Elastic waves are used more and more in a nondestructive way to probe the physical properties of materials. The resolution of the images or the accuracy of the measurements is directly associated with the ultrasonic signal bandwidth and amplitude a system can generate or detect. The authors propose a technique to broaden the potential bandwidth of piezoelectric generators and sensors, which is based on utilizing a nonuniformly-polarized piezoelectric material. Both simulated and experimental responses are shown. They are in good agreement and exhibit a useful bandwidth over several natural harmonics of the piezoelectric transducer.


Data from studies conducted on adults cannot be extrapolated to children due to differences in physiology, anatomy, pathology and breathing patterns. This paper presents the development of appropriate mouth throat geometries that can be used to assess the flow through the paediatric airway, and could be used to improve inhaler design for children. Using the geometries developed, combined with the flow and usage data, a series of computational studies were undertaken, and the deposition patterns observed. It was found that there is increased deposition on the tongue, and a reduction in deposition at the back of the mouth. It was also found that for the smallest child geometry the amount of drug particles passing though to the lung was significantly reduced.


The loci for ENO1, PGD, and PGM1 were regionally assigned to Chinese hamster chromosome 2 using mouse x Chinese hamster somatic cell hybrid clones containing rearranged hamster chromosomes derived from T(2 ; 3) lIdr and T(2;10)3Idr translocation stocks of the Chinese hamster. Segregation analysis of the rearranged hamster chromosomes and expression of marker enzymes indicated that these genes are located on the region 2g24-*2gter. Combining the present results with those in the literature, we confirmed the previous assignment of ENO1 and PGD loci to 2g33-*2gter, and narrowed the localization of PGM1 from 2g23-~2g33 to 2g24-±2g33.


The paper studied formaldehyde emission (FE) of E0 class blockboards by desiccator and gas analysis method. Results showed that for the same formaldehyde emission value got from desiccator method, the gas analysis (GA) values were quite different. It was suggested to use gas analysis method to evaluate formaldehyde emission at low formaldehyde content. The main reason for different gas analysis values was moisture content (MC), the lower the board moisture content the smaller the formaldehyde emission value. Gas analysis value was very sensitive to specimen's moisture content, it was suggested to keep low moisture content could be a solution to decrease formaldehyde emission for blockboards.


Preface.- Acknowledgements.- List of Contributors.- PART I Trends in Health Care: Advances and Trends in Healthcare Technology.- PART II Diagnostic Imaging: Diagnostic Imaging.- Reconstruction Technologies For Medical Imaging Systems.- Detectors For X-Ray Imaging And Computed Tomography.- 3d-Rotational X-Ray Imaging.- Coronary Magnetic Resonance Angiography.- 4-Dimensional Ultrasonic Imaging.- Clinical Hybrid Imaging: Image Co-Registration And Hardware Combination For Pet/Ct And Spect/Ct.- PART III Integration of Diagnostic Imaging and Therapy: New Technology For Image-Guided Therapy.- Image-Guided Therapy (Igt): New Ct And Hybrid Imaging Technologies.- Developments In Cardiac Interventions.- Mri-Guided Focused Ultrasound.- Advances In External Beam Radiation Therapy.- Molecular Imaging Guided Radiotherapy.- PART IV Molecular Medicine: Molecular Medicine.- Molecular Imaging Systems.- Biomarkers In Disease Diagnosis And Treatment.- Molecular Agents For Targeted Imaging And Therapy.- Targeted Nanoparticles For Molecular Imaging And Therapy.- Molecular Imaging With Annexin A5.- Proteomics For Diagnostic Applications.- PART V Medical Informatics: Medical Information Technology.- Developments In Clinical Information Technology.- Computer Aided Detection & Quantification.- Medical Decision Support Systems.- Bioinformatics.- PART VI Personal Health Care: Perspectives In Personal Healthcare.- On-Body Sensors For Personal Healthcare.- Automated External Defibrillators For Layperson Use.- Remote Patient Monitoring Solutions.- Diabetic Care.- Index.


In September of 1993 the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision concerning "assisted suicide" in Canada. On a completely unrelated subject, in July of 1994 the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions issued new guidelines for the securitization activities of federally regulated financial institutions in Canada, which will likely make it easier for Canadian financial institutions to securitize billions of dollars of their own receivables.


