Abstract : Multiple student research abstracts are included for summer 2011. All students presented their research results as posters or orals in the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute at Benedict College. Arianna Gladney won the second prize in oral competition and Barbara Fleming won the second price in the poster section.


Extensive deep etchings on quantum-cascade-laser (QCL) along both [011] and [01̅1] mesa orientations were presented and discussed. We experimentally study the effect of etched mesa profiles with various mask overhang lengths on buried-heterostructure QCL regrowth grown by MOCVD. We demonstrate that successful regrowths can be reproducibly obtained with a ratio of mesa height to overhang length between 2.5 and 3.0.


A series of 156 consecutive deaths from stabbing were analysed for age and sex of victim, number and size of wounds, the incidence and pattern of defence wounds, the association with other injuries and the pattern of self-inflicted wounds.


The devastating SARS-CoV2 pandemic is worsening with relapsing surges, emerging mutants, and increasing mortalities. Despite enormous efforts, it is not clear how SARS-CoV2 adapts and evolves in a clonal background. Laboratory research is hindered by high biosafety demands. However, the rapid sequence availability opened doors for bioinformatics. Using different bioinformatics programs, we investigated 6305 sequences for clonality, expressions strategies, and evolutionary dynamics. Results showed high nucleotide identity of 99.9% among SARS-CoV2 indicating clonal evolution and genome. High sequence identity and phylogenetic tree concordance were obtained with isolates from different regions. In any given tree topology, ~50% of isolates in a country formed country-specific sub-clusters. However, abundances of subtle overexpression strategies were found including transversions, signature-sequences and slippery-structures. Five different short tracks dominated with identical location patterns in all genomes where Slippery-4 AAGAA was the most abundant. Interestingly, transversion and transition substitutions mostly affected the same amino acid residues implying compensatory changes. To ensure these strategies were independent of sequence clonality, we simultaneously examined sequence homology indicators; tandem-repeats, restriction-site, and 3′UTR, 5′ UTR-caps and stem-loop locations in addition to stringent alignment parameters for 100% identity which all confirmed stability. Nevertheless, two rare events; a rearrangement in two SARS-CoV2 isolates against betacoronavirus ancestor and a polymorphism in S gene, were detected. Thus, we report on abundance of transversions, slippery sequences, and ON/OFF molecular structures, implying adaptive expressions had occurred, despite clonal evolution and genome stability. Furthermore, functional validation of the point mutations would provide insights into mechanisms of SARS-CoV2 virulence and adaptation.


A ball supported by a spring is set on top of a plate which is sinusoidal vibrated. The motion is limited to one dimension motion. It is assumed that the spring is an ideal one with zero mass. The vibrating plate is considered much heavier than the ball, so that the ball motion has no influence on the plate motion. Plate vibration frequency is varied around the frequency of ball-spring system. Resonance phenomenon is reported, which needs a phase match condition to occur.


Fertility response in delayed pubertal heifers (n=13) treated for 9 days with herbal blend of Aegle marmelos and Murraya koenigii  leaf powder was evaluated in terms of estrus response, conception and calving rates in comparison to untreated controls (n=13). Following initiation of treatment, behavioral estrus was exhibited in 92.3% (12/13) heifers after 11.25±1.91 days. The conception and calving rates (p<0.05) in treated heifers were 61.5% and 53.8%, respectively, in comparison to 23.1% and 7.7% in their respective control counterparts. The current study revealed the pro-fertility potential of medicinal plants to induce fertile estrus in delayed pubertal heifers.


This study was intended clinical dental hygienist 678 people from August 2011 to September 2011. The result of the job performance 4 out duties rates by a total of 44 questions in the area of dental hygienists, the oral health education area 'Understand kinds of auxiliary products for dental health management and educate subjects how to use them 'is the highest, the preventive dental care area 'perform scaling works (ultrasonic instruments, hand instruments, dental polishing, and instrument sharpening) that fit into a patient', the assist for dental treatment area 'prevent infection in the medical examination room with thorough sterilization of medical devices and strict management of goods for sterilization', the administrative management area 'Check conditions of specimen and wastes and dispose of them following the required regulations' high It was carried out rate. Job performance according to general characteristics was higher the Received (February 27, 2017), Review Result (March 14, 2017) Accepted (March 21, 2017), Published (May 31, 2017) 617-701 Dept. Dental Hygiene, Kyungnam College of information & technology, Busan-City, Seoul, Korea email: firstname.lastname@example.com (Corresponding Author) 614-714 Dept. Dental Hygiene, Dongeui Univ., Gaya 1-dong, Busanjin-gu, Busan, Korea email: email@example.com Job performance and Job performance rate of clinical dental hygienist Copyright c 2017 HSST 432 age, the higher the marriage than the unmarried, the higher the education level than the bachelor, the higher the person with religion. Job performance according to work related characteristics was higher in those who had experience of job turnover, the higher the total work experience, the more work experience in current job, the higher the position in team leader or the executive position, the higher the salary, in places with job grading system.


Content publishing and republishing has become daily business on the Internet. Zillions of information sources are pushed to the Web by thousands of service providers using hundreds of different publishing and republishing systems. Despite the increasing need, high quality tools are rare and content management severely lacks support by sophisticated approaches. To introduce structure and manageability into publishing and republishing of information on the Web we created JML, the Jessica Markup Language. JML is a textual language for specifying and implementing complex Web applications. Its language features support the separation of content, structure and layout by defining documents as objects, layout as classes and complete Web sites as object collections. Since JML is declarative by nature, it is not only usable for the generation of new documents from more or less structured content, but also for the analysis of such documents. This allows to republish specific content for other channels as will be necessary for handheld computers or GSM devices in XML based repositories in an syndication effort.


Education not only transmits culture, it modifies culture as well. Our present day knowledge of classical Greek drama e.g., has been largely produced by educational selection and use during the Middle Ages.This article concentrates on the drastic reform of spelling education in French schools in 1833 and its effects on French culture. Until that time, only one third of French school teachers were able to spell correctly. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, however, orthography was among the basic subjects taught in primary and secondary education, hampering later attempts at educational modernization.Three major cultural effects of this educational reform are discussed. First, the orthography of the French language, constantly changing until that time, has remained very static ever since. Second, orthography, which until then only concerned printers and scribes, has become a hallmark of the well-educated person. Third, the problem of teaching students to spell correctly inspired French teachers t...


This research is an attempt to find the cultural meaning of the malay manadonese popular. The aim of this research are to 1) identify and classify the form of utterances in form of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and discourse in the songs; 2) explain the cultural meaning in the form of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and discourse in the songs. The method used in this research was descriptive qualitative. The data were collected by direct observation, document research and recording. There were two steps in data analysis 1) analyze the utterances and 2) anthropological linguistics analysis. The result showed that the manadonese malay popular song had the local cultural openess. Keywords:meaning, cultural, utterances


In recents years, the statistical properties has become an important quantity for reliability based design of a component. The effects of the materials and test conditions for parameter estimation in residual strength degradation model are studied in carbon/ epoxy laminate. It is shown that the correlation between the experimental results and the theoretical prediction on the fatigue life distribution using the life distribution convergence method is very reasonable.


Today's Internet is long past static web pages filled with HTML-formatted text sprinkled with an occasional image or animation. We have entered an era of Rich Internet Applications executed locally on Internet clients such as web browsers: games, physics engines, image rendering, photo editing, etc. Yet today's languages used to program Internet clients have limited ability to tap to the computational capabilities of the underlying, often heterogeneous, platforms. In this paper we present how a Domain Specific Language(DSL) can be integrated into ActionScript, one of the most popular scripting languages used to program Internet clients and a close cousin of JavaScript. We demonstrate how our DSL, called ASDP (ActionScript Data Parallel), can be used to enable data parallelism for existing sequential programs. We also present a prototype of a system where data parallel workloads can be executed on either CPU or a GPU, with the runtime system transparently selecting the best processing unit, depending on the type of workload as well as the architecture and current load of the execution platform. We evaluate performance of our system on a variety of benchmarks, representing different types of workloads: physics, image processing, scientific computing and cryptography.


Project ELSTRAD uses virtual environments to investigate environmental learning (i.e. navigation) in typically developing children (children with no known learning difficulty), individuals with Down syndrome and individuals with Williams syndrome. IOE Research Briefings are short descriptions of significant research findings, based on the wide range of projects carried out by IOE researchers.


Cnephia dacotensis and C. ornithophilia are two closely related blackfly species. Their polytene chromosome complements differ in three interspecific inversions, in separate inversion polymorphisms...


Hydraulic fracturing of core of earth-rockfill dam is an important issue related to the safety of the dam,and it attracts much attention.In this paper,the achieved results show as follows:(1) the conditions of hydraulic fracturing should include at least two conditions—physical one that includes fissures existing in core and low permeability of core material,and the mechanical one that is enough larger"water wedging"action;(2) the mechanical mechanism of hydraulic fracturing can be explained with the theory and method of facture mechanics;(3) the boundary and stress conditions of laboratory,field or model tests should be similar to those in up-stream face of core of the dam,for instance,some fissures should be included in sample,and the water pressure should be forced from the surface of the sample;and(4) the numerical simulation to the development course of hydraulic fracturing is deformed and the effective way to study the hydraulic fracturing in core of earth-rockfill dam is to reveal the induced condition and mechanical mechanism,to develop reasonable criterion and to estimate and simulate by using numerical analyses.


