EPA and DHA are long‐chain fatty acids with health benefits on offspring underpinning the accumulative recommendations for their prenatal ingestion. Recent in vivo studies have emerged indicating a positive correlation of EPA and DHA with fetal BAT development, while other in vitro trials demonstrated their negative implication in promoting fetal myoblast reprogramming into adipoblasts. Therefore, the objective of this study was to test the effect of maternal EPA and DHA on fetal muscle development and energy balance. Two groups of Female C57BL/6 mice were assigned to different diets throughout the entire period of gestation and lactation; the first group was fed EPA and DHA enriched diet (FA); whereas, the other was fed a diet devoid of n‐3 PUFA (CON). Embryos at day 13 of gestation and offspring at age of 1 and 21day were selected for sample collection and processing. No change in little number and body weight were observed between groups in newborns at day1, but a tendency to weigh loss in the FA group was detected after weaning. Transient increase in the expression levels of MYOD1, MYOG, MRF4, and MHC4 were observed at day 1 post‐parturition (P<0.05). Except of IGF‐1 P<0.05, the expression levels of genes regulating muscle protein synthesis and catabolism were comparable (P>0.05) between groups at day 1 and 21. Persistent increase in ISR expression (P<0.05) but not in GLUT‐4 (P>0.05) were detected in day 1 and 21 age offspring. An increase in the expression of PPARγ and AP2 but not C/EBPα (P<0.05) at day 1 were observed. The three key regulators of basal adipogenesis were up‐regulated in weaned mice (P<0.05). Up‐regulation of PPARγ, AP2, and C/EBPα levels were accompanied by increasing intramuscular fat accumulation in day 1 and 21 samples. Considerable increase in the transcripts of genes regulating lipid catabolism and thermogenesis in liver including Cpt1α,Ehhadh, Mcad, Lcad, Acadvl, slc22a5, slc25a20, and Pparα (P<0.05) was noticed in (FA) group after 21 day of treatment; whereas, only the transcripts of Cpt1α andEhhadh increased in day1 neonates' livers . Similarly, genes regulating lipolysis (ATGL and HSL, MGL and LPL) were up‐regulated at day 21 of treatment only in (FO) group (P<0.05) while EPA and DHA maternal intake does not affect the expression of lipogenesis regulating genes (Fasn and Srebp1c) (P>0.05) in day 1 and 21 offspring. EPA and DHA treatment promoted BAT development and activity through increasing the expression of BAT signature genes including (UCP1, Cidea, Prdm16, Pgc1α, Dio2, Zic1, Fgf21, P2rx5, and PPARα(P<0.05). Also, maternal intake of EPA/ DHA enriched diet enhanced browning of sWAT by stimulating the expression of beige markers such as UCP1, Shox2, Tmem26, and PAT2 and thermogenesis regulating genes (PPARα, PGC1α, Cox7α1, and Cox8β) (P<0.05). Taken together, maternal ingestion of EPA and DHA may be suggested as a therapeutic option to encounter many pathophysiological disorders, mainly childhood obesity, and confer long‐lasting metabolic benefits on offspring.


Urban questions relating to sustainable future have become ever more relevant in the 21st Century, with more than half of the world's population residing in cities. Many cities are trying to showcase their international image as an economic centre that is simultaneously sustainable and all-inclusive. However, in some cases this international image-creation functions as a tool to generate profits, and comes to crossroads with ordinary city life. Departing from this paradox, the study takes a critical approach for understanding the urban landscape of Shanghai. A configuration of Molotch's growth machine theory and Robinson's ordinary city are used as frameworks to discuss geographical social and environmental (in)justices in relation to Shanghai's urban development. The qualitative case study was conducted on a desk-study basis, using a document analysis method. The empirical data consisted of various documents, e.g. academic writings, governmental websites, and maps. The final observations suggest that modern urban development practice in Shanghai typically prioritises profit-generation. Moreover, the case study revealed that the urban mega-event of Shanghai Expo 2010, named 'Better City, Better Life', was actually used as an accelerator for large-scale urban renewal, rather than for enhancing urban lives. (Less)


Purpose
This study aims to identify the critical barriers to women's leadership in Indian corporate sector using the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach.

Design/methodology/approach
Through data obtained from extant literature and the expert opinion of women seeking higher managerial positions in the Indian corporate sector, this study identified total 18 barriers to women's leadership. Thereafter, this study used the Delphi technique to identify the most critical barriers and ISM to understand the causal relationship among them, and then ranked them based on relevance.

Findings
Of the 13 critical barriers identified, corporate policies, conscious organizational bias and family responsibilities had the highest driving power. By contrast, inadequate career opportunities and the lack of risk-taking ability and assertiveness had the highest dependence power. Unconscious organizational bias and occupational segregation were other prominent barriers.

Research limitations/implications
This study establishes the interrelationships between women's leadership barriers. It provides a well-defined model which helps to get theoretical insight considering barriers for women leaders in their career progression in the Indian context. Based on the ISM model, these findings can help academicians and researchers gain deep insights into the barriers to women's leadership in the Indian context, as no studies have been found in the literature concerning the given subject.

Practical implications
Based on the findings, corporations and policymakers can design inclusive leadership policies to support women as they climb the corporate ladder and to enhance their contribution to organizational success.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to identify barriers to women's leadership in India using ISM analysis.


Patients often visit their primary care provider hoping to find relief from physical pain. When a physiological origin cannot be identified, one hypothesis suggests depression is responsible for the pain. Depression screening is recommended for those experiencing unexplained pain because the diagnosis may be depression-pain syndrome. A treatment plan using both pharmacologic agents and psychotherapy is suggested; however, these may not fully resolve all symptoms. Providers should be knowledgeable about complementary/alternative therapies. A balanced combination of conventional and complementary/alternative medical services can enhance treatment and provide practical tools to improve the quality of life for a patient with depression-pain syndrome.


OBJECTIVE
To screen potential mutations of PHEX gene in a family featuring hypophosphatemic rickets in order to confirm the molecular diagnosis and pathogenetic mechanism.

METHODS
Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral venous blood samples. DNA sequence of PHEX gene was derived from UCSC database, and primers for its coding region were designed with Primer premier 5.0. Potential mutations were detected with PCR amplification and DNA sequence analysis.

RESUTLS
A mutation was identified in intron 6 of the PHEX gene in the proband and his mother.

CONCLUSION
The c.732+1G>T mutation underlies the hypophosphatemic rickets in this family.


The Marginal Value Theorem (MVT) is the dominant paradigm in predicting patch use and numerous tests support its qualitative predictions. Quantitative tests under complex foraging situations could be expected to be more variable in their support because the MVT assumes behavior maximizes only net energy-intake rate. However across a survey of 26 studies, foragers rather consistently ''erred'' in staying too long in patches. Such a consistent direction to the errors suggests that the simplifying assumptions of the MVT introduce a systematic bias rather than just imprecision. Therefore, I simulated patch use as a statedependent response to physiological state, travel cost, predation risk, prey densities, and fitness currencies other than net-rate maximization (e.g., maximizing survival, reproductive investment, or mating opportunities). State-dependent behavior consistently results in longer patch residence times than predicted by the MVT or another foraging model, the minimize /g rule, and these rules fail to closely approximate the best behavioral strategy over a wide range of conditions. Because patch residence times increase with state-dependent behavior, this also predicts mass regulation below maximum energy capacities without direct mass-specific costs. Finally, qualitative behavioral predictions from the MVT about giving-up densities in patches and the effects of travel costs are often inconsistent with state-dependent behavior. Thus in order to accurately predict patch exploitation patterns, the model highlights the need to: (1) consider predator behavior (sit-and-wait versus actively foraging); (2) identify activities that can occur simultaneously to foraging (i.e., mate search or parental care); and (3) specify the range of nutritional states likely in foraging animals. Future predictive models of patch use should explicitly consider these parameters.


Thirty‐nine tumor‐bearing patients with metastatic melanoma were treated with 3 subcutaneous injections of the MAGE‐3.A1 peptide at monthly intervals. No significant toxicity was observed. Of the 25 patients who received the complete treatment, 7 displayed significant tumor regressions. All but one of these regressions involved cutaneous metastases. Three regressions were complete and 2 of these led to a disease‐free state, which persisted for more than 2 years after the beginning of treatment. No evidence for a cytolytic T lymphocyte (CTL) response was found in the blood of the 4 patients who were analyzed, including 2 who displayed complete tumor regression. Our results suggest that injection of the MAGE‐3.A1 peptide induced tumor regression in a significant number of the patients, even though no massive CTL response was produced. Int. J. Cancer 80:219–230, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Approximate expressions for the water content at the soil surface during constant flux infiltration and for the time to ponding under a range of constant surface fluxes are tested using a well-established computer-based numerical approach which has recently been validated against exact analytical solutions. The expression for the surface water content shows agreement to within 1% over the entire time range simulated. For the time to ponding case, it is found that a geometric mean of the data from equations defining coarse upper and lower bounds of ponding time provides an easy and accurate estimate of the ponding time.


Staff from a maternal and child health (MCH) center in urban Shebeen El Kom and from an MCH center in rural Om-khnan in Menoufia Governate, Egypt followed 200 newborn infants for 6 months. The mean birth weight stood at 3.3 kg, mean birth length 50.2 cm, mean head circumference at birth 34.5 cm, and the mean mid arm circumference at birth 10.2 cm. Infants which were exclusively breast fed lost 14 percentiles of weight for age from birth-6 months while those which were exclusively formula fed lost 18 percentiles. On the other hand, those which received solid food in addition to breast milk gained 24 percentiles. Similarly, exclusively breast fed infants lost 6 percentiles of length for age and exclusively formula fed infants lost 8 percentiles. Infants which breast fed and had solid food supplements gained 14 percentiles. In addition, breast fed infants regardless of solid food supplementation maintained their percentiles for age for head circumference while formula fed infants lost 8 percentiles. The reduced growth velocity in formula fed infants may be due to dilutions of formula and an increased incidence of infections, especially gastroenteritis. After 3-4 months of lactation, the breast milk yield fell in the mothers who exclusively breast fed their infants which may have caused a reduction in growth velocity. No group of infants experienced an increase in protein energy malnutrition. Even though there was a reduced growth velocity in these infants, research shows that breast fed infants maintain a better health status and have fewer infections than nonexclusively breast fed infants. In fact, no evidence exists that shows more rapid growth of normal neonates to be desirable.


