Learning is the ultimate goal of man's survival and the main reason why teachers exist is to direct learners achieve it appropriately. Being unique is commonly observed to human's capacity to think, learn and behave. Many experts have thoroughly performed studies about the brain, it's activity and capacity proposing so many theories and recommendations up to this date, all pointing to obtaining knowledge and applying them accordingly for continued existence. Even though researches and science breakthroughs offer lots of information about the brain and learning, a mismatch on learning delivery often end up to frustrating unattained learning goals. The main objective of this study was to assess the association of learning style, teaching style of teachers in Science and learner's academic performance in Science of Junior High School students of Dela Paz National High School in Antipolo City, Philippines. Twelve teachers were randomly selected out of nineteen regular teachers in Science. Also, two hundred thirty eight learners were selected across the different grade levels using stratified random sampling. The study utilized a research design including descriptive methods of research, survey using a validated VARK questionnaire/checklist and documentary analysis of pertinent documents to gather the needed data. The study revealed that visual type of learner dominated the Junior High School students of Dela Paz National High School followed by auditory learners with a minimal gap, while most of the teachers in Science exhibit auditory teaching style and seconded by visual teachers. Although there were few reading/writing and kinesthetic learners and teachers, their presence in the population still were recognizable and should be addressed accordingly by the educational institution. Using the first quarter grade in Science of learners as basis of comparison, the study stressed that learning style of learners and teaching styles of teachers influence the academic performance of learners.


In plant identification and modeling efforts, metrics are needed to quantitatively compare measured data to numeric models. Quantitative metrics broadly fall into five categories: performance metrics, correlation metrics, error metrics, data quality metrics, and model interpretation metrics. This paper describes the utility of frequency response function correlation and error metrics for plant identification, particularly for complex space structures. Three correlation metrics and three error metrics are discussed. Multiple-input, multiple-output extensions to the correlation metrics are presented and their application is demonstrated on data collected from spacecraftrepresentative structures.


Brittle material behaviour and mode of failure are contrasted with those charasteristic of ductile materials. The stohastic nature of brittle fracture, which results from the random occurrence of fracture-initiating microstructural imperfections, necessitates a probabilistic fracture mechanics approach to design with brittle materials. This main feature and other pecularities od designing with brittle materilas are explicated and concisely discussed.


With the Tessier Five-step Continuous Extracting Method, the thesis studied the form distribution of heavy metals in the sediment samples collected from Mochou Lake, Xuanwu Lake and Qinhuai River in Nanjing, analyzed the correlation between leaching contents of heavy metals and various forms and between content of organic matter and leachability of heavy metals and between organic matter and organic fraction, and primarily investigated the mechanism of the combination of organic matter and heavy metal through the infrared spectrum. The results indicate that, in the sediment, Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni and Cr are mainly existing in the forms of organic and residual fractions, which take up over 70% of all; the exchangeable and carbonate fractions in Zn and Cd occupy comparatively larger proportion, about 20% for Zn and 30% for Cd; the leaching content of Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni and Cr are all shown highly correlated with their exchangeable fraction, therefore the risk of heavy metal pollution in the sediment could be controlled by decreasing the content of exchangeable fraction of heavy metals; the study also shows that, there is obvious positive correlation between organic matter and organic fraction, therefore, increasing the content of organic matter in the sediment could accelerate the transformation of heavy metals to organic fraction. The combination of organic matter and heavy metals is mainly due to formation of stable complex by some functional groups and heavy metals.


Dried specimen of Lycopodium clavatum L. (Lycopodiaceae).
Locality: Sidlaw Hills, Forfar, Scotland.
Collection date: September, 1847.
Page in supplementary volume: 33.
Page with description in main volume: 224.


The average γc-globulin concentration in bovine CSF withdrawn from newly-born colostrum-deprived calves was found to be 1.4 mg/100 ml. This level decreased sharply a few days after birth and the average value for 4-month-old animals was 0.44 mg/100 ml. The CSF of 3-year-old steers contained 0.22 mg/100 ml. Pooled fetal serum contained 2.8 mg of γc-globulin/100 ml. This level dropped by one-third at birth and then remained stationary up to 4 months of age. Bovine colostrum was found to have on the average 15 mg of γc-globulin/100 ml. About 0.01 mg of γc-globulin/g of wet tissue was found in cerebral white matter and spinal cord from calves. The cerebellum and cerebral gray matter contained one-third this amount. The γG-globulin was detected in the CSF of newly-born colostrum-deprived calves by immunodiffusion techniques but not quantitated. At 4 months of age the CSF contained 1.40 mg/100 ml and at 3 years of age 2.22 mg/100 ml. A small amount of autogenous γG-globulin was found in both fetal serum and in the serum of newly-born colostrum-deprived calves. Two weeks after birth the concentration of this protein had increased to 50 mg/100 ml. Pooled serum from 4-month-old calves had a γG-globulin content of 400 mg/100 ml.


In order to provide experimental basis for the development and optimization design of centrifugal blower-dust collector,the 5-51NO4.5A centrifugal blower was modified by removing volute board,installing volute board slot and welding dust collection chassis and so on.Two thin iron plates were inserted into the slot from two ends to form a single-hole and the hole can be moved.There were 4 kinds of situations resulted from extending volute tongue and installing longitudinal ribs or not.The collection efficiency of each single-hole was tested under different rotor speed when artificial graphite powder of 40 mesh sieve was put in.Results show that air flow increase with rotor speed rise,then dust concentration decrease,these lead to collection efficiency of single-holes majority slight decrease;Collection efficiency of single-holes show wave type rise along the volute spiral;Collection efficiency of each single-hole can be improved 4%~10% by extending volute tongue;Installing longitudinal ribs lead to collection efficiency of single-holes majority slight decrease when without extending volute tongue,but majority slight increase when extending volute tongue.


Is there someone you hate?Well,maybe you don't really hate them. But you get really angry every time you think of them. If you don't let this anger go, it can turn into bitterness(痛苦)


The articles in this issue of Quality in Higher Education address a wide range of challenges facing higher education today. In particular, they focus on philosophical conundrums about quality in higher education. This is perhaps apt in the light of Harvey's (2014–17) recent revisions to the Annotated Quality Glossary. In this immensely useful resource, Harvey brings together a huge range of work on different aspects of quality in the sector but it highlights not only the huge amount of work that has been done in the field of quality in higher education: it shows the tendency of researchers to hold firmly to well-established definitions such as that of Harvey and Green (1993). Such definitions are an important part of the discourse on quality in higher education but it is also important to build on these and move the discussion onwards. Tensions between accountability and improvement have long been a core concern of the debate on quality. In their article, Peodair Leihy and José Miguel Salazar critique commonly accepted perceptions of accountability in higher education. They argue that accountability structures are at best prompts for action but what is vital is that actors in higher education are reflexive practitioners. The notion that higher education is a market has become well established but the full implications of this have seldom been explored. In their article on the Danish sector, Carsten Bendixen and Jens Christian Jacobsen explore the implications of viewing higher education as a market. They argue that quality in higher education is often equated in quality assurance reports to graduate employability and as such is detrimental to higher education as an intellectual activity. There has long been a debate about the identity, role and perceptions of stakeholders in quality assurance. In their study of the Finnish sector, Anu Lyytinen, Vuokko Kohtamäki, Jussi Kivistö, Elias Pekkola and Seppo Hölttä found that an essential challenge for Finnish higher education institutions is to develop flexible quality assurance practices capable of balancing the academic goals of the institutions and the needs of the external stakeholders. The authors argue that this requires seeking balance between the centralised coordination and the differentiated practices of disciplines and academic units inside institutions. The stakeholder that has become the most prominent in recent years is the student and the so-called 'student voice' is most commonly heard though the use of student experience surveys. There has, however, been relatively little work that critically evaluates the use of such surveys, especially in different national and cultural contexts. Claire Hamshire, Rachel Forsyth, Amani Bell, Matthew Benton, Roisin Kelly-Laubscher, Moragh Paxton and Ema Wolfgramm-Foliaki draw on findings from four narrative inquiry studies, carried out in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, to illustrate how a narrative approach could be used to complement performance indicators. Despite the focus on the quality of teaching, little work has been done on how lecturers are prepared for teaching. Don Houston and Cassandra Hood explore the impact of one initial teaching preparation programme to add to the body of evidence on the efficacy of such programmes. Their findings indicate that such programmes have beneficial effects


In recent years,the relationship among enterprises has changed to the competition and cooperation from pure competition.Such changes have affected enterprises'technological innovation deeply.This paper discusses the influence of the cooperation among enterprises on technological innovation opportunities.The cooperation among enterprises can improve the ability of enterprises to recognize and use technological innovation opportunities.But the existence of competition among enterprises lead to opportunism and moral risks,and thus produce negative influence on enterprises innovation opportunity recognition and using.Companies must adopt corresponding strategies to control the negative influence in order to improve cooperation.


Background: Regarding the high number of births and the mortality rate of premature newborns, the identification of associated causes is necessary. Objective: To compare the maternal risk factors among premature and term newborns in Qazvin during the year 2003. Methods: In this case-control study, 120 premature and 120 term newborns were evaluated. Information such as blood pressure, history of eclampsia, cigarette smoking, maternal disease, and others were collected form newborn and their mothers using the medical files. The data were further analyzed, statically. Findings: The results showed that 23 cases (19.2%) of premature mothers and 6 cases (5%) of mature mothers had eclampsia (P=0.001). twenty three cases (19.2%) of premature mothers and 5 cases (4.2%) of term mothers had multiple pregnancies (P<0.05). twenty five cases (20.8%) of premature mothers and 7 cases (5.8%) of mature mothers had history of dilatation and abortion (P<0.001). PROM was seen in 14 cases (11.7%) of premature mothers and in 5 cases (4.2%) of term mothers (P<0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that factors such as preeclampsia, multiple pregnancy, PROM, and abortion, play a role in increased number of premature newborns.


