Continuous processing in microreactors represents a novel way for the safe and expedient conduct of high energetic reactions and potentially hazardous chemistry. Apart from handling benefits (such as minimised problems inthe scale-up process), reactions in microreactors proceed under precisely controlled conditions providing improved yields and product quality compared to the batch procedure. In this paper, the potential of this technology is exemplarily determined in the crucial nitration of the pharmaceutically relevant intermediate 1-methyl-3-propyl-1H-pyrazole-5-carboxylic acid (1). Further fundamental nitration examples demonstrate the unproblematic handling of hazardous H 2 SO 4 / HNO 3 mixtures for the nitration of 2-methylindole (4) and pyridine-N-oxide (6) or even the explosive acetyl nitrate Ac 2 O/HNO 3 (nitration of toluene, 8) in the continuous reaction mode.


To investigate precipitates above the cloud point (CP) in biodiesel, three saturated monoglycerides (SMGs), monomyristin, monopalmitin, and monostearin, were spiked into distilled soy and animal fa...


By any metric, COVID-19 has disrupted Southeast Asia immensely, affecting even those countries that have fared comparatively well. Master narratives of the course of the pandemic across the region have been inescapable: which countries sprang into action and which lost time in denial or dithering;which implemented testing and contact-tracing and which remain short on tests and strategies even now;where the death toll and economic costs have been devastating and where they have not been quite so terrible. The latest plot-lines in these unfolding dramas address when and from where vaccines are being secured, how effective authorities are in distributing them to their respective populations, and how they are preparing for and responding to new waves of infection.


In the context of reinforcement learning, the training efficiency can decay exponentially with the size of the state space. Therefore, designing easily-optimized state space representation has remained an open problem. In this paper, we focus on a general and challenging scenario, i.e. reinforcement learning with continuous action spaces. We propose a new representation framework by explicitly encoding topology information such as the geometrical and the kinematic relations among different parts of the agent to make the representation more informative, which results in effective optimization. Extensive experiments were conducted on three settings to demonstrate that our method can remarkably stabilize and speed up the training process.


The present invention pertains to a Chinese herbal medicine preparation, in particular to a traditional Chinese medicine for treating fatty liver. The present invention is characterized in that the present invention is composed of the following components according to the parts by weight, 10 to 20 parts of largehead atractylodes rhizome, 10 to 20 parts of pilose Asiabell root, 10 to 20 parts of membranous milkvetch root, 10 to 14 parts of Chinese thorowax root, 5 to 15 parts of immature bitter orange, 5 to 15 parts of Indian buead, 5 to 15 parts of common burreed rhizome, 10 to 20 parts of Chinese angelica, 5 to 15 parts of red paeony root, 5 to 15 parts of salvia, 5 to 15 parts of giant knotweed rhizome, 2 to 4 parts of panax notoginseng powder, 20 to 40 parts of hawthorn fruit and 10 to 20 parts of kudzuvine root. The present invention has the significant effects of coordinating liver, promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, lowering lipid and removing toxicity and is applicable to the treatment of various hyperlipidemia and fatty liver; furthermore the efficacy is significant and the cure rate is high.


Jurisdiction — In general — Territorial — Territorial limits of jurisdiction — Legal consequences of the division of Germany — Berlin — Jurisdiction of Federal Constitutional Court — Function of the Supreme Court of Berlin — Reserved powers of the Allies — The law of the Federal Republic of Germany


This is a demonstration of KOSAR, a middleware to enhance the performance of SQL applications with workloads that exhibit a high read to write ratios. It show cases the administrative interface of KOSAR using a social networking benchmark named BG. We demonstrate KOSAR with both MySQL and Oracle by turning it on and off to show its many fold performance enhancement of these relational databases management systems. The proposed demo is available online at http://kosarsql.com and one may both examine the features described in this proposal and perform its suggested interactive actions.


Internet-of-Things has emerged to develop smart communities so that real time sensing and decision can improve operational efficiency and quality of lives. However, establishing such infrastructure can be exceptionally intricate due to the vast variety of devices and the implemented technologies. Also, it poses several unique challenges, such as heterogeneity of the infrastructure, type, and scale of deployment, security, privacy, and inter-operability. One primary concern in a smart city environment is the capabilities of typically end-IoT devices which are vulnerable to security threats and prone to confidentiality and integrity breach of data. Blockchain can potentially address these security challenges due to the distributed ledger's inherent properties. In this paper, we propose a decentralized architecture using the Blockchain to provide a secure and resilient smart city infrastructure that can run the ledger service over a distributed network. We consider a permissioned Blockchain, Hyperledger Sawtooth, and to automate and to overcome the infrastructural challenges concerning the smart city deployment, and we provide a systematic methodology that automates the deployment process and saves a significant amount of time. We simulate and deploy a Blockchain-integrated smart city environment using the proposed seamless deployment strategy using our automation module. With the proposed deployment scheme, we improve the Blockchain-based infrastructure development time by 82% compared to the traditional deployment approach.


Based on management work of track district,remote intergrated management information system is researched and developed,so the careful management level of the track district is improved.


Structural Building Jacketing System is a new technique for the retrofitting of reinforced concrete structures. It involves the application of jacketing to the whole structure exterior using steel braces connected to the RC frame by anchorages. This invention is especially used retrofitting of existing important building structures such as hospitals, schools, factories, communication and power buildings. The main advantage is to retrofit the existing buildings without disturbing their serviceability. A new modern architectural appearance will also be provided to existing structure if a cladding is done. Three-dimensional scaled models of RC buildings with and without the jacketing system were tested under static cyclic pushover loading to understand three-dimensional behavior. Experimental and analytical results were compared to verify the models. The results indicate that structures retrofitted with the jacketing system increase seismic capacity by a factor of four. Application of this system to a 10-story housing in Istanbul is discussed.


GADSA (Gamified Antimicrobial Stewardship Decision Support App) is a decision support tool to improve evidence-based prescribing, designed to be used at the point-of-care to help clinicians comply with guidelines in their everyday practice. The app represents a novel cross-platform, mobile decision support tool, integrating principles from serious games and gamification, to improve compliance with prescription guidelines of Surgical Antibiotic Prophylaxis (SAP) in Nigeria. This paper focuses on the decision support component of the mobile application, integrating the World Health Organisation and Sanford guidelines for SAP prescriptions.


Coronary rupture is a rare complication of percutaneous coronary intervention. However, it may be associated with serious hemodynamic consequences often leading to tamponade, myocardial infarction, emergency surgical intervention, or death. We report a successful percutaneous repair of a brisk left anterior descending coronary artery perforation by the implantation of a Magic Wallstent. Cathet. Cardiovasc. Intervent. 48:304–307, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The introduction of atracurium and vecuronium in the early 1980s has generated a steadily growing interest in the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic aspects of neuromuscular relaxants. By mechanomyography or electromyography, the pharmacodynamics of these drugs can be determined with an accuracy that is unmatched for any other anaesthetic, and there are probably few drugs in anaesthetic practice that have been more thoroughly investigated. However, despite the immense knowledge accumulated over the years, controversies still surround these drugs. With respect to atracurium, some of these controversies relate to its metabolism, and some to the clinical significance of its histamine-releasing properties (the latter a characteristic of most neuromuscular blockers). The unique metabolism of atracurium by Hofmann elimination and ester hydrolysis, allowing elimination to occur independently of hepatic or renal function, offers pharmacologic advantages in patients with organ failure. On the other hand, Hofmann elimination leads to the formation of laudanosine, a known CNS stimulant, which, at concentrations well above those encountered during anaesthesia, has been found to cause epileptic seizures in animals. Laudanosine is excreted in the urine, and may therefore accumulate in patients with renal dysfunction. Concern has been expressed about administering atracurium in high doses to the patient with kidney disease, despite its Acta Anaesthesiologica Scand i navica ISSN 0515-2720 ISBN 87-16-15108-9


We determine the orbits of four double-degenerate systems (DDs), composed of two white dwarfs and two white-dwarf-M-dwarf binaries. The four DDs, WD1022+050, WD1428+373, WD1824+040 and WD2032+188, show orbital periods of 1.157155(5), 1.15674(2), 6.26602(6) and 5.0846(3) d, respectively. These periods combined with estimates for the masses of the brighter component, based on their effective temperatures, allow us to constrain the masses of the unseen companions. We estimate that the upper limit for the contribution of the unseen companions to the total luminosity in the four DDs ranges between 10 and 20 per cent. In the case of the two white-dwarf-M-dwarf binaries, WD 1042-690 and WD2009+622, we calculate the orbital parameters by fitting simultaneously the absorption line from the white dwarf and the emission core from the M dwarf. Their orbital periods are 0.337083(1) and 0.741 226(2) d, respectively. We find signatures of irradiation on the inner face of the companion to WD2009+622. We calculate the masses of both components from the gravitational redshift and the mass-radius relationship for white dwarfs and find masses of 0.75-0.78 and 0.61-0.64 M ○. for WD 1042-690 and WD2009+622, respectively. This indicates that the stars probably reached the asymptotic giant branch in their evolution before entering a common envelope phase. These two white-dwarf-M-dwarf binaries will become cataclysmic variables, although not within a Hubble time, with orbital periods below the period gap.


The Hebei Spirit oil pollution accident which occurred in Tae-an in 2007 has brought considerable impacts on the surrounding environment such as struggles among the regions and the residents in the damaged area as well as devastation of local economy and ocean environment. The majority of the impact was related with economic problem. Also, the main factor to cause the regional community conflict was found to be firstly economic problems and secondly the insufficiency of government's management system and policy measures for the community conflicts. Therefore, the government's policy to overcome oil accidents should focus on improvement of the economic support systems and conflict resolution. In this study, the support policies taken by government after the Hebei Spirit accident was examined and responsive policies which can be used by government in future accidents are suggested.