Objective To synthesize 2-Chloro-3,3',4,4',5-pentamethoxydiphenylmethanone.Methods 2-Chloro-3,3',4,4',5-pentamethoxydiphenylmethanone was prepared from 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoic acid by acylation,Friedel-Crafts acylation and chlorination.Results Products were characterized by ESI-MS,1H-NMR,and 13C-NMR.The overall yield was about 80%.Conclusion 2-Chloro-3,3',4,4',5-pentamethoxydiphenylmethanone was firstly totally synthesized from 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoic acid.And the designed technology provides a simple,reasonable and practicable procedure for the synthesis of 2-chloro-3,3',4,4',5-pentamethoxydiphenylmethanone.


Background: Over 500.000 of the 2,3 million surgical treatments requiring bone grafting procedures that are performed annually are likely to be necessitated by or will result in bone defects that will not regenerate. Treatment to regenerate new tissues is needed, especially for hard tissue repair, which not only relies on a natural osseointegration process, but also requires a physical support to guide the differentiation and proliferation of cells into the targeted functional tissue. Chitosan and collagen extracted from chicken feet combinations are expected to enhance the bioactive surface and provide mechanical strength as a bone graft scaffold. Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of chitosan and collagen scaffold synthesized from chicken feet applications to increase the expression of Osteoprotegerin (OPG) and osteoblast cells on the fourteenth day of bone healing. Methods: Eighteen three-month old, adult, male, Rattus novergicu strain rodents with a body weight ranging from 200-350 g were kept under controlled environmental conditions. The mice were randomly divided into three groups consisting of three subjects, each treated with collagen, chitosan, chitosancollagen combination (50:50) scaffolds. On the 14 th post-treatment day, three members of each group were sacrificed. Examination of Osteoprotegerin (OPG) expression was conducted by means of immunohistochemistry staining with anti-OPG polyclonal antibodies. Meanwhile, osteoblast cell examination was performed by means of hematoxilin-eosin (HE) staining. Results: The mice treated with collagen and a chitosan-collagen combination scaffold presented an increase in the expression of Osteoprotegerin (OPG) and the number of osteoblast cells respectively. Conclusion: A combination of chitosan-collagen (50:50) scaffold extracted from chicken feet increased the expression of OPG and the number of osteoblasts in the bone healing process. The combination scaffolds demonstrated the highest OPG expression and number of osteoblasts compared to the other groups.


We present a two-dimensional temperature map of the Perseus Cluster based on multipointing observations with the ASCA Gas Imaging Spectrometer, covering a region with a diameter of ~2°. By correcting for the effect of the X-ray telescope response, the temperatures were estimated from hardness ratios, and the complete temperature structure of the cluster with a spatial resolution of about 100 kpc was obtained for the first time. There is an extended cool region with a diameter of ~20' and kT ~ 5 keV about 20' east of the cluster center. This region also shows higher surface brightness and is surrounded by a large ringlike hot region with kT ≳ 7 keV and is likely to be a remnant of a merger with a poor cluster. Another extended cool region is extending outward from the IC 310 subcluster. These features and the presence of several other hot and cool blobs suggest that this rich cluster has been formed as the result of a repetition of many subcluster mergers.


Human developmental anatomy is central to understanding of many disease states but has been challenged by the typically destructive analysis (e.g., histology) of scarce fetal specimens. CT scanning is non‐destructive, but is usually poor at distinguishing soft tissues. Iodine potassium iodide (I2KI) staining prior to CT is a new method to enhance soft‐tissue contrast. This study is the first to study human development with iodine‐enhanced microCT. Six human embryos ranging from 6–18 weeks, will be scanned, soaked in Lugol's solution for days to months depending on size, and then rescanned. Data are analyzed in Avizo and presented as images and 3D models. Here we present a progress report based on a subset of the total sample. Iodine staining shows many distinguishable soft tissues and provides highly detailed images. Results include clear details of the developing brain, fetal heart and circulation, and gut. The contrast provided by iodine staining creates images that can be used to analyze components of fetal anatomy that can provide insight into many developmental anomalies. This initial success indicates that this technique has great promise for producing valuable visualizations of human fetal development and a better understanding of human disease. Funding for this project was provided by a grant to AS from the Ohio University Provost Undergraduate Research Fund and to LMW from NSF.


A survey of undergraduate dermatological teaching was carried out as part of a study on basic medical education in 1975-1976 (Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust). Since then the number of students entering medical schools has increased and a number of dermatology departments including our own have been heard to say that they have inadequate space, staff and suitable patients, and can no longer teach medical students in a manner and to a standard they would like. In order to try and find out how other departments were managing and what their aims, practices and difficulties were, a questionnaire (Table i) was sent to one dermatologist in each of the twenty-nine undergraduate medical schools, including our own, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All but one replied.