Fungi are the major producers of enzymes such as cellulases, pectinases and xylanases, so these microorganisms were selected in the present work to analyze the ideal conditions to improve the production of the activity of the pectinase enzyme. A total of 36 fungi previously collected from the Atlantic Forest of Paraná were cultivated in a test tube containing 10 to 15 mL of BDA medium for 7 days at 40 °C. Among all analyzed, the filamentous fungus Aspergillus terreus strain PA3A5T was the best producer of pectinases, whose greatest enzymatic activity occurred at a temperature of 60 °C and at pH 5. The ideal culture medium for inducing production Enzyme was the defined medium Vogel supplemented with passion fruit peel at 1% (w/v) as a carbon source and incubated for 96 hours. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these data are reported in the literature. ideal para induzir a produção foi meio definido Vogel casca de maracujá a 1% (p / v) como fonte de carbono e incubada por 96 horas. Até onde sabemos, esta é a primeira vez que esses dados são relatados na literatura.


The Uncover Cloncurry project was initiated in order to examine petrophysics, mineralogy, plus structural and chemical controls on approximately 20 deposits/prospects, including: iron oxide coppergold (IOCG), iron sulphide copper-gold (ISCG), sedex, skarn and intrusion related gold (IRG) styles of mineralisation. The aim of the project is to provide petrophysical, geochemical and geophysical insights that will assist future exploration, under cover, on the fringes of the Mount Isa Inlier. Part of the project, discussed here, is focussed on the interpretation of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) data and the insights they provide into the tectonothermal history of the deposits, which can be related to the broader history of the province, in order to understand the relative timing of deformation and mineralisation at each deposit.


The dependence of flow stress on deformation time(strain)is examined under various condi− tions of the strain rate sensitivity parameter,粥, for superplastic A1−Cu and A1−Cu−Si eutectic alloys, and is analized from a kinematical viewpoint. Results obtained are as follows:(1)The period of deformation,7「*o, is expressed as 7「*o=2πT*(η=…,1/3,1/2,1,2,3,…),where 7「*is the time between the onset of the initial elastic deformation and the sub−sequent plastic deformation.(2)The variation in flow stress,∠σ/σ, for a deformation period is approximately expressed as ∠σ/σ≒4Cソ/7η2, where C is a constant and∫=伽/∂1n乙. (3)From the above equation, it is expected that for the work hardening parameter,γ≡(1/σ)(∂σ/∂ε),γ>0,γ=O andγ<O whenノ>0∫=0, and∫<0, respectively, and these relations show a good agreement with the experimental results obtained from A1−Cu and A1−Cu−Si eutectic alloys. (4)The value measured by the strain rate change method depends on the strain rate ratio, N. The value within N<10 increases with increasing 1> when.1>0. It decreases with increasing N whenノ<0. In the case of∫=0, it becomes constant. (5)Defining魏+andπto be the〃z−value for the increment and decrement in the strain rate, respectively, it is suggested that 7η+>zゼwhen∫>0,駕+<祝一when.1<Oand祝+・=物一in the case of∫=0.


This experiment investigated the cooling curve behavior, hardness and microstructure of two aluminum alloys produced by casting process. There are Al-1.37Zn-1.19Si and Al-1.66Si-1.35Zn derived from melting and alloying a pure aluminum with ADC12 (Al-Si) ingot. Cooling curve recorded from both those two alloys with pouring temperature at 710 o C and the mold temperature kept constant at 220 o C. The result shows, a freezing range of Al-1.37Zn-1.19Si alloy is 643–348 o C and Al-1.66Si-1.35Zn alloy is 621–401 o C. Then cooling rate obtained for Al-1.37Zn-1.19Si is 55.56  o C/S, and Al-1.66Si-1.35Zn is 30.09 o C/S. TThe higher hardness is 40.42 BHN at Al 1.66 Si-1.35Zn, while the lower value is 34.62 BHN on Al-1,37Zn-1,19Si alloy. The hardness value found higher when cooling rate is shorted. The number of silicon present on microstructure is highest in Al-1.37Zn-1.19Si alloy but the hardness value decreases. This is caused by the distribution of the silicon content in the alloy is irregular. It was found that the solidification rate had an effect on hardness, where the freezing rate obtained a high hardness value.


Non-negative Matrix Factorization(NMF) with dual constraints method for document clustering is proposed.It is based on NMF model with adding of pair-wise constraints on documents and categorization constraints of the words.Iterative rules obtained from the original word-document matrix are decomposed to get document clustering results.Compared with a variety of popular semi-supervised clustering algorithm,the method for document clustering can effectively improve the accuracy of document clustering,and can provide more accurate and efficient clustering results.


Unsupervised anomaly detection (UAD) techniques have received increasing attention in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, the high dimensional training data often make sensor nodes unable to sustain in computation, and result in quite expensive communication overhead. The feature reduction techniques make great sense through the reduction of the dimensionality when the features are strongly interrelated. Among these UAD techniques, distance-based anomaly detection (DB-AD) is a special one that allows to be described by a probability model. Based on this observation, DB-AD is explored deeply with a feature reduction technique, principal component analysis (PCA). Through examining the proportion of the variance explained by the first principal component (PC), a new feature reduction approach is proposed for DB-AD in WSNs, which enables to reduce the dimensionality to one in any situation. Specifically, the first PC is alone used for representing the original data as long as it retains most of the variance, otherwise, the information loss is geometrically reverted to neutralize the error. By obtaining a tradeoff between the detection error and performance overload, this approach is significant for resource-constrained WSNs, as the computational complexity and communication overhead will be reduced to a fraction of the original magnitude. Finally, this approach is evaluated with a real WSN dataset.


Event is a widely used concept these years. Many areas such as Natural Language Process, Information Retrieval have used event as the basic information unit in their research. So, the mining of event association is very necessary for our research. And it plays an important role business intelligence and researches of relations between events. Usually events are associated with others when they often occur in the vicinity of others or co-occur in the same context. However, there are some implicit associations we cannot mine only from sequence or context. In this paper, we aim to find associations of events under the background of Data Integration Systems. By using the structured information of data integration system, the background information of entities can be extracted to classify events. So we classify the events into different categories which makes it possible to mine the statistical information from event sequence. Furthermore, we generalize the association between event entities to predict the implicit association in our algorithm. We validate our method with experiments and results show the useful information in the area of business intelligence.


Using the complex Klein-Gordon field as a model, we quantize the quaternionic scalar field in the real Hilbert space. The lagrangian formulation has accordingly been obtained, as well as the hamiltonian formulation, and the energy and charge operators. Conversely to the complex case, the quaternionic quantization admits two quantization schemes, concerning either two or four components. Therefore, the quaternionic field permits a richer structure of states, if compared to the complex scalar field case. Moreover, the quaternionic theory admits as a further novel feature a non-associative algebraic structure in their complex components, something not observed in the complex case.


John Henry Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine posed a serious challenge to Protestants with regard to how they understood the doctrinal history of the church. One robust response came from the Scottish Presbyterian theologian, William Cunningham, who subjected Newman to vigorous critique on the basis of classical Reformation notions of scriptural authority. Nevertheless, Cunningham failed to understand the seriousness of the challenge of history and others, notable the Mercersburg theologians, offered approaches that point towards a more satisfactory approach.


isolating circuit-breaker module, average voltage, and position corresponding power distribution. The module comprises a metal casing (3) forming a shielded housing accommodating a multipole isolating circuit-breaker (1) wherein the cutting is performed by a tilting of all the poles (2), from an operating position where each pole is simultaneously connected to two current bushings (4) projecting from either side of the upper wall of the box. The distribution station includes a metal shell component a shielded box, divided into compartments which allow in particular to accommodate three separately isolating circuit-breakers aligned between two finishes. These isolating circuit-breakers are interconnected by current crossings through intermediate compartments in each of which leads a departure.


Tuning the strong Lewis acidity of ZrO2via H2SO4 treatment to promote the conversion of CH4 and CO2 into acetic acid.


Introduction: Why Learning Communities? Types and Models of Learning Communities. Creating a Campus Culture for Learning Communities. Developing the Curricula. Recasting Faculty Roles and Rewards. Building Administrative Partnerships. Putting Administrative Structures in Place. Evaluating and Assessing Learning Communities. How Learning Communities Affect Students, Faculty, and the Institution. Concluding Advice and Reflections on Creating Learning Communities. Appendix: Learning Communities Contacts.


The purpose of this research is to examine and investigate the perception ability of musical instruments of educable mentally retarded children with the support of visual elements. The research is conducted for every children individually in a special education and rehabilitation centre. The problematic of this research is the level of perception ability of musical instruments with visual support on mild mentally retarded children. In this research, perception ability of defining pictograms by music is introduced as an alternative method. It is researched that how educable mentally retarded children perceive pictograms by music tools. In this case, it is aimed to introduce musical instruments to educable mentally retarded children by pictograms with music. The research is applied with a qualitative approach. Data were obtained with the recorder, then they were turned into texts and analyzed with content analysis method.


