This paper analyses the effects of nonlinear distortions introduced by high-power amplifiers (HPAs) on the performance of the linear decorrelating multiuser detector (MUD) in synchronous direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems. By assuming and motivating the Gaussian distribution of the nonlinear distortion noise, the system bit-error rate (BER) has been derived theoretically in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and frequency-flat Rayleigh fading channels. Simulation results are provided in order to validate the theoretical analysis for ideally predistorted amplifiers.


Nanomechanical sensors and their arrays have been attracting significant attention for detecting, distinguishing, and identifying target analytes. In the static mode operation, sensing signals are obtained by a concentration-dependent sorption-induced mechanical stress/strain. Recently, we derived an an-alytical solution, which is applicable to multistep injection-purge cycles in the static mode nanomechanical sensing with viscoelastic receptor layers. The model can be utilized for ex-tracting viscoelastic properties and the concentrations of analytes more accurately by fitting a couple of injection purge curves obtained from experimental data. Here, we show the utility of the optimized parameters directly not only for the identification of gas species but also for their concentrations.


Image: di57328 - Instead of going directly into the dressing room under the stands afeter UK's 73-71 victory over LSU, Sam Bowie walked down the hall to shake hands with LSU head coach Dale Brown in front of the LSU locker room.


The effect of 0.15 ppm ozone and (or) 0.15 ppm sulphurdioxide on leaf chlorophyll, RNA, and protein levels was investigated. Ozone-treated leaves exhibited reddish-brown colored lesions and an immediate and continuous decrease in chlorophyll a and b levels over a 5-day period, whereas protein levels increased and there was no effect on RNA levels compared to the control group of plants. Sulphur dioxide-treated leaves exhibited an immediate increase in chlorophyll a and b, but protein and RNA levels were not affected. The sulphur dioxide – ozone mixture caused an interveinal chlorisis by about day 3 and produced a decrease in chlorophyll a and b which was delayed by 2 days compared with leaves exposed to ozone alone. By the end of the 5-day period, chlorophyll a and b levels were less than in leaves treated with ozone alone, but the interveinal chlorosis that occurred was not due to phaeophytinization of the chlorophyll molecules. Protein and RNA levels were not affected. Although both ozone and the pollut...


The article provides a brief outline of cultural and linguistic aspects of the Welsh settlement in Patagonia, Argentina. Established in 1865, for several decades the Colony (Y Wladfa) remained an economically thriving, Welsh-speaking community, which other Welsh emigration projects had failed to achieve. At the turn of the 20 th century the growing pressure from the Argentinian government to integrate the Colony into the state's administrative system and to introduce education in Spanish resulted in a rapid hispanisation of the Welsh population. Nevertheless, Y Wladfa has managed to preserve its distinct national and cultural identity. The Welsh language is spoken by several thousand people and many Welsh traditions such as the festivals of literature, music and performance ('eisteddfodau') are still held annually in Trelew, Gaiman and Trefelin. The current revival of Welsh language and culture in Chubut Province is supported by organisations and institutions in Wales and stimulated by the lively contacts between the Colony and the mother country and official funding from Wales.


This study is an example of the application of IPR methods in the R&D management. The purpose of this article is to describe the global situation and trends ofpatenting in the field of welding. In Ukraine such a study put through for the first time.Based on the results of a series of searches using IPC indexes, an analysis of the worldwide patent statistics in the field of welding for 2013−2022 was accomplished. The overwhelming dominance of China was revealed among the countries in which patent applications are filed. China's share for 2013-2022 was almost 83 % and continues to grow rapidly. The USA has second rate with 4.3 %, and Japan is third with 3.1 %. Ukraine, having its share as of 0.06 %, ranks 15th among almost 50 countries. The top 10 applicants in the field of welding are manufacturing companies that surpass most countries in the world in terms of their patent activity. Five of them are Japanese, two each from the USA and China, and one is Korean. The R&D sector among the first hundred applicants is mainly represented by Chinese universities. There are only three European companies in the top 100 applicants, namely Siemens, Bosch and Fronius.
Itemized peculiar structure of research and developments in the field of welding was determined and compared with the proper structure of scientific research conducted at the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute (PWI). It is typical that in the global dimension, the greatest efforts are focused on patenting universal devices and processes that can be used in various welding methods (44 %), followed by electric arc welding in all its variety of applications (12.2 %) and then laser welding and related technologies (7.5 %). Meanwhile, in the structure of scientific research of PWI, a prominent place is occupied by electric arcwelding technologies (37.0 %), followed by the creation of new substances for the manufacture of rods, electrodes, materials or environments used in welding (15.6 %).On a practical aspect, exploitation of IPR methods in R&D activities is needed not only to determine the freedom to operate of the results of scientific research and newly developed technologies, but for operational and medium-term planning of R&D activities, to determine the place of any scientific institution among other research centers, enterprises and companies which belong to a certain industry.


The research progress of modification of nickel hydroxide coated with cobalt was summarized.The performance of nickel hydroxide improved by the additives of Co,CoO,Co(OH)2 and CoOOH was introduced,and the technics of nickel hydroxide coated with cobalt was analyzed.The future of the coating technics on nickel hydroxide with cobalt was predicted.


The genesis and features of federal systems. The Swiss Confederation. The United States of America. The European Union. Comparative analyses.


The purpose of the author in this article is to outline the main licenses regarding mineral exploration and publicize the usual paperwork and contingencies obtaining these permits.It also presents alternatives to traditional procedures, which are more useful in practice to expedite to start of mining exploration activities in Peru.


A separation between textual production and textual consumption is not a self-evident state of being for English studies. The gap in English studies has been constructed in large part along the lines of production of texts as opposed to the consumption of texts. Several articles published in the 1980s called for a unifying theory of composition and literature, but they were more successful at clarifying the reasons why the project failed. A look at two texts, Lynn Z. Bloom's "Freshman Composition as a Middle-Class Enterprise" and Daniel T. O'Hara's "Henry James's Version of Judgment," reveals that composition and literature already recognize that all acts of reading and writing synthesize text, writer, reader, and critic into a single process. What would truly accomplish the unification of composition and literature is for scholars to produce discourse like Bloom's and O'Hara's that does it without articulating it as the object. Unity is a practice not a theory. (Contains 11 references.) (RS) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ********************************************************************************


Fluorescent protein-based indicators are invaluable tools for functional imaging of living cells and organisms. Genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) such as derivatives of yellow cameleons (YCs) and GCaMPs/pericams (Miyawaki et al., 1997; Nakai et al., 2001; Nagai et al., 2001) are a highly advanced class of indicators. Continued efforts for improvement of the performance of GECIs have resulted in brighter indicators with better photo-stability and expanded dynamic range, thus improving the sensitivity of detection. Fine-tuning of other properties, including Ca2+ affinity and Hill constant, have also contributed to increase the detectability of Ca2+ dynamics. Emerging optogenetic technology has forced the spectrally compatible GECI color variants. In this opinion, we highlight the recent development of GECIs including photo-switchable Ca2+ indicators and bioluminescence-based Ca2+ indicator, mainly invented in our group, focusing especially on the parameters determining their performance in order to provide a guideline for the selection of appropriate GECI for a given experiment.


In the recent past, Sri 1.anka has increasingly recognized the need for grcatcr farmer participation in irrigation sysiem management. With this goal in view, a range of strategies has been adopted in many irrigation improvement programmes. Lo this paper, the experiences of a major irrigation rehabilitation programme, the Tank Irrigation Modernization Project (TIMP), undertaken in Sri Lanka in the late 1970s. is examined. Th: strategy to mobilize farmer involvement in the project involved the establishment of a Tank Committee at the project level. In this presentation, details of the more significant experiences of the TIMP with respect to its plans, strategies, and achievements are examined in relation LO the Tank Committees and othw issues concerning participatory management.


This paper investigates a learning point-to-point control of the multi-motor system. The antagonistic drive of multi-motor system exhibits accurate positioning with less vibration. There by, the multi-motor system makes possible highly precise positioning with a high speed response. Multi-motor servo system not only carries out high efficiency and relevantly precise system but also allows a simplified control system.


Extraction of metals from their oxides is primarily extracted through pyrometallurgy, which uses carbon as major reducing agent. For using carbon have the limitations of future supply and environmental pollution. In order to avoid this problem hydrogen can be used as an alternative source of reducing agent for extraction of metals. From the Ellingham diagram it is also observed that hydrogen (H-H2O & H+-H2O) is placed below almost all metal oxides (M-MxOy). Hence, in different extractive metallurgical processes hydrogen can be used as a standard reducing agent for the reduction of metal oxides. It has unique thermodynamic properties aiding the economic reduction process and its combustion product is water which is environmentally harmless unlike carbon oxides/carbon monoxide. In the present study an attempt has been made to investigate reduction of bauxite through hydrogen plasma and molecular hydrogen. For this purpose some experiments are being carried out for the reduction of Al2O3 present in bauxite by using hydrogen in form of plasma and also by molecular hydrogen. Further, constituents of reduced bauxite sample with hydrogen plasma and molecular hydrogen is separated by acid leaching. Reduced bauxite sample and separated constituent are characterized by X-ray diffraction technique. It is observed that only iron oxide present in the sample was reduced under the processing conditions.


