Introduction: Advanced cervical cancer (CC) remains a major health problem in our country, with an increasing percentage being diagnosed in young women. Objective: The objective of this study is to present an institutional experience with standard treatment in menstruating women with CC at stages IB2 and IIB, with complementary or rescue surgery being added in selected cases, as well as to propose some management alternatives for these patients. Materials and methods: Analysis of the cases of 45-year-old or younger stage IB2-IIB CC patients who received concomitant chemotherapy and radiotherapy with or without further surgery at the Oncology Department of the Hospital General de México. Results: Ninety-eight patients with a mean age of 37.1 years were treated. In 89 patients, there was follow-up data available, of which 63 (70.7%) had an average evolution of 30 months with no evidence of disease: 12/19 (63.1%) were at stage IB2 and 51/70 (72.8%) at stage II (p > 05). At stage IB2, only 4/8 adenocarcinomas (50%) had these results versus 8/11 (72.7%) squamous cell carcinomas (p > 05). At stage II, the figures were 8/11 for adenocarcinomas (72.7%) and 43/59 for squamous cell carcinomas (72.8%). With further surgery, the results were increased by 10.1%. Failure of established therapeutics was demonstrated in 17 patients (19.3%): 4 cases due to locoregional progression (23.5%) and 13 (76.4%) due to distant dissemination. Conclusions: The results for stage IB2 were inferior to those for stages II, with most failures being related to distant metastasis. To prevent early menopause, exploring the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus radical hysterectomy is recommended in younger patients. (creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).


(in the sense of biosphere as life and life-support The terms biosphere, ecosphere, and Gaia are used systems), but, in its most extreme form, refers to as names for the global ecosystem. However, each the entire planet as a living entity. A case is made has more than one meaning. Biosphere can mean for avoiding the term Gaia (at least as a name for the totality of living things residing on the Earth, the planetary ecosystem), restricting biosphere to the space occupied by living things, or life and life- the totality of living things, and adopting the support systems (atmosphere, hydrosphere, ecosphere as the most apt name for the global lithosphere, and pedosphere). Ecosphere is used as ecosystem. a synonym of biosphere and as a term for zones in Key words. Biosphere, ecosphere, extraterrestrial the universe where life as we know it should be ecospheres, Gaia, global ecosystem, global sustainable. Gaia is similar to biosphere (in the organism, Teilhard de Chardin, Vernadsky.


This issue of Acta Physiologica includes the first of a series of review articles summarizing the proceedings of the third conference on Neural, Hormonal and Renal Interactions in Blood Pressure Control, held from December 7–10, 2015 in the hill station of Mussoorie (Uttarakhand, India). The first two conferences were held in Samode (Rajasthan) in 2004 (Evans et al. 2005) and Mahabalipuram (Tamil Nadu) in 2008 (May & Evans 2010). The goal of these meetings has been to bring together experts in integrative cardiovascular biology to discuss the central questions that will drive future research in blood pressure control and the pathogenesis of hypertension in the coming decades. But these conferences have all been about more than just the science. They have also provided an opportunity for delegates to experience the rich and diverse culture and warm and hospitable peoples of India. Having experienced the wonders of the deserts of Rajasthan in 2004 and the seaside temples and rich Hindu culture of Mahabalipuram in 2008, we set off for the Gahwali Himalaya in 2015. The scientific programme included 35 oral presentations interspersed by sessions set aside for open discussion. The review articles in Acta Physiologica reflect the range of issues that were discussed in detail. Basically, most cases of hypertension, particularly of essential hypertension, are characterized by elevated peripheral resistance and normal cardiac output. The peripheral resistance vessel dysfunction can be primary or secondary. In the latter case, primary changes in brain or kidney functions may be the culprits providing 'neurocentric' and 'renocentric' concepts of the aetiology of hypertension. One of the major controversies in the debate between the renocentrics and the neurocentrics has been over the existence of alternative 'brain baroreflex' mechanisms, for example reflex control of arterial blood pressure driven by signals from sensors within the central nervous system itself. McBryde et al. discuss the various mechanisms that could underlie the putative ability of the brain to control arterial pressure via the function intracranial mechanoreceptors and chemoreceptors as well as through carotid body chemoreceptors (McBryde et al. 2016). Our understanding of the pathogenesis of hypertension is further complicated by the interactions between mother, placenta and foetus during critical windows in development that 'programme' later cardiovascular function in both child and mother (Paauw et al. 2016). Indeed, epigenetic factors render some of these programming effects intergenerational. Paauw et al. review this area and point the way forward to potential interventions that might be capable of 'reprogramming' cardiovascular function to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (Paauw et al. 2016). Bie and Evans attempt to reconcile the renocentric and neurocentric concepts that dominate our understanding of the pathogenesis of hypertension (Bie & Evans 2016). They identify aspects of these concepts that are at odds with each other, but also the increasing realizations that long-term control of blood pressure, both in normotension and hypertension, must be achieved through interaction between the brain and the kidney, and that essential hypertension sometimes is generated by primarily by the central nervous system, other times primarily by the kidney. Notably, details of specific molecular mechanisms responsible for the development of hypertension presently are available to a much larger extent in the kidney than in the brain. Often renal insufficiency is associated with hypertension due to dysfunction of the neurohumoral mechanisms of cardiovascular control. Underwood et al. (2016) focus on changes in neural activity driven by uraemic toxins via superoxide/nitric oxide imbalance and low-grade inflammation, and provide preliminary data in a rat model indicating augmented superoxide production within the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus as a possible mediator of neurohumoral dysfunction. They suggest that this is but one example of mechanisms by which the uraemic state sensitizes CNS to sympathoexcitatory factors including renal afferent nerve inputs to the CNS and angiotensin II by the way of recruiting convergent superoxide-dependent and pro-inflammatory pathways. New targets for modulation of renal function, and thus cardiovascular function, continue to be identified. These include the inward rectifying potassium channels Kir4.1 and Kir5.1 (Palygin et al. 2016) which in the distal nephron appear to be critical elements of the regulation of the activity of the electroneutral sodium chloride cotransporter (NCC) and thus the interaction between NCC, the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) and the renal outer medullary potassium channel (ROMK) in the physiological control of potassium excretion potentially explaining the effect


We examined the effect of sodium caprate on the integrity of the tight junctions of brain capillary endothelial cells, using a modified in‐situ brain perfusion technique. Model hydrophilic compounds used were [3H]mannitol, [14C]sucrose, [3H]PEG900, [3H]PEG4000, FITC‐dextran 4000, FITC‐dextran 20000 and FITC‐dextran 70000.


Two supramolecular architectures, [Mn(3-bpd) 2 (NCS) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ]·2H 2 O (1) and {[Mn(bpe)(NCS) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ]· (3-bpd)·(bpe)·H 2 O} n (2) [bpe = 1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)ethylene and 3-bpd = 1,4-bis(3-pyridyl)-2,3-diaza-1,3-butadiene] have been synthesized and characterized by spectroscopic, elemental and single crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. Compound 1 crystallizes in the monoclinic system, space group P2 1 /c, with chemical formula C 26 H 28 Mn N 10 O 4 S 2 , a = 9.1360(6), b = 9.7490(6), c = 17.776( 1 ) A, β = 93.212(1)°, and Z = 2 while compound 2 crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, space group P2 1 2 1 2 1 , with chemical formula C 38 H 36 Mn 1 N 10 O 3 S 2 , a = 14.1902(6), b = 15.4569(7), c = 18.2838(8) A, α = β = y = 90°, and Z = 4. Structural determination reveals that the coordination geometry at Mn(II) in compound 1 or 2 is a distorted octahedral which consists of two nitrogen donors of two NCS - ligands, two oxygen donors of two watermolecules, and two nitrogen donors of two 3-bpd ligands for 1 and two dpe ligands for 2, respectively. The two 3-bpd ligands in 1 adopt a monodentate binding mode and the dpe in 2 adopts a bismonodentate bridging mode to connect the Mn(II) ions forming a ID chain-like coordination polymer. Both the π-π stacking interactions between the coordinated and the free pyridyl-based ligands and intermolecular hydrogen bonds among the coordinated and the crystallized water molecules and the free pyridyl-based ligands play an important role in construction of these 3D supramolecular architectures.


Summary

A palaeomagnetic database, containing a summary of key palaeomagnetic parameters derived from palaeomagnetic analysis of a wide range of geological formations has been developed at the Institut de Physique du Globe, Strasbourg. This database is stored on 5 1/4 in. diskette which can be read by any microcomputer equipped with a suitable text editor. the database currently contains some 400 records mainly derived from geological formations in Europe, Africa and the Tethys belt (from the Antilles to the Philippines) and it is planned to be extended in the future. the purpose of this communication is to outline the structure of the database and to encourage palaeomagnetic researchers to submit new entries to the database, in a standard format, in order to facilitate rapid dissemination of new palaeomagnetic data. All contributors will receive a copy of the complete file in return, either as a printed paper output or on a 5 1/4 in. diskette.


To apply polarisation information of radar signal in radar reconnaissance equipment, a joint estimation algorithm of the radar signal direction of arrival (DOA) and polarisation parameters based on dual-polarisation antenna array has been researched in this study. The mathematical model of dual-polarised circular array has been given, and the joint estimation method of DOA and polarisation parameters for radar signal based on multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm has been analysed. To overcome the shortcomings such as high calculation cost for the MUSIC algorithm, the DOA-matrix algorithm has been presented. DOA-matrix algorithm can effectively distinguish the radar signals with different polarisation states in the same direction by use of eigen-decomposition of the DOA-matrix. Through matrix correlation calculation, spectral peak search has been avoided, and the computational cost and algorithm complexity are greatly reduced. Finally, the feasibility of the DOA-matrix algorithm has been simulated and analysed. The simulation results show that the DOA-matrix algorithm can effectively complete the joint estimation of DOA and polarisation parameters for radar signal. The running time reaches millisecond level, which has a strong application value in engineering.


