Radio frequency (RF) and microwave heating of dielectric objects is often susceptible to an excessive temperature spread due to uneven energy deposition. The exposure to a nonuniform field is a well-studied cause for this difficulty encountered in numerous applications. There are, however, some less-understood causes, which are inherent in nature in that they persist even in a perfectly uniform field. We present an experimental study on three main inherent causes with rice grains as samples. Of these cause, somewhat less obvious is the polarization charge shielding effect1 2. Exposed to the wave electric field, electrical charges in the dielectric object react in a way to partially shield the wave electric field. As a result, the dielectric object's interior electric field can be significantly smaller than the incident electric field, resulting in a much reduced power deposition. Experiments are conducted in an applicator, in which samples are irradiated by a 24 GHz microwave. High radiation uniformity (~99%) and polarization control allow a quantitative examination of each cause. Their individual and collective effects are found to be highly significant. In particular, polarization-charge shielding alone can result in a temperature spread of~ 18.2% for the samples examined. Physical interpretations are given and an effective method for its mitigation is demonstrated.


This study,on the basis of 352 questionnaires,explores the current situation of psychological empowerment and job burnout and the relationship between the two factors. The findings are: 1) The confirmatory factor analysis model and the data fit well; 2) Nursery teachers' psychological empowerment varies largely according to their degrees,positions,professional titles and types of nursery schools; 3) Similarly,nursery teachers' job burnout varies largely according to their degrees,positions,professional titles and types of nursery schools; 4) Each dimension of psychological empowerment has an obviously negative correlation with each dimension of job burnout. Regression analysis shows that psychological empowerment has a significantly negative prediction effect on their job burnout.


Introduction Rolando type base of thumb metacarpal fractures are potentially debilitating injuries, which can be difficult to manage because of their inherent instability. Malunion is associated with stiffness, pain and weakness of pinch grip. We aimed to assess the outcome of a simple technique for the treatment of this fracture using the principle of ligamentotaxis, with a static, 2-pin external fixator spanning the trapeziometacarpal joint. We present the results and functional outcomes of this technique. Methods A consecutive series of 8 patients (7 males, 1 female) with Rolando type intra-articular fractures of the base of the first metacarpal was retrospectively reviewed. All cases were performed by the senior author using a static, 2-pin Mini-Hoffman external fixator. Case notes and radiographs were reviewed, and patients9 functional outcome assessed using the Quick Disability of Arm, Shoulder and Hand (Quick DASH) scoring system. Mean age of the group was 32.8 years (range 18.1-52.3 years). Mean follow-up was 2.7 years (range 3.5 months to 6.0 years). Results The mean delay between injury and surgery was 6.6 days (range 1-11). The mean time to frame removal was 28 days (range 15-41). There were 3 cases of superficial pin site infection all of which were treated satisfactorily with oral antibiotic therapy. Follow-up radiographs did not demonstrate any significant joint incongruity or malunion in any case. The mean Quick DASH score was 8 (range 0-23). Mean scores for the work and sport components were 10 (range 0-25) and 3 (range 0-6) respectively. Conclusion The results of this study demonstrate that this simple method reliably gives excellent hand and thumb function with minimal impact upon work, sport or recreational activities. We recommend the use of spanning trapeziometacarpal external fixation for intra-articular fractures of the base of the first metacarpal.


Introduction: Although pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) has significant impact on flow and tissue remodeling in the pulmonary vasculature, previous studies indicate that PAH is also associated...


The main objectives of this study were to verify the relationship among body condition at parturition, decrease of backfat thickness and weight during the lactation and the interval from weaning to oestrus of sows. It was performed with 10 gilts and 10 fifth, sixth and seventh parity Camborough sows. The average breeding age and weight of the gilts were respectively 231 days and 149.5 kg. During lactation all females were fed a wet diet (3.34 Mcal/kg, 17% CP), ad libitum. The average daily food consumption was 5.233 for gilts and 5.721 kg for multiparous sows. Ultrasonic measurements of backfat at the P2 site were recorded on day 6 before and days 2, 7, 14, 21 and 25 after parturition. Body weight was recorded on the same dates, except the day before parturition. Sows were divided into 2 groups according to their backfat thickness 6 days before parturition. Sows with a backfat thickness of 16 mm or less were assigned to the L-group, while those with a backfat thickness more than 16 mm were assigned to the H-group. After weaning, the interval from weaning to oestrus was recorded. The percentage of total weight loss during lactation was slightly higher (not significant) in the H-group (-4.26%) than in the L-group (-2.64%). The percentage of backfat thickness decreased in both groups from 6 days before parturition until day 25 of lactation, but the decrease was highest in the H-group (p < 0.03). The weaning-oestrus interval did not differ significantly between the 2 groups. In conclusion: there was no correlation between percentage of weight loss (total) and weaning to oestrus interval, or percentage of backfat thickness loss (total or by periods) and weaning-oestrus interval, or percentage of weight loss (total or by periods) and percentage of backfat thickness loss (total or by periods). On the other hand, there was a significant positive correlation between weaning-oestrus interval and percentage of weight loss during the third week of lactation.


Loop reverse-lung for a frequency hopping OFDMA (FH-OFDMA) system, the link control algorithm is provided. The power control algorithm is effective carrier-to adjust the interference (C / I), and RpOT (Received-Power-Over-Thermal) the user of the transmission power based on the measurement-to. The algorithm inherently stable and is effective for the FH-OFDMA system, the retransmission is made.


In "Thinking the Unthinkable in Public Administration: A Case For Spoils in the Federal Bureaucracy" in the last issue, Robert Maranto argued for ending tenure in the federal civil service. His essay was critiqued by Robert F Durant, Charles Goodsell, Jack Knott, and William Murray. In this article, Maranto responds.


The recent advance of many technologies in assisted reproduction in experimental and domestic animals has been remarkable. Boerjan et al. [1] described that Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) have been introduced 1) to overcome reproductive failures in the humans, 2) to increase the number of offspring from selected females and 3) to reduce generation intervals in l ivestock. However, many technical problems remain, for example, the rates of implantation and p regnancy o f em bryos p roduced by ass i s ted reproductive technologies are not high in cattle [2] and humans [3]. Assurance of cytogenetic quality of the embryos is essential to get higher conception rates. Especially, cytogenetic normality is a very important issue in respect of generation effects in humans. Many reports concerning chromosomal abnormalities have been published [4–10], and some of them have made ment ion of the re la t ion between chromosomal abnormalities and the maturity of oocytes and sperm concentration, however the evaluation of cytogenetic safety in ART is insufficient. It has been shown that chromosome analysis of spare human embryos may have a predictive value for their transferred sibling embryos, and detection of chromosomally normal embryos for transfer is integral for improving the success rate in human In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) [11]. The present review looks at the incidences of chromosomal abnormalities in embryos of several


The daily life of many young people and adults living simultaneous situation to be a worker and university student finds intrinsic conditions in Brazil. In this sense, the objective of this study was to analyze the quality of life related to health according to the questionnaire SF-36 student workers of the higher courses of the Federal Institute of Piauí, Floriano campus. The methodology was characterized as a descriptive, exploratory, qualitative approach with a sample of 100 (47.39%) students workers entering in 2013 and 2014, the 211 (100%) students enrolled in the upper courses of Degree in Biological Sciences, Degree in Mathematics, Analysis and Systems Development. The dominance results pointed to males, with 51%, and an average age of 24.20 years (SD = 2.5, median = 24). As to the characterization of the quality of life, the average for all areas was 68.4. The lowest recorded score was related to pain (47.1), and the highest was for emotional aspects (79.3). The lowest scores were for the domains social, pain, vitality,and general health, more significantly for the last three. The areas with the lowest scores were: general health (63.9), pain (47.1),and vitality (56.7),and the mean between them was 55.9. It was considered the end of thestudy this the quality of life related to health of students working and studying in undergraduate courses of Federal do Piauí Institute campus Floriano, is classified as being regular, inferring that work and study concurrently conducted interfere reasonably quality life of young students, and can harm your performance in activities related to learning.


In this article the authors explain the benefits of preventative maintenance (PM), including reduced life-cycle costs for traffic signalization. Two public works departments are discussed, one in Reno, Nevada and the other in Hernando County, Florida, both of which have implemented a PM program. Both locales have recently begun their respective PM programs with promising early results. Reno has saved $125,000 per year and experienced a rapid increase in preventative maintenance calls with a corresponding downturn in response calls, which is the more expensive of the two. Hernando Country has experienced a savings of $47,000 and a 27 percent reduction in complaint calls. The article also lists the salient preparatory steps each region took prior to adopting PM.


ergosterol content of N. cras8a, as also of S. cereis8iae, in the presence of sulphanilamide may be taken to represent secondary effects of the drug caused by changes in the levels of coenzyme A. It is possible that the various other biochemical systems involving the function of coenzyme A will also be affected under similar conditions. The results of the present studies seem to indicate that an investigation on these lines is warranted.


The efficiency of communication is a key factor to the performance of networking applications, and concurrent communication is an important approach to the efficiency of communication. However, many concurrency opportunities are very difficult to exploit because they depend on some undeterministic conditions. If these conditions are highly predictable, speculative execution can be a very effective approach to cope with the uncertainties. Existing researches on speculation seldom target at networking systems, and none of them can handle the event-driven model that is very popular in such systems. In this paper, we propose Nexus, a novel speculation scheme that supports event-driven networking applications. Nexus analyzes the dependence relationship of events, and performs speculation according to the duality of events and threads. Evaluation on a prototype implementation of nexus shows that this approach can significantly reduces the time needed to complete an event-driven program.