Root cause analysis (RCA) is a recognised approach to understanding causation of adverse events across high-risk industries including healthcare. These methodologies were developed during the early part of the twentieth century when the workplace could be understood as a series of linear processes. Within a complex system these approaches offer limited insight, which has since been recognised within healthcare literature. This paper proposes an approach to understanding of causation that addresses Hollnagel's 'hypothesis of different causes' and integrates Safety I and Safety II approaches. This develops Stretton's Lilypond Model to conceptualise the relationship between work-as-imagined and work-as-done within a complex system where individual adaptations and variations can be analysed. Understanding variation in such a way creates a shift in methodology from a deterministic to a probabilistic approach, which is more appropriate for understanding causation within complex systems.


Objective To investigate the awareness rate among community residents for mental health knowledge in Baoding,Hebei Province,and to further popularize mental health knowledge and provide the basis for targeted public awareness and education.Methods 3854 community residents were sampled randomly from Psychosis Treatment and Management in Hebei Province(Referred to as the "686 Project") piloting areas.A self-made questionaire was used to investigate the participants.Results The total awareness rate of the knowledge on mental health among residents in all of the items was 56.91%.Among them,the highest was knowledge about mental health science,and the lowest was identifying common symptoms of mental illness.Gender(general knowledge of mental health:χ2 = 6.45,P0.05;common symptoms of mental illness identification:χ2 = 4.43,P0.05;risk behavior:χ2 = 8.93,P0.01,level of education(general knowledge of mental health χ2= 137.24,P0.01;common symptoms of mental illness identification:χ2= 69.44,P0.01;risk behavior χ2= 75.24,P0.01,vocation(general knowledge of mental health:χ2 = 44.55,P0.01;common symptoms of mental illness identification:χ2= 5.66,P0.05;risk behavior:χ2= 37.39,P0.01,social relations(general knowledge of mental health:χ2= 75.83,P0.01;common symptoms of mental illness identification:χ2= 1.16,P 0.05;risk behavior:χ2= 10.42,P0.05 had impact on the awareness level.Conclusion The implementation of "686 Project" improved the extent of mental health knowledge of a part of population.However,the general population was still a general lack of knowledge of mental health.It was necessary to strengthen health education,then to prevent and control the incidences of mental illness and risk behavior.


This thesis studies the caciques and Spaniards who settled in the Chicama Valley in Trujillo, north coast of Peru, towards the first half of the 18th century, and the relationship they had with the use of water from the canals and ditches of irrigation that existed. It is proposed that the use of water played a prominent role in the relationships that existed between both groups and where it also combines the particular situation that was experienced in the area in this period, which is a process of recession as a result of a crisis that affected several productive sectors, mainly wheat, which will be replaced by sugarcane.


The utility model relates to a multifunctional intelligent control terminal which consists of a shell and a control circuit in the shell, wherein the control circuit comprises a microprocessor, a power module, a clock module, a storage, a man-machine interaction module and a sensor communication module; the man-machine interaction module is connected with an LCD and keys arranged on the shell; and the sensor communication module is connected with a communication interface arranged on the shell. The utility model is mainly technically characterized in that the microprocessor is also connected with a network communication module which is connected with a network interface arranged on the shell. The multifunctional intelligent control terminal has reasonable design; the sensor data communication module, the network communication module and a field control module realize the acquisition, transmission and control functions to the field data; and the control terminal has the characteristics of high real-timeness, high degree of automation, rich functions and convenient use, can meet the requirements of different users and can be widely applied to the logistics industry and the manufacturing industry.


Geographically distributed data acquisition systems provide a challenge when synchronization of the data acquisition is required. Current products and research do not provide a low-cost, low-power solution suitable for use in the field. GPS receivers are commonly used for their precision, but their power consumption is excessive. In this paper we present a method for synchronizing geographically distributed systems via the NIST radio station WWVB. We present a prototype version for low-power distributed data acquisition which uses a WWVB receiver for synchronization. We also present the limitations of the method and the prototype, along with typical application issues and lessons learned during system implementation.


The present invention relates to an extraction method for multi-touch feature information and a recognition method for multi-touch gestures using the multi-touch feature information, and more specifically, to the extraction method for multi-touch feature information and recognition method for multi-touch gestures using the multi-touch feature information, wherein: multi-touch feature information, which does not depend on the number of touch points, is extracted; and the accuracy in gesture recognition is improved by using the extracted multi-touch feature information.


AbstractThis paper describes a new methodology for Business Process Reengineering. It builds on the experiences of organisations who have reengineered. It also considers existing methodologies, and the experience of the author and some of his colleagues who have played a central role in a major reengineering project within British Telecommunications plc (BT). Though all "reengineering" consultancies undoubtably have methodologies for BPR, this paper reports an academically rigorous methodology which builds on the reported experiences of organisations, and views of leaders in the reengineering field.


This paper reports on a collection of algorithm animations of dynamic programming and branch-and-bound problems developed in JHave. After a discussion on how these algorithm animations meet the criteria for a pedagogically effective algorithm visualization (PEAV), it presents the collection of algorithms available and for each type an example is used to illustrate the materials available and their potential. The paper also describes their use in two courses and together with observations about their effectiveness.


The urn guard can be connected to the urn retainer that stores the urn of the deceased. The tamper-evident security device senses at least one security data associated with the movement of at least one of the ubicide storage device and the ullibus through at least one security detection module installed in the ubicide storage device, A security event detecting unit for checking whether or not a security event for at least one of the ubicide storage device and the urn box is generated based on security data; And a security performing unit for performing a predetermined security operation when the security event is generated.


There are many different rules for mathematics field. Among them, we express the solving problems for practical life with integration methods. There are integrals, double integrals, triple integrals, etc. Among these method, we use the double integrals method to find the volume and area of a region between two curves and between line and curves that design of engineering's. We define and evaluate double integrals over bounded regions in the plane which are more general than rectangles. These double integrals are also evaluated as iterated integrals, with the main practical problem being that of determining the limits of integration. We can find the volume and area of the various shape by using the integration methods. For example, volume of, area of the leaf and area of the cardioid shape, etc. We can compute number of people in the region bounded during the interval with integration method. Indexed Termsvolume by double integration, area by double integration and average value of function, double integrate a polar form.


Food poisoning was made notifiable in 1938, but not until 1949 were data from this source collected centrally and brought together with reports from medical officers of health and laboratory data in a series of publications describing annual trends.' The overall trend in the past 20 years is illustrated by notifications which reached a peak of over 12 000 in 1955 and then declined to about 5000 in 1972 but later increased; in 1978 there were 9739 notifications (fig 1). Study of bacterial food poisoning reported by laboratories shows that this recent increase was mainly due to a rise in salmonella food poisoning caused by serotypes other than Salmonella typhimurium, particularly S hadar (fig 1). This followed changes in animal husbandry, in particular the intensive production of poultry, and a rise in the consumption of poultry meat.2 Salmonella infections due to many new serotypes were introduced into the breeding stocks in the 1960s by the importation of infected day-old chicks and hatching eggs and into the poultry flocks by contaminated animal feeding stuffs; infection then spread to the human population. In outbreaks of salmonellosis in which the vehicle of infection was identified, 12% were attributed to poultry in the five years 1960-4 but this rose to 70% in 1976-8. Although reports of S typhimurium infections have not increased, the appearance of multiple antimicrobial resistant strains in outbreaks of illness in calves and man in Britain is worrying because in some countries the acquisition of multiple resistance by salmonellae has been accompanied by enhanced virulence and communicability.3 In contrast to salmonella food poisoning staphylococcal food poisoning decreased from about 100 incidents each year in the early 1960s to usually less than 20 each year in the 1970s, although there was a rise in 1975 and 1976, possibly attributable to the hot summers in those two years. This overall decline probably resulted from improvement in food hygiene and personal hygiene but it may also have been partly associated with changes in food habit. For example, salted preserved meats, which selectively favour the growth of staphylococci c8000


The classroom space is a kind of humanistic construction,which has certain cultural meaning,is breath of life and with a sense of history,reality and idealism.The classroom space contains both the objective physical environment and the intangible field with the mental activity.The classroom space spirit is an objective reality,which comes from the teaching subjects,teaching contents,teaching relationship and teaching pursuit.The spirituality of the classroom space reflects in the classroom itself,where the teaching activity happens.Meanwhile the spirituality of classroom space appears in the constructive level of the classroom space.


Stocks are an important part of the national economy. With the increase of liquidity in people's hands, more and more people choose to enter the stock market. In stock investment, accurate prediction of stock price index is not only of great significance to investors, but also of promoting the development of my country's stock market. It even has an important role in accelerating my country's economic development. The paper chose the ARIMA method based on linear technology for time series forecasting and the NN model that is good at mining the implicit nonlinear relationship in the data to compare the China Sea Securities Composite Index from January 21, 2020 to December 31, 2020. Empirical analysis of closing prices and short-term forecasts are made.


Cotton fibers are constructed principally of macromolecules of cellulose. These are disposed in the fiber in such a way as to display a number of aspects, which collectively may be referred to as the "supermolecular structure." It includes such features as molecular chain length, polymolecularity, natural cross-linkage, crystallinity, crystal modification, crystallite size, orientation. accessibility, and chemical modification. Super imposed on these structural aspects is the gross morphology of the fiber itself. Many of these aspects have an influence in one way or another upon the response which the fiber makes when subjected to a variety of mechanical forces, which collectively may be referred to as "mechanical behavior." Among the responses considered are strength, elongation, stiffness, toughness, elasticity, and resilience. Selected examples are pre sented, showing how the mechanical behavior is conditioned in various ways by the supermolecular structure.