The present invention relates to a base assembly (100) for forming a base portion of the plastic container. Base assembly includes a base pedestal (104), a base type mounted on the base pedestal, between a first position and a second position with respect to the base mold to reposition a portion of the plastic container having a movable push rod (102), and adapted actuation mechanism to move the push rod between the first position and the second position.


A model system for the relationship between parasitoid and its host was established by microoperation to study the effects of polydnavirus and venom from female parasitoid, teratocytes from parasitoid larva and the larva itself on the growth of the host. The results showed that polydnavirus plus venom could not simulate the phenomena of parasitism although they arrested the host development which exhibited host integument decoloration and inability of pupation. However, polydnavirus and venom plus teratocytes could simulate the developmental patterns of parasitized host. The development of the host was inhibited significantly. The model system is an effective method for studying the relationship between parasitoid and its host.


A 54-year-old woman with progressive visual loss and signs of hyperprolactinemia underwent neuroimaging that shows partial empty sella (figure 1A), atrophic bilateral optic nerve (figure 1B), and expansive mastoid lesion (figure 2), causing stenosis of the right transverse and sigmoid sinuses (figure 2B). CSF analysis was normal, except for high opening pressure (41 cm H2O).


As the DALME collection grows, it will include objects listed in many different kinds of sources, including legacies made in household or probate inventories, testaments, dowry items, and lists of objects seized during the course of debt recovery. This essay addresses the methodological challenges associated with using partial or total inventories of all kinds, with a focus on complete household inventories, one of the most important type of source for the study of medieval European material culture.


Hybrid caches consisting of static RAM (SRAM) and spin-torque transfer (STT)-RAM have been proposed recently for energy efficiency. To explore the advantages of hybrid cache, most of the management strategies for hybrid caches employ migration-based techniques to dynamically move write-intensive data from STT-RAM to SRAM. These techniques involve additional access operations, and thus lead to extra overheads. In this paper, we propose two compilation-based approaches to improve the energy efficiency and performance of STT-RAM-based hybrid cache by reducing the migration overheads. The first approach, migration-aware data layout, is proposed to reduce the migrations by rearranging the data layout. The second approach, migration-aware cache locking, is proposed to reduce the migrations by locking migration-intensive memory blocks into SRAM part of hybrid cache. Furthermore, experiments show that these two methods can be combined to reduce more migrations. The reduction of migration overheads can improve the energy efficiency and performance of STT-RAM-based hybrid cache. Experimental results show that, combining these two methods, on average, the number of write operations on STT-RAM is reduced by 17.6%, the number of migrations is reduced by 38.9%, the total dynamic energy is reduced by 15.6%, and the total access latency is reduced by 13.8%.


This paper reports the findings of small and medium scale Indian manufacturing industries. The report included four different industry sectors, i.e. automobile, electronics and electrical, manufacturing sector and processing sector. Responses from 242 industries are analysed and presented in this paper. It is observed that Indian industries invests more in 'Manufacturing AMT' rather than 'Design AMT' or 'Administrative AMT' to make the production system simple; 'Design AMT' is the second choice to join together the various systems, and finally to automate the manufacturing systems the companies are investing in 'Administrative AMT'.


OBJETIVES: evaluate the relationship between hospital admissions in Granada for acute exacerbations of COPD, air pollution and influenza epidemics. Methods: time series study analysing hospital admissions for AE- COPD in Granada during the year 2002 with data from air pollution, weather variables and influenza epidemics. We used a linear regression model, obtaining the Pearson's correlation coefficient. RESULTS: during the year 2002 we had 130 hospital admissions for AE- COPD, with a mean (+- SD) of 2.5 (+- 2.10) admissions per week. By lineal regression model, we found that influenza epidemics is the only variable stadistically associated with admissions for AE- COPD (p< 0.001). Partial coefficients after adjusting for influenza were not signifficant for NO2, SO2, CO, Particles and O3. A multivariate regression model taking the inluenza as a dependent variable found asssociation between influenza and SO2 and Particles (p< 0.001) CONCLUSSIONS: data from this study suggest that there is no direct relationship between air pollution and hospital admissions for AE- COPD. Howewer, air pollutants can modify susceptibility to influenza virus, thus producing by an indirect way an increase in hospital admissions for AE- COPD.


This paper examines nonloop parallelism at both fine and coarse levels of granularity in ordinary Fortran programs. Dynamic self-scheduling algorithms are developed for acyclic task graphs containing both data- and control-dependences, along with the compiler optimizations necessary to make these practical. It is shown that practical algorithms based on atomicfetch-and-? operations to a single shared variable, similar in spirit to dynamic loop dispatching algorithms, are possible for acyclic task graphs. Further, they generalize easily todoacrossloops. A key requirement is the use of compiler algorithms to optimize the task graphs. We show that although exact redundant dependence removal is theoretically NP-hard, the practical complexity on actual codes is small. Performance-related measurements are given to characterize the algorithms on a set of standard benchmark codes.


Polyurea greases are nonsoap based greases that offer high melting points along with oxidation resistance. A study was conductes to determine the benefits of using a STRATCO grease contactor rather than an atmospheric kettle to produce polyurea greases. The study included three types of tetrapolyurea grease formulations : a simple tetraurea, a calcium acetate-tetraurea, and a calcium borate-tetraurea.


N-Oxiranylmethyl-4,5,6,7-tetrahydroindole 3 has been synthesized in a yield of 68% by alkylation of 4,5,6,7-tetrahydroindole 1 with chloromethyloxirane 2. The process was realized through reaction of the Na salt of 1, prepared in situ from NaOH and 1 in toluene, with a 10-fold molar excess (relative to 1) of 2 with azeotropic removal of water. Alkylation of 4,5,6,7tetrahydroindole 1 with chloromethyloxirane 2 in the presence of alkaline metal hydroxides MOH (M = Na, K) proceeds with low efficiency (the yield does not exceed 25%).


It is widely believed that international law does not enable to protect effectively the wreck of the ms Estonia against looting. The protection regime established under the 1995 ms Estonia Treaty is binding and violations against it can be effectively sanctioned in respect of only the nationals of its few States Parties, resulting in numerous jurisdictional gaps.
This study argues that the law of the sea and administrative law provide the means for safeguarding the ms Estonia wreck against pilferers. Estonia has repeatedly designated tiny buffer zones around relatively modern shipwrecks outside its territorial sea. Finland can follow this practice in relation to the ms Estonia wreck that lies less than 19 nm from its baselines. In effect, Finland would be entitled to regulate and authorize activities directed at the shipwreck with the right to exercise its enforcement jurisdiction against persons that disturb the peace of the mass grave.


Abstract The objective of this study is to examine and analyze skills of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of professional sports clubs and to present and suggest an appropriate skills model for managers. The respondents of this study are all the managers in different managerial levels of Sepahan, Zob Ahan, Foolad e Mahan and Giti Pasand clubs in Isfahan Province. Validity of the questionnaire, which was made by the researchers and contained 19 questions with Likert 5sclaes, was approved by 15 professionals and professors in the field and using Cronbach Alpha Coefficient test, its stability was α = 0.97. Questionnaires were distributed among 83 managers of different units of the specific clubs and 76 questionnaires (91.5%) were returned as answered. Structural equation modeling and Amos16 Software were used for data analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The results of the research showed all four Conceptual, Human, Technical and Political factors are significant skills for managers and suitability factors/indexes of the confirmatory factor model of the study had also proved these factors. The final design of this study demonstrates the existing high level of interaction among skills; as such managers need to be capable of all four skills and work toward improvement of the skills they are less capable of, because the high interaction of the skills with one another in this study's model proves that weakness in one skill will cause less and lower capability level in other managerial skills.


Alpha-beta pruning is an adversarial search algorithm that uses tree pruning to improve the minimax search of data tree structures. This method of searching allows two opponents to each attempt to get the best result when analyzing a search tree. Some of the best examples of this approach are modern chess engines, which use Alpha-beta as the primary method to calculate their moves. Throughout this paper we discuss the steps of the Alpha-beta pruning and how it is implemented in chess engines. In particular we analyze how the 60 year old Alpha-Beta method has been refined been improved and optimized to better utilize current hardware.


Suppose that we have a random sample of bivariate data (xi, yi) iid ∼ F from some continuous distribution F . For example, the paired observations (xi, yi) could be the same variable measured from the i-th subject before and after some intervention, or the (xi, yi) observations could be paired in some other fashion (e.g., the same variable recorded from the i-th twin pair). Suppose that we want to test a null hypothesis about the difference between the expected values for the paired data, i.e.,


Abstract Linear thrust generation by a single pin emitter electrode under AC excitation has been studied. Presented are thrust measurements of a single electrode thruster, in comparison with classical, two electrode electrohydrodynamic thruster. The experiments show comparable thrust for both configurations at low voltage levels, suggesting higher thrust-to-weight ratio of single electrode thrusters at low applied voltages. Further, a hypothesis of single electrode thrust creation is proposed.