The influence of externally applied unidirectional stress on the lowest‐order Lamb modes of a 12‐μm poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film has been investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The Lamb wave dispersion was determined in a fully contactless way by using optical generation and detection of ultrasound. The elastic parameters of the film material were obtained by fitting the angle dependence of the low‐frequency limit of the velocity of the fundamental Lamb modes. Whereas the dispersion of the symmetric mode S0 is only slightly influenced by an external stress, the antisymmetric mode A0 shows a transition from dispersion behavior determined by the elastic constants at small stresses to a behavior dominated by the applied stress at large stresses.


Currently, Japan is an aged society, and about 30% of the total population of Japan is elderly. Also, the number of shipments of hearing aids in Japan has increased about twice in 20 years. It is thought that the proportion of elderly people will continue to increase in the future, and the demand for hearing aids will increase more and more. However, under such circumstances, there is a survey result that about 40% of hearing aid owners are dissatisfied with conversation with children. Therefore, we analyze the difference of how to hear children voice of elderly people and adults as basic study. Subjective evaluation was conducted using children voice from 6 to 12 years old and the acoustic features of the voice was analyzed. In the correlation between the feeling of voice height and the fundamental frequency, we found that there is a weak positive correlation with correlation coefficient 0.341 in the elderly. In adults, we found that correlation coefficients were 0.646 and positive correlation. From this result, it is quantitatively clear that it is difficult for elderly people to distinguish the voice height compared to adults. Moreover, compared to adults voice, children voice are high both in the fundamental frequency and the formant frequency, and some vowels are found to be higher than 2 [kHz].


Creative computing concerns itself with theoretical and practical issues in the interdisciplinary study of creativity and computing. This paper covers a variety of preliminary compositional considerations relevant to stories generation, including conceptualising a theme, generating a storyline, and developing story narratives. An interactive game story generation system with compositional creativity as the main technique is proposed in this study. Generally speaking, a story composition process includes two major tasks: story plotting and narrative generation. This paper proposes using compositional creativity to produce credible story characters and consistent stories while addressing the needs and preferences of game players. Stories are generated according to the blind selection of story characters, events and organisations use the story theme as a selective-retention criteria taking into account the temporal, spatial and logical relationships and constraints.


Introduction: L. Delsen, E. de Jong: Good Neighbours: Germany and the Netherlands.- Institutional Differences in the Welfare States: D. Soskice, B. Hancke, G. Trumbull, A. Wren: Wage Bargaining, Labour Markets and Macroeconomic Performance in Germany and the Netherlands G. Schmid, M. Helmer: The Dutch Employment Miracle? A Comparison of Employment Systems in the Netherlands and Germany A. van Meerendonk: Benchmarking the German and Dutch Welfare States.- Financial and Competition Policies: L. Hoogduin, H. Huisman: The Financial Structure in the Netherlands and Germany: Different, Harmonious, and on the Move? R. Jochimsen: A Stable Partenership - German-Dutch Monetary Relations in the Run-up to EMU R. Gradus: Comparing Dutch and German Competition Policies.- Concluding Remarks: L. Delsen, E. de Jong: Germany and the Netherlands: Who Follows Whom?


Oncogene amplification is uncommon in cerebellar primitive neuroectodermal tumor (medulloblastoma) and its frequency and diversity are greater in medulloblastoma cell lines. We describe a medulloblastoma in a 10-year-old-girl with striking neuronal differentiation evident in the islands of ganglion cells intermixed with more primitive undifferentiated cells. The islands of ganglion cells showed prominent synaptophysin positivity. Karyotypic analysis revealed hypo- and hyperdiploidy with multiple random rearrangements and double minute chromosomes. Differential polymerase chain reaction and Southern blot analysis revealed up to 25-fold MYCN amplification.


Fluctuations in plasma electron density may play a role in solar coronal energy transport and the dissipation of wave energy. Transcoronal spacecraft radio sounding observations reveal frequency fluctuations (FFs) that encode the electron number density disturbances, allowing an exploration of the coronal compressive wave and advected inhomogeneity models. Primary FF observations from MESSENGER 2009 and published FF residuals from HELIOS 1975–1976 superior conjunctions were combined to produce a composite view of equatorial region FF near solar minimum over solar offset range 1.4–25R⊙. Methods to estimate the electron number density fluctuation variance from the observed FF were developed. We created a simple stacked, magnetically structured slab model that incorporated both propagating slow density waves and advected spatial density variations to explain the observed FF. Slow density waves accounted for most of the FF at low solar offset, while spatial density inhomogeneities advected at solar wind speed dominated above the sonic point at 6R⊙. Corresponding spatial scales ranged 1–38 Mm, with scales above 10 Mm contributing most to FF variance. Magnetic structuring of the model introduced radial elongation anistropy at lower solar offsets, but geometric conditions for isotropy were achieved as the slab correlation scales increased further out in the corona. The model produced agreement with the FF observations up to 12R⊙. FF analysis provides information on electron density fluctuations in the solar corona, and should take into account the background compressive slow waves and solar wind-related advection of quasi-static spatial density variations.


r. We consider the Navier-Stokes equations on a thin domain of the form Ω e = {x ∈ R 3 | x 1 , x 2 ∈ (0,1), 0 < x 3 < eg (x 1 , x 2 )} supplemented with the following mixed boundary conditions: periodic boundary conditions on the lateral boundary and Navier boundary conditions on the top and the bottom. Under the assumption that ∥u 0 ∥H 1 (Ω e ) < Ce -1/2 , ∥Mu i 0 ∥ L 2 (Ωe) < C for i ∈ {1,2} and similar assumptions on the forcing term, we show global existence of strong solutions; here u 0 denotes the i-th component of the initial data u 0 and M is the average in the vertical direction, that is, Mu i 0 (x 1 , x 2 ) = (eg) -1 ∫ eg 0 u i 0 (x 1 ,x 2 ,x 3 )dx 3 . Moreover, if the initial data, respectively the forcing term, converge to a bidimensional vector field, respectively forcing term, as e → 0, we prove convergence to a solution of a limiting system which is a Navier-Stokes-like equation where the function g plays an important role. Finally, we compare the attractor of the Navier-Stokes equations with the one of the limiting equation.


Pb isotope compositions of melt inclusions provide unique information about the composition of primary magmas and their source. In this study, we have developed a method for measuring Pb isotopes in small olivine-hosted melt inclusions (>40 μm) from young and old volcanoes by LA-MC-ICP-MS. We used a new interface cone assemblage consisting of a Jet sample cone and X skimmer cone. A small flow of N2 gas was added to the carrier gas and passed through the assemblage to enhance the signal intensity. In addition the energy and repetition rate of the laser conditions were reduced and the signal integration time was shortened in order to lengthen the laser ablation time and to collect enough data. Mass bias and instrument drift were corrected using a standard–sample–standard bracketing method. The analysis routine employed eight ion counters to receive 238U, 235U, 232Th, 208Pb, 207Pb, 206Pb, 204Pb and 202Hg signals simultaneously, which allowed Hg interference to be corrected on 204Pb, and in old samples U–Th decay to be age-corrected. Using the Jet and X cones, under the same laser ablation conditions, the precisions for almost all the measured standard glasses are improved by at least a factor of two compared to using standard cones. At 208Pb signal intensity >200 000 cps, external precisions of ratios involving 204Pb are better than 1.3% (2RSD) and precisions of 208Pb/206Pb and 207Pb/206Pb are better than 0.23% (2RSD). The results of Pb isotopes in olivine-hosted melt inclusions, using 45 μm laser spots, show that the internal precisions of 208Pb/206Pb and 207Pb/206Pb for most analyzed melt inclusions are better than 0.2% (2RSE) and for ratios involving 204Pb are better than 0.8% (2RSE). We are able to present the first ever Pb isotope data from ∼260 Ma Emeishan flood basalt olivine-hosted melt inclusions. They show the importance to do age correction which results in the reduction of the spread of data in old samples. The mean values of age-corrected 208Pb/206Pb and 207Pb/206Pb have 1.2% and 2.8% deviations from the uncorrected mean values, respectively. The method developed here provides a fast, precise and accurate in situ Pb isotopic composition analysis, applicable not only to melt inclusions from young basalts, but also from old samples that require correction for U–Th decay.


In this paper, a mixed transform method is proposed based on a combination of wavelet transform (WT) and multiwavelet transform (MWT) in order to denoise medical images. The proposed method consists of WT and MWT in cascade form to enhance the denoising performance of image processing. Practically, the first step is to add a noise to Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) or Computed Tomography (CT) images for the sake of testing. The noisy image is processed by WT to achieve four sub-bands and each sub-band is treated individually using MWT before the soft/hard denoising stage. Simulation results show that a high peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) is improved significantly and the characteristic features are well preserved by employing mixed transform of WT and MWT due to their capability of separating noise signals from image signals. Moreover, the corresponding mean square error (MSE) is decreased accordingly compared to other available methods.


In a deregulated power system, to ensure the electricity to be delivered reliably and the system to be operated securely, various ancillary services are needed. Spinning reserve is one of these ancillary services that a reasonable amount of it is essential to satisfy system security constraints when the power system faces with a contingency. Direct load control (DLC) is one of the incentive-based DR programs which is usually used for peak clipping or load shifting from peak load period to light load period in order to improve the system efficiency. In this paper, DLC program has been considered as one of the spinning reserve resources from both economical and reliability criteria viewpoints.


This article focus primarily on the construction of technology,technology,equipment and all aspects of the organization introduced a Qiaogong Station RCC cofferdam construction and quality control,and focus on an analysis of the impact of the concrete layer between the combination of factors aimed at the key issue of RCC,and proposes some performance measures to enhance and improve the inter-layer combination.