PURPOSE: A sealed battery and a manufacturing method thereof are provided to reduce electric resistance while securing the sealing performance of a sealed cover. CONSTITUTION: A sealed battery comprises: an electricity generating unit; a battery container accommodating the electricity generating unit; and a cover sealing the battery container. The cover includes: a cap(3) that is the positive electrode external terminal of a battery; and a cap case(37) unified with the cap. The cap has a hat shape having a can part(3b) and a sunscreen part. In the cap, the positive electrode external terminal protrudes to the outside of the battery.


New forms of relationship and transaction between companies participating in the same supply chain have been applied to improve competitive conditions in the chain. The auto industry is a striking example of an industry in which the relationships between companies have been deeply renewed and motivated mainly by the influence of automakers in the primary suppliers, which in turn work with their own suppliers forming a competitive alliance. This article aims to study the relationship between customer-supplier in the Brazilian automobile industrial park, to create a relational typology from case studies. Technical visits were made in fourteen supplying companies to gather information about the main structural features and the relationship between manufacturers and suppliers in the Brazilian automotive industry. Interviews were conducted with managerial level professionals of industrial areas - production, logistics and supplies, product and process development, purchasing, and human resources. The results showed that the relationships depend on institutional characteristics of the supplier, the complexity of the technology components, the productive capacity, and the history of relationships between customers and suppliers. It could be concluded that the relationship between customers and the supplier companies surveyed are close to the characteristics of an associative model with contractual relationships and long-term high interdependence although price is still used as the main criterion for being successfully selected by automakers.


The American Diabetes Association (ADA) estimates that 25.8 million Americans have diabetes, 79 million have prediabetes, and 7 million are undiagnosed. These staggering statistics are expected to rise dramatically. The total cost of diabetes care in the United States in 2007was 218 billion dollars. Globally, the disease has reached epidemic proportions,with 171million people worldwide, and projected to increase to 366million people by 2030. Earlier identification and treatment of prediabetes as well as diabetes are critical to decrease future morbidity and associated health care costs. In 2010, the ADA updated their clinical recommendation criteria for diagnosing diabetes and prediabetes to include the use of the laboratory test HbA1c. 3 Following that, the ADA noted that the limitations of the HbA1c do not outweigh its benefits for diagnosing diabetes and preventing diabetes-related complications. In 2011, the ADA's ''Standards of Medical Care'' recommended using point-ofcare (POC)HbA1c testing tomake timely decisions on therapy changes. A joint position statement from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and the American College of Endocrinology acknowledged the advantage of the HbA1c test, but they are not in agreement with the ADA recommendation to use the HbA1c as a sole criterion for diagnosing diabetes. They suggested that the HbA1c should be used in conjunctionwith other criteria when diagnosing diabetes, but not used as a stand-alone diagnostic measure as recommended by the ADA. The HbA1c test provides a golden opportunity to identify and begin treating the considerable number of people undiagnosedwith diabetes. Research studies demonstrate that using the current technology of the rapid POC HbA1c can be instrumental in early identification of diabetes, disease management, and prevention of costly complications (Table 1). The POC HbA1c is a simple finger stick and can produce reliable results in minutes. Point-of-care HbA1c should be available in emergency rooms as a screening and diagnostic tool that can expedite treatment and improve outcomes. The purpose of this brief article is to describe the HbA1c test, reliability of point-of care testing, and potential value for screening patients in acute care hospital settings. Ethical issues are also suggested for analysis.


This work presents a proposal to improve strategic communication San Cipriano Foundation in the area of marketing. Whereas the organization, like companies, need business skills as a result of the promotional mix to achieve economic and social objectives. In these competitions, we derive the effectiveness of the company to meet its goals. Therefore, the Foundation should contact their markets through promotional mix highlighting those aspects that differentiate it from similar organizations in the market.


Baryonic matter can be accreted on to primordial back holes (PBHs) formed in the early Universe. The radiation from accreting PBHs is capable of altering the evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM), leaving marks on the global 21 cm signal in the dark ages. For accreting PBHs with mass $M_{\rm PBH}=10^{3}(10^{4})~M_{\odot}$ and mass fraction $f_{\rm PBH}=10^{-1}(10^{-3})$, the brightness temperature deviation $\Delta \delta T_{b}$ reaches $\sim 18~(26)~\rm mK$ at redshift $z\sim 90$ ($\nu \sim 16~\rm MHz$), and the gradient of the brightness temperature $d\delta T_{b}/d\nu$ reaches $ \sim 0.8~(0.5)~\rm mK~MHz^{-1}$ at frequency $\nu\sim 28~\rm MHz$ ($z\sim 50$). For larger PBHs with higher mass fraction, the brightness temperature deviation is larger in the redshift range $z\sim 30-300$ ($\nu\sim 5-46~\rm MHz$), and the gradient is lower at the frequency range $\nu \sim 20-60~\rm MHz$ ($z\sim 23-70$). It is impossible to detect these low frequency radio signals from the Earth due to the influence of the Earth's ionosphere. However, after taking care of the essential factors properly, e.g. the foreground and interference, future radio telescope in lunar orbit or on the farside surface of the Moon has a chance of detecting the global 21 cm signals impacted by accreting PBHs and distinguishing them from the standard model.


Diabetes affects 425 million people worldwide, and is characterized by abnormal carbohydrate metabolism (hyperglycemia). Type 2 diabetes (T2D), characterized by variable degrees of insulin deficiency and resistance and is responsible for > 90% of cases of diabetes in adults. On the other hand, Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disorder with an absolute deficiency of insulin. Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) is the most common acute cause of morbidity and mortality in youth with T1D.


Asexual lineages are destined for extinction—a result predicted by theory and revealed in practice. Short-term benefits of asexuality are eventually outstripped by their fitness costs: losses of sex and recombination are together expected to reduce efficacy of selection, increase mutation load, and thus, lower fitness. We characterized genomic patterns of accumulating mutations in Diachasma muliebre, a parasitic wasp that has apparently lost sex, an inference supported by many decades of field collections of 1000s of individuals in which only females were found. The split between D. muliebre and its closest sexual relative, Diachasma ferrugineum, is quite recent, allowing us to observe initial events in the evolution of this putative asexual species. First, we find a faster rate of molecular evolution across the D. muliebre genome. In addition, we observed a marked excess of replacement nucleotide substitutions in orthologous genes in the putatively asexual D. muliebre when compared to D. ferrugineum. This pattern directly indicates genome-wide relaxed selection in this young, putatively asexual species, the resulting mutational load from which is expected to ultimately lead to extinction. However, these genomic effects occur in the presence of genomic recombination initially detected by a previous study and also supported by analyses of genome-wide substitution rates within codons. In addition, following completion of the genome sequence and its analysis, we discovered two D. muliebre males, suggesting the possibility of rare sex in this species. Haplodiploid animals, including the sexual ancestors of D. muliebre, bear small genetic loads, likely making their initial transitions to asexuality relatively benign. Paradoxically, an elevated rate of mutation accumulation resulting from asexuality, when accompanied by retention of recombination and/or rare sex, could actually be beneficial: we hypothesize that the novel variation introduced by mutation along with limited shuffling of genes may facilitate initial adaptation and extend persistence of such lineages.


neutral in September •939, and Skelton could never muster much enthusiasm for the war until the Fall of France created a genuine-seeming threat to Canada. He was far more interested in Canada's relations with the United States, in accommodating the dominion to the protective hemispheric policy then dominant in Washington. 'It was certainly the best day's work done for many a year,' Skelton told the prime minister after the Ogdensburg Agreement had been reached in mid-August • 94o. 'It did not come by chance, but as the inevitable sequence of public policies and personal relationships, based upon the realization of the imperative necessity of close understanding between the English-speaking peoples.' All this was true. King and Skelton had been working toward the goal of an accommodation of interests with the United States, convinced that this was in the best interests of both countries (and Britain's too), and the war provided the opportunity that the Depression had not. Ogdensburg also ensured the physical security of Canada, something that a third of a century later we tend to forget, but something that King and Skelton had to consider. To have done anything else in August • 94 ø would have been an appalling lapse of policy, an abdication of responsibility. For Winston Churchill in London, however, Ogdensburg rankled. Here was the senior dominion scuttling for cover under the wing of a neutral. Every imperialist bone in his body ached at the thought. 'Here again,' he telegraphed to Mackenzie King in a message that staggered the Canadian, 'there may be two opinions ... Supposing Mr. Hitler cannot invade us and his Air Force begins to blench under the strain all these transactions will be judged in a mood different to that prevailing while the issue still hangs in the balance.' Poor King and Skelton. They had believed that anything tieing the neutral United States to the empire was a gain. They were correct, of course, and Churchill was in error, in the shortand medium-term, at least. Ogdensburg was a gain, freeing Canadians of the necessity to think of defending their coasts and leaving them able to concentrate on the war overseas. These two huge volumes of Documents on Canadian External Relations tell this story and many more. Here there is material on various Canadian negotiating missions to London and Washington, on Hyde Park, on French gold, on relations with Vichy and de Gaulle, on the expansion in Canadian representation abroad. It is all prime stuff, carefully and intelligently selected from a vast archive, well annotated, indexed and re-indexed, and designed skilfully for scholarly users. These volumes are the best of the r•1⁄2v.•t series to date, the first, I suspect, in which those familiar with the material available will not quarrel with the selection. There is one error Arthur Roebuck was not, as he is listed in a footnote, a Conservative M}' but Professor Murray and the Historical Division of External Affairs are entitled to plaudits. Now, if the publication of the remaining volumes can only be speeded up ...