To improve the mechanical strength of natural hydrogels and to obtain a sustained drug-delivery device, temperature-/pH-sensitive hydrogel beads composed of calcium alginate (Ca-alginate) and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) were prepared in the presence of poly(sodium acrylate) (PAANa) with ultrahigh molecular weight (Mη ≥ 1.0 × 107) as a strengthening agent. The influence of PAANa content on the properties, including the beads stability, swelling, and drug-release behaviors, of the hydrogels was evaluated. Scanning electron microscopy and oscillation experiments were used to analyze the structure and mechanical stability of the hydrogel beads, respectively. The results show that stability of the obtained Ca-alginate/PNIPAAm hydrogel beads strengthened by PAANa the alginate/poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) hydrogel bead (SANBs) was significantly improved compared to that of the beads without PAANa (NANBs) at pH 7.4. The swelling behavior and drug-release capability of the SANBs were markedly dependent on the PAANa content and on the environmental temperature and pH. The bead sample with a higher percentage of PAANa exhibited a lower swelling rate and slower drug release. The drug release profiles from SANBs were further studied in simulated intestinal fluid, and the results demonstrated here suggest that SANBs could serve as a potential candidate for controlled drug delivery in vivo. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011


Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) with moderate-to-severe renal dysfunction usually exhibits an irreversible course, and available treatments for delaying the progression to end-stage renal disease are limited. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of the traditional Chinese medicine, Niaoduqing particles, for delaying renal dysfunction in patients with stage 3b-4 CKD. Methods: The present study was a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trial. From May 2013 to December 2013, 300 CKD patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) between 20 and 45 ml·min−1·1.73 m−2, aged 18–70 years were recruited from 22 hospitals in 11 Chinese provinces. Patients were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either a test group, which was administered Niaoduqing particles 5 g thrice daily and 10 g before bedtime for 24 weeks, or a control group, which was administered a placebo using the same methods. The primary endpoints were changes in baseline serum creatinine (Scr) and eGFR after completion of treatment. The primary endpoints were analyzed using Student's t-test or Wilcoxon's rank-sum test. The present study reported results based on an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis. Results: A total of 292 participants underwent the ITT analysis. At 24 weeks, the median (interquartile range) change in Scr was 1.1 (−13.0–24.1) and 11.7 (−2.6–42.9) &mgr;mol/L for the test and control groups, respectively (Z = 2.642, P = 0.008), and the median change in eGFR was −0.2 (−4.3–2.7) and −2.2 (−5.7–0.8) ml·min−1·1.73 m−2, respectively (Z = −2.408, P = 0.016). There were no significant differences in adverse events between the groups. Conclusions: Niaoduqing particles safely and effectively delayed CKD progression in patients with stage 3b-4 CKD. This traditional Chinese medicine may be a promising alternative medication for patients with moderate-to-severe renal dysfunction. Trial Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Register, ChiCTR-TRC-12002448; http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=7102.


The vertex of a vector a of unit length moves along the surface of an octant of this sphere. The movement of this vector is controlled by a dimensionless load parameter λ. It describes a surface curve on the buckling sphere, an arbitrary point of which is defined by the azimuth angle φ(λ) and the zenith angle θ(λ). The spherical coordinates are related to ratios of energetical quantities, such as the ratios of the buckling energy to the total strain energy.


The ion-controlled diode is a gate-controlled diode where the gate is replaced by an ionic conducting solution and the insulator is composed of the usual oxide, a barrier against diffusion, and a chemically sensitive membrane with reasonably specific sensitivity to a given ion. In order to establish the utility of this structure for a down-hole sensor in geothermal brine wells, a series of experiments were conducted with a standard gate-controlled diode to confirm calculations on the temperature dependence of the response. Excellent agreement was obtained including a negative phase shift in the measured admittance at elevated temperatures. The degree of agreement gives us confidence that it will be possible io eventually construct a 250°C sensor.


The effect of plasma discharge on the properties of grey cotton fabric has been studied by varying power discharge and number of discharges. To obtain the desired properties of fabric with minimum mechanical and chemical damage to cellulose, the process parameters have been optimized. It is observed that the desired properties can be achieved if the fabric is treated with higher power discharge and for minimum number of discharges. To achieve a high degree of whiteness, a two-stage process is suggested wherein the plasma discharged fabric is further treated with hydrogen peroxide. An acceptable degree of whiteness for dyeing and optical brightening agent (OBA) treatment can be obtained by a two-stage process with the additional benefits of savings in time, thermal energy, water and chemicals. The dyeing property of twostage processed fabric has also been evaluated and compared with that of the fabric bleached with hydrogen peroxide by the conventional method. The fabric treated with plasma followed by hydrogen peroxide shows excellent dye adsorption even on using very low quantity of salt and a low dyeing temperature.


We have examined the effects of an aqueous-soluble carboxyfullerene analogue on the cerebral ischemia-induced infarct volume, and on extracellular glutamate accumulation, in an anesthetized rat brain cortex. A C3-symmetric carboxylic acid derivative of C60 (C3-C60), which contains three malonic acid groups per molecule, was administered intraventricularly (5 μL of a 30-μM solution of C3-C60 over a period of 40 min). Cerebral ischemia was induced by the ligation of bilateral common carotid arteries (CCA) and the unilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA). The infarct volume was calculated by analysis of 2-mm coronal sections of brain slices that were stained using TTC. We analyzed the glutamate concentrations in the cortex by microdialysis perfusion and on-line HPLC analysis. Administering C3-C60 significantly decreases the infarct volume (infarct percentage relative to total volume: 8 ± 1.4%) when compared with the vehicle (22 ± 2.6%; p < 0.01), which was similar to that of the control (22 ± 1.2%). Additionally, administering C3-C60 significantly decreases ischemia-induced extracellular glutamate accumulation when compared with the vehicle. These results suggest that an aqueous-soluble analogue of carboxyfullerene can protect a cerebral ischemia-induced infarct. This protective effect may be related to the attention of the accumulation of extracellular excitatory amino acids such as glutamate. The detailed mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective effects of C3-C60 require further investigation.


Thepurpose of this study is to explain the role of trust in mediating the effect of customer satisfaction on repurchase intentions. The study was conducted in Denpasar with a total sample of 60 respondents who had made purchases on Chatime products. The sample is determined using the non-probability sampling method with a purposive sampling technique. Data collection method is to conduct a survey using a questionnaire as a research instrument. Data analysis techniques used are path analysis (path analysis) and multiple tests. The results showed that all hypotheses were accepted. Customer satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on repurchase intentions, customer satisfaction has a direct effect on trust, trust has a direct influence on repurchase intentions and trust mediates the effect of customer satisfaction on repurchase intentions.


With the continuous development of the type of application,in the deployment of the coal preparation plant control center should give priority to protecting the flow of the core business,while taking into account other application traffic,in order to achieve the level of service.In this paper,the QoS principles and technical analysis on the basis of proposed coal preparation plant control center QoS design principles and QoS deployment scenarios.


A capacitive fingerprint sensor using low-temperature poly-Si TFTs succeeds in fingerprint certification. The array area is 19.2×15 mm/sup 2/. Resolution is 423 dpi (60 μm pitch) using a structure with only one transistor and one sensor plate.


The article focuses on the theoretical analysis of discrimination and the situation of equal opportunities in the labour market among people with tattoos. The aim of the research is to identify the situation of equitable engagement in the labour market for individuals with tattoos. The paper presents the results of a quantitative study. The data analysis showed that respondents indicated that they had been discriminated against 1-2 times and 2% indicated that they had been discriminated against more than a few times at work because of their tattoos. Other aspects of equal opportunities presented in this paper.


s 177 Methods and Results: In 29 patients (21m/8f), carotid artery blood pressure and CSA waveforms were obtained by catheter and ultrasound. Diastolic, systolic and dicrotic notch amplitudes were determined for each individual (Figure). In 15 older patients (77 5yrs) compared to 14 younger (59 7yrs) carotid DPWV and CSA were increased (+2.6m/s and +7mm, resp., p<0.03), despite similar blood pressures. Moreover, in multiple regression analyses, age was a determinant of both DPWV and CSA, independent of sex, height and pulse pressure (p<0.01). Older patients have a more non-linear preessure-area curve, at a greater cross-sectional area. Tags shows age and DPWV of the subjects. S denotes systolic; d, diastolic; dn, dicrotic notch. (Only a sample of 29 is shown for clarity.) PWV values are calculating using Bramwel-Hill: PWVZsqrt(1/rho* distensibility). Conclusions: Our study demonstrates detectable age-related differences in carotid stiffness non-linearity and cross-sectional area, suggesting these may act as markers of vascular ageing. P6.18 COMPARISON OF ARTERIAL STIFFNESS ASSESSED BY ARTERIOGRAPH WITH ARTERIAL STIFFNESS ASSESSED BY APPLANATION TONOMETRY AND ECHOTRACKING: A CLINICAL STUDY M. Alivon, E. Bozec, A. Herbert, S. Laurent, P. Boutouyrie Inserm U970 team 7, Paris, France Introduction: Large artery stiffness is recognized as a strong, independent marker of cardiovascular risk, mainly through aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV). Arteriograph is a new non-invasive oscillometric method, which estimates aortic PWV through brachial pressure wave analysis. In a previous study, Trachet et al. (Annals of Biomedical Engineering 2010) have shown, using a numerical model of arterial tree, that Arteriograph measured a brachial stiffness instead of aortic stiffness. Aim: To compare PWV with Arteriograph (Ar PWV) to carotid-femoral PWV (CF PWV), carotid-radial PWV (CR PWV) and carotid-humeral PWV (CH PWV). And to compare Ar PWV to carotid stiffness (CS) and humeral stiffness (HS). Methods: CF, CH, and CR PWV were assessed by applanation tonometry (SphygmoCor ). Ar PWV was assessed by Arteriograph and CS, HS were assessed by echotracking system (Mylab ). Pearson's correlation coefficient, r, between the methods was calculated. Results: 43 subjects were included: 20 healthy subjects and 23 patients with essential hypertension. The correlation between CF PWV and Ar PWV is good and significant in healthy subjects and all subjects (rZ0.77 and rZ0.76 respectively p<0.001), and weak but not significant in hypertensive subjects. The same with CS in all subjects only (rZ0.72, p<0.001) There are no significant correlation between Ar PWV and CH PWV, CR PWV, HS. Conclusion: Arteriograph is well correlated with CF PWV and CS in all subjects but not with brachial stiffness. Nevertheless, it is necessary to include more subjects in this study to see if the correlation is as well in healthy subjects and hypertensive patients.