Tempuran District which is an industrial area with very rapid development. PT. Usmantex, PT Pandatex and PT Djohartex are companies engaged in textiles whose majority of workers are women. All types of work have risks, especially risks for female workers related to work comfort and safety. For this reason, the protection of the rights of women workers is very important. This study aims to analyze the legal protection for women workers at PT. Djohartex based on Law No. 13 of 2003 concerning employment. The type of method used is juridical empirical with a qualitative approach. This study's findings are the legal protection of female workers at companies in the Tempuran industrial area, especially PT. Djohartex, has not been realized properly due to two obstacles, namely internal factors (lack of employees in the Labor Inspection Unit, limited human resources, limited facilities and infrastructure). infrastructure, the difficulty of supervision time), external factors (lack of awareness of the company and lack of cooperation between the parties).


This paper makes contributions to the estimation of health production functions and the economics of fertility control. We present the first infant health production functions that simultaneously control for self-selection in the resolution of pregnancies as live births or induced abortions and in the use of prenatal medical care services. We also incorporate the decision of a pregnant woman to give birth.


Summarization was made on key factors affecting the formation of aerobic granular sludge,such as influent substrate,COD loading rate,hydraulic shear and DO concentration,selective pressure,temperature,pH,alkalinity,seeding sludge,and type of reactor,etc.Meanwhile,the research direction and the prospect in application of aerobic granular sludge were forecasted.


Situated adjacent to the essentializing logics and combative rhetorics that have largely defined the Trump administration's "war" on history, specifically regarding initiatives such as the "White House Conference on American History" and the "1776 Commission," this afterword considers the distinctive significance and ongoing consequence of ethnic American literary engagements with a frequently debated and still unreconciled US past. To illustrate both the relevance and resonance of such literary productions, the afterword accesses Jackson Bliss's short story "Secret Codes & Oppressive Histories" (which is featured in the special issue) and briefly considers William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the source text for the oft-utilized notion that the past functions as prologue. By way of conclusion, the afterword turns to cultural critic Lisa Lowe's evocative articulation of "reckoning" as a productive and liberatory means of "revisit[ing] times of historical contingency and possibility to consider alternatives that may have been unthought in those times."


The Ecommerce has been the vibrant industry as of today. Through the innovation of internet e commerce has gained a rapid momentum in 10 years period of time. The Ecommerce market in India has transformed the path of the business to a second phase from offline business to online business. The ecommerce industry in India is expected to grow US$ 200 billion by 2026 which is a massive growth due to rapid usage of internet and smartphones. The digital India campaign is expected to flourish rapidly through the ecommerce industry. The investment of ecommerce has been captured through the big giants Flipkart and Amazon The market size of the flipkart after acquired by the giant Walmart


The word sacred brings to mind, a space that is holy and religious. Although in the current generation, sacred is not just about the holy and religious but more about the mental peace of the mind. A sacred space thrives to answer questions we cannot find in our normal lives. Some religious post positivist believe the scared sometimes cannot always be generalized as sacred by everyone. The idea that what is sacred is only unique and calls upon oneself under individualism. But in some way, through religious positivism maybe there is something, an element, a hierarchy, a sense of repetitious, a symbol that can produce a sense of sacredness. The answer of such arguments, may only be revealed by inductive reasoning with some type of simulation. The simulation of a designed enclosed space, where the user has no knowledge of the typology of the building, and tested to see how they feel in the space.


EDITOR,—The value of computer based prescribing1 should be immense, and the potential value is even greater for babies than adults. Drug injections for adults often use a half to a whole standard ampoule, but sick or premature neonates frequently require only a tiny proportion of the phial, which increases the scope for accidental and possibly lethal overdosage2 caused by medical or nursing error.3 A sequence of calculations may be …


BACKGROUND
Although nonfat milk has been utilized worldwide in the industrial dairy process, little is known about the effects of fat separation on skim milk's structural and digestive properties during further manufacturing process. This study investigated the effects of the manufacturing process on the structure and in vitro digestion properties of skim goat milk, particularly emphasizing on fat separation.

RESULTS
It was found that changes in surface charge and hydrophobicity of milk proteins caused by fat separation resulted in oxidation and aggregation in the subsequent homogenization, heat and spray drying processing, which further affected its digestibility. Compared with the separation by dish separator (DS), skim milk after tubular centrifugal separation (CS) showed a higher initial and final digestibility. Furthermore, CS samples had a lower surface hydrophobicity level and higher free sulfhydryl content, ζ-potential, and average particle size (P < 0.05). Goat milk protein after CS was more readily oxidized and aggregated during the subsequent homogenization, heat treatment, as evidenced by the higher carbonyl content and particle size. Additionally, CS converted more β-sheets to α-helices, thus promoting the aggregation of oxidized skim milk protein.

CONCLUSION
The the skim milk after CS and DS demonstrated different structural and digestive properties. Skim goat milk products after CS were more susceptible to oxidant-induced protein structural changes, resulting in higher protein digestibility. These findings provided insights into the mechanism involved in the control of gastric digestion of skim milk during manufacturing process instead of additives addition. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Synopsis In the Paper is described a series of triaxial tests on samples which were normally consolidated for different periods of time prior to the subsequent shear test. It is shown that the behaviour of the clay when sheared depends on the "age" of the samples. With time the clay becomes more brittle with smaller failure strains and the undrained shear strength shows a slight increase. A study of the stress-strain curves leads to the conclusion that the effect of time can be explained by the growing of cohesive bonds at the contact points between the particles. The cohesive bonds lead to a greater resistance against a shear deformation, but they are gradually destroyed for increasing strain. Dans cet article on decrit nue serie d'essais triaxiaux sur des echantillons qui ont ete normale-ment consolides pendant differentes durees precedant l'essai de cisaillement. On montre que le comportement de l'argile lors du cisaillement depend de la duree de consolidation de l'echantillon. Avec le temps, l'argile ...


The supposedly authoritativeÖsterreichisches Staatswörterbuch (1905 edition) states unequivocally that the only joint-stock bank that existed before 1850 was a land bank founded in 1841 by the Galician estates. März, who has written the definitive work on the Credit-Anstalt, also found no place in his otherwise excellent study for the Schwarzenberg Bank, asserting that the Credit-Anstalt was founded simply on the model of the Crédit Mobilier of contemporary France. The only publication that concerned itself with the Schwarzenberg Bank, formally known as the Wiener oktroyirte Commerzial-, Leih- und Wechselbank (Chartered Commercial, Loan, and Exchange Bank of Vienna) in some detail was written in 1918, with the observation that it strongly resembled the Crédit Mobilier type of bank. This work was obviously ignored both in Austria and elsewhere where the history of banking and banks has been discussed.


Micropapillary urothelial carcinoma (MPUC) is a rare subtype of urothelial carcinoma (UC) with an aggressive clinical course. The cytomorphologic features of MPUC in urine cytology have not been well described. In this study, 23 urine specimens (11 voided urines and 12 bladder washings) from 23 patients with MPUC on follow‐up surgical material and 28 specimens (14voided urines and 14 bladder washings) from 28 patients with high‐grade UCs (HGUC) were retrieved. Cytologic features (nuclear grade, cytoplasmic characteristics), architectural features (single cell pattern, true papillary structures, flat sheets/nests, three dimensional clusters, micropapillary (inside‐out, acinar‐like, or cauliflower with nuclei located peripherally)), and necrosis were evaluated. Clinical follow‐up was obtained by chart review. Two findings, micropapillae and cytoplasmic vacuoles, were seen more frequently in MPUC compared to HGUC, 81.0% vs. 14.3%, and 57.1% vs. 14.3%, respectively. The combination of these two findings had a sensitivity of 78%, a specificity of 86%, a positive predictive value of 82%, and a negative predictive value of 83% for the diagnosis of MPUC on subsequent biopsy. MPUC and HGUC can both exhibit a single cell pattern, papillary structures, flat sheets/nests, three dimensional clusters, high‐nuclear grade, and necrosis, thus these findings are not useful in distinguishing these entities. Chart review revealed that patients with MPUC had a higher rate of metastasis to lymph nodes and distant organs than HGUC, 57% vs. 4%. Therefore, the findings of cytoplasmic vacuoles and micropapillary structures in UC from a urine cytology specimen are associated with MPUC on subsequent biopsy. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


[reaction: see text] The copper reagent arising from an optically pure propargylic oxazolidinone was found to react regio- and diastereoselectively with aldehydes, leading, in a one-pot procedure, to the anti homopropargylic amino alcohols derivatives in good yields.


Utilize inductance, electric capacity, impedance size and performance , make the power cut off and pass、in this way it conveys Power and transmission and does not interfering the high frequency signal .It makes 50Hz alternating current extend through coaxial cable , continue the first class amplifier offers the power downwards. Consume the size according to the resistance, voltage, electricity Use formulae Calculate coaxial to supply power distance, and amplifier supply power grades of antithetical couplet progression.


This work focuses on optimizing circuits representing neural networks (NNs) in the form of and-inverter graphs (AIGs). The optimization is done by analyzing the training set of the neural network to find constant bit values at the primary inputs. The constant values are then propagated through the AIG, which results in removing unnecessary nodes. Furthermore, a trade-off between neural network accuracy and its reduction due to constant propagation is investigated by replacing with constants those inputs that are likely to be zero or one. The experimental results show a significant reduction in circuit size with negligible loss in accuracy.