We present scanning tunneling spectroscopy and microscopy measurements at low temperatures in the borocarbide materials $R{\mathrm{Ni}}_{2}{\mathrm{B}}_{2}\mathrm{C}$ $(R=\mathrm{Y},$ Lu). The characteristic strong-coupling structure due to the pairing interaction is unambiguously resolved in the superconducting density of states. It is located at the superconducting gap plus the energy corresponding to a phonon mode identified in previous neutron-scattering experiments. These measurements also show that this mode is coupled to the electrons through a highly anisotropic electron-phonon interaction originated by a nesting feature of the Fermi surface. Our experiments, from which we can extract a large electron-phonon coupling parameter $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ (between 0.5 and 0.8), demonstrate that this anisotropic electron-phonon coupling has an essential contribution to the pairing interaction. The tunneling spectra show an anisotropic s-wave superconducting gap function.


Aim. The aim of the work is to solve the problem of modeling the generation of data sets in monitoring systems. Automatic detection of abnormal events in processes in real time is an urgent and important task. Materials and methods. To identify various kinds of anomalies, various data mining methods are often used. Often, to obtain a high accuracy of the analysis, preliminary training is required using a large amount of data and representative samples. However, it is not always possible to obtain a representative sample of various kinds of anomalies from real sources. The developed environment makes it possible to consider various scenarios of movement of given objects of observation and generate data containing various parameters that can be provided in such systems. Time indicators are considered when an object moves from one monitoring point to another, time delays when registering one event by several monitoring devices. The ability to add anomalous events to scripts has been developed. Results. Experiments have been carried out to simulate data generation in the implementation of motion scenarios for objects of observation. The proposed environment is intended for use by researchers in the field of data processing and analysis for the development and testing of new methods of data processing in monitoring systems. Conclusion. The data sets obtained during the experiments can be used as reference data for training data analysis mechanisms, and for testing various analysis mechanisms in order to assess the accuracy of identifying possible deviations.


In modern conditions, international scientific communication is very important for the scientist professional activity. Each scientist in the process of his activity relies on the results of predecessors and contemporaries research. The article describes and systematizes the main information technologies in the implementation of the scientific organizations publication programs. Electronic resources are considered and analyzed for posting metadata of scientific materials and scientists identifiers. Organizational conclusions about the provision of scientific materials to publishing organizations are made.


This article analyses some changes produced in the contemporary 'postmodern' self and its consequences for the anthropological study of religion. In this regard, these changes influence deeply the way we westerners represent our ontological structure, and approach other religious systems and ontologies, due to the current processes of globalisation and transnationalisation, the notion of Self often fluctuates between an old stable, autonomous, maximiser (condensed) self and a dispersed, multivocal one. It is argued here that traditional anthropological analyses of religion lack this critical and reflexive awareness. For that reason, cultural phenomena such as shamanism, sorcery, and many forms of religious and cosmological syncretisms, are frequently approached from a distant, naturalistic viewpoint In this paper a more existential view of religion is proposed; it approaches the observer to the observed, opening up his/her assumptions about the 'order of things'. A collection of notions, such as critical hermeneutics, critical intersubjectivity, dialectics, and ontological language is discussed, to build a fresh inquiry into the realms of numinous life.


ABSTRACT The present study examined the factorial structure of the Pathological Gambling Adaptation of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (PG-YBOCS) to delineate similarities and differences between thoughts and behavior related to pathological gambling (PG) versus obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The PG-YBOCS was administered in its self-report version in 265 individuals with gambling problems. A factor analysis revealed a two-dimensional structure. The first dimension represented gambling severity; the second dimension reflected resistance to thoughts/urges and behavior. The first but not the second dimension was strongly correlated with depression and the severity and functional relevance of gambling problems. When the standard factor structure (thoughts vs. behavior) was adopted, depression, which is correlated with obsessions but not compulsions in OCD, was correlated with both subscales. Length of illness, a correlate of compulsions in OCD, showed no association with gambling. The present study corroborates factor analyses on the Y-BOCS, demonstrating the existence of an independent resistance dimension. Unlike in OCD, no evidence for independent factors tapping thoughts versus behaviors was obtained, which likely reflects the addictive rather than compulsive nature of problem gambling. Specific correlates of thoughts and behavior in OCD were not confirmed in gambling, further speaking for functional differences between the two disorders.


The temperature dependence of cross sections for 62P1/2 ↔ 62P3/2 mixing in cesium, induced in collisions with CH4, CH3D, CH2D2, CHD3, and CD4 molecules, has been investigated in a series of sensitized fluorescence experiments over a temperature range 290–650 K. The various cross sections which are of the order of 10−15 cm2, and which exceed similar cross sections for cesium–noble gas collisions by 4 – 6 orders of magnitude, exhibit differences in their variation with temperature. This isotope effect in the collision cross sections is interpreted on the basis of a novel semiclassical theory of electronic to rotational energy transfer. The cross section for mixing induced by collisions with CF4, which was determined in a subsidiary experiment, and which is 2–3 times larger than the methane cross sections, does not show comparable behavior with temperature, probably because the energy transfer takes place to closely lying molecular vibrational states.


When deciding whether to buy a product or use a service, a valuable source of information are other peoples experiences and opinions. In online marketplaces such as Amazon or iTunes, every user can read and write reviews about the offered products and services. Due to the huge amount of reviews and opinions, it is very time-consuming to build an informed opinion. It is impossible to read every single review before making a decision. One approach to circumvent the problem is to let customers vote on the helpfulness of reviews. The customer can answer the question "Was this review helpful? (yes/no)" and the respective vote count is displayed below the review (e.g. "7 of 8 people found this helpful.") All existing reviews for a product can then sorted by this score, resulting in the most "helpful" reviews being listed at the top. The described voting process, however, is not optimal. As noted by [1], the amount of votes per review ends up being unbalanced, with a small proportion of all reviews having the majority of all votes. As a consequence, only a small subset of reviews will have a high helpfulness score and thus be shown to the customers. Many, potentially helpful reviews will almost never be considered in the customers decision-making process. A review helpfulness prediction algorithm, applied in a system that automatically sorts all reviews by their predicted helpfulness score, can help to overcome the described problem. Furthermore, it could be used to predict the helpfulness of a review-draft in the review writing process and to gain an understanding


It is known that perfect noiseless feedback can be used to improve the reliability of communication systems. We show how to make those gains robust to a noisy feedback link. We demonstrate that the Burnashev upper bound on the reliability function is achievable given any noisy feedback channel, as long as the desired rate of communication is close enough to capacity. We also demonstrate that Forney's erasure-decoding exponent is achievable given any positive capacity feedback channel. This implies that in a shared medium, to maximize the reliability function some degrees of freedom should be allocated to feedback. Finally, we demonstrate that our scheme dominates the erasure-decoding exponent at all rates and, for instance, at zero rate can achieve up to three-quarters of Burnashev's zero-rate reliability.


A garment will not be cleaner than the water in which it is washed. Individual disorders are reflections of social disorders. The important problem for the individual is his relation to the totality of his environment. How much is he in harmony with it? How much confidence has he in it? How does it disturb him? What is his goal, and in what way is he striving for it? The child normally begins life with an actual inferiority. He is weak; he is inadequate to meet life without help. His normal process of growth is a striving to overcome the experience of inferiority, to rise from this inadequate position to a point of superiority. If he finds encouragement, help, training and love, he makes real progress. Slowly the feeling of inferiority is diminished. But man's is a long childhood, the longest childhood of any animal—from sixteen to eighteen years. Throughout


Seedlings of ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, white fir, Engelmann spruce, and subalpine fir were exposed continuously to charcoal-filtered (CF) air or one of three levels of a simulated ambient exposure typical of SO, pollution near smelters in the western United States. Seedlings were exposed during winter-spring experiments for 60 days to hourly means of 17, 38, and 54 ppb in 1988 and 35, 57, and 99 ppb in 1989. Sensitivities of species to SO, were determined from height growth, diameter growth, root, stem, and needle weights, and from foliar injury. Ponderosa pine in all SO2 treatments in 1989 had decreased diameter growth and decreased needle weights compared with those in CF air. In 1989, average diameter growth of Douglas-fir in ail SO, treatments was less than those in CF air. Diameter growth and needle weights of ponderosa pine were correlated in all SO, treatments and CF air. Diameter growth and needle weights of Douglas-fir were correlated in all SO, treatments. Tip necrosis of needles occurred on a larger proportion of seedlings of all species in high SO, than on those in CF air. Ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir were about equally sensitive to SO, and both were more sensitive than white fir. White fir was more sensitive to SO, than Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir which were equally unrespon- sive to SO,. FOR.


Objective:To compare the antibacterial activities of three polymerizable quaternary ammonium salt monomers on oral pathogenic bacteria,furthermore to investigate the time-kill kinetics of the monomer to S.mutans.Methods:The antibacterial activities of the monomers were investigated by using the broth dilution test on oral pathogenic bacteria.The most effective monomer was further tested for time-kill kinetics.Results:The tested bacteria were all susceptible to the three monomers.DMAE-CB exhibited the lowest MICs ranging from 1.2 μg/ml to 4.8 μg/ml.Time-kill curve showed that DMAE-CB gave 99.44% killing rate at 19.2 μg/ml(4MBC) against S.mutans after 1 min and 100% killing rate within 10 min.Conclusion:Three quaternary ammonium salt monomers have different antibacterial activities on oral pathogenic bacteria.These data indicate that DMAE-CB may be a candidate antibacterial agent for oral infectious diseases.