An approach merging the HotellingT2 control scheme with weighted random forest classifier is proposed and used in the context of detecting land cover changes via remote sensing and radiometric measurements. HotellingT2 procedure is introduced to identify features corresponding to changed areas. However, T2 scheme is not able to separate real from false changes. To tackle this limitation, the weighted random forest algorithm, which is an efficient classification technique for unbalanced problems, has been successfully applied on features of the detected pixels to recognize the type of change. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using SZTAKI AirChange benchmark data, results show that the proposed detection scheme succeeds to appropriately identify changes to land cover. Also, we compared the proposed approach to that of the conventional algorithms (i.e., neural network, random forest, support vector machine and k-nearest neighbors) and found improved performance.


The US Department of Energy, through its contractor Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has entered into a contract with Alpha-IRECO, Inc. for the emplacement of approximately 2.9 million pounds of a 50% RX-HD emulsion 50% ANFO blend into an underground chamber for initiation to produce the 12 trillion caloric equivalent of 1,000 metric tons of TNT. The detonation will be closely monitored to determine the characteristics of a large chemical explosion for comparison with data collected form previous like-sized nuclear events in the same location. This data will be shared with former Soviet block countries to facilitate enforcement of the various non-proliferation treaties currently being negotiated between the countries. The contract has significant obstacles that make the emplacement of the blended product unique. Included are the unusually large quantities of finished product, conveyance underground via rail, and emplacement into the chamber. There are strict quality control requirements as well as a detailed operational safety procedure. The contract award was based on technical competence and competitive bidding. Alpha-IRECO, Inc. together with DYNO NOBEL INC personnel devised an innovative mixing and delivery system to provide a product that met all government regulatory requirements. The authors propose to discuss an approach to this uniquemore » project and how they plan to overcome the obstacles of producing and emplacing a large quantity of blasting agent during a very short time frame in a remote and confining area.« less


A forty-eight year-old male with amoebic liver abscess became encephalopathic 3 days following oral metronidazole. Withdrawal of the drug led to prompt resolution of all encephalopathic symptoms.


A grazing intensity study was conducted from 1993 to 1995 at alpine meadow and mountain pastures in Northern Tianshan.The results showed that the optimum rate of pasture utilization for summer,autumn and spring pasture was 81%,75% and 59% respectively.


Means for transferring a sheet by means of a circumferential portion of a roll with an air generation means for applying at least one air flow to the arc having the circumferential area of the roll, whereby the air flow (47) by means of an air guiding device (39) is aligned in the direction of rotation of the roller (5), in which the air guiding device (39) in the circumferential direction of the roller (5) arranged behind one another air outlet openings, and wherein the velocity of air flow (47) is equal to or less than the speed of the arc.


The review is devoted to description of variational and analytical methods in nonlinear wave theory. A part of this methods are known, others are quite novel and haven't yet been presented in the literature. The principal direction of the review consists in analyzing localized wave processes. The methods under consideration are aimed mainly to obtain explicit formulae for the most important characteristics of the nonlinear waves in concrete physical problems.


UNNATURAL CAUSES is the acclaimed documentary series broadcast by PBS which tackles the root causes of our alarming socio-economic and racial inequities in health.


The causes of the Civil War: Stephen as Count and King, 1113-1139 The Civil War, 1139-1147 Settling the kingdom, 1147-1154 the impact of Stephen's reign.


Summary To optimize seismic deployment in challenging areas we have developed a drone seismic node transportation system. This system can transport 7 nodes to 1 km range in less than 10 minutes cycle time including landing, replacing the payload and battery change. We intend to deploy this system in severe terrain desert areas in Oman to reduce the requirement for mountaineers or other line crew to make long excursions from their support vehicles. Oman offers us an excellent first test location with conducive regulations, allowing UAVs to fly relatively far from their pilots, with few obstacles or third party activity. Using this springboard we can start useful drone deployments while developing enhancements including collision avoidance, automation and air-traffic management that would enable deployment in other environments such as foothills and forests.


Although the geometric mean procedure is very popular among financial analysts, it is shown that when it is applied on rates of returns for evaluating portfolio performance it does not produce efficient results. Valuable past performance information is ignored since the geometric mean procedure applied on rates of returns uses only three specific pieces of information, namely the initial value, the terminal value and the total number of time periods under evaluation.


Furst Protect is a combination of monoglycerides, fatty acids, and phytonutrients. Research has shown that Furst Protect improved growth and reduced mortality in nursery pigs during a multi-viral challenged infection. Thus, the response of Furst Protect was evaluated during the first 21 d of nursery phase. A total of 551 (DNA x DNA 600 sired) weaned, commercial pigs (21 d of age, average 5.58 kg (P = 0.38); 9-10 reps; 29 pigs/pen) were blocked by body weight. There were 2 treatments: standard nursery feed without antibiotics, control (CON); 2) CON + 8 lb per ton of Furst Protect (FP) for 21 d. FANCOM feeding system was used to deliver feed. Pens of pigs were weighed and feed disappearances were recorded on d 0 and 21. Data were used to calculate ADG and ADFI. To simulate commercial practice, pigs were treated with injectable antibiotic if required, and those that did not respond were removed and placed in sick pens. At the end of 21 d, the number of dead (% mortality) and viable pigs (% morbidity) were calculated. Data were analyzed as a randomized complete block design using the GLM procedure in Minitab with Fisher's t-test determining differences between treatments. For d 0-21, no differences (P ≥ 0.23) were observed for BW or ADFI. But, pigs were numerically 0.5 kg heavier on the FP. Pigs fed FP tended (P 0.06; 188 g vs 202 g) to have a higher ADG and improved (P 0.02; 0.54 vs 0.58) G:F. No differences were observed for mortality or morbidity; however, the FP treatment had a 62.5% reduction in mortality. Furst Protect is a nutritional feed supplement that improved the growth and helped improve livability during the first 21 d of nursery. More research is needed to evaluate the carryover effects in late nursery and to market.


GA 3 was examined as a means to promote hydrangea defoliation in a short time using low concentrations of available defoliants


The study investigated the relationship between job stressor and job performance among staffs of System Operation department,Tenaga Nasional Berhad. The main
objectives of the study is to determined; (i) relationship between workload and job performance; (ii) relationship between work ambiguity and job performance; (iii)
relationship between family conflict and job performance. The data for this study were collected from staffs of System Operation Department at TNB only which consist of 105 employees include 30 female and 75 male, 85 executives and 20 non-executives but only 89 participate and gave the feedback. The majority of the employees are come from technical background include executives and non executives. The tests conducted were Multiple Regression and Pearson's
Correlation was carried out in answering the objectives of the research. The Pearson's Correlation showed that only workload and family conflict have a relationship with
job performance. However, multiple regression tests showed that overall job stressor give a significant impact to the job performance.


Lactic acidosis of any etiology is associated with poor prognosis and often fatal. The survival in lactic acidosis depends on the ability to identify
and remove the cause and managing organ perfusion. Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (NRTIs), which are used widely in the treatment
of Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) infection, are known to cause life-threatening Type B lactic acidosis.

Severe lactic acidosis can cause organ failure, especially in respiratory and cardiovascular systems. However, the role of acute lactic acidosis in
these organ failures is mostly suggested by experimental studies in animals or in vitro, as few clinical studies in humans are available. Acidosis
elevates pulmonary vascular resistance, giving rise to pulmonary hypertension and peripheral vasodilation with an associated fall in blood pressure
and systemic hypotension. Although lactic acidosis presenting as abdominal pain, vomiting, and pancreatitis have been reported in persons
receiving antiretroviral therapy, the presentation as acute right heart failure has rarely been documented in the literature. We report a case of severe
metabolic and lactic acidosis in a patient receiving stavudine and lamivudine, with a rare and atypical presentation as acute right heart failure and
severe pulmonary hypertension.

This case emphasizes the need to consider lactic acidosis as a potential cause in patients presenting with acute unexplained right heart failure and
severe pulmonary hypertension.


Background and Purpose— The purpose of this study was to analyze the incidence and mortality trends in stroke events among persons 25 to 74 years of age in Finland during 1983 to 1997. Methods— The population-based FINSTROKE register recorded 5650 new strokes among persons 25 to 74 years of age in 2 geographical areas of Finland: 2770 in the Kuopio area (east central Finland) and 2880 in Turku (southwestern Finland). Of these, 3065 were men and 2585 were women. Results— The rates of acute stroke events fell during the whole study period in both men and women. In both FINSTROKE areas combined, the average annual decline in the age-standardized incidence of first stroke events was 2.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], −2.8 to −1.2; P <0.001) among men and 1.7% (95% CI, −2.6 to −0.8; P <0.001) among women. The decline in the incidence of ischemic stroke was even steeper, 2.9%/y (95% CI, −4.9 to −1.1; P <0.001) among men and 3.1%/y (95% CI, −5.0 to −1.1; P <0.001) among women, whereas the incidence of intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage did not change. Mortality from all stroke events declined in the FINSTROKE areas by 3.7%/y (95% CI, −5.3 to −2.0; P <0.001) among men and by 4.1%/y (95% CI, −5.9 to −2.4; P <0.001) among women. The 28-day case fatality of all stroke events also tended to decline, but the decline was of borderline statistical significance only (P =0.07 among men, P =0.05 among women). Conclusions— Incidence and mortality of stroke events declined significantly in these 2 register areas in Finland during the 15-year period of 1983 to 1997.