Based on the document[1]advancing solid-beam element method for CFST arch bridge calculating,the elastic and plastic stiffness tangential matrix was deducted in detail,calculating program SYCFST for ultimate bearing capacity of CFST arch bridge was drawn up based on this,which was tested and verified by computing example~ experimental model arch.Therefore,the derivation was also correct.


The method involves forming a preform (1) including a blade root (2) and a body of a blade (3). The preform is placed in a mold (5) whose print comprises an injection chamber (8), where an associated initial free volume of the chamber is defined according to length of the root, and a base zone (9) and a blade zone (10) accommodate the root and the blade body. A hold (13) is introduced into the chamber to reduce its initial free volume. A resin is injected into the mold to impregnate the preform and form the blade by polymerization of the resin. An independent claim is also included for a molding assembly.


This research aims to investigate how the practice of judo was organized in Porto Alegre between the 1950s and 1960s. To this end, the theoretical-methodological reference of sociocultural bias was based on the analysis of documents and the bibliographic review. The results showed that the first signs of the institutionalized practice of judo in Porto Alegre date from the 1950s, when Japanese Takeo Yano migrated to the city of Porto Alegre to teach classes in the dojo installed on the terrace of the Hotel Majestic. Then, for financial reasons, the doo of Takeo Yano changed to "Sport Club Ruy Barbosa". Later, with the departure of Takeo Yano, the direction of the judo in "Sport Club Ruy Barbosa", was assumed by Januario Dias that, later, the command to Aluisio Nogueira Bandeira de Mello, the Loanzi. In the following decade, 1960s, Teruo Obata arrived in Porto Alegre, which taught judo in the "Sport Club Ruy Barbosa". At the time, also came to Porto Alegre the Japanese Naoshige Ushijima and the nissei Ricardo Shunji Hinata, to teach judo. In this way, the practice of judo was increased in the period in its different aspects. In the late 1960s, in 1969, after an impasse between judo leaders in Porto Alegre, two entities were founded: the Federacao Gaucha de Judo and the Federacao Rio-Grandense de Judo. This fact also suggests that there were divergences in the understanding of the specificity of fighting practice.


Vehicle electronic control systems have the potential to become unreliable when they grow too complex. By careful design of the whole system, both hardware and software, it is possible to organise the data processing tasks in such a way that the risks associated with software failure are indeed minimal. The validation tools already in widespread use throughout the industry, when rigorously applied, reduce this risk to below that associated with hardware design failures. The paper concerns the programmable automotive microcontroller (PAM), an ASIC-based device developed by AB Automotive Electronics to improve reliability. It describes ways in which PAM can detect errors arising from various sources in software. AB has written, and maintains, its own compiler for PAM. The compiler gives warnings of possible sources of difficulty. Standards for software and the development thereof are given.


Systems Engineering (SE) is a new engineering method for many firms in Automotive Product Development that expectedly advances their development processes to meet their stakeholder needs more effectively. Literature suggest that understanding and acceptance are key factors in the implementation, however comprehensive modes for their increase are barely discussed. In this paper, we propose a Participatory Action Research based on multiple research elements to find an effective technique for gaining understanding and acceptance on SE in a validated model environment of automotive industry called Formula SAE. We present practical outcomes at each steps of the implementation process and analyze the effect of improvements in the context of strategy, structure processes.


Attribute reduction in ordered information systems is an important issue in the rough set theory.Up to now,some basic results have been obtained.However,there are few effective computation methods which can save the computing time.In this paper,we apply the divide-and-conquer strategy to deal with it.More specifically,attributes are divided into different groups by progressively decreasing partition,and decomposing the original system into small subsystems with similar size.Then the core and reducts of each subsystem are synchronously and independent to calculate.Finally,numerical examples illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed attribute reduction method.


Sheng ren ti wu" is an important idea in Wang Bi's ideological system. Customarily pursuers only study it in epistemology. In this thesis the writer puts forward another view. The writer starts with the explanation of "ti" and "wu" and contacts with the context of "sheng ren ti wu". Then he thinks "sheng ren ti wu" means "The heart of sheng ren is wu." Besides the writer thinks this explanation is in accord with the traditional one.


The invention relates to a holder 10 for receiving at least one injector in metallurgical vessels, in particular in electric arc furnaces, with the media, such as gases and / or solids that are introduced into the metallurgical vessel, having means of the coolant guides 14, 15 support 10 of the is respective injector via an opening 11 arranged at or protected in the vessel wall of the metallurgical vessel. It is thereby inventively provided that the wall thickness W of the Injektorkuhlblocks 10 is made variable in response to the heat load on the hot side of the Injektorenblocks 10 between the hot side and the coolant guide base. The invention also relates to a method for operating such a holder 10th


Sinopec Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Company′s atmospheric and vacuum unit has a designed processing capacity of 8.0Mt/a and uses flash,atmospheric and vacuum distillation processes.Using calibrated data as the benchmark,technicians established a steady-state process simulation model reflecting the actual operating conditions of the unit,with the help of the Aspen Plus process simulation software.Using this model,these technicians analyzed the sensitivity of the atmospheric and vacuum distillation columns of the atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit and studied the relationship between the temperature at the outlet of the heating furnace and light oil yield and total yield of crude distillation as well as the relationship between the atmospheric first side-line stripping amount and the atmospheric first side-line distillation temperature at the 5% boiling point.Based on the above model,these technicians optimized the configurations of the atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit by raising the amount of stripping steam of the atmospheric first side-line to 2.5t/h from 1.5t/h to increase the yield of gas oil by 0.46% and raising the branch temperature at the outlet of the vacuum furnace to 403℃ from 400℃ to reduce the contents of fractions from residual oil before 530℃ and vacuum residue yield by 0.80%.Through the optimization,the yield of gas oil and the vacuum deep cut rate were raised and annual economic benefits from the optimization amount to 4.322 million yuan.These results suggest that this process simulation program has succeeded.


The paper introduces the characteristic of electronic publication, explains the strategy of the work of finding and collecting electronic publication and proposes new requirements for people who do this work.


Infliximab demonstrates high efficacy in treating psoriasis in a high proportion of patients. In this report we demonstrate induction of plaque (T cells, dendritic cells) and peripheral blood (T cells, monocytes) leukocyte apoptosis following a single infliximab infusion in a psoriasis patient.


The Carbon trading price (CTP) can best reflect the fluctuations of the carbon trading market. This paper comprehensively analyzes the CTP mechanism of China's carbon trading market, discusses the main factors affecting China's CTP, which include macroeconomic factors, energy price factors, policy factors, and environmental factors, and provides three hypotheses. In order to highlight and test the three hypotheses about the CTP, five representative carbon trading pilot markets were included: Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hubei, and Guangdong, and the daily average price data (over years) were adapted from January 2017 to December 2021, using a dynamic heterogeneous panel PMG model. The current paper selects the China air quality index (AQI), Bohai-Rim steam-coal price index (BSPI), Liquefied natural gas index (LNGI), and the Shanghai stock exchange industrial index (SSEII) as the explanatory variables. The empirical results show that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between the CTP, AQI, energy price, and macroeconomics. Strengthening environmental governance, optimizing the energy structure, and expanding the carbon trading market coverage should be adopted to improve the China carbon emission trade exchange (CCETE) and stabilize the CTP.


Users are usually involved in multiple social networks, without explicit anchor links that reveal the correspondence among different accounts of the same user across networks. Anchor link prediction aims to identify the hidden anchor links, which is a fundamental problem for user profiling, information cascading, and cross-domain recommendation. Although existing methods perform well in the accuracy of anchor link prediction, the pairwise search manners on inferring anchor links suffer from big challenge when being deployed in practical systems. To combat the challenges, in this paper we propose a novel embedding and matching architecture to directly learn binary hash code for each node. Hash codes offer us an efficient index to filter out the candidate node pairs for anchor link prediction. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real world large-scale datasets demonstrate that our proposed method has high time efficiency without loss of competitive prediction accuracy in anchor link prediction.


In modern high power medium voltage drives, multi-level converters are increasingly used. By employing topology modifications recently introduced, soft-switching technology can be applied to multi-level converters. Thereby, the switching losses are reduced significantly. As a result, the switching frequency can be increased thereby reducing the output filter size. However, common converter controls have to be modified. In this paper, a flexible control platform is presented that allows rapid prototyping of soft-switching topologies. An analysis of different ARCP topologies showed that all switching commands can be synthesized with synchronized signals of two-level ARCP converters. Therefore, a flexible state-machine for 2-level converters was developed first, which can also be used to build controls for multi-level topologies. It supports drivers with built-in intelligence as well as the control of additional switches that are required in some ARCP neutral-point-clamped (NPC) topologies. The switching commands for the state machines can be generated by standard multi-level modulation methods. Illegal switching states are filtered and multiple simultaneous commutations per phase are prevented for ARCP NPC converters. To verify the functionality, the control scheme was realized in an FPGA and a completely modular test-converter was developed. It can be used to quickly implement all common multi-level topologies and test different modulation strategies. Some experimental results are presented in this paper


Fingerprint based authentication systems play a vital role in identifying an individual. The existing systems depend on specific feature points. Designing a reliable fingerprint authentication system is very challenging, since not all fingerprint information is available. Further, the information obtained is not always accurate due to cuts, scars, sweat, distortion and various skin conditions. Moreover, feature detection and description algorithms are typically computationally intensive, which prevents them from achieving the speed of sight real-time performance. In addition, algorithms differ in their capabilities and some may favor and work better given a specific type of input compared to others. As such, it is essential to compactly report their pros and cons as well as their performances. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on the state-of-the-art and recent advances in feature detection and description algorithms. It compares, reports and discusses their performance and capabilities. And then the Maximally Stable Extremal Regions algorithm is selected to extract the fingerprint features. The result shows that the feature points of fingerprint image are rotation, scale and affine invariant.


