In the previous companion paper, we proposed a subclass of wavefunctions to describe macroscopic solids that resolved and extended the theory quantum measurement and gave a more specific treatment of quasiparticles. Here we extend these notions to thermalization of solids and gases and to gas state hydrodynamics. This gives a modification of the thermodynamic limit to justify the canonical averages for "typical wavefunctions" without the use of ensembles. The energetic cost of vorticity is contrasted in the classical and ultracold gas limits. From this perspective, we then examine the applicability of thermo and hydro to ultracold gases and compare with the implications of pure state evolution. We illustrate how the proposed quantum limits on viscosity could be reinterpreted in terms of Schr\"{o}dinger induced evolution of the one-body density function but some history dependent measurable properties should still persist.


Dihydropirimidine  is  a  heterocyclic  compound  which  has  important  pharmacologic  and  therapeutic  activities.  This  compound  can  be  synthesised  by  using Biginelli  reaction  which  involve  three  type  of  starting  materials  and  also  have  been developed  into  different method    of  reaction  condition  and  starting material.  LR1  (4 phenyl3,4dihydroindeno[2′,1′]pyrimidine2one)  is  a  derivative  of  dihydropirimidine. This research was aimed to study the effect of catalyst amount in the synthesis of LR1 in order to reach the optimal yield.  LR1 can be synthesised form benzaldehyde, urea adn 2indanone in ethanol and concentrated chloric acid as catalyst for five hours under reflux. The product mixture was then  extracted  and  isolated  by  column  chromatography  preparative.  The melting  point was checked to determine the purity of the product. The structure elucidation was carried out by using spectroscopic method (uvvis, IR, 1HNMR and MS) The result showed that the highest yield of LR1 was obtained around 15 % when 0.25 %  of chloric acid used as catalyst. The higher the condition of acid in the reaction, the lower the tield of LR1 obtained.


Written for the teachers, the short paper shows a few results of ESLC about students' attitudes toward the languages and their competences


The best therapeutic approach in patients with acute basilar artery occlusion (BAO) remains unclear. We report the results of a combined treatment approach with intravenous (IV) abciximab and intraarterial (IA) tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in these patients.


The use of streamlined tubes to reduce pressure drop across polymer tube bundles is considered because of the relative ease of fabrication. The drag and convective heat transfer coefficients along the outer surface of lenticular and elliptical tubes with minor-to-major axis ratios of 0.3, 0.5, and 0.8 are determined numerically for cross-flow Reynolds numbers from 500 to 10,000. An isothermal surface is assumed. The two-dimensional, unsteady Navier-Stokes equations and energy equation are solved using the finite volume method. Laminar flow is assumed from the front stagnation point up to the point of separation. Turbulent flow in the wake is resolved using the shear stress transport k-omega model. Local heat transfer, pressure and friction coefficients as well as a total drag coefficient and average Nusselt number are presented. The results for streamlined tubes are compared to published data for circular and elliptical cylinders. Drag of the elliptical and lenticular cylinders is similar and lower than a circular cylinder. Reductions in drag may be increased by making the streamlined cylinders more slender. Over the range of Reynolds number considered, an elliptical cylinder with an axis ratio equal to 0.5 reduces pressure drop by 30 to 40 percent compared to that of a circular cylinder. The lenticular and elliptical geometries have nearly identical average of Nusselt number. The average Nusselt number of an elliptical or lenticular cylinder with axis ratio of 0.5 and 0.3 is 15 to 35% lower than that of a circular cylinder. A case study for an automotive radiator is presented to illustrate comparison of shaped and circular tubes in terms of both heat transfer and pressure drop.© 2005 ASME


Elastic optical networks (EONs) are considered to be one of the promising future networks for spectrum flexibility. In conventional wavelength-division multiplexing networks, routing and wavelength assignment is one of the key issues, whereas the routing and spectrum assignment (RSA) problem considerably affects the network performance in EONs. In addition, the data-center traffic and mobile back-haul traffic keeps increasing. To deal with such increasing capacity of applications, spacedivision multiplexing (SDM) technologies such as multicore fiber (MCF) and multi-mode fiber (MMF) have been intensively researched. From the network perspective, this paper focuses on the routing, spectrum, and core and/or mode assignment (RSCMA) problem for future SDMEONs. Introducing MCF or MMF further complicates the RSA problem because the fiber core or mode dimension is newly expanded. In addition, physical impairment caused by MCF or MMF must be considered. In this paper, the target RSCMA problem is first divided into routing and SCMA problems, and a pre-computation method based on the K-shortest path is introduced as the routing solution. Next, we propose SCMA methods with efficiency and flexibility awareness, exploiting prioritized area concept and crosstalk awareness depending on whether MCF or MMF supports intercore/intermode crosstalk. Finally, the paper evaluates and compares the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms with that of representative algorithms.


Fuel cells are a replacement for the conventional energy resources. As early as 1839, William Grove discovered the basic operating principle of fuel cells by reversing water electrolysis to generate electricity from hydrogen and oxygen. A Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) operates on liquid fuel, which is one of the exciting varieties of fuel cells. There are many problems with DMFCs such as the high cost of electrolyte membranes, high platinum loading, CO poisoning, fuel cross-over, and so on. In this review, research regarding the solution of these problems will be cited and discussed. The electrical performance (in respect to power density) of the composites for the Nafion® and other perfluorinated membranes in DMFC are evaluated. The effect of these modifications on various aspects, such as mobility of protons through the membrane, permeation of hydronium ions, and cross-over of methanol through the membrane leading to the negative potential, have previously been discussed. Therefore, the main focus of this review is on the effect of composites of Nafion® and non-fluorinated membranes on the DMFC performance.


Author Biographies Dr. Reynolds is Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Libman is Director of the HIV Program in Healthcare Associates at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Chief of the Education Section in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Director of Ambulatory Residency Training in the Department of Medicine, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Mayer is Director of HIV Prevention Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Medical Research Director, Fenway Health, Co-Director, The Fenway Institute, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Professor in Global Health and Population, Harvard T.C. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. About Beyond the Guidelines Beyond the Guidelines is an educational feature based on recent guidelines. Each considers a patient who falls between the cracks of available evidence and for whom the optimal clinical course is unclear. Presented at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Grand Rounds, each conference reviews the background evidence and 2 experts then discuss the patient and field audience questions. Videos of the patient and conference, the slide presentation, and a CME/MOC activity accompany each article. For more information, visit www.annals.org/GrandRounds. Series Editor, Annals: Deborah Cotton, MD, MPH Series Editor, BIDMC: Risa B. Burns, MD, MPH Series Assistant Editors: Eileen E. Reynolds, MD; Gerald W. Smetana, MD This article is based on the BIDMC Department of Medicine Grand Rounds conference held on 14 May 2015. Series Assistant Editor: Eileen E. Reynolds, MD Moderator: Deborah Cotton, MD, MPH, Deputy Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine Discussants: Howard Libman, MD, and Kenneth H. Mayer, MD Available at www.annals.org Patient interview video Grand Rounds video Supplement slides CME/MOC activity Questions and comments Mr. X is a healthy 45-year-old man whose husband (Mr. Y) was diagnosed with HIV infection. Both men were seronegative at the time of their marriage in 2004, but while predominantly monogamous, they have an open relationship. Mr. Y was found to be HIV positive during an unrelated hospitalization in 2007; in 2011, when his CD4 count was 385 cells/L and his viral load was 300000 copies/mL, he began highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Our patient, Mr. X, also saw his physician in 2011; he tested negative for HIV antibody and viral load. He was offered and now takes fixed-combination tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, 300 mg, and emtricitabine, 200 mg (TDFFTC), daily (Truvada, Gilead Sciences). Mr. Y has had an undetectable viral load while receiving HAART. Mr. X himself is healthy and works as an artist. He and his husband do not use condoms because Mr. Y finds them uncomfortable. Mr. X states that he engages in oral sex outside of his marriage. He has no history of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Mr. X does not use recreational drugs and drinks alcohol socially. He has normal renal function and has been vaccinated against hepatitis B. Mr. X purchases health insurance from the Massachusetts health care marketplace; his medication costs him $30 per month (but would be $1250 per month if his insurance did not cover it). After starting prophylaxis, Mr. X and particularly his husband felt more secure in their daily activities and had a much improved sex life. Mr. X has not had any side effects, and he reports missing only 2 doses in 18 months. He states that he cares deeply about avoiding HIV infection, mostly because he wants to do what he can to remain as healthy as possible to care for his husband. Mr. X's Story I met my husband over 12 years ago here in Boston. He was working at a bar, and it was kind of love at first sight. He had become positive a few years into our relationship. We had had an open relationship. It was a difficult period. It ended up coming as a big surprise and kind of a major transition period. Ultimately, when I found out that he was positive, the only thoughts I had in my head were about taking care of him and also relearning and educating myself on exactly what it means to be HIV positive today, as opposed to in the 80s when I had heard all those horror stories. It was actually the beginning of some harder months for us in our relationship. He is HIV positive, and I am HIV negative. In a relationship like that it's difficult, because there is an amount of caution that has come about in our sex life and even everyday life. He had a lot of worries and concerns. If he cut himself he was horrified. Initially, he had insisted on using a different razor blade and stuff like that and having our own stuff. Our sex life was almost nonexistent at that point. I heard about the option of taking medication about a year and a half ago. I had decided that it was perfect for me and our relationship as well. He is the top in our relationship. He has a British foreskin, so wearing condoms is not easy for him. They never fit right, and if the foreskin slipped it would push off the condom and he would lose sensitivity and it would be over. So after I got onto PrEP [preexposure prophylaxis], it enhanced our sex life a dramatic amount. For me, taking the medication has been great. I haven't had any side effects. I have some backup alarms to make sure I stay on schedule, and I think over the past 18 months or so I have only missed it twice. It is more of a benefit on my husband's side because he always had that risk in the back of his head, even if he was undetectable, that there was a little bit of a window there and it always concerned him; it also interfered in our sex life. I care a great deal about not contracting HIV, largely because I want to always be there to take care of my husband no matter what. I just want to be as healthy as I can be for that. See the patient interview video to view the patient telling his story. Supplement. Beyond the Guidelines: Preexposure Prophylaxis for HIV Prevention (slide set) Context, Evidence, and Guidelines Approximately 50000 new HIV infections occur annually in the United States, a rate that has been stable for the past several years after a period of decline. Although decreasing infection rates have been reported among heterosexuals (including racial and ethnic subgroups) and injection drug users, incidence among men who have sex with men (MSM) has increased. This group showed an overall 12% increase between 2008 and 2010; young MSM and African American MSM have had the highest rates of increase. In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 63% of new HIV cases annually were attributable to malemale sexual activity without any concomitant injection drug use. In 2012, on the strength of major randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) showing efficacy among heterosexuals, injection drug users, and MSM, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved TDFFTC for long-term daily use as PrEP against HIV infection (1). In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a clinical practice guideline that updated its previous interim guidance and recommended use of PrEP with TDFFTC in patients at high risk for transmission, including nonmonogamous MSM, HIV-serodiscordant couples (including malemale and malefemale partners), high-risk heterosexual men and women, and injection drug users (2). The first RCT to show benefit was the iPrEx (Preexposure Prophylaxis Initiative) study (3). This large (2499 participants) double-blind RCT included MSM and female-to-male transgender adults in 6 countries (including the United States) who reported having sex with men in the 6 months before enrollment. The average enrolled patient was studied for 1.2 years. The group assigned to active medication had a 44% reduction in HIV acquisition compared with controls. This effect was strongly related to intracellular drug levels: Patients who had detectable levels (and thus were generally more adherent) had a 92% reduction in infection. One hundred patients were infected after the study began; none developed drug-resistant strains. Ten men were later discovered to have been acutely infected at the beginning of the study. Of those, only 2 were in the active treatment group, but both had FTC-resistant virus. One of the 8 viruses detected in the placebo group had FTC resistance. The second RCT to show benefit was the Partners PrEP trial. This double-blind RCT studied the effects of TDF or TDFFTC in heterosexual serodiscordant couples in Kenya and Uganda (4, 5). The HIV-infected partner was male in about half of couples; the average CD4 count of 495 cells/L was too high for the HIV-infected partners to be eligible for active treatment according to guidelines in those countries at the time. The trial was stopped early in 2011 after an interim analysis showed substantial reduction of transmission in the treatment groups. Medication adherence was high, and side effects were relatively mild. Compared with placebo, efficacy was 67% for TDF recipients and 75% for TDFFTC recipients. Again, adherence was correlated with efficacy; in patients who had measurable cellular TDF levels, the rate of transmission was reduced by 90%. A third trial, Botswana TDF2, showed benefit in heterosexuals in Botswana (6). In this phase 2b study of more than 1200 heterosexual men and women, the overall PrEP efficacy rate among men and women was 62%. Although overall efficacy did not differ by sex, there were few events and thus the study was not powered to detect a significant difference. Persons assigned to TDF had more nausea and vomiting than the control group, but incidence of more serious adverse effects was not increased. Two other RCTs have not shown benefit, presumably because of low adherence rates. In the VOICE (Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epi