Aqueous two-phase system(ATPS) is a new liquid-liquid fractionation technique that has been extensively applied in the separation and purification of natural products including proteins,genetic material,bionanoparticles,cells,and secondary metabolites.Advantages of the technique include scale-up potential,continuous operation,ease of process integration,low toxicity,etc.This paper reviewed the applications in separation and purification of the active constituents from Chinese materia medica(CMM) in recent five years,so as to promote the development of separation of the active constituents in CMM.


The farmer is getting slow earning increase as a result of the lagging of agricultural restructuring, the poor distribution of agricultural resources, and the inability of the township enterprises to take in the surplus rural labour. Some effective ways are proposed in the paper for the farmer to have an earning increase. These ways are to restructure the industrial structure with the guidance of market, to facilitate the agricultural indus- trialization, to accelerate the construction of small townsand cities, and to strengthen the government's macro- support


Measurements are described of the rate and final extent of crystallization at a temperature of −25°C. in natural rubber which has been modified by the chemical combination of sidegroups to the rubber molecule. The substances added were six thiol acids. Their efficiencies in retarding crystallization are compared with that previously reported for peroxide crosslinking and with the value predicted by a simple banned volume treatment for crystal nucleus formation. They are found to be generally greater than the large value predicted theoretically. Possible reasons for this are discussed.


TODAY, wood makes as important a contribution to the aircraft industry as before. In the United Kingdom and abroad leading designers and aircraft manufacturers have turned to wood laminates for particular applications in aircraft, hovercraft and helicopter manufacture. Earlier this year it was stated by the British Aircraft Corporation, co‐designers with Sud‐Aviation of the Concorde SST, that the flooring would be manufactured in a balsa wood laminate.


Porous silicon films are obtained on highly level doped p-type(100)silicon wafers using electrochemical etching technology.MicroRaman spectroscopy is used to characterize porous silicon in the three different stages: wetting-drying and rewetting,according to the Raman shifts as a result of different factors,the shift of phonon confinement effect resulted from nanocrystalline are separated from the shift that due to strain in porous silicon,a proper expression is found to calculate the stress according to Raman shift.And the stress is calculated on porous silicon surface with different porosity using this express.The results indicate that a larger tensile residual exists on the surface and increases linearly with the porosity,which due to the lattice mismatch between porous silicon and Si substrate and the degree of lattice mismatch higher with the porosity increasing and evaporation.


Generative Artificial Intelligence systems have been developed for image, code, story, and game generation with the goal of facilitating human creativity. Recent work on neural generative systems has emphasized one particular means of interacting with AI systems: the user provides a specification, usually in the form of prompts, and the AI system generates the content. However, there are other configurations of human and AI coordination, such as co-creativity (CC) in which both human and AI systems can contribute to content creation, and mixed-initiative (MI) in which both human and AI systems can initiate content changes. In this paper, we define a hypothetical human-AI configuration design space consisting of different means for humans and AI systems to communicate creative intent to each other. We conduct a human participant study with 185 participants to understand how users want to interact with differently configured MI-CC systems. We find out that MI-CC systems with more extensive coverage of the design space are rated higher or on par on a variety of creative and goal-completion metrics, demonstrating that wider coverage of the design space can improve user experience and achievement when using the system; Preference varies greatly between expertise groups, suggesting the development of adaptive, personalized MI-CC systems; Participants identified new design space dimensions including scrutability -- the ability to poke and prod at models -- and explainability.


Abstract In Schiller's On Grace and Dignity of 1794, his critique of the alleged 'rigorism' of Kantian ethics is particularly harsh: Kant has developed an ethic for "servants" that suppresses human nature for fear of it and does not reconcile it. The essay attempts to show that this critique is based on Schiller's double misunderstanding: a misunderstanding of the Kantian conception and a misunderstanding of its own alternative model. This analysis and interpretation of Schiller's critique of Kant's ethics also leads to the realization that Schiller's idea of morality is ultimately more rigid than Kant's theory, which was so harshly criticized.


Rheological behavior of polypropylene (PP) and easy hydrolysis degradable polyester (EHDPET) melt blends were studied. Effect of temperature, shear rate, interface interaction, the bulk rate of blend component and the morphological structure on the viscosity and non-Newtonian index were discussed. The result showed that within the limit of the spinning shear rate, the viscosity of blends decreased with the increase of shear rate, below that of the PP and EHDPET. And increasing with the content of EHDPET and the compatilizer, the viscosity increased, the smaller the mean diameter of the dispersed phase, the worse the fluidity.


We prove the existence of at least one positive solution for a Schrodinger equation in \begin{document}$ \mathbb{R}^N $\end{document} of type \begin{document}$ - \Delta u + V(x) u = f(x, u) \ \ \text{in} \ \mathbb{R}^N $\end{document} with a vanishing potential at infinity and subcritical nonlinearity \begin{document}$ f $\end{document} . Our hypotheses allow us to consider examples of nonlinearities which do not verify the Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition, neither monotonicity conditions for the function \begin{document}$ \frac{f(x, s)}{s} $\end{document} . Our argument requires new estimates in order to prove the boundedness of a Cerami sequence.


Ba Shituo structure is the key exploration block of Ba Mai district.The formation lithology and pressure system are complicated in this structure.The four layers casing program used in wells before could not satisfied the drilling requirement,kicking and sticking were encountered often during drilling.It decreased the ROP and increased drilling cost.Taking well BX as an example,the formation mechanical perameters is analyzed,then the formation pressure profile and safety mud window profile are established according to the analysis of the formation lithology,logging and in-situ drilling data of the offset.At last the optimum casing program has been provided.Compared with the program before,the new one could avoid problems such as kicking and sticking during drilling very well by the in-situ drilling data analysis,another three wells in this structure drilled later with the new casing program proved that the new program could reduce the drilling problems,increase ROP and lower the cost of drilling engineering.


The article attempts to characterize the pricing of specialist outpatient services in Poland. As a point of reference were taken theoretical considerations on the diagnosis-related groups and the impact of the construction of the system on the severity of drawbacks, which are mentioned in the literature. Also the foreign pricing models were presented. Pricing of specialist ambulatory services in Poland was modelled on solutions that exist e.g. in England or the United States. They are based on the system of diagnostic groups. Unfortunately, the analysis indicates that the clinical and cost uniformity of groups, which determine proper functioning of the system, are preserved only to a limited degree. Compared with most foreign models it can also be noted, that Polish system lacks incentives for complex treatment and that the payer takes discretionary approach to setting prices. In most of the analysed countries prices are formulated based on costs of service providers.


The exchange of 2502 circuit breaker, 220 kV side, II main transformer, Wuxi JiangXi electric substation(CIRCUIT BREAKER2502), works as an engineering example, through concrete projects and plans for presentation and analysis, demonstrating the construction technology feasibility of implanting chemical anchor bolts into the original foundation. Practical application in engineering and the test results of construction verify the reliability of the construction technology; by comparison with the traditional construction process, it also demonstrates the technology has clear advantages for economic indicators.


The work analyses the Legal Framework of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mechanism for conflict prevention, management, resolution, peace-keeping and security and highlights the circumstances which led to its adoption. It also assesses the achievements and challenges of the mechanism. The study observed that the mechanism has been able to address major challenges ECOWAS encountered in its pre-mechanism peace-keeping, such as the capacity of ECOWAS to assume responsibility for mutual security, mode of troop contributions, pre-financing of peace-keeping and clarification of conditions under which interventions in the internal affairs of member state are permissible. The mechanism has been successfully used by the community to intervene and mediate in conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Cote D' Ivoire, Togo and more recently, Mali. However, there are inadequate resources and financial commitment by member states to man and finance the mechanism. It is therefore recommended that there should be consistent implementation of the community levy protocol and mechanisms by member states so as to provide the ECOWAS with the requisite funds to meet its financial obligations under the mechanism.


earth came into being, according to the ascendant view among scientists, when chunks of rocky matter that had coalesced from the particles of an interstellar nebula, the same one from which the sun materialized, began clumping together under the force of mutual gravity about 4.6 billion years ago. More chunks along with comets continued to bombard the planet's growing mass, according to this view, bringing with them one of the earth's most basic materials: water.


A commitment to install a world-class system for continuous improvement throughout its agricultural fertilizer production facilities across North America brought IMC Global to a new concept that combines Six Sigma and the Action Workout(TM) system. Whil..


Objective Presentation of the preliminary results from the foot screening project, 'Achilles", conducted in spring of 1997 and 1998 in several European countries. At the EADV congress, only the preliminary results of the study, i.e. patients screened by dermatologists, were presented.


-The purpose of this study is to evaluate the torsional strength of ceramic brackets produced by archwire twisting moment. In this study, three types of braces were used viz. monocrystalline, polycrystalline and stainless steel-reinforced type one each for maxillary right central incisor, lateral incisor and for canine tooth. Commonly known as traditional ceramic twin, traditional ceramic semi-twin and ceramic semi-twin with stainless steel reinforced channel respectively with a size of 0.42 x 0.55 mm. Stainless steel wire segments were used and the testing instrument was also fabricated to generate the wire torsion. To evaluate the torsional strength, 0.4 x 0.545 mm rectangular cross section stainless steel orthodontic wires were inserted into the bracket channels and submitted to torsion until they fractured. Result of the study proved that according to the mean value, the ceramic brackets have maximum torque values in the order of: Polycrystalline ceramic semi-twin (30.38 N.mm), Polycrystalline ceramic semi-twin with stainless steel reinforced channel (32.34 N.mm) and Monocrystalline ceramic twin (38.22 N.mm). Monocrystalline ceramic brackets produced the highest resistance to twisting forces. From finite element analysis it is clear that major fracture incidence in the ceramic brackets was at the incisal wings.