Emotions are essential to social interaction between interlocutors. It provides essential meaning to social interaction. It is important to recognise emotions along with verbal cues to fully understand the true meaning of a conversation in a social interaction setting. Several techniques can be applied to recognise emotions in the social interaction setting automatically. Emotions can be recognised and interpreted from the interlocutor's facial cues (e.g., facial expression recognition task) by using a sensor such as a camera. Recognising emotions from facial cues has several problems to be solved. This research aims to model robust emotion recognition from facial cues to recognise emotions (particularly from Asian people), as there is only limited research done in this area. This research aims to propose an emotion recognition model from facial cues by implementing Vision Transformers architecture. The dataset implemented in this research was explicitly performed by local (i.e., Indonesian) actors (The Indonesian Mixed Emotion Dataset - IMED). The results show that the proposed model can achieve the best testing accuracy of 100% with the best training loss of 0.0001, with 0.53 hours of training times for 50 epochs.


Abstract A process for the extraction of tervalent metal cations from 3 M HNO3 highly radioactive waste based on synergetic mixtures of dicarbollide with neutral organophosphonate (dibutyl diethylcarbamoylmethylene phosphonate) is proposed. Due to the great hydrophobicity of dicarbollide anion, the species ML3+ n · 3BCl− is extracted and the extraction in this TRUDIC process decreases with aqueous acidity, contrary to TRUEX process. HL +BCl− is the main particle in the organic phase. The extraction of Cs+, Sr2+, Ba2+, and Ru is low, and the extraction of Zr can be suppressed by citric acid. Possible advantages of the system are discussed. ∗ Present address for J. Rais and permanent address for S. Tachimori: Department of Fuel Safety Research, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Tokai-Mura, Naka-Gun, Ibaraki-Ken, 31911, Japan.


In this paper, we consider a class of cascade systems of \begin{document}$ n $\end{document} -coupled degenerate parabolic equations with singular lower order terms. We assume that both degeneracy and singularity occur in the interior of the space domain and we focus on null controllability problem. To this aim, we prove first Carleman estimates for the associated adjoint problem, then, we infer from it an indirect observability inequality. As a consequence, we deduce null controllability result when a unique distributed control is exerted on the system.


A novel application of near-infrared quantum splitting (NIR QS) that splits one ultraviolet-visible photon into NIR multiphotons can be developed for solar energy conversion. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the underlying mechanism of NIR QS in Ho3+ single- and Ho3+-Yb3+ dual-doped β-NaYF4 by modeling and solving rate and power propagation equation system. The highest quantum efficiency is estimated to be 257% among studied systems. The total amount of output NIR photons may be increased to meet the purpose of potentially enabling a Si-cell with a photoelectric conversion efficiency enhancement. This paper could benefit for further exploring a promising NIR QS system in the exciting field of photonic devices and materials.


In the gas turbine power plants, the images of the flame are obtained from the video image captured by the infrared camera. This flame image is analyzed for image processing, detection, recognition and to understand the combustion condition. The flame image obtained is classified by soft sensors using feed forward neural network trained with Back propagation algorithm (BPA). Classification and other process are done based on the colour of the flame images which are determined by the combustion quality. First for each flame image a feature vector is determined. The feature vector describes 7 features of the flame like brightness of flame, the area of high temperature flame, brightness of high temperature flame, the rate of area of high temperature flame, the flame centroid. Image classification and feature vector is done to measure the temperature and flue gas emission from the colour of the flame obtained from the image. Here 51 sample images are taken for training, testing, and with proposed algorithm which are then recognized and classified.


Time-resolved tunable diode laser spectroscopy has been used to measure the production of HCl in the reaction of OH and ClO radicals. The OH and ClO radicals were formed from the 308 nm laser photolysis of mixtures containing O 3 , Cl 2 , and H 2 O. Computer simulations of the chemistry were used to derive a rate coefficient of (1.25 ′ 0.45) x 10 - 1 2 cm 3 molecule - 1 s - 1 for the title reaction at 298 K. This reaction rate, which corresponds to a branching fraction of (6.5 ′ 3.0)% relative to the currently recommended rate coefficient for the overall reaction, confirms that the reaction will have a substantial impact on the partitioning of chlorine compounds in the stratosphere.


We developed a new numerical model to constrain the interior structure of rocky Exoplanets, and applied it to the nearby planets Proxima Centauri b and Ross-128 b. The recently measured elemental abundances of red dwarfs and Alpha Centauri were utilized to infer the bulk composition of each planet, and to measure their core mass fractions (CMFs). The results of our model predicted that the radius of Proxima b at its minimum mass may be 1.036 ± 0.040 R⊕, and if its mass is as high as 2 M⊕, 1.170 ± 0.040 R⊕. The radius of Ross-128 b at minimum mass may be 1.034 ± 0.040 R⊕, with its radius at an upper bound mass of 2 M⊕ being 1.150 ± 0.040 R⊕. Both planets may have thin mantles with similar conditions to Earth, but not convecting as vigorously. The CMFs might lie in the ranges of 20–59 per cent and 34–59 per cent for Proxima b and Ross-128 b, respectively, making it very likely they have massive iron cores. Their central temperatures may be high enough to partially melt the cores, and possibly generate magnetic fields. If they have magnetic fields at present, they are most likely to be multipolar in nature due to slow rotation speeds resulting from stellar tidal effects. The field strengths were predicted to have values of 0.06–0.23 G for Proxima b, and 0.07–0.14 G for Ross-128 b. If either planet contains more than 10 per cent of their mass in volatiles, magnetic fields would either be non-existent or very weak. The conditions of both planets may be hostile for habitability.


This review is a collection of various methods and observations relevant to structures in three-dimensional systems similar to those responsible for integrability of two-dimensional systems. Particular focus is given to Nambu structures and loop variables naturally appearing in membrane dynamics. While reviewing each topic in more details we emphasize connections between them and speculate on possible relations to membrane integrability.


doubly occupied lands in Eastern Europe. If the destruction of the state brought the physical destruction of Jews, what determined the rescue of certain ones during the Holocaust? Readers learn that only those directly linked to the institution of the state could rescue large numbers of Jews (256). Churches, however, seem to represent an exception. According to Snyder, "churches that enjoyed a close relationship with the state before the war were not active in rescue." (289) Mostly, those Christians who were alienated from the Church before the war were willing to assist Jews (290). Given the current state of the research on the topic of rescue of European Jews, such claims seem to be assumptions that still await to be confirmed by further research. One of the book's most interesting contributions involves a novel take on Adolf Hitler's worldview. Lebensraum, according to Snyder, was not approached as a territory or living space to be conquered by Hitler, but rather as a "plan to restore the planet by mass murder..." (324) Starting from the premise that Hitler was a "child of the first globalization" and the generation of the late twentieth century represents the children of a second globalization, Snyder warns us that global climate change and pending environmental issues might easily result in new calls for global solutions. When the Great Depression was looming around the globe, Hitler offered Europeans a simplistic explanation: the Jews, global enemy, were responsible. The question is who will become the new global enemy when civilians around the world will suffer due to shrinking global resources, unpredictable climate change and famine? Snyder's fear that shrinking global resources could lead to another genocide should not come as a surprise. His haunting conclusion, however, does not sufficiently resonate in preceding chapters. Throughout his book, the readers are fascinated by eye-opening comparative perspectives, thought-provoking claims about Eastern Europeans' collaboration with the Nazis, and the poignant links between statelessness and protection of human rights. However, not a single page was devoted to a thorough analysis of the environmental or economic issues to provide sound support for his conclusion. Apart from this criticism, Snyder's unique perspectives and deft analysis of the relationship between statehood and genocide will undoubtedly open a platform for an engaging scholarly debate.


An effective covert communication system can be achieved based on steganography in stream media such as VoIP (Voice over IP), and the LSB-based (Least-Significant-Bit) methods are the most popular strategies. However, LSB embedding in the flat regions of the speech could inevitably bring about the perceptible distortion leading to the degradation of speech quality. Besides, LSB methods are vulnerable for manifold corresponding steganalysis like RS detection. This paper presents an adaptive steganography scheme that selects lower embedding bit rate in the flat segments, while the sharp segments can camouflage more secret message. Further, synchronous overflow judgment and the tradeoff between hiding requirement and speech quality are also taken into account to construct a practical covert communication system on G.711 VoIP. Extensive experiments showed that the proposed adaptive scheme outperformed the LSB and could evade RS steganalysis. This proposed scheme is efficient, simple and can be used in real-time VoIP network with high hiding capacity.