We study the distributional behavior for products, and for sums of boolean independent random variables in an infinitesimal triangular array. We show that the limit laws of boolean convolutions are determined by the limit laws of free convolutions, and vice versa. We further use these results to show several connections between the limiting distributional behavior of classical convolutions and that of boolean convolutions. The proof of our results is based on the analytical apparatus developed for free convolutions.


[Objective] To provide scientific basis for prevention and intervention of injuries among the population of ZhaBei District by comprehending its epidemic characteristics and disease burden. [Methods] Two stage sampling was used in the study. 5377 inhabitants were chosen and each of them completed a questionnaire about injuries incidence,disease burden and major risk factors in 2004. [Results] The standardized incidence rate of injury was 41.10‰ . The incidence ratio of male vs. female was 0.76 : 1. The incidence of ≥65 age group was the highest and that of 0~14 age group was the lowest. Falling was the main cause of injury in ≥65 and 0~14 age groups,while traffic accident was the main cause of injury in 15~64 age group. Injury incidence was related to a person's occupation,being deformity and having chronic diseases. The standardized mortality rate of injury was 0.34‰ . 1 person died from injury reveals 2 persons were disabled because of injury and 100 persons had injuries. One injury patient needed 11.67 days rest in average. YPLL,WYPLL and VYPLL were 33.38 years,18.55 years and 18.92 years per deceased by injury in average respectively. The average direct loss in economy per injury was 764.49 Yuan. [Conclusion] Injury was seriously harmful to the inhabitants and was the important public health question in Zhabei District. It is important to enhance injuries prevention and control.


The Social Force Model (SFM) is one of the most successful models in microscopic pedestrian studies that is used to study the movement of pedestrians. Many modifications have been done to improvise the SFM by earlier researchers such as the incorporation of a constant respect factor into the self-stopping mechanism. Before the new mechanism is introduced, the researchers found out that a pedestrian will immediately come to a halt if other pedestrians are near to him, which seems to be an unrealistic behavior. Therefore, researchers introduce a self-slowing mechanism to gradually stop a pedestrian when he is approaching other pedestrians. Subsequently, the dynamic respect factor is introduced into the self-slowing mechanism based on the density of the pedestrians to make the model even more realistic. In real life situations, the respect factor of the pedestrians should be dynamic values instead of a constant value. However, when we reproduce the simulation of the dynamic respect factor, we found that the ...


Details of a method of determining the center and radius of an apacified vessel, such as an artery, from its x-ray projection are given. These parameters are determined to a typical accuracy of better than 0.1 pixel in the absence of noise. The effects of both gaussian noise and digitization interval are determined, as well as the effect of pixel size/vessel diameter. A method of finding x-ray system parameters is presented, and the algorithm for center and radius determination is confirmed from measurements on a DSA shadowgraph of a opacified tube.


Tour of duty is privileged to be conducted by Indonesia civil servant as the corps of government. Tour of duty may enable to improve the working quality of an organization or institution and as well the personal of public civil servant. Unluckily there is the possibility of misuse the responsibility tour of duty through some modus, these are harmful for the state. The opportunity tour of duty may be misused by actor of public civil servant to obtain the illegal benefit as his or her additional income. The loss of state may emerge of the misuse tour of duty responsibility. It can be identified as the crime of corruption and how to set the law on the misuse of tour of duty responsibility? It needs the empirical yuridis to find out the responses through questionnaires, interviews. The data are analyzed in qualitative one. The result of research indicates the misuse modus of tour of duty conducted through shortened the time tour of duty, the fictive tour of duty and falsifying the bill tour of duty, and as well through mark up of the cost. The deviation tour of duty misuse indicated the crime of corruption. The setting of the law on the misuse tour of duty may be conducted through preventive and repressive process and the loss of state should be repaid. Recomended to the public civil servant increase legal awarennes and change the mind set that the the misuse tour of duty responsibility is not a means to enrich themselves, such action is unlawfull and a criminal offense . Committing Officer and Treasures Expendituress that increase the accuracy in the testing and inspection of evidence as well as tour of duty responsibility and a special unit in charge of handling the needs of employees who will perfome tour of duty. . Key words: Public civil servant, T our of duty, L etter tour of duty, D eviation.


The germplasm resources of wild Rosa multiflora in Shandong was detailedly studied.Basic morphological characteristics,geographical distribution,ornamental values and ecological environment of wild Rosa multiflora were analyzed and summarized.And some advices were supplied on the current situation of germplasm resources of wild Rosa multiflora in this area.


This paper studies a multiple user class variable demand user equilibrium and system optimal condition, and then establishes solution algorithms for them. The traffic network equilibrium is accomplished with basis on following assumptions. For considering heterogeneous road user, several user classes have discrete set of VOTs and the travel demand of each user classes varies according to generalized travel cost. this paper specifically investigates following question on multi-class variable demand: Are user equilibrium flows pattern dependent on the unit (time or money) perceived by road user classes? What is system optimal condition according to the unit used in measuring the travel cost or disutility? Finally, using this network equilibrium condition, The traffic assignment algorithm of each equilibrium condition are established.


Regasification of liquefied natural gas (LNG) comprising a reservoir (10) storage degas in liquefied form, a device regasification (12) of LNG through which a heat carrier and GasNatural, a circuit (16) in loop wherein the heat carrier circulating is methanol, ethanol or propanol, the device regasification (12) comprising at least two exchangers (60, 62) characterized by queuno (62) exchanger is cocurrently between LNG and heat transfer agent and that the other (60) is countercurrent exchangers, wherein the exchanger (60) upstream of two parts (60A, 60B) including a phase separator (84) is inserted.


Each of the dielectric tensor elements in a Maxwellian magnetoplasma is expressed in terms of various derivatives of a single functional expression. The relationships for all the elements are given, first for the general case of a relativistic plasma, then for the slightly relativistic case, and finally for the non-relativistic case, when the perpendicular wavenumber is either large or small. We also derive new relations useful for the computation of the slightly relativistic plasma dispersion function.