In 1891, an Ohio school journal sponsored a teachers' roundtable about the state's most recent curricular requirement: Scientific Temperance Instruction. The exchange began with an anonymous letter from a self-proclaimed teetotaler, who nevertheless feared that STI's screeds against alcohol and tobacco would sap parental authority. "It is hard to know just what to say when dear little Johnny looks up in your face and says: '"Why, my papa smokes,"' another contributor acknowledged, suggesting four possible responses that could promote abstinence without obstinance:


Abstract We propose a longitudinal principal component analysis method for multivariate longitudinal data using a random-effects eigen-decomposition, where the eigen-decomposition uses longitudinal information through nonparametric splines and the multivariate random effects incorporate significant store-wise heterogeneity. Our method can effectively analyze large marketing data containing sales information for products from hundreds of stores over an 11-year time period. The proposed method leads to more accurate estimation and interpretation compared to existing approaches. We illustrate our method through simulation studies and an application to marketing data from IRI. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


Abstract Stingless bees are a diverse group of insects that contribute a wealth of fauna to Central America, as well as being important pollinators. Colonies of these stingless bees are managed and transported unregulated across geographic regions on the basis that they are native species. Populations of Nannotrigona perilampoides, one of the most common stingless bee species in Mexico and Central America, are separated by several geographical barriers that may act as obstacles to gene flow. In addition, their biological and reproductive characteristics make them susceptible to variation among their populations. In this work, we combined morphometric and molecular analyses (through cox1, 16S, ITS1 and ITS2 sequencing) to test whether there is a differentiation between distant populations of N. perilampoides separated by the Sierra Madre Mountain complex. Analyses of wing geometric morphometrics and sequence variation of a fragment of the 16S gene revealed significant differences between populations. These differences show a pattern of isolation by distance, and the possible effect of the Sierra Madre as a biogeographical barrier. The results suggest that N. perilampoides may be composed of distinct evolutionary units and that colony exchange among regions should be restricted to preserve the diversity of this species.


An experiment was conducted to determine growth performance, carcass characteristics, and fat quality of growing-finishing pigs fed diets based on short-season corn hybrids. Twenty-four individually housed, Cotswold, growing pigs with an initial BW of 41.4 (SD = 1.4) kg were blocked by BW and sex and randomly allotted from within block to 1 of 3 diets to give 8 replicate pigs per diet. Experimental diets consisted of a control based on barley and 2 diets based on corn as the main energy sources. A 3-phase feeding program for 20 to 50 kg (phase I), 50 to 80 kg (phase II), and 80 to 110 kg (phase III) of BW was used. Diets for each phase contained approximately 3.5 Mcal/kg of DE, with total lysine of 0.95, 0.75, and 0.64% in phase I, II, and III diets, respectively. Average daily gain,


This paper is based on a two-hour seminar on Ancient Near Eastern Iconography with a small group of students, conducted at the Institute for Old Testament Studies and Biblical Archaeology of the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Vienna. The students are familiar with Hebrew, History of Israel and Old Testament Exegesis contents, but have no special knowledge of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. The seminar is a methodological training insofar as it aims at acquiring the ability to read iconographic source material, i.e. to grasp it in its pictorial content and to classify it in terms of cultural history. Quality, material and style can only be criticized marginally. The museum visit should make it possible to apply the acquired skills to the object.


This paper probes into the problem of carrying out the development strategy of cultural economy in Quanzhou,and discusses on following five aspects: change traditional ideas,and understand the concept of cultural economy;tap the economic connotation of culture,and give impetus to culture transferring to economical resource;establish our own brand names,and promote the cultural realization of economy;strengthen the decision making with planning as a whole,and perfect the industry chain of tourist culture;persevere in going abroad,and drive the foreign trade of cultural product.


. Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a vital role in the global carbon cycle and is a potential sink for carbon dioxide. 12 Agricultural management practices can support carbon sequestration and therefore offer potential removal strategies, whilst 13 improving overall soil quality. Meta-analysis allows to summarize results from primary articles by calculating an overall effect 14 size and hence to reveal the source of variation across studies. The number of meta-analyses published in the field of agriculture is 15 continuously rising. At the same time, more and more articles refer to their synthesis work as a meta-analysis, despite applying


Diabetes accompanied with cellular stress, such as functional decrease of glucose uptake, hyperglycemic oxidative stress, and damaged mitochondria. Muscle atrophy occurs when the degradation rate is higher than the synthesis rate during diabetes. Here, we hypothesized that diabetes induces skeletal muscle autophagy, however, if this increased autophagy becomes chronic, autophagy‐mediated cell death occurs that could then contribute to skeletal muscle cell loss. Sprague‐Dawley rats were injected with STZ(60 mg/kg of body weight) and after 30 days, the soleus(SOL), plantaris(PL), red gastrocnemius(RG), and white gastrocnemius(WG) muscles were assessed by immunohistochemical and western blot analysis. LC3 expression, as an autophagosomal marker was detected in all muscles examined, but was reduced in RG muscles. The content of both beclin‐1 and caspase were elevated in WG and PL muscles. All muscles from diabetic animals demonstrated reduced mass when compared to controls, but only the gastrocnemius demonstrated atrophy as reflected by a reduced muscle‐to‐body mass ratio. In addition, a group of diabetic rats submitted to daily swimming for 4 wks were compared with sedentary controls, resulting in reducing autophagy in muscles. In conclusion, these results indicate that diabetes may alter autophagic activity in a muscle‐specific manner and therapeutic exercise may modify or reverse skeletal muscle abnormalities with reducing autophagy. Keywords: Autophagy, diabetes, skeletal muscle, atrophy, LC3. Supported by KRF‐E00344, BioGreen 21 Program (#20070401034006) from Rural Development Administration, South Korea.


Like a handful other African countries, Kenya has a thriving bilateral economic relations with China. Kenya provides a convenient entry point for Chinese merchandise imports into the Eastern and Southern Africa. Notwithstanding various bilateral trade pacts, the imbalance, China is keen to paint its relationship with Kenya as one of win-win with mutual benefit. In this analysis, we examine the competitiveness of the major disaggregated merchandise export products by Kenya to China. Applying a computed normalized revealed comparative advantage (NRCA), our findings show the scores to be generally low. The scores illuminate significant differences in the performance of merchandize export products to China. "Win-win" outcome is not tenable given the glaringly narrow scope of the export products. Kenya's own export supply capacity remains very low for the products being traded. Even if Kenya was able to exploit all the export potential with China, future trade imbalance is only likely to be exacerbated in favor of China.


In-situ sol-gel method was employed to prepare nano-alumina, and synthesized Al2O3/NA-PI composites, using anti-feeding processes. The micro-structures were characterized by Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and Scan Electric Microscope (SEM). The images of SEM showed that the material was layered structure, two phases were uniformly dispersed, point scanning and surface scanning were similar, this confirmed the feasibility of anti-feeding method. And, the phenomenon would help to improve heat-resistant and corona resistant performance of materials.


In this paper, the combination of a low-complexity Multiple-input Multiple-output based on belief propagation (MIMO-BP) detector with a Non-Binary Low-Density Parity-Check (NB-LDPC) decoder is investigated. Such detection and decoding algorithms can enable an equivalent representation based on a larger Joint Factor Graph (JFG). Shuffle schedule can therefore be used jointly and simultaneously on the detector and the decoder. Actions are undertaken at the detector, decoder and the iterative receiver levels in order to reduce overall complexity. Indeed, applying the proposed low-complexity BP-based detection greatly reduces the number of operations per iteration (divided by ten), with a negligible performance penalty. EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts enable to analyze the convergence behaviour of the proposed iterative receiver. This analysis is used to find the best set of parameters enabling a detection-decoding process with a performance closest to the full-complexity system.


In this study, biodiesel was produced from marula (Sclerocarya birrea) oil using impregnated perlite with potassium hydroxide (KOH) as a heterogeneous catalyst. The effect of experimental variables such as temperature (°C), reaction time (h), methanol to oil ratio (mass %), and catalyst to oil ratio (mass %) on the transesterification process were investigated. Using a central composite design (CCD), a mathematical model was developed to correlate the experimental variables with the percentage yield of biodiesel. The model showed that optimum conditions for biodiesel production were as follows: catalyst to oil ratio of 4.7 mass %, temperature of 70.4°C, methanol to oil ratio of 29.9 mass %, and reaction time of 3.6 h. The yield of 91.4 mass % of biodiesel was obtained. It was also possible to recycle and reuse the modified perlite up to three times without any significant change in its catalytic activity. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area showed no modifications in the perlite structure. The results show that the important fuel properties of marula biodiesel meet the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) biodiesel standard properties.


Long-term monitoring data for super-long piles are scarce and valuable. This paper reports axial strain measurements of a cast-in-place large-diameter pile embedded 76.7 m into a "weathered trench" of granite in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China, using BOFDA monitoring technology. An approach based on the load-transfer method to interpret data is proposed, in which the axial load at the pile head and the shear behavior at the pile–soil interface can be analyzed. Results show that these data can well reflect the increase in axial strain as the number of floors built increases, although there is deviation related to fiber cable bending due to the installation and compaction of concrete, and the complex loading condition at the pile head. Sensitivity analysis of parameters disclosed that the friction angle between the soil and the pile was approximately 10° for the cast-in-place pile monitored in this study, which is approximately one third of the interface friction angle, considering the slurry cake effect. The average axial force exerted on the pile head induced by building one floor ranged from 116.00 kN to 297.43 kN; this increased with the number of floors built and the total loads of the superstructure. This implies that the raft carried a large portion of the structural load during the early construction stage; piles gradually carried a major portion of the increased load due to continuous construction. The overall mobilized percentage of skin friction was approximately 40.8% when 40 floors were built, and the pile had the potential to carry more axial load.


APPLYNEWSETOFOPTIMUMPOWERS Techniques are presented for automatic tuning of operating parameters, e.g., amplifier gain, in an optical network. A section of an optical network comprises a plurality of spans between optical nodes, and each optical node has an amplifier to amplify optical signals for transmission between optical nodes. Physical network layer data is obtained from the opti cal nodes for use as input to an analytical model. A set of powers defining an optimum working point of the amplifiers is computed based on variations in amplifier noise figure which depend on amplifier gain. A figure of merit represen tative of network section performance is computed based on linear and non-linear noise at current power levels of the amplifiers. The figure of merit is evaluated. The set of powers is applied to the amplifiers in the network section when evalu ation of the figure of merit indicates that network perfor mance improvement can be achieved.