Khargone district is located at the southwest border of Madhya Pradesh. The district comprises of many archaeological and historical sites viz. Navdatoli, Maheshwar, Kasrawad, Mandleshwar. Archaeological excavations at these sites revealed vast cultural assemblage from Lower Paleolithic to Medieval Period. Pottery plays significant role in the reconstruction and understanding of past technologies and socio-economic-religious life. Present paper endeavors to understand contemporary traditional pottery practices at these sites. Besides documentation of degeneration of technology, authors aim to put forth the survival problems of the potters. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to examine the possible reasons behind their present socio-economic conditions.


Another water-soluble anthoxanthin already isolated from fresh tea leaves (pigment C in the previous paper), was studied further and proved to be a flavonol glycoside, corresponding to formula C33H40O21, which gave dark green colour with ferric chloride. Hydrolysis of the glycoside with 5 per cent. sulfuric acid gave one mole of quercetin (pentaacetate, m. p. 193_??_4°), one mole of rhamnose (phenylosazone, m. p. 182°), and 2 moles of glucose (phenylosazone, m. p. 204°). In order to determine the bonding position of sugars, the glycoside was methylated with dimethylsulfate and potassium carbonate in acetone. Upon hydrolysis of the product with 3 per-cent. sulfuric acid, tetramethyl quercetin was obtained as yellow needles, m. p. 195°. Be-cause the mixed melting point of this methylated aglycone with an authentic specimen of 5, 7, 3', 4'-tetramethyl quercetin taken from the hydrolysis of completely methylated riutin was not depressed, it is concluded that the original anthoxanthin is the glycoside of quercetin. The. sugars are being combined with the hydroxyl group at position 3 in the form of trisaccharide.


The purpose of this paper is to develop a partial equilibrium model for the Tunisian dairy sector according to "quantity formulation" and "price formulation" and to show their equivalence under the assumption of perfect competition.,This model incorporates domestic policies, that is, producers' price support and subsidies to milk collection centres and trade policies, that is, TRQ and ad valorem tariffs. The authors illustrate theoretically and numerically how to incorporate the minimum price policy at the farm level for the Tunisian dairy sector according to the price formulation approach.,Two scenarios for the removal of a minimum price policy are analysed and show that producers' surplus loss varies between 78.6 and 127.8 million dinars. The overall welfare implications of removing a minimum price policy are negative and range between 13.3 and 18.2 million dinars.,This study could not include all of the detailed factors in the Tunisian dairy sector.,Based on the numerical results obtained in the study, the authors recommend that public authorities maintain the minimum price policy because it prevents a decrease in raw milk producers' surplus. Moreover, this policy is effective because it generates excess raw milk production, estimated at 28.23% in 2010, that can be used for various homemade dairy products. Under an effective minimum price policy, the formal processing sector absorbs all the excess raw milk only if the public authorities allocate grants to encourage investment in new milk collection centres and in milk drying equipment, especially in disadvantaged rural regions. The latter economic policy coupled with a minimum price policy not only guarantees a higher income for raw milk producers but also may represent a development factor for underprivileged rural areas.


Synthesis of title compounds and derivatives is reported by the Perkin reaction of 3-formyl-4-phenyl/methyl-2-quinolones (3) with sodium salt of phenylacetic acid. The 3-formyl-2-quinolones 3 were obtained from 2-chloro-3-formyl-4-phenyl/ methylquinolines (2) which intern were prepared from 2-chloro-4-phenyl/methyl-3-vinylquinolines (1).


Being relative to individual contributory system,family contributory system of individual income tax is more equitable and efficient on the tax design.As far as jurisprudence is concerned,it inosculates the rules related to the law and even embodies properly the determinative tiny body of economic action.Therefore,family contributory system should be the reform direction of our individual income tax.With family contributory system,our individual income tax should be more advanced and innovative,including restating the tax payment unit,practicing integrated income system,standardizing the tax base,advancing the tax rate and improving the corresponding measure and means of levy and management.


Continuous, dispersion varying fibres (DVFs) offer a wide range of potential applications for distributed linear/nonlinear pulse manipulation and control. With the development of simple fibre fabrication technology capable of manufacturing up to 40 km lengths of DVF considerable attention has focussed on their potential application as a transmission media in advanced soliton communication systems. As pointed out by Tajima [1] fibres with exponentially varying dispersion matched to follow the fibre loss can be used to eliminate the deleterious effects of the local imbalances in nonlinearity and dispersion that arise as a result of the pulse energy variation between amplifier spans in a conventional soliton transmission line. These localised imbalances restrict the bit-rates that can be used in single channel systems once the soliton period of the pulses approaches that of the amplifier spacing, and also give rise to serious inter-channel effects in soliton WDM systems [5]. Single pulse transmission experiments have recently been demonstrated illustrating loss compensation over single amplifiers spans using loss compensating dispersion decreasing fibre (LCDDF)[2,3]. These early results have been followed by multi amplifier-stage experiments, illustrating application to the periodically amplified case for short pulses in regimes not permitted by conventional average soliton dynamics [4]. However, error free pulse transmission for high bit-rate single channel data transmission was found to be limited by effects such as the soliton acoustic interaction and Gordon Haus jitter which are pronounced due to the high path average path dispersion of the available LCDDFs [4]. In order to obtain significantly better results, LCDDFs with correspondingly smaller absolute dispersion range variations need to be developed. (Note that the application of a discrete approximation to the desired exponential dispersion profile for enhanced soliton WDM transmission have also been demonstrated [5]). In this paper we present initial results on the development of low dispersion, LCDDFs and present the first experimental results on the use of these more gently tapered fibres in recirculating loop experiments. We show that the lower average dispersion reduces the strong deleterious effects observed in the earlier loop experiments and obtain error free, 10 GBit/s, 4.7ps pulse transmission over fibre lengths in excess of 4300km.


In this project is presented things about renewable energy sources and their characteristics but is given more importance in the GPS, GREEK POWER SYSTEM, (either private power stations or NATIONAL ELECTRICAL COMPANY) by conventional sources and by Renewable Energy Sources. Afterwards, it is reported, extensively, to the energy sources that is used in simulations, in other words the solar energy, the wind energy and the hydrogen technology (that includes fuel cells, electrolyze of water for hydrogen production and the storage of the last one).

It is developed the battery as stocking unit and then is reported to the economic elements of a power system. The last theoretical part is dedicated to the simulation program, HOMER and is analyzed its components and its techniques.

In the last part of project, is simulated autonomous power systems and is commented their results, being helped by the diagrams that HOMER exports. Initially, it is mentioned the data that were used, that is to say the area with its solar and wind data, the elements that were used in the simulations, the types of wind generators, of photovoltaic frames, of fuel cells, of electrolytes, of hydrogen storages, of batteries, of inverter and of diesel generators, as well as the economic elements of simulations.

The simulations contained the combination of the above sources of energy ( 6 simulations) aiming the recovery of the most lucrative combination of hybrid autonomous power system for an area close to Heraklion of Crete that was examined. The simulations were realized with the use of batteries and without them in order to understand their influences in autonomous power systems. The results of the simulations cannot lead, precisely, to a lucrative choice about a power system, something that depends on investor's criteria. These are:

• Based on the use or not of batteries
• Based on the total production of energy
• Based on the excess electricity
• Based on the power system responsible for the pollution of the environment
• Based on the photovoltaic tilt , according to the sensitivity results

The main factors το choose an electric power system are the economic and the emission of pollutants. According to simulation results, the most economic choice of hybrid system is the combination of diesel generator - photovoltaic frames and the combination of photovoltaic frames-wind generator are the friendliest choice to the environment. Between the above choices, the second one is the most aproppriate due to its low cost, while the first one produces high percentage of pollutants.
Finally, we realized 3 more simulations combined the technology of hydrogen, using possible future prices of its elements (forecasts for 2020), with the renewable energy sources. According to these results, the future belongs to hydrogen technology and its combination with the solar or the wind energy can create a cheap, efficient and without pollutants choice.


Abstract: Saline, also called as saline solution, is a mixture of sodium chloride in water and has a number of uses in medicine. Applied to the affected area it is used to clean wounds, help remove contact lens, and help with dry eyes. By injecting into vein it is used to treat dehydration such as from gastroenteritis and diabetic ketoacedosis. It is also used to dilute other medications to be given by injection. A drip is a short, small plastic tube that a doctor or nurse will put into your patient's vein, using a needle. They will leave a plastic tube in so that fluids and medicines go directly into your patient's blood. Normally at all hospital the saline level was monitored by the working staff and the nurses. Basically this particular procedure is delayed and obnoxious. This problem may happens due to the less number of working staff in the hospital and due to carelessness and laxity. When the saline bottle is empty back flow of blood takes place. The proposed system consists of Monitoring the quantity of the fluid at every interval and regulating the saline flow. When it crosses the critical level of the saline bottle the an indication system has been provided to the system and it will also send an alert message to the particular staff who is taking care of the patient.


In her complex and subtle paper, Louise Tilly raises a host of intriguing, debatable issues. She tells us, pace Joan Scott, that women's history has "arrived" in terms of both institotionaliza-tion within the academy and development into a separate historical specialty. She tells us that we must strive towards a women's history that is not only descriptive (seeing the task "of retrieving women's lives and achievements ... as sufficient unto themselves") but also analytical ("connecting its problems to those of other histories"). She tells us, again pace Joan Scott, that a literary approach to gender downplays human agency and offers no constructive means of historical explanation. And she tells us that social history, as it has been informed and altered by women's history in the last twenty years, is the best place for connection between women's history and "the agenda of history as a whole."