In July 1999, along with twelve colleagues from the University of New Hampshire (five in the College of Liberal Arts), I was invited to participate in the UNH Blackboard Project, a program that is part of a larger initiative sponsored by a partnership between the UNH Library and UNH Computing and Information Services. The goal of this partnership is to provide technical support to faculty who want to explore Internet technologies and incorporate them into their courses. More specifically, the goal of the UNH Blackboard Project in its initial phase was to prepare a number of Web sites to support courses for the Fall semester of the Academic Year (AY} 1999-2000, usingcourse-managementsoftwarecalled Blackboard (formerly Courselnfo ), produced and marketed by Blackboard lnc.1 Online education has revolutionized the teaching methods of a good number of educators who use Internet technologies to communicate and collaborate with their students in an educational context. With a program like Blackboard, traditional methods of teaching and learning are supplemented with Webbased components and virtual forms of communication.


A new approach for verification and validation (V&V) of attitude control systems (ACSs) is presented. Air bearings have by far been the unanimous choice for attitude control test bed platforms. However, the infrastructure required in developing and using such air bearing systems are extensive and result in very expensive test beds, thereby restricting such facilities to a very small number. There has been limited research in the development of alternative forms of test beds. This paper introduces a simple and fast approach to validate attitude control systems which makes it suitable for testing responsive space hardware. The approach is primarily based on the measurement of output torque of the attitude actuator using a torque sensing platform called GATorSense developed in house. The approach also provides the ability to perform V&V in thermal and vacuum environments. Additionally, the utility of the GATorSense as an actuator characterization tool is presented with results from a test performed on a control moment gyroscope.


Polarized light imaging (PLI) is a new method which quantifies and visualizes nerve fiber direction. In this study, the educational value of PLI sections of the human brainstem were compared to histological sections stained with Luxol fast blue (LFB) using e‐learning modules. Mental Rotations Test (MRT) was used to assess the spatial ability. Pre‐intervention, post‐intervention, and long‐term (1 week) anatomical tests were provided to assess the baseline knowledge and retention. One‐on‐one electronic interviews after the last test were carried out to understand the students' perceptions of the intervention. Thirty‐eight medical students, (19 female and 19 males, mean age 21.5 ± SD 2.4; median age: 21.0 years) participated with a mean MRT score of 13.2 ± 5.2 points and a mean pre‐intervention knowledge test score of 49.9 ± 11.8%. A significant improvement in both, post‐intervention and long‐term test scores occurred after learning with either PLI or LFB e‐learning module on brainstem anatomy (both P < 0.001). No difference was observed between groups in post‐intervention test scores and long‐term test scores (P = 0.913 and P = 0.403, respectively). A higher MRT‐score was significantly correlated with a higher post‐intervention test score (rk = 0.321; P < 0.05, respectively), but there was not a significant association between the MRT‐ and the long‐term scores (rk = −0.078; P = 0.509). Interviews (n = 10) revealed three major topics: Learning (brainstem) anatomy by use of e‐learning modules; The "need" of technological background information when studying brainstem sections; and Mnemonics when studying brainstem anatomy. Future studies should assess the cognitive burden of cross‐sectional learning methods with PLI and/or LFB sections and their effects on knowledge retention.


The equations of Josephson and Lekner (1969) describing the mobility of an impurity in a Fermi liquid admit three solutions for the mobility over a certain temperature range.


Environmental service industry is to provide services for pollution control.It is the important part of the environmental protection industry,but there was a disjunction between the traditional environmental services and environmental governance effect.The article draws lessons from the externality theory in economics,analyzes the gap between environmental pollution control effects of environmental protection enterprises and the improvement of environment quality,and the reasons for this gap.Key problems that hinder environmental service industry development are concluded as four aspects of cost sharing,unity of purpose,resulting in a win-win situation,and quantization of environmental service.In order to promote the development of environmental service industry in China,development pattern of innovation and some suggestions were put forward in the end.


Industry 4.0, as defined by the disruptive innovation phenomenon, focuses on digital economic patterns, artificial intelligence, big data, and robotics. The Indonesian Ministry of Industry pushed aggressively for the development of "Industry 4.0." PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) is a technologically literate company, which indicates that their workplace is shaped and influenced by digital tools and technologies. PT KAI has three big technology-based projects in the works. The 105MT Sumbagsel, LRT Jabodebek, and Kereta Cepat Jakarta-Bandung are the three strategic plans. Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 98 of 2015 on the Acceleration of Integrated Light Rail Transit in the Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, and Bekasi Areas, which controls the development of transportation services to assist national growth, sparked the LRT Jabodebek project. Under Presidential Decree 93 of 2021, the government designated PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) as the leader of the SOEs consortium for the KCJB project. PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero) has established digital cultures and executed human capital digital readiness in their organizations to assist their employees in doing work, acquiring information, and communicating. While employees must perform effectively with all of these new technologies, the implementation of digital culture in PT KAI is generally excellent but not perfect. Some staff are still unfamiliar with digitization and are finding it tough to adapt. To address the challenges of the 4.0 Industry, the relationship between digital culture, human capital digital readiness and employee performance in PT KAI should be examined. It's also because an ideal digital culture and human capital digital readiness can improve employee performance. This study employed quantitative methods and data processing by SPSS 27. According to the data, there is a favourable and statistically significant association between digital culture, human capital digital readiness, and employee performance.


The chapter discusses the possible contributions of this analysis to the broader quest for responses to the new populist challenge. This question is rephrased as a matter of how to rein technocracy back in in order to break out of the vicious circle in which the interplay of technocracy and populism is currently caught. Lack of attention to this problem is likely to exacerbate this problem and reinforce the current tendency to reinforce technocracy and fight fire with fire. Two general approaches to the question of reining technocracy back in are discussed: a short term cordon sanitaire and a more long-term normative reinforcement of the decisionistic model of parliamentary democracy infused with elements of a pragmatic deliberative model.


The development of plastic deformations localized on the surface of a rigid fiber of square cross-section in a perfect elastoplastic matrix is investigated. Two identical interfacial cracks start from the opposite vertices of the fiber. The deformations are caused by a shear load parallel to the diagonal of the fiber, connecting the cracks tips. It is shown that in the case when the length of the interfacial crack is not more than half of the fiber edge length, plastic deformations can be localized only on the inclusion–matrix edge. For the cracks shorter than half of the length of fiber edge the dependence of the strips of plastic exfoliation on the load are determined. It is also shown that the plastic strips can't cover the total surface of the fiber on the crack extension. Кривень В. А., Бойко А. Р., Каплун А. В. Пластичне відшаровування волокна квад-рат¬но¬го поперечного перерізу під дією зсувного навантаження за наявності міжфазних тріщин // Мат. методи та фіз.-мех. поля. – 2014. – 57 , № 3. – С. 101–108. Translation: Kryven' V. A., Boiko A. R., Kaplun A. V. Plastic exfoliation of a fiber with square cross section under the action of shear loading in the presence of interface cracks // J. Math. Sci. – 2016. – 217 , No. 3. – P. 260–270.


This paper is a contribution to dynamic doxastic logic (DDL), that is, doxastic logic supplemented with operators for belief change due to new information. Thus in addition to operators for belief (B) and doxastic commitment (K) we also have, for each pure Boolean formula φ, a propositional operator [∗φ] with the informal reading "after the agent has come to believe that φ and revised his beliefs accordingly it is the case that". The resulting new logical landscape turns out to be overwhelmingly rich. An important question—and the topic of this paper—is how to deal with this richness. Krister Segerberg Uppsala Universitet, Box 627, 751 26 Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: email@example.com


An automatic integral loading and unloading transport vehicle and a method for loading and unloading cargo are provided in the present invention. The automatic integral loading and unloading transport vehicle is mainly composed of a hopper, a chassis and driving wheels. The front side and the rear side of the chassis are respectively connected with one hopper lifting mechanism. The hopper lifting mechanism comprises a telescopic groove, two telescopic racks arranged in the telescopic groove and a lifting oil cylinder connected with the lower portions of the telescopic racks. A hopper translating overturning oil cylinder is fixedly connected with the telescopic groove of the hopper lifting mechanism. An upright post is arranged at each of the four corners of the chassis respectively, and the bottom of the upright post is connected with a grooved wheel. A plurality of hopper moving grooved racks are arranged between the hopper and the chassis, a car-door telescopic oil cylinder is mounted in the middle of the rear portion of the chassis, and a vehicle body displacement oil cylinder is connected with the middle of the telescopic groove of the hopper lifting mechanism connected with the rear side of the chassis. By the automatic integral loading and unloading transport vehicle in the present invention, the automatic loading and unloading of cargo is realized, the labor intensity for loading and unloading profile cargo is greatly reduced, the loading and unloading efficiency of cargo is increased, and the automatic integral loading and unloading vehicle has the advantages of reasonable design, convenient usage and high automation.


Lipomatous tumors are the most common soft tissue tumors, including a large variety of benign and malignant lesions. Hibernoma is a benign lipomatous tumor originating from the brown adipose tissue inherited from the fetus. The diagnosis is often incidental, since the large majority are asymptomatic or very slow growing. Differential diagnosis with other lipomatous tumors is often challenging. Hence the diagnostic work-up is large and must be multidisciplinary. Biopsy and large resection with sane margins are the standard of care. We describe a 48-year-old male patient with a history of a painless, mobile, slow growing right sub-clavicular mass apparently evolving for eleven years. This patient underwent ultrasound, mammography, MRI, CT Scan and ultrasound guided large core biopsy at different points in time. We describe this case of a well-documented hibernoma of the sub-clavicular region in line with the current literature.


