial common wheat cultivars by total lipid content, fatty acid levels and unsaturated/saturated ratio in grain. Lipids were extracted by Soxhlet procedure. Fatty acid composition was determined by gas chromatography. On average, the total lipid content was higher in the spelt cultivars than in the breeding spelt lines (3.04±0.24 % vs. 2.23±0.69 %, p < 0.05). There was a significant difference between the average content of total lipids in the spelt cultivars, but not the breeding spelt lines, and the common wheat cultivars (3.04±0.24 % vs. 2.44±0.57 %, p < 0.05). Six major fatty acids were found in hexaploid wheat species, with linoleic acid being the most abundant. They are ranked in order of decreasing levels as follows: linoleic > oleic >palmitic > linolenic > stearic > palmitoleic. We also detected trace amounts of 3 minor fatty acids: eicosanoic (arachidic), eicosenoic and behenic acids. Common wheat is not inferior to spelt in terms of unsaturated fatty acid levels, because the ratios of unsaturated acids to saturated ones in grain of T. spelta accessions were similar to those in commercial common wheat cultivars. The oleic acid content was higher in spelt accessions; though the linoleic acid content was higher in T. aestivum cultivars. Spring common wheat cultivar Heroinia had the most beneficial unsaturated/saturated ratio of 4.5. We detected no differences in unsaturated acid amounts between spring and winter hexaploid wheats. We observed no patterns in variability of fatty acid contents across the accessions under investigation, because the same accession can be characterized by a wide variability in one fatty acid and by a narrow range for another, and, at the same time, the same fatty acid can be very variable within one accession and little variable in another. There were no significant differences in the total lipid content and fatty acid levels between the study years for the same accession.


Note: ME = Median, M = Mean, S.D. = Standard Deviation of the distributions of the estimated parameters, respectively. The parentheses contain the corresponding statistics for the distributions of the t-values, "JEP S = as; ?lEP X/X = ax */logsoe = elasticity of EP with respect to X at X, where X = any explanatory variable in equation (I) other than size (S); X = mean value of X; e = 2.718. a Details of the regression results may be obtained from the author upon request.


Taking high speed steel compound roll as research object, a mathematical model of heat transfer in continuous casting process was established, the several temperature fields of the roll core from preheating coil, near surface, the roll core from heating crucible and water-cooling cast mould were simulated by computer simulation software Fluent, which provides a reliable reference for optimization of continuous casting process.


Molecular Dynamics simulations are used to study cross-linking of an epoxy polymer. OPLS force field parameters are used for modeling a 2:1 stoichiometric mixture of epoxy resin and the cross-linking agent. The model has 17,928 united atoms and a static cross-linking method is used along with molecular minimization and molecular dynamics techniques to achieve two different cross-link densities. The crosslinked models can be used for understanding various phenomenon occurring in cross-linked epoxy resins at the atomic scale. Glass-transition temperature ranges of two differently cross-linked samples have been predicted using the models. These models will be used for studying aging behavior at the atomic level in epoxy materials and understanding the influence of aging on mechanical properties.


We analyze a two-stage sequential-move game of location and pricing to identify firm location, output, and welfare. We consider two pricing regimes (mill pricing and spatial price discrimination) and, unlike previous literature, allow in each of them for a non-uniform population density, non-constant location costs, and endogenous market boundaries. Under constant location costs, our results show the firm locates at the city center under both mill and discriminatory pricing, and that output is larger under spatial price discrimination. Welfare comparisons are, however, ambiguous. Under non-constant location costs, we find the optimal location can move from the city center, and does not coincide across pricing regimes. We also find that output and welfare are higher (lower) under mill than under discriminatory pricing when transportation rates are low (high, respectively).


Two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) systems were developed for detection of soybean dwarf virus (SDV) and compared for sensitivity. With direct double-antibody sandwich (DAS) ELISA, dilution of conjugated immunoglobulins with uninfected tissue extracts prepared with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) (1:5, w/v) improved absorbance compared with conjugates prepared with PBS alone. The apparent amplification of the positive signal occurred without changing nonspecific (background) absorbance. Indirect antigen-coated ELISA detected the dwarfing strain (SDV-D) but was much less sensitive than DAS-ELISA (...)


At the slaughterhouses carcasses are often contaminated with pathogenic bacteria. End point carcass decontamination is found to be effective to reduce the number of bacteria on the carcasses and may improve food safety Attachment of bactena to the carcass surface is the first step in contamination of the final food product, and understanding of the adherence and survival of bacteria 1n relation decontamtnation is essential for the development of effect1ve decontamtnation


Carbides, a very unique field of research, becoming very attractive and promising candidates in modern scientific and technological applications. Among these, chromium carbide exhibit extremely good strength, hardness, anti-erosion and corrosion properties, surface characteristic, etc. Also, chromium carbide acts as a grain growth inhibitor, widely used in composites by the incorporation of different secondary phase, such as fine grains of cemented carbides WC-Co and Al2O3 matrix. Because of these inherent properties chromium carbides are found excellent reinforcement for toughening purpose owing to its high Young's modulus, making it most demanding material among carbides. These properties are further enhanced by synthesizing chromium carbide in nano scale. Nano grained materials exhibit superior properties than conventional one. The present work is an attempt to synthesize chromium carbide (Cr3C2) nanoparticles by thermochemical reaction route where chromium oxide (Cr2O3) is reduced to nanochromium carbide (Cr3C2) at temperature range 600-800 o C. The phase identification of the product phase(s) was done by X-ray diffraction and Transmission electron microscope techniques.