The present invention carbon dioxide in the Claus process - relates to the treatment of acid gas rich, removes this unwanted sulfur compounds from industrial gas through that. The method, the sulfur content removed by the selective solvents in the gas scrubbing process, and glass for playback operation, and to remove the acidic gas containing sulfur, and carbon dioxide by more than one acid gas fraction, the content of sulfur components higher at least one to give the acid gas portion, the portion having the highest content of hydrogen sulphide is oxygen-introduced to the thermal reaction stage in a Claus heating a burner using a gas containing provided, the sulfur content in the sulfur dioxide in a thermal reaction stage in a Claus heating conversion, and high-temperature combustion exhaust gas and discharged into the hermetic Claus reaction chamber located at the rear of the burner, the sulfur content coming from the reproduction device to supply the remaining acid gas portion of the detached state to the climb Versus reaction chamber combustion emitted from the burner gases and mixed. The present invention also relates to apparatus for performing the method, the apparatus is composed of a Claus burner, and Claus reactor equipped with an absorber, at least one discharge (expulsion) stage, regeneration column, by-pass control.


The constancy of the speed of light, which is one of the two postulates of Special Relativity (SR) theory, is known to have a firm experimental and intuitive basis. However, SR requires length contraction time dilation hypothesis. In this paper, a new theory of light has been proposed as an alternative to this hypothesis. This paper proposes that light wave contracts towards or expands away from the source depending on the relative velocity (V) of the observer and the source so that the velocity of light in vacuum relative to any observer is always equal to C(3 x 10 8). The apparent velocity (C') of light relative to the source depends on the relative velocity (V) of the source and the observer so that the speed of light relative to an observer is always equal to C, i.e. C' - V = C (vector difference), in the reference frame of the source, and C' + V = C (vector sum), in the reference frame of the observer. Expansion or contraction of the wave is not a mere speculation but is a direct consequence of the principle of relativity and the well known phenomena of Doppler effect of light, in which speed of light remains constant and wavelength changes. The center of the spherical wave fronts moves at the velocity that the source had at the instant of emission, and yet the speed of light is the same constant C for any observer! According to SR , the center of a light wave front from a moving source is at the 'point in space where the source was' at the instant of emission. This is why SR doesn't predict stellar aberration in the reference frame of the earth. This assumption has to be investigated carefully with respect to the principle of relativity itself. The new theory agrees with the experimentally established fact that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the source (and the observer). It explains stellar aberration in both the earth and stellar reference frames. It predicts the null result of Michelson-Morley experiment. It agrees with Einstein's notion of motion, his two postulates and is in accordance with Galilean invariance principle. The Relativity of Electromagnetic Waves theory has been shown to better conform to the principle of relativity than Special Relativity does.


Objective: Self-rated health as an important health outcome is affected by several factors. It is of great importance to investigate the determinants of self-rated health of individuals in order to obtain better results regarding public health. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that affect the self-rated health of adults in Türkiye.
Methods: Logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze data from the TurkStat's 2014 Health Survey, with 19,129 people. The independent variables were related to socio-economic characteristics, health problems, lifestyle, and utilisation of healthcare services, while the dependent variable was self-rated health.
Results: It was found that younger people, men, and people with higher educational and income levels rated their health status better. The health status of individuals with chronic diseases, mental disorders, sleeping problems and those who did not have a normal range body mass index also rated their health status as poor. However, the self-rated health of people who had no inpatient treatment in the last 12 months and those who took no prescription medicine in the last two weeks was good.
Conclusion: This study provided the identification of the most advantaged and disadvantaged groups through determining the factors affecting the health status of adults in Türkiye. To improve the unfavourable condition of disadvantaged individuals, more specific interventions need to be designed and implemented.


Studies indicate that less than half of all women gain the amount of gestational weight recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 24 . Therefore, many women retain significant weight and fat mass in the post-partum period. The main objective of this study was to report the types of weight loss strategies women are using from 6-12 months post-partum. We used data from the Fostering Optimal Growth Through Prevention and Intervention Strategies (FOOTPRINTS) longitudinal, observational study of mother-infant dyads to investigate this research question. Subjects consist of 37 mothers living in Centre County, Pennsylvania. Pregravid weight and gestational weight gain for each participant were self-reported. Air displacement plethysmography was used to measure weight and percent fat mass at 1, 6, 9, and 12 months post-partum. The French Survey was administered at 12 months post-partum to document the weight loss strategies used during the previous 6 months 34 . The data from the French Survey was analyzed for trends in the frequency and prevalence in which women participated in healthy and unhealthy weight loss strategies. When participants were asked a single item question, "Are you currently dieting or exercising to lose weight?" the majority of women (75%) reported "No." However, a little over half (56%) reported currently trying to maintain their weight. Of the 20 women who tried to lose weight from 6-12 months post-partum, 14 (70%) felt they succeeded. Only 4 (20%) of these women consider their weight loss "very successful". The most prevalent weight loss strategies were eating more fruits and vegetables (56%), increasing exercise (44%), and eliminating sweets (44%). Unhealthy strategies were not readily practiced, the most


The skill of writing children's drama script must be in accordance with all children's lives. These skills are not easy for adults. Adults tend to force their minds on children. This happens because adults find it hard to think like children. This study aims to describe the application of the picture and picture method in writing children's drama scripts. There are 5 aspects that must be considered in writing children's drama scripts: uniqueness, creativity, interest, level of children's development, and the position of the drama script in the lives of children. These five aspects are the basis in the creation of ideas, themes, mandates, characters, disposition, setting, and plot of the children's drama script. These five aspects appear in the picture and picture method. The method can record all the activities of children so that children's drama scripts according to the uniqueness, creativity, interests, and level of development of children.


neighbouring countries, notably Singapore, provided the papers are not too specialized or esoteric. But we have felt a major obligation to the general reader, who may be a general practitioner or a specialist whose interests are wider than his specialty. We aim to develop the component of the Journal which provides information of value and interest to the clinician, whether it is the straightforward didactic paper or the deeper survey of advances in medicine. At the same time, the Journal always has had a place for the more general type of article--for example, in particular areas such as medical education and medical history, in a variety of more peripheral fields or in medicine's increasingly recognized social environment. We hope that we can always present medicine as having many facets-a scientific discipline set in and inseparable from the total business of living. Ten years ago our leading article said that as a general journal "our role should be like that of the general practitioner in its relation to keeping medicine human. The more scientific medicine becomes, the better it should please us, but the more we should be careful. Medicine is ultimately concerned with the care of people by people. We shall be heading for destruction if we ever forget that both doctors and patients are human". That remains our charter as the Journal enters its seventh decade. It will, we hope, still be so when we reach our three score years and ten.


In this paper we propose a novel method for the mitigation of uncorrelated frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) automotive radar interferences based on the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and L-statistics. The idea of the method is to compute the STFT of the beat signal and sort each constant frequency line of the spectrogram in ascending order, which places the bins affected by interference towards the right hand side of the time-frequency plane. Onwards, the interference-free range profile is computed by a coherent summation along the time axis of the bins considered to be unaffected by interference (the first q% of time bins from the sorted spectrogram). The impact of the STFT parameters (sliding window length and step size) and the summation percentage q on the method's performances and computation time is investigated using a synthetic dataset that contains 24000 samples of realistic automotive radar signals (with multiple targets and interference sources). It is shown that the developed method can mitigate multiple interference sources. Moreover, by increasing the sliding window step size to half the window's length we obtain similar performances to the case with unitary step size (the classical STFT definition) and the computation time decreases significantly, which makes the method more suitable for real time implementation on a digital signal processor. The method is compared with state-of-the-art interference mitigation approaches on the synthetic dataset and real data acquired with a W-band automotive radar.


A 0-1 matrix $M$ contains a 0-1 matrix pattern $P$ if we can obtain $P$ from $M$ by deleting rows and/or columns and turning arbitrary 1-entries into 0s. The saturation function $\mathrm{sat}(P,n)$ for a 0-1 matrix pattern $P$ indicates the minimum number of 1s in an $n \times n$ 0-1 matrix that does not contain $P$, but changing any 0-entry into a 1-entry creates an occurrence of $P$. Fulek and Keszegh recently showed that each pattern has a saturation function either in $O(1)$ or in $\Theta(n)$. We fully classify the saturation functions of permutation matrices.


Which influence do individual product characteristics have on the user experience? Which product characteristics are worthwhile investing in? What are the minimum requirements of individual characteristics in a product category that must be fulfilled in order for the users to still accept the product? Which qualities enthuse delight the users? designaffairs has developed the HUX Tool (Holistic User Experience) in order to find reliable answers to these crucial product strategy questions. HUX takes 21 characteristics into consideration to compile a complete description of the User Experience. In addition to pure product characteristics such as design or material quality, other context-related attributes such as brand perception or product presentation are also surveyed. The measurement involves assessing the characteristics independently of one another in an extensive panel and then analysing them by means of a statistical process. The benefit of HUX over established UX measurement methods is that the tool delivers specific guidelines for individual product attributes from the measurement results. It shows which characteristics are worth investing in, in order to make the product successful. This even involves determining non-linear correlations such as, for example, hygiene or delight factors including critical limits. The end result provides clear decision-making information for strategic product planning.