Will the digital revolution actually transform the process of innovation? A professor from NYU spent three years with NASA's engineers and scientists to uncover the significant opportunities and challenges involved with new models for R&D work.


The current interest in the possible biological value of certain bioflavonoids tor animals has emphasized the need for a systematic study by valid chemical methods of various fruits for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of the flavonoid compounds present therein. The present investigation on the watermelon, Oitrullu8 vulgaris, continues similar ones previously carried out by the authors on grapes and on black currants (1). This paper reports the isolation of a flavonoid compound from the Florida Black Diamond Watermelon; studies on the properties of this compound; and preliminary investigation on its identity.


In the current pandemic, which started on last 2020, there are many limitations we should do for reducing the spread of the virus named covid19. Keeping the distance from others is the way to prevent infected covid19. Contactless technology should be developed further, for example, in this paper. Access Control System by Face recognition and Biometrics is one reason to be developed. OpenCV is a tool that will use to build face recognition. This system is only intended for small office areas or smart homes. Currently, only five registered users. The data registration process is carried out outside the system or only loads an algorithm model. This system will also provide information on social media, Whatsapp, if a known person enters the room or an unknown person.


A joint jobs scheduling and routing algorithm is proposed for geographically-distributed micro datacenters over EON. Simulation results show that the algorithm can reduce the jobs' average completion time and bandwidth consumption.


An investigation was carried out to study extent of heterosis under four different environments for yield and its component traits in sesame. Diallel mating design excluding reciprocals was used to develop 28 F1 crosses from eight parents. Analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among the parents vs hybrids was observed under four environments for all the characters, indicating the presence of significant amount of genetic variability for all traits under studied. Heterosis was worked out over mid parent, better parent and standard check, GT-2. For seed yield, crosses Pbtil-1 × AT-124, GT-10 × Pbtil-1 and GT-2 × PT-64 in E1, crosses GT-10 × TMV-3, GT-2 × PT-64 and GT-10 × Pbtil-1 in E2 and crosses TMV-3 × C-1013, TMV-3 × Pbtil-1 and GT-10 × Pbtil-1 in environment E3 having high per se performance along with significant mid parent, batter parent and standard heterosis. Hence, these crosses would be exploited for isolating transgressive segregants for seed yield and its component traits for genetic improvement in sesame.


Microbial production of natural products using metabolic engineering and synthetic biology approaches often involves the assembly of multiple gene fragments including regulatory elements, especially when using eukaryotes as hosts. Traditional cloning strategy using restriction enzyme digestion and ligation are laborious and inflexible owing to the high number of sequential cloning steps, limited cutting sites and generation of undesired 'scar' sequences. In this study, a homology-based isothermal DNA assembly method was carried out for one-step simultaneous assembly of multiple DNA fragments to engineer plant phenylpropanoid biosynthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Rapid construction of yeast plasmid harboring dual gene expression cassettes was achieved via isothermal assembly of four DNA fragments designed with 20 bp overlapping sequences. The rate-limiting enzyme of phenylpropanoid pathway, cinnamate 4-hydroxylase encoded by C4H gene from Polygonum minus was cloned in tandem with yeast promoter and terminator elements of S. cerevisiae for efficient construction of phenylpropanoid biosynthetic pathway in recombinant yeast. The assembled pAG-CAT (C4H-ADH1t-TEF1p) shuttle plasmid and transformation of S. cerevisiae with the plant C4H gene were confirmed via PCR analysis. Based on these findings, the yeast shuttle plasmid harboring P. minus phenylpropanoid biosynthesis gene was efficiently constructed to be the starting platform for the production of plant natural products in genetically-engineered S. cerevisiae.


Resume This work descnbes the application of a homologous radioimmunoassay (RIA) in the measurement of plasma and pituitary growth hormone levels of tilapia maintained at 20 and 26"C, using recombinant tilapia growth hormone (rtiGH). RIA sensitivity (EDYo) was 0.08 nglml and ED5" was 0.6210.02 nglml. Intra- and inter-assay coefficients of variation were 3.3 and 10.6% respectively, for a plasma sample of 1 ng/ml of tiGH. Mammalian or salmonids growth hormones, thyrotropins or tilapia prolactins did not show cross-reactivity with rtiGH antiserum. Plasma and pituitary extract of Oreochromis niloticus gave inhibition curves parallel to the rtiGH standard curve without interaction with serial dilutions either of tissue extracts or plasma from hypophysectomized tilapia. Pituitary extracts from other cichlid fish showed parallel competitive binding curves. Pituitary extracts of perciform fish exhibited a lower affinity to antirtiGH serum, while extracts of species from more distant families showed only negligible cross-reactivity or none at al]. The effects of water temperature on plasma concentrations and pituitary contents of GH were investigated in tilapia acclimatized to 26 and to 20°C. Measurements have been performed at the beginning and at the end of a two-week experiment. Whereas in fish from colder water plasma GH mean values were decreased, only a similar tendency was obsemed in pituitary GH contents. These results emphasize the hypothesis wich reports that the increase of growth with temperature is, at least in part, controlled by GH.


A new decentralised demand response (DR) model relying on bi-directional communications is developed in this study. In this model, each user is considered as an agent that submits its bids according to the consumption urgency and a set of parameters defined by a reinforcement learning algorithm called Q-learning. The bids are sent to a local DR market, which is responsible for communicating all bids to the wholesale market and the system operator (SO), reporting to the customers after determining the local DR market clearing price. From local markets' viewpoint, the goal is to maximise social welfare. Four DR levels are considered to evaluate the effect of different DR portions in the cost of the electricity purchase. The outcomes are compared with the ones achieved from a centralised approach (aggregation-based model) as well as an uncontrolled method. Numerical studies prove that the proposed decentralised model remarkably drops the electricity cost compare to the uncontrolled method, being nearly as optimal as a centralised approach.


The mechanism of the anticolorectal cancer activity of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug indomethacin is poorly understood. Indomethacin inhibits both cyclooxygenase (COX) isoforms, but it may also act via COX-independent targets. Indomethacin can bind and activate the transcription factor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) γ. Moreover, natural and synthetic PPARγ ligands can induce growth arrest and apoptosis of human colorectal cancer cells in vitro. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that the antiproliferative activity of indomethacin on human colorectal cancer cells in vitro is explained by a PPARγ-dependent mechanism of action. Human colorectal cancer cell lines SW480 and HCT116 both expressed functional PPARγ. Indomethacin directly activated PPARγ in both cell lines (HCT116 > SW480). A dominant-negative PPARγ strategy was used to demonstrate that endogenous PPARγ represses proliferation of HCT116 cells (compatible with tumor suppressor activity) but that the presence of functional PPARγ is not necessary for the antiproliferative activity (or reduction in cyclin D1 protein) associated with indomethacin in vitro. In summary, indomethacin (>100 μM) directly activates PPARγ in human colorectal cancer cells. However, PPARγ activation does not underlie the antineoplastic activity of indomethacin on human colorectal cancer cells in vitro.


Quantum control aims at the manipulation of atomic- and molecular-scale dynamics phenomena. An important objective in this regard is the understanding of dynamical control within a family of related quantum systems. To explore this issue, diffeomorphic changes in the system Hamiltonian H(s,t) are introduced by scanning over a homotopy parameter s and then monitoring the control field response needed to maintain the value of a specified target observable. This operation is implemented through a procedure referred to as diffeomorphic modulation under observable-response-preserving homotopy (D-MORPH). The governing D-MORPH differential equation determining the control laser field E(s,t) is shown to explicitly allow for innumerable solutions, with each characterized by the choice of an arbitrary function f(s,t) of s and time t. The presence of f(s,t) in the D-MORPH differential equation makes clear the origin of multiple control fields that produce the same observable objective. A stable algorithm is presented for practical execution of D-MORPH with the only criterion that the Hamiltonian H(s,t) permit reaching the objective over the full domain of s being sampled. Both analytic and numerical examples are presented to illustrate the D-MORPH concept.


Unresolved sources of gravitational waves (GWs) produced by the merger of a binary of black holes at cosmological distances combine into a stochastic background. Such a background is in the continuous or popcorn regime, depending on whether the GW rate is high enough so that two or more events overlap in the same frequency band. These two regimes respectively correspond to large and small values of the so-called duty cycle. We study the detection regime of the background in models of Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) and compare it to the one produced by black holes of stellar origin. Focusing on ground-based detectors, we show that the duty cycle of the PBH-origin background is larger than that of astrophysical black holes because of differences in their mass function and the merger rate. Our study opens up the possibility to learn about the primordial or astrophysical nature of black hole populations by examining the statistical properties of the stochastic background.


Objective: describe the nurse`s team care in the prevention and treatment of the complications in peripheric venous puncture in patients in the ICU. Method: the methodology used was descriptive, carried out through a bibliographic review published in the period from 2008 to 2019, whose survey was performed in a virtual environment in the Virtual Health Library (VHL), on the bases: Medline and Lilacs. Results: phlebitis can be prevented by performing aseptic technique during insertion of the venous device and adopting suitable material of appropriate size for vein caliber, preferably of small caliber, which is flexible with high resistance to bending, structural integrity, easy insertion, low thrombogenicity and bacterial adherence. Conclusion: it was possible to identify that the ducts are very similar in different services and that most care are common nursing procedures and have proven efficacy through scientific studies.


Abstract Dielectric ceramic thin films have been fabricated by radio frequency magnetron sputtering on SiO2 (110) substrates with different sputtering pressures and the as-sputtered samples were subsequently annealed in an O2 atmosphere. The microstructure and morphology of the thin films were investigated, particularly as a function of pressures. The thin films deposited at 0.25 Pa are polycrystalline with high-quality crystals and are made up of dense rod-like structures. The main phases are Ba0.5Sr0.5Nb2O6 and Ba0.27Sr0.75Nb2O5.78, which are different from the target because of the volatilization of ZnO. The results indicate that appropriate sputtering pressure contributes to the improvement of the crystal quality and the grain growth of the dielectric ceramic thin films.