................................................................................................... 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2. INTRODUCTION ............................................................5 CHAPTER 3. BACKGROUND 3.1 What is Machine Translation?.............................................................6 3.2 Generations and Types of Machine Translation................................6 3.3 Why Example-based Machine Translation?............................ ..........11 3.4 Difficulties of Example-based Machine Translation ..........................12 3.5 Initial Requirement for EBMT............................. ..........................12 Table1: Sample knowledge base of the English to Bengali EBMT..........15 CHAPTER 4. PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE OF EXAMPLE BASED ENGLISH TO BENGALI MACHINE TRANSLATION 4.1 Tagging and Parsing.........................................................................18 4.2 Handle Complex Sentence Using Sub-Sentential EBMT:....................20 4.3 Adapting Scheme to Match Sentence Rule ............................ ...........21 4.4 Match the sentence rule from the Knowledge Base ............................21 4.5 Translate from English to Bengali ....................... ............................22 CHAPTER 5. ADAPTATION IN ENGLISH TO BENGALI TRANSLATION 5.1 Adaptability/Mappability for a chunk has 4 discrete values:............... 23 5.2 Description of the Adaptation Operations .......................................23 5.3 Study of Adaptation Procedure for Morphological Variation.................24 CHAPTER6. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROPOSED EBMT SYSTEM ........25 CHAPTER7. LIMITATIONS OF OUR SYSTEM AND FUTURE WORK .............28 CHAPTER8. CONCLUSION ......................................................................29 CHAPTER6. REFERENCE ........................................................................30 CHAPTER7. APPENDIX (ENGLISH BENGALI SENTENCE RULE)...................31 Example Based English to Bengali Machine Translation 5 Chapter 2: Introduction The title of my research is "Example Based English to Bengali Machine Translation". The goal of this research topic is to develop efficient machine translation system for English to Bengali language. To develop an efficient machine translation system is very important but it is really expensive as it requires a huge amount of time and resources. In all languages there are many words that may have multiple meanings and also some sentence may have multiple grammar structure to express the same meaning, it is a great challenge to do the right semantic analysis. But it is very important to have a machine translation system which can compute all possible outputs in reasonable time and able to choose the best option. In present there are many ways of machine translation system. Many researchers came up with different approaches. But still it is not possible to get the finest possible result. I want to use the example based machine translation system, to get all possible outputs. For achieving this I have to plan to prepare a dictionary with morphological analysis and a Parallel Corpus. Then from semantic analysis it may possible to choose the best desired output. Example Based English to Bengali Machine Translation 6 Chapter 3: Background 3.1 What is Machine Translation? Machine Translation is the process of translating text units of source language into a target language by using computers. The term Machine Translation can be defined as "translation from one natural language (source language (SL)) to another language (target language (TL)) using computerized systems, with or without human assistance" (Hutchins and Somers 1992, pg. 3). 3.2 Generations and Types of Machine Translation Machine translation systems can be divided in two generations direct systems and indirect systems. First generation systems are known as direct systems. In such systems, translation is done word by word or phrase by phrase. In such systems very minimal linguistic analysis of input text is conducted (Hutchins and Somers 1992). This architecture is still being extensively used in commercial MT systems. The main idea behind direct systems is to analyze the input text to the extent that some transformational rules can be applied. This analysis could be parts of speech of words or some phrasal level information. Then using a bilingual dictionary, source language words are replaced with target language words and some rearrangement rules are used to modify the word order according to the target language (Arnold et al. 1993). This architecture is very robust because it does not fail on any erroneous or ungrammatical input. Since the analysis level is very shallow and the system contains very limited grammatical information, it hardly considers anything ungrammatical. In the worst case if the rule does not apply to the input, the input is passed on without any alteration as output. This kind of system is hard to extend because all the rules are written in one direction and are language specific. To make another language pair work, all the rules have to be rewritten. Since the system does not perform very deep analysis, its time complexity is low. These systems work very well for closely related languages but are not suitable for modeling languages with diverse syntactic nature. Since the system does not explicitly Example Based English to Bengali Machine Translation 7 contain the grammatical rules of the target language, there is a chance that the output will not be grammatical but it will be similar to the target language (Arnold et al. 1993) Owing to the fact that linguistic information helps an MT system to produce better quality target language translation, with the advance of computing technology, MT researchers started to develop methods to capture and process the linguistics of sentences. This was when the era of second generation MT systems started. Second generation machine translation systems are called indirect systems. In such systems the source language structure is analyzed and text is transformed into a logical form. The target language translation is then generated from the logical form of the text (Hutchins and Somers 1992). The transition from direct systems to indirect systems is illustrated in Figure 2.1, taken from (Hutchins and Somers 1992, pg. 107). SYSTRAN is one of the most well-known direct systems. It is described in Hutchins and Somers (1992) and Wilks (1992). Indirect systems can be further divided into Interlingua and Transfer based systems. Example Based English to Bengali Machine Translation 8 In the transfer method, the source language is analyzed to an abstract level. Then, through a transfer module, this abstract form is converted to the corresponding abstract form in the target language through which the target translation text is generated. The module 'SL Analysis' captures the required linguistic information about the source language sentences to aid the translation. 'SL to TL Transfer' module transfers the representation generated by 'SL Analysis' to a target language representation. The module 'TL Generation' generates the translation text using this logical representation. Such a system requires independent grammars for the source and target languages. Moreover it requires a comparative grammar or transfer roles to relate source structures to target structures. Since the system assumes full grammatical knowledge it does not allow ungrammatical sentences to be parsed, thus reducing the output of the system. This kind of system is easy to extend because to add a new language, grammar and transfer rules for the new language need to be written but the grammar of the other language is reusable. Such systems are theoretically reversible. The same grammars can be used in the reversed system. Practically there are problems in reversing the system because some transfer rules which are correct in one direction may not be correct in the other direction. The system has the explicit grammar of the target language, which ensures grammatical output (Arnold et al. 1993). Examples of transfer systems include ARIANE (Vauquois and Boitet 1985), SUSY (Maas 1987), MU (the Japanese National Project) (Nagao et al. 1986), METAL (Slocum et al. 1987; Bennett and Slocum 1988), TAUM-AVIATION (Isabelle 1987), ETAP-2 (Apresian et al. 1992), LMT (McCord 1989), EUROTRA (Arnold 1986; Arnold and des Tombe 1987; Example Based English to Bengali Machine Translation 9 Copeland et al. 1991a,b), CAT-2 (Sharp 1988), MIMO (Arnold and Sadler 1990), MIMO-2 (van Noord et al. 1990) and ELU (Estival et al. 1990). The Interlingua approach involves the use of an intermediate language (i.e. an Interlingua) for the transfer, with the source language text translated to the Interlingua and the Interlingua translated to the target language text. As suggested by Hutchins and Somers (1992), an Interlingua is an intermediate 'meaning' representation and this representation: "includes all information necessary for the generation of the target text without 'looking back' to the original text. The representation is thus a projection from the source text and at the same time acts as the basis for the generation of the target text; it is an abstract representation of the target text as well as a representation of the source text." (Hutchins and Somers 1992, p. 73) Interlingua appears to be an attractive approach for machine translation due to several reasons. Firstly, from a theoretical point of view it is very interesting to establish a representation which is independent of language. Secondly, Interlingua systems are more easily extendable because only analysis and generation modules are required to add a new language and no language specific transfer information is needed. But it is difficult to define such a language independent representation even for closely related language