A particular reliability problem involving approximately 1000 variables that describes the aging, manufacturing process, and environmental history of a particular component is considered. The objective is to select the small subset of these variables which has the greatest apparent causal influence on failure. One approach uses regression analysis. However, with the extremely large number of candidate variates, the selected model might provide a high multiple correlation coefficient even though the true correlation coefficient, R, is close to zero. The authors point out quantitative constraints on the size of the selected model in order to reduce the probability of a randomly attained high R value. Graphs are provided showing a specified probability that R will be less than or equal to a certain value when the true multiple correlation coefficient is zero.<<ETX>>


: Iran is a semi-arid and arid region in southwest Asia. Hence, studying the moisture sources of precipitation in this country has great importance. Iran 's moisture sources have been determined for dry (May-October) and wet (November to April) periods. Understanding the importance of each moisture source influencing Iran has great application in climatological models. In this study, the fractional importance of various water bodies providing moisture for Iran has been determined for 35 years (1981-2015) by various machine learning as well as Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy AHP models. Finally, the accuracy of developed models was valdiated by Coefficient of determination (R 2 ) and Mean Squared Error (MSE).


The present invention provides a liquid crystal display device provided with an alignment film having excellent strength/uniformity of alignment regulating force and excellent AC sticking, voltage retention rate, and printing properties, and a liquid crystal alignment agent whereby such an alignment film can be formed. This liquid crystal display device has a pair of substrates, a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between the pair of substrates, and an alignment film disposed between the liquid crystal layer and at least one of the pair of substrates, the alignment film containing a first component and a second component, the first component comprising a reaction product of a polyorganosiloxane having epoxy groups and a compound represented by formula (1) and a compound represented by formula (2), and the second component comprising a polyamic acid and or a polyamide. (1): R 1 -R 2 -COO-C 6 H 4 -CH=CH-COOH; (2): R 3 -C 6 H 4 -COO-C 6 H 4 -CH=CH-COOH (In formula (1), R 1 represents a C4-20 alkyl group, and R 2 represents a group obtained when two hydrogen atoms are lost from a C6-10 alicyclic hydrocarbon. In formula (2), R 3 represents a C1-20 fluorine-containing group.)


The general objective of this monographic research was to analyze the legal possibility of an extensive interpretation to the subjective requirements for the granting of house arrest, through the analysis of judgments rendered by the TJSC, in the execution appeal, between the months of January and October 2019. To this end, a bibliographic study was conducted on the historical evolution of the penalty, its concept and purpose, in addition to an applied principle approach. In addition, 94 (ninety-four) judgments were analyzed, which deal with house arrest provided for in law 7.210/84, tracing procedural elements considered relevant, such as the insurgent party, gender of those convicted, the penalty compliance regime, the chamber analyzing the appeal, the city of origin, the grounds of the requests and decisions, also considering the reality of the Brazilian prison system. To this end, the following research methods were adopted: as for the approach, it is quantitative and qualitative research, it was classified as documentary and bibliographic, with regard to the procedure adopted for data collection, as for the level is characterized as exploratory. With the study it was found that of the 94 (ninety-four) judgments rendered by the TJSC, in the execution appeal, between January and October 2019, the grounds for the most widely used requests for the granting of house arrest, was the binding precedent n. 56 of the STF, given that the majority of those convicted fulfilled the reprimand in semi-open regime, alleging the absence of adequate facilities to comply with the regime, as well as the precariousness of Santa Catarina ergati. It remained verified in at least 26 (twenty-six) of the judged, that the request was based on subjective requirements, personal conditions of the apenados, of these, in only 3 (three) the benefit was granted or maintained in 2nd degree. It should be noted that in only 1 (one) case, in which home detention was applied, the beneficiary was collected under an open regime, as provided by the law of criminal enforcement, showing the possibility of applying home detention in cases not provided for in law. Thus, it is concluded that the application of house arrest in the context of criminal enforcement, considering the subjective requirements of those convicted, is an extremely exceptional measure, and the specific case should be analyzed for its granting.


Device for sensor information acquisition and pulse command generation producing the location order of the human on board type robot knuckle driver, and the control device and method using the same are provided that the rotation angle and angular velocity of AC motor in a plurality of joint driving parts are controlled. A device for sensor information acquisition and pulse command generation producing the location order of the human on board type robot knuckle driver comprises a sensor information acquisition part receiving the detection signal of the sensor(400) through the CAN(Controller Area Network) communication, a PCI(Programmable Communication Interface) interface unit(120) delivering the detected signal to a master controller(200) of robot, a digital signal processor for controlling the pulse number generated for a certain time, a motor connector(160) for transmitting the motor control signal with the motor controller(300).


This article proposes the use of iterative methods in solving the problem of determining the power factor per phase in YY-type phase loads and simultaneous linear equations involved. As well known, loads can be connected in either star or delta configuration depending on the requirements of the system, established this can be present, in many cases, ine cient values of power factor due to load unbalance that can be solved making a suitable arrangement of the layout thereof. Hybrid configurations are very common in real applications. We present a simulated example establishing unbalanced on which applies an iterative method to solve the resulting system of simultaneous equations.


This work studies coarse quantization-aware BD (CQA−BD) and coarse quantization-aware RBD (CQA−RBD) precoding algorithms for large-scale MU-MIMO systems with coarsely quantized signals and proposes the coarse-quantization most advantageous allocation strategy (CQA−MAAS) power allocation algorithm for linearly-precoded MU-MIMO systems. An analysis of the sum-rate along with studies of computational complexity is also carried out. Finally, comparisons between existing precoding and its power allocated version are followed by conclusions.


OBJECTIVE To compare insulin sensitivity (M/I) and β-cell responses in youth versus adults with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or drug-naïve, recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In 66 youth (80.3% with IGT) and 355 adults (70.7% IGT), hyperglycemic clamps were used to measure 1) M/I, 2) acute (0–10 min [first phase]) C-peptide (ACPRg) and insulin (AIRg) responses to glucose, 3) steady-state C-peptide and insulin concentrations at plasma glucose of 11.1 mmol/L, and 4) arginine-stimulated maximum C-peptide (ACPRmax) and insulin (AIRmax) responses at plasma glucose >25 mmol/L. The fasting C-peptide–to–insulin ratio was used as an estimate of insulin clearance. RESULTS Insulin sensitivity was 46% lower in youth compared with adults (P < 0.001), and youth had greater acute and steady-state C-peptide (2.3- and 1.3-fold, respectively; each P < 0.001) and insulin responses to glucose (AIRg 3.0-fold and steady state 2.2-fold; each P < 0.001). Arginine-stimulated C-peptide and insulin responses were also greater in youth (1.6- and 1.7-fold, respectively; each P < 0.001). After adjustment for insulin sensitivity, all β-cell responses remained significantly greater in youth. Insulin clearance was reduced in youth (P < 0.001). Participants with diabetes had greater insulin sensitivity (P = 0.026), with lesser C-peptide and insulin responses than those with IGT (all P < 0.001) but similar insulin clearance (P = 0.109). CONCLUSIONS In people with IGT or recently diagnosed diabetes, youth have lower insulin sensitivity, hyperresponsive β-cells, and reduced insulin clearance compared with adults. Whether these age-related differences contribute to declining β-cell function and/or impact responses to glucose-lowering interventions remains to be determined.


With the recent development of endoscopic instruments, laparoscopic surgery has come into widespread use. Compared to traditional open abdominal surgery, the method offers a reduction of the physical burden on the patient, the in-hospital period, and the recovery period. On the other hand, more technical training is required compared to open surgery, since the surgery is conducted by observing a two-dimensional image obtained by lapar-oscopy. Many simulators for training have been developed in various research institutions. Most of these, however, require expensive high-performance hardware, and there is a need for a low-cost PC-based virtual laparoscopic surgery simulator. The important issues in constructing such a simulator are a forceps input device and an organ model representation which can be deformed or cut. This paper reports both a forceps input device and an organ model which can be deformed and cut. The organ model consists of a mass-spring model. In the deformation algorithm, an equation for force-displacement balance is used. When the forceps contacts an object, mismatching of the model deformation is eliminated by fine segmentation of the area surrounding the point of contact. When an object is to be cut, the fine segmentation area surrounding the area of contact with the forceps is enlarged with the progress of the incision area, maintaining the continuity of the process. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 33(12): 1–10, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.10247


This project examines a Canadian court case that involves the largest arson homicide in the history of Vancouver, British Columbia. In May 2006 a fire killed four members of a Congolese refugee family (Adela Etibako and three of her children, Benedicta, Edita, and Stephane) along with Ashley Singh, the South Asian girlfriend of the target and sole survivor of the fire, Bolingo Etibako. On October 5, 2008 the accused, Nathan Fry, a 20-year-old white male, was found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Fry received an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole for 25 years. This paper considers this crime and the legal proceedings as a case study that can further our understanding of discourses of race, racism, and citizenship in Canada, and their link to Mbembe's (2003) notion of necropolitics, what he terms as the politics of life and death. I argue that the viciousness of the crime, an offense involving a white male perpetrator and victims all of whom are racialized as Black and Brown, reflects the embodied practices and psychological processes that are both emblematic of, and integral to, the violence of coloniality, and the racial relations and structural arrangements of present-day white settler society (Martinot, 2010; Razack, 2002, 2005). I show how the crime, the investigation, and the trial communicate symbolically and materially what bell hooks (1992) characterizes as the "terrorizing force of white supremacy" (p. 344).