In combination with the design example of Pudong International Airport's north passageway——the A20 interchange bridge, this paper analyzed and researched the relevant key technologies. It can be seen that the key technologies adopted in the A20 interchange bridge are of advanced technology and practical value in China,they are as follows: the overall interchange plan of "whole turbine type plus rhombus combination",the ramp inlet and outlet plan of"merged entry and exit by two grades of split-flow and inter-flow",the soft subsoil treatment measure of T-shaped bidirectional soil-cement mixing piles,the drainage asphalt pavement of"OGFC drainage pavement plus waterproof synchronized gravel seal coat",the butterfly-like curved continuous box girder with big cantilever,the bridge landscape design with"golden section"concept,and so on.


Introduction - rooting for West a writer by reading the dream life of Balso Snell Miss Lonelyhearts a cool million the day of the locust conclusion - a world too much with us. Appendices: two early poems - "Rondeau" and "Death" "Through the Hole in the Mundane Millstone" "Some Notes on Violence" "Some Notes on Miss L." "Outline for a New Novel" "Burn the Cities" "Bird and Bottle" the original final chapter of "The Day of the Locust" "The Adventurer" "Western Union Boy" "Tibetan Night" "Mrs Potts of Pottstown" "The Impostor".


.Audit is now a standard feature of medical practice in many parts of the world. Although these audits are often very time-consuming and in fact amount to minor research projects, it is usually inappropriate to publish these as full research papers. However, it may be useful to publish results in the form of a brief report summarized in approximately 200 words. I would welcome submission of such material for publication and would intend the audit section to be a regular feature of the journal. The aims would be to inform others of audit process and outcome. I feel this will further develop the role of the journal in education and the clinical management of patients. W. W. Dinsmore Editor


PurposeThrough active learning and experiential learning theoretical perspectives, this paper explores the role of gamification on the student experience and student learning of undergraduate business management students in the UK.Design/methodology/approachTo capture the impact of gamification on student experience and student learning during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, data were collected through online surveys with L6 undergraduate students studying during the academic years 2020–2021, 2021–2022 and 2022–2023.FindingsThe analysis of the data revealed three core themes: a) gaining practical experience through gamification b) opportunities for peer engagement and active participation and c) development of soft skills and hard skills.Practical implicationsBased on the lessons learnt, the paper proposes actions and guidelines for integrating gamification into business management curricula that prepare future business managers and leaders to respond to unforeseen challenges and changes.Originality/valueThis study contributes to a series of design suggestions for fellow tutors and practitioners seeking to advance their pedagogical approach to developing agile and resilient future managers and leaders.


booklet for Nonlinear Physics: Theory and Experiment. V Gallipoli (Lecce, Italy) 12-21 June, 2008 Information received until June 3, 2008 —————————————————————————————Simonetta Abenda Dipartimento di Matematica and CIRAM, University of Bologn a Bologna, Italy E-mail: email@example.com Algebraically closed real geodesics on n-dimensional elli psoids are dense in the parameter space and related to hyperelliptic tangential coverings The closedness condition for real geodesics on n–dimensional ellipsoids is in general transcendental in th e parameters (semiaxes of the ellipsoid and constants of motion). W e show that it is algebraic in the parameters if and only if both the real and the imaginary geodesics are closed and we ch aracterize such double–periodicity condition via real hyperelliptic tangential coverings. We prove the density o f algebraically closed geodesics on n–dimensional ellipsoids with respect to the natural topology in the 2n–dimensional real parameter space. In particular, the appr oximating sequence of algebraic closed geodesics on the approximated ellipsoids may be chosen so to share the same values of the length and of the real period vector as the limiting close d g odesic on the limiting ellipsoid. Finally, for real doubly–periodic geodesics on triaxial el lipsoids, we show how to evaluate algebraically the period mapping and we present some explicit examples of families of algebraically closed geodesics. —————————————————————————————Mark J. Ablowitz Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado UCB 526, Boulder 80309 CO Reformulation and asymptotic reductions of interfacial waves Nonlocal spectral reformulations of classic water and mult i-fluid interfacial waves are developed in terms of data only on the free surfaces. From the nonlocal spectral equati on D richlet-Neumann series, asymptotic reductions and integral relations are found. In certain limits lump type so luti ns are obtained numerically.


A gravimetric method for the determination of surface excess isotherms of compressed gases on solid adsorbents is described. Buoyancy corrections are minimized by using a symmetric-beam microbalance and by compensating the volume of the adsorbent. — Isotherms of argon and methane onto Graphon (a graphitized carbon black) are determined up to 150 bar at −20, 0, 25, and 50°C, corresponding to bulk densities up to the critical density for methane, and more than half the critical density for argon. Surface excess isotherms exhibit a maximum at about 0.4 to 0.5 of the critical density. The range of applicability of simple isotherm equations for higher gas pressures is discussed briefly.


Factors acting on tariffs are characterized including the state of utilization of existing natural energy resources, the structure of electricity generation, energy efficiency, energy balance, the role of society in energy development and globalization. It has been concluded that in Georgia, as well as in the world, there is a tendency to increase tariffs. This is due to the need for increased and continuous investment in the extraction (production) of increasing amounts of energy resources, the t ightening of environmental requirements, and so on. According to the author, in order to improve the technical and economic indicators in the field and reduce tariffs, it is necessary to introduce scientific-technological and managerial progress at a higher rate compared to the existing challenges


We provide a critical reflection of Toms and Wilson's 'new paradigm of British business history' by focusing on the logical consistency of their model, the robustness of its predictive powers, and its explanation of transitional change related to stages of business capitalism. For example, central to the paradigm is the importance of accountability and external economies of scale, assumed as exogenous parameters in the analysis of British business history. This assumption is challenged, as is the predictive powers of the analytical matrix in providing an all-encompassing model for British business evolution. In particular, the transitional processes in British business history are not simply reducible to an assessment of accountability and economies of scale and scope, but rather to enhance our understanding there is a need also to engage with the concept of personal capitalism. While business historians should engage with theoretical frameworks, it must also be recognized that firms are idiosyncratic, a feature of business organizations that should not be lost.


In this paper,a simulation system of data processing algorithm for high-frequency skywave over-the-horizon radar is described.According to the special characteristics of over-the-horizon radar,some particular models are introduced to simulate the impacts of the ionosphere on the echoes,and these models are embedded in the data set used as the input of data processing terminal.The system has been implemented in the Matlab environment,emboding compatibility and entensibility.This integrated platform would be helpful for the development and design of novel data processing algorithms in the skywave syetem.


The focus of this research is the study of the microstructures and miscibility at the interface between semi-crystalline and amorphous PLAs [poly (l-lactic acid)(PLLA) with poly (l,d-lactic acid)(PDLLA), respectively]. The blends are prepared through thermal processing (extrusion and hot-pressing). To increase the area of interface between PDLLA and PLLA, the fibers from PLLA and PDLLA are used. Thermal and microstructures of the blends were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarized optical microscopy (POM), dynamic thermogravimetric analysis(DMA), small-angle X-ray diffraction(SAXS) and wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD). The two PLAs are miscible in molten state. However, phase separation is detected after various thermal treatments, with PDLLA being excluded from the regions of interlamellar PLLA regions when PDLLA content is low, as determined from X-ray diffraction studies. The compatibility between the two PLAs is not perfect in the molten state, since enthalpies of the various blends at Tg are lower than any pure PLA material. The semi-crystalline PLLA fiber can recrystallize alone in the molten amorphous PDLLA, and a higher nuclei density is observed at the interface. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 41205.


BACKGROUND 131 I is usually employed for the therapy of hyperfunctioning thyroid diseases. This β-emitting radioisotope acts releasing its radiations in small tissue volumes, but it is mandatory to consider, also for the small doses, the carcinogenic risk, well documented with the high 131 I dosages used to cure differentiated thyroid cancers. METHODS We describe a case of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma appeared 4 years after therapy with 131 I for Graves' disease. The patient was treated both surgically and with thyonamides for Graves' disease 20 years before; thereafter she underwent simple nephrectomy owing to Grawitz disease. After some years of well being, she was treated with 131 I for a relapse of Graves' disease. Four years later, she was treated with interleukin-2 and TNF-α, owing to distant metastases (pancreas, liver and lung) of Grawitz cancer. Some months later, because of a rapid enlargement of the thyroid gland, she was thyroidectomized and anaplastic thyroid cancer was histologically documented. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS It is very difficult to investigate the possible transformation of a benign thyroid lesion to a malignant one, and data from the literature are conflicting. Fractioned doses of 131 I are known to induce less cancers than high doses: they allow DNA to repair. Nevertheless, in patients with altered or non valid genetic repair's mechanisms (i.e. patients with p53 mutations) and, for this reason, prone to develop cancers, even low doses of 131 I can induce carcinogenetic effects. In a patient with a history of cancer, who subsequently develops hyperthyroidism, even low doses of 131 I can induce anaplastic thyroid cancer; in these subjects, therefore, other treatments than 131 I could be preferred for the therapy of Graves' disease. In our peculiar case, moreover, some studies have noteworthy demonstrated that certain cytokines (IL-1, TGF-β1 e TNF-α) can, rather than inhibit, induce anaplastic thyroid cancer cells to grow.