The method of strain range partitioning was applied to a series of torsional fatigue tests conducted on tubular 304 stainless steel specimens at 1200 F (649 C). Creep strain was superimposed on cycling strain, and the resulting strain range was partitioned into four components; completely reversed plastic shear strain followed by creep strain, creep strain followed by plastic strain and completely reversed creep strain. Each strain component was related to the cyclic life of the material. The paper describes the experimental procedure used to achieve strain partitioning and the torsional test results are compared to those obtained from axial tests. The damaging effects of the individual strain components were expressed by a linear life fraction rule. The shear strain plastic component showed the least detrimental factor when compared to creep strain reversal by plastic strain. In the latter case, a reduction of torsional fatigue life in the order of magnitude of 1.5 was observed.


Sixty five patients with of ankylosing spondylitis were randomly divided into intervention group (n=32) and control group (n=33). Patients in control group received conventional treatment only; in addition to conventional treatment, patients in intervention group also received community intervention, including health education, psychological counseling and joint function exercise. The treatment lasted for 6 months, 29 patients in intervention group and 28 in control group completed the trial. The results showed that the spinal motion (flexion, extension, lateral bending), chest expantion, finger to floor distance, occiput to wall gap in intervention group were better improved than those in control group after treatment (P<0.05). The scores of self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS) were lower in intervention group than those in control group after treatment (P<0.05). The results indicate that community intervention can effectively improve spinal mobility, reduce spinal deformity; relieve the anxiety and depression and improve the quality of life for patients with ankylosing spondylitis.

Key words:
Ankylosing, spondylitis; Community health service


Background: Junk foods typically contain high calories from sugar or fat with little protein, vitamins, or minerals. This study was conducted to determine the consumption and prevalence of junk food consumed among school-age adolescents. The main aims of this study were to find out the junk food consumption among school-age adolescents (5-18) in Kanakasundari rural municipality.Methods: This was analytical cross-sectional research. The total sample size for the study was 280. Purposive sampling was used to select the schools and census was used to select the students from the schools. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire in Nepali version was used to collect the data and the collected data were entered and analysed in SPSS using simple statistical methods.Results: Among the 280 respondents, the mean age was 15.17 years. The consumption of junk food among adolescents was 45 percent among males and 55 percent among females. Religion (p=0.011) and type of family (p=0.034) were significantly associated with junk food consumption. The participants following Hindu religion were 3.43 times more likely to be consume junk food (COR=3.430, 95% CI=1.256-9.366) as compared to non-Hindu. Participants residing in joint family were less likely to consume junk food (COR=0.490, 95% CI=0.252-0.954) as compared to nuclear family.Conclusions: Majority of children consumed junk food regularly; the majority preferred it for taste and some were influenced by advertisements. There is a great need to maintain healthy eating habits among adolescents to decrease the health risk associated with frequent junk food.


At present, the following problems can be found in the in-service training programs for police officers: lack of comprehensive training projects; need more attentions; teaching content is not in accordance with the reality; lack of the system of restraint etc., which greatly impair the training quality for the officers. Effective measures must be carried out to solve these problems as soon as possible.


This paper discusses the results of a literature review of the terms adaptive clothing, functional clothing, universal design, and inclusive design, which are used in the clothing industry when marketing wearable product to people living with disability.


The effect of EAF power supply system on the lining erosion is discussed through analyzing the lining erosion index. It is indicated that high voltage power should be applied during the melting stage and the earlier / medium stage of oxidization, the current should be adjusted according to different levels of voltage.


The external efficiency of today's LED is still very small, typically less than 10%, although the internal efficiency can be very high (/spl sim/100%). This is because when light have been generated in the active layer inside the diode, they must be liberated to the outside in order to be of any use. Because the refractive index of semiconductor material is usually quite high (/spl sim/3.5), more than three times as air, therefore the critical angle /spl theta//sub c/ given by Snell's law (from semiconductor to air) is very small, typically /spl sim/17/spl deg/. Recently, LED's having external quantum efficiency as high as 30% has been reported; this was achieved by adding many interesting features including fabricating a coarse texturing on the semiconductor surface with a back reflector, where the escape probability of photons can be increased substantially. However, the mechanism of achieving such a high efficiency due to the textured surface is not yet fully understood. Two programs have been coded to simulate the external efficiency of semiconductor LED-a 3-dimensional LED program without back reflector and a 2-dimensional program with back reflector.


We present a model and a hypothesis testing based framework for determining genuinely good service providers from the ratings given to them by customers, allowing ratings to be imperfect representations of the service provided. The problem is complicated because the nature of the customer that rates the service provider affects the reliability of the rating, but this nature is not known a priori and has to be estimated through the ratings themselves. We consider two detectors for hypothesis testing — majority based detector and the maximum likelihood estimator. Their performance is compared and evaluated numerically.


A wall function suitable for the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) is developed. This wall function is an improvement of the standard log law but has a unified formula spanning the whole turbulent boundary layer. By modifying a compressible heat transfer wall function, the ability of this wall function is extended to the ABL problems. Hence the ground effects such as heat transfer, pressure gradient can be included in the wall function. The method of introducing the roughness into this king of wall function is also discussed. Several cases including not only the typical turbulent flat plate but also some practically complex ones have been computed as verification of the wall function. The results show that the wall function produces modification to the turbulence values near the boundary, leading to an upgrade of the accuracy especially when the atmospheric boundary effects exist. The impact of these effects on the boundary layer indicates that they are unelectable for complex ABL flow. Besides, this wall function has good efficiency and strong robustness thus it can be applied as a boundary condition into the wind farm simulation for wind energy.


This study examines the relationship between predicted fire hazard and observed fire activity at different stages of seasonal vegetation development. The data consisted of Finnish national fire records 1996-2003, the daily values of the effective temperature sum of over 5 °C, the Finnish Fire Risk Index, and the FWI and ISI codes of the Canadian Fire Weather Index System. The highest probabilities for fire-day and multiple-fire-day occurrence were found during the final stage of the growing season, at the temperature sum value of above 900. The probability of large-fire-day was highest during the early stages of the growing season. The statistical significance of the probability models was poorest during the initial and final stages of the season.


On page 4526 Leopardi's Zibaldone comes to an end. This article provides an interpretation of the philosophical ideas and performative instances which extend throughout the notebook, and which are responsible for the interruption of Leopardi's writing. By analysing the tensions between two antithetical philosophical and cultural models, that of Christianity, which re-proposes itself in the figure of the 'stupefied' Adam, and that of ancient Greek civilization, emerging in dialogical forms of Socratic dialogue, I aim to shed light on the importance of Leopardi's self-educational drive as an informing principle of the text. In the daily set of methods and learning practices which structure the everyday development of the notebook, and which are regulated by the principle of clarity, Leopardi's contrasting impulses between self-reflexive control and openness to the unexpected mirror broader cultural conflicts generated by the passage from antiquity to modernity.


The paper describes the different product-costing systems in the textile industry, conventional systems, activity-based costing, and the concept of strategic cost management. It focuses on the need for detailed and accurate product cost from the managerial viewpoint and discusses an integrated costing approach within the textile pipeline.


Introduction Breast cancer and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are key issues for modern medicine. The aim of the current study was to present how cytokines, in the example of IL-6 and its polymorphism, can affect these two conditions. Material and methods Thirty-one women with benign breast tumours, 42 breast cancer patients and 40 HIV-infected females were enrolled in the study. Serum IL-6 levels were determined by ELISA. The IL-6 polymorphism was genotyped by PCR-RFLP. Results Serum IL-6 in patients with benign breast tumours was significantly lower than in females with breast cancer (p = 0.017) and HIV-infected women (p = 0.032). We did not find statistically significant differences in serum IL-6 level between females with breast cancer and HIV-infected women (p = 0.749). Comparing the distribution of genotypes and frequency of the IL-6 (–174) C/G polymorphism between the three study groups – breast cancer patients, patients with benign breast tumours, and HIV-infected patients – we did not find any statistically significant differences. Conclusions IL-6 can play an important role in pathogenesis of breast cancer and HIV infection and its level is higher than in the control group irrespective of distribution of genotypes and frequency of the IL-6 (–174) C/G polymorphism.


The Inside Source (http://www.theinsidesource.com) harnesses the eBay shopping community's real time buying and selling activity to curate insights that shape the retail industry and consumer's lifestyles.


In this paper, an effective joint direction-of-arrival (DOA) and propagation delay estimation method is proposed for multipath signals impinging the uniform linear antenna array. In this presented method, the real and imaginary parts of the ith eigenvalue of a matrix are one-to-one related to the DOA and propagation delay of the ith path's signal. Thus, the paring of the estimated DOAs and delays is automatically determined. Compared with the previous works, the proposed method can provide better performance, such as it can avoid the complex joint diagonal processing, which reduces the computation complexity. The performances of relevant algorithms are compared via simulations, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified.