We have demonstrated the tuning of Schottky barrier height (SBH) of nickel silicide on silicon-carbon (Si1−xCx) by varying the carbon mole fraction, x. The SBH (for electron conduction) has been found to decrease with carbon concentration at a rate of ∼6.6meV/ (0.1% carbon). We have achieved ∼27meV drop in SBH with 0.4% carbon incorporation in Si1−xCx and shown that 1.3% carbon could lead to more than 85meV improvement. Furthermore, our results show an avenue to reduce the SBH of rare earth silicide contacts in n-channel Schottky transistors by fabricating them on Si1−xCx.


Thank you very much for reading persons and positions individuals and their social locations. As you may know, people have look numerous times for their favorite books like this persons and positions individuals and their social locations, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they cope with some harmful bugs inside their computer.


The invention discloses a quick-response low-drift active low-pass filter circuit, which comprises an active low-pass filter basic node circuit, a voltage follower loop and an attenuation network circuit. According to experimental simulation and actual application, the quick-response low-drift active low-pass filter circuit has an actual engineering application value. The low-drift active low-pass filter basic node circuit is a main circuit of a filter. Since the operational amplifier and the main channel of the low-drift active low-pass filter basic node circuit are separated by a capacitor, the direct-current offset and direct-current drift signals of the operational amplifier are isolated from the signals of the main channel and the quick-response low-drift active low-pass filter circuit has a low channel drift property. Since the voltage follower loop feeds voltage signals in the main channel back to the basic node circuit, the charging and discharging time of the capacitor of the basic node circuit is greatly shortened and the response speed of the filter is improved. Since the attenuation network circuit adjusts loop gains through voltage division by using resistors, the self-excited oscillation caused by the positive feedback of the voltage follower loop is avoided and the response speed and the filter property of the filter can be enabled to be comprehensively optimal.


The utility model discloses a steel rope flaw detector which comprises a sensing device. The sensing device is composed of a semi-circle annular upper guiding sleeve and a semi-circle annular lower guiding sleeve in a matching mode. A magnetic tape controller (MTC) magnetic sensor is respectively installed in each guiding sleeve. The upper guiding sleeve is provided with a handle. A guiding wheel which is provided with a photoelectric encoder is connected with the handle in a movable mode through a connecting rod. A spring is arranged between the connecting rod and a transverse rod of the handle. The MTC magnetic sensors and the photoelectric encoder are connected with a mobile radio communication (MRC) real-time alarm and a computer in series through signal lines. The steel rope flaw detector is a nondestructive testing instrument based on a principle of magnet leakage. The steel rope flaw detector solves the problem that existing manual check is not reliable, and thus has the advantages of being convenient to operate, accurate in detection and capable of effectively eliminating potential safety hazard.


This study aimed to analyze the response of investors to the announcement of the financial statements of the banking sector. The population in this study was the banking industry. This study used purposive sampling method. Based on sampling techniques the number of samples in this study was 11 banks. The research period was 2002-2014. The analysis technique used was panel data regression. The result showed that investor response to the financial statements of banks which faced cost stickiness was weak. The increase of cost stickiness on the banking sector led the weak investor response to the announcement of the financial statements of banks. In the banking companies facing cost stickiness problem, earnings prediction accuracy reduced. This causes the income statement would provide information that was less important to the earnings prediction in the next periods.


Electrical energy meter is an important part of the electrical system. Day by day many sectors are becoming digitalized, and machines are becoming smart. However, analog electromechanical energy meters are still being used in many parts of the world. It has some drawbacks e.g., meter-readers need to take meter readings every month manually which is an expensive way of meter data collection. There is also a risk of human error. This paper proposed solutions to overcome the need for manual meter reading, and also to give access to real-time energy consumption data to the consumers and utility companies. In the proposed meter design a microcontroller has been used to measure and store energy consumption data. The stored energy data can be transferred from the meter's memory to a server that is accessible to the users and utility companies. Moreover, a relay has been used to switch the meter ON-OFF remotely.


This paper describes the development of a rough nickel plating process for palladium-preplated leadframe (PPF) that provides a consistent surface roughness at the nano-or submicron scale. This process enables outstanding adhesion with epoxy molding compound (EMC) even after Moisture Sensitivity Level-1 treatment, as well as good bonding and solderability performance. Fracture surface analysis indicated that the fracture mode of rough nickel PPF was cohesive failure inside EMC, while the interfacial failure occurred at traditional PPF and EMC interface. Here we demonstrate rough nickel PPF is an effective technique to enhance the mold adhesion for use in leadframe-based integrated circuit (IC) packages where high reliability is required.


Here we investigate a limiting case of the theory for aggregation and gelation in the electrical double layer (EDL) of ionic liquids (ILs). The limiting case investigated only accounts for ion pairs, ignoring the possibility of existence of larger clusters. This simplification, however, permits analytical solutions for the properties of the EDL. The resulting equations demonstrate the competition between the free energy of an association and the electrostatic potential in the EDL. For small electrostatic potentials and large negative free energies of associations, the ion pairs dominate in the EDL. Whereas, for electrostatic potential energies larger than the free energy of an association, electric-field-induced cracking of ion pairs occurs. The differential capacitance for this consistent ion pairing theory has a propensity to have a "double hump camel" shape. We compare this theory against previous free ion approaches, which do no consistently treat the reversible associations in the EDL.


Abstract The quantity of intracellular total thiol groups and glutathione was analyzed in a variety of lactic acid bacteria. The concentration of thiol groups (.7 to 81 nmol/mg of protein) and glutathione (6 to 51 nmol/mg of protein) varied widely. Concentrations were highest in strains of Lactococcus lactis ssp. cremoris and Streptococcus thermophilus , followed by Leuconostoc mesenteroides ssp. cremoris . Glutathione was not detected in Lactococcus lactis ssp. lactis , micrococci, pediococci, and lactobacilli (except Lactobacillus helveticus CNRZ 32) cultures. The effect of several growth conditions on total thiol groups and glutathione content was studied with L. lactis ssp. cremoris Z8. During growth in Elliker broth, glutathione concentration increased during exponential growth; in M17 broth, intracellular concentrations of glutathione did not vary as a function of growth phase, and lower concentrations were detected. Aeration resulted in a temporarily increased accumulation of glutathione. When cultures were grown in milk, the highest concentrations of thiol groups and glutathione occurred during the stationary phase. Supplementation of milk with glutathione or the precursor amino acids of glutathione resulted in increased intracellular glutathione.


This paper presents the improvement of a large GM cryocooler, Cryomech model AL600, based on redesigning a cold head stem seal, regenerator, heat exchanger and displacer bumper as well as optimizing operating parameters. The no-load temperature is reduced from 26.6 K to 23.4 K. The cooling capacity is improved from 615 W to 701W at 80 K with a power input of 12.5 kW. It has the highest relative Carnot Efficiency at 15.4%. The vibration of AL600 is investigated experimentally. The new displacer bumper significantly reduces the vibration force on the room temperature flange by 82 % from 520 N to 93 N.


With the concern on the quality of the building environment,the course teaching of architectural physics has been paid more and more attention by universities and colleges.We analyzed shortcomings of the traditional course teaching of architectural physics and the application of digital technology in architectural design and presented the great potential digital technology application in course teaching of architectural physics.Combined with the course teaching reform of architectural physics in Chongqing University,we provided a new idea and direction for enhancing the students' analysis ability on the physical environment and improving the course teaching effect of architectural physics.


The free out-of-plane vibration of an arc bar of variable cross-section is analyzed by use of the transfer matrix approach. for this purpose, the equations of out-of-plane vibration of an arc bar are written as a coupled set of first-order differential equations by using the transfer matrix of the bar. Once the matrix has been determined by the numerical integration of the equations, the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of the vibration can be calculated numerically in terms of the elements of the matrix for a given set of boundary conditions at the ends of the bar. This method is applied to bars of linearly, parabolically and exponentially varying rectangular cross-sections, and the effects of the varying cross-section and slenderness ratio are studied.


Timing plays a central role in the success of breeding activities, particularly in variable and unpredictable climates. In this paper we investigate the proximate factors influencing the timing of breeding behaviour in the azure-winged magpie (Cyanopica cyanus) in a Mediterranean environment. The azure-winged magpie is a social corvid, colonial breeder, mostly single-brooded, which shows cooperative breeding in some populations. The study population was intensively monitored for a period of three years. The breeding season started in late March or early April and lasted around three months. The laying date varied significantly among the three years of intensive study (1995-1997). Data on the first laid egg in the whole population were related to the temperature and precipitation in the month preceding egg laying (March, data for 11 years). The timing of the first egg was significantly delayed after heavy rainfall in March. When corrected for the effect of precipitation , the timing of the first egg was no longer significantly related to the temperature in March. Comparing data from 10 populations of this species (8 from Spain, 2 from Japan) revealed that breeding dates were not related to latitude but to altitude, so that every 100 meter increase above sea level produced a delay of 4 days in the average timing of the first egg in the population.