Wildfire is an important natural disturbance agent, shaping mixed conifer forest structure throughout the Southwestern United States. Yet, fire exclusion caused by late 19th century livestock grazing followed by human fire suppression has altered forest structure by increasing forest density, basal area, and canopy cover in recent decades. Changes in the abundance and vertical and horizontal continuity of fuels have increased the potential for high-severity fire, which construes a major regional forest management concern. In May 2016, the Coyote Fire burned through a network of permanent forest monitoring plots in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This study employed a repeated-measures sampling design to quantify the effects of low- to moderate-severity wildfire on forest stand structure, species composition, fuels, and tree mortality using hierarchical cluster analysis, non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS), and paired t-tests. The 2016 Coyote Fire reduced live tree density in small-diameter size classes, but produced minimal changes in canopy stand structure and fuel loadings, despite nearly a century of fire exclusion and pre-fire tree densities that were four-times higher they were prior to last major wildfire in the early 1900s. Small-diameter surface fuel loadings (1 h and 10 h fuels) did not significantly change after fire, although 1000 h fuels increased significantly (p < 0.05), likely from the addition of new fuel from fire-caused tree mortality. While the wildfire reduced live tree density, the nMDS analysis indicated that the wildfire did not trigger major shifts in tree species composition. However, the wildfire triggered significant decreases in seedlings and small-diameter trees (<30 cm DBH) (p < 0.05). Although the fire thinned the forest, the persistence of fuels and increases in dead small-diameter trees heighten the need for additional fuel reduction treatments to mitigate the risk of future high-severity fire under extreme fire weather. Management of low-severity fire in this forest type may provide opportunities to reduce fuels and restore more desirable stand structure to enhance forest resilience to landscape fire.


The displacement of [3H]‐aldosterone, [3H]‐dexamethasone, and [3H]‐cortisol by 17αL‐hydroxyprogesterone, 17αL, 20αL‐dihydroxyprogesterone and 17α, 20β‐dihydroxyprogesterone from ovine cytosol receptors indicates that they do not occupy classical mineralocorticoid or glucocorticoid receptors.


The article considers the current state of the grain market in the Russian Federation, its structure and export potential. The current state of grain commodity exchange trading in Russia, its problems and development prospects are assessed.


ABSTRACT The objectives were to assess the use of near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) as a tool for estimating nutrient compositions of corn kernel, and to apply an NIRS-based indium gallium arsenide array detector to the system for collecting spectra and analyzing calibration equations using equipments designed for field application. Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) was employed to develop calibration equations based on representative data sets. The kennard-stone algorithm was applied to induce a calibration set and a validation set. As a result, the method for structuring a calibration set significantly affected prediction accuracy. The prediction of chemical composition of corn kernel resulted in the following (kennard-stone algorithm: relative) moisture (R 2 =0.82, RMSEP=0.183), crude protein (R 2 =0.80, RMSEP=0.142), crude fat (R 2 =0.84, RMSEP= 0.098), crude fiber (R 2 =0.74, RMSEP=0.098), and crude ash (R 2 =0.81, RMSEP=0.048). Result of this experiment showed the potential of NIRS to predict the chemical composition of corn kernel.(


The author reviews the available literature and believes that the hitherto dominant theory of airborne routes of infection is unproven and is strongly objected to by the clinic.


Abstract The aim of this study was to determine the mediating effect of learning engagement on the relationship between perceived teacher feedback and college students' academic performance, and the moderating effect of assessment characteristics on the relationship between perceived teacher feedback and learning engagement. A sample of 2,458 students in a university in mainland China was studied. Results indicated that perceived teacher feedback had a positive impact on students' academic performance; learning engagement had a mediating effect on the relationship between perceived teacher feedback and students' academic performance; and assessment frequency, difficulty and diversity had moderating effects between perceived teacher feedback and learning engagement. With the three factors of high frequency, difficulty and diversity assessment, perceived teacher feedback was more likely to improve students' learning engagement. In contrast, feedback without these three factors could decrease or have no impact on students' learning engagement. This indicates that teacher feedback indirectly affects college students' academic performance by promoting their learning engagement, and is more effective when the frequency, difficulty or diversity of assessments is high.


It provides an apparatus for controlling a light source comprising at least one light source for emitting an optical signal in the reference signal and a discrete frequency in the discrete frequency. The device is optically coupled to a light source, having designed a photodetector to receive light signals. The apparatus includes at least one lock-in system coupled to the light detector, and each of the light source for receiving a reference signal and from the light source receives the optical signal from the light detector. Each lock-in system, based on the optical signal and the reference signal to produce an intensity value of the plateau. Lock-in system, it is possible to have a filter coupled to the frequency multiplier and the frequency multiplier, the intensity values are processed by the optical signal and the frequency multiplier, which is filtered to remove the non-dc portion it is the product of the reference signal.


Recently, due to the abundance of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in municipal sewage sludge (MSS), the energy potential of MSS has become increasingly prominent. Economically developed regions possess more financial and policy support advantages for the development of MSS energy recovery technology; hence, the selection of the appropriate sludge treatment and disposal technologies to maximize the energy potential of MSS is of great importance. In this study, the energy recovery potential of MSS was evaluated on the basis of regional economies, sludge analysis, a main sludge energy reuse technology review and legislative profile analysis. As the most commonly adopted technology, incineration had a lower energy potential, which may be ascribed to the high moisture content, high disposal costs and difficulties in in situ energy recovery. In contrast, the energy potential for anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis and gasification was relatively high. By conducting a SWOT-FAHP analysis, management evaluation of these four technologies was carried out from the following four perspectives: problem solving, technology development, ecological environment and laws and regulations. Pyrolysis was evaluated to be the most suitable technology from the technical and environmental perspectives because its products had high energy potential and avoided heavy metal problems. The obstacles and problems that pyrolysis technology might encounter in commercial applications in the future are discussed. With this energy-generating, low energy consumption, low-pollution sludge energy reuse technology, the potential of sludge pyrolysis would be high in the long run. These results revealed the factors affecting the energy recovery potential of sludge, and comprehensively evaluated the technologies from the aspects of problem solving, environmental impact, technology development and law, the optimal solution obtained could provide reference on the management decision of sludge disposal technology for economically developed areas in the future.


Both theoretical models and experimental results have indicated that a body surrounded by plasma is negatively charged to a potential around 2-3 times greater than the thermal potential of the ambient plasma. This potential difference shows that the body holds some extra electric charge. In this paper, we formulate an expression to compute the extra electric charge from the ambient plasma. It is shown that the total electric charge on a body basically depends on its size and the characteristics of the ambient plasma. When the body size is big or the ambient plasma is dense, the extra electric charge is large. Since all solar planets are imbedded within the solar wind plasma, they may also be charged due to the same physics. Analyzing the charging behavior of planets, we find that the solar planets are significantly charged. The circular electric currents or charge flows caused by planets's spinning produce magnetic fields. The magnetic fields predicted by the present space charge model basically agree with the measurements on the global magnetic fields of planets (including the Moon). Also, the polarity biases and reversals of planet magnetic fields are discussed. Therefore, a possible explanation for the origin of the magnetic fields of planets is proposed.


. In this note, we prove that if a subharmonic function ∆ u ≥ 0 has pure second derivatives ∂ ii u that are signed measures, then their negative part ( ∂ ii u ) − belongs to L 1 (in particular, it is not singular). We then show that this improvement of regularity cannot be upgraded to L p for any p > 1. We finally relate this problem to a natural question on the one-sided regularity of solutions to the obstacle problem with rough obstacles. 35B65, 35R35.


Anionic dye complexation has been used to measure the concentrations of cationic polyelectrolytes in water. The colloidal form of the complex interferes with spectrophotometric measurements and must be removed. Advantage is taken of the hydrophobic character of the complex to facilitate its removal with Freon.


The results of the administrative decision making on the basis of the decision tree are given in the article. The task of the intensification efficiency management at the agro-industrial complex enterprise is considered. The research results have the important meaning in the choice of the production intensification directions.


With wireless resource virtualization, multiple Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) can be supported over a shared physical wireless network and traffic loads in a Base Station (BS) can be easily migrated to more power-efficient BSs in its neighborhood such that idle BSs can be turned off or put into sleep to save power. In this paper, we propose to leverage load migration and BS consolidation for green communications and consider a power-efficient network planning problem in virtualized Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) with the objective of minimizing total power consumption while meeting traffic load demand of each MVNO. First, we present a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) to provide optimal solutions. Then we present a general optimization framework to guide algorithm design, which solves two subproblems, channel assignment and load allocation, in sequence. For channel assignment, we present a (Δ1)-approximation algorithm (where Δ is the maximum number of BSs a BS can potentially interfere with). For load allocation, we present a polynomial-time optimal algorithm for a special case where BSs are power-proportional as well as two effective heuristic algorithms for the general case. In addition, we present an effective heuristic algorithm that jointly solves the two subproblems. It has been shown by extensive simulation results that the proposed algorithms produce close-to-optimal solutions, and moreover, achieve over 45% power savings compared to a baseline algorithm that does not migrate loads or consolidate BSs.


While it is well understood that thermal expansion dominates global mean steric sea level rise, climate models show large differences in spatial patterns. This study aims to decompose regional steric sea level rise in the North Atlantic into thermal and saline effects in a fully coupled model. In contrast to other studies we focus on the differences between two climate change scenarios and establish a link between the sea level changes and the differences in the response of the overturning circulation. While overturning is reduced in the phase of the greenhouse gas increase, differences between the scenarios are not significant until the stabilization in the 22nd century. The influence from thermosteric and halosteric contributions on the meridional density gradient is of the same size during the increase of greenhouse gas concentrations. The haline effect becomes prominent afterwards, reducing the meridional density gradient and preventing the overturning from recovery.