We evaluate Chinese restrictions on the number of foreign movies distributed domestically, particularly an increase in the quota in 2012. We estimate a structural model of consumer demand for movies. We solve a discrete choice model of consumer behavior that is dynamic in the sense that consumers may see movies only once. We find that the reliance on reduced-form age profiles is greatly reduced in our dynamic model relative to standard static approaches. Counterfactual experiments show that consumer welfare increases by 6% due to the import liberalization and that there is relatively little substitution between foreign and domestic movies.


Many products are developed for an international audience. But their design is often done by a small group of designers, that is homogeneous concerning their cultural background. In addition, the adaption of products to different cultural contexts is an expensive exercise and is thus in many cases not considered in the product planning. Currently, not much is known about the influence of cultural aspects on the interaction design of products, since empirical research in this area is quite difficult. We investigate how Indonesian and German students judge common products concerning their user experience. We present some first results and possible explanations for the detected differences.


yeast, the gene inducer of meiosis 1 (IME1) is the master controller of meiotic initiation and encodes a transcriptional factor triggering the cascade expression of genes that is essential for meiosis. However, the factors that govern the initiation of meiosis are not conserved and mammals have no ortholog of IME1. It is well known that retinoic acid (RA)-induced genes, including stimulated by retinoic acid gene 8 (Stra8) and Meiosin (also named Gm4969), play crucial roles during mouse meiotic initiation.1 However, the initiating factor(s) that control mitotic-to-meiotic switch remain unidentified in mammals. In their review, Gewiss and colleagues describe several key pathways controlled by RA and further discuss the major roles of RA and its downstream targets in regulating meiotic entry and completion.1 They also raise an important question concerning the role of spermatogonial maturation for meiotic initiation. In most mammals, meiotic recombination is initiated by programmed induction of double-strand break (DSB) at hotspots determined by PR domain-containing protein 9 (PRDM9). Few DSBs are subsequently repaired as crossovers, while others proceed to non-crossovers. The requirement for at least one crossover per homolog ensures their disjunction. The formation and repair of DSBs must be tightly controlled so that crossovers can occur at the right time, place, and frequency.2–4 Three reviews in this special issue provide comprehensive updated coverage on the key processes and players governing the DSB formation and repair from different aspects. The review by Li et al.2 discusses recent advances regarding the formation of DSBs, compares the nature of meiotic DSBs in different organisms (highlighting evolutionary conservation and divergence), and further summarizes the mutations of genes necessary for DSB formation causing human infertility. Meanwhile, Wang et al.3 focus on the essential M is an essential event that generates haploid gametes from diploid progenitors in all sexually reproducing organisms. It involves a single round of DNA replication followed by two rounds of chromosome segregation: separating homologous chromosomes (homologs; meiosis I [MI]), then sister chromatids (meiosis II [MII]). During the first meiotic prophase (MI prophase), homologs undergo recombination, pairing, and synapsis through the formation of the synaptonemal complex (SC). Recombination, the most prominent feature in meiosis, can increase genetic diversity during inheritance and generate physical connections between homologs to ensure their accurate segregation at MI prophase. In humans, meiotic errors can result in either infertility or gametic aneuploidy/mutation (hence, miscarriage or birth defects). With technological advances in the past few decades, researchers have made rapid progress in the field of meiosis. This special issue contains seven papers: five are reviews summarizing our current knowledge on meiosis (in particular mammalian MI prophase), and one is commentary highlighting an original research article on CRISPR-Cas9-based gene therapy for the treatment of meiotic arrest azoospermia in mice. Given that meiosis is essential for sexual reproduction, it is important to understand how entry into meiosis is initiated. In budding INVITED EDITORIAL


: To clarify the characteristics of walking in 20 patients (all female, mean knee osteoarthritis, we compared parameters between walking at normal and the fastest rates. During the fastest walking, there were significant increases in the stride and step lengths as well as the walking speed (p<0.01), and significant decreases in the toe-out and step angles (p<0.05). In addition, the stance and double supporting times significantly decreased (p<0.01). However, the effect sizes of increases in the stride and step lengths to increase the walking speed were medium ( Δ =0.69 for both), while those of decreases in the stance and double supporting times were large ( Δ =1.62 and 1.14, re-spectively). These results suggest that patients with knee osteoarthritis try to walk fast by decreasing the stance and double supporting times rather than by increasing the stride and step lengths.


Learning during the COVID-19 period is a concern in the world of education. This is because the learning system has changed from the previous one and it has not been used by both students and teachers. In response to this, it is necessary to conduct action research using the Kemmis and McTaggart models on online-onsite mathematics learning, namely boldly through online platforms and the request of students. The subjects of this study were seventh-grade junior high school students who found 27 people. In contrast, the object of this research is to increase students' creative problem-solving skills and increase teacher activity and student behaviour. Through the instruments used in online-onsite based learning, the results show that there is an increase in the percentage of classical learning completeness in creative problem-solving abilities of students who pass the minimum KKM in the 1st cycle from the percentage of initial ability results but have not shown achievement. While the results of observations of student behaviour and teacher activities meet the criteria achieved. Therefore, it is continued to cycle II by correcting the weakness in cycle I. The implementation of cycle II shows that all performance indicators have been achieved. Through these results, of course, it is a consideration that in improving problem-solving skills, it is recommended to do online-onsite based learning, especially in mathematics.


In this paper we calculate the production of a charged top pion in association with a W boson at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the context of the topcolor assisted technicolor model. We find that the cross section of pp → bb^- → W^±πt^干 is roughly corresponding to the result of the process pp → bb^- → W^±πt^干= in the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and for reasonable ranges of the parameters, the cross section can reach a few hundred fb. The W^±πt^干 signal should be clearly visible at LHC unless π t^± is very heavy.


In this paper, we present a photonic wireless system operating in the W-Band (75-110 GHz) featuring ultra-high bandwidth as well as simple NRZ-OOK modulation format. By using a cascaded optical RF and data modulation approach on the transmitter side, flexible adjustment of the wireless RF carrier in the W-Band is achieved, while direct electrical to optical conversion with advanced photonic components on the receiver side enables true photonic wireless bridging. In first experiments, data rates up to 10 Gb/s have been experimentally demonstrated.


Oedometer cells are commonly used in geotechnical engineering laboratory to determine the one-dimensional deformation of soil samples. The cell is simply a short open-ended cylinder, capped with a pair of porous discs, for containing the soil. Load is applied on the sample with a lever arm mechanism, which transfers the load from weights placed on a hanger suspended away from the oedometer cell. In the laterally-confined test condition, simultaneous measurement of radial stress of the soil sample under vertical load is understandably desirable, to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the soil's behaviour at-rest. Direct measurement of the soil body is almost impossible in an oedometer cell, but radial stress can be indirectly gauged by instrumentation of the cell wall. This paper describes the design and building of an instrumented floating type oedometer cell, which concurrently measures vertical deformation as well as radial stress of stabilized soils. Based on fundamental hoop strain principles, 2 pairs of micro-strain foil gauges, perpendicularly arranged and affixed on opposite sides of the cell's outer wall, were connected in a Wheatstone full-bridge circuit for maximum voltage output. The design, construction and installation procedure as well as calibration methods are detailed in this paper to illustrate feasibility of the instrumentation adopted. The technique can be easily duplicated for similar rigid type cells and provide an economical means of monitoring hoop strain, and hence redial stress of soils under loading.


Isotopic, mineralogical, and elemental analyses have been conducted for the geochemical characteristics of the bulk carbonates in the sediment cores from the Western High and Çınarcık Basin in the Sea of Marmara to investigate the authigenic, biogenic, and detrital components and their possible use in paleoceanographic studies. The Western High is a relatively shallow (−500 to −800 m) compressional area characterized by relatively low sedimentation rates (30–40 cm/Kyr), whereas the Çnarcık Basin is a deep (~1,250 m) transtentional area represented by high sedimentation rates (>1 m/Kyr). Both 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O of bulk carbonates from the Western High exhibit significant variations, increasing steeply from 87Sr/86Sr of 0.708437 to 0.708916 and δ18O of −3.2‰ Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite (VPDB) to 0.1‰ VPDB, indicating the incursion of the Mediterranean seawater after the last glacial and reflected in the change from lacustrine to marine environment. However, bulk carbonates in the core from the Çınarcık Basin have comparatively uniform values of 87Sr/86Sr (~0.708845) and δ18O (~0.0‰ VPDB), implying that this core did not experience the lacustrine/marine transition. In the Western High, δ13C values up to +24.3‰ VPDB at 400 cm below seafloor reveal the mineralization of heavy CO2, providing independent evidence for the subsurface biodegradation of petroleum. While in the Çınarcık Basin, δ13C values of bulk carbonates were relatively constant (approximately −2.94‰ VPDB). The high δ13C values of bulk carbonates from the Western High reflect the dissolution of primary carbonates as a result of the local acidic environment and precipitation of authigenic carbonates later, supported by mineralogical and elemental results.


A digital time intervalometer was developed for measuring time intervals of 1 msec or less with a time resolution of ∼200 psec. The start signal can be delayed from 50 nsec to the full range of ∼1 msec. The range of the instrument is independent of the selected delay and can be set to cover intervals from 100 nsec to ∼1 msec. The instrument is unique in that analog time expansion is used to measure very accurately the time phase between a 20 MHz oscillator and the start and stop signals.


ABSTRACT:The purpose of this paper is to shed light on Sin Kyŏngsuk's autobiographical novel, Oettanbang (A Lone Room), in which the protagonist factory girl aspires to become a writer. I argue that the protagonist achieves her dream by escaping from her status as a factory girl, the object of sexual violation and stigmatization, and by becoming a middle-class author representing the sexuality of the "factory girl." At the height of Korean labor literature in the 1980s, the sexuality of women workers was a taboo subject. Oettanbang arrived late on the labor literature scene and broke this taboo. There are repeated episodes in the novel where the author's former colleagues (factory girls) plead with her to write about their stories as well. I argue that the repetition of these episodes reveals the discontent of working-class women with intellectuals speaking on their behalf, as well as the author's own anxiety about appropriation in representing their sexuality.