This paper presents a framework of approaches to sharing meaningful knowledge of assessment standards amongst an academic community, particularly students. Presented as a nested hierarchy, these approaches encompass: a 'laissez faire' approach in which students' knowledge of standards is acquired in ad hoc and serendipitous ways; an 'explicit' approach focusing on the explicit articulation of standards; a 'social constructivist' approach where active use and application of standards develops understanding; and finally, a 'community of practice' approach that centres on how students and teachers are absorbed into and become part of the academic practices of their disciplinary community. We propose three practical ways in which such a community approach within the assessment environment may be prompted and enhanced through the use of: social learning space, both physical and virtual; social learning and collaborative assessment practices within curricula; developing student 'pedagogical intelligence' (Hutchings 2005).


As a method of pretreatment to degradate nitrobenzene,this experiment unites micro-electrolysis and anaerobic bacterium.By confirming optimal condition such as pH,react time,ferric dosage,catalyst and retention time of anaerobic bacterium and so on,disposal efficiency of nitrobenzene was improved.Conclusion from experiment: for 300 mg/L nitrobenzene,separately,when pH is 3,reaction time is above 90 min and when catalyzer is existed,disposal efficiency of nitrobenzene is above 80%.And for anaerobic bacterium,after domestication for 60 days,when retention time is more than 36 h,disposal efficiency of nitrobenzene is above 50%.And when the two is united,disposal efficiency of nitrobenzene will be more than 90% and biodegradability of wastewater is improved obviously.


We show that every countable Borel equivalence relation structurable by n-dimensional contractible simplicial complexes embeds into one which is structurable by such complexes with the further property that each vertex belongs to at most M_n : = 2^(n-1)(n^2 + 3n + 2) - 2 edges; this generalizes a result of Jackson-Kechris-Louveau in the case n = 1. The proof is based on that of a classical result of Whitehead on countable CW-complexes.


The main aim of this work is evaluation of side emitting plastic optical fibers (POF) illumination intensity changes in dependence on the distance from light source. Illumination intensity is measured along straight and bent fibers. The special devices for these measurements realization are described. The dependence of light intensity on the distance from light source for straight optical fibers is expressed by the exponential type model with two parameters, i.e. illumination intensity at the input into fiber and fiber attenuation factor. Preliminary results of measurement of light intensity in bent state are discussed. Influence of ratio between fiber diameter and bending cylinder diameter on the illumination intensity changes is presented.


Studies have been actively conducted on systems that prevent the breakage of water pipes from freezing in winter. Shape memory alloy (SMA) coil springs have been used as the key components of actuators that can operate automatically by detecting the real-time outside temperature changes, but research on its use as an actuator that can operate at sub-zero temperatures is insufficient. This study proposes the anti-freezing system using Ni-44.08Ti-1.46Co (wt.%) SMA coil springs that operate near sub-zero temperatures to prevent the freezing accident of water pipes. After fabricating the SMA coil springs, the test for performance evaluation of the springs applied static load conditions was conducted on the specific outside temperature. To examine the operation of anti-freezing systems applied the SMA coil spring as an actuator, the water discharge test (WDT) was also conducted along with the computational fluid simulation. The results of water discharge measurement obtained by WDT, simulations, and theoretical equations applied to the fluid resupply system constructed were compared with each other to verify the reliability. Consequently, it was confirmed that water discharge can be automatically controlled in real time according to temperature changes of SMA coil springs in the anti-freezing system.


This study aims to design a tool that can control electric lights remotely. The wastage of using lights often occurs due to the difficulty of the occupants of the house in controlling the lighting, especially when they have to leave the house due to various activities. Lighting needs to be controlled to turn on or not when you want to travel for a long time. In addition, lighting needs to be controlled to significantly reduce the service life of the lamp because it is on continuously. This remote light control system can make it easier for users to cut electricity usage. An electric light controller designed using SMS (Short Message Service) based on the Arduino Uno Microcontroller. This system only applies if the condition of the AC voltage originating from the local PLN is ON. System control is managed using the Atmega328 Arduino Uno Microcontroller. The language used for programming is C/Arduino language, and this tool works on GSM communication systems, especially SMS services. The result of designing this tool is that the user can control (ON/OFF) the lights without being limited by time and place as long as the cellular network is reachable.


Do students learn to model OR/MS problems better by using computer-based interactive tutorials and, if so, does increased interactivity in the tutorials lead to better learning? In order to determine the effect of different levels of interactivity on student learning, we used screen capture technology to design interactive support materials for modeling and solving the transportation problem in a spreadsheet. A controlled experiment was carried out and the results indicate a general support for the effectiveness of interactive tutorials in enhancing students' learning of modeling concepts. However, the study also found that excessive interactivity increased the cognitive load for the students and hindered their learning by making it difficult for them to consolidate concepts, integrate previous knowledge, and create meaningful mental models of the process.


Seven laboratories participated in an international interlaboratory comparison exercise to compare the quantitative methods used for measuring C10−C13 polychloro-n-alkanes (PCAs). Participants were supplied with two solutions (PCA-1, PCA-70) containing PCAs of "known" but unstated concentrations, and two real world samples (fish extracts FE1 and FE2) each consisting of a cleaned up extract (lipid-free) of a fish tissue known to contain PCAs. A well-characterized commercial formulation, PCA-60, of stated concentration was also supplied and was used as the external standard for the exercise. Participants having other commercially available C10−C13 PCA mixtures were encouraged to use them as external standards for the study, and the choice of the quantitative method employed was left to participants, though all were based on high-resolution gas chromatography with detection by electron capture negative ion mass spectrometry (plus electron capture detection in one case). The results of the study met with mixe...


This study presents changes in the concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in two streams in Western Antarctica (Admiralty Bay, King George Island, South Shetlands) that differ in trophic status. The results suggest a decline in concentrations of the determined forms of N and P between 2001 and 2005. The decrease ranged from 9.3% for reactive phosphorus to 73.2% for ammonium-nitrogen. Such inferred declines in N and P concentrations are considered to reflect reduced deposition on land of organic matter brought in from the seas by the penguins nesting in the area. The ultimate cause of this is in turn the steady decline in abundance that is being noted for these penguins.


Using a simple model for soft self-consistent nonperturbative string fragmentation-recombination loops, we find that, in an open-string theory, ground-state particles necessary for the standard model either become tachyons or acquire large (Planck-scale) masses, making them unacceptable for sub-Planck-scale phenomenology. No comparable difficulties are evident for closed-string theories.


3D head completion aims at recovering accurate 3D full-head geometry from 2D face images or 3D face scans. Previous 3D shape reconstruction studies primarily focused on the facial region, but ignored the scalp region. Moreover, as critical foundations in 3D head completion, powerful 3D head morphable models, however, are scarce. In this paper, we construct 3D comprehensive morphable models (3DCMM) of human faces and scalps, and develop a novel 3DCMM-based stepwise 3D full-head creation pipeline: reconstructing face regions firstly, and then completing scalp regions. Firstly, large-scale 3D heads from 2,528 identities were parameterized to construct powerful 3DCMM as our foundations. Then, a 3DCMM-based supervised converting method was presented to predict an accurate scalp region from a facial region and produce full-head geometry. Extensive experiments and comparisons demonstrated that our 3DCMM possesses better quality and descriptive power. Benefiting from this, our model-based 3D head completion method has higher accuracy than model-based fitting method.


We have recently presented evidence for the existence of live Fe-60 in the early solar system. This evidence comes from observations of 2.4 to 50 epsilon unit (1 part in 10(exp 4)) relative excesses of Ni-60 measured in samples from the eucrite Chervony Kut (CK). These isotopic excesses have been produced by the decay of the short-lived radionuclide Fe-60 (T(sub 1/2) = 1.5 Ma). Because CK originates from a planetesimal which was totally molten and its high Fe/Ni ratio is due to a planet-wide Fe-Ni fractionation during metal-silicate segregation, the presence of the Fe-60 decay product indicates the large scale abundance of Fe-60 in the early solar system and its presence during differentiation of this planetesimal. The observed variable Ni-60 excesses in different bulk samples and mineral separates from CK can only be understood if some Fe-60 was still alive at the time when basaltic magma had solidified on the eucrite parent body. The lack of a correlation between Ni-60 and the respective Fe/Ni ratios in different mineral fractions from CK indicates a metamorphic remobilization of Ni after essentially all Fe-60 has decayed. However, Ni-60 from three bulk samples from different locations within the meteorite appears to correlate reasonably well with the respective Fe/Ni ratios. If we regard this correlation as an isochron then its slope yields a Fe-60/Fe-56 ratio f (3.9 +/- 0.6) x 10(exp -9) and an initial Ni-60 of 3.2 plus or minus 0.9 epsilon units at the time of crystallization of CK. Estimates based on these values and a approximately 10 Ma time interval between CK solidification and formation of the earliest condensates in the solar system followed by rapid accretion of planetary bodies indicate that the decay of Fe-60 could produce sufficient heat to melt these planetesimals. If Al-26 was present on a planetary scale as Fe-60 and at abundances close to values observed in Allende inclusions then melting of small early formed planets is inevitable. As an attempt to further explore the Fe-60/Ni-60 isotope system as an early solar system chronometer we studied another noncumulate eucrite, Juvinas (JUV) (sample USNM 1051), which belongs to the same subgroup as CK.


A numerical method is presented for calculating the three-dimensional unsteady, transonic flow past a helicopter rotor blade of arbitrary geometry. The method solves the full-potential equations in a blade-fixed frame of reference by a time-marching implicit scheme. At the far-field, a set of first-order radiation conditions is imposed, thus minimizing the reflection of outgoing wavelets from computational boundaries. Computed results are presented to highlight radial flow effects in three dimensions, to compare surface pressure distributions to quasi-steady predictions, and to predict the flow field on a swept-tip blade. The results agree well with experimental data for both straight- and swept-tip blade geometries.