Wisdom campus is a high-level stage of digital campus construction and needs to be improved in addressing the issues of information silos and legacy systems. Based on the SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE-based vocational schools wisdom campus overall architecture model contains reusable services and well-defined, standards-compliant interface, through services to achieve different platforms, different languages on the exchange between the system can be targeted at vocational colleges to provide business processes, To provide fast and flexible changes. The model of "platform + application + service" proposed by the model and service-oriented thinking can better solve the problem of information silos and legacy systems and provide an effective method for upgrading the Informatization level of vocational colleges.


In present and future electrical networks more and more cyber physical renewable energy infeed are to be integrated. To ensure nevertheless the safe grid operation with an increasing number of these infeeds, reliable certification is required. Due to the lack of the retroactive effects from the conventional test method, the dynamic behaviors during the test are different from the real situation. In order to realize the retroactive effects, this paper presents a power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) test system. This paper focused on an optimized PHIL interface algorithm, to avoid the instability from the ideal transfer method. Finally, the PHIL test system has been built in the laboratory. The function of the PHIL test system is verified by a set of PHIL tests for photovoltaic inverter.


The National Research Council 2009 "Silver Book" panel report included a recommendation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should increase all of its chemical carcinogen (CC) potency estimates by ∼7‐fold to adjust for a purported median‐vs.‐mean bias that I recently argued does not exist (Bogen KT. "Does EPA underestimate cancer risks by ignoring susceptibility differences?," Risk Analysis, 2014; 34(10):1780–1784). In this issue of the journal, my argument is critiqued for having flaws concerning: (1) intent, bias, and conservatism of EPA estimates of CC potency; (2) bias in potency estimates derived from epidemiology; and (3) human‐animal CC‐potency correlation. However, my argument remains valid, for the following reasons. (1) EPA's default approach to estimating CC risks has correctly focused on bounding average (not median) individual risk under a genotoxic mode‐of‐action (MOA) assumption, although pragmatically the approach leaves both inter‐individual variability in CC–susceptibility, and widely varying CC‐specific magnitudes of fundamental MOA uncertainty, unquantified. (2) CC risk estimates based on large epidemiology studies are not systematically biased downward due to limited sampling from broad, lognormal susceptibility distributions. (3) A good, quantitative correlation is exhibited between upper‐bounds on CC‐specific potency estimated from human vs. animal studies (n = 24, r = 0.88, p = 2 × 10−8). It is concluded that protective upper‐bound estimates of individual CC risk that account for heterogeneity in susceptibility, as well as risk comparisons informed by best predictions of average‐individual and population risk that address CC‐specific MOA uncertainty, should each be used as separate, complimentary tools to improve regulatory decisions concerning low‐level, environmental CC exposures.


A millimeter wave (MMW) metasurface-coverd vertically polarized antenna with wideband endfire radiation is presented in this work. Firstly, by placing a magnetic dipole array into two dual-layer metasurfaces and loading vertical walls at two edges of the metasurfaces, vertically polarized endfire radiation in a wide band is realized. Then, according to the symmetry of the electric filed distribution between the metasurfaces, a metal ground is introduced and the antenna's profile is reduced by half. The final designed planar antenna is able to radiate a vertically polarized endfire pattern in the frequency range of 27.8 $\sim$ 35.0 GHz.


In order to study the relation between heights of unit equilateral triangles and geometric properties of the underlying space,a new geometric constant h(X) is introduced via geometric method.The lower bound of h(X)is presented.It is proved that a Banach space X is uniformly nonsquare if and only if the inequality h(X)1/2 holds,and that a Banach space X has the fixed point property for nonexpansive mappings whenever the inequality h(X)1/2 holds.


A numerical study is reported on power-law shaped leading edges situated in a raree ed hypersonic e ow. The work is motivatedby interest in investigating thee owe eld propertiesofpower-lawshapedleading edgesaspossible candidatesforbluntingthegeometryofhypersonicleading edges.Thesensitivityofboth thee owe eld structureand surface quantities to shape variations of such leading edges is calculated by using a direct simulation Monte Carlo method. Particular attention is focused on the pressure gradient along the body surface and on the heat transfer to the body. Calculations showed that the pressure coefe cient for the e ow conditions considered is in surprising agreement with thatobtained by simpleNewtonian theory,which predictsthat a class of power-lawshapes exhibits aerodynamic behavior different from that expected for classical blunt shape. Simulations also showed that the stagnation point heating on power-law leading edges with a e nite radius of curvature follows the same relation as that for classical blunt body. However, for those leading edges with zero radii of curvature, the heat transfer behavior follows another pattern in the vicinity of the stagnation point, reaching a e nite value exactly at the nose.


In this thesis the welfare properties of three different monetary policy rules are considered, (i) inflation targeting, (ii) nominal GDP targeting, and (iii) a standard Taylor rule. This is done in the hope of determining whether or not the frequently discussed nominal GDP targeting rule for monetary policy possesses any welfare improving properties over the other two policy rules considered. To perform this analysis a New-Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model featuring imperfect competition, nominal rigidities, investment, and distortionary taxation is derived and then solved using perturbation methods, with various parameters of the model being estimated for Icelandic data using Bayesian estimation techniques. The main findings of the thesis are that nominal GDP targeting seems to possess significant welfare improving properties over the other two monetary policy rules considered, managing to minimise the welfare loss resulting from the nominal rigidities as well as the significant welfare loss resulting from the presence of distortionary taxes. This however does not necessarily imply that nominal GPD targeting is an optimal monetary policy rule, owing to the fact that there are significant practical problems associated with the adoption of such a rule.