A sensor part comprises multiple sensor cells which, in an area for detecting pulsation of a subject to be diagnosed, detect the pulsation via a sensor with pressure being applied to the area and which are provided on the sensor in a matrix. A diagnostic device acquires a distribution of pulse waves on the basis of pulsations detected with the applied pressure being constant, identifies multiple observation locations within the area on the basis of the pulse wave distribution, and also identifies the pulse wave with the maximum amplitude in the multiple observation locations identified by increasing the pressure. A score of the pulsation in each observation location that is quantified on the basis of the pressure when the pulse wave with the maximum amplitude is obtained in each observation location is calculated and the scores from the multiple observation locations are combined. On the basis of the combined score, by referring to a database which pre-stores inferred conditions of the subject to be diagnosed with respect to the score, the condition (zheng) of the subject to be diagnosed is inferred, and a diagnostic result of the subject to be diagnosed from the inferred condition (zheng) of the subject to be diagnosed is generated and output.


: The work was carried out at Sids Horticulture Research Station, Beni-Sueif Governorate during the two successive fall seasons of 2011and 2012 to study the effect of organic manures, i.e., sheep manure ,farmyard manure and mixture between of both them ( a mixture at 1:1) at the levels of 10 and 20 m 3 /fed in presence of fertilization with rock phosphate and feldspar rates viz., (15P 2 O 5 + 25K 2 O , 30P 2 O 5 + 50K 2 O and 45P 2 O 5 + 75K 2 O) kg/fed on plant growth, total chlorophyll in leaves, protein and fiber percentage in green pods, green pod and dry seed yields and their components as well as chemical constituents in dry seeds of common bean cv. "Bronco" Results showed that the application of organic manures had no significant effect on plant height and leaves total chlorophyll during the two growing seasons. Sheep manure produced higher number of branches, protein percentage in green pods, pod length, number of seeds per pod and seed contents of phosphorus and potassium in the two growing seasons, Also, it increased leaf area in the second season, nitrogen and protein percentage of dry seeds in the first season. Also, farmyard manure improved fiber percentage in the two seasons. Whereas, applying sheep manure + farmyard manure significantly increased plant dry weight, diameter and weight of green pods, green pod yield , number of pods per plant, weight of 100- seeds and dry seed yield during the two growing seasons. Also, it gave the highest dry pod weight and weight of seeds per pod in the first season. highest of all plant growth characters, leaves contents of chlorophyll, protein percentage in green pods, green pods and seed yields and their components as well as dry seed contents of nitrogen, protein, phosphorus and potassium during the two growing seasons. On the other hand, organic manure level at the rate of 10 m 3 /fed increased fiber percentage in green pods in the two growing seasons. Fertilization with rock phosphate and feldspar with high rate ( 45P 2 O 5 + 75K 2 O kg/fed) markedly increased plant height, number of branches, leaf area, protein and fiber percentage in green pods and seed contents of nitrogen, protein, phosphorus and potassium during the two growing seasons. Plant dry weight, total chlorophyll in leaves, green pod and dry seed yields and their components were significantly increased with rock phosphate combined with feldspar at 30P 2 O 5 + 50 K 2 O kg /fed during the two growing seasons. It may be recommended to fertilize common bean cv. "Bronco" with sheep manure + farmyard manure at the rate of 20 m 3 /fed (from total mixed) and rock phosphate combined with feldspar at the rate of 30P 2 O 5 + 50K 2 O kg /fed , to pro-duce high green pod, dry seed yields and their components.


PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To balance an organized rolling stock, improve redundancy attributed to operation, and reduce battery capacity in the organized rolling stock with a battery-driven and inverter-controlled car connected as a train, and to provide provide the most suitable train to a non-electrified line. SOLUTION: This rolling stock has at least one motor car, mounted with an AC motor to drive the car, an inverter to drive it at a variable speed, and a plurality of trailer cars with no motor nor inverter mounted. Batteries are mounted separately on at least two trailer cars, to supply DC power of the batteries to the inverter of the motor car. In rolling stock with a plurality of motor cars and trailer cars connected respectively, at least two trailer cars are mounted with batteries, whose terminals are parallel-connected through a common power line across the respective trailer cars, thereby supplying power to the inverters of the respective motor cars through the power line.


It considers three views. One is the view of J. N. Keynes andLionel Robbins, who argue that pure economic theory has little or noth-ing to say about policy, but that a separate branch of economics existsthat should consider such policy issues.A second view is that ofAlfredMarshallandA.C.Pigou,whoarguethata"realistic"theorycanbeusedto guide judgments on policy. The third view, which is most closely re-lated to an "economics of control" view set out by Abba Lerner, con-nects pure theory, policy, and the role of government in the economy ina more direct way, drawing implications about policy and the role of thestate from pure theory.Thisessaydiscussestheevolutionofthesethreeviewsandarguesthatthe first two are actually much more compatible than they at first seem.They both can be seen as a "muddling through" approach to policy, inwhich pure economic theory does not give much guidance for policy.The third view, in which pure theory gives direct guidance for policy, isincompatiblewiththeothertwo.Theessayconcludesbyarguingthatthecurrent textbook presentation of policy follows the third view and that,


Elderly are now an important number of habitants in the overall population. The
National Health Policy for Elderly People provides the need to adapt the curriculum,
and insert, in various levels of formal education, contents focused on aging process. The
lack of a proper training compromises the solving conduct of health professionals in
elderly care. Therefore, it is necessary that the aging theme be included in the
curriculum of several undergraduate courses in health so that the analyzed content in the
training of professionals focuses not only on common diseases of aging but also
contemplates, among others, the social aspects and public policies directed to elderly
people.
Given that higher education institutions have the responsibility to train skilled
professionals to meet health needs of society, this study aimed to analyze the theme of
inclusion "Elderly Health" in undergraduate courses in heath from the position occupied
by teachers at the university field. The purpose was to identify contents and practices
that focused on elderly health in undergraduate courses; to analyze the position of the
teachers involved with elderly health in these courses and to know the conceptions of
these teachers about the oriented training directed toward this theme and the importance
given to it in health education.
The theoretical and methodological framework of this study was the French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu's sociology forms a set of notions and concepts
which, usually articulated, are employed in various fields of knowledge. This study
considered the position of involved agents with elderly health at the university field
could be understood because of their membership or coping strategies adopted in
relation to the social order established within the field.
The qualitative approach study included semi-structured interviews with public
university teachers in Rio de Janeiro for all undergraduate courses in the health field
whose curriculum guidelines referred directly to the aging or to elderly, with the
exception of medicine. Physical Education, Nursing and Nutrition courses were studied.
Teachers developed activities related to the "Elderly Health" theme, either through
mandatory or elective subjects, preceptorship of internship and mentoring students in
projects under their direction.
The theme is secondary in the career of teachers that work in the field, which are
mostly newly doctors and few are accredited in post-graduate studies programs. It was concluded that the position of the field teachers at the university campus is one of the
determining factors for the low expression of the theme in the curriculum. The purpose
was to observe the search of rapprochement with power and investment spheres in the
accumulation of notoriety symbolic capital by these agents. The theme is rarely
addressed in university education in the studied courses. The teachers involved with the
theme keep isolated and poorly articulated researches and activities and with the need to
establish partnerships and cooperation networks more consistent for the development
and visibility of the operating area.


The aim of this study is to examine the national and international master's and doctoral theses related to pre-school education environments. In this study, carried out by content analysis is used convenience sample, is used in the selection of the study group. Researches which investigate was published in "BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)", "OATD (Open Access Theses & Dissertations)", "NZResearch.org.nz", "ProQuest Dissertations and Theses ", "OpenDissertations.org", "EThOS", "DiVA", "Trove" and "Ulusal Tez Merkezi" database. A "Thesis Examination Form" was developed by the researchers for the purpose of the study in order to examine the Master's and PhD theses reached. As a result of the study, it was determined that 76 of the theses were Master's and 38 of them were PhD theses. It has been seen that the majority of the theses examined were published in the field of education, and the qualitative research method was mostly preferred as the research method. It has been determined that most of the studies are conducted with children and teachers in terms of their distribution according to the sample size. In the theses examined, it was seen that interview and observation methods were mostly preferred as data collection tools. As the results of the theses were examined, it was seen that the majority of the studies identified the deficiencies in pre-school education institutions and that children preferred the natural environment and unstructured materials. Finally, it was found that pre-service/in-service training for teachers was frequently repeated in the suggestions of the theses examined.


Background: Snakebites are a very serious issue that affects people all around the world. The world health organization (WHO) has recently classified snake bites as one of the neglected tropical diseases.Methods: It was an observational, prospective and cross-sectional study conducted at the department of general medicine, (Rajendra institute of medical sciences, Ranchi). A total of 60 patients suffering with first time snakebite were selected for this study by using a purposive sampling technique. Demographic data of the 60 selected cases were recorded in pre-designed standard study forms by means of structured personal interview of patients and attendants after taking informed consent.Results: The mean age ± standard deviation of participants' age was 37.35±13.123. There were 61.7% tribal people and 38.3% non-tribal people. Out of 60 cases included in this study, 93 % were from rural area and only 7% belonged to urban areas. The sociodemographic analysis showed that 93% patients were belonging to lower socioeconomic status and 7% were belonging to middle socioeconomic statusConclusions: The present study concluded that majority of the snakebite fresh cases in Jharkhand belonged to male gender. Majority of cases fell in the age range of 16-48 years, majority of cases belonged to tribal community and rural areas.


To investigate the association between cigarette smoking and retinal capillary plexus (RCP) using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and to examine whether potential vascular risk factors could impact their association.