The dangers of X-ray or radium-emanation exposure are well recognized and in most cases controlled in industry when it is known that they exist. When X-ray or radium is utilized for the examination, of industrial products or in radium-dial painting, proper controls are used, or at least there is a recognition of the potential dangers. Recently interest has been aroused in a possible similar hazard in the manufacture and operation of high-vacuum electronic tubes (1). We were confronted with a problem of this type and found on investigation that during the manufacture, testing, and operation of such tubes, measurable amounts of potentially harmful X-rays were produced. These tubes were tested or operated at voltages above 25 kilovolts. The presence of X-rays was detected with fluoroscopic screens and measured by means of the Victoreen minometer and dental X-ray films. A report by Daily (1) concluded that no harmful clinical effects resulted from exposure to a similar type of tube under normal operation. It is understood that since that report was written the voltages at which high-vacuum electronic tubes are operated have been increased, and it is believed that potential hazard now possibly exists, even under normal operating conditions. Although these tubes are not designed for production of X-rays, they are so constructed that they have the various elements necessary for X-ray emission. Commercial X-ray tubes are so constructed and shielded that the radiation is confined to a narrow beam. This is not true of the tubes in question and they may emit X-rays in many different directions.


BMA secretary 1958-76 (b 1911; q Guy's 1935; FRCGP, CBE), d 4 March 2001. After qualifying he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving with distinction in the Far East and in France. His posting to oversee medical recruitment at the War Office brought him into close touch with Charles Hill, then BMA secretary. After the war Hill "recruited" him to the BMA staff. He got there just as Aneurin Bevan introduced the NHS Bill; he retired 30 years later after many of the perennial crises of the NHS. He adapted quickly to the storms of an ultra-democratic association, having several favourable qualities. A man of distinguished presence—once called "debonair"—he was a fine judge of the art of the utmost possible; intensely loyal to the association and to his colleagues, to whom he delegated with trust and judgment. Above all, he realised that the NHS and the professions were news; he made and kept close links with the fourth estate, in whose ranks he had many friends. This involved much commitment, well in excess of 9 to 5; figuratively, he "lived over the shop." His BMA years involved too much to catalogue. Among the highlights two royal commissions (on pay and on education of doctors); an uprising against the reform of the General Medical Council; the "battle of the pay beds"; and, domestically, a major reform of the BMA itself. As ambassador overseas, Stevenson was first secretary of the Commonwealth Medical Association, and later chairman of the World Medical Association. On his retirement in 1976, the BMA awarded him its gold medal as "an outstanding leader, a tireless champion of the profession, and a great secretary." He had earlier been awarded an honorary doctorate. One might think such a career precluded all else. Not so. Derek was for 60 years married to his greatest supporter, Pam, who survives him together with their daughter, two sons, and grandchildren. His long years of retirement let him devote to them his love and the time of which the BMA had deprived them. And he found time to play good golf, and to sail. [David Gullick]


Background: Heterosexuality is the most common route of human immunodeficiency virus transmission among married couples in India. The main objective is this study is to determine the HIV seroconcordance and serodiscordance among couples when one partner is confirmed as HIV positive. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study which included HIV positive married cohabiting cases was carried out at the department of skin and VD, Tertiary care teaching hospital, Tiruchirapalli. Detailed history of high risk sexual behaviour, blood transfusion and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was collected. Spouses of these cases were tested for HIV to know the seroconcordance and serodiscordance. Results: A total of 236 HIV positive cases were subjected in this study which included 130 males and 106 females. Forty seven cases had seropositive spouses that consisted of 23 out of 130 HIV positive males and 24 out of 106 HIV positive females. Among the couples tested, 19 subjects were considered as concordant and 28 are discordant. Most of the concordance suggested that continued intramarrital transmission probably due to lack of spousal communication and late testing. Conclusion: In this study, the discordant couple rate is found to be high. Such cases are usually asymptomatic and hence tested late but continue to transmit HIV by unprotected sexual activity. Less acceptability of condom usage may be one of the factors responsible in transmission. Further studies are needed to explore other risk factors associated with HIV transmission in discordant couples.


The invention discloses a vehicle-mounted voice control system and method based on user intention guess. The system comprises a receiving module for receiving voice information input by a user; a conversion module for converting the voice information into text information, wherein the conversion module is connected with the receiving module; a user intention guess module for judging whether the voice information is an executable instruction according to the text information, if so, generating a corresponding control instruction based on the text information, and if not, guessing the intension of a user based on the text information and guiding the user how to operate, wherein the user intention guess module is connected with the conversion module; and an execution module for executing corresponding operation according to the control instruction, wherein the execution module is connected with the user intention guess module. According to the vehicle-mounted voice control system and method, use convenience and usability of the vehicle-mounted voice control system are improved.


Recent evidence on the importance of cross-border equity flows calls for a rethinking of the standard theory of external adjustment. We introduce equity holdings and portfolio choice into an otherwise conventional open-economy dynamic equilibrium model. Our model is simple and admits a closed-form solution regardless of whether financial markets are complete or incomplete. We find that the excessive emphasis put in the literature on solving models with incomplete markets for the sole purpose of obtaining nontrivial implications for the current account is misplaced. We revisit the current debate on the relative importance of the standard vs. the capital-gains-based (or "valuation'') channels of the external adjustment and establish that in our framework they are congruent. Our model's implications are consistent with a number of intriguing stylized facts documented in the recent empirical literature.


The diversity of Indian lichen flora has undergone a considerable decline in the last five decades. Among the various anthropogenic activities, overexploitation and selective removal of economically important lichens have become major threats to the lichen flora of the country. Commercial samples of lichens collected from different states of India were studied for their source and commercial use. Among samples offered for sale, 38 different lichen species were identified. The western Himalayas proved to be the main area for lichen collection, while some lichen species also come from the central and Western Ghats. Local traders coordinate the lichen collection and then sell the material to traders in the foothills, and from there it is processed and distributed to other parts of the country and abroad. Because lichens belonging to the families Parmeliaceae and Physciaceae are the ones most exploited commercially, they are recommended for inclusion in the CITES list.


Fresh vegetable logistics is an important part of agricultural product logistics in our country, but the unique characteristics of fresh vegetables, fresh time for vegetable logistics requirements is strong. therefore, the logistics mode selection of fresh vegetables is particularly important, several modes of vegetable logistics,are analyzed in detail in this paper, and provide some reference for the fresh vegetable logistics mode select.


It is widely accepted that the postfire recovery in Mediterranean plant communities is carried out by direct regeneration, i.e., the fast recovery of a plant community with the same species pool that it had immediately prior to disturbance. However, there is evidence that not all plant species in the Mediterranean basin survive fire in all situations, suggesting that the direct regeneration process might not apply to all situations. We analyze whether the main combinations of forest tree species (up to 16) of the western Mediterranean basin exhibit a postfire direct regeneration process. Based on data from field surveys, we have developed a stochastic model to predict the medium-term forest dynamics. In general, Quercus species (resprouters) and the pines Pinus halepensis and P. pinaster (seeders that produce abundant seedlings) showed direct regeneration patterns. In contrast, forests of P. nigra, P. sylvestris, and P. pinea (seeders that produce few seedlings) changed to other situations after fire. Thi...


We examine analytically the generation of Bell state in Bose condensates of two interacting species trapped in a double well configuration. The density of probability for finding the entangled Bell state is given. The effect of the tunnelling rate and the interspecies interaction strength on the generation of Bell state is discussed. We find that the oscillation amplitude of the density of probability for finding the entangled Bell state becomes greater as the tunnelling rate Ω increases and the self-interaction strength of the component A(B) has no effect on it.


In this work, oxygen-rich activated carbon compounds were prepared from three kinds of biomass by simple carbonization and they were investigated as electrodes for supercapacitors. The selected biomasses were waste dragon fruit skin, Momordica grosvenori skin and Firmiana catkins. Three kinds of as-prepared activated carbons showed abundant oxygen-containing groups and typical amorphous characteristics with high specific surface areas of 911.2 m2 g−1, 597.5 m2 g−1 and 286.7 m2 g−1, respectively. This combination of high specific surface areas and abundant active surface functional groups resulted in capacitances of 286.9 F g−1, 238.7 F g−1 and 226.6 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1, respectively. Furthermore, three kinds of as-prepared activated carbons also showed excellent cycling performance with nearly 100% retention over 5000 cycles at 4.0 A g−1 in 2.0 mol l−1 KOH solution. As a result, three kinds of as-prepared activated carbons exhibited favorable electrochemical performances in potential application as electrode materials for supercapacitors.


A uterine artery pseudoaneurysm is a rare cause of blood loss during pregnancy. Pseudoaneurysms typically occur after damage to the arterial wall resulting in a contained haemorrhage that can potentially lead to an uncontrolled haemorrhage. The condition can be life-threatening for both the mother and the foetus. A medical intervention such as the thrombin injection has been described in the post-partum setting, though it remains controversial (Parker et al. 2017). There are a few case reports describing uterine artery malformations in the pregnant patient (Kim et al. 2014). There are even fewer case reports describing a temporary balloon occlusion for an emergent caesarean section followed by a uterine artery embolisation. In this case report, a temporary balloon occlusion provided adequate haemorrhagic control in the acute setting when a semi-urgent caesarean section was required. The patient was opposed to the idea of hysterectomy as she wished to preserve her future fertility. Therefore, a selective embolisation was completed after a successful delivery (Vilos et al. 2009; Zhang et al. 2015).


Conscious rats produced bile at 19 ± 0·6 fLl/kg/min during periods of bile deprivation. When sodium taurocholate was infused intravenously, the bile flow increased to 54 ± 4· 8 fLl/kg/min-a value almost identical to that recorded in other rats during normal recirculation of endogenous bile salts.