Beliefs that are negatively biased, inaccurate, and rigid are thought to play a key role in the mood and anxiety disorders. Our goal in this study was to examine whether a change in maladaptive beliefs mediated the outcome of individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD). In a sample of 47 individuals with SAD receiving CBT, we measured maladaptive interpersonal beliefs as well as emotional and behavioral components of social anxiety, both at baseline and after treatment completion. We found that (a) maladaptive interpersonal beliefs were associated with social anxiety at baseline and treatment completion; (b) maladaptive interpersonal beliefs were significantly reduced from baseline to treatment completion; and (c) treatment-related reductions in maladaptive interpersonal beliefs fully accounted for reductions in social anxiety after CBT. These results extend the literature by providing support for cognitive models of mental disorders, broadly, and SAD, specifically. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Cognitive models of mood and anxiety disorders posit that maladaptive beliefs that are central to one's identity and are negatively biased, inaccurate, and rigid (e.g., "core beliefs") play a causal role in generating the emotional disturbance that characterizes these disorders (Beck & Dozios, 2011). Empirical research has provided evidence that these types of maladaptive beliefs are associated with psychopathology and are generally stable (Riso, du Toit, Stein, & Young, 2007) but sometimes vary with the severity of symptomatology (e.g., Lewinsohn, Steinmetz, Larson, & Franklin, 1981). Many studies have also provided evidence for a potentially causal role of maladaptive beliefs in mood and anxiety disorders (e.g., Alloy et al., 2006) though this evidence is mixed (Ingram, Miranda, & Segal, 1998; Jarrett, Vittengl, Doyle, & Clark, 2007). Our goal in this study was to examine the role of maladaptive belief change in cognitivebehavioral treatment for social anxiety disorder (SAD). Contemporary cognitive models of SAD (e.g., Heimberg, Brozovich, & Rapee, 2010; Rapee & Heimberg, 1997) posit that individuals with SAD have maladaptive beliefs regarding themselves (as socially incompetent) and others (as critical judges). When activated in a social situation, these maladaptive cognitions transform innocuous social cues (e.g., another person looking away during a conversation) into significant social threats.Whereasmany studies have documented the role of less stable, surface-level maladaptive cognitions, such as appraisals, attributions, and thoughts in SAD (e.g., Schulz, Alpers, & Hofmann, 2008; Stopa & Clark, 1993), only five studies have investigated the role of maladaptive beliefs in SAD (Anderson, Goldin, Kuria, & Gross, 2008; Ball, Otto, Pollack, Uccello, & Rosenbaum, 1995; Pinto-Gouveia, Castilho, Galhardo, & Cunha, 2006; Rapee, Gaston, & Abbott, 2009; Wenzel, 2004). Changing maladaptive cognitions is a primary focus of the best researched and most widely supported psychotherapeutic treatment for SAD, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT; Beck & Dozios, 2011). However, studies investigating maladaptive beliefs in the context of CBT (DeRubeis et al., 1990; Jarrett et al., 2007) have generally been conducted in the context of depressive disorders, except for a study by Hofmann et al. (2007) who studied patients with panic disorder, and a study by Rapee et al. (2009), who studied patientswith SAD. Rapee et al. (2009) comparedmaladaptive beliefs related to negative representations of appearance and performance (e.g., "I look attractive") and "core" beliefs related to SAD (e.g., "I am dumb/stupid") in patients receiving an enhanced cognitivebehavioral treatment, a standard cognitive-behavioral treatment, * Corresponding author. Center for Health Care Evaluation, 795 Willow Rd. 152MPD, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States. Tel.: þ1 650 493 5000x27529. E-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com (M.T. Boden).


Introduction:
 Idiopathic Dilated (DCM) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathies (HCM) are leading causes of sudden cardiac death. The incidence and prevalence of both DCM and HCM were originally estimated in Olmsted County, MN over 1975-1984. Incidence was 6.0 and prevalence was 36.5 per 100,000 person-years, for DCM; with incidence and prevalence rates of 2.5 and 19.7 per 100,000 person-years for HCM. This study aims to determine the incidence and mortality rates of individuals diagnosed with HCM and DCM in Olmsted County, MN from 1984 to 2016.

 Methods:
 The Rochester Epidemiology Project is a validated long term medical record linkage system that collects and links medical information for the approximately 145000 residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota. Using this database and the Electronic Health Record systems at Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester, MN, we manually reviewed and validated the medical records of 4440 patients. This cohort includes all patients with any mention of a cardiomyopathy based on ICD and HICDA codes during the period 1984 to 2016. Data were summarized with mean and standard deviation, frequency and percentage and compared between groups using two sample t-test for continuous data and chi-square for proportions. Survival was computed using Kaplan-Meier methods and compared to expected survival based on age and gender. Incidence was computed using Olmsted County population numbers during the time period and adjusted to the US 1980 white population to allow for comparison with the previous study.

 Results:
 The calculated crude incidence rate for DCM and HCM are 10.1 and 7.8 per 100,000 respectively. Incidence rates adjusted for comparison to US 1980 white population (age and sex adjusted) are 10.4 (95% CI: 9.3-11.4) and 8.0 (95% CI: 7.1-8.8) per 100,000 person-years, respectively. The observed number of deaths in this cohort (HCM and DCM) was 420 vs 194 expected.

 Conclusions:
 Calculated incidence, both crude and adjusted rates are higher than previously estimated rates. The crude incidence rate for HCM is almost 4-fold higher than that for DCM is 2.4 times higher than the original estimate by Codd et al. Individuals with cardiomyopathies were found to have a higher overall mortality rate than the general population with an observed to expected hazard ratio of 1.73 (95% CI 1.49-2.01, p<0.001) for DCM and 1.44 (95% CI 1.21-1.71, p<0.001) for HCM. Our findings suggest that previous studies may have underestimated the true burden of HCM and DCM in the population which has important implications for healthcare provision and cost.


AIM: To investigate the expression of SCL (stem cell leukemia) gene in bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) and bone marrow hematopoietic cells from patients with aplastic anemia (AA) and normal individuals. METHODS: Bone marrow stromal cells from AA (9 cases) and normal individuals (33 cases) were amplified by long-term in vitro culture. The adherent and nonadherent cells were collected respectively. RT-PCR-ELISA assay was then performed to detect the expression of SCL gene and the housekeeping gene β_2 microglobulin (β_2M). The expression ratio of SCL gene were analyzed and its expression level was normalized by β_2M gene acting as an internal calibration for the purpose of semi-quantitative analysis. RESULTS: The expression ratio of SCL gene was lower in BMSCs from AA (22.2%) than that in normal controls (69.7%, P0.05) and in the nonadherent cells from AA than that in their corresponding BMSCs (P0.05). Semi-quantitative analysis by PCR-ELISA showed that SCL gene expression level in nonadherent cells from normal control was significantly higher than that in their corresponding BMSCs (P0.05). CONCLUSION: The state of low expression of SCL gene in BMSCs from AA suggests that it may be involved in the abnormal regulation of hematopoiesis in AA. [


The invention relates to a device having a fixing device, which is adapted for irreversible attachment to a carcass, particularly at the narrow point of the leg, wherein said fixing means against each having two in a relative movement of movable latching or locking members and a transponder, which by a guiding element with a shutter is coupled. The transponder has a memory or chip, and an antenna, wherein preferably the trigger means of the guide element is connected to the antenna.


Currently, left atrial pacing by the use of the coronary sinus or epicardial leads represents a field of intense investigation, while efforts are underway to explore the optimal right atrial pacing site. With the development of screw-in leads, a large variety of right atrial pacing sites can be achieved without much effort. We face the question of what atrial lead position should be used for dual chamber pacemaker and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) systems. This question gains increased importance in light of trials investigating atrial arrhythmia suppression by pacing. These trials concentrate on surface electrocardiography (ECG) parameters (such as P wave duration), electrophysiological variables such as interand intraatrial conduction times, refractoriness, and the site of the arrhythmogenic focus. However, little work has been performed with regard to atrial pacing performance as a whole combining electrophysiological, hemodynamic, pacing, sensing, and several other properties at different right atrial pacing sites. In search for an answer to the question of optimal right atrial pacing sites, several aspects should be considered: (1) which site favors atrial pacing performance? (2) which site provides suitable atrial sensing performance? (3) are there site-specific differences of lead dislodgement rate? (4) do some sites improve hemodynamic function? (5) are certain sites required for atrial arrhythmia suppression?


To carry out their specific roles in the cell, genes and gene products often work together in groups, forming many relationships among themselves and with other molecules. With advances in science and technology, some high throughput technologies have been developed to simultaneously detect tens of thousands of pairwise protein-protein interactions and protein-DNA interactions. However, the data generated by high throughput methods are prone to noise. Furthermore, the technology itself has its limitations, and cannot detect all kinds of relationships between genes and their products. Thus there is a pressing need to investigate all kinds of relationships and their roles in a living system using bioinformatic approaches, and is a central challenge in Computational Biology and Systems Biology. This book focuses on exploring relationships between genes and gene products using bioinformatic approaches. Specifically, we consider problems related to regulatory relationships, protein-protein interactions, and semantic relationships between genes.


Anaesthetic management of patients with hepatic dysfunction can be quite challenging, as many anaesthetic agents are metabolized by liver. Heart disease on anti coagulation can pose additional challenge. Here we report a case of Gilbert's syndrome with rheumatic heart disease on anti coagulation posted for elective hernia repair.


The complexity of ecological-economic systems significantly reduces our ability to investigate their behavior and propose policies aimed at various environmental and/or economic objectives. Following recent suggestions for integrating nonlinear dynamic modeling with input-output (IO) modeling, we develop a fully dynamic ecological-economic model by integrating IO with system dynamics (SD) for better capturing critical attributes of ecological-economic systems. We also develop and evaluate various scenarios using policy impact and policy sensitivity analyses. The model and analysis are applied to the degradation of fish nursery habitats by industrial harbors in the Seine estuary (Haute-Normandie region, France). The modeling technique, dynamization, and scenarios allow us to show trade-offs between economic and ecological outcomes and evaluate the impacts of restoration scenarios and water quality improvement on the fish population.


Combining with the construction of PVC program with 0.2 million-ton per year in Lu'an Group of Shanxi,the paper introduces the adjusting methods for the transformers in the electrical installation projects and its stTIF,and points out the quality of the adjustment of the transformers can be improved by adhering to the design graphs and the construction regulation,the cautious organization,the strict organization,and forbidding quality hidden hazards in the process of the construction,so as to improve the reliability and stability of the power system.