Introduction: Relationship of prior glycemic status to outcomes in intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is not established. Hypothesis: Higher hemoglobin (Hb) A1c is associated with worse outcomes in ICH...


Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast-growing innovation that will greatly change the way humans live. It can be thought of as the next big step in Internet technology. What really enable IoT to be a possibility are the various technologies that build it up. The IoT architecture mainly requires two types of technologies: data acquisition technologies and networking technologies. Many technologies are currently present that aim to serve as components to the IoT paradigm. This paper aims to categorize the various technologies present that are commonly used by Internet of Things.


Summary All the RFT and DST data available for the Labrador Shelf record small magnitudes of overpressure but show no evidence for high overpressure at depth as might be expected when compared to other similar settings, e.g. Mid-Norway. However there is evidence for high overpressure in the Saglek Basin that resulted in the premature termination of one well and resulted in significant underbalanced drilling in other wells.


In this article, half Robin problems for powers of Dirac operator in the unit ball B of Rm (m ≥ 3) are investigated. By using a certain kind of decomposition of k-monogenic functions an explicit formula for the solution and the necessary and sufficient conditions for the solvability of the problems are obtained. ¶Dedicated to Richard Delanghe on the occasion of his 65th birthday.


The hydromorphic and subaqueous soils have largely been overlooked on their pedogenic concepts or in soil C accounting studies considering their phisico-chemical properties. Conversely, little attention has been paid to the microbial activity playing a key role in regulating the biogeochemical cycle of elements. The aim of the study was to evaluate biological properties such as enzyme activities and the functional diversity of soil microbial population as bio- indicators, sensitive to processes affected by the water shallow. Eight soil profiles were opened along two transects: 1) a-a' North and 2) b-b' South, in a dune ecosystem of the Adriatic coast, Ravenna (Italy). The soil chemical and biochemical properties were determined. In particular, soil enzyme activities and soil induced respiration were measured using the microplates technique in order to assess the microbial functional diversity. The soil biochemical properties such as the potential enzyme activities and microbial induced respiration, as well as microbial functional diversity were sensitive indicators to study hydromorphic and subaqueous soils. A general reduction of hydrolytic enzyme activities was observed in subaqueous soil with respect to hydromorphic one. Moreover, the endopedon of subaqueous soils showed a lower microbial functional diversity than hydromorphic one. In this study the ratio of enzyme activities involved in C to S cycles (SEIC/Aryl) as well as the C:S ratio showed a marked reduction in the subaqueous with respect to hydromorphic soils. In conclusion, in a coastal area the C and S biogeochemical cycles, in the hydromorphic and subaqueous soils, may depend on freshwater and saltwater interface equilibrium.


RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES
For assessment of the tissue blood pool and overall vascularity, macromolecular contrast media have significant advantages over low molecular weight contrast agents. The authors evaluated the vascular effect and transport of a new macromolecular contrast media (MMCM), an iodinated dextran polymer of 32 kDa.

METHODS
The new MMCM was obtained from dextran activated by carboxy methylation, followed by linkage with triiodinated aminophtalamid conjugates. To detect whether the tracer induces vascular leakage, MMCM (350 mg I/kg) was administered intravenously in 10 mice, or applied on the cremaster muscle of 26 mice previously injected with carbon particles; after 30 or 45 minutes, the cremaster was fixed and examined by optical microscopy. For investigation of the vascular transport 3, 5, and 15 minutes after MMCM administration, various tissue fragments were processed and examined by electron microscopy.

RESULTS
In all vascular examined, MMCM does not induce plasma extravasation and the probe was detected mostly within the vascular lumen. At the ultrastructural level, a small fraction of MMCM was found in endothelial plasmalemmal vesicles (endosome-like structures) and, in time, transcytosed to the subendothelial space. No intercellular junctions were permeated by MMCM.

CONCLUSIONS
The MMCM induces no vascular leakage and it is retained mainly in the plasma. Transport of MMCM is restricted to endothelial vesicles, which may explain, in part, its prolonged vascular space retention.


Purpose Although several strategies against recurrent chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) have been proposed, no consensus has been established. Recently, middle meningeal artery (MMA) embolization has been proposed as radical treatment for recurrent CSDH. We wanted to estimate the usefulness of MMA embolization for recurrent CSDH. Methods From February 2012 to June 2013, 110 patients with CSDH underwent single burr-hole surgery with irrigation and drainage. Among these patients, 13 showed recurrent hematoma formation and were retreated surgically. Furthermore, repeated recurrence of CSDH was observed in six patients. Five of these six patients underwent middle meningeal artery (MMA) embolization with polyvinyl alcohol particles. All five patients with interventional treatment were observed for four to 60 weeks. Results No more recurrence of CSDH was observed in any of the patients. During the follow-up period, no patients suffered from any side effects or complications from the interventional treatment. Conclusion MMA embolization with careful attention paid to the procedure might be a treatment of choice for recurrent CSDH.


It is important to be able readily to identify major routes of exposure, the most highly exposed individuals or populations and the geographical areas of most concern arising from radioactive contamination. The critical group approach is used to identify sub-sections of the population who are likely to be most exposed. In this paper, the concept of radioecological sensitivity is explored with particular reference to methods of identifying spatial variation in radiation exposure. Radioecological sensitivity analysis attempts to integrate current knowledge on pathways, spatially attribute the underlying processes determining transfer and thereby identify the most radioecologically sensitive areas leading to high radiation exposure. This identifies where high exposure may occur and why, not only for humans, but also for other biota. It can consider single food products or species, or a number of key parameters to identify areas where a number of key pathways coincide. An example of radioecological sensitivity analysis is given for the Arctic. Prior identification of such areas and exposed individuals should improve the focus of emergency preparedness and planning, and contribute to environmental impact assessment for future facilities.


This paper shows how to use a decision-theoretic task scheduler in order to automatically generate efficient intention selection functions for BDI agent-oriented programming languages. We concentrate here on the particular extensions to a known BDI language called AgentSpeak(L) and its interpreter which were necessary so that the integration with a task scheduler was possible. The proposed language, called AgentSpeak(XL), has several other features which increase its usability; some of these are indicated briefly in this paper. We assess the extended language and its interpreter by means of a factory plant scenario where there is one mobile robot that is in charge of packing and storing items, besides other administrative and security tasks. This case study and its simulation results show that, in comparison to AgentSpeak(L), AgentSpeak(XL) provides much easier and efficient implementation of applications that require quantitative reasoning, or require specific control over intentions (e.g., for giving priority to certain tasks once they become intended).


In this paper we developed a conceptual model of small business' entry to foreign markets, on the basis of internationalization theories analysis. We put special attention to the analysis of the determinants which influence the traditional evolutionary development trajectory of an international company. The outcome of this paper could be used in developing small business export promotion programmes.


Sensitivity to chirality in protein-ligand interactions is of particular interest in molecular recognition and enzyme catalysis. That enzymes catalyze reactions involving only one enantiomer of a chiral substrate is commonly explained by the inherent chirality of proteins.1-3 However, an apparent lack of stereospecificity has also been observed in biochemical studies of protein-ligand binding.4,5 For example, calmodulin is able to bind two enantiomeric peptides with comparable affinity.5 The structural details of how a protein receptor can recognize ligands having mirror image relationship are scarce. Two ligands relevant to this issue that bind SH3 protein domains were recently discovered using split-pool synthesis and an affinity selection assay.6 Although they contain key SH3binding elements with a mirror image relationship that bind to the same pocket in the protein, these ligands bind the Src SH3 domain with similar affinity. Multidimensional NMR has now been used to uncover the structural basis for this result. A comparison of the structures of two synthetic ligands, NL2 and NL2R (Figure 1), complexed to enantiomerically pure Src SH3 reveals that a subsite on the binding surface maintains key intermolecular contacts with the mirror image elements. The results illustrate a mechanism through which a protein receptor interacts with binding elements having opposite chirality. Similar topographical surfaces of the chiral ligands coupled with a hydrophobic binding site lacking directional hydrogen bonds or charge-charge interactions appear to be important features of a receptor-ligand system having minimal sensitivity to chirality. The NMR structure of the Src SH3-NL2 (Ac-Mn18-Mn1PLPPLP-NH2; P ) Pro, L ) Leu) complex has been reported.7 Since Mn18 is a chiral monomer, its enantiomer Mn20, which was not used in the original library synthesis, was synthesized8,9 in order to investigate the effect of inverting the stereochemistry on binding. The corresponding diastereomeric compound AcMn20-Mn1-PLPPLP-NH2 (NL2R) was found to bind the Src SH3 domain with affinity comparable to that of NL2 (NL2, Kd ) 11 μM; NL2R, Kd ) 5.4 μM; Figure 1).7 Both Mn18 and Mn20 are crucial for high affinity binding to the Src SH3 domain as evidenced by the weak affinities of the two truncation ligands. The ligand Ac-Mn1-PLPPLP-NH2 has a Kd of 220 μM to Src SH3, and the Kd for Ac-PLPPLP-NH2 is larger than 1 mM (the binding was too weak to be measured accurately using fluorescence perturbation6). The structure of the SH3-NL2R complex10 was determined using multidimensional NMR and compared to that of the SH3-NL2 complex. Although the unbound forms of NL2 and NL2R have highly similar 1D NMR spectra (Figure 2A), the two SH3-bound ligands have very different 2D 13C-filtered TOCSY spectra for the respective aromatic protons on Mn18 and Mn20 (the TOCSY spectra were acquired using samples consisting of a 1:1 ratio of the uniformly 13C-labeled SH3 protein and unlabeled ligand) (Figure 2B). The binding site serves as a chiral shift reagent, dispersing otherwise degenerate resonances. The spectra indicate that racemization did not occur during synthesis. The structures reveal how the same receptor binds two mirror image elements. Upon complexation, the common peptidic PLPPLP fragments of the two ligands adopt essentially the same polyproline type II (PPII) helix conformation as expected from studies of other Src SH3 ligands (Figure 3A).7,11-13 Mn1 serves as a bridging element linking the PPII helix to the "monomer" residing in the pocket between the n-Src and RT loops. NL2 and NL2R differ from each other by the chirality of the C10 stereocenters of Mn18 and Mn20 (Figure 1). In the two structures, opposite faces of the tetrahydroisoquinoline group pack against Thr96 and Thr98 in the RT loop as a result of the opposite stereochemistry, but the bound conformations of the two enantiomeric moieties are remarkably similar (Figure 3B). NL2 and NL2R can be interconverted mentally by disconnecting the N11-C10 and C15-C10 bonds in one monomer, flipping the disubstituted phenyl ring by 180°, and rejoining the bonds to form the enantiomeric monomer. Flipping of the tetrahydroisoquinoline rings is accompanied by a 180° rotation of the thiazolyl groups along the C8-C10 bond, thereby preserving the N9-C8-C10-N11 dihedral angle in the two complexes. For