A number of laboratory model test results for the ultimate bearing capacity of surface strip foundation supported by a granular trench made in soft clay have been presented. The granular trench had the same width as the model foundation. The results of the model tests have been compared with the existing theories or modifications thereof. The ultimate bearing capacity increases with the increase of the depth of the granular trench to a maximum value and remains constant thereafter. The mode of failure is primarily by lateral bulging.


8072 Background: While racial disparity has been well documented in a number of cancers, the impact of race in FL outcomes is not well defined. Further, the importance of gender in FL has not been fully explored. Methods: We examined population-based FL overall survival (OS) data from SEER 13 (1993-2008) regarding race, sex, age, and socioeconomic status (SES) over two consecutive 8-year (yr) periods: Era 1 (1993-2000, n=7,409) and Era 2 (2001–2008, n=9,083). Results: We identified16,492 FL patients (pts) (white (W): n=13,441; Hispanic (H): n=1,417; Asian/Pacific Islander (A/PI): n=887; and Black (B): n=747). Median ages at diagnosis differed significantly according to: (in yrs, W: 62.1, H: 57.3, A/PI: 60.5, B: 56.6; P<0.01 for each race vs. W). For all pts, OS was superior in Era 2 vs. Era 1 (5-yr OS: 77% vs. 68%, respectively, P<0.0001). Further, OS was significantly improved for all age groups (<50, 50-59, 60-69, and 70-79 yrs) as well as for males (P=0.0019) and females (P<0.0001) across eras. Interes...


Background: A 55-year-old man, known with neurofibromatosis type 1, presented with complaints of small amounts of rectal blood loss for a couple of weeks. Patient had undergone colostomy 13 years previously because of a benign bowel tumor. Contrast-enhanced CT showed a large rectal tumor with a proximal colostomy and mucous fistula, multiple liver metastases as well as subcutaneous soft tissue lesions. Further diagnostic work-up included a pelvic MRI showing the rectal tumor to be multinodular and generally respecting the mucosa of the rectum, except for a small area of mucosal irregularity. Rectoscopy with biopsy was performed.


—This paper proposes a robust emergency preparedness planning (EPP) scheme to optimally pre-position diverse mobile emergency resources (MERs) in staging locations and perform proactive network reconfiguration for resilience enhancement of energy-transportation nexus (ETN) against extreme rainfalls. Based on rainfall-runoff simulation with hydrodynamic partial differential equations, a risk identification approach for flood-prone transportation modeling is developed for vehicle travel time estimation and MER routing optimization. To handle uncertainties in line outages and flooded roads incurred by extreme rainfalls, a tri-level robust EPP model is proposed to determine the optimal emergency preparedness plan immunized against the worst-case realization of uncertainties. Furthermore, a tailored solution method combining nested column-and-constraint generation algorithm with multiple linearization techniques is devised to cope with the proposed nonlinear robust EPP model. Comparative studies have validated the effectiveness of the proposed scheme for resilience enhancement of the ETN confronted with extreme rainfall disasters.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the impact of elevated early HbA1c values on perinatal outcomes in patients without a diagnosis of diabetes or gestational diabetes.

STUDY DESIGN
This is a retrospective study of patients with a singleton pregnancy who underwent universal HbA1c screening in early pregnancy at an urban tertiary care center between December 1, 2016 and December 31, 2018. Patients with pregestational diabetes (DM) and gestational diabetes (GDM) were excluded from analysis. The exposure of interest was HbA1c 5.7-6.4% as measured on routine prenatal labs at or during 16 weeks gestation. The following pregnancy outcomes were assessed: preterm delivery < 37 weeks, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, shoulder dystocia, macrosomia (birthweight >4000g), small or large for gestational age neonate, operative vaginal delivery, 3rd/4th degree lacerations, cesarean delivery, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission, neonatal hypoglycemia, and neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. Multivariable regression was performed to assess the relationship between HbA1c and select adverse outcomes while controlling for potential confounders Results: Of the 2621 patients who met inclusion criteria, 334 (12.7%) had an elevated HbA1c of 5.7-6.4%. Patients with an elevated HbA1c were more likely to be older, Black, multiparous, publically-insured, obese or have chronic hypertension than patients with normal HbA1c values. In the unadjusted analysis, patients with an elevated HbA1c were less likely to deliver at term (84.7% v. 92.4%, p=0.006), but more likely to undergo cesarean section (32.8% v. 27.6%, p=0.038), develop hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (31.9% v. 23.2%, p=0.001), or deliver a macrosomic infant (10.5% v. 6.8%, p=0.016) than those with a normal A1c. After adjusting for race, body mass index, insurance status, nulliparity, and age, however, only the relationship between HbA1c and spontaneous preterm birth remained significant (aOR 1.76, 95%CI 1.01-3.07).

CONCLUSIONS
In our urban population, an elevated early HbA1c was associated with spontaneous preterm birth in non-diabetic patients.


In the field of electrical contacts, vibration-induced fretting corrosion is a major cause of connector failure. Considerable work has been done in this area, with the main focus being on the effects of transverse vibration on the connector and wire harness set. The present study focuses on fretting corrosion resulting from vibration parallel to the axis of a connector pair. A series of studies, which combined experimental work and parallel modeling/simulation/analysis of a single blade-receptacle pair were conducted to explore driving mechanisms and gain insight into the behavior of connectors exposed to such vibration environments. Experimental results that consider a variety of cable lengths, spring forces and finish type are presented. In addition, modeling results are presented that detail the relative motion at the contact interface resulting from the vibration input levels employed in the experimental testing and provide insight into the physical mechanisms driving the observed fretting.


English abstract]Quick increment of need on internet information resources leads to a rush of search engines. This article introduces some new type of search engines which is appearing and will appear. These search engines includes as follows: grey document search engine, invisible web search engine, knowledge discovery search engine, clustering meta search engine, academic clustering search engine, conception comparison and conception analogy search engine, consultation search engine, teaching and studying search engine.


Using the ZnO surge arrester to prevent the shunt capacitor from overvoltages is one of the most efficient and reliable measures, and in manycases it is a necessity. This paper introduces in detail some commonly used line connections, parameter selection and check of MOA. Some practical examples are given for verification.


This study examines the novel Adh Ahuray Lok (People with Lost Identities) by Muhammad Hafeez Khan from the perspective of skeptical nature in postmodernism.  A significant amount of postmodernist theory relies on maintaining a skeptical attitude. The projects of philosophical postmodernism and philosophical skepticism appear deeply aligned, as both focus on doubting existing metanarratives and assumptions. They seek to justify the assumptions inherent in our systems of rationality, meaning, and truth. Furthermore, they challenge the modernist notion that objective knowledge is attainable or that we can confidently assert progress. The researcher has selected five diverse postmodernist theorists and incorporated one concept from each theorist to strengthen the argument regarding postmodernism's skeptical nature. The study employs a qualitative content analysis method to analyze the text of the chosen novel. The researcher concludes that postmodernism is rooted in skepticism, as supported by the analysis of the selected text.


Our understanding of how conifers respond biochemically to multiple simultaneous herbivore attacks is lacking. Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis; 'hemlock') is fed on by hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae; 'adelgid') and by later-instar gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar; 'gypsy moth') caterpillars. The adelgid is a stylet-feeding insect that causes a salicylic acid (SA)-linked response in hemlock and gypsy moth larvae are folivores that presumably cause a jasmonic acid (JA)-linked response. This system presents an opportunity to study how invasive herbivore-herbivore interactions mediated through host biochemical responses. We used a factorial field experiment to challenge chronically adelgid-infested hemlocks with gypsy moth caterpillars. We quantified 17 phytohormones, 26 phenolic and terpene metabolites, and proanthocyanidin, cell wall-bound phenolic, and lignin contents. Foliage infested with adelgid only accumulated gibberellins (GAs) and SA; foliage challenged by gypsy moth only accumulated JA phytohormones. Gypsy moth folivory on adelgid-infested foliage reduced accumulation of JA phytohormones and increased SA levels. Both herbivores increased cell wall-bound phenolics and gypsy moth increased lignin content when feeding alone but not when feeding on adelgid-infested foliage. Our study illustrates the importance of understanding the biochemical mechanisms and signaling antagonism underlying tree responses to multiple stresses, and of disentangling local and systemic stress signaling in trees.


Like most English majors, perhaps, in college I had my favorite books and passages. I copied the latter into my own early journals. I read and re-read them for the sheer pleasure of the sound of the words and the feelings they evoked. I was motivated by Ernest Hemingway's Moveable Feast: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." And when I started teaching, I thought it would be the greatest job in the world: to be paid to share great writing with students. We would read together wonderful lines, we would be inspired, and we ourselves would write, too. My high school students, reaching into their recent youthful, exuberant language experiences, would bring in their favorite passages, such as this from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, "The Lobster-Quadrille":


This study aims to provide literacy regarding the implementation of Activity Based Costing in determining cost product in hospitals in Indonesia. Several studies have found that many hospitals calculate the rates for their services using unit costs based on the calculation of the cost of production which does not reflect actual activity, resulting in errors in decision making on service rates. According to Supriono (1999) in Andriyansah et all (2013), Hospitals in determining the cost of products, sometimes still use traditional cost accounting, where this system is not suitable for advanced manufacturing environments, and with high product diversification. This research is a literature study on the implementation of Activity Based Costing in Indonesian hospitals. The data collection method is a literature study of 14 (fourteen) studies on the ABC system used by hospitals for the period 2012 to 2023. The results of the study show that Activity Based Costing is an effective tool in service companies to be able to trace costs of services provided. generated and assists in the implementation of total quality in service companies by encouraging management to analyze activities and determine their value to customers. However, several studies have shown that not all service companies, especially hospitals, can implement this system. Sarokolaei (2012) found that the banking sector in Iran that there is no significant difference between fees calculated by setting Activity Based Costing and by traditional methods for current bank deposits and deposits, so that the application of Activity based costing in service companies depends on how the company understands Activity Based Costing and determining variable costs.