Laser induced fluorescence (LIF) was used to measure the mean and variance of the velocity distribution of xenon ions emitted from two hollow cathode assemblies operating at low power. High-energy ions detected in plumemode and spot-mode operation are consistent with the potential-hill model of high-energy ion production. The distributions of velocities were modeled, yielding temperatures on the order of a few eV in plume-mode and one eV in spot-mode. LIF of neutral xenon atoms in the plumes indicated thermal temperatures significantly less than the temperatures associated with the ion velocity distributions.


A scheme is presented for realizing any function, combinational or sequential, in a single universal function scheme, termed the universal function object UF. This scheme is addressed to the problem of the proliferation of the number of parts (cards, chips) necessary for conventional implementation in an LSI technology of a computer system. The UF implementation will use about ten times more circuits than a conventional implementation regardless of the size of the design. The UF approach also includes general-purpose spares for failing circuits. The procedure could be used both at manufacture to increase yields, as well as to achieve automatic repair.


Abstract In recent experiments in gifted education, selection criteria and instructional teaching practice do not emphasize students' inherent intelligence but stress their independent cognitive style and abilities in creative practice. It is important to find out and cultivate top students' characteristics of cognitive style. Some weak points of the features of independent cognitive style may hinder a person from success. So far, we have not neglected education based on behavioral norms, moral standards, personality socialization, and social responsibilities while providing our students the best possible education. In teaching practice, we advocate "scientific exploration learning", conduct research-based courses, and broaden the application of modern teaching technology. National Interest Education remains our top priority, and we encourage students to use the knowledge and skills have mastered to contribute to the revival and prosperity of the country.


With the acceleration of urbanization, the increasingly complicated urban traffic conditions and the continuous expansion of the overall scale have posed great challenges to urban traffic management. It is necessary that Intelligent Transport System is introduced for the future development of urban traffic management. Based on this background, the visual sensing technology is applied to the intelligent traffic control system. The CCD camera with 5 million resolution is designed and used to analyze real-time traffic entering at each intersection of urban road and calculate the traffic volume of each lane and queue, such as the vehicles length, average waiting time and other traffic parameters, which could provide real-time data to the signal light control system for dynamic signal parameter configuration to achieve intelligent single-point light signal control, trunk control and regional control. The system can be popularized and applied in the fields of intelligent signal light control and traffic information collection.


An all precast concrete structures, comprising prefabricated columns, prefabricated beams, short cantilever beam, pillar and the cantilever of the prefabricated beam composed of prefabricated short column - Short Beam overall assembly, the cantilever beam and the short the prefabricated beams at the joint surface binding fit and fixed, wherein the cantilever beam and short beam preformed, fabricated column field assembled from the short cantilever beam formed at the joint of the joint surface of the prefabricated beams of staggered irregularities a stepped form, the convex portion to engage the engagement recess opposite the implant. The present invention by increasing the shorter cantilever beams, so that the joint prefabricated beams and prefabricated pillars no longer be directly fabricated column side, but the forces may be adjusted according to the specific construction, thus avoiding cross-sectional most unfavorable stress.


be the language of community-sharing through participatory democracy, but the basic model remains an institutional one. The servant model of the Church also stands in need of much more critical scrutiny than it has received in recent years. Christians in the past have certainly neglected their tasks of healing and reconciliation in the world beyond the boundaries of the explicit Christian community, and one of the reasons for such neglect has undoubtedly been a loss of consciousness of the centrality of God's kingdom of salvation, a kingdom that is somehow both larger than the explicit Christian community and already in the process of being realized in the course of human history. But I suspect that the role of the Church as the servant of God's coming kingdom in the world needs to be spelled out with much more precision than the servant model alone can supply. The kingdom which is served is God's kingdom precisely because it is a kingdom of salvation, and God alone saves. The Church serves this kingdom as an instrument of God's salvific dealings with mankind in Christ. What this communal experience of being saved in Christ amounts to and how it is to be shared and fostered in our tormented world must be articulated if the Christian community is to have any identity and any specific sense of mission. Such articulation the servant model alone cannot provide. D. himself indicates a clear preference for the sacramental model of the Church. He notes that the notion of an efficacious sign community is a highly sophisticated theological concept; paradoxically, the paradigm of a community of symbolic communication is itself difficult to communicate. Nevertheless, D. believes the sacramental model offers the broadest base for constructing a balanced ecclesiology. It relates the Christian community's institutionalized activities to the shared inner life of the Spirit which such activities are intended to incarnate. It points the sign community to the world beyond its boundaries and yet insists that only a church effectively concerned for the salvation of its own members can be a credible sign of the salvation happening elsewhere in the world. It leads into mystery, and that in the end is all that can be asked of models or books about models for Christians.


Eye models to test intraocular lenses (IOLs) in an optical bench are commonly designed in agreement with the ISO 11979-2 and 11979-9 standard requirements. However, modifications to the ISO eye model have been proposed to test IOLs in conditions closer to real human eye. Wavefront analysis and aberration characterization, wavelength dependence, efficiency, off-axis performance and imaging degradation under certain amount of misalignment can thus be measured in vitro. The main parts of the system to test IOLs are: the illumination system and object test, the eye model including the IOL immersed in a wet cell and a microscope assembled to a sensor that magnifies and captures the aerial image of the object formed by the eye model. A problem concerning the simultaneous variation of defocus and magnification arises when using the microscope to capture out-of-focus images in a through-focus study. Using the eye model, we study the problem of implementing a through-focus measurement of the imaging quality of an IOL. We find a solution based on geometrical optics and compare it with other proposals reported in the literature. The effects on the measurement of the Modulation Transfer Function and the Point Spread Function are predicted. Experimental results are obtained and discussed.


Offers a reading of "There Was a Child Went Forth" emphasizing how Whitman's poems reconcile images of edges into the "central edge" of the poem's "shore mud," a gesture that conveys edges as representative of "the origins of life." 11 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Comprehensive Reader's Edition, ed. Harold W. Blodgett and Sculley Bradley (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1965), p. 335. 12 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, pp. 260-261. 13 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, pp. 64-65. 14 Meyer Schapiro, Vincent van Gogh (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980), p. 100. WALT WHITMAN'S "THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH": THE IMAGE OF 'EDGES' IN THE ORIGINS OF LIFE Walt Whitman's "There Was a Child Went Forth" is a poem of edges that reveals a child's generative touch with the world. His encounter with different objects sharpens his perception, for he touches the world through contrasts and opposites. The first edge is the third-month, the month of March, half winter and half spring, an edge between death and renewal of life in nature. As he literally intersects the edge, he interacts with nature and is able to gain a holistic vision of the animals as the "brood of the barnyard"l rather than seeing them separately. He can now see the "relations in all objects"2 after he perceives their idiosyncratic differences. Then he encounters, among other objects, the mire of the pond-side-another edge, a combination of water and soil. This edge enables him to perceive the fish against its background, "the curious liquid." Both of these edges suggest the fertile origin of life. The child's contact with the origin of life nourishes what Sherman Paul calls "the developing seed within the self."3 He encounters the opposing elements in nature, and they become the edging/ sharpening of his perception. After connecting with the world through the edge of the "mire," he is now able to find some sort of unity in different objects: The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him, Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden, And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road .... (11. 11-13) The images of roots, sprouts, blossoms and fruits fascinate him, while his perception unfolds like a "bud."4 The contrasts between the images reveal the diverse elements in nature. The winter-grain sprouts are contrasted with roots. The light-yellow corn signifying the fullness of growth stands in opposition to the sprouts and roots which demonstrate to the child the nature of growth as a process. The blossoms with their "fruit afterward" are opposed to the "commonest weeds" on the road. Through the process and the causality of growth, he senses unity in nature's diversity: roots nourish sprouts which eventually blossom and bear fruits.


The main objective of this paper is to explore the applicability of a new procedure to the decision process of information systems selection, the major aspect of which is tackling the uncertainty and imprecision of data, while using the risk as a trade-off measure to prioritize alternative systems. The new procedure consists in a modification of the analytic hierarchy process, where the imprecise decision-maker's judgments are represented as fuzzy numbers. A non-linear optimization method is applied, which derives crisp weights from inconsistent and consistent fuzzy comparison matrices. The weights of the risk factors are then used in an aggregation procedure for selecting the best alternative system.


We assessed the ceftazidime-avibactam disk diffusion breakpoints that provide the lowest discrepancy error rates by testing an Enterobacterales isolate collection with ceftazidime-avibactam MIC values near the breakpoints. Isolates (n = 112) were susceptibility tested by broth microdilution and disk diffusion methods in 3 laboratories. Current disk diffusion breakpoints (≥21/≤20 mm for susceptible/resistant) provided the lowest error rates, but confirmatory MIC testing is indicated for isolates with inhibition zones of 20 to 22 mm. ABSTRACT We assessed the ceftazidime-avibactam disk diffusion breakpoints that provide the lowest discrepancy error rates by testing an Enterobacterales isolate collection with ceftazidime-avibactam MIC values near the breakpoints. Isolates (n = 112) were susceptibility tested by broth microdilution and disk diffusion methods in 3 laboratories. Current disk diffusion breakpoints (≥21/≤20 mm for susceptible/resistant) provided the lowest error rates, but confirmatory MIC testing is indicated for isolates with inhibition zones of 20 to 22 mm.