Incoloy Alloy 800 is widely utilized in the Outlet Manifold Bottom Header (OMBH) inside the primary reformer at a fertilizer plant. Primary reformers in fertilizer plants usually work at high temperatures and pressures for long periods. In this work, Solution annealing and normalizing method were conducted to improve weldability Incoloy alloy 800 after operating for ten years. Characterization of weldability properties is carried out through dye penetrant, X-ray Fluorescence, hardness, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and metallography observation. The annealing and normalizing result show that the weldability of Incoloy Alloy 800 increased, indicating a significant reduction in cracks on the weld zone surface. Microstructure observations revealed that microcrack was not found on the weld joint surface after Solution annealing. The maximum hardness value on the fusion zone was obtained at 187 VHN on normalizing, and minimum hardness was obtained on the nontreatment sample 156.33 VHN.


Training programs are most important for the athletes due to their long term effect and sseveral methods have been developed to get reliable information about the aerobic and anaerobic capacity of middle and long distance runners. The purpose of this study was also to find out the comparative effects of aerobic, anaerobic and combined training program on performance development of selected motor physical fitness variable among Sagure Athletics club Athletes. To achieve this purpose of the study 30 male athletes were selected from sagure Athletics club as a subject and their age were 14–18 year. They were randomly assigned in to three groups, aerobic (group A), anaerobic (group B) and combined group (group C). Each group consisted of 10 subjects. All three groups participated in supervised aerobic, anaerobic and combined training program 3 days/week for 12 weeks. The parameters selected for the study were speed, balance, agility, power and endurance. Pre, during and post test were conducted for all 30 subjects on selected physical fitness variables and the score were recorded. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to find out the significance difference between the groups and LSD was used to find the post test mean difference among the groups at the level of 0.05%. The result obtained in this study indicate that there was significant improvement in selected motor physical fitness variable due to the effects of aerobic, anaerobic and combined training(p<0.05). This study also proved that, aerobic exercise was significantly better than anaerobic and combined in improving power, balance, agility and endurance, anaerobic exercise was better than aerobic and combined to develop speed.


— This paper presents an ongoing PhD research project aimed at realizing a tool for semantic control - an Italian thesaurus - that could represent a repository of the Cybersecurity field of knowledge and a means starting from which the representativeness of this domain can be enhanced by increasing the terminological coverage threshold. The paper starts with a description of the methodology followed by the creation of an authoritative corpus. This latter is meant to be the source of the information retrieval for the terms that should be inserted in the Italian controlled vocabulary of Cybersecurity. Afterwards, an overall summary of the semi-automatic terminological extraction will be provided. The paper focuses on the terminological process of mapping the selected terms from the authoritative corpus to the existent standards of Information and Communications Technology Security glossaries and vocabularies by using Python scripts. The paper also focuses on the perspective of how the relationships built in a thesaurus could be migrated to an ontology as a better form of knowledge representation .


【Objective】To study relations between inflammation and atherosclerosis in the type 2 diabetic rats. 【Method】The model of type 2 diabetic rats were made by. After two month, the blood samples were collected to examine. With the help of microscope, we observed how atherosclerosis occurred and examined expression of inflammatory factors in the blood and artery walls. 【Results】 The fasting plasma glucose (FPG), fasting plasma insulin (FINS), HomaIR, the total cholesterol (TC), plasma triglycerides (TG) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) of the diabetic rats were significantly increased (P0.01, P0.05), while insulin action index (IAI), HomaCI and the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) greatly declined in comparison with the normal control (P0.01, P0.05). The TNF-α, IL-6, CRP, PAI-1 of the diabetic rats were much higher than the normal control (P0.01, P0.05). The expression of TNF-α, IL-6 in the artery walls of the diabetic rats were much more higher than the normal control (P0.01). With the help of microscope, the formation of artery fatty streak-lesions and vaculation cells, transformation and transference of smooth muscle cell as well as the formation of fibrous caps could be observed. 【Conclusion】Since we could observe that there were typical characteristics of atherosclerosis in the diabetic rats, we may conclude that inflammation was involved in the development and formation of diabetic atherosclerosis.


The five species of large falcon Falco which occur in the West Palearctic present one of the more daunting identification challenges. This paper describes all plumages likely to be met with in this region, including geographical and age-related variations, and discusses the problems involved and the best ways of approaching these. Structure, silhouette and flight behaviour are important factors, and detailed examination of plumage is usually also a prerequisite for correct identification of these awe-inspiring raptors.


The invention relates to the technical field of log cabin buildings and provides a log cabin upright column supporting device adjustable in height. The log cabin upright column supporting device comprises an adjusting tray, a supporting part and an upright column. The longitudinal section of the adjusting tray is of a U type. The supporting part comprises a supporting rod, a connector, an adjusting nut, an upright column cover, a bush, a spring and a fixing nut, wherein the connector, the adjusting nut, the upright column cover, the bush, the spring and the fixing nut are sequentially arranged on the supporting rod from top to bottom. External threads are arranged on the upper-half part of the supporting rod. The connector is of an inverted cone shape. The top of the supporting rod and the top of the connector are fixedly connected with the bottom of the adjusting tray. The supporting rod is inserted into the upright column. The bush, the spring and the fixing nut are covered by the upright column. The adjusting nut is matched with the external threads of the upper-half part of the supporting rod. The top of the upright column is covered by the upright column. According to the invention, the height of the upright column can be synchronously changed along with the height of a wall, and the bearing capacity, the fracture resistance and the pull-out performance of the log cabin upright column supporting device can be improved.


A number of Kirkwood Community College employees and their children viewed a performance by the Eulenspiegel Puppet Theater. The story presented via the puppets is a Finnish folk tale of an allegorical nature, complete with a "moral-of-the-story" conclusion. Thus, the story line, as represented through the dialogue and actions of the puppets, incorporates both humorous and dramatic elements. The puppets assumed human qualities in appearance, speech and expression and were life-like in their portrayal of the story characters. Although manipulated by the artists, the puppets seemed to develop independent personalties and characteristics. In one episode a human artist portrayed a story character by assuming a role and carrying it out through appropriate costume, dialogue, and voice intonation. On occasion the puppets were physically taken into the audience to interact individually with observers. On these occasions children were asked to participate through conversation with the puppets. The effort to have the puppets appear life-like was quite successful and this was evidenced by the audience participation.


This study investigated the effects of lexical collocation, topic and cultural familiarity on Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension. There were thirty-eight English Translation students in Chabahar Maritime University participating in the present study, 15 freshmen and 23 sophomores. They were chosen from among 45 students based on their scores in the reading comprehension tests. In the treatment period, all the students received three different types of instruction in three consecutive weeks, and took a reading comprehension test after each type of instruction. . In the first week, they received a text that was culturally familiar to them; it was about the origin and development of banks and corporations in Iran. In the second week, they were taught the difficult lexical collocations of the reading text along with their Farsi equivalents before taking the test. And finally in the third week, the students read a reading passage which had the same topic as the reading test before; it was about the communication and behavior of ants. All the students were requested to complete a reading comprehension test, adopted from the paper-based TOEFL tests, after each type of instruction. According to the results demonstrated by the statistical program, a significant difference was found in reading comprehension among the participants based on the type of instruction they received. The highest mean belonged to the third week, when the students read a passage with the same topic before the test as the treatment, followed by the collocation instruction. However, there was no significant difference between boys and girls, and freshmen and sophomores as a result of different types of instruction.


Food waste (FW) consists of organic-rich resources for consumption that are then discarded, wasted, decomposed, or damaged. The impacts of FW from several aspects have been demonstrated, such as the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted per year that costs the global economy and adds to greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, there is the impact of famine if FW is not addressed. However, food waste is the result of poor food handling habits and behaviors such as planning, shopping, cooking, eating, storing, and handling food waste. The method of community service is lecture/counseling, accompanied by discussion and questions and answers. This community service was carried out in August-October 2022 at the Parung Panjang Health Center Working Area, Bogor Regency. The results of the service, we get pre-test and post- test presentations are not different (there has been no increase in knowledge after socialization). FW in the household is still a common thing to do so that socialization needs to be carried out continuously along with assistance so that knowledge increases accompanied by changes in behavior for the better.


Scientist advisors should take pains to guide their proteges, ensuring they have every opportunity to succeed in this increasingly challenging profession. Image courtesy of Dave Cutler (artist).


A total of 39,687 assessments of abundance of ovipositing sorghum midge, Contarinia sorghicola (Coquillett), and sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench, spikelets in flower were used to evaluate, refine, and validate a sorghum midge population dynamics simulation model. Number of spikelets per panicle was related positively to panicle length, with 42% of the variability in the number of spikelets attributable to length. Uniformly growing fields of sorghum were in flower ≤13d. Most spikelets (388.2) per panicle were in flower the seventh day after flowering began in a field. The refined model was used to predict accurately time of sorghum midge emergence in all (mean R2 = 0.83) but one field (R2 = 0.59). However, predictions of sorghum midge abundance varied in accuracy (observed/predicted range of sorghum midges = 0.77-1.21). Predicted time of development of the F1 to F5 generations of sorghum midges ranged from 21.0 to 15.8 d. Abundance of ovipositing sorghum midges increased 2.5-, 3.7-, 24.6-, and 12.6-fold between the P-F1, F1-F2 F2-F3, and F3-F4 generations, respectively, and then declined. Abundance was greatest (22.7 sorghum midges per panicle) in the F4 generation. The economic-threshold level was exceeded during the last days of the F3 generation.