"S" and "R" forms of pneumococci are considered, in a general way, to represent respectively virulent and avirulent phases of the organism. It seemed reasonable to suspect that degradation from "S" to "R" forms might take place in the mechanism of recovery from pneumococcus infection in living tissues. Wadsworth and Sickles 1 recovered attenuated pneumococci from the blood stream and heart valves of horses previously immunized to pneumococci. Reimann 2 , 3 demonstrated the very occasional occurrence of "R" forms in the sputum of patients with lobar pneumonia. Paul 4 produced "R" forms in vivo under certain experimental conditions in dogs. In the present communication is reported the recovery, by direct lung puncture, of "R" variants of the pneumococcus from the lungs of a majority of lobar pneumonia patients studied. Clear cut cases only of lobar pneumonia were studied. Punctures were made at points of maximum consolidation. Lung puncture, in pneumonia, has been shown to be a safe procedure. 5 Material obtained by lung puncture was cultured at once in glucose broth and upon blood agar plates. For the latter, following the work of Sia and Chung, 6 5% dog blood was used to facilitate recognition of "R" and "S" forms. Colony studies were made after 18-22 hours incubation, longer incubation being used only when growth was retarded. Smears of the lung puncture material were studied with Gram's and Hiss capsule stains. In several cases portions of the puncture specimen were inoculated intraperitoneally into white mice. Identification of organisms was based upon cultural and microscopic characteristics, and in most cases upon bile solubility and type specific agglutination. In the majority of cases of typical lobar pneumonia, pure cultures were obtained upon lung puncture.


In the midst of a continuing economic crisis, the centres of global capitalism remain preoccupied with much that is predictable, if somewhat depressingly familiar: economies in crisis; unsustainable levels of national indebtedness; high and/or growing levels of unemployment; failures of the state; dangers of big government; austerity measures and programmes; popular protests, and so on. Readers of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) would be forgiven for thinking that this was Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, rather than Europe in 2010. Reflecting on the spread of neoliberalism, Susan George has observed how:


Abstract : COMPOSER (CES): Provide real time realistic communications effects for network operations planning and virtual exercises * Simulates 2k radio nodes running 600x faster than real time * Reduced life cycle cost (Government Purpose License Rights (GPLR) - No additional proprietary software required * Support available through CERDEC) * Open architecture and Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that facilitates: Ease in adapting to support current force operations using a modern simulation tool * Reduced the time and effort to adopt new waveforms.


In the article,the authors analyzed the characteristics of the medical support tasks,such as diversity of support content,short in preparation and raising time,lacking of standard to carry nursing equipment,on- site supply difficulties and particularity of the task.The existing problems of health service support tasks were also pointed out such as unbalance of demands and supplies,out of time in supplies,weak of mobility and lacking of a high degree of information.Then the author put forward corresponding measures like intensive training,deft handling;integrating military and civilian,expanding channels;refining standards,innovating methods;improving system and raising efficiency.


This paper presents a technique to model statically indeterminate forces based on stiffness matrices for multi-limbed climbing robots. Current wall climbing robots in literature overlook statically indeterminate forces, causing an incapability to estimate climbing failure under certain circumstances. Accounting for these forces, robot deformation can be approximated, paving the way for the proposed two-wall climbing approach. During a wall climb, two failure modes, slide and over-torque, are identified to compute feasible climbing region. A hexapod robot is used to verify the proposed technique by climbing between walls with pure friction end effectors.


Video conference services have been widely used today. Bandwidth cost is huge in HD video conference and thus reducing bandwidth is important for video conference services. In our paper, we proposed a real-time AI based cloud video conference solution on Intel Xeon which enables motion representation AI video reconstruction algorithms such as first order motion model (FOMM) to reduce bandwidth. We also proposed a background enhancement method to improve user experiences. The experimental results showed that our solution can achieve about 80% bandwidth reduction of same video quality compared with H.264. Our demo is available on https://github.com/Amygu1994/AIbasedVideoConference/raw/main/Demo_AI_based_Video_Conference_Solution.mp4.


Domain walls in a tetragonal chiral p-wave superconductors with broken time reversal symmetry are analyzed in the framework of the Ginsburg-Landau theory. The energy and the jump of the magnetic induction on the wall were determined for different types of walls as functions of the parameters of the Ginzburg-Landau theory and orientation of the domain wall with respect to the crystallographic axes. We discuss implications of the analysis for Sr2RuO4, where no stray magnetic fields from domain walls were detected experimentally.


Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common oral malignant tumors. circ_0004872 can inhibit the progression of gastric cancer, but its effect on the growth and metastasis of OSCC is still unclear.


In this paper Arnold diffusion is proved to be a generic phenomenon in nearly integrable convex Hamiltonian systems with arbitrarily many degrees of freedom: $$ H(x,y)=h(y)+\eps P(x,y), \qquad x\in\mathbb{T}^n,\ y\in\mathbb{R}^n,\quad n\geq 3. $$ Under typical perturbation $\eps P$, the system admits "connecting" orbit that passes through any finitely many prescribed small balls in the same energy level $H^{-1}(E)$ provided $E>\min h$.


Based on the most up-to-date experimental findings and hot spots of pharmacokinetic research,we propose a new hypothesis of "Molecular Pharmacokinetics of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy".The main ideas are as followed:the in vivo pharmacokinetics of active components of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy(TCP)was mainly affected by drug transporters and metabolic enzymes,present in various tissues and organs.The studies of these underlying mechanisms of actions pointed out that the pharmacokinetics of TCP could be manipulated rationally by either inhibition or activation of the related drug transporters and enzymes,leading to improving clinically therapeutic efficacy as well as reducing adverse effect of the TCP.


This paper presents the design of saturable chokes for use in power electronics and power conditioning systems. The inductances computed based on the finite-element field solution are compared with the estimated nonlinear inductances from the actual measurements. The results have shown the adequacy of the developed three-dimensional finite-element (FE) simulation. The calculated field solutions are used to assist the quantitative study of the influence of the nonlinear choke air gap on the inductance characteristics for intended application in the choke design.


A questionnaire concerning graduate offerings in the psychology of aging was mailed to 238 departments of psychology throughout the United States. Of the 191 responses (a return rate of 80%), 16 departments were found to offer a formal program of graduate study in ger‐ontological psychology. An additional 11 departments reported new or planned programs in this specialty area. Of the remaining respondents, 22% reported one or more course offerings in the psychology of aging or one or more faculty with interests in this topic. However, approximately one‐half of the departments of psychology in American universities provided no opportunity for the study of adult development and aging. Information concerning postdoctoral study, programs of study in Canadian universities, and specialization in the clinical psychology of aging was also obtained. Such opportunities do not appear to be plentiful, especially in clinical gerontology.


The textural properties of breads containing midified starches such as pregelatinized waxy corn starch, acetylated potato starch and hydroxypropylated tapioca starch, were investigated to determine the optimum addition level of modified starches. Effects of modified starches on dough properties were investigated through a farinogram and amylogram based on the different additional levels of modified starches (3%, 6%, 9%, 12% and 15% of flour content). Moisture contents and firmness values were measured to investigate the degree of retrogradation at 0 h, 36 h and 72 h after production. The levels of moisture contents were highest upon addition of pregelatinized waxy corn starch followed by acetylated potato starch and lowest upon addition of hydroxypropylated tapioca starch. Overall, higher moisture contents resulted in lower firmness levels. The preference scores by type of modified starch were highest upon addition of 9% hydroxypropylated tapioca starch, 3% pregelatinized waxy corn starch, and 6% acetylated potato starch, respectively. Preference scores were significantly correlated with textural properties such as volume, absorption, stability and weakness (p<0.01).


Objectives: The aim of this study was to detect pressure pain threshold (PPT) differences of masticatory muscles between subjects diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and myofascial pain dysfunction (MPD) and control subjects. Also, PPT between maseter muscles and temporal muscles in both groups was compared. Methods: The study included 30 patients with PTSD and MPD and 34 age matched control subjects without PTSD and MPD. PPT was assessed, using mechanical algometer (Wagner Instruments, FGK-5), for maseter and temporal muscles on right and left side. Results: Mean PPT of the right (1.47± ; ; 0.58 Lb) and left (1.57± ; ; 0.70 Lb) maseter muscles of PTSD and MPD patients was statistical significant lower than PPT of right (3.79± ; ; 0.85 Lb) and left (3.85± ; ; 0.83 Lb) maseter muscles of control subjects (p<0.001). Furthermore, mean PPT of the right (2.06± ; ; 0.97 Lb) and left (2.00± ; ; 0.91 Lb) temporal muscles of subjects in PTSD/MPD group was statistical significant lower than PPT of right (4.63± ; ; 1.06 Lb) and left (4.32± ; ; 0.87 Lb) maseter muscles of subjects in control group (p<0.000001). Conclusion: In both groups the maseter muscles were more painful then the temporal muscles. There were no PPT differences between right and left site for both tested muscles. PPT of maseter muscles in PTSD/MPD group was lower than 2 Libras which is recommended in RDC/TMD protocol for testing muscles pain thresholds.


In the present study, removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC), and total phenols (TP) from pistachio processing industry wastewater was investigated using electro-oxidation. COD, TOC, and TP removal efficiencies were compared considering stirring speed, support electrolyte types, support electrolyte concentrations, wastewater initial pH, and current density by using stainless steel cathodes and graphite anodes. Results showed that optimum values of operating variables, i.e., processing time, stirring speed, wastewater pH, current density, and support electrolyte (NaCl), were 5 h, 400 rpm, 3, 30 mA/cm2, and 1.25 M, respectively. Removal efficiencies of 99.79, 76.55, and 100% were obtained with these values for COD, TOC, and TP, respectively. Removal of COD, TOC, and TP increased with increased chloride concentration and current density at acidic pH.