Abstract. In this paper, we decompose the curvature tensor ( eld)on the Abbena-Thurston manifold into three curvature-like tensor elds, and investigate geometric properties. 1. IntroductionLet (V; ) be an n-dimensional real inner product space. Insection 2, we introduce the notion of a curvature-like tensor of type(1;3) on (V; ). We putL(V) := fLjLis a curvature like tensor on (V; )g;L 1 (V) := fL2L(V) jL(u;v) = cu^vfor u;v2V and some c2Rg;L ! (V) := fL2L(V) jthe Ricci tensor Ric L of Lis 0g;L 2 (V) := fL2L 1 (V) ? j = 0 for all L 0 2L ! (V)g:Then L(V) is decomposed into the orthogonal direct sum L 1 (V) L ! (V) L 2 (V). Let L= L 1 + L ! + L 2 (L2L(V)) be the decom-position corresponding to L 1 (V) L ! (V) L 2 (V). The component L ! of L2L(V) is said to be the Weyl tensor of L. The curvature-liketensors L 1 ;L ! ;L 2 of L= L 1 +L ! +L 2 2L(V) are given in terms of theRicci tensor Ric L and the scalar curvature S L of L(cf. Lemma 2.1).In this paper, using Lemma 2.1 we decompose the curvature tensor( eld) on the Abbena-Thurston manifold (cf. section 3.1) into threecurvature-like tensor elds. Geometric properties on low-dimensionalmanifolds (Heisenberg group, Abbena-Thurston manifold etcetera) have


In this article, the nature and types of hydrogen bond are analyzed, and the influences of hydrogen bonds on properties and structures of organic compounds are discussed.


Bioavailability studies on zinc and copper from three different rural Nigerian peasant diets in Wistar albino rats were carried out. Serum levels of minerals were used to assess bioavailablity. The mineral composition of diets studied ranged between 0.94 and 1.79mg/100g for zinc and between 2.19 and 1.62mg/100g for copper. The serum zinc levels ranged between 1.90 and 3.54mg/l for the test groups and 3.67 and 5.54mg/l for the control groups. On the analysis of the effect of the diets on zinc bioavailability there was no significant difference (p>0.05) between group 2 fed on "foofoo and edikang ikong" which had the lowest level and group 3 fed on "ekpan nkukwo" which had the highest serum zinc value. There was a significant difference (p KEY WORDS: Zinc, Copper, Bioavailability, Diet Global Jnl Pure & Applied Sciences Vol.10(2) 2004: 315-319


Ubiquitous Network is a fusion of hardware,software,system,terminal and application.It integrates the network space,information space,and physical space the people are living in together as a whole.Thus making the network as pervasive and free as air and water naturally into people's lives.This paper describes the basic concept and structure of the ubiquitous network,explains and analyzes the key technique.In addition,the solving scheme is proposed towards the main problems faced by ubiquitous network,thus providing a guidance for further study.


We perform transport measurements on double quantum dots defined in Ge/Si core/shell nanowires and focus on Pauli spin blockade in the regime where tens of holes occupy each dot. We identify spin blockade through the magnetic field dependence of the leakage current. We find both a dip and a peak in the leakage current at zero field. We analyze this behavior in terms of quantum dot parameters such as coupling to the leads, interdot tunnel coupling, as well as spin-orbit interaction. We estimate a lower bound on the spin-orbit parameter corresponding to an upper bound of ${l}_{\mathrm{so}}=500$ nm for the Rashba spin-orbit length. We also extract effective Land\'e $g$ factors up to 8.0 from field-dependent spin blockade measurements.


It is a great pleasure for me to be here with you today and have the opportunity to share my thoughts on the growth prospects of the Greek economy and the role of entrepreneurship and NPL resolution policies. Today, the long-term growth prospects of the Greek economy are significantly improved compared to seven years ago as the economy has been undergoing significant rebalancing and adjustment, despite the missteps and delays that occur from time to time.


GATA factors comprise a small family of transcription regulatory proteins containing two conserved zinc finger DNA binding domains for the consensus sequence (WGATAR). Among the six GATA factors, GATA-1/2/3 factors are prominently expressed in the hematopoietic cell lineage, while GATA-4/5/6 factors show a partly overlapping expression pattern in the heart and endoderm-derived organs. We previously reported that GATA4 and GATA5 were silenced by their promoter hypermethylation in gastrointestinal, lung and ovarian cancers. However, it remains unknown the mechanism underlying loss of GATA transcription factors in gastric carcinogenesis. To clarify the role of GATA, we examined GATA4/5 methylation and their downstream target genes in gastric cancer (GC). By using methylation specific PCR, the methylation frequency of GATA5 (30, 39%) was significantly higher than that of GATA4 (10, 13%) in 77 GC tissues (P Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 200.


Intramolecular cyclization of propargylammonium halide derivatives was carried out giving methylated heterocyclic aromatic compounds with fused thiazole and imidazole nuclei. Some of these reactions were accompanied by rearrangement which might be caused by ring opening of the quaternary heterocyclic compounds.


A recording method which discriminates, in recording data at a block unit of a predetermined size, whether or not a block having data is being recorded is defective; and if the discrimination resultsin that the block being recorded is defective, records the data newly in such a block near the defective one that at least one block subsequent to the defective one is skipped.


Summary The first DDA-DDDR (A=AE – Active discrimination & Electrogram) dual chamber implantable cardioverterdefibrillator (ICD) with left atrial pacing support was implanted on 24 January 2000. This is a true dual chamber ICD with three atrial tachyarrhythmia detectors and tiered therapies in the atrium. It can also detect junctional tachycardia that is treated with atrial therapies. Reliable atrial detection is possible with an enhanced atrioventricular (AV) discrimination algorithm in the ventricle. The original SMART Detection™ algorithm, with 95.1% specificity at essentially 100% sensitivity, has been augmented with an active discrimination scheme, SMART Detection™ II, that provides improved discrimination in the case of 1:1 AV rhythm. The device also incorporates a full feature DDDR pacemaker with enhanced hysteresis, PMT termination, mode switching. To prevent atrial fibrillation, the device also supports biatrial bipolar pacing.


Open-world instance segmentation is a rising task, which aims to segment all objects in the image by learning from a limited number of base-category objects. This task is challenging, as the number of unseen categories could be hundreds of times larger than that of seen categories. Recently, the DETR-like models have been extensively studied in the closed world while stay unexplored in the open world. In this paper, we utilize the Transformer for open-world instance segmentation and present SWORD. Firstly, we introduce to attach the stop-gradient operation before classification head and further add IoU heads for discovering novel objects. We demonstrate that a simple stop-gradient operation not only prevents the novel objects from being suppressed as background, but also allows the network to enjoy the merit of heuristic label assignment. Secondly, we propose a novel contrastive learning framework to enlarge the representations between objects and background. Specifically, we maintain a universal object queue to obtain the object center, and dynamically select positive and negative samples from the object queries for contrastive learning. While the previous works only focus on pursuing average recall and neglect average precision, we show the prominence of SWORD by giving consideration to both criteria. Our models achieve state-of-the-art performance in various open-world cross-category and cross-dataset generalizations. Particularly, in VOC to non-VOC setup, our method sets new state-of-the-art results of 40.0% on ARb100 and 34.9% on ARm100. For COCO to UVO generalization, SWORD significantly outperforms the previous best open-world model by 5.9% on APm and 8.1% on ARm100.


Regional economic growth in Portugal has mainly been studied from the perspective of convergence with data ending by the early 2000's. The country as a whole has stopped converging to the output levels of the richest European countries by this period and has also become one of the most unequal EU member-states in terms of income distribution in the meantime. It is thus important to analyze the growth performance at the regional level in a more recent period, 1995-2007, emphasizing regional disparities in inequality as explanatory factors. This study examines the relationship between inequality and regional growth in Portugal at NUTS III level exploring the explanatory power of earnings and education inequality measures computed with data from the Quadros de Pessoal database. The results point to a positive relationship between initial inequality and regional growth, stronger for education than for earnings inequality, but with earnings inequality measures revealing a higher explanatory power. Moreover, there is evidence that it is inequality at the top of the distribution that is the relevant to explain regional growth, a result that reinforces the higher propensities to save of the richer and the incentives mechanisms of transmission from inequality to growth. Additionally, the evidence does not support the existence of convergence among Portuguese NUTS III regions during the period under analysis. These findings are robust to the introduction of most additional control variables and the consideration of alternative measures of earnings and education inequality.