In the paper the concepts of electrical voltage used in the circuit theory and electromagnetic field theory are compared. The voltage is defined as the difference in electric potentials in the circuit theory, but in the field theory there is no unique concept and the different definitions for voltage are used. As shown by two examples, the concepts of voltage in the circuit theory and


Internet of Things (IoT) applications can be built from a number of heterogeneous services provided by a range of devices, which are potentially resource constrained and/or mobile. As these services and applications continue to be more widespread, a key research question is how to predict user-side quality of service (QoS), to ensure the optimal selection, composition and adaptation of IoT services. The exponential growth in the number of these services means that it is not practical to invoke all candidate services to test their QoS, especially during runtime service adaptation. QoS can vary by time and location, which makes it difficult for service providers to give accurate estimates of how the service will perform for users located in changing network topologies. We propose IoTPredict, a novel neighbourhood-based prediction approach for the IoT, which uses an alternative similarity computation mechanism. Our collaborative approach requires no additional invocation of services, which is a key requirement for resource constrained devices in the IoT. We evaluate our algorithm on a QoS dataset and show that it achieves higher QoS prediction accuracy than other state of the art approaches.


Two DNA extraction methods,CTAB and SDS,were compared in extracting DNA from seed and seed capsule of Jinhua1012 and J11. It was found that the DNA from seed capsule of J11 couldn't be extracted out using CTAB method;but using SDS method,the DNA could be extracted out from both seed and seed capsule of the two varieties. And the purification effect of DNA was very obvious using phenol. Results showed,SDS method with phenol is more suitable to extracting DNA from seed capsule of peanuts.


Maintenance policy is a set of predetermine activities including preventive and corrective maintenance. Every system may be human or industrial experience deterioration. After a finite time of deterioration the system will go to breakdown status if there are no activities to maintain it. In order to illustrate this application on human system, we have developed two models for estimating survival time of the patients suffering from liver cirrhosis who are subjected to stochastic deterioration. First model based on number of transitions patient has made to reach death state and another employing preventive maintenance policy (PMP).


Knaresborough Lions have launched their 2014 Community Fund, application forms for which have been posted on the club's website at ...


The broad objective of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in Nigerian financial sector. However, the specific objectives were to investigate the relationship between board size, foreigners on the board, board gender diversity and CSR disclosure. The research sample comprises of 49 companies in the financial sector of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Secondary data was used for this study from 2012-2016 financial years. Using panel regression analysis, this study found that, board gender diversity has a positively significant relationship with the CSR disclosure while foreigners on the board exhibited a negatively significant relationship. The study also found that board size did not indicate any significant relationship with CSR disclosure. The study concluded that the impact of corporate governance on CSR disclosure cannot be overemphasized. The study therefore recommended that, there is need for increased corporate governance interest in promoting CSR disclosures.


Surface Raman spectroscopy has been successfully extended to the studs of adsorption and reaction in solid/liquid and solid/gas interfaces, by preparing rhodium substrates of surface-enhanced Raman activity The reduction process of rhodium oxides has also been investigated It was shown that, the laser plays an important role during the reduction process at both interfaces The comparison between the results reveals the similarities and differences of the reduction behavior of rhodium oxides


A novel channel waveguided TE/TM mode splitter is presented. This splitter can spatially separate the TE and TM mode components and is compatible with single mode fiber systems. The operation principle is as follows. Two straight waveguides are formed closely parallel to each other on c-plate LiNbO3 by preferential Ti diffusion. An Al strip loaded on waveguide 2 induces a large change in the propagation constant for the TM mode, so that the TM mode component, fed into waveguide 1, cannot couple to waveguide 2 ("straight-through state"). By applying external voltages V1 and V2 to the two planar electrodes, formed on waveguide 1 with an Al2O3 buffer layer in-between, a complete power transfer from waveguide 1 to waveguide 2 takes place for the TE mode ("crossover state"). Less than -20 dB crosstalk was realized at 1.15 µm wavelength for V1=20 V and V2=-15 V. The insertion loss was 1.7 dB.


The potential contribution of CYP4A enzymes to endothelial dysfunction in Dahl salt‐sensitive rats was determined by comparison to SS‐5BN consomic rats having chromosome 5 carrying CYP4A alleles from the BN rat introgressed into the SS genetic background.


New therapies require rigorous evaluation before they become part of routine clinical care. The process of evaluating new drugs and devices is well established. When a new approach to treatment is ...


Samples of austenitic stainless steel 18-10 were exposed to different surface treatment (milling, machine rectification, paper polishing, and electrolytic polishing). The autoclave tests in water (300 deg C) and in water vapor (400 deg C, 200 kg/cm/sup 2/) comprised periods up to 2000 hr. The behavior of the electrolytically polished samples was sharply drstinguished from samples having other treatment. But, whereas the electrolytic polishing causes a very significant improvement in water at 300 deg C, the treatment has no effect in vapor at 400 deg C. (tr-auth)


Objective: To investigate the influence of vehicle and temperature on potassium dehydroan- drographolide succinate injection and to predict its shelf life. Methods: A HPLC method was adopted for the assay. The classical isothermal accelerated stability test was conducted to observe the stability of the injection with varied formulations, to screen out the best formulation and to predict its shelf life. Results and Conclusion: The best formulation containing 0.05% EDTA-2Na was selected and its shelf life of 3.45 years was predicted.


This volume surveys the landscape regarding evaluation policy. According to Trochim et al. (2009, p. 16), evaluation policy includes "any rule or principle that a group or organization uses to guide its decisions and actions when doing evaluation." Evaluation policy involves rules or principles that govern evaluation itself. Evaluation policies can be quite important because they are likely to "enable and constrain the potential contributions evaluation can make" (Mark et al., 2009, p. 3). The current issue of NDE expands on and updates an earlier issue, New Directions for Evaluation (NDE, issue no. 123) (Trochim et al., 2009). Much has changed since the 2009 issue, including more widespread development of explicit evaluation policies in agencies and organizations; empirical studies of evaluation policies; important legislation at the U.S. federal level, particularly the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (the Evidence Act), which was signed into law in 2019; and ongoing changes in practices related to and emanating from evaluation policies, including those mandated by the Evidence Act. The current issue reviews many of these empirical, legislative, and practice developments, bringing readers up to date on evaluation policy and pointing the way to productive future directions. Most chapters in the issue focus primarily on the U.S. federal government. However, the volume gives attention to implications for the broader evaluation community. The first chapter, by the issue editors, Nick Hart and Mel Mark, introduces the reader to the idea of evaluation policy, offers a brief history, examines the role of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), and sets the stage for the chapters that follow. Chapter 2 consists of the AEA's Evaluation Roadmap for a More Effective Government, prepared by the Association's Evaluation Policy Task Force. In Chapter 3, Hind Al Hudib and Bradley Cousins draw on their research examining the written evaluation policies of a sample of international development agencies, a sample that, although global in scope, includes agencies of the U.S. federal government. Al Hudib and Cousins expand Trochim's (2009) definition of evaluation policy, review the components found in evaluation policies, and examine likely linkages between aspects of an evaluation policy and evaluation capacity building. Chapter 4, by Leslie Ann Fierro, Alana Kinarsky, Carlos Escheverra-Estrada, Nadia Bass, and Christina Ann Christie, presents results from an interview study examining the initial implementation of evaluation policies at the U.S. federal level. Chapter 5, by Kathryn Newcomer, Karol Olejniczak, and Nicholas Hart, focuses on learning agendas, also known as evidence-building plans. Learning agendas are a requirement of the Evidence Act, but some federal agencies and other organizations had previously created this kind of strategic plan for evaluation and evidence. Newcomer and her colleagues


There is wide consensus concerning the existence of a central m otor programming stage wherein movement elements are assembled prior to movement execution. The present study involved a determination of which of two types of interaction were involved in the organization of motor parameters during motor programming. One possibility involves a unitary stage with interactions between different kinds of parameters. In the other possibility each parameter is set independently of the others. To distinguish between the two possibilities, participants performed choice reaction time tasks in three experiments. In these experiments the subjects responded to one of two kanji characters (logographic Chinese characters with the meaning of left and right) by tapping their left or right fingers, respectively, with different movement duration, hand placement, or sequence complexity. All factors yielded main effects of these parameters on reaction ti me (RT) but no interactions were seen. These findings support the assumption that independent stages (subprocesses) exist during motor programming.


The article presents a retrospective study of the criminal law norms of the Cathedral Code of 1649, constructed with the help of legal fiction. It is determined that it underlies the responsibility for the so-called "naked intent", which consists in expressing criminal thoughts outside, not supported by preparatory actions. The conclusion is made about the conditionality of its application by a number of political, legal and socio-economic factors.


This Paper examined the effects of bitter taste stimulation on the expression of beta-endorphin in the hypothalamus of rats using immunohistochemical method and changes of which after CTP.Results showed that the expression of beta-endorphin in the supraoptic nucleus and the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus in conditioning rats were significantly more than that of the contrast group.These finding suggested that the increase in bitter taste solution intake after CTP was due to the reduction of aversion to bitter taste stimulation,but not merely a operant behavior for obtaining reward,and the changes of the expression of beta-endorphin in hypothalamus seemed directly or indirectly involved in the process of CTP.It suggested that we should increase the expression level of beta-endorphin by CTP to eliminate fatigue and avoid injury and to arouse athletes' interest in training.