China's main pollution industry resource and environment information sharing System was designed to effectively make use of the data on environment.Based on the technology of Web-GIS,the system is not only practical but flexible.If buit,the system will help citizens to acquaint themselves with the local resources and environment conditions,provide research data to institutes.Meanwhile it will support the government to make decisions. This paper concerns the development process of the system,including data preparing,system modeling,designing and realization.


This article analyzes the determinants of voting positions in the Brazilian House of Representatives (Chamber of Deputies) in relation to the preferences of the Executive Branch, focusing on the reasons leading Deputies to cooperate with or resist the President's interests on votes. The article examines the role played by political parties in the Deputies' behavior both inside and outside Congress, as well as the main instruments used by the Executive to encourage cooperative legislative behavior, applying a multivariate econometric model to estimate the determinants of Deputies' votes. The authors conclude that Deputies, especially those belonging to parties in the government coalition, cooperate with the President, following the orientation provided by their party leaders, as a strategy to access political and financial benefits controlled by the Executive, which in turn can be used in the electoral arena in order to maximize their odds of political survival, and that these same Deputies are the ones with the greatest odds of being reelected.


A new class of exact solutions to Einstein's field equations with a perfect-fluid source is presented. The solutions describe spatially inhomogeneous cosmological models and have a realistic equation of state p=\ensuremath{\rho}/3. The properties of the solutions are discussed. The most remarkable feature is the absence of an initial singularity, the curvature and matter invariants being regular and smooth everywhere. We also present an alternative interpretation of the solution as a globally regular cylindrically symmetric space-time.


Research has noted the onset of psychosis during adolescence and the influence of childhood adversity on the risk for psychosis. Prior social and self-construction difficulties contributory to psychosis and theorised to impinge upon adolescent development have also been highlighted. However, despite these links little empirical research has investigated this. This thesis aims to investigate the contributions of disruptions and exaggerations to adolescent egocentrism suggested by Harrop and Trower (2001).

This thesis investigated the relationship between psychosis and adolescent egocentrism in healthy adolescents, young people at high risk of psychosis and those with a first episode of psychosis. These relationships were tracked across the adolescent period and finally examined in clinical samples. It was found that a rise in psychotic-like experiences in mid-adolescence was linked to a rise in egocentric thinking suggesting that adolescent egocentrism contributes to psychotic-like experiences in healthy adolescents. At the clinical psychosis level, adolescent egocentrism was not contributory; however findings suggested that early emotional trauma and insecure attachment were moderated by adolescent egocentrism difficulties influencing the persistence of psychotic-like experiences into psychosis. These findings support the critical importance of adolescent development and developmental risk factors within the genesis of psychosis.


The characteristics of current society and the interest about citizenship education in the context of lifelong learning are essential for a study that aims to describe and understand the development of social and civic competence in the educational field. A Delphi study can make a proposal in which the social and civic competence is composed of 89 items organised into five areas: knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and behaviours. In the same way, the study of a school in Seville discovers didactic strategies and organisational processes that benefit the development of the various components of this competence.


Mashups enable end-users to "mix and match" data and services available on the web to create applications. Their creation is supported by a complex ecosystem of i) data providers who offer open APIs to users, ii) users who combine APIs into mashups, and iii) platforms, such as the ProgrammableWeb or Mashape, that facilitate the construction and publication of mashups. In this article, we argue that the evolution of the mashup ecosystem can be explained in terms of ecosystem niches anchored around hub or keystone APIs. The members of a niche are focused on an area of specialization (e.g., mapping applications) and contribute their knowledge to the value proposition of the ecosystem as a whole. To demonstrate the formation of niches in the mashup ecosystem, we model groups of related mashups as species, and we reconstruct the evolution of mashup species through phylogenetic analysis.


A functional description of the hydrophysical properties of the soil as a capillary-porous medium is presented. The described functions of water retention capacity and hydraulic conductivity of the soil have common parameters, which are interpreted within the framework of physical and statistical concepts. The practical significance of the proposed functions lies in the fact that the volume of labor-intensive field measurements necessary, for example, for modeling the dynamics of soil moisture, is significantly reduced. To identify the parameters of these functions, it is sufficient to use data only on the water retention capacity of the soil. The parameters identified in this way can be used to predict the ratio of the hydraulic conductivity of the soil to the moisture filtration coefficient. The presented system of the hydrophysical functions of the soil is compared with world analogues using literature data on soils of different texture.


The PI3K-AKT cellular growth and survival signalling pathway is commonly deregulated in a wide range of cancers. The novel candidate anticancer drug AT13148 is a multi-AGC kinase whose targets include PI3K-AKT signalling effectors, and it is currently in phase I clinical trial. Recently, growth inhibition and gene mutation data for this compound have been produced from the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) cell line panel at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. When bioinformatics pharmacogenomic analyses were performed for common cancer genes, PTEN mutations were statistically significantly associated with AT13148 sensitivity, whereas KRAS mutations were significantly associated with resistance. Amplifications of KIT and PDGFRA, both individually and together with KDR were associated with potent AT13148 sensitivity. Whole exome pharmacogenomic analyses also revealed a further fifteen genes mutationally associated with sensitivity to AT13148, including VHL mutations predominantly in kidney cancer cell lines and rare mutations in CETN3, NOP10 and CLDND2 occurring in highly sensitive cell lines. IC50 comparison analyses between AT13148 and other drugs included on the GDSC database, SRC inhibitors Dasatinib, AZD-0530 and A-770041 gave strong IC50 correlations with AT13148 in kidney cancer cell lines. Future genomic analyses of AT13148 GDSC data should investigate the mutational characteristics of AT13148-sensitive PTEN mutated cell lines and further examine the genomic features of AT13148-responsive kidney cancer cell lines. Transcriptomics analysis approaches should also be developed and integrated into these investigations. Laboratory experiments should also be developed to test the pharmacogenomic associations with AT13148 response predicted in this study using a distinct set of cell lines. Results of such experiments, if consistent with predictions, may potentially assist with patient stratification for phase II clinical trial of AT13148.


A channel selection apparatus comprising: a tuner unit selecting the frequency information provided by a channel selection frequency corresponding to the broadcast wave signal, and the broadcast wave signal into an intermediate frequency signal; and a demodulation unit, based on data from the said tuner iF carrier signal inspection desired cell exists, when checked that the desired carrier exists, setting a carrier frequency as the channel-selection frequency, performing first and second processes, the first process determines the current whether an area is the frequency should be set lower than the channel-selection frequency so as to raise the channel-selection frequency region, the second process determines whether the current area of which a frequency should be set higher than the channel-selection frequency thereby reducing the area of the channel-selection frequency, and setting the channel-selection frequency as a target just-tuning frequency.


Abstract : During the manufacture of TNT, one of the side products formed in relatively small amount is tetranitromethane (TNM). In the past it has been the practice to vent the TNM along with some nitrogen oxides (mainly NO) to the atmosphere. However, because of present-day awareness of pollution problems, EPA regulations now require the combined NO/TNM present in the exhaust gases to be below 100 ppm. In order to meet this requirement most of the TNM mustbe removed. Since TNM as a precursor of nitroform, can be used for the synthesis of a wide variety of polynitroaliphatics a desirable solution would be to collect the TNM as such or as nitroform thereby reducing the cost of pollution abatement.


Acinetobacter spp. are nosocomial pathogens, commonly associated with opportunistic infections such as pneumonia, urinary tract and skin and soft tissue infections, particularly in intensive care units and in military casualties returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their propensity to acquire resistance determinants and over-express existing resistance genes allows them to avoid eradication by antibiotics and biocides. A common cause of multidrug resistance is innate and over-production of efflux pumps. This study aimed to establish a method to distinguish between isolates that demonstrate different levels of efflux and to apply the method to study defined efflux pump mutants. MICs of a range of antibiotics were determined against clinical isolates representative of resistant and susceptible isolates commonly found causing infection in Singapore hospitals and specific pump deletion mutants. A Hoechst 33342 accumulation assay was developed and used to compare efflux in the clinical isolates and pump deletion mutants and data were compared with those from ethidium bromide and norfloxacin accumulation assays. Measurement of accumulation of H33342, with supporting ethidium bromide accumulation data, showed a significant difference in the efflux activity of specific pump deletion mutants compared with the parental strain. Data obtained in this study support previous work carried out with other strains and isolates of A. baumannii and provide an insight into the contribution of RND systems AdeFGH and AdeIJK to MDR in clinical isolates commonly found in Singapore hospitals.


This study systematically profiles the International Manufacturing Network research literature on the topic of Performance Management and provides a research framework addressing the core debated topics. The findings reveal that the main barriers are the heterogeneity of manufacturing sites, the implementation, and the gap between site- and network-level. The main success factors are the inclusion of diverse types of metrics for a wide range of areas, following guidelines for the implementation, engaging skilled employees, and continuously adapting the system over time. Along-side the identification of the core debated topics, a research agenda is proposed and managerial implications are highlighted.


We use Monte Carlo simulations to study NiFe2O4 nanoparticles. Finite size and surface effects differentiate them from their bulk counterparts. A continuous version of the Wang-Landau algorithm is used to calculate the joint density of states g(Mz,E) efficiently. From g(Mz,E), we obtain the Bragg-Williams free energy of the particle, and other physical quantities. The hysteresis is observed when the nanoparticles have both surface disorder and surface anisotropy. We found that the finite coercivity is the result of interplay between surface disorder and surface anisotropy. If the surface disorder is absent or the surface anisotropy is relatively weak, the nanoparticles often exhibit superparamagnetism.