This paper presents a case study of anthropologists en- gaged in interdisciplinary policy research and the problems which they encountered both as a result of the nature of the policy arena and the role of anthropologists in interdisciplinary work. The case study de- scribes research conducted on the efforts of newly laid off employees and their union leaders to save their jobs in the supermarket industry. The paper analyzes the evolution of the research design that became the basis for a funded project and a book. The authors identify four models of collaboration in interdisciplinary research and discuss the po- tential each allows for the anthropological component to contribute to an interdisciplinary study. The case study details the process by which the research became focussed and points to the sources of constraint, especially on the anthropological contribution. In addition, the authors discuss what the anthropological component could have contributed, 219


The annual International conference "Functional materials and nanotechnologies" FM & NT-2011 was held at the Institute of Solid State Physics University of Latvia (ISSP UL) April 5–8, 2011. The meeting had over 240 participants from 17 countries. The purpose of the conference is to bring together scientists, research staff, engineers, and students from universities, research institutes and related industrial companies aware in the field of advanced material science and materials technologies trends and future activities. Scientific themes were following:


Interface-based design methodologies and tools using machine-readable metadata have been in use for many years; however, a lot of manual effort is still needed to gather module information, especially when the SoC and modules are being co-designed. It is a time-consuming and error prone challenge made more difficult by increasing SoC complexity. Various efforts to address these issues with document-based "executable specifications" met with only modest success. By committing fully to an architecture-specific web-based executable specification tool, the metadata available in the ecosystem could be leveraged to greatly improve the specification-to-design process. This paper presents a case study on a unified, integrated environment for subsystem creation, SoC integration, and SoC specification teams by building and using an architecture-aware tool to comprehend the SoC constructs. A modern web-based framework instead of a standalone tool gave built-in collaboration capabilities and an easy way to visually represent and manipulate data. Various architectural rules about these connections can be enforced. Connection fabrics (e.g. NoC) and other project-specific infrastructure can be configured and synthesized on demand and brought in to the design easily due to the common environment. Netlists and other connectivity data can be fed into automated RTL generation processes directly, or used as reference for design teams tasked with implementation. Reports and automated software generation satisfy the needs of the design verification and software teams. Overall team productivity is greatly enhanced — infrastructure is produced much more quickly with fewer engineers needed. The shorter revision cycle also speeds and simplifies functional and performance testing feedback loops.


Although taurine-dipeptides containing an acidic α-amino acid (Glu or Asp) have been proposed to exist in the central nervous system, it is not yet clear how the acidic amino acid is linked with taurine in the peptides. This study aimed to analyze the mode of linkage of such peptides through analysis of their spectral data, such as proton nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectra. Four pairs of taurine-oligopeptides (1-8) containing one acidic α-amino acid were examined, and spattered ion mass spectrometry B/E linked scan mass spectrometry was proved to be most useful to distinguish each pair of isomers. Further, immunochemical examination indiated that all the oligopeptides (1-8) synthesized by the conventional coupling method were highly cross-reactive with antisera against taurine and against γGlu-Tau.


We consider the problem of equalization of the frequency selective mobile radio channel in the presence of co-channel interference (CCI). Conventional trellis equalizers treat the sum of noise and interference as additive white Gaussian noise, while CCI is generally a colored non-Gaussian process. We propose a nonparametric approach based on the estimation of the probability density function of the noise-plus-interference. Given the availability of a limited volume of data, the density is estimated by kernel smoothing techniques. Due to the temporal color of the CCI, the use of a whitening filter is also addressed. Simulation results are given for the GSM system, showing a significant performance improvement with respect to the equalizer based on the Gaussian assumption.


Density functional theory calculations for the insertions of Me2Si: into Si−Cl bonds of various chlorosilanes (YR2SiCl) revealed hitherto unnoticed remarkable stereoelectronic substituent effects o...


Piled raft foundations are widely used in infrastructure built on soft soil to reduce the settlement and enhance bearing capacity. The raft can be used for basements and to share the load. In this paper, Poulos method, in which the raft was cut into many piled strips, was used as an analytical method. The study also used Plaxis2D and SAP 2000 to calculate internal forces for the raft in a piled raft foundation. A case of Vietcombank building with 10 floors and 1 basement, constructed on a soil profile in Soc Trang province, was studied. The piled raft with a 35m×19m×1m (length×width×thickness) raft and 28 piles were used for the analysis. Normaland groundwater pumping conditions were applied for the soil. The results showed that the maximum moment and shear force that occurred in the raft were affected when the groundwater pumping condition was applied to the model. The internal forces of the raft in the piled raft foundation for different conditions were captured,discussed, and presented in this paper.


This work studies a TDMA cellular system that divides downlink resources between single users and users sharing a high speed connection. The shared high speed connection is more precisely a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) link between the base station and a mobile relay.In an attempt to increase cellular system capacity a channel-aware scheduling algorithm -proportional fair is implemented. This algoritm exploits multi-user diversity gains inherited in cellular systems and in scenarios with few antenna elements in the shared MIMO link, this technique is beneficial.As multiple transmit and receive antennas are added to base station and to relay, antenna-diversity gains is shown to be superior to the multi-user diversity gains obtained by channel-aware scheduling.Channel-aware scheduling also suffers from channel tracking problems in the investigated scenario and it is found that for a channel quality information feedback delay of 4 ms, a bus speed of 36 km/h reduce the actual capacity gain to zero compared to round robin scheduling.The option of using several antennas in the shared link reduces the gain from channel-aware scheduling to the point where round robin and MIMO constitute the best feasible solution to increase cellular capacity.


This article presents a corpus linguistic analysis of the development in future-oriented political journalism in four Danish newspapers in the period 1997–2013 (N = 2954 full articles = 1,553,038 word tokens). Keyword analysis and concordance analysis are applied within a framework of grammatical-semantic theory of tense and modal verbs and semantic-pragmatic theory of time meaning, modality and speech acts. The results suggest, unexpectedly, that the newspapers – and news reports in particular – seem to have become less future-oriented in the period. At the same time, however, the articles – and particularly news commentary, in itself increasing – might have become slightly more speculative. Thus, the journalists themselves have become the main source of 'guessing', that is, predicting and speculating, with the keywords vil (will) and ville (would), including unreal and counterfactual speculations in the past tenses.


Gestational diabetes mellitus(GDM),a serious complication of pregnancy,has severe negative effect on maternal and fetal health and the prevalence of GDM is increasing all over the world.However,the pathogenesis of GDM is still unknown.The researches have indicated that genetic factors play an important role in the etiology of GDM.Therefore,identification of the underlying genetic causes of GDM will eventually provide a basis for the early diagnosis and individualized treatment.


The effects of gamma radiation on the germination, survival, and morphological damage in characteristics of the M1 generation of coffee (Coffea arabica L. var. typica) plants was evaluated using seeds collected from Santa Teresa and Chaupimayo, Peru. Under net house, the percentage of germination was 68%, 35%, 10%, and 0% for the Santa Teresa seeds and 75%, 49%, 17% and 0% for the Chaupimayo seeds with irradiation treatments of 0, 50, 100 and 150 Gy, respectively, whereas under laboratory conditions, germination levels were between 70% and 94% across all treatments. The survival rate also decreased with increasing radiation levels, with values of 45%, 32%, 28%, and 10% in the laboratory and 29%, 9%, 6%, and 0% in the net house for the Santa Teresa seeds and 58%, 45%, 38%, and 8% in the laboratory and 42%, 15%, 7%, and 0% in the net house for the Chaupimayo seeds with irradiation treatments of 0, 50, 100, and 150 Gy, respectively. Morphological changes were observed in the plants that survived irradiation at a dose of 100 Gy in terms of the leaf shape, leaf apex shape, young leaf color, plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves per plant, leaf length, leaf width, and distance from the cotyledon to the first node.


solid drug formulation of the invention relates to a solid drug formulation comprising granules containing ospemifene (also known as (deaminoidroxi) toremifene) as a therapeutically active compound or a geometric isomer, a stereoisomer, a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, or an ester thereof or a metabolite thereof, in combination with one or more intra-granular excipients.


Field trials of arbuscular mycorrhizal(AM) fungi as a biological fertilizer applied on watermelon, cucumber, taro, bean, peanut, sweet potato, and corn were carried out. Results showed that the yields of tested crops colonized by AM fungi were increased by 0~66% compared to controls. The total efficiency rate of increasing yields and economic benefits were 95.5% and 68.2% respectively, for all tested crops, one hundred percentage for watermelon, cucumber, taro and bean. The input/output ratios for watermelon, cucumber, taro and bean were 1 ∶ 4.8~6.7, 1 ∶ 4.4, 1 ∶ 5~6.1 and 1 ∶ 2.8~3.4 respectively. The yield of mycorrhizal watermelon plants in replant plots after 3-year rotation was 2.7 times greater than that of control. Although yields of peanut and corn were increased by the biological fertilizer, their pure income were negative. GS preparation enhanced the yield of sweet potato, its input/output ratio was only 1∶2.3; while GV9 preparation did not. So the efficiency of AM fungal fertilizer was varied with crops. It was concluded that efficient AM fungi could increase economic benefits of horticultural crops and play a role in protecting ecological environments.


Background: GABA promotes terminal differentiation during late development of Dictyostelium discoideum. Results: GABA metabolism is tightly controlled and regulates early development. Conclusion: Distinct genes regulate GABA signaling during different developmental stages. Significance: This is the first systematic study of GABA metabolism in Dictyostelium discoideum and broadens our knowledge of the evolution and function of GABA metabolism. While GABA has been suggested to regulate spore encapsulation in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, the metabolic profile and other potential functions of GABA during development remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the homeostasis of GABA metabolism by disrupting genes related to GABA metabolism and signaling. Extracellular levels of GABA are tightly regulated during early development, and GABA is generated by the glutamate decarboxylase, GadB, during growth and in early development. However, overexpression of the prespore-specific homologue, GadA, in the presence of GadB reduces production of extracellular GABA. Perturbation of extracellular GABA levels delays the process of aggregation. Cytosolic GABA is degraded by the GABA transaminase, GabT, in the mitochondria. Disruption of a putative vesicular GABA transporter (vGAT) homologue DdvGAT reduces secreted GABA. We identified the GABAB receptor-like family member GrlB as the major GABA receptor during early development, and either disruption or overexpression of GrlB delays aggregation. This delay is likely the result of an abolished pre-starvation response and late expression of several "early" developmental genes. Distinct genes are employed for GABA generation during sporulation. During sporulation, GadA alone is required for generating GABA and DdvGAT is likely responsible for GABA secretion. GrlE but not GrlB is the GABA receptor during late development.