This paper provides an applied general equilibrium analysis of several alternative taxation regimes applying to superannuation. It is motivated by the decision, announced by the Australian Government in its 2006 Budget, to exempt from tax all superannuation benefits received by recipients over 60 years of age. The analysis focuses on the implications of this and other superannuation tax regimes for intergenerational equity, national living standards, labour supply, saving and social welfare. The method of analysis is simulation of an open economy overlapping generations CGE model, calibrated to Australia.Acknowledgements - The authors wish to thank the Australian Research Council for financial support for this work; and the Productivity Commission for providing data on age-specific government spending.


The article presents the process of using the author's and his associates' experiences on the works of the academic Grammar of contemporary Polish language in creating inflexive Polish language dictionaries from a small book publishing in 1993 to a great dictionary designed and published in digital form in 2001. It reports the stages of narrowing the classification and description of the Polish inflexion categories in a way that makes it a basis to shape it into a computer program by the IT specialists from the AGH University of Science and Technology cooperating with the linguists; furthermore, it provides a sample of studies on expanding the dictionary with a multi-segment lexical units, meaning Polish idioms.


The present study has as main objectives the quantitative study and the characterization throughgravimetry of solid waste produced in the University, located in the city of Vitoria in the state of EspiritoSanto. The diagnosis of the current process of solid waste management in the University indicates thatthere is no segregation or reuse. However, the detailed knowledge of the waste produced in the Institutionprovided by this work can serve as a starting point to guide into an implementation of a future solid wastemanagement program.


Comparisons are made on the application of ultrasonic method,electrical sensitivity method,ultrasonicultrasonic method,vacuum filtering sampling online method in cleanness testing of liquid metals.Among them,the ultrasonic method and electrical sensitivity are more successful.As the ultrasonic method can be used for reference,it is easier to be developed.


Fuertes, E. & Marchessi, J. E. 2013. Taxonomic, nomenclatural and chorological notula of Steerecleus (Bryophyta: Brachytheciaceae) in Uruguay. Bot. Complut. 37: 35-39. Steerecleus Robinson has been studied for Uruguay based on the specimens collected during the field expeditions on the Rio de la Plata's estuary coast carried out in 2008. Two species have been recognised for the Uruguay bryophyte flora. Steerecleus serrulatus grows epiphyte in the evergreen forest of Eastern Uruguay (Department Rocha) and it is reported for the first time for the bryological flora of Uruguay. Descrip- tions and photographs are provided and the main differences among the taxa reported from Uruguay are discussed.


In this article, a fault-tolerant model predictive current control (MPCC) method is proposed to improve the fault-tolerant ability of a five-phase permanent synchronous magnet motor drive under single and multiple open-circuit faults (OCFs) operations. On the principle of the optimal current control (OCC), general reference currents are derived to suppress torque ripples. To obtain the reference currents, a fast Fourier transformation (FFT)-based current estimation model is established. The torque ripple can be reduced by modifying the reference currents in the $d_{3}q_{3}$ -axis transformed from the estimation model. Finally, experimental results validate the effectiveness of the developed fault-tolerant control strategy and the robustness against operating points and motor parameter mismatches.


During scientific research fund management in higher vocational colleges,there are problems such as imperfect of management mechanism,loss of scientific research capital and assets,nonstandard situation of financial accounting of research subjects and unreasonable situation of using content and structure of research funds.Based on description and analysis of these problems,this paper puts forward countermeasures such as enhancing construction of management organization and institution,standardizing using of research funds,crystallizing financial accounting and strengthening management supervision.


In a preceding article the author has described the growth of the Indiana tax system from its territorial prototypes.1 From the period of 1840, when the mechanics of general property taxation were completely established and a degree of central control was developed, until 1933 no basic changes were made in the system.2 The adoption, in the latter year, of the Gross Income Tax introduced significant novel elements into the system and challenged the revenue importance of general property.


In this Rapid Communication, we address the chiral properties of valley exciton-polaritons in a monolayer of $\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{S}}_{2}$ in the regime of strong light-matter coupling with a Tamm-plasmon resonance. We observe that the effect of valley polarization, which manifests in the circular polarization of the emitted photoluminescence as the sample is driven by a circularly polarized laser, is strongly enhanced in comparison to bare $\mathrm{W}{\mathrm{S}}_{2}$ monolayers and can even be observed under strongly nonresonant excitation at ambient conditions. In order to explain this effect in more detail, we study the relaxation and decay dynamics of exciton-polaritons in our device, elaborate the role of the dark state, and present a microscopic model to explain the wave-vector-dependent valley depolarization by the linear polarization splitting inherent to the microcavity. We believe that our findings are crucial for designing novel polariton-valleytronic devices which can be operated at room temperature.


In this study, an optimal and robust fractional order PID (FOPID) controller design approach is suggested for Smith predictor based FOPID (SP-FOPID) control system design. This new design approach considers continued fraction expansion (CFE) based approximate models in the optimal design task of FOPID controllers, and this approach preserves the design optimality in control applications. For this purpose, an inverse controller loop shaping design methodology is performed in order to approximate the frequency response of a Bode's ideal loop reference model, and robust performance CFE based FOPID controller models are obtained by solving a multi-objective optimisation problem via a genetic algorithm. Thus, the suggested algorithm can deal with several controller realisation concerns in the design task of FOPID controllers and overcome real-world controller performance issues related with model approximation errors and signal saturation boundaries of electronic hardware. Illustrative design examples demonstrate that the suggested design scheme can preserve design optimality and improve practical control performance in practice.


The fluid flow and mass transfer characteristics in two-dimensional hydrodynamic focusing are theoretically investigated by considering different physical properties for the sample and sheath flows. Adopting a single-domain formulation, which assigns the region variable physical properties, three-dimensional analytical solutions are obtained for species transport under hydrodynamically fully developed conditions. In addition, simplified analytical solutions are derived assuming a uniform velocity field appropriate to electrokinetic focusing. The results show that the normalized overall mean velocity is an increasing function of the height to width ratio and a decreasing function of the sheath to sample viscosity ratio. The dependence of this normalized mean velocity on the sheath to sample flow-rate ratio is, however, non-monotonic: it grows with the flow-rate ratio when the sample fluid is more viscous than the sheath fluid, whereas the opposite is true when the sheath fluid is more viscous. Moreover, although an increase in either the viscosity or flow-rate ratios results in creating a smaller value of the normalized focused width, varying the channel aspect ratio may lead to either thinner or thicker focused regions, depending on the viscosity ratio. The inspection of the mass transport characteristics reveals that only the viscosity ratio and the Péclet number can significantly alter the mixing length. Surprisingly, the minimum mixing length in the presence of significant axial diffusion is achieved for a single-phase flow. Finally, the dimensionless mixing length is reduced by increasing the Péclet number, although the changes are negligible when this parameter is above 10. This threshold is only true when the Péclet number is calculated based on the higher of the sample and sheath diffusion coefficients.


The paper studies the possibilities of health tourism development in the Continental region of Croatia. Health tourism in Croatia, especially on its continental part, is based on natural healing resources that are mostly combined in the medical, preventive and wellness programs. They are not being used well enough, even though they are the key factor for positioning Croatia as a recognizable health tourism destination, which can generate economic growth and income. On the other hand, the trends in the world tourism predict a further growth of health tourism, mostly due to the changes in people's lifestyle. Health tourism is hence being recognized in the National Strategy of Tourism Development 2020 as a primary product in the central part of Croatia. In order to make health tourism more intensive, it is important to found it on the high quality medical staff and on attractive natural and healing resources. Further more, it is neccesary to work on the legislation, branding, introducing quality standards, to form the strategic alliances, as well as to create the institutional and operative support in order to succesfully implement a strategy for the development of health tourism in the Continental region of Croatia.


We calculate the weak coupling constants of B and D mesons, and the Isgur‐Wise form factor within the relativistic quark model with confined light quarks and with taking into account the infrared behavior of the heavy quark propagator. We investigate their dependence on the mass difference E=mH−MQ, and the parameter, characterizing the infrared behavior of the heavy quark propagator in the heavy quark limit. It is found that the weak decay constants depend rather strongly on the mass difference E with the infrared parameter ν being fixed. As for the Isgur‐Wise function its E dependence is found weak whereas it depends more strongly on the infrared parameter, leading to the suppression of this function at maximum recoil.


Monitoring the epithelium vessel capillary density pattern is critically important for preventing rapidly developing life threatening syndromes such as shock or systemic organ failures. The objective of this study is real time monitoring of epithelium vessel density pattern. The fiber sensor will be based on spatially resolved diffuse reflectance spectra. The parameters comprising period and depth of capillary spatial modulation are exploited for shock detection. The preliminary investigations with simulated spectra have shown that the new method can reasonably extracts minor deviations of oxygenation and local volume blood fraction - parameters, directly related to the local vessel density. The original method developed to use these parameters is much less dependent on light scattering in visible range as opposed to the most of the currently used methods.


We compare a discriminatory pricing regime with a non-discriminatory regime in a competitive bottleneck model where content providers endogenously sort into single or multi-homers. We find that consumer prices rise when the share of single-homers increases in the non-discriminatory case, while they stay constant in the discriminatory pricing regime. A discriminatory pricing regime leads to higher platform profits than the non-discriminatory regime when the share of single-homers are relatively high. When the share of single-homers is relatively high (low), the discriminatory pricing regime leads to higher (lower) consumer surplus and social welfare when compared with the non-discriminatory regime.