Gait recognition has become an active research area with increasing demand for effective video surveillance systems. This paper deals with an innovative method of modelling human gait with spline curves. The method proposed involves finding the locations of several human joints namely, coxa joint, a pair of knee joints and a pair of ankle joints. The five joints located are used as control points to construct spline curve. Instead of comparing the gait models constructed, for which time complexity is high, we consider the area under the spline curve constructed, which is a linear metric, as our gait feature and construct feature vector containing area signals of the sequence of images considered. DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) is applied to the feature vector to obtain the feature matrix. The dimensional reduction of the constructed feature matrix is achieved by adopting the method of MSPCA (Multi-scale Principal Component Analysis). The classification of the feature vectors is done using K-NN and Neuro-Fuzzy classifiers, for the subjects considered in CASIA datasets A, B and DTW (dynamic time warping) for the subjects in CASIA dataset C.


ABSTRACT Lipoblastoma and lipoblastomatosis are rare benign soft-tissue tumoral lesions resembling fetal adipose tissue. A total of 16 cases of lipoblastoma of the neck were reported in the literature, and only 3 were described in the posterior side of the neck. Hibernoma is a rare benign adipose tumor composed of brown fat cells and only about ten cases occurring in the cervical area have been reported. We reported two rare cases of adipose tissue tumors. The first case was a male infant aged 12 months who had a cervical mass on the posterior side of the neck. He underwent a complete resection of the lesion and the pathologic study revealed lipoblastomatosis. The second case was a 36-year-old man with an anterior cervical mass, which moved with swallowing. A resection was made and the histological analysis showed hibernoma. Keywords: Lipoma; Head and Neck Neoplasms; Biopsy; Biopsy, needle INTRODUCAO O lipoblastoma e suas formas difusas, multicentricas e infiltrada, os lipoblastomatoses, sao tumores benignos raros, que afetam os tecidos moles similares ao tecido adiposo fetal. Os tumores adiposos representam cerca de 6% das neoplasias do tecido mole desenvolvidas nas primeiras duas decadas de vida: 94% sao lipomas, 4,7% sao lipoblastomas e 1,3% sao lipossarcomas


INTRODUCTION The most troublesome weed pest in the California rice fields is water grass (Echinochloa crus-galli) and its varieties, which are widely distributed throughout the rice-growing area. These grasses grow well in water and their seed will germinate under water. However, while the rice seedlings stretch to the surface of the water, the grass seedlings are suffocated to a large extent. Taking advantage of this fact, rice growers are now using water to control or check the growth of water grass. The rice is sown broadcast from April 15 to May 20, and the fields are then continuously submerged with water until drained for .harvest. At seeding time the temperature of the atmosphere, the soil, and the water used for irrigation usually is too low for maximum germination and rapid growth. Later in the season the temperature of the water and atmosphere may be too high for best results, and some growers have reported that the rice seedlings were "scalded" when germinated under shallow water. In a study of the effects of temperature and moisture upon the germination of rice seed, Akemine (i, 2)* found (a) that the maximum, optimum, and minimum temperatures for the germination of rice are 104°, 86° to 95°, and 50° to 55.4° F., respectively; (b) that rice germinates equally well in water and in air, whether the grains are hulled or dehulled; (c) that the plumule appears sooner if the seed is placed in the air under favorable moisture conditions than if placed in water, and the radicle and crown roots also develop considerably sooner in the air than in water; (d) that after the plumule appears" it grows much more rapidly in water than in air, the opposite being true of the radicle and crown roots; (e) that the frequent renewal of water had no sensible effect upon the development of the plumule, radicle, and roots, the same holding true for differences in


The prevalence of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection is increasing despite the availability of drugs that inhibit its replication. New strategies for reducing genital HSV transmission and infection are needed. This article reviews recent studies that define the characteristics and predictors of asymptomatic shedding, its role in HSV transmission and the effect of antiviral therapy on asymptomatic shedding.


Based on the observations of temperature,salinity,light penetration,and chlorophyll a in the southern Yellow sea in August 2008,the vertical distribution of chlorophyll a and its relationships with temperature,salinity,and light penetration are analyzed.It is shown in the analysis results that chlorophyll a may have one or multiple peaks in the distribution.Those patterns can be divided into 10 types,according to the vertical distribution characteristics of the water layers where the peaks are respectively situated.It is also learnt that the vertical distribution of chlorophyll a is related to the environmental factors,such as seawater stratification,light penetration,and nutrient content.


Objective To report the clinical application effect of multifunctional external fixed stents in treatment of simple closed children femoral fractures.Method From September 2005 to September 2012,the multifunctional external fixed stents were used for treatment of 42 cases of pediatric simple closed femoral fractures.Results 42 patients with fracture met the standard of reduction,and did not need auxiliary plates and gypsum fixation and skin traction.After 6 months to 2 years of follow-up,all patients got osseous healing,and recovered well with good hip and knee joint function and had no lower limb deformity and limp.Conclusion Multifunctional external fixed stents for treatment of pediatric femoral fractures has many advantages such as simple and easy operation,quick recovery of early activity function,and definite effect etc,so has more advantages than other treatment methods.


Knowledge of characteristic performance criteria is necessary for absolute and comparative assessment of various radiant heating systems. These criteria include radiation distribution and radiant efficiency This article discusses the results of studies of both variables obtained on various types of dark radiant emitter heating systems. The results demonstrate the potential magnitude of differences in the quality of dark-radiant emitters as a function of their design.


The objective of this study was to determine the current incidence and risk factors of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in preterm infants with birth weight less than 2,000 grams in Phichit Hospital. All premature infants with birth weight less than 2,000 grams in Phichit Hospital who was born in the period between October 2004 to September 2007 were enrolled.  Retrospective Collection of data was done to find the incidence. The sex, birth weight, gestational age, oxygen therapy and systemic illness were recorded. The diagnosis and Classification of ROP were done according to the International  Classification of Retinopathy of Premrturity (1984). Seventy four infants (29 male, 45 female) were included in the study.  The incidence of ROP in this study was 14.9% (10 of 74). All of 11 cases with ROP had birth weight of 1,500 grams or less. Four of 11 ROP cases developed  threshold disease. The maximum gestational age of ROP case was 32 weeks. By univariate analysis, birth weight of 1,500 grams or less, gestational age of 28 weeks or less and associated systemic illness were found to associated with development of ROP, whereas the presence of oxygen therapy was not. The above results suggested that infants which birth weight 1,500 grams or less have a high risk of developing ROP. The ROP screening criteria using the birth weight of 1,500 grams or less is appropriate for the infants in Phichit Hospital.


Lakes are aquatic ecosystems of wide-ranging cultural, economic, and scientific importance, and they are the subject of study in many disciplines, including ecology, geography, biogeochemistry, civil engineering, and water resource management. In the late 19th century, the Swiss natural historian François Forel coined the word limnology from the Greek limne, meaning lake, and he defined this new science as "the oceanography of lakes." The term was subsequently broadened to include all inland waters, including rivers and even estuaries, but most of the textbooks and journals in limnology place greater emphasis on lakes. The term lakes is derived from the Latin word lacus, meaning basin, and in the limnological literature it is usually applied in the widest sense to mean basins of water that range over a continuum of sizes, from farm ponds and reservoirs to vast inland seas, and over a range of salinities, from freshwater to brackish and hypersaline. Many monographs have been published that focus on the limnology of specific lakes, lake types or regions, from the polar zones to the tropics. Forel's early work identified four broad themes in lake science, and sections of this article divide the literature accordingly. Physical limnology includes geological aspects of lakes, including basin origins and morphometry (shape), the hydrological balance of water inputs and losses, thermal and optical properties of lakes, and the hydrodynamic features of lakes, including waves, mixing, stratification, and currents. Chemical limnology encompasses studies on the biogeochemistry of nutrient and carbon cycles, including greenhouse gas fluxes, the biogeochemical linkages between lakes and their surrounding catchments, sediment-water interactions, and photochemical processes that affect organic matter and contaminants. Biological limnology considers the biodiversity, functioning, and ecological role of animals, plants, and microbes in the lake, including their food web relationships, habitat requirements and temporal variations. Applied limnology addresses the reciprocal relationship between humans and lakes: the use and management of ecosystem services, such as drinking water, fisheries, and hydroelectricity, and human impacts on lakes, including nutrient enrichment (eutrophication), other types of pollution, the introduction of invasive species, and global climate change. This division of the literature into four themes is somewhat arbitrary, for although each scientific article may emphasize one subject area over another, all of the subjects are connected. From the earliest studies onward, limnology has sought to identify linkages and interactions among the disparate aspects of lake ecosystems to achieve an overall, integrated synthesis of ecological understanding.


Energy-harvesting Wireless sensor networks have gained more and more attention in recent years. For traditional battery-powered WSNs, the effect of transmission power on the throughput capacity and the lifetime have been well studied. The throughput capacity of WSNs is defined usually as the largest common throughput that can be provided to each source-sink pair nodes. Researches showed that high transmission power increases the throughput capacity of WSNs However, the high transmission power leads to a high energy consumption, thus the tradeoffs between the capacity and the lifetime under different transmission power have been analyzed.


In 1992, the government of Brazil presented nine crop varieties to China. One of them is Brazil upland rice IAPAR9. It was evaluated for commercial usage in China by China National Rice Research Institute (CNRRI).


The aim was to examine the possibilities and limits of involving end-users in applied knowledge-producing settings. Is it possible to have user participation as a part of the design process? The agile method DSDM supposed to enhance user participation as well as improve other aspects of the management of computer system design projects.