The Free State is the second poorest province of South Africa. Hence, Central University of Technology decided to implement a programme to contribute to the socio-economic upliftment of the region. An institutional structure, the Unit of Technology and Innovation (T&I), has been established to stimulate innovation by staff, students and industry and oversee the efforts of a range of institutional entities at commercializing research outputs, assisting entrepreneurs in the development of new products, and facilitating the incubation of new start-up enterprises. These efforts are integrated into the academic enterprise, as prescribed by an overarching institutional document, Vision 2020. The Centre for Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing and the Product Development Technology Station are institutional units overseen by T&I operating in this environment. Jointly they strive to avail product development expertise and facilities to local entrepreneurs. A general purpose incubator, as well as tooling incubator, was also established to ensure the availability of a one-stop support unit for entrepreneurial staff, graduating students and industry to develop and commercialise products. A business model was developed for these units whereby their services could be availed to industry, facilitating the financing of the extension of their collaborative technology base in a self-sustainable manner.


Barbara Levy, MD Dr. Levy is Clinical Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and Principal, The Levy Group LLC, La Jolla, California. She is a member of the OBG ManageMent Board of Editors. Andrew M. Kaunitz, MD, NCMP Dr. Kaunitz is Tenured Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Florida College of Medicine– Jacksonville; and Medical Director and Director of Menopause and Gynecologic Ultrasound Services, University of Florida Health Women's Specialist Services–Emerson, Jacksonville. He serves on the OBG ManageMent Board of Editors. Appropriate cancer screening for women with dense breasts


OBJECTIVE
Stereotactic body radiotherapy is used to treat spinal metastases; however, 10% of patients experience local failure. We aimed to clarify the outcomes of the second course of stereotactic body radiotherapy for spinal metastases with a uniform fractionation schedule at our institution.

METHODS
Data of patients treated with a second salvage stereotactic body radiotherapy course at the same spinal level or adjacent level from July 2018 to December 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. The initial prescribed dose was 24 Gy in two fractions, and the second dose 30 or 35 Gy in five fractions. The spinal cord dose constraint at the second course was 15.5 Gy at the maximum point dose. The endpoints were local failure and adverse effects. Local failure was defined as tumor progression using imaging.

RESULTS
We assessed 19 lesions in 17 patients, with radioresistant lesions in 14 (74%) cases, the second stereotactic body radiotherapy to the same/adjacent spinal level in 13/6 cases, the median interval between stereotactic body radiotherapy of 23 (range, 6-52) months, and lesions compressing the cord in 5 (26%) cases. The median follow-up period was 19 months. The 12- and 18-month local failure rates were 0% and 8%, respectively. Radiation-induced myelopathy, radiculopathy and vertebral compression fractures were observed in 0 (0%), 4 (21%) and 2 (11%) lesions, respectively. Three patients with radiculopathy experienced almost complete upper or lower limb paralysis.

CONCLUSIONS
The second course of salvage stereotactic body radiotherapy for spinal metastases achieved good local control with a reduced risk of myelopathy. However, a high occurrence rate of radiation-induced radiculopathy has been confirmed.


The intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is thought to be closely related to ingrowth of new blood vessels. However, the impact of anti‐angiogenic factors in the maintenance of IVD avascularity remains unknown. Tenomodulin (Tnmd) is a tendon/ligament‐specific marker and anti‐angiogenic factor with abundant expression in the IVD. It is still unclear whether Tnmd contributes to the maintenance of IVD homeostasis, acting to inhibit vascular ingrowth into this normally avascular tissue. Herein, we investigated whether IVD degeneration could be induced spontaneously by the absence of Tnmd. Our results showed that Tnmd was expressed in an age‐dependent manner primarily in the outer annulus fibrous (OAF) and it was downregulated at 6 months of age corresponding to the early IVD degeneration stage in mice. Tnmd knockout (Tnmd−/−) mice exhibited more rapid progression of age‐related IVD degeneration. These signs include smaller collagen fibril diameter, markedly lower compressive stiffness, reduced multiple IVD‐ and tendon/ligament‐related gene expression, induced angiogenesis, and macrophage infiltration in OAF, as well as more hypertrophic‐like chondrocytes in the nucleus pulposus. In addition, Tnmd and chondromodulin I (Chm1, the only homologous gene to Tnmd) double knockout (Tnmd−/−Chm1−/−) mice displayed not only accelerated IVD degeneration, but also ectopic bone formation of IVD. Lastly, the absence of Tnmd in OAF‐derived cells promoted p65 and matrix metalloproteinases upregulation, and increased migratory capacity of human umbilical vein endothelial cells. In sum, our data provide clear evidences that Tnmd acts as an angiogenic inhibitor in the IVD homeostasis and protects against age‐related IVD degeneration. Targeting Tnmd may represent a novel therapeutic strategy for attenuating age‐related IVD degeneration.


In this study, Seismic modeling was used as an effective tool to verify structural interpretation of a seismic section from onshore Venezuela. The structure/velocity model was derived based on analysis of PSTM image and information from the well. Finite difference modeling was applied to the model and the resultant shot gathers have been migrated using PSTM method. The comparison of PSTM image of synthetic data with PSTM image of real data verifies the new interpretation concept and confirms that the target event was distorted by the overriding thrust fault in the PSTM image and PSDM has to be adopted to produce accurate structure image. To select adequate PSDM velocity model building workflow for the specific imaging target the same synthetic dataset collected from the modeling process has been used to evaluate different PSDM model building methods. Both grid and model based tomography workflows have been fully tested with multiple velocity update iterations. The PSDM results from both methods have been compared and the one produces accurate image has been recommended. In addition, the tests reveal many specific issues associated with selected workflow and unique geological structure, which allow us to fine tune the workflow before applying to real data.


Stature is one of the most important parameters in personal identification for physical and forensic anthropologists. Stature can be extimated from decomposed and fully or partially akeletonized human remains. Many Authors developed anatomical methods based on measurements of the whole skeleton or mathematical methods based on measurements of single bones, from which they obtained regression formulae for calculating the stature. In this review, we focused on the vertebral column and compared the corresponding regression formulae according to population, sex and age by a critical analysis of the literature.


: This work questions the complex relationships between fiction and history, the effects of contextual background, the weight of historical, ideological, and axiological issues in oral epic. In Epopee du Fouta-Djalon, the narrative fiction links real and fictional facts in a dynamic momentum to construct a memorable story, one in which epic truth enhances the heroic figure – Abdul Rahmane – at the expense of the historical figure – Almâmy Oumar -, and one in which some facts have been rearranged and updated, and thus bring forth the founding myths which are endowed with whole new meanings in the process. The conflict which opposed Fulah and the Mandinka people in 1867 is represented in the story in the form of adversary values which the bivalent, epic vision reinforces in a set of contrasting dualities: Fulah versus the Mandinka people, Muslims versus Animists. Because it aims to exalt founding values, the epic story differs from, though is inspired by, History, the essence of which is shifted to fit a drama meant to flatter and awaken the collective conscience endlessly urged to meet today's challenges. Apart from its idyllic and eulogistical tone, the epic also takes on satirical airs through a thorough criticism of the vicissitudes and dramas of contemporary Africa (L'enfant prodige). The analysis of the narrative composition, structure and performance reveals an aesthetics based on what is called "the formulaic style", the episodic narrative structure and a strong rhetorics of "epicisation". This aesthetics culminates in the effects of the musical accompaniment which embellishes the listening of this oral epic and translates the main themes into sounds.


The present invention relates to power the vehicle through one of the recording and the power point (12) of the exchange, with the first power transmitting information related to the vehicle side, the power point of the first one of complete recording power independently of the motor vehicle and forming a second sum of the total power consumption (2) by the power point (12) provided by subtracting the first power received from the vehicle (2) from the total charge, to determine the second amount is determined by the amount method, system and apparatus.


This study intended to evaluate whether Open Performance Review and Appraisal System (OPRAS) as a tool of managing performance in Tanzania Public Service as currently used has been linked with other Human Resource systems. The study employed a cross-sectional research design. A sample of 80 respondents was used. Data was collected through questionnaires and interviews. The data collected were analyzed and processed through the use of SPSS computer software and descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and tables were presented. The findings suggest that majority of participants reported that OPRAS as currently used in Iramba District Council (IDC) has not been linked with other human resource systems specifically training, career development, rewards and promotion. Thus, within the limitations of the study, it is concluded that Performance management system is not linked with other HR systems in Tanzanian Public Service. Thus hindering the intended intention of introducing OPRAS in Tanzanian Public service which are adoption and nurturing of the performance management culture in public service. Keywords : Human Resource Management, Performance Management, Public Service and OPRAS DOI : 10.7176/EJBM/11-8-13 Publication date :March 31 st 2019