The catalytic polarographic wave of oxytetracycline was observed in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. The sensitivity of the catalytic wave was 8 times higher than that of the corresponding reduction wave. Based on this, a method for the determination of oxytetracycline was proposed. In 0.1 mol/L KH_2PO_4-Na_2HPO_4 (pH 7.4)-1.6×10~(-3) mol/L H_2O_2 solution, the second order derivative peak current of the catalytic wave was linear with oxytetracycline concentration in the range of 5.0×10~(-7)~9.0×10~(-6) mol/L. The detection limit was 1.0×10~(-7) mol/L.


This invention relates to the prepn. of basic zinc carbonate and activated zinc oxide by ammonium bicarbonate sedimentation method. The advantages of the process are (1) the utilization of waste zinc cpds., (2) the short prodn. line (3) low equipment investment, low prodn. cost and (4) good prod. quality. It is esp. suitable for small-sized or medium-sized enterprises.


With analyzing on the DXF file structure, this paper discusses the graphical interface of CAPP and CAD, including the topics such as the data structure of CAPP, the procedure of reading the graphical information, and the post treatment of the data etc. Therefore, a new solution of the part data inputting to CAPP is provided.


In Heart of Darkness, Conrad appears to construct a symptomatic narrative a narrative which is, itself, intended to be read as a collection of symptoms indicating an underlying historical agent. This symptomatic approach may be read as extending through every aspect of the novella, from characterisation to Conrad's use of metaphor. Symptoms are subjective abnormalities in the status quo, observed or experienced indications of a change the end point of a causal chain the measure of which may only be gauged (at least initially) by the extent and the severity of the symptoms it renders. As such, symptoms, by definition, cannot be directly measured and are therefore ineffable. As such, reading Heart of Darkness as a symptomatic text also entails the reading of the means by which Conrad depicts causal chains and that which is ineffable within the text.


Apply critical path method to manufacturing, combine with CAD/CAM technology, the AOE net model is established in which take machine as node and assign task to machine according to process flow. Through analysis, the manufacture period can be forecasted by using the model, it could make the enterprise that undertake dispersed task exploit the exist resource fully and supervise the manufacture effectually, the manufacture period can be cut down.


Let $p$ be a prime. Let $R$ be a regular local ring of mixed characteristic $(0,p)$ and of dimension d\ge 3. We assume that its completion is isomorphic to $C(k)[[x_1,\ldots,x_d]]/(h)$, with $C(k)$ as a Cohen ring of the same residue field $k$ as $R$ and with $h\in C(k)[[x_1,\ldots,x_d]]$ such that its reduction modulo $p$ does not belong to the ideal $(x_1^p,\ldots,x_d^p)+(x_1,\ldots,x_d)^{2p-2}$ of $k[[x_1,\ldots,x_d]]$. We show that each Barsotti--Tate group over the field of fractions of $R$ which extends to every local ring of $R$ of dimension $1$, extends uniquely to a Barsotti--Tate group over $R$. This result corrects in many cases several errors in the literature. As an application, we get that if $Y$ is an integral regular scheme flat over $\mathbb Z_{(p)}$ and such that the completion of each local ring of $Y$ at a closed point of $Y$ of characteristic $p$ is a ring of formal power series over some complete discrete valuation ring of mixed characteristic $(0,p)$ and absolute index of ramification $e\le p-1$, then each Barsotti--Tate group over the field of fractions of $Y$ which extends to every local ring of $Y$ of dimension $1$, extends uniquely to a Barsotti--Tate group over $Y$.


As a result of dynamic development that takes place in the field of controlling AC motors, designers of machines and various devices usually apply servo drives with induction or synchronic motors, relying both on their remarkable operational characteristics as well as their long life. However, advanced electronic systems and sophisticated software, necessary for obtaining such characteristics, are quite expensive. The authors present in the paper an example of an actuating system for a processing device powered by AC servo drive. As proved by the model studies that have been carried out, the servo drive can be replaced with a stepping motor that is few times less expensive, and at the same time meets all the requirements related to its operation.


3', 5'-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cyclic AMP) systems in the anesthetized rat adrenal medulla were studied using the technique of a direct infusion of various agents into the adrenal gland, and such is referred to as 'the retrograde-adrenal vein infusion' and 'the intra-adrenal infusion'. A direct administration of acetylcholine into the adrenal gland by the retrograde infusion produced a rapid stimulation of the catecholarnine-release, followed by a delayed activation of the adenylate cyclase in the adrenal medulla. The acetylcholine-induced increase in hormonal secretion and cyclic AMP levels was completely blocked by hexamethonium, indicating the mechanism of nicotinic trans-synaptic stimulation. Intra-adrenal infusion of epinephrine also prevented an increase in cyclic AMP accumulation induced by acetylcholine. This suggests an inhibitory mechanism on the cyclic AMP systems by catecholarnines within the medullary cells. The infusion of propranolol or phentolamine into the gland, in some cases denervated, increased cyclic AMP amounts in the medulla, suggesting a decrease in catecholamine-induced inhibition by a or β-antagonists. These results favor the assumption that the mechanism of catecholamine inhibition of the adenylate cyclase system is mediated by adrenergic interaction. The present studies suggest a mechanism of regulation by catecholamines of the cyclic AMP systems at the early stage of traps-synaptic stimulation, such leading to the delayed increase in the adenylate cyclase activation of the adrenal medulla in vivo.


Abstract The hustla philosophy of the Jamaican economy advocates the use of innovative and/or illicit methods to negotiate the harsh economic realities of the society. From two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Jamaica, I gleaned that local musicians applied this philosophy to support themselves and family. Most notably, local rock musicians used this mindset to survive their disadvantageous position on the periphery of the Jamaican reggae industry. They earned this status because their merger of "foreign" genres with reggae was perceived as undermining the cultural heritage of the Black populace. As a result, my analysis interrogates the attempts of rock musicians to secure work and legitimacy in a precarious and prejudicial job market. Institutionalized prejudices limited the popularity of local rock music and enforced repressive scripts. Despite these disadvantages, the Jamaican rock scene has made major contributions to the music economy by merging rock music with reggae and facilitating innovation and creativity within the contemporary Reggae Revival.


The contribution of nucleons to the quark condensate in nuclear matter includes a piece of first order in {ital m}{sub {pi}}, arising from the contribution of low-momentum virtual pions to the {pi}{ital N} {sigma} commutator. Chiral symmetry requires that no term of this order appears in the {ital NN} interaction. The mass of a nucleon in matter thus cannot depend in any simple way on the quark condensate alone. More generally, pieces of the quark condensate that arise from low-momentum pions should not be associated with partial restoration of chiral symmetry. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}


This paper reports an experimental investigation of bulk properties of turbulent, which is 3-D, incompressible, air jets issuing into still air surrounding from the nozzles. The jet orifices utilised included circular, hexagonal and cruciform geometries. Experimental results of pertinent mean flow properties such as axis velocity decay, half width growth, potential core and turbulence intensities are reported. Single Hotwire anemometer was used for measurements of the velocity field. The experiment for the three jets was conducted under the same nominal conditions with the exit Reynolds number of 15.400. Consistent with previous investigations of other non-circular jets, the cruciform jet is found to have an overall superior mixing capability over the circular counter part. Immediately downstream of the nozzle exit, it entrains, and then mixes with, the surroundings at a higher rate. This jet has a shorter potential core with higher rates of decay and spread than the circular jet. This phenomenon of axis switching is also found to occur in this jet.


The authors propose system integrated mechanisms, a Wiki platform for peer-reviewing. Link grammar for automatically checking the students' papers, and a RSS reader to periodically retrieve these articles from the platform that is published in the BLOG system. The authors claim that using such a system have two major advantages. First, the students have a chance to exchange their skills and opinions when writing the article. Second, by the assistance of link grammar, the teacher can concentrate on students' higher level skills instead of correcting mechanical problems.


The goal of this paper is to identify and quantify the contribution of a set of covariates in affecting levels and over time changes of happiness inequality. We make use of a recent methodology that allows decomposing the overall change in happiness inequality into composition and coefficient effects of each covariate. We focus on the increase in happiness inequality observed in Germany between 1991 and 2007 in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) database, deriving the following findings. First, trends in happiness inequality are mainly driven by composition effects, while coefficient effects are negligible. Second, among composition effects, education has an inequality-reducing impact, while changes in labour market conditions and demographic composition contribute to explain the rise in happiness inequality. Third, the increase in income inequality cannot be considered as a driver of the increase in happiness inequality. A clear cut policy implication of our paper is that policies enhancing education and labour market performance are crucial to reduce happiness inequality and the potential social tensions arising from it.