For any countable subgroup H of an unbounded Abelian group G there is a complete Hausdorff group topologysuch that H is the von Neu- mann radical of (G,�). In particular, we obtain the positive answer to Com- fort's question: any unbounded countable Abelian group admits a complete Hausdorff minimally almost periodic (MinAP) group topology. A bounded infinite Abelian group admits a MinAP group topology if and only if all its leading Ulm-Kaplansky invariants are infinite. If, in addition, G is countably infinite , a MinAP group topology can be chosen to be complete.


In this paper, a reciprocal job recommendation system, CCRS (Classification Candidate Reciprocal Recommendation), is proposed. With this proposed system, offering job advertisements in a sequence for candidates that they can get feedback reciprocally by using the user's profile, interaction and preference information is aimed all together. An approach based on the preference information of the candidates has been used to determine the rankings of the jobs in the recommended list, the interaction information of the candidates and the Trust Rank method has been used for eliminating the data sparsity caused by the unknown feedback values of the jobs, and the success of different classification methods has been compared to estimate the feedback rate of the advertisements for the target candidate. CCRS also addresses the cold start problem of new candidates joining the site by providing recommendations based on their profiles. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by using various performance measurements on an actual data set received from an online recruiting website. Evaluation results show that the proposed method outperforms the compared methods for the top 10 ranked recommendations.


Hindsight bias occurs when outcome information biases judgements. Previous studies have demonstrated hindsight bias in judgements of election outcomes, but few studies have examined the role of domain knowledge in hindsight bias. The present study examined the relationship between political knowledge and hindsight bias using both memory and hypothetical designs. Participants answered political knowledge questions and some made predictions before the 2012 US Presidential Election. After the election, participants were provided with the outcomes. Those who made predictions were asked to recall them, whereas those who did not make predictions were asked what they would have predicted. Both groups demonstrated hindsight bias: their recalled or hypothetical predictions were closer to the election results than participants' actual predictions. Political knowledge was negatively correlated with hindsight bias in recalled predictions but not significantly correlated with hindsight bias in hypothetical predictions. These findings help elucidate the role of domain knowledge in hindsight bias.


The second derivative of a function r(t) with respect to a variable t is equal to -n times the function raised to the 2n-1 power of r(t); using this definition, an ordinary differential equation is constructed. Graphs with the horizontal axis as the variable t and the vertical axis as the variable r(t) are created by numerically solving the ordinary differential equation. These graphs show several regular waves with a specific periodicity and waveform depending on the natural number n. In this study, the functions that satisfy the ordinary differential equation are presented as the leaf functions. For n = 1, the leaf function become a trigonometric function. For n = 2, the leaf function becomes a lemniscatic elliptic function. These functions involve an additional theorem. In this paper, based on the additional theorem for n = 1 and n = 2, the double angle and additional theorem for n = 3 are presented.


This article presents analysis of inverse dynamics of a serial manipulator in milling process. With the exception of positioning accuracy issue, machining by robots have more advantages than by conventional CNC milling machines, due to higher flexible kinematics (many links and degrees of freedom) and larger working space. Therefore, motion of the robot links is more complicated. Process forces and complicated motion involve to difficulties in solving dynamic problems of robots. This affects the robot control to match machining requirements. This article utilizes the transformation coordinates and the homogeneous transformation matrices to analysis of kinematics and dynamics of the robot. In general, cutting forces are determined by using empirical formulas that lead to errors of cutting force values. Moreover, the cutting forces are changing and causing vibration during machining process. Errors of cutting force values affect the accuracy of the dynamic model. This paper proposes an algorithm to compute the cutting forces based on the feedback values of the robot's motion. The results of kinematic and dynamic simulation of the computing program and calibrating cutting force prove intuitively and reliably validation of the proposed method.


The paper presents a series of suggestions to improve national property supervision for colleges,such as preventing loss of national property,ensuring its integration and increment,and promoting effective application of national property.


The proposed tilt sensor using air medium with a micro-heater and surrounded temperature sensors covers measurement range of ±90 degree with superior linearity and symmetric sensitivity. The structure and fabrication sequence of the proposed sensor are quite simple; micro-heater and temperature sensors can be simultaneously formed because they are composed of the same material.


This study investigates the effects of a digital guided peer feedback on students' learning and satisfaction. Participants were 203 students who were randomly assigned to groups of three. students were asked to explore various perspectives, and the 'pros and cons' on the topic of 'Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)'. The findings show that the digital module fosters students' learning and satisfaction.


Graduate students face challenges adapting to the demands of their programs and learning appropriate academic discourse. Faculty running online graduate education programs will have to use innovative teaching methods to overcome the drawbacks of distance learning while still reaching all the goals of their programs. This article seeks to review research on innovative teaching methods that may be applied to graduate-level distance learning.


Abstract Synthetic vanadium slags were melted at 1673 K and then cooled to a predetermined temperature at different cooling rates. The mineralogical phases and crystallisation behaviour were investigated based on optical microscopy, SEM, EDS and XRD analyses. The results show that spinels and silicates were the major phases in the complex vanadium slag samples, and V is enriched in the spinel phases, i.e. FexV3−xO4 and Mgx(V, Ti)3−xO4. The apparent diameter of spinel crystal grains decreases with increasing cooling rate, e.g. from 14 to 5 μm at 1523 K. Crystal grain size increases significantly with increasing holding time. It is also found that the grain sizes of spinels at higher temperatures, 1573 and 1623 K, are considerably smaller than at lower temperatures, 1473 and 1523 K. At lower temperature, large blocked spinel crystals between grey silicate phases are formed, whereas there only a few smaller blocked spinels when performed at higher temperature. Better control of the process cooling parameters will benefit vanadium slag quality.


In-service fretting damage influenced the fatigue crack origination inmaterials under the damaged surface for the very-high-cycle fatigue. Specimens of BSL65 Al-Cu alloy with peened and unpeened surfaces tested under cyclic tension andstatic compression had the crack initiation on the surface because of fretting damage.The static compression was used to reproduce the fretting damage on the specimensurface. The special methodology was applied to the crack growth analysis in the caseof the biaxial stress-state with R=-1.0 for the investigated material. The frettinginfluence on the fatigue crack propagation was estimated on the basis of the functionalcorrection, F( fr) , for the stress intensity factor, KI. The fretting damage influence onthe fatigue crack growth have been briefly discussed on the basis of the kinetic curvesreproduced from the fractographic analysis and the Wohler diagram describedmaterials behaviour in high- and very-high-cycle fatigue areas.


Although secondary, branch and community railroad lines require a huge amount of subsidy for the passenger numbers they deliver, these lines play an important role in tackling environmental and social exclusion concerns. This article discusses the current state of the UK's community railroads and proposes some steps that should be taken to ensure their future. The author suggests that low-cost, low-maintenance vehicles that are stylish and comfortable could tempt new passengers and increase ridership. It is also suggested that closing half the stations and improving the ones that remain would reduce trip time, stimulate more traffic, and lead to better utilization of trains with a regular interval timetable.


The theoretical physics of the first quarter of the twentieth century -centering around relativity theory and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics-has had a broad influence mathematically. The main achievement of theoretical physics in the following half-century was the development of quantum field theory or QFT. Yet the mathematical influence of QFT still belongs largely to the 21st century, because its mathematical foundations are still not well-understood.


An analysis of the gaps and inconsistencies present in the tourism activity developed in the Tamarugal Province and the Indigenous Development Area, ADI, Jiwasa Oraje. The researcher has been a privileged observer of regional efforts, rather than structural, and without market intelligence, to establish diagnoses, gaps, and eventual tourist routes, as well as the installation of tourist routes at the regional level. This gap is further accentuated by the absence of a regional food policy, the absence of a market, and the use of a marketing positioning the destination of the Tarapaca brand, aimed at travelers with greater spending capacity and experiential tourism, outdoor activities shared with local communities.


The transformation of industry in the digital age forces the organization to rethink of their business model. It was a clear indication that digital transformation is spreading across even the most traditional industrial and creating an astonishing array of business opportunities and threats. The digitization of tasks and processes has become essential to competition in the current scenario. Every organization is aiming for more profitable business with digitally enabled and outcome-based business models. The purpose of this paper is to understand an improved way of modelling the digital transformation of businesses. It aims to causally connect components of business models with characteristics of digital technologies. This also results in better understand the impact of technology for digitally driven business model. The major technology that drive the business digitally are cloud computing, internet of things, machine learning, robotics, mobile technology and big data. Successful digital transformation goes hand in hand with reengineering and optimization of business processes in the most appropriate way for the strategy. It is inevitable to understand that the digital transformation is not going to stop, and companies will find themselves on an everlasting journey with the need to adapt, rethink and reshape constantly. Digital platforms come with the promise of exponential growth, scale through network effects and no assets needed. Research shows that emerging digital ecosystems could account for more than $60 trillion in revenue by 2025. Digitalization radically transform business and society, destroying old business models and creating sustainable value.