Elucidating the nature of dark matter in galactic systems remains one of the important unsolved mysteries of modern cosmology. As a thought experiment, we consider a galaxy model where the light radiating outward from stellar objects produces a gravitational effect larger than Einstein's theory of gravity predicts. Using computer simulations, we observe that this assumption allows the basic rotation curve profiles observed in both dwarf and late-type spiral galaxies to be recreated. It is important to highlight that a separate mass model describing the dark matter halo is not needed or used. This toy model may also lead to insights about the nature of dark energy. If the gravitational effects in the universe are currently dominated by radiated light as this toy model may suggest, the cosmic scale factor would be closely linked to the time-history and spatial distribution of star formation and death rates. An accelerating universe may simply be a manifestation of star death rates exceeding star formation rates in the current epoch.


Pediatric stroke is a relatively rare occurrence, with an annual incidence of 1.2–13 cases per 100,000. Hemorrhagic strokes account for half of these cases.[28] In adults, hemorrhagic strokes are predominantly hypertensive in etiology. However, in the pediatric population, they are frequently associated with vascular lesions such as AVMs (47%), arteriovenous fistulas, or CMs [Table 1].[21] Other causes of ICH in adults, such as amyloid angiopathy or drug-related vascular damage, are rarely seen in the pediatric population. Workup of pediatric ICH should include vascular imaging consisting of either CTA or DSA. An MRI of the brain should be obtained to detect CMs, which are angiographically occult. MR angiography may lack the sensitivity to allow for visualization of the smaller vessels that may be involved with some of these lesions.[25] In a series of 137 patients with ICH described by Hino et al., 9% were found to have an "occult" vascular lesion that was not visualized on first angiogram. The clinical index of suspicion should guide the workup further if a causative lesion cannot be identified upon initial imaging. This may include repeat DSA, which is considered the gold standard for the assessment of vascular lesions. In the setting of clinically symptomatic hemorrhage, any vascular lesion, including AVM, CM, capillary telangiectasias, or developmental venous anomalies, may present in occult fashion, though AVM is most common.[7]

Table 1

Most common etiologies of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage in adults and children


For many Haitian authors, the earthquake of 2010 shook not just the physical space of Haiti but also its cultural and social foundations- indeed, everything. This idea is suggested, for example, in the title of Dany Laferriere's first postdisaster book, Tout bouge autour de moi (Everything moves around me).1 The image the title evokes is of the author standing at the center of a still shifting world, shaken and alone. One gets the sense that he wants to resist being redirected, thrown off the singular literary and intellectual path that he has carefully shaped for himself for over a quarter of a century. He says that he had decided when sleeping out on the tennis court at the Hotel Karibe not to let the earthquake "shake up" his agenda.2 Now is not the time for tears, he says, but to "continue on our path." He does not accept the idea of a "year zero" for the Haitian people or that the collective memory can be easily erased.3 The earthquake is part of the historical journey that stretches back to Africa. Nothing could change that journey, he says; "we continue."4 The vocabulary and imagery he uses suggest a continued forward movement; one must continue to walk down these paths, without standing still or looking back.This contrasts to some degree with Edwidge Danticat's idea of a radical break with the past and of the post-earthquake period as a new epoch in Haitian history. In Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, Danticat writes that there was to be no turning back from the moment of the earthquake, no comforting recollections of familiar places. These memories now belonged to a previous Haiti that "no longer exists, the Haiti of before the earthquake."5 Reading Laferriere's 2009 chronicle of return to Haiti, L'Enigme du retour, she finds it to be already like a "historical novel." The cultural and creative stakes have also been radically changed for Danticat, as in post-earthquake Haiti the practices of reading and writing "will never be the same." Everything has changed, including artists like herself, who find that their muse has been "irreparably altered."6Many of the earliest post-earthquake works of Haitian writing were chronicles. For example, Laferriere's Tout bouge autour de moi and Rodney Saint-Eloi's Haiti, kenbe la! were attempts to record the authors' thoughts and observations in the largely neutral style of the chronicler. There is analysis and they do offer reflections on broader issues, but formally these works remain in great part standard chronicles, recording events in a largely chronological manner; in this sense they remain faithful to the event itself. Fidelity to the truth seemed to be a primary motivation for many authors. One was left to wonder, however, what the role of fiction might be in the post-earthquake period. Does the drive for truth and the need to bear witness necessarily exclude fiction and render it a sign of vanity, a luxury almost?7 Fiction in a sense was a victim of the earthquake. One wondered at the time how long it must itself stay buried under the rubble and, when it was finally pulled free from the ruins, what condition it would be in. Would it have retained its force and vitality, or would it have to start anew, its memory either erased or forever traumatized by the event? What was the point of writing fiction after January 12, 2010?This article begins to address these questions through close analysis of Lyonel Trouillot's first post-earthquake novel, La Belle amour humaine. This book suggests that the author agrees with Laferriere's idea that the Haitian writer must not be diverted from his or her literary path, and that the earthquake itself does not-must not-become the primary point of reference for Haitian literature. To do so, the work implies, would be to fall into a trap, whereby the creative freedom of the author is limited and forever circumscribed by the events of January 12.There is, however, a paradox here and in other novels that do not recount directly the experiences and effects of the earthquake. …


With the recent Supreme Court ruling stating that laws that prevent same-sex marriage are unconstitutional a new spate of attempts by various state's have been


Abstract. We investigate 1-D models of the westward substorm electrojet using magnetic field observations along a meridian chain of stations. We review two respective linear models from Kotikov et al. ( 1987 ) and Popov et al. ( 2001 ) with a large number of elementary currents at fixed positions. These models can be applied to a magnetometer chain with many magnetic stations. A new nonlinear method with one current element is designed for cases with a small number of stations. We illustrate the performance of these methods using data from the IMAGE (International Monitor for Auroral Geomagnetic Effects) and Yamal Peninsula stations. Several corrective measures are
proposed to account for unphysical solutions or local extrema from the optimized functions. We also advertise a generic maximum
likelihood approach to a problem that is feasible for any empiric model.


The utilization of networked, shared, heterogeneous workstations as an inexpensive parallel computational platform is an appealing idea. However, most performance models for parallel computation are oriented towards the use of tightly-coupled, dedicated, homogeneous processors. We develop and validate an analytic performance modelling methodology for synchronous iterative algorithms executing on networked workstations. The model includes the effects of application load, background load, and processor heterogeneity. We use two applications, nonlinear optimization and discrete-event simulation, to validate the model. Various policies for the use of the workstations are considered and the optimal (or near-optimal) scheduling found. The performance modelling methodology provides significant help in addressing scheduling and similar issues in a shared resource environment.


This study aims to determine the impact of smartphone users among the community. Smartphones also have the ability in each of its features that can help or meet the needs of its users. Smartphones have become a part of everyone's lifestyle, ranging from children, adolescents, and adults. Many people do not realize that using a smartphone has an impact on users both internally and externally. In determining the impact of smartphone users among the public, there needs to be a support system, a support system used is the Fuzzy Tsukamoto method, in the Fuzzy Tsukamoto method the writer uses 4 variables namely distance, user, time and impact to determine the impact of smartphone users. Keywords : Smartphone, Fuzzy


Striking hostile ground targets for air force is a crucial way to achieve air superiority in modern warfare. For the maximum efficiency of limited munitions, the optimal weapon target assignment (WTA) scheme should be developed. Aimed at the fact that lots of approaches have been presented for the WTA problem of stationary targets, while less for the ones of moving targets, this paper proposes an adaptive immune genetic algorithm (AIGA) by combining the acceleration and restrain mechanism of immunity system with the adaptive adjustment strategy of crossover operations and mutation operations. Besides, a swap operation is adopted to raise the diversity of individuals and improve the ability of AIGA in search of the goal optimal solution. The simulation result proves the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed AIGA, and through comparison analysis, advantages of the algorithm over the adaptive genetic algorithm, the immune genetic algorithm and the standard genetic algorithm are revealed.


Based on the combination of frequency-domain information and time-domain information of Time-frequency Analysis, the paper applies short-time Fourier transform and Wigner transform to Phased-array Ground Penetrating Radar (PGPR) stratified data, studies the influence of various methods, parameters and receiving units on time-frequency diagram and presents parameters suitable for delamination. The experimental result shows that the application of time-frequency analysis to PGPR signal processing is effective.


Background: Opioids are frequently used to relieve pain or to induce sedation during monitored anesthesia care and regional anesthesia. Infusion rates for alfentanil range from 0.25-0.72 /kg/min. This study was performed to define the optimal range of blood concentration of alfentanil to produce a conscious sedation without significant vital sign changes and side effects in spinal anesthesia patients. Methods: One hundred patients were administered spinal anesthesia with 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine 12-18 mg and then a target controlled infusion (TCI) of alfentanil using a syringe pump equiped with a stelpump program. The target concentrations of alfentanil were 20 ng/ml (n = 20, group A20), 25 ng/ml (n = 20, group A25), 30 ng/ml (n = 20, group A30), 35 ng/ml (n = 20, group A35) and 40 ng/ml (n = 20, group A40). Sedation scale, bispectral index (BIS), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, , and anxiety score were checked during the operation and postoperatively one hour later in the recovery room. Results: The sedation scale was significantly higher in groups A30, A35, and A40 than in the other two groups (P /kg/min. Time from end of alfentanil infusion to response to a verbal command was significant delayed in groups A30, A35, and A40 than in the other two groups. Recall of operative procedure occurred in 50-65%. Intraoperative hypotension, bradycardia, and respiratory depression occurred more frequently in groups A35, and A40 than in the other three groups (P


Every failure in a software system demands for a repair or fixation process so as to deliver an intact system. In terms of IT industry, a patch intercepts users from getting exploited by the unknown complex defects which are termed as vulnerabilities. Many of the cyber attacks are due to the vulnerabilities and unacceptable management of the patches. One of the management issues is when one should apply a patch, since early patching results in instability aroused by bugs in the patches and behind patching may install malware in the system. The second key challenge is to maintain the quality of the software while releasing the patches. Despite of prevailing challenges, management has to deal with market potential. Thus in this paper, we have proposed a generalized framework to find a solution for mentioned problems. The framework identifies the optimal patch release time and optimal cost, and retains the reliability of the software. Further, the model elaborates the role of hacker, user and tester in different phases of a vulnerable software system.