Premature ejaculation is one of the sexual dysfunctions that most affects men not only from the sexual point of view but also from the emotional point of view. There is no concrete data about its prevalence, however, it is known that it can affect men of any age. Over the years, its definition has varied a lot and we still do not have one that is accepted globally. The treatment options are many, some drugs with more evidence than others, and only one approved specifically for premature ejaculation.


Abstract Objective: To present a literature review of cognitive disorders in patients operated on anterior communicant artery aneurysm (AcomA). Methods: Literature was searched (PubMed) from 1996 to 2009 using "aneurysm", "surgery" and "neuropsychological evaluation" as keywords. Only papers describing postoperative neuropsychological findings were included in this review. Results: A great deal of the retrieved papers noted alterations of intellectual, executive functions and memory (episodic and semantic). Some authors explain these memory deficits as secondary to the executive dysfunction or ischemia in related areas. Other papers noted secondary alterations after temporary clipping (worse alert and selective attention). Majority of deficits improve with time, however, long periods of temporary clip are associated with persistent deficits. Conclusion: The studies are scarce in the Brazilian literature that valued thoroughly neuropsychological alterations after AcomA surgery, correlating data with the resection or not of the straight gyrus, with the presence or not of vasoespasm and alterations in the quality of life. There were not found, up to the moment, studies in which these patients were valued pre and post surgery.


Structure and configuration of lattice defects in tungsten-cobalt electrodeposits were examined under transmission electron microscope. The layer as deposited contained numerous stacking faults and twin faults in each grain, giving martensitelike structure.As the results of electron diffraction analysis, it was found that the crystal structure of the deposits consisted of hexagonal α-Co solid solution oversaturated with tungsten and that after heating at 600°C for 2hr., precipitation of Co3W appeared in α-Co phase. However, the appearance of Co3W phase was not evidently detected under electron microscope, even though it was determined by electron diffraction.Hardening of the deposits after heating seemed to be attributed to the precipitation of Co3W.


Author(s): Zhu, Yan | Advisor(s): Keogh, Eamonn | Abstract: Primitives such as motifs, discords, shapelets, etc., are widely used in time series data mining. A versatile approach to find these primitives is through computing similarity joins for time series subsequences. The last decade has seen a significant amount of research effort on similarity joins in domains such as text and DNA, but not much progress has been made on similarity joins for time series subsequences. The lack of progress is probably due to the daunting nature of the problem: for even modest sized datasets the brute-force algorithm can take months to complete. Typical speed-up techniques such as indexing and lower-bounding at best produce only one or two orders of magnitude speedup, and their performance can degrade significantly in the face of an unfavorable dataset.In this dissertation we introduce a suite of algorithms that significantly expand the limit of scalability for time series subsequences similarity joins. These algorithms not only provide the fastest exact solution to the discovery of time series motifs, one of the most extensively-studied time series data mining primitives in the last decade, but also allow the invention of new primitives that the state-of-the-art could not support.Specifically, we present a novel batch algorithm which, when combined with the GPU framework, can find the full set of exact motifs on a dataset two orders of magnitude larger than the literature limit in feasible time. A novel fast-converging anytime algorithm further expands this scalability, allowing motif discovery for million-scale datasets to be performed in interactive sessions with an off-the-shelf desktop. We also show how these techniques can be combined with a novel lower bound to allow fast motif discovery in the presence of missing data. Furthermore, we introduce time series chains, a new time series data mining primitive that can capture the evolution of systems and help predict the future.We demonstrate the utility of our ideas in domains as diverse as seismology, entomology, human activity monitoring, electrical power-demand monitoring and medicine.


A language of constructions for minimal logic is the -calculus, where cut-elimination is encoded as -reduction. We examine corresponding languages for the minimal version of the modal logic S4, with notions of reduction that encodes cut-elimination for the corresponding sequent system. It turns out that a natural interpretation of the latter constructions is a -calculus extended by an idealized version of Lisp's eval and quote constructs. In this rst part, we analyze how cut-elimination works in the standard sequent system for minimal S4, and where problems arise. Bierman and De Paiva's proposal is a natural language of constructions for this logic, but their calculus lacks a few rules that are essential to eliminate all cuts. The S4calculus, namely Bierman and De Paiva's proposal extended with all needed rules, is con uent. There is a polynomial-time algorithm to compute principal typings of given terms, or answer that the given terms are not typable. The typed S4-calculus terminates, and normal forms are exactly constructions for cut-free proofs. Finally, modulo some notion of equivalence, there is a natural Curry-Howard style isomorphism between typed S4-terms and natural deduction proofs in minimal S4. However, the S4-calculus has a non-operational avor, in that the extra rules include explicit garbage collection, contraction and exchange rules. We shall propose another language of constructions to repair this in Part II. 1 General Introduction This paper presents an answer to two dual questions. The rst is: what language do we need to get a proofsas-programs, formulas-as-types correspondence with the modal logic S4? As already noted by Davies and Pfenning [DP95], the answer is a kind of -calculus augmented with polished versions of Lisp's eval and quote primitives. Our initial motivation for answering this question was intellectual curiosity: if intuitionistic and minimal logics have it [How80], and now classical logic, too [Gri90], why not some modal logics? Moreover, the current interest in linear logic, and the fact that the rules of sequent systems for linear logic look like those for S4 a lot, have recently stimulated some researchers [BdP95] into exploring functional interpretations for S4, in the hope of understanding linear logic better. The second question is: what kind of type system can we impose on Lisp's eval and quote primitives that would make them usable in an ML-like, strongly typed and polymorphic functional language? Or alternatively, how can we make type-safe versions of these primitives in a way that would be most expressive? We show that a good answer is given by augmenting ML's type system, which is basically intuitionistic logic, to the intuitionistic version of the logic S4. Research partially funded by the HCM grant 7532.7-06 from the European Union. This work started in July 1994 while I was at Bull, and was nished while I was at the university of Karlsruhe. On leave from Bull Corporate Research Center, rue Jean Jaur es, F-78340 Les Clayes sous Bois.


In spite of being investigated for decades, in Spoken Language Understanding, slot filling task perceived as sequential labeling in a specific domain is still challenging and attractive to many researchers. For this task, Recurrent Conditional Random Field (RCRF) is a popular model in order to learn latent representations of data which are then utilized as input to a classifier CRF. Our proposed model, in contrast, employed a variant of RNNs, called Long Short-Tem Memory Networks (LSTMs) which, more or less, tackle the downside of RNNs: vanishing gradients. Additionally, we also conducted experiments on the integration of bidirectional LSTM with distinct classifiers, e.g CRFs, SVMs; which then are trained simultaneously. The experimental results show that these combinations are beneficial on both dataset Airline Travel Information System (ATIS) and DARPA Communicator, compared with the state-of-the-art model.


Traditionally floods have been understood to be acts of God or nature, with localised impacts afflicting those who choose to live or to invest capital in lowland and coastal locations. This central idea of causation, located outside human agency, survives somewhat precariously today, but is reflected in the lack of any right to protection from flooding in England and Wales. However in 1930 new legislation institutionalised a social framing of the impact of floods as part of a wider national problem. This related the interests of lowland agriculture and land drainage to the national economic and military interest. Modernising and expanding agricultural production was a political priority from the 1930s to the 1980s. The cost of preventing flooding and draining land was transferred from the affected landowners to the nation as a whole. River and coastal engineering was central to the new policy, and by the early 1970s much of the riverine and coastal environment was radically altered by flood defence structures and associated land drainage. As a result of food over-production and conflicts with conservation interests in the early 1980s, the emphasis has shifted from drainage to flood defence, while risk reduction and environmentalist values have also been promoted. The institutional arrangements from 1930 largely survive, however, and a new coherent social framing has failed to emerge. It is argued that for a risk-oriented framing to succeed, new assumptions about causation and a new ethical outlook are now needed. Emphasis on flood 'control' rather than 'defence', and a shift in priorities from economic benefits towards human rights and intrinsic value in nature are proposed as key elements in such a re-framing.


Abstract : This report presents a summary of the multispectral terrain background signature models and battlefield aids that have been developed at the US Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station as part of a target reconnaissance and surveillance program and as part of a camouflage improvement and evaluation program. A thermal infrared signature model for rough terrain is presented which calculates the surface brightness temperature in terms of local weather conditions, type of terrain texture, thermodynamic parameters of the soil and vegetation, and the root-mean-square height and correlation length of the rough terrain surface. Radar wave and laser light-scattering models have been developed for rough terrain surfaces. These models predict the scattering cross section, bidirectional reflectance, and depolarizability for realistic terrain surfaces in terms of surface roughness parameters, average dielectric constant, and the root-mean-square and correlation length of the random dielectric medium that is used to model the volume scattering from terrain backgrounds. The predicted background signatures are used to develop battlefield aids that include the Regional Thermal Radiance Map, the Regional Radar Scattering Map, and the Regional Laser Reflectance Map, which use color codes to display the thermal and electromagnetic characteristics of potential battlefield areas. Finally, an infrared scene generator is developed which creates a synthetic infrared image of a target located in a three-dimensional terrain background.


Mathematical model for forecasting area precipitation is proposed based on GM(1.1).It is shown that this model can give a very good prediction result of the next flooding year(more than certain standard precipitation).


AbstractDynamically installed anchors are torpedo-shaped anchors that are installed by dropping them through the ocean such that they self-bury in the soft seabeds typically encountered in deep wat...


Background: Stroke can impact multiple levels of function and result in complex disability. Few studies have examined limitations across the range of functions from body function to social particip...