Chemical engineering process is a very complex task. Fortunately, there are many different types of computer-aided system that have been developed used in chemical process activities. These software packages have improved chemical engineering design enormously and enabled process engineers to optimize design strategies and plant performance. However, the software packages generated and used different type of data. Therefore, these individual systems can not share the data fed to, and generated by, other application systems. A lot of time is spent on transferring the data manually from one application to another. The manual data transfer is time consuming and error-prone. Globalization makes the communication around the world becomes paramount nowadays. It is essential for engineers to exchange or sharing information around the world. This paper presents the exploration and implementation of the new technology-eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in chemical process engineering. XML is used as the neutral file format for data exchange to solve the problems above. XML file format is a very powerful data exchange format because it is platform-independent, self-describing and the data can be shared between programs without coordination. A web-based client/server data access will be developed to demonstrate the potential and benefits of the XML and Internet in chemical process engineering.


The past several decades have seen a shift in environmental and risk communication that emphasizes harnessing local knowledge to enhance environmental advocacy. As a result, one would expect local advocacy organizations to manifest this shift. Using Friends of the Nation (FoN; a Ghanaian local advocacy organization) as a case study, this research examines how FoN is constructing offshore oil production risks. The study found that FoN uses "whale deaths" as an exemplar of ecological risks associated with offshore oil production, even though in Ghanaian folk culture coastal communities view whale deaths as signs of bumper fish harvest. The article argues that the disconnect between the dominant frame and local meaning system could be explained in terms of FoN's policymakers-facing as opposed (or in addition) to community residents-facing engagement approach. Recommendations for environmental advocacy are discussed.


The Web holds a great quantity of material that can be used to enhance classroom instruction. However, it is not easy to retrieve this material with the search engines currently available. This study produced a specialized search assistant based on Google that significantly increases the number of instances in which teachers find the desired learning objects as compared to using this popular public search engine directly. Success in finding learning objects by study participants went from 80% using Google alone to 96% when using our search assistant in one scenario and, in another scenario, from a 40% success rate with Google alone to 66% with our assistant. This specialized search assistant implements features such as bilingual search and term suggestion which were requested by teacher participants to help improve their searches. Study participants evaluated the specialized search assistant and found it significantly easier to use and more useful than the popular search engine for the purpose of finding learning objects.


W HILE it is true that a psychoanalytic interp etation, where applied, may not be clinically valid without the cooperation and interpretation of the poet himself under expert analysis, and although in dealing with half-conscious remote associations, shifting illusions and confusing images, the recurring themes may not give definitive answers, an examination of the sea symbolism in Aleixandre's poetry reveals the neurotic motivation behind and preoccupation with the equation that love equals death. As Freud points out, love and death instincts fuse and blend with one another and reveal themselves in an


When the gravitational lensing potential can be approximat ed by that of a circularly symmetric system affected by weak perturbations, it is found that the shape of the resulting (tangential) caustics is entirely specified by the local azimuthal behavi our of affecting perturbations. This provides common mathematical groundwork for understandin g the problems such as closewide (d ↔ d−1) separation degeneracy of the binary lens microlensing lig htcurves and shearellipticity degeneracy of the quadruple image lens modelli ng.


Insect pest control requires fundamental knowledge of their physiology and behavioral responses. However, due to the small size of insects, in general, and their sensory formations (sensilla), in particular, the study of the physiology of insect sensory systems has until recently been limited by insufficient accuracy and selectivity of experimental mechanical action. To eliminate this gap in the study of insects, a physical technology is proposed based on a micromechanical device - microtweezers based on a layered structural composite of Ti50Ni25Cu25 alloy with a shape memory effect (SME), combined with a temperature control system and a three-coordinate piezoelectric micropositioner. Microtweezers with SME selectively capture the smallest sensilla of the studied insects, enabling their precise mechanical stimulation with simultaneous recording of physiological responses generated by sensilla using methods of impulse derivation in the nerve centers of the insect.


This Core Skills tutorial elucidates the principal surgical techniques of constructing a composite Y-graft, using the left internal thoracic artery and the right internal thoracic artery, for on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting.


Oral Interpretation of Children's Literature The purpose of this course is primarily to investigate children's literature from the performance perspective and to identify and practice effective performance techniques. Students will also learn about the history of children's literature, and characteristics of contemporary children's literature in the United States. Students will learn about certain genres in children's literature. Students will learn and perform non-dramatic literature in the style of reader's theatre for a group performance.


Distressed firm valuation is a very complicated subject that has involved corporate finance literature and practice since a long time. Despite the topic's relevance, contributions have been few and confined to stating only critical issues and proposing rather abstract solutions, seldom leading to "real-world" practices. This paper aims to develop an approach to distressed firm valuation, based on the discounted cash flow (DCF) and option pricing models, which can support corporate finance practice. The focus of the paper is on the going-concern value of the distressed firm to be compared with those arising from other feasible options (including the sale of company assets on an individual basis or bankruptcy value in a strict sense), along the complex process of managing the firm crisis.


Raising the timely issue of the non-regular workforce in South Korea, this article examined the degree and intensity of commitment of non-regular workers (contingent and part-time workers) to their job and organization. The results showed that both contingent and part-time workers were less committed to the organization and job than regular workers. This article showed that work status affected the individual, by influencing subjective stratum and his or her perception of distributive justice, which in turn had an impact on organizational commitment and job involvement. Finally, the article stressed that non-regular workers did not constitute a homogeneous group and that, consequently, part-time workers should be treated as distinct from other types of non-regular workers. The sociological implications of the non-regular workforce were discussed.


The Cooper basin, which produces a large proportion of Australia's natural gas, also includes small oil fields. Source rocks for the hydrocarbons are believed to be the terrestrial coal measure sediments of the Permian Gidgealpa Group. Dispersed organic matter in the sediments of the Gidgealpa Group in the Patchawarra trough, Cooper basin, ranges between 1 and 5% by volume, through seven formations. Less than 10% of the dispersed organic matter is exinite, and less than 30% is vitrinite. If these two macerals only are considered as source material for the liquid hydrocarbons, none of the formations contains the 0.5% organic carbon currently deemed necessary for a sediment to be classified as a source rock. If inertinite is regarded to have generating potential, then most of the formations rate as good to excellent source rocks. Recent studies on vitrinites and inertinites from a variety of coal seams suggest that if vitrinite is accepted as a possible source of liquid hydrocarbons, then inertinite is equally prospective. Consequently, dispersed inertinite in the Gidgealpa Group sediments is proposed as one of the sources for the liquid hydrocarbons in the Cooper basin.


The Lyhamyar deposit is a large Sb deposit in the Southern Shan Plateau, Eastern Myanmar. The deposit is located in the Early Silurian Linwe Formation, occurring as syntectonic quartz-stibnite veins. The ore body forms an irregular staircase shape, probably related to steep faulting. Based on the mineral assemblages and cross-cutting relationships, the deposit shows two mineralization stages: (1) the pre-ore sedimentary and diagenetic stage, and (2) the main-ore hydrothermal ore-forming stage (including stages I, II, and III), i.e., (i) early-ore stage (stage I) Quartz-Stibnite, (ii) late-ore stage (stage II) Quartz-calcite-Stibnite ± Pyrite, and (iii) post-ore stage (stage III) carbonate. The ore-forming fluid homogenization temperatures from the study of primary fluid inclusions in quartz and calcite indicate that the ore-forming fluid was of a low temperature (143.8–260.4 °C) and moderate to high-salinity (2.9–20.9 wt. % NaCl equivalent). Hydrogen and oxygen isotopes suggest that the ore-forming fluids of the Lyhamyar deposit were derived from circulating meteoric water mixed with magmatic fluids that underwent isotopic exchange with the surrounding rocks. Sulfur in Lyhamyar was dominated by thermochemical sulfate reduction (TSR) with dominant magmatic source sulfur. The lead isotope compositions of the stibnite indicate that the lead from the ore-forming metals was from the upper crustal lead reservoir and orogenic lead reservoir. On the basis of the integrated geological setting, ore geology, fluid inclusions, (H-O-S-Pb) isotope data, and previous literature, we propose a new ore-deposit model for the Lyhamyar Sb deposit: It was involved in an early deposition of pyrite in sedimentary and diagenetic stages and later Sb mineralization by mixing of circulating meteoric water with ascending magmatic fluids during the hydrothermal mineralization stage.


Since May, 1981, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has used aircraft to collect interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) from Earth's stratosphere. Specially designed dust collectors are prepared for flight and processes after flight in an ultra clean (Class‐100) laboratory constructed for this purpose at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Particles are individually retrieved from the collectors, examined and cataloged, and then made available to the scientific community for research. Interplanetary dust thereby joins lunar samples and Antractic meteorites as a critical extraterrestrial material curated at JSC.


About 10%--15% human prion diseases are associated with inheritance, including familial CJD, GSS and FFI with insertion or deletion mutations within octapeptide repeats region of PrP gene (PRNP). To observe whether the number of octapeptide repeats in rHuPrPs had effects on the interactions of PrP with bivalent metal such as copper, magnesium, or GST-tau, we constructed PRNP mutants with different number of octapeptide repeats with PCR technique and various PrP proteins were expressed successfully in E. coli. The results demonstrated that all purified rHuPrPs with different octapeptide repeats were sensitive to PK digestion. However, after incubated with copper, the rHuPrPs acquired PK resistance. The number of octapeptide and the concentration of Cu~(2+) determined the acquisition and the intensity of PK resistance. In addition, PrP(PG9) also showed the similar PK resistance when incubated with various concentrations of Mn~(2+) but not Zn~(2+) as that induced by Cu~(2+), but the intensity of induction by Mn~(2+) was slightly lower than that by Cu~(2+). The tau-coated ELISA demonstrated that the recombinant PrP appeared significant ability of binding with GST-tau in a dose-dependent manner, moreover, it was associated with the number of octapeptide, the more the octapeptides the much stronger binding ability with GST-tau. These results suggested that the PK resistance of rHuPrPs induced by Cu~(2+) was mediated through octapeptide repeat domains and the intensity of the effect was related with the number of the repeats. Moreover, the efficiency of molecular interaction between PrP and tau relied on the existence and the number of octapeptide repeats. Besides the octapeptide repeat domain, other regions within PrP seems to be also responsible for binding with GST-tau protein.