A continuous-time version of the Markowitz mean-variance portfolio selection model is proposed and analyzed for a market consisting of one bank account and multiple stocks. The market parameters, including the bank interest rate and the appreciation and volatility rates of the stocks, depend on the market mode that switches among a finite number of states. The random regime switching is assumed to be independent of the underlying Brownian motion. This essentially renders the underlying market incomplete. A Markov chain modulated diffusion formulation is employed to model the problem. Using techniques of stochastic linear-quadratic control, mean-variance efficient portfolios and efficient frontiers are derived explicitly in closed forms, based on solutions of two systems of linear ordinary differential equations. Related issues such as a minimum-variance portfolio and a mutual fund theorem are also addressed. All the results are markedly different from those for the case when there is no regime switching. An interesting observation is, however, that if the interest rate is deterministic, then the results exhibit (rather unexpected) similarity to their no-regime-switching counterparts, even if the stock appreciation and volatility rates are Markov-modulated.


Objectives: B-Mode ultrasound is a morphological examination tool that provides very little information about the physical characteristics of the tissues examined. Quantitative tissue strain analysis using acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) technology provides measurable values of the stiffness of the tissues examined. The aim of our work was to determine the shear wave velocity values of normal endometrium and myometrium. Materials: We recruited gynecologically asymptomatic women to this observational pilot study attending at our outpatient breast clinic. Methods: The ARFI procedure (Virtual Touch tissue quantification; Siemens Medical Solutions) was performed at six different points in the uterus of each woman recruited; two points in the endometrium and four points in the myometrium, including both anterior and posterior uterine walls. In order to check intra-observer reproducibility of the measurements, two readings were obtained at each of the examined points with a time interval of a few seconds between each reading. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to compare the two different readings at each of the points examined in order to test for intra-observer reproducibility; p values of <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 32 women were recruited. The age range was 16–68 years with a median age of 42 years. Of the women recruited, 53.1% (n =17) were amenorrhoeic: either menopausal or due to the intake of progestin-only hormonal contraceptives. The menopausal status did not have any significant influence on the shear wave velocity measurements. The mean readings in the endometrium were 1.96, 2.03, 2.04 and 2.08 m/s while in the myometrium they were 2.78, 2.85, 2.87, 2.89, 2.91, 2.99, 3.2 and 3.23 m/s. Conclusions: The ARFI procedure is a novel, reproducible ultrasonographic modality that can solve some diagnostic dilemmas in the field of gynecology and we are currently looking towards using transvaginal transducers fitted with this technology.


This Research study is conducted to elaborate the role of Khushhali Bank of Pakistan for poverty alleviation. The core objective of this study is to highlight the ways which may cause to reduce poverty, to improve the living standards of the poor people on sustainable basis and to enhance the economic prosperity and growth. As micro credit is a substitute for formal loan, so this study is conducted to make people self sufficient and self employed and expose the basic features of micro credit financing. Primary data through Questionnaire is used for data collection, filled by a sample of 150 customers of this institution. The questionnaire is developed on the basis of personal observations and the information which are provided by bank officials. The questionnaires were filled by the customers of the Khushhali Bank. Conclusion of this study reveals that this sector is effectively disbursing Micro credit according to the needs of people who have no or less access to formal loan from different financial institutions. Moreover this study also highlighted a few recommendations including expansion of this system and making possible its access to the people of rural and urban areas along with introducing effective working system.


This paper shows the design and implementation of services for Evolutionary Computation following the Service Oriented Architecture paradigm. This paradigm allows independence over language and distribution mechanism. This development is challenging because some technological and design issues, such as abstract design or unordered execution. To solve them, OSGiLiath, an implementation of an abstract Service Oriented Architecture for Evolutionary Algorithms, is used to develop new interoperable services taking into account these restrictions.


The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is an important insect pest of soybean, a major crop in South Dakota. First discovered in the USA in 2000, it was accidentally introduced from Asia and spread quickly throughout Midwest. Insecticides are currently the primary control method for this pest, but biological control—control of pests through beneficial species—is a promising management approach. Soybean aphid is seldom a problem in its native Asia largely because of a group of natural enemies that feed on it. Universities and USDA entomologists have identified the Asian parasitoid Binodoxys communis (Gahan) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) as a promising species to release in the US for biological control of the soybean aphid. Since 2007 South Dakota has been part of a multi-state project to introduce B. communis to the region. In the summer of 2008 seven Midwestern states participated in parasitoid releases. Releases in South Dakota were a cooperative effort between SDSU scientists, Extension Educators, and South Dakota producers. We released B. communis in ten soybean fields in ten counties in eastern South Dakota. We inoculated release sites with a small number of parasitoids which might increase and spread over time. Two weeks after release we recovered parasitoids in eight of ten fields.


Presents a case study of the application of principles of concept categorization and arrangement of ideas in a specialized database forming a component of an information system MEDIS+ designed to support research, education and training in the medical /health sciences. MEDIS+ consists of 3 main database ses: MEDIS, IIS, CHEM. MEDIS is composed of 3 types of case history records of hospital patients-general, pituitary diseases, tumours. Only the MEDIS component is discussed


Increasing evidence links obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) to cognitive decline. Autonomic dysfunction assessed by heart rate variability is a promising early biomarker of cognitive impairment in populations without major neurocognitive disorder (MND). We aimed to determine whether nocturnal pulse rate variability (PRV) extracted from oximetry signal and OSA severity could predict MND onset among older OSA patients.


Restorative effects of natural views are well established. Views to nature can improve health, vitality, mood, and cognitive performance, as well as reduce stress. Interestingly, similar effects have been found for daylight (Boyce et al., 2003; Partonen & Lonnqvist, 2000). Because exposure to nature and daylight often co-occur (both outdoors and indoors through windows), disentangling the effects of these two determinants is a non-trivial issue. In the present study, we conjointly investigated effects of view content and light on implicit and explicit preferences for environments differing on three dimensions: environment (nature-urban), weather (sunny-cloudy), and lightness (light-dark). Preferences have been linked to restorative potential (Ulrich, 1983; Van den Berg et al., 2003). We expected natural, sunny, and light photos to be preferred over their counterparts, indicating restorative potential of these characteristics.


Beyond doubt, soundscaping is on the rise. Soundscape investigations are increasingly performed and soundscape research takes place extensively in recent years. Unfortunately, there is little agreement about adequate measurement procedures, reporting requirements and soundscape indicators. Although the general openness, interdisciplinary roots and multi-dimensionality of the soundscape approach are very important to preserve, a certain consensus about measurement procedures, reporting requirements and analyses tools is needed. In particular, a common denominator with respect to measurement procedures is required, since due to the diversity of measurement procedures the comparability and compatibility of soundscape investigations is very limited. The paper will refer to recent soundscape studies and their outcomes and will discuss the applied methods and procedures. Since the standardization of soundscape aspects is already under way (ISO/DIS 12913), e.g. regarding terms, minimum reporting requirements and measurement protocols, a thorough discussion of soundscape methods and procedures is imperative.


This article describes how Lean manufacturing techniques were applied to a mature product, in a mature industry; it follows a previous article "Application of Finite Capacity Techniques in an ERP Environment" by the same author, published in 'Control' , July/August 2002. PRODUCT BACKGROUND Capacitors have been manufactured for around 100 years, and very little has changed to the design. Basically the capacitor is a series of 'elements' encased in a steel box and impregnated with special oil as in Figure 1. The elements are wound from reels of polythene film and aluminium foil between 5 and 16 micron thick. The manufacturing process is shown in Figure 2. Each capacitor can have between 10 to 60 elements. Each capacitor element is wound from one foil roll and up to 4 film rolls. The wound length of element, and the film and foil thickness will be different for each capacitor and customised for each customer order. The batch sizes will vary from 1 to 600. A truly, customised environment. The winding speed is constant at 40 elements per hour. However, as the number of elements for each customer order is different and the soldering time changes with the size and complexity of the capacitor, capacity planning and SFC (Shop Floor Control) are complex. The site has approx 100 employees working on the HV capacitors, many of whom are long serving with a wealth of experience and knowledge. The site was organised functionally by department with little cross-skilling or labour flexibility.


The analysis and comparison is made of stocking type and mode in existing alumina production in China.The paper presents the stocking and proportioning way most suitable to Zhongzhou Branch in recent years and puts forward new proportioning way as well.


To improve the robustness of the simple least-significant-bit(LSB) substitution method,a new information hiding algorithm based on LSB substitution is proposed.This method first embeds secret messages into the cover-images through the simple LSB substitution method and obtains the original stego-images.And then it employs the discrete binary version of particle swarm optimization(PSO) algorithm to adjust the gray scale of the original stego-images.By doing so,the RS steganalysis method can not detect the existence of secret messages in the revised stego-images.The experiments show that the proposed method is robust to RS steganalysis and performs steadily.


This paper discusses secondary school pupils' understandings and experiences of diversity and communities in England. It draws on qualitative data from a field study conducted in 8 schools as part of a larger project funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. The larger project, which included a review of literature, analysis of Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LYPSE) data and a national survey of school staff, aimed to explore current thinking and practice about citizenship and community cohesion. For this article field notes, and 16 audio-recorded focus group discussions with year 10 and year 11 students were analysed thematically, through multi-disciplinary team dialogue, informed by literature on diversity, community cohesion, belonging and citizenship education. Despite some variation in responses across schools, the results clearly demonstrate that student discourses of diversity grapple with notions of sameness and assimilation. We argue that citizenship education practice must be informed by robust research that addresses boundary notions and practices of identity and citizenship.