Silicon-based anode attracts many researchers because of its high capacity for anode. Si/carbon system, however, showed rapid fading of the charge/recharge capacity after cycles, even though it could provide anode capacity up to 2000mA/h with pure silicon. Carbon-coating is used in this study to enhance the electrical conductivity of pure silicon, and to improve the thermal stability during the charge/discharge processes. To investigate the thermal stability of carbon-coated anode, discharged sample was heated inside TEM and observed the changes of microstructure with time. Silicon powder was coated with carbon and heat treated to make uniform coating. Coated powder was electrically discharged and then removed from the cell in the glove box. Samples were loaded onto the mesh grid and observed by using JEM 2010F TEM operated at 200kV. Streaming video was recorded from the Gatan ES500W camera. Figure 1(a) was the selected area diffraction patterns (SADP) of the discharged sample before heating and Figure 1(b) was taken after heating at 400 oC. Lattice planes of Si(111), (220),(311), (400), (331), (422) were confirmed from the as-charged powders together with the ring pattern, which came from the lithiated silicon. When the sample was held at 400 oC, most of the diffraction spots from the Si-crystalline disappeared and new lattice planes were formed. These changes directly indicated that there was phase transition by the heating of the anode powders. Changes in the lattice planar spacing of discharged silicon, which appeared as ring patterns in Figure 1, were also observed and are plotted in the inset of figure 1. There existed slight increase in the of lattice planes by heating, which indicated the phase change of lilthiated silicon. Changes in elemental distributions were investigated using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). Figure 2 (a) shows a bright field image of particles after heating without removing the electrolyte from the discharged sample, (b) dark field image of the plane circled in (a). Figure 2(c) shows the low magnification of the region in (a), where elemental mapping was obtained. Figure 2(d)-(f) show elemental distributions of C, Si, and F, respectively. Elemental mappings clearly showed that not all the powders were consisted of silicon, which appeared as agglomerated form while carbon appeared throughout the powder. It was confirmed that from elemental mapping that fluorine was decomposed after insitu heating experiment due to the low stability of fluorine compounds, while Si-based anode did not changed much during in-situ heating experiment. Thermal stability experiments were carried out in the liquid cell, which gave contact with C-coated Si with electrolytes while illuminating electron to pass through it. Results of thermal stability of Si-based anode material in electrolyte, decomposition behavior will be discussed in the presentation.