Thromboembolic disorders such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and venous thromboembolism are the most common causes of mortality and morbidity in Western societies. These thromboembolic events can be triggered by excessive activation of coagulation, and thrombin plays a major role in these processes. The most widely used agents for antithrombotic therapy are indirect thrombin inhibitors (such as unfractionated and lowmolecular-weight heparin) and vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) such as warfarin. Recently with the introduction of new oral anticoagulants on the market, new options for patients who require antithrombotic therapy are available. The first of these, dabigatran etexilate, is a novel, potent, nonpeptidic direct thrombin inhibitor. The orally administered double prodrug is hydrolized in vivo by esterases into the active form, dabigatran. It binds reversibly to the active site of both free and clot-bound thrombin, thus effectively preventing the formation of fibrin clots. Currently, dabigatran etexilate has been approved in more than 70 countries worldwide for the prophylaxis of thromboembolism in patients undergoing orthopedic surgery and for the prevention of stroke in patients with atrialfibrillation. In one study, treatmentwith dabigatran in patientswith atrial fibrillation reduced the risk of stroke with a better safety profile compared with warfarin. In all indications, a fixed-dose regimen of dabigatran has provided effective anticoagulation with a favorable bleeding profile in patients without regular monitoring required. Despite these improvements in treatment with dabigatran, anticoagulation therapy is associated with an increased risk of bleeding. When VKAs are used, the anticoagulant effect in emergency situations is usually reversed with a combination of vitamin K, fresh-frozen plasma, prothrombin complex concentrate, or recombinant factor VIIa. Compared with VKAs, the new oral anticoagulants such as dabigatran and the factor Xa inhibitors rivaroxaban and apixaban have a shorter half life and shorter duration of anticoagulant effect. Although hemodialysis is recommended for the elimination of dabigatran and preclinical evidence suggests coagulation factor concentrates may also reverse bleeding, there is currently no specific antidote for dabigatran or for any of the other novel oral anticoagulants. Antibodies and antibody fragments such as fragment antigen binding (Fab) can be used as antidotes for toxins and drugs. With Fabs, intoxications with digoxin and colchicine can be treated and the effect of desipramine can be reversed. The preclinical development of a single-chain fragment variable for the neutralization of methamphetamine and a monoclonal antibody to treat cocaine overdoses have been reported recently. Here we present data on the identification, humanization, and Xray structure of the antibody fragment aDabi-Fab, which binds dabigatran and reverses its anticoagulant effects in vitro and in vivo.


To explain female-biased sexual allocation in cosexual plants, I developed a game theoretic model incorporating a source–sink relationship of flower and fruit growth. In this model, flower/fruit growth rate is either limited by its sink strength (the product of its potential relative growth rate and absolute size) or by the source strength (supply rate of reproductive resources) of the plant. I show that female-biased sexual allocation is evolutionarily stable if fruit growth is sink-limited at least in the early stage of its growth. The degree of female-bias is strong if the supply rate of reproductive resources is large relative to the potential relative growth rate. The degree of female-bias is also strong if the relative cost of producing one seed compared with that of producing one ovule is large, in contrast to previous sexual allocation models, in which the sexual allocation ratio was independent of the costs of producing one ovule and one seed. Thus, sink-limitation of fruit growth can be a general factor that selects for female-biased sexual allocation observed in cosexual plants irrespective of their mating systems.


SummaryExamination of 40 specimens of Pseudocrenilabrus philanderphilander (Weber, 1897) collected from Padda Dam (26°10′S; 17°59′E), South Africa revealed the presence of a stomach monogenean of the genus Enterogyrus (Paperna, 1963). The monogenean presented a prevalence of 52.5 % and mean intensity of 4.2. The body, surrounded by a thick cuticle which is striated transversally, is dorso-ventrally flattened. The haptor has two pairs of gripi, a lightly sclerotised ventral transverse bar and marginal uncinuli. The dorsal gripus has a bifurcate root and a curved blade which is shorter than the shaft and is larger than that of the ventral gripus. The genetic distance between E. coronatus and the present Enterogyrus species (0.24 %) confirms the morphological similarities. This study presents a new locality and host record of the genus Enterogyrus from South Africa and a review of the morphology and distribution of Enterogyrus species is also given.


Based on flow-through method under the laboratory conditions, the energy budgets were measured and the bioenergetics models were described for seven species of fish distributed in the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea ecosystem. As a result, the patterns of energy allocation for these seven species of marine fish can be classed into three categories: (1) lower metabolic consumption and higher growth efficiency, e.g. Schlegel's black rockfish and finespot goby; (2) higher metabolic consumption and lower growth efficiency, e.g. black porgy and fat greenling; (3) both metabolic consumption and growth efficiency in medium level, e.g. red seabream, tiger puffer and chub mackerel. The significant difference of energy budgets in these seven species of marine fish is presumably related to the species distinction in their ecological habits. In comparison with freshwater carnivorous fish, the metabolism energy in these seven species of marine fish is higher than that of the average in the relative freshwater species, indicating that the marine fish should be categorized as those of high metabolic consumption and low growth efficiency.


The paper describes GUL.LE.VER, GUiLlottine gLovE resolVER, a Glove based system developed to solve the game "La Ghigliottina" which participated in the Evalita 2020 (Basile et al., 2020) task Ghigliottin-AI. The system described positioned #2, with 0.26 of Precision and 0.46 R@10, more than one guillotine is solved every four games, achieving results comparable to human players. The system proved to solve a different kind of guillotines compared to the first classified system 'Il Mago della ghigliottina' (Sangati et al., 2018). An approach based on these two kinds of systems may result in a boost in this field of research.


A cigarette according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises a pipe unit; a filter unit connected with the pipe unit; filter wrapping paper which wraps at least a part of the pipe unit and filter unit; tip paper which wraps the filter wrapping paper; and a waterproof film which adheres to the tip paper so as to give waterproof properties to the tip paper. By means of such a structure, the waterproof film adheres to the tip paper so that the tip paper can have waterproof properties. Accordingly, the tip paper can be prevented from becoming wet even when stained with a liquid like saliva or water while being smoked, and the filter inside can be also protected, so smoking satisfaction can be improved. In addition, an oilproof film is further included by adhering to the tip paper or filter wrapping paper to give oilproof properties to the tip paper or filter wrapping paper. When a fragrant capsule is included in the filter unit, oil contained in the fragrant capsule may leak when the fragrant capsule is destroyed. The oilproof properties are given to the filter wrapping paper by means of the oilproof film so that the filter wrapping paper and tip paper can be prevented from becoming contaminated by oil spots.


The outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in 1980s and 1990s, peaked in 1992, mainly took place in most European countries, especially in the United Kingdom, caused widespread panic in the world. It was generally accepted that the most likely route of infection of cattle with BSE is by consumption of feeds containing low levels of processed animal proteins (PAPs), including bovine meat and bone meal (MBM). At present, classical microscopy is the only official method for the detection of PAPs in animal feeds in the European Union. Nevertheless, the method is laborious and time-consuming, and the analytical results depend largely on the experience of the microscopist. The need for a simple, rapid, specific, sensitive, accurate and inexpensive method to detect Bacillus anthracis (BA) spores became obvious after the Fall 2001 anthrax attacks which caused public fears. Immunoassay and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are generally used for the detection of BA spores. PCR requires considerable effort in sample processing prior to analysis. Therefore, better detection methods need to be developed. The research described in this dissertation focused on developing antibodyand phage-based lateral flow test strip (LFTS) assay to detect the bovine MBM in animal feeds and the BA spores in water and foods, respectively. Bovine MBM proteins (bMBMP) were extracted from bovine MBM using a special extraction protocol, i.e., bovine MBM was pretreated in 1.0 M NaOH solution under the constant agitation at 37 C for 48 h, and after pH adjustment and centrifugation, the precipitate was extracted by sterile deionized water. The anti-bMBMP and


In this paper, we propose the I‐scale, a new ionospheric storm scale for general users in various regions in the world. With the I‐scale, ionospheric storms can be classified at any season, local time, and location. Since the ionospheric condition largely depends on many factors such as solar irradiance, energy input from the magnetosphere, and lower atmospheric activity, it had been difficult to scale ionospheric storms, which are mainly caused by solar and geomagnetic activities. In this study, statistical analysis was carried out for total electron content (TEC) and F2 layer critical frequency (foF2) in Japan for 18 years from 1997 to 2014. Seasonal, local time, and latitudinal dependences of TEC and foF2 variabilities are excluded by normalizing each percentage variation using their statistical standard deviations. The I‐scale is defined by setting thresholds to the normalized numbers to seven categories: I0, IP1, IP2, IP3, IN1, IN2, and IN3. I0 represents a quiet state, and IP1 (IN1), IP2 (IN2), and IP3 (IN3) represent moderate, strong, and severe positive (negative) storms, respectively. The proposed I‐scale can be used for other locations, such as polar and equatorial regions. It is considered that the proposed I‐scale can be a standardized scale to help the users to assess the impact of space weather on their systems.


In the following paper a Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) is studied by means of the "mathematical tool of game theory". When we are faced with a distributed CRN, it is observed that selfishness of users will decrease the efficiency of network resource usage. Indeed, this is the selfishness of the users dispossessing them of optimum achievable state in the network. Using a game theoretical approach, we will offer a suitable pricing method which formulates the game as a potential one and allows the users to get more of network resources as long as they pay for it. Furthermore, how this method functions in a simulated CRN will be shown. According to simulation results, it can be perceived that in a non-cooperative environment, an ordinary network face a considerable drop in the number of convergence trials and the access of users to network resources, whereas exploiting the suggested pricing method mitigates the negative effects of selfishness of users. Moreover, the simulation results show that there are even some parameters which are bettered using the pricing method in the network in comparison with cooperative setting.