Charles Brockden Brown may have felt the belated effect of the American Revolution far more keenly and directly than any other American writer. Born a Quaker in 1771 in an increasingly antipatriarchal, Whiggish Philadelphia that was throwing off the legacy of William Penn as ruthlessly as it was seeking independence from the Crown, and whose raging paranoia needed to see conspiracy in parliament and pacifism, Brown experienced revolution as a horror that came "out of the blue" (xix). As Peter Kafer recounts in his forceful prologue, that horror began in 1777 when Brown's father, Elijah, with twenty-five other Philadelphia Quakers and alleged loyalists blacklisted by the John Adams-led Congressional Committee on Spies, was arrested in his home, placed in an open cart with his fellow traitors, and ridden through the streets of the city and out to a wilderness exile in western Virginia that would last for nearly a year. According to Kafer, a distinctly and definitively American version of gothic was born when the "revolutionary reverberations" (66) of the 1790s rendered irrepressible Brown's traumatic memories of a childhood scarred by the Revolution. For Brown, as for the young Republic, the postrevolutionary 1790s were, fundamentally, a posttraumatic decade. The persistent and deeply anxious hypervigilance over the contagion of French radicalism and the conspiracies of Jacobins, the plagues of yellow fever that grotesquely embodied the worst nightmares of a haunted Republic, the spread of radical rationalism with the rise of Godwinism and Jeffersonian republicanism, the return of militant mobs to the streets of Philadelphia and New York City-all the sublime terror and temporal confusion of a society poised on the verge of beginning the world again were to Brown a traumatic repetition of innocence and stability lost to the violence of Whig paranoia. The great achievement of Kafer's book is that it gives readers an astonishingly overdue reconstruction of the upside-down world and the


Coastal area land reclamation is a policy with various benefits, including its potential to increase economic growth. However, reclamation also potentially has adverse impacts on the environment, including increasing pressure on biodiversity, natural resources and natural ecosystems, and the most common problem is land subsidence. This study uses time-lapse microgravity anomaly to ascertain the distribution of gravity and vertical gradient anomaly in order to map the subsidence characteristics occurring in the Manado reclamation area. From the research that has been previously conducted, the positive gravity anomaly is spread around Megamall-Multimart to the north of Monaco Bay and on the southern side of Manado Town Square (Mantos). Positive anomaly values range from 3 to 29.7 μGal. The negative anomaly values are scattered around the Mantos and Megamas separating bridge and at some points around the Whiz Prime Hotel, Menora Church and towards the Pohon Kasih Megamas area. The reclaimed areas generally experience subsidence accompanied by a reduction in groundwater mass (Megamall and Mantos) due to the use of the groundwater by the community in these areas. Uplifts also occur at some points in the reclamation area of Megamas as a result of the occurrence of land subsidence. Longer-term research is needed to determine whether there is an increase in the rate of land subsidence in the Manado reclamation area. Over a longer period of time it can also be established whether there are other factors which affect land subsidence. Other geodetic methods to monitor subsidence, such as levelling, InSAR and GPS survey, which have been conducted in other locations, are also needed to obtain more detailed information about the land subsidence in this area.


The difficulties involved in a detailed analysis of the mechanism of cell injury may hardly assert themselves more strongly than in the branch of functional pathology that deals with the effect of radiation on the cell. Owing to the discontinuous quantum nature of radiation, the primary changes will appear at random in the irradiated matter. Penetrating ra diation affects all elements of the cell — substances being destroyed and new ones arising in a chaotic manner. Nevertheless, the living cells show merely a limited number of reactions, which do not differ from those induced by other »noxious» agencies. The reaction of cells to injury is specific — i. e., depending more or less on the character of the injurious agent — as well as non-specific or alike to all agents. The object of the present working hypothesis is merely the unspecific or general reaction of cells to injury. Any change in the surroundings of the cell acts as an irritant, but the injury to the cell does not commence till the irritant attains a certain potency. As the threshold value for the irritant naturally depends on the state of the cell at the given moment, the mechanism of the injury to the cell can


Children with chronic illness and their families are at a higher risk for the development of mental disorders, and these may negatively affect the psychosocial development of children at different developmental stages. Mental disorders in children or their families affect the compliance in the treatment of chronic somatic illness and consequently cause higher disability. The present article describes various ways in which a chronic illness can influence mental states of children and their families, as well as the role of family member's mental disorder in treatment compliance. It also describes the role of the child and adolescent psychiatrist in the management of these children and their families.


We thank Drs Gonçalves and Andrade for their interest in our paper.1 They raise an important question: if there is dosedependent association with primary and secondary endpoints? Post-hoc analyses have several limitations and are of particular concern because are subject to false positive rates arising from multiple testing and lack of power to detect heterogeneity in treatments effects.2 In the MIMO study, the mean dose for the morphine group was 3.46± 1.8 mg, and


Studies the three-phase synchronous signal acquisition and thyristor converter phase trigger circuit of flameproof mining and intrinsically safe AC motor soft-start controller,sends the collected three-phase voltage synchronous signal to PIC16F877A microcontroller to detect the signals from the MCU zero-crossing.PIC16F877A microcontroller controls the thyristor converter trigger pulses based on PID to convert angle α into time by calculating as the zero-crossing point is detected.Practice proves that the form of this synchronous signal extraction and trigger can ensure the normal operation of the motor according to the various needs of soft-start process.


This paper discusses the usefulness of inverter to support bi-directional power flow in grid connected systems. The design includes a bidirectional inverter (single phase) along with a dc-dc converter interfaced with a battery bank or any renewable resources such as solar arrays, fuel cells etc. In this paper, battery bank is used when grid requires additional power to meet out load demand, battery operates in discharge mode and power is fed into the grid. When grid has surplus power, battery operates in charge mode and power is fed into the battery. During discharge mode, power is fed at unity power factor. The simulation studies are carried out with the help of MATLAB/SIMULINK. The hardware is implemented with Arduino Atmel 328 with an AVR microcontroller. The inverter designed is of high efficiency energy output, lower cost.


A nasal septum perforation is an abnormal communication between the right and left nasal cavities resulting from a complete loss of septal cartilage and/or bone and its overlaying mucoperichondrium/ mucoperiosteum on both septal sides. Prior septal surgery is, perhaps, the most common etiology in the Western World and, depending on its size and location, the absence of symptoms is frequent. More than 40 conflicting techniques are described in the literature for its surgical repair, with success rates from 40 to 95%. We discuss the advantages of using local composite grafts, with cartilage grafts and mucosal rotation flaps, under endoscopic visualization, for the closure of symptomatic septal perforations larger than 2cm.


The paper introduces the water--repellent properties and mechanism of the silicone, describing its application in water--based building coating. The paper also briefs the development of research both at home and abroad in recent years, including its advantage of water--repellence as exterior wall paint.


Ecological environmental issues are constantly threatening the survival and development of human society and has been concerned by all walks of life. The seven ecological efficiency factors proposed by the WBCSD are the basis for improving the ecological performance. Through the mapping relationship between ecological efficiency factors and 39 engineering parameters, the ecological issues will be transferred to engineering problems. It is guided by the corresponding design concepts. Furtherly the TRIZ problem solving tools will be applied. Thereby, the optimized solution will be obtained. It can not only effectively reduce the environmental impact of products, but also can shorten the development cycle of green products while satisfying functional requirements. The development of China's agricultural machinery is extensive. This method is used to implement ecological optimization design of the bundling device mounting frame for silage equipment, which has important guiding significance for the development of China's agricultural machinery.


Marssonina blotch in apples and pear scab are diseases that may affect apple and pear production as well as related industries significantly. The range and scale of the economic influence of such outbreaks should be clarified to ensure the sustainable growth of these industries. This study evaluates the direct and indirect economic effects of outbreaks through a partial equilibrium approach and an input–output model; direct influences are measured on the basis of reduced production, and the estimated costs are 34,926 million Korean Won (mKRW) (US$ 29.79 million) and 11,767 mKRW (US$ 10.04 million) for apples and pears, respectively. The indirect effects are determined according to changes in the quantity of apples and pears supplied to the market; these effects can induce social welfare losses. These costs are estimated to be 305,065 mKRW (US$ 259.08 million) for apples infected with Marssonina blotch, which accounts for 186,628 mKRW (US$ 158.50 million) in producer surplus and 118,437 mKRW (US$ 100.58 million) in consumer surplus and 72,693 mKRW (US$ 61.74 million) for pears infected with scab, which accounts for 44,106 mKRW (US$ 37.46 million) in producer surplus and 28,587 mKRW (US$ 24.28 million) in consumer surplus. The findings from this study can be referenced by the Korean government in designing more effective control measures toward sustainable growth of related industry.


In the last 15 years, the triumph of neoliberal politics in the United States has been marked in part by the end of welfare "as we knew it" and the long-coming disappearance of the family wage. Remnants remain, such as work supports like child care assistance. In the current context of high unemployment, legislators are debating eliminating child care subsidies. To understand recent employment experiences and the effects of subsidies on the employment of less educated single mothers, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with recipients of child care subsidies in Oregon and found that the subsidies were imperative to their employment.


This is a review article on the Gauss-Manin system associated to the complete intersection singularities of projection. We show how the logarithmic vector fields appear as coefficients to the Gauss-Manin system.
We examine further how the multiplication table on the Jacobian quotient module calculates the logarithmic vector fields tangent to the discriminant and the bifurcation set . As applications, we establish signature formulae for Euler characteristics of real hypersurfaces and real complete intersections by means of these fields.