Lung cancer has high mortality and occurrence worldwide. Radiomics is a method for extracting quantitative features from medical images that can be used for predictive analysis. Radiomics has been applied quite successfully for lung nodule malignancy prediction. Along with traditional radiomics, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are now used quite effectively for lung cancer analysis. Texture provides information about variation in pixel intensity in regions. Lung nodules/tumors possess a noticeable texture pattern. That's why texture radiomics features can be used to construct predictive models to analyze malignant and benign lung nodules. As textures show visible patterns, training the CNNs using texture images is a novel idea that enables the creation of an ensemble of classifiers. In this study, 192 texture images (wavelet, Laws, gray level zone matrix, neighborhood grey tone difference, and run-length) were generated, and the same CNN architecture was trained separately on all texture images. We termed this approach, "Deep Radiomics." The maximum classification accuracy of 73% and 0.82 AUC was achieved from both the P2L2C5 wavelet and L5E5L5 laws texture images. When multiple CNN model's predictions were merged to generate an ensemble model, results of 81.43% (0.91 AUC) were achieved from our study, which was an improvement.


The world is facing crisis due to the dwindling sources of fossil fuels. Rapid depletion of conventional energy is a matter of serious concern for the mankind. There is a necessity to find alternative fuels for different industrial needs, automobiles and aircrafts. The conventional forms of energy supply and consumption are causing serious economical as well as environmental problems. Import dependence for oil in India is about 70 percent, and is likely to increase further. If the fossil fuels are consumed at present rate it may not take much time before the oil reserves get totally exhausted. It is, therefore, imperative to search for the alternative fuels that are renewable in nature, locally grown and friendly to environm1ent. Diesel and alternative fuels like coconut oil and cotton seed oil are used as fuels. Previously efficiency of alternative fuels like coconut oil and cotton seed oil blends with diesel was tested. The blends of varying proportions of these alternative fuels and diesel are used to run the engine and significant improvements in engine performance and emission characteristics are observed.These improvements are attributed to more complete combustion of oxygenated fuel. Engine performance values such as Indicated Horse Power, Brake Horse Power, Fuel Consumption, Mechanical Efficiency, Volumetric Efficiency, Indicated Brake Thermal Efficiency and Air Fuel Ratios are determined by varying fuel injection pressure with variation of Engine loads along with different blends of oils. Even through the viscosity of the coconut oil is low and is economically friendly. Considering the thermal efficiency, the cotton seed oil blend (B50) is preferable as it is giving it is good characteristics curve.


ABSTRACT The Spanish crisis is generally portrayed as resulting from excessive spending by households associated to a housing bubble and/or an excessive welfare spending beyond the economic possibilities of the country. We put forward a different hypothesis. We argue that the Spanish crisis resulted, in the main, from a widening deficit position in the non-financial corporate sector and a declining trend in profitability under a regime of financial liberalization and loose and unregulated lending practices.


263Background: DNA repair genomic alterations (GAs) have been identified in 12% of Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHCCA), 26% of extrahepatic CCA (EHCCA) and 8% of gallbladder cancer (GBC) patien...


There are no longitudinal pQCT data of bone growth and development from sub‐Saharan Africa, where rapid environmental, societal, and economic transitions are occurring, and where fracture rates are predicted to rise. The aim of this study was to compare skeletal development in black and white South African adolescents using longitudinal data from the Birth to Twenty study. The Birth to Twenty Bone Health subcohort consisted of 543 adolescents (261 [178 black] girls, 282 [201 black] boys). Annual pQCT measurements of the radial and tibial metaphysis and diaphysis were obtained between ages 12 and 22 years (distal metaphysis: cross‐sectional area [CSA] and trabecular bone mineral density [BMD]; diaphysis: total and cortical CSA, cortical BMD, and polar stress‐strain index [SSIp]). Age at peak height velocity (APHV) was calculated to account for differences in maturational timing between ethnic groups and sexes. Mixed‐effects models were used to describe trajectories for each pQCT outcome. Likelihood‐ratio tests were used to summarize the overall difference in trajectories between black and white participants within each sex. APHV (mean ± SD years) was similar in black (11.8 ± 0.8) and white (12.2 ± 1.0) girls, but delayed in black (14.2 ± 1.0) relative to white boys (13.3 ± 0.8). By 4 years post‐APHV, white adolescents had significantly greater cortical CSA and SSIp than black adolescents at the radius. There were no significant differences at the radial metaphysis but there was some divergence, such that black adolescents had greater radial trabecular BMD by the end of follow‐up. At the tibia, white adolescents had lower diaphyseal CSA and SSIp, and greater metaphyseal CSA. There was no ethnic difference in tibial trabecular BMD. There are ethnic differences in bone growth and development, independent of maturation, in South African adolescents. This work gives new insights into the possible etiology of childhood fractures, which occur most commonly as peripheral sites. © 2017 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc.


[Objective] To investigate the relative factors of recurrent ectopic pregnancy (REP) after conservative surgical treatment of tubal pregnancy. [Methods] A retrospective study were performed. This study was carried out in 330 patients who had been treated conservative surgical for tubal pregnancy from January 1999 to January 2004 and who desired future childbearing and who were followed up for a period of 18-72 months. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to determine the risk factors for the onset of REP. The Pearson/Spearman (P/S) correlative analysis was performed to assay the relation of the location between REP and the present tubal pregnancy. [Results] 1. The general REP rate was 21.2% (70/330). 43/249 (17.3%) patients had been treated by laparoscopy, and 27/81 (33.3%) treated by laparotomy. 2. The risk factors influencing recurrent ectopic pregnancy were as follows: previous history of infertility (OR=0.359), history of ectopic pregnancy (OR=0.152), previous tube surgery (OR=0.410), history of pelvis inflammation (OR=0.347), pelvic adhesion (OR=0.187), tubal distal occlusion (OR=0.333), laparotomy (OR=0.424) , P 0.05. But age, parity, previous history of appendicitis, location of EP, rupture tube and the volume of pelvic hematocele had no significant influence on the onset of REP. 3. The P/S correlative analysis showed no correlation of the location between the tubal pregnancy and REP.[Conclusion]1. The onset of REP depends more on the circumstance of pelvic cavity and the characteristics of patients, which is not tendency happen on the same side of the previous EP. 2. Aggressive management of infertility, prevention of pelvic infection and choose of laparoscopy are important strategy to prevent the onset of REP.


Existing image registration methods that work in the presence of motion blur assume the scene to be fronto-parallel. In this work, we extend the state-of-the-art by cueing motion blur itself to infer plane inclination. This is achieved by matching extremities of blur kernels computed at different locations in the image. Because these extremities correspond to the same homography, we show that it is possible to find the orientation. Following this, we propose a registration method that reorients the source image to the target plane within a reblur-difference framework to detect the actual changes.


Considering the characteristics of mass-customization supply chain cooperation (MCSCC), the paper constructs for it a performance evaluation system and designs the quantization method for the relevant indices. For indices such as cooperative stability, degree of product customization, logistics coordination and quickness of demand response which have rather high bearings on the MCSCC, the paper investigates into their definition and specific quantization methods.


The existing parks and protected areas system in Canada is inadequate for conserving many species, including interior songbirds. In order for many conservation efforts to be successful, parks planners and resource managers will need to establish communication and secure cooperation from agencies outside of the boundaries of the areas they manage. Ths research recognizes that in many of the more populated regions of Canada, the majority of natural lands are held in private ownership, and that the conservation of forests will therefore rely on agencies responsible for managing growth and development on private lands within their jurisdiction. It also acknowledges that these agencies, if they are to play a role in conserving natural features and functions, must be equipped with better tools, and a means of communicating the value of natural features and defending their conservation in the face of competing land use interests. This research uses interior songbird habitat requirements to establish an easy to use method for establishing forest significance for prioritizing conservation initiatives and allocating conservation resources. It links the science of conservation to land development planning in a clear and defensible way, which provides municipal government with a method to develop policies that are not constructed in a vacuum of science and to structure their natural heritage planning on the basis of an eco-system first approach to planning and development. Furthermore, this research may provide the basis for catalyzing dialogue on interagency CO-management of forest resources for the benefit of both wildlife and the Canadian people.


Controlling and directing the boundary layer on the surfaces of a flight vehicle are two of the most demanding challenges in advanced aerodynamic designs. The design of highly integrated and submerged inlets with a large offset between the entrance and compressor face is particularly challenging because of the need for controlling or reducing the adverse effects of the boundary layer on propulsive efficiency. S-duct diffusers are used widely in flight vehicles when the compressor face needs to be hidden, and their performance is generally sensitive to the quality of ingested boundary layer from the fuselage. Passive or active flow control mechanisms are needed to prevent flow separations at the bends. In this paper, a new method is presented for optimal inlet/body integration based on a pair of ridges ahead of the inlet and its effects on the performance of a semicircular S-duct inlet integrated on a flat surface using CFD. In this design, the ridge changes an inefficient inlet concept to one with acceptable performance. The new method of integration is practicable for top-mounted inlet configurations where the use of diverters and other mechanisms results in higher amounts of drag, weight, and complexity.