This study sought to understand the process of providing on-campus practical experience to teacher trainees in preparation for practicum in basic schools, and how the trainees perceive these. It used the mixed method approach to obtain data from three purposively sampled colleges of education in the Central Region of Ghana. Questionnaires were administered to 232 teacher trainees; 12 focus group discussion sessions were held with the trainees while an interview guide was used to elicit data from 24 college tutors. The findings showed that the on-campus experience offered trainees the opportunity to improve on their knowledge and practice of general pedagogical skills such as the writing of lesson plans, statement of appropriate lesson objectives, lesson delivery, timing of activities, and the use of teaching and learning resources. However, there was no evidence of documented standards and guidelines for the conduct of the on-campus practicum. Again, trainees had very limited time to engage with supervisors and critically interrogate and reflect on their own practices. Consequently, it was suggested that teacher training institutions should develop appropriate teaching standards and guidelines for on-campus teaching practice and give trainees more opportunity to engage with and critically interrogate their own practice in the process of learning to teach.


List of Contents.- Experimental Models for Pluripotent Stem Cells.- Careful Maintenance of Undifferentiated Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells is Necessary for Their Capacity to Differentiate to Hematopoietic Lineages In Vitro.- Evaluating Functional Abilities of Primitive Hematopoietic Stem Cell Populations.- The Pre-Spleen Colony-Forming Unit Assay: Measurement of the Spleen Colony-Forming Unit Regeneration.- Clonal Analysis of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Development In Vivo.- What We Have Learned From Retroviral Marking of Hematopoietic Stem Cells.- Differentiation of Stem Cells into Lineage Restricted Precursors.- Spleen Colony-Forming Unit: A Myeloid Stem Cell.- Status of High Proliferative Potential Colony-Forming Cells in the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Hierarchy.- Characterization of Several Classes of Mouse Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells.- Pluripotent Stem Cells and Early B Lymphocyte Precursors in Mice.- Microenvironments for Hematopoiesis.- Stern Cell-Stromal Cell Interactions.- The Stem Cell Compartment: Assays and Negative Regulators.- Stroma-Dependent Hematolymphopoietic Stem Cells.- Human Stem Cell Transplantation.- Marrow Transplantation.- The Fetal Liver as a Source of Stem Cells for Transplantation into Fetuses in Utero.- Human Umbilical Cord Blood as a Source of Transplantable Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells.- Biology and Clinical Application of Peripheral Blood Stem Cells.- Gene Transfer.- Gene Transfer into Hematopoietic Stem Cells: Prospects for Human Gene Therapy.- Gene Transfer into Hematopoietic Stem Cells.


During a flooding event, the ability of the terrain to dissipate water flow energy depends on its land-cover type and the associated surface roughness. In this study, we developed a new land-cover classification algorithm using repeat-pass polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data. Through a two-level hierarchical approach, we classified nine land-cover types with distinct surface roughness coefficients (Manning's $n$ ). We demonstrated the performance of this algorithm using available L-band ALOS PALSAR scenes acquired between April 2007 and April 2011 over the Houston area. The radar-based surface roughness estimates show a good agreement with those independently derived from NOAA's 22-class Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) 2010 land-cover classification data. Our algorithm is robust, and the randomly selected training sets only account for 0.3% of the total multilooked radar pixels (30-m spacing). Furthermore, we were able to accurately map surface roughness over the New Orleans area using available ALOS PALSAR scenes without selecting any new training sets. We note that NOAA's C-CAP data are currently used for estimating surface roughness in the operational storm-surge models, and a new version is typically released every five to six years. With the launch of the L-band NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission in the near future, our algorithm can be used to fill the temporal gaps of the existing C-CAP-based surface roughness database and improve the accuracy of near real-time hydrodynamic modeling.


Phase error compensation is necessity for high resolution optical frequency modulated continuous wave (OFMCW). In the phase error compensation of OFMCW, the precise measurement of laser source phase is the most significant. In this paper, we proposed a phase-smooth unwrapping algorithm to settle the issue of phase leap over 2π, thus could restore precisely the real phase of laser source, then could compensated the phase error in OFMCW. With that method, OFMCW's resolution could be promoted to 0.5 mm at over 200 m.


A novel method, data convolution and combination operation, is introduced for the reduction of ghost artifacts due to motion or flow during data acquisition. Since neighboring k‐space data points from different coil elements have strong correlations, a new "synthetic" k‐space with dispersed motion artifacts can be generated through convolution for each coil. The corresponding convolution kernel can be self‐calibrated using the acquired k‐space data. The synthetic and the acquired data sets can be checked for consistency to identify k‐space areas that are motion corrupted. Subsequently, these two data sets can be combined appropriately to produce a k‐space data set showing a reduced level of motion induced error. If the acquired k‐space contains isolated error, the error can be completely eliminated through data convolution and combination operation. If the acquired k‐space data contain widespread errors, the application of the convolution also significantly reduces the overall error. Results with simulated and in vivo data demonstrate that this self‐calibrated method robustly reduces ghost artifacts due to swallowing, breathing, or blood flow, with a minimum impact on the image signal‐to‐noise ratio. Magn Reson Med, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


It is estimated that 70% to 80% of diabetic patients die of cardiovascular complications, such as ischemic heart disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension, arrhythmias, and congestive heart failure. All these complications seem to arise from the occurrence of oxidative stress and the development of calcium-handling abnormalities. In particular, the genetic machinery in both cardiac and vascular cells is altered in chronic diabetes. Therefore, a novel therapy needs to be designed for the treatment of diabetes-induced cardiovascular abnormalities. The present clinical study has shown that the abnormalities in cardiac functions. The concentration of various enzymes like SGPT, CPK and LDH were slightly elevated in diabetic patients compared to normal level, which were mainly originated from the liver and heart.


Author: Helena Shi Title: Breaking the Internet: A Study of Generation Z and Viral Marketing Supervising Professor: Jason Duan, Ph.D. This thesis explores the convergence of Generation Z and viral marketing. It first defines the signature characteristics of the newest generation following millennials, including their digital fluency and social empowerment and activism. Then, it explores the different executions of viral content and viral marketing. The thesis investigates the differences between content vs. marketing and examines various executions of both. The thesis also conducts three case studies and surveys to explore specific relationships between viral content and advertising, including the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, the Pen Pineapple Apple Pen video, and the Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial. Then it delves into analyzing primary data collected via three surveys correlating to each case and utilizes different regression models to develop interpretations and conclusions. Thank you to my advisors, Dr. Jason Duan and Dr. Wayne Hoyer. Without their support and guidance, this project would not have been possible. Thank you both for investing your time and resources in this thesis – it has been a fantastic and memorable journey. Thank you also to the Plan II Honors Program for your support of this project, especially by providing the generous Thesis Grant that allowed me to collect my own primary data. Thank you to my friends and family for the continuous encouragement throughout the course of the project. It could not have been done without your uplifting cheers every step of the way!


A novel digital watermarking for image authentication is proposed in this paper. Most previous proposed watermarking algorithms embed sequences of random numbers as watermarks. Here images are taken as watermarks for embedding. In the proposed approach, the host image is decomposed into wavelet coefficients. Local entropies of wavelet coefficients in the low-frequency subband are calculated by a Teager energy operator to select embedding locations. The selected coefficients are quantized and the watermark is encrypted; then the least significant bits or the second least significant bits of the quantized coefficients are replaced by the encrypted watermark. At last, the watermarked image is synthesized from the changed and unchanged wavelet coefficients. The experiments show that the proposed approach provides extra robustness against JPEG compression compared to the traditional embedding methods. Moreover, the proposed approach has no need of the original image to extract watermarks and need not sort the embedded coefficients and the watermark.


A blood count, performed prior to planned minor surgery on a 7-year-old boy, using a Bayer Advia 120 automated blood counter (Bayer plc, Newbury, UK) showed an abnormal white cell differential comprising 17Æ4% neutrophils (0Æ98 · 10/l), 33Æ8% lymphocytes, 2Æ6% monocytes, 0Æ7% eosinophils, 0Æ7% basophils and 45% large unstained cells (LUC). The peroxidase channel display revealed a neutrophil cloud in the typical position with a large homogeneous population of cells in the upper left sector (the LUC population; left). A manual differential count showed 51% neutrophils (2Æ87 · 10/l), 45% lymphocytes and 4% monocytes. The neutrophils were of normal morphology. A manual myeloperoxidase stain identified populations of both myeloperoxidase-positive and -negative neutrophils (right). Partial or complete neutrophil myeloperoxidase deficiency is uncommon and is typically detected as a chance finding by the use of an automated cytochemical differential count. The occurrence of two distinct populations of neutrophils is a much rarer finding, however, and there appears to be no previous description of the presence of both myeloperoxidase-positive and -negative cells in the same subject. This situation may have arisen in our patient as a result of somatic mosaicism. This case demonstrates the importance of examining the peroxidase channel scatterplot in subjects with unexpected neutropenia using the Advia 120.