Multiple Object Tracking (MOT) has a wide range of applications in surveillance retrieval and autonomous driving. The majority of existing methods focus on extracting features by deep learning and hand-crafted optimizing bipartite graph or network flow. In this paper, we proposed an efficient end-to-end model, Deep Association Network (DAN), to learn the graph-based training data, which are constructed by spatial-temporal interaction of objects. DAN combines Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Motion Encoder (ME) and Graph Neural Network (GNN). The CNNs and Motion Encoders extract appearance features from bounding box images and motion features from positions respectively, and then the GNN optimizes graph structure to associate the same object among frames together. In addition, we presented a novel end-to-end training strategy for Deep Association Network. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of DAN up to the state-of-the-art methods without extra-dataset on MOT16 and DukeMTMCT.


Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the role of Pap test in detecting pre-cancerous lesions in Iraqi women aged 45 years to 85 years, correlate the pap result with patient's age, parity, number of births, number of abortions, chief complaint, and clinical cervical exam, and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the pap test in correlation to histopathological examination. Methods: Women who attended the outpatient gynaecological clinic of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Baghdad medical city, Baghdad, Iraq, from January 2019 to January 2020 who had different chief complaints were selected for the study. Women who are 45 years to 85 years old were included in the study. A Pap smear was used for all women to screen for cervical cancer and the results were reported according to the 2014 Bethesda system. The data analysis was done utilizing statistical package for social sciences version 24 (SPSS v24). Results: Total number of pap smears analyzed were 510, NILM (negative for intraepithelial lesions or malignancy) constituted major group 464/510 (91%) and epithelial cell abnormality were 46/510 (9%), age is significantly correlated with increasing rate of pre-neoplastic and neoplastic lesions in women and the significance of vaginal discharge & postmenopausal bleeding and its association with premalignant changes in the cervix. The sensitivity of Pap test is 94%, the Specificity was 60% and accuracy rate 74%. Conclusion: There is significant correlation between Pap smear abnormality and increasing age, vaginal discharge and postmenopausal bleeding, were evident in this study.


We demonstrate a fully operational 8/spl times/8 array of GaAS RCELEDs integrated directly on top of a silicon grayscale array silicon driver circuit. This integrated optoelectronic circuit allowed 32-level grayscale emission from each individually addressable pixel. A yield of 100% was achieved from the array, with full circuit functionality demonstrated.


Software requirements gathering from users, customers, and stakeholders is the very first and critical step in software development. Requirements are volatile due to change in needs, processes and technology. This makes manual requirement management a challenging task. To overcome such problems, practitioners developed various tools to collect and manage software requirements. Use of these tools can safe efforts and time and remove inconsistencies. In this study, we evaluated different tools which are used to manage and gather requirements during the whole life-cycle of software development or in a particular phase, which includes requirements elicitation, analysis, specification, verification, traceability, document support, graphical representation, and tool integration. Tools are analyzed according to functionality, scope, performance and availability.


Materials and chemical producers require detailed knowledge of surface chemistry for research into new products. One way to understand a surface without damaging it is to bombard it with an electron beam, causing its atoms to emit characteristic X-rays enabling identification. The measurement of these must be precise as many elements emissions are close in energy – traceable reference materials will ensure instruments using this technique are stable and accurate.


This work implements the co-simulation of "RecurDyn" and "Simulink" to study a closed-loop system of half-car suspension with magnetorheological (MR) damper. From the perspective of developing a control system, it is easy to construct the whole system via RecurDyn without deriving equations of motion for the half-car suspension system. In addition the MR damper is built as a subsystem thereby posses portability. Through a numerical example, the effectiveness of co-simulation of RecurDyn and Simulink in reducing the period of time of developing a satisfactory controller for the suspension system is demonstrated.


OBJECTIVE
To elucidate the pathogenic genes in a pedigree with autosomal dominant ichthyosis vulgaris (IV).

METHODS
Linkage analysis was performed by using STR markers in chromosome 1, and mutation detection was used to screen for FLG gene mutation.

RESULTS
A maximum two-point Lod score of 3.46 (theta=0) was obtained at D1S2696. Haplotype analysis placed the critical region in a 15-CM interval defined by D1S2726 and D1S305, but no mutation of FLG was found in our IV patients.

CONCLUSION
The pathologic gene of the IV family locates near D1S2696, and the FLG gene may not ruled out from the pathologic genes.


Background and Purpose: Research suggests that depression may contribute to stroke risk independent of other known risk factors. Most studies examining the impact of depression on stroke have been conducted with predominantly white cohorts, though blacks are known to have higher stroke incidence than whites. The purpose of this study was to examine depressive symptoms as a risk factor for incident stroke in blacks and whites, and determine whether depressive symptomatology was differentially predictive of stroke among blacks and whites. Methods: The REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS), is a national, population-based longitudinal study designed to examine risk factors associated with black-white and regional disparities in stroke incidence. Among 30,239 participants (42% black) accrued from 2003-2007, excluding those lacking follow-up or data on depressive symptoms, 27,557 were stroke-free at baseline. As of the January 2011 data closure, over an average follow-up of 4.6 years, 548 incident stroke cases were verified by study physicians based on medical records review. The association between baseline depressive symptoms (assessed via the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale, 4-item version) and incident stroke was analyzed with Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for demographic factors (age, race, and sex), stroke risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, smoking, atrial fibrillation, and history of heart disease), and social factors (education, income, and social network). Results: For the total sample, depressive symptoms were predictive of incident stroke. The association between depressive symptoms and stroke did not differ significantly based on race (Wald X 2 = 2.38, p = .1229). However, race-stratified analyses indicated that the association between depressive symptoms and stroke was stronger among whites and non-significant among blacks. Conclusions: Depressive symptoms were an independent risk factor for incident stroke among a national sample of blacks and whites. These findings suggest that assessment of depressive symptoms may warrant inclusion in stroke risk scales. The potential for a stronger association in whites than blacks requires further study.


A variety of evolutionary algorithms, operating according to Darwinian concepts, have been proposed to approximately solve problems of common engineering applications. Increasingly common applications involve automatic learning of nonlinear mappings that govern the behavior of control systems. In many cases where robot control is of primary concern, the systems used to demonstrate the effectiveness of evolutionary algorithms often do not represent practical robotic systems. In this paper, genetic programming (GP) is the evolutionary strategy of interest. It is applied to learn fuzzy control rules for a practical autonomous vehicle steering control problem, namely, path tracking. GP handles the simultaneous evolution of membership functions and rule bases for the fuzzy path tracker. As a matter of practicality, robustness of the genetically evolved fuzzy controller is demonstrated by examining the effects of sensor measurement noise and an increase in the robot's nominal forward velocity.


In this project, the properties of Cd(OH)2 in alkaline solution were studied. The processes of oxidation and reduction for Cd(OH)2 in alkaline solution are very complex and even though many studies have been done on the subject, it is not completely understood yet. It is from a Ni-Cd battery point of view, important to understand these processes to prevent loss of active material. The Cd-electrode in the Ni-Cd battery consists of Cd-mass which is a mixture of Cd(OH)2, CdO and additives. The properties of Cd(OH)2 which were studied were, dissolution rate, crystallite size and intactness of the samples. In addition, the composition of the samples was analysed Three experiments were run in total. Tablets of Cd-compounds were produced and put into E22, an alkaline mixture. The solutions were run in water baths of 26, 40 and 60 °C for 14 days and samples were taken at day one, three, five, seven and 14. The composition of the tablets varied throughout the experiments. In experiment 1, Cd(OH)2 was used together with four different additives, HPMC, PVA, Ni(OH)2 and graphite, one additive per tablet. One tablet in each temperature was of pure Cd(OH)2. In experiment 2, the tablets were made of pure Cd(OH)2, pure CdO and pure Cd. Two different kinds of tablets were used in experiment 3. The tablets were made from Cd(OH)2 with one having Fe3O4 added. Four samples were run in each temperature, two of each in diluted E22 and two in normal E22. The samples of the experiments were analysed with powder XRD and ICP-OES. The results show that the dissolution of cadmium increases with higher temperature. HPMC was the only additive which decreased the amount of dissolved cadmium species. The amount was significantly lower at 26 °C and slightly lower at 40 °C. The samples in diluted solution showed a considerably lower dissolution rate of cadmium than the samples in normal E22. The HPMC tablets together with the ones in diluted solution stayed the most intact throughout the experiments. For comparison the tablets of PVA and Ni(OH)2 disintegrated immediately when put into the solution. The crystallite generally decreased in size after being run in the experiment. Most of the samples showed the largest crystallites at 40 °C, exceptions being HPMC, Fe3O4 and Cd(OH)2 in diluted solution. The conclusion was that HPMC is interesting due to decreasing the amount of dissolved cadmium species, but more research needs to be done to explore how large the impact it would have as an additive in the cadmium electrode. The accuracy of the results from the ICP-analysis was questionable due to a concentration gradient that is formed in the samples, which causes inconsistency in the sample taking. If similar experiments are to be conducted in the future, the problem with the gradient has to be solved. (Less)


Near IR time resolved spectroscopy has been studied for quantitative determination of absorbance in highly scattering medium such as tissue. When a very narrow optical pulse is incedent into a scattering medium, the detected pulse through the medium broadens and the temporal profile is closely related to the optical property of the scattering medium. The photon migration in highly scattering medium can be described with the diffusion theory. Thus the optical property of the scattering medium can be determined by analyzing the shape of the detected tamporal profile with the diffusion equation. We have developed the time resolved spectroscopy (TRS) system based on a time correlated single photon counting technique for data acquisition and diffusion theory for data analysis. Pulsed laser diodes with two different wavelengths are used as light sources in the system. The system size is compact and it can be moved around a laboratory or hospital easily. We demonstrated its use in vivo experiments. As a result, we were able to accurately determine absorber concentrations in a highly scattering medium and the result of these in vivo experiments indicate possible use of the system for quantitative clinical studies.