Ecofin-Oecd methodology is applied to investigate the past trends of the public health care expenditure in Basilicata. The expenditure is standardized to take into account the composition of the population in terms of age. Did Basilicata spend too much compared to the Italian average? The answer is not; on the contrary the standardized per-capita expenditure has been constantly lower than the correspondet national average. This answer is argued with data. Ncs


Abstract The oxidation of cyanogen was studied in the temperature range of 950-1050°C using a flow system and Vycor stirred-flow reactor. The rate was found to be first-order in cyanogen and zero-order in oxygen. The activation energy and log frequency factor are 56.3 (kcal/mole) and 9.2 (using sec−1) respectively. The oxidation products were CO, CO2 and N2O, no other oxides of nitrogen were found. The implications of these observations on the mechanism of NO formation from fuel nitrogen are discussed


Abstract A steerable dual-channel microwave radiometer was installed on top of an oceanographic tower ofT shore from the Venice lagoon ( Italy) during the calibration experiment of the ERS-1 radar altimeter organized by the European Space Agency. Measurements of atmospheric brightness temperature were carried out over more than two months in the summer 1991. The main objective of the experiment was to obtain the tropospheric electromagnetic excess path length ( AW) required for the correction of the radar altimeter on board the satellite. The instrument calibration and the parameter retrieval algorithms were the main problems to be addressed. The retrieval of other meterological parameters, namely the precipitable water vapour ( K ) and the integrated cloud liquid ( L) was also assessed. An accuracy ( r.m.s.) of about 0-8cm in AH, 01cm in Vand 004mm in L is expected, resulting in a significant improvement when compared to those available from conventional meteorological data.


TiO 2 films codoped with V cations and N anions were synthesised by RF-magnetron sputtering. The incorporation of V and N in TiO 2 lattice produces isolated energy levels near the conduction and valence bands, respectively, causing an effective narrowing of the band gap to 2.5 eV. Recombination of photo-charges was reduced by depositing multilayer films of indium tin oxide (ITO)/V-N-codoped TiO 2 with different numbers of bilayers. In multilayer structure, the generated photoelectrons, travelling into TiO 2 film of limited thickness, rapidly enter the space charge interface of the ITO/TiO 2 films from where they are instantaneously injected into the ITO layer and then removed towards the cathode. The synergic effects created by band narrowing and enhanced charge separation by using codoping and multilayer structure strategy in TiO 2 generate higher photocurrent for water splitting under visible light which definitely exceeds that obtained by doping TiO 2 with a single, V or N, element.


An accurate prediction of the pressure depletion of gas condensate reservoir is important for evaluation, reserve estimation, planning production and future gas cycling to improve recovery. Constant volume depletion (CVD) tests provide various gas condensate fluid compositions at initial pressure and during reservoir depletion behavior. In addition, they provide the dew point pressure, amount of gas and oil recovery, saturation of accumulated retrograde, and compressibility factor. In case of unavailability or unreliability of the PVT test, alternative methods are vital to estimate these properties. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop a model that can estimate the gas condensate's initial composition and dew point pressure using neural network models.
 The model was created by utilizing a large data bank of CVD tests comprising 141 of gas condensate samples at various pressures, temperatures, and compositions. The developed model used a multilayer perceptron neural network model to accurately predict the initial gas condensate composition from composition of produced gas at pressures below dew point, in case the initial composition and dew point is not measured due to sample unavailability. Additionally, a comparison between the proposed model and Equation of State (EOS) is performed for all gas condensate samples to show the advantage of the proposed model when the EOS is not properly tuned.
 The developed model has a high degree of accuracy to predict initial gas composition with an average absolute percent error (AAPE) of 2.59% and a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.999 for sweet gas condensate samples, and AAPE of 2.26%, and R2 of 0.982 for sour gas condensate samples. The model also predicts the dew point pressure with an AAPE of 2.45% and R2 of 0.992 for sweet gas condensate samples, and an AAPE of 1.86%, and R2 of 0.984 for sour gas condensate samples. The models' performance has been compared to the Peng-Robinson EOS (PR-EOS). It was found that the untuned PR-EOS predicted the dew point pressure with AAPE error of 31.01% and a R2 of 0.555. This displays an excellent performance of the developed model's estimations of the gas condensate's initial composition and its dew point pressure.
 The newly proposed model utilizes the neural network architecture and has an excellent agreement with the experimental data. Moreover, the model is quite practical since it can be integrated in any spreadsheet program or implemented within a program language.


A method of natural ventilation potential analysis of different regions in china was presented in this paper.Based on this method,the result of the effectiveness of natural ventilation in typical regions was calculated and the influence factors on the natural ventilation potential was analyses.According to calculation,the result is that the effective number of hours of natural ventilation in different parts is about 20%~40%.Factor affecting the potential of natural ventilation if outdoor meteorological parameters,but in different regions its main influencing factors different.In cold regions,low temperature is the main influencing factor and in hot and humid regions the main influencing factor is high temperature and humidity.With the indoor heat rising,the effective number of hours decline.However the decrease in various regions is different: Guangzhou is the most obvious and Harbin is the smallest.


The SP-100 reactor will be ground tested at the SP-100 Ground Engineering System (GES) Test Site on the US Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Project direction and the flight system design evolution have resulted in a smaller reactor size and the consequential revision to Test Site features to accommodate the design changes and reduce Test Site costs. The significant design events since the completion of the Conceptual Design are discussed in this paper.


Herpes virus thymidine kinase (HSV-TK) suicide gene therapy is a well-established approach for in situ tumor cell killing after administration of ganciclovir (GCV), due to the induction of lethal DNA damage in HSV-TK expressing cells. Here we investigated the effects of HSV-TK gene delivery with a non-replicating serotype 5 adenovirus (AdTK) in murine glioblastoma models in combination with the ATR-inhibitor AZD6738 to disrupt the DNA damage response (DDR).

 We investigated the effects of disrupted DDR signaling on AdTK therapy in vitro using cytotoxicity, cytokine and flow cytometry assays in glioblastoma cell lines and in vivo with an orthotopic syngeneic murine glioblastoma model. Therapy response was monitored with MRI. Changes in the tumor microenvironment were analyzed with CyTOF.

 The combination of AZD6738 with AdTK was synergistic in cytotoxicity assays, which was complemented by a significant increase of γH2AX foci. Complex modulations of the tumor microenvironment were observed with significantly reduced expression of PD-L1, MICA/B and the pro-tumorigenic cytokines IL1b and IL-4. In vivo, the combination with AZD6738 led to an increase in long-term surviving animals (66.7%) compared to GMCI (50%) and proved to be highly significant in contrast to untreated controls (p=0.0022). However, the combination treatment did not block the growth of tumors upon rechallenge in long-term survivors.

 DDR signaling is crucial in the therapeutic efficacy of AdTK/GCV. It significantly enhances cytotoxicity in vitro and in vivo while having complex ramifications at the immunological level, requiring further studies to determine ideal conditions for a maximized therapeutic benefit.


Irish potato ( Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the top five valued vegetable crops in Florida. The majority of planted potato acres in the state are irrigated with seepage irrigation. The type of irrigation used, weather conditions during the potato season, and fertilization practices led to the development of best management practices that limit the application of nitrogen fertilizers during the season. BMPs reduce the potential movement of nitrate from potato fields into surrounding watersheds. A controlled release fertilizer (CRF) system was evaluated for potato production in Florida that helps growers meet the nitrogen BMPs while improving nitrogen use efficiency compared to conventional fertilizer practices. Over the past four seasons, 54 'CRF product by rate' combinations were evaluated and compared to a conventional fertilizer program. Two multi-acre grower trials in 2002 and 2003 validated successful treatments. The CRF treatments produced equal or better tuber yields and higher tuber quality while reducing nitrogen application rate by at least 25% compared to conventional fertilizer treatments at the BMP rate (N at 224 kg ha -1 ). Although no firm product cost is yet set, product cost has dropped from over $1,200.00/acre to a range between $100 and $200/acre in 2003. In comparison, the grower conventional nitrogen program has ranged from $50 to $75/acre. In 1987, the Florida legislature implemented the Surface Water Improvement and Management Act (Florida Statutes, Chapter 373.451-373.4595). This enabled the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) to declare the St. Johns River in need of restoration. The SJRWMD, in collaboration with the University of Florida, multiple state government agencies, and the North Florida Grower's Exchange has developed "Best Management Practices" (BMP) for potato ( Solanum tuberosum L.) production in the Tri-County (St. Johns, Putnam, and Flagler Counties) Agricultural Area (TCAA) (Livingston-Way et al., 2000). The purpose of BMP is to reduce the nitrate (NO 3 ) run-off from approximately 9,000 ha in potato production in the St. Johns River watershed. Mean nitrogen (N) rate applied to potato in the TCAA is 285 kg ha -1 . This rate is between a high of 390 kg ha -1 on some chip potato to a low of 195 kg ha -1 on fresh market potatoes. The University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (IFAS) recommended N rate (224 kg ha -1 ) be adopted as the BMP rate for the TCAA (Hochmuth et al., 2001). Provisions in the BMP program allow for additional N fertilization during seasons with leaching rains (Livingston-Way et al., 2002). However, depending on when leaching rains occur, growers may not be able to side-dress the crop prior to the critical bulking period resulting in reduced yields. Controlled release fertilizer (CRF) technology could overcome the concerns of both growers and regulatory agencies by supplying nutrients to the crop while reducing the potential for off-site movement of nutrients. However, before a CRF can be used successfully in commercial potato production, a product or products need(s) to be identified or developed that releases nutrients at a rate that matches the uptake by the potato plant. Previous small plot research has demonstrated equal or improved yields and improved quality using similar CRF technology (Hutchinson et al., 2003). Therefore, the objective of this project was to evaluate the ability of CRFs to produce a potato crop of similar quality and quantity as conventional soluble fertilizers in an on-farm trial. This research was supported by the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, and approved for publication as Journal Series No. R-10591.