Aims – To audit current practice against NICE guidance on the assessment, monitoring and prescribing of IV fluids for routine maintenance, with a view to implementing improved processes to achieve better compliance. Methods – This audit identified patients on medical wards who had received IV fluids for routine maintenance for at least 24 hours. Patients with significant existing fluid or electrolyte deficits or excesses, ongoing abnormal fluid or electrolyte losses or redistribution, and other complex issues were excluded. The presence of a fluid and electrolyte needs assessment, the type, rate and volume of fluid prescribed, the presence and contents of an IV fluids management plan and presence of IV fluid monitoring (bloods, fluid balance charts and weight) were recorded each day for the duration of IV fluid maintenance therapy. Results – Data from 25 patients was collected. Sixty percent of patients had a documented daily fluid and electrolyte needs assessment, 100% had the type, rate and volume of fluid documented on the IV fluid prescription, 60% had a daily IV fluid management plan, 20% had daily Urea and Electrolytes (U&E) and 80% had daily fluid balance charts. No patients had the recommended twice weekly weight measurements. Water was prescribed in the range 12-66mls/kg/day and the electrolytes Sodium (Na) and Chloride (Cl) were prescribed up to 7mmol/kg/day. Conclusions – We did not always document a daily fluid and electrolyte needs assessment or an IV fluid management plan in the notes of patients receiving IV fluid maintenance therapy. Daily U&E were often not done and weights were recorded weekly rather than twice weekly. There was a wide range in the rate at which fluids were prescribed (12-66ml/kg/day) compared to the recommended rate of 25-30ml/kg/day. Sodium and chloride were prescribed up to 7 times the recommended level of 1mmol/kg/day.


Construct one familie new authentication code from a Johnson graph.Moreover we computed its parameters.Assuming that the encoding rules are chosen according to a uniform probability distribution,the probability of successful impersonation attack and substitution attack are also computed.


Identifying acute myocardial ischemia in the emergency department is essential for providing prompt and appropriate medical therapy. These authors evaluated the frequency with which ED providers at five hospitals missed electrocardiogram evidence of acute myocardial infarction and the possible effects of missed findings on quality of care.

The authors retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 1684 consecutive patients who presented to the EDs of five Kaiser Permanente–affiliated …


We study the random geometry of first passage percolation on the complete graph equipped with independent and identically distributed edge weights, continuing the program initiated by Bhamidi and van der Hofstad [9]. We describe our results in terms of a sequence of parameters $(s_n)_{n\geq 1}$ that quantifies the extreme-value behavior of small weights, and that describes different universality classes for first passage percolation on the complete graph. We consider both $n$-independent as well as $n$-dependent edge weights. The simplest example consists of edge weights of the form $E^{s_n}$, where $E$ is an exponential random variable with mean 1.
In this paper, we investigate the case where $s_n\rightarrow \infty$, and focus on the local neighborhood of a vertex. We establish that the smallest-weight tree of a vertex locally converges to the invasion percolation cluster on the Poisson weighted infinite tree. In addition, we identify the scaling limit of the weight of the smallest-weight path between two uniform vertices.


This paper proposes a new ball robot which has a four axis structure and four motors that directly actuate the ball to move or to maintain the balance of the robot. For the Balancing control, it is possible to use non-model-based controller to control simply without complex formula. All the gains of the controller are heuristically adjusted during the experiments. The tilt angle is measured by IMU sensors, which is used to generate the control input of the roll and pitch controller to make the tilt angle zero. The performance of the designed control system has been verified through the real experiments with the developed ball robot.


Unlike the ancient time, the modern era has many new characteristics. Therefore, we must follow up with ancient Daoism and develop it, found modern Neo-Daoism. Neo-Daoism must develop harmoniously with modern Neo-Confucianism and modern Daoism. Dao is the basic category in the ontology of Neo-Daoism. According to its characteristics, we can expound an opinion of freedom, which involves the individual, the relationship between the individual and nature, the relationship between the individual and society, and make full use of the "hehe" principle to settle the crisis of existential meaning and take responsibilities for making a diagnosis and giving timely treatment of culture.


Science educators are urged (National Research Council [NRC], 1997, 2003; National Science Foundation, 1996) to adopt active-learning strategies and other alternatives to uninterrupted lecture to model the methods and mindsets at the heart of scientific inquiry, and to provide opportunities for students to connect abstract ideas to their real-world applications and acquire useful skills, and in doing so gain knowledge that persists beyond the course experience in which it was acquired. While these and other calls for reform dangle the carrot of promised cognitive gains before us (Bransford et al., 1999), the process of translating their message into the realities of practice in given classroom contexts remains a challenge of considerable magnitude. Perhaps because the inquiry-oriented methods that offer the most promise (Edgerton, 2001; Smith, K.A., et al., 2005) were often developed in small-class settings, the gap between promise and practice can seem almost impossible to close in the large-enrollment class environment that still predominates in the introductory course offerings of many colleges and universities. The conditions that led to creation of the large-enrollment class, particularly in research universities, are still with us (Edgerton, 2001) and are not likely to change in the foreseeable future. Thus, although the environment of a large class is not an easy one in which to thrive—either for the instructors who teach them (Carbone and Greenberg, 1998) or for the students who take them (Seymour and Hewitt, 1997; Tobias, 1990)—it is most probably here to stay. Unfortunately, traditional lecture-dominant methods often fail to motivate the meaningful intellectual engagement that is the central mission and hallmark of the college experience (Smith, K.A., et al., 2005) and that is a crucial factor in students' personal and academic development (Light, 2001). In fact, when large class instructors rely solely on traditional forms of instruction, ''. . . the individuals learning the most in this classroom are the professors. They have reserved for themselves the very conditions that promote learning: actively seeking new information, organizing it in a meaningful way, and having the chance to explain it to others'' (Huba and Freed, 2000). But moving out from behind the relative safety of the lecture podium to adopt the types of active strategies that shift classroom emphasis away from teachers' teaching toward students' participation and learning is often an unsettling prospect, even in the small-class setting. Everyone has heard those real or apocryphal tales of hapless professors who responded to ''the call,'' then were laid low by the ironic onslaught of student anxiety, resistance, or downright anger when the students were presented with classroom activities that aimed to shift emphasis from memorization and recall to the building of critical thinking skills, and the skill and ability to conduct self-directed learning (Felder and Brent, 1996). Added to the difficulties inherent with instructor and student adjustment to new teaching and learning paradigms are the cogent and interrelated issues of resources and rewards (Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1998). The faculty member using inquiry-oriented instruction is often facedwith the need to develop new curricula to supplement or replace a reliance on textbooks, a task for which she or he may have received little prior training. The organizational tasks and grading responsibilities inherent in large-class instruction may seem multiplied by an unmanageable order of magnitude when implementation of even the most basic of active-learning strategies is contemplated. It is no wonder that many college and university professors, often faced with the struggle to achieve effective practice in both the teaching and research arenas and thus considerable time constraints, choose the default position of the lecture, with its predictability and efficiency at imparting information. In effect, they may feel caught between a rock and a hard place when confronted with the increasingly more frequent and cogent calls for change in the way science is taught (NRC, 1997, 2003; National Science Foundation, 1996). Fortunately, the strategies for breaking down the roadblocks and realizing the promise of active learning and inquiry instruction in the large class are being tested and publicized (Handelsman et al., 2004). Educators who have addressed the multitude of issues that underlie implementation of active-learning strategies in large-enrollment settings are conscientiously spreading the word to the science education community by presenting at conferences or publishing in science education journals (Allen and Tanner, 2005). In previous columns we have discussed a few of the multitude of strategies encompassed by the term ''active DOI: 10.1187 / cbe.05-08-0113 Address correspondence to: Deborah Allen (firstname.lastname@example.com). Cell Biology Education Vol. 4, 262–268, Winter 2005


In this article a procedure for the determination of the equilibrium melting temperature (T) of polymers whose crystals reorganize during heating with a melting/recrystallization mechanism is presented and discussed. The procedure is completely based on data obtained by calorimetry and does not require measurements with nonroutine techniques. From the extrapolated melting temperatures of initial nonreorganized crystals, the T of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) is calculated through the Thomson-Gibbs equation via a nonlinear regression method. The value of T here determined (511 K) is higher than previous data obtained with the commonly used Hoffman-Weeks procedure, which confirms that the latter method provides an underestimation of the equilibrium melting point, similar to the data reported for a number of other semicrystalline polymers. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers


The method for determination of 17 organophosphorus pesticide residues in puer tea was developed. The sample was extracted by acetonitrile with a homogenizer. The 17 oganophosphorus pesticide residues in puer tea were separated from each other through dual capillary columns DB-17 and determined with dual flame photometric detectors(FPD). Under above conditions,the average recoveries of 17 oganophophorus pesticides at spiked levels of 0.05~0.5mg/kg ranged from 67.23% to 108.6%,and the relative standard deviations(RSD) were 2.22%~9.86%. The minimum detection limits were 0.006~0.015mg/kg. This method has the merits of good purifying effects,high accuracy and precision. It is accorded with pesticide residues testing standards in tea at home and abroad.


As a multi-layer forwarding network, the back propagation neural network (BPNN) with manifold derived structures has been most widely used in artificial intelligence applications. Based on the given non-linear system and the BPNNs of varying internal structures, this paper quantitatively reports the findings in the correlation between the number of hidden layers and the BPNN performance. The selection of learning rate is also investigated using the 3-layer BPNN and the same non-linear system. Through the simulation results in this probe it finds that the BPNN performance is not improved notably or even degraded with the increase of hidden layers, and 3-layer (or 1-1-1) BPNN is identified as the best performer.


Abstract This paper describes the use of an HPLC assay to investigate whether a chlorhexidine-containing tooth-bonded delivery system produces antibacterial concentrations in the surrounding saliva film. Saliva (<1.5 μl) was collected from ten sites in the mouth at eight times over a period of four days following application of tooth-bonded delivery systems in two dentally healthy subjects. Analysis of chlorhexidine concentrations in these samples showed a non-uniform distribution of chlorhexidine in the saliva film. Antibacterial concentrations were produced in the area immediately surrounding the delivery system (20 ± 4 and 28 ± 12 μg/ml for Subjects One and Two respectively) whereas concentrations at more distant sites remained low.