Siliceous-rich sediments of late Pliocene to early Pleistocene age at DSDP Site 278, located on the Antarctic Convergence, contain an excellent radiolarian biostratigraphic and paleoclimatic record. The radiolarian zonation indicates that the middle Pliocene is missing in a diconformity. Three radiolarian zones are recognized above the disconformity, and from comparison with previous piston core studies, indicate a continuous biostratigraphic sequence from the early part of the Brunhes Normal paleomagnetic epoch (0.69 m.y. B.P.) to the earliest part of the Matuyama Reversed Epoch (2.40 m.y. B.P.). Oscillations in the frequency of the cool-water radiolarian Antarctissa strelkovi indicate 9 or 10 warm-water episodes during that part of the Matuyama Reversed Epoch represented, with one warm-water episode inferred to be missing in the disconformity. The most important radiolarian species are illustrated by SEM and LM photographs.


Abstract This paper reports reactions of dihalogeno-xyloquinone with sulfur and nitrogen nucleophiles, leading to the di-and mono-substituted derivatives, respectively. The mixed nitrogen-sulfur and carbon-nitrogen derivatives were also synthesized. New reactions, oxidation of dimethylthioxyloquinone to yield a mono-sulfinyl derivative and treatment of the latter with thionyl chloride, are described. Although dihalogeno-xyloquinones are known compounds2a, b their reactions with sulfur and nitrogen nucleophiles have not been reported. These reactions seemed to be of interest in view of potential biological activity of the expected thio-and amino-substituted xyloquinones, in comparison with the naphthoquinone and benzoquinone analogues.3


The efficient and sustainable use of renewable energy sources requires an accurate power generation forecasting. This paper considers the application and comparison of ensemble algorithm based on decision tree for solar power forecasting for Mongolia power system. The input data for the machine learning model are historical data on power generation for 2019–2021 years of six photo-voltaic power plants operating in central power system of Mongolia and meteorological data in these power plants. Ensemble machine learning model allows to determine the non-linear and non-stationary dependence of the time series and besides can be implemented in the task of forecasting the daily generation schedule. The proposed model creates a day ahead forecast of hourly generation curve of the photo-voltaic power plants under consideration with a normalized absolute percentage error 6.5 – 8.4%. Increasing the accuracy of solar power forecasting can positively affect the operation and planning of the central power system of Mongolia.


The article describes the impact of COVID-19 from the position of the factor initiating the need to restructure existing business models. The problem of sustainability of supply chains in the SE and food supply during the COVID-19 pandemic is described. The necessity of creating agricultural wholesale distribution centers (WDC) based on the principles of SE and sustainable development of supply chains is substantiated. The scheme of business processes of the WDC based on the principles of SE has been developed.


Removing excess phosphate from environmental water is extremely important to reduce eutrophication. In this study, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were utilized as biological templates, and the SA-La...


(Abridged) Herbig Ae/Be stars (HAeBes) have so far been studied based on relatively small samples that are scattered throughout the sky. Their fundamental stellar and circumstellar parameters and statistical properties were derived with heterogeneous approaches before Gaia. Our main goal is to contribute to the study of HAeBes from the largest sample of such sources to date, for which stellar and circumstellar properties have been determined homogeneously from the analysis of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and Gaia EDR3 parallaxes and photometry. Multiwavelength photometry was compiled for 209 bona fide HAeBes for which Gaia EDR3 distances were estimated. Using the Virtual Observatory SED Analyser (VOSA), photospheric models were fit to the optical SEDs to derive stellar parameters, and the excesses at infrared (IR) and longer wavelengths were characterized to derive several circumstellar properties. The stellar temperature, luminosity, radius, mass, and age were derived for each star based on optical photometry. In addition, their IR SEDs were classified according to two different schemes, and their mass accretion rates, disk masses, and the sizes of the inner dust holes were also estimated uniformly. The initial mass function fits the stellar mass distribution of the sample within 2<M_star/M_sun<12. In this aspect, the sample is therefore representative of the HAeBe regime and can be used for statistical purposes when it is taken into account that the boundaries are not well probed. A statistical analysis was carried out mainly focused on the different circumstellar properties of Herbig Ae (HAe) and Be (HBe) stars. The complete dataset is available online through a Virtual Observatory-compliant archive, representing the most recent reference for statistical studies on the HAeBe regime.


The purpose of this research is to find out how the application of the principles of learning evaluation is carried out in MA Aulia Cendikia. Knowing how the application of the principles of learning evaluation is carried out, it is expected to serve as an evaluation material to improve the quality of education. This research uses descriptive research method, with qualitative approach through observation, interview and documentation using Datan Miles and Huberman analysis techniques. The results of this research are the principles of learning assessment has been conducted, including the principle of integration, pedagogical principles, accountability principles, contingency principles, cooperative principles and there is a principle that is not able to apply in learning assessment activities such as the principle of objectivity.Factors that influence the application of learning evaluation principles to improve student learning outcomes in Al-Qur'an Hadith MA Aulia Cendikia Palembang subject are school administration policies that require teachers to create learning evaluation plans, motivation, teacher's ability to master the material, limited learning hours, teacher accountability and learning infrastructure that really needs to be considered to support this smooth process.


Tests of 2-(p-aminobenzenesulphonamido)-4, 6-dimethylpyrimidine ('Sulphamezathine') as a prophylactic and curative drug for caecal coccidiosis of chickens have confirmed the previous findings of workers in Great Britain and have shown that the disease can be checked even after intestinal haemorrhage has begun.A related compound, 2-sulphanilamido-4-methylpyrimidine ('Sulfamerazine'), and its soluble sodium salt have been found to have comparable value as curative drugs.This work suggests that these sulphonamides, with partly methylated pyrimidine structures, will prove of value as agents for the control of the disease when used in conjunction with other recognized measures. The relationship between the chemical structure and the coccidiostatic effect requires further investigation.


In this paper, the cost of the carrier-borne epidemic is considered. The definition of duration, as used by Weiss (1965) and subsequent authors, is generalised and the probability distribution for the number of located carriers is obtained. One component of cost, namely the area generated by the trajectory of carriers, is examined and its probability density function derived. The expected area generated is then shown to be proportional to the expected number of carriers located during the epidemic, a result which has an analogue in the general stochastic epidemic.


The Molitor Model of Change is a unique approach, yet has largely been overlooked as a futures studies method. This article traces the influences that led Graham Molitor to develop Emerging Issues Analysis.


the omentum was still irredcucible. Before anaesthesia was complete it was found that there was a distinct and tender rounded swelling in the lower part of the hernia, just above the testicle, which could be felt to contain two or three hard tender masses of different size. An incision was made over the swelling and extending up on to the abdomen, and the upper loculus of the sac (c in figure) opened. The contents within it were normal omentum, more of which could be easily withdrawn from the abdomen through the neck (B), which was not strangulating the omentum. Though it was possible to withdraw omentum from the abdomen through the neck B, it was impossible to withdraw it through the neck D from the loculus E. In consequence the incision in the sac had to be enlarged with scissors and the neck D divided. On withdrawing the omentum from the IoculuS E, it was seen to be smooth, swollen, not adherent, and twisted once on itself, untwisting as it was released. Interlocking ligatures were placed on the stalk of the omentum which had been in the neck B. and the distal part removed. The sac was then freed. divided, and thp. nroxim%al end c one d. The inguinal canal was sutured with silk after the manner ascribed to Fergusson. The skin wound was closed with silkworm gut. The wound healed by first intention; later on an abscess containing fat globules discharged from the depths of the wound, and a mass 'could be felt in the abdomen, which was probably the inflamed end of the ligatured omentum, epiploitis.


This paper briefly describes the study of ecosystem services in the economically developed region,puts forward the study content and key link of the city ecosystem services,and analyses the significance and prospect.It is of some guiding importance to urban planning.


Field and laboratory experiments since 1995 have been directed at the development of a model for sound propagation through seagrass meadows. Seagrass blades are a complex structure of tissue and internal gas channels, which can produce oxygen bubbles in the water column during photosynthesis. Simple mixture theory models have proven ineffective at predicting the acoustic behaviour observed during field experiments. Since 2013, laboratory investigations have been directed at determining the tissue acoustic properties of main Mediterranean species Posidonia oceanica and Cymodocea nodosa using ultrasound and then low-frequency sound. This review focuses on the determination of the low-frequency (1–5 kHz) effective sound speed of a mixture of seagrass leaf blades and degassed artificial seawater placed in an acoustic resonator. All measurements from MEDGRASS 15 and 16 experiments are compared to previous ones of three Texas Gulf coast seagrass species as a function of added wet biomass. The ensemble of results shows correlation of this speed with species, and average size, physical stiffness, and epiphyte coverage of the leaf blades.


The goal of this thesis is the comparison and evaluation of the results of different methods of simulation and analysis of the same structure. The structure chosen is a bridge superstructure. In the first case the structure is simulated, analysed and solved as a beam element of specific cross section along its length. In the second case as a beam element but without a cross section but with the cross section values at each position along its length and at the third case the same structure is simulated via finite element method. Some of the characteristic loads that are defined by the Eurocodes and refer to bridge superstructures are applied. Next a comparison of the results, of the matters of simulation and of the advantages and disadvantages of these methods is performed. Beam method is a simulation method with multiple applications in civil mechanics matters for many years now while finite element method is a more modern and complex method with larger calculation cost but also with greater potential on result extraction and simulation of any kind of construction. The conclusion is that for a simple design the beam method without specific cross section is useful and reliable for extraction of stress diagrams and checks of section adequacy but not for calculation of reinforcement and full design, while the beam method with cross section simulation is useful for all the above but also for reinforcement calculation while with the finite element method we can accomplish all the above but also full calculation of the stresses at each position of the structure for each load but with more calculation cost.
Conclusively each method has its use according to the need we are to cover and we have to examine which is the most suitable to use at each case.