In this article, using an iterative technique, we introduce an extension of the Lax-Milgram theorem which can be used for proving the existence of solutions to boundary-value problems. Also, we apply of the obtained result to the fractional differential equation tD α T 0D α t u(t) + u(t) = λf(t, u(t)) t ∈ (0, T ), u(0) = u(T ) = 0, where tD T and 0D α t are the right and left Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative of order 1 2 < α ≤ 1 respectively, λ is a parameter and f : [0, T ]× R→ R is a continuous function. Applying a regularity argument to this equation, we show that every weak solution is a classical solution.


Hordeum bulbosum L. is found in a diploid (2n = 14) and a tetraploid form (2n = 28). Of the 99 collections examined cytologically, 21 were diploid, 77 tetraploid and one triploid. The diploids were found in the western Mediterranean area to West Greece, tetraploids from West Greece eastwards to Afghanistan. Analysis of herbarium material and extensive cultivated material showed that the two cytotypes could not be distinguished morphologically. Intracytotype crosses were successful in the different provenance combinations, except in a few cases, where individual parental genotypes caused a low crossability. Intercytotype hybrids were rather difficult to obtain. In the light of the results a taxonomic subdivision of the species is not recommended. A problem in connection with the Linnaean type specimen is discussed.


Abstract Radiation from a slotted rectangular waveguide filled with asymmetrically biased ferrites is investigated in this study. A theoretical model of slotted parallel plates is used for analysis. A boundary value problem is rigorously solved with the Fourier transform and mode matching method to obtain simultaneous equations. The radiation field is represented in a fast convergent series that is efficient for numerical calculation. The radiation behaviors are estimated in terms of ferrite configurations and bias fields. Maximum angular scanning of 90.2° is achieved when the DC magnetic bias field varies from 0 to 2,000 oe.


Vibrio vulnificus is a common bacterial pathogen causing haemorrhagic septicaemia in eel farming. This study investigates the immunogenicity of an outer membrane protein U (OmpU) of V. vulnificus and the feasibility of the protein as a new subunit vaccine against V. vulnificus.


The study is focused on analyzing cation and pi interactions in the toxins of S. aureus for determining the stability in their structures. The amino acids residues involved in forming cation-pi interaction are identified and analyzed for their preferences in secondary structure, solvent accessibility, contact range, conservation score and stabilization centers. The details of the toxins used for the analysis are tabulated in Table 4.1.


Abstract α-Amylase enzyme was immobilized onto gelatin carrier system. Chromium (III) acetate and potassium chromium (III) sulfate were used as crosslinking agents. Effect of carrier system composition on immobilization was investigated by combining different proportions of carboxymethylcellulose or polyacrylamide with gelatin. Considerable relative activity enhancements were achieved (41% for carboxymethylcellulose-gelatin and 25% for polyacrylamide-gelatin). Reusability's of immobilized enzymes were also investigated. Activitie were stable at least for 20 uses.


In late 1960s Chicago, radical black police officers opposed to police brutality created the Afro-American Patrolmen's League (AAPL). This paper describes the political vision of the AAPL and that of the contemporaneous, path-breaking black television series Bird of the Iron Feather, which was inspired by the AAPL and created with AAPL members' input. Both used their positions within white-dominated institutions to present black perspectives on white power. The AAPL and Bird also analyzed gangs, both black and white, as functional parts of a larger, white-dominated, urban "machine" political structure. Their analyses of structural racism, and their understanding of the diverse responses of black Americans living within such a system, uncovered the complexities of black urban life in the mid-twentieth century. Together, they stand as sophisticated expressions of a popular black power vision that eschewed romantic images of revolutionary resistance in favor of careful analysis of and resistance to personal and structural white violence.


Fidelity during protein synthesis is maintained by the ribosomal decoding site which monitors base pairing between the mRNA codon and the tRNA anticodon. Binding of cognate tRNA induces conformational changes in ribosomal RNA (rRNA) at the decoding site that translate into a signal for the progression of translation. An internal loop containing adenine residues A1492 and A1493 in 16S rRNA of the 30S (small) ribosomal subunit constitutes a major component of the bacterial decoding site (Figure 1a). Contacts of the


GENDER, ETHNICITY, AND POWER ON THE MOSQUITO COAST DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES This article looks at how relationships of power were structured among Miskitu Indians during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It contends that Miskitu women exercised greater control over matters of sexuality when relations between group members were egalitarian. The founding of the Miskitu Kingdom in 1687 and the division of political power between a king, a governor, and an admiral increased authority among Miskitu males at the same time as it diminished it among females, making inter-tribal warfare an acceptable means of procuring women in order to incorporate them as "wives" into the group.


During foraminiferal studies (Zobel, this volume), fish otoliths have been found in Core 1 at Site 242 (latitude 15°50.65'S, longitude 41°49.23'E, Mozambique Channel, water depth 2275 m) and Core 1 at Site 246 (latitude 33°37.2l'S, longitude 45°O9.6θ'E, Madagascar Ridge, water depth 1030 m). Most of the otoliths are badly worn, but some are fairly well preserved and can be identified as to their genus. The sample at Site 242 (Core 1, Section 2, 12-14 cm) which yielded the fish otoliths is a gray foraminifera-rich nannoplankton ooze. The other sample in which otoliths were encountered is from Site 246 (Sample 1, CC) and was identified as sand-size foraminiferal ooze with minor nanno foram ooze present. Both samples can be placed into standard nannoplankton Zone NN21 (Emiliania huxleyi Zone) and into Zone. N.23 (Globigerina calida calida/ Sphaeroidinella dehiscens excavata Zone) of the planktonic foraminiferal zonation, indicating that the age of the samples is Recent to late Pleistocene.


This paper examines the classification and composition of construction solid waste and debris. The components of solid waste management systems are reviewed with emphasis on disposal procedures. Incineration, burial, and recycling options are evaluated for application to construction wastes. A strategy designed for the construction management engineer is presented.


enlarged glands in the neck, as has been found in some case 1 y Farlow. 'The case was similar to one brought before the Socitty iU March. (See JOURNAL, vol. i. 1887, p. 626.) So~itary Kidney in a Child.-Dr. MACKEYsho ved a solitary kidney removed from a boy, aged 2 years and 9 months, who bad died with tuberculosis of the lungs, liver, and p'een. The left kidney and left suprarnuas capsule were absent; no vestige of any renal structure was found in the left lumbar region. I he r~ght kidney was twice its normal weight and thicker than usual; its position a little higher and nearer the middle line. The right suprarenal capsule was large; the ureter, which was not bifid, entered the bladder less obliquely than usual. There was no trace of a second orifice ; the bladder otherwise normal. The postmortemn examib awion was made by Dr. Chaffey. President's Addrews. -The PRXEIDENT, after thanking the members of the Society for the honour they bad conferred on him in electing him to the office, urged on them the duties attendant on membership. Pirat and foremost that of attendance at the monthly meetings, as a means of encouraging the Society; next, the duty of reading papers and exhibiting case", specimens, etc. Every member's experience could not fail to afford something which would be of interest to the profession at large. Another duty, which he considered no member should shrink from, was the suppression of humbug. After some remarks on hom(copathy, bone-setting, ttc., he introduced the subjeet of tetanus, referring briefly to three cases which occurred in his practice in 1873. Two of these recovered; the third was that of a ldy operated on for strangulated hernia. The patient was apparently well until the last suture was removed, at which moment she uttered a loud cry, complained of stiffness in the neck, and in twenty-four *hours was dead. Tatanus. -Mr. PEARCE read a paper on this subject, illus. trating it by two cases that had been under his care. The patient, a man aged 72, applied on March 10tb, 1887, suffering from a lacerated coutued wound of the terminal phalanges of the two middle fingers of the left hand, caused by a blow. The phalangeal joints appeared uninjured, and no fracture could be detected. Symptoms of tetanus occurred on March 22nd, with great pain in the finger and arm and stiffness in the back of the neck. He was ordered potas?. bromid. 3-8, every four hours. On the 24th, he had slight opisthotonos. Fitteen grains of chloral hydrate were ordered every four hours. After this he improved, but had relapses on April 7th and April 28th, the spasms each lime being relieved by chloral. Ninety grains were administered in an enema on April 7th. After the 28th, he made au uninterrupted recovery. His temperature was low throughout, not exceeding 1000. The second case was that of a man, aged 61, who was seen on March 2nd, 1881, with syhmptoms of tetanus. Ten days before, the tip of his left thumb lad been crushed by a blow. The wound was almost healed, and the nail complete. He was treated at first with bromide of potassium, after. wrards with ten grains of chloral and thirty grains of bromide of potassium every four hours, and various other remedies were tried, but he died from exhaustion on March 15th. Pulse and temperature were high from the commencement. Mr. Pearce remarked on the similarity of the injuries in the two cases. The first patient was older, and had had a hard and very irregular life ; he had suffered from gout and gravel. The case was a severe one, and the influence of the chloral very remarkable. In the second case the man had for many years led a regular, temperate life, and had no known ailment. Both cases occurred in cold weather, and in both, the men's great complaint was loss of sleep. In neither case was this relieved by the chloral.Mr. OVERCALL remarked on the injusies in both these cases being in the upper extremity, and mentioned a fatal case occurring after compound dislocation of the metacarpo-phalangeal joint of the thumb. The PRESIDENT thought that the majority of cases of tetanus occurred after injury to the hand, and that the disease was epidemic. He considered chloral the most effective drug.-Mr. SANDEmON inquired as to the administraticn of stimulants in Mr. Pearce's cases, and referred to a case of idiopathic tetanus in which brandy appeared serviceable.-Dr. MACKEY thought that in these cases when the disease U threatening life, chloral should be pushed to a poisonous dose. He considered pilocarpine worthy of trial in severe cases of spasm.-Mr. PEAaCE replied that stimulants were given in both his cases.


Apis mellifera (A. mellifera) colonies build nests of varying characteristics which differ between races and different ecologies. To gain insight into details of natural nest characteristics of local honeybees and its implications in movable frame hive designing, natural bee space, comb spacing and worker brood cell dimensions of Apis mellifera bandasii (A. m. bandasii) were assessed across different altitudinal ranges through measuring their dimensions from naturally constructed combs in traditional hives. Moreover, comb spacing and bee space in movable frame hives from different local workshops were also measured. In addition, optimum comb thickness and bee space requirement were assessed by keeping local honeybee colonies in Kenya Top Bar (KTB) hives with different top bar widths. Accordingly, the average natural bee space, comb spacing, inside width of worker brood cells and worker brood cell/dm2 were 10.04 ± 2.23 mm, 33.70 ± 1.84 mm, 4.64 ± 0.13 mm and 1060.92 ± 14.24, respectively. The worker brood comb thickness, cell depth and bee space were significantly (p < 0.05) different across altitudinal ranges. Moreover, local honeybee colonies under natural conditions were found to build significantly narrower comb spacing in their brood nests than the frame spacing in movable frame box hives. The result from experimental colonies kept in KTB hives of varying top bar widths revealed that increasing comb spacing had no effect on comb thicknesses, while it significantly increased the bee space. This also confirmed that A. m. bandasii needs less comb spacing than the space in movable frame box hives currently used. The study implies the vital importance of considering natural nest comb spacing and cells dimensions in designing and constructing movable frame box hives and accessories that match with local honeybees' biological requirement which may contribute to enhance the productivity of the race.


Background: Thequalityof groundwaterasthemostimportantsourcefordomestic,irrigation,andindustrialpurposesisaffected bydischargeof thechemicalsfromtheanthropogenicresources. Therefore,thecurrentstudyaimedatpredictingheavymetals(As, Pb,Cu,andZn)contaminationingroundwaterresourcesof ToyserkanPlainasanimportantagriculturalareainHamedanProvince, West of Iran using artificial neural network - particle swarm optimization (ANN- PSO) approach. Methods: In the current study, samples were randomly selected from 20 groundwater wells with depth of 10 - 90 m. The samples werefilteredandkeptcoolinpolyethylenebottlesandthentakenfortheanalysisof metalcontents;theywereacidifiedusingnitric acidtoreachpH< 2. Finally, elementcontentsweredeterminedusinginductivelycoupledplasma–opticalemissionspectrometry (ICP-OES).Also,theperformanceof thePSOmodelwascomparedwiththatof ANNusingBayesianregulation(BR)trainingalgorithm in terms of accuracy and model prediction efficiency. Results: The results showed that among the analyzed groundwater samples, the detected amounts of As ranged 0.08 to 7.48 µ g/L, Zn 0.12 to 15.64 µ g/L, Pb 0.09 to 5.50 µ g/L, and Cu 0.89 to 13.58 µ g/L. Also, based on the results, the potential of ANN-PSO model to predict the concentration of heavy metals in the Toyserkan Plain was useful to implement sustainable policies for groundwater management. Conclusions: The proposed method can be effectively applied to predict the concentration of heavy metals in groundwater resources of Toyserkan Plain.


42 Abstract—Smart Antenna systems is one of the emerging technology for future wireless communication technology. Smart antenna uses one of its functions that is beamforming for directional signal transmission and reception. Now-a-days there is an increasing demand on RADAR, satellite communication, mobile communication and broadcasting. Beamforming performs an important role in all these applications. Electronic scanning of lobe and placing the nulls in any directions is possible, changing the phase and amplitude of existing currents in each antenna elements. Smart Antenna is nothing but an adaptive array antenna which uses beamforming to adopt the antenna pattern dynamically .In this paper the performance analysis of LMS and NLMS algorithms is presented in terms of beam pattern and mean square error .for this purpose different cases of direction of arrival and signals are used .Smart antenna incorporates these adaptive algorithms in coded form which adjusts complex weights according to input signal environment.


In the inevitable comparison that is made between modern and mediaeval stained glass, a persistent question arises: is the richness of old glass a consequence of the action of weather and other accidental factors, or is it the result of a conscious effort by the mediaeval artist to reduce the transparency of his windows? One phase of this question will be considered in this note.


Using a simple tool to measure performance status can help physicians predict survival and facilitate end-of-life planning in outpatients with advanced cancer.


Once the preserve of children, the treehouse is experiencing a renaissance. Today's treehouses are a far cry from the small and unstable affairs you might remember from your childhood. These are beautiful retreats nestled in the branches. Inside and out they are designed with the best materials to offer comfort and repose and fit in with their surroundings, the tree itself becoming a part of the interior. Complete with wonderful views and surrounded by the restful sound of foliage in the breeze the modern treehouse is swiftly becoming a phenomenon. This beautiful book presents an inspirational selection of treehouses, showing just how far people have taken the idea. Including whole complexes connected by rope bridges, treehouse offices, playrooms, and bars, Treehouses shows amazing interiors as well as giving details on how to plan your perfect place in the sky.


Scindapsus aureus potted plants were treated with growth retardant paclobutrazol aqueous solution. After treatment , they exhibited dwarf , compact form and better performance. Meanwhile vegetative growth of S.aureus was significantly inhibited. Paclobutrazol treatment reduced fresh and dry weight of S.aureus leaves , but caused the petioles to accumulate starch grain. Paclobutrazol treatment inhibited the development of cholroplast. Additionally, it improved chlorophyll content and lowered stomatal resistance ; thus it increased photosynthetic rate and the ratio of photosynthetic rate to respiratory rate.


WHEN I WAS at drama school in the early 1970s, there was a middleaged Iranian on the directors' course called Rokneddin. He'd been ejected from the Shah's Iran for staging subversive productions. Rokneddin was no political firebrand: he had simply tried to put on Shakespeare's history plays, which, like all plays in which a king died, were banned in Iran under the Pahlavi dynasty. The plays reminded people all too vividly that the divine right of kings had severe limits. After the revolution Rokneddin went back, and tried to ply his trade again: this time he disappeared into prison, never to be seen again. At the time the Shah's proscription was seen as the act of an exotic tyrant. That is not to say the English monarchy has always celebrated Shakespeare's entire canon. During the period of George III's madness in 18th-century Britain, King Lear was banished from the stage because the parallels were too obvious. Shakespeare has had this unique symbolic significance for a long time. From the end of the 17th century, initially in England, and then increasingly in translation across Europe, his stock began its inexorable rise, until he was acclaimed across the whole of the Western world, to a degree never before or 4 5 . 0 1


The present paper aims to explore how students of Italian secondary schools approach linguistic tasks and what sort of knowledge about language emerges from their analyses. These questions arise from the observation of the results of the Invalsi tests. In order to examine how students construct their answers to a sample of language awareness questions, they were asked to explain how to answer them by making a tutorial video. The videos were discussed during a semi-structured interview. The data were transcribed and analysed by means of Qualitative Content Analysis. The results indicate that the principal difference between students relates to the stability of their "engagement with language" and their ability to switch their attention between different levels of linguistic analysis.


Hydrocolloids are a food additive used to improve the quality of meat products.Carrageenan,locust bean gum and their combination were added during comminuted pork processing.The changes of colour,texture and water activity were measured to determine their effects on quality of comminuted pork.Results showed that carrageenan and locust bean gum in an appropriate proportion can ameliorate the texture property of comminuted pork.By addition of 0.16% carrageenan and 0.24% locust bean gum,the obtained pork showed the best texture property,with hardness value,chewiness value and water loss rate being of 521.20±15.40,27.00±10.40 and 0.040±0.002,respectively.


Objective To elucidate the effects of stretch and acetylcholine on the intracellular calcium of myoblast and study the remodeling reaction of muscle in a variety of mechanical environments.Methods Myoblasts from maxillofacial skeletal muscle of one week old male Sprague-Dawley rats were cultured and stretched cyclicly using a four-point bend device.Fluo-3 as the Ca~(2+) indicator was used to determine the intracellular calcium concentration.Acetylcholine was added to the cultured liquid under the microscope.Results The elevation of the intracellular calcium induced by stretch was significantly higher than induced by acetylcholine and there was no additional effect on the intracellular calcium when acetycholine was applied to the stretched myoblast.Conclusion The results suggested calcium as a signal molecule was involved in the muscle remodeling process induced by stretch.


centres covering the state. Epidemiological studies allow comparisons to be made among geographic regions on prevalence of child psychiatric disorder, service utilization and to plan future needs in a more rational way. The relationship between different levels of social class and the use of health services, however, is complex and involves more than simple economic factors and includes cultural beliefs, referral patterns and class specific rates of disorders (Beck, 1973). In the United States, higher social classes have greater access to children's services the evidence that childhood psychiatric disorder is more common among the working classes. This could be attributed to the private fee for service arrangement (Beiser, 1972; Lessing & Schilling, 1966). Wide discrepancies between estimates of true prevalence and treated prevalence of child psychiatric disorder suggest a large unmet need for children's psychiatric service (Beitchman, 1978; Kotopoulos & Nandy, 1981; Rutter et al. 1975). With these considerations in mind, this paper addresses some aspects of child psychiatric services in Bahrain such as class disparities in the utilization rates, clinical presentation, referral pattern and the extent of unmet needs. The advantage of Bahrain for this study lies in the fact that it is a relatively small defined population (414,210-1985) which has only one child psychiatric facility. The Child and Adolescent Unit is a branch of the only state psychiatric hospital and provides its service through two clinics. One is located in the state general hospital complex and the other in a peripheral health centre.