Throughout the last 100 years instructional theory has developed many different educational models and learning scenarios. What schools are still missing is not only an educationally sound and complete categorization scheme, but also the application of these models to the new forms and types of virtual learning environments. Traditionally these educational scenarios lack detailed and finely granulated descriptions. Such a description is only possible if it is guided by an underlying theoretical model of (e)learning and if the relationship between the higher level (educational scenario) and lower level (interaction pattern) are explored in detail. This paper suggests a new view based on the epistemological point of view - the so-called "theory of ontological stratification" - by Michael Polany.


Knowledge management is widely considered to be essential to create sustainable competitive advantages for organizations in today's business environment. Expertise Management, which focuses on tacit knowledge, is one of the most valuable KM applications. It is understandable that expertise management is relatively new area, in some cases it is confused with competency management. Despite of the similarities between the two terminologies, they differ in functions, applications, foundations, processes, methods, etc. This paper analyzes the nature of expertise and competency following with the comparison between expertise management and competency management. This paper lays special stress on methods, processes and technologies associated with expertise management and competency management.


Compact arc-shaped conformal dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs) loaded by metal plates and high-dielectric-constant (HiK) patches are investigated. Their miniaturizing principles are analyzed from different aspects. Closed-form expressions are derived to characterize the function of the conformal ground in size reduction. Difference between the conventional flat ground and conformal one is discussed. As to lateral metal loading, its influence on radiation patterns are utilized to acquire additional function. Next, to replace the metallic structure, HiK patches are used as perfect electric conductor (PEC) walls. Their working mechanisms are analyzed through the electromagnetic theory in layered media, and waveguide-based simulation methods. As validation, a dielectric-loaded arc DRA is proposed. By working like a PEC, the thin dielectric patch reduces the DRA size to one half. Similar characteristics are observed between the dielectric- and metal-loaded antennas. Finally, a bare DRA and a miniaturized one are fabricated and measured. This research expands the miniaturizing theory of conformal arc DRAs.


The purpose of this study was to investigate students' perceptions about the characteristics of good teachers and how those characteristics affect students' motivation to learn. The research method was a qualitative case study about Mrs. Julia. The researcher acted as an interviewer and observer for seven weeks. As an interviewer, he conducted 23 student interviews and one teacher interview. As an observer, he conducted seven class observations. During and after the data collection, he analyzed the data based on emerging themes and their components. Six themes and 34 components surfaced in the study. It was found that all of the students perceived four major characteristics of Mrs. Julia's teaching: caring, respect, commitment, and knowledge. One student perceived her as an enthusiastic teacher and three students perceived her as a "fun" teacher. In addition, it was found that Mrs. Julia's knowledge influenced the students' motivation to learn. The most frequent characteristic mentioned by the students and Mrs. Julia was respect, and the most frequent components were treating the students equally and using examples in teaching. Regarding their motivation to learn, the most frequent characteristic mentioned by the students was knowledge. The most frequent component mentioned by Mrs. Julia was involving the students in the learning process. The most frequent characteristic mentioned in the researcher's field-notes was "fun" and the most frequent components were telling jokes and telling stories in teaching. The researcher concluded that respect was the most frequently mentioned characteristic in Mrs. Julia's teaching. In addition, the students agreed that Mrs. Julia's knowledge influenced their motivation to learn. The students had their own definitions of teacher's characteristics because they came from their own perspective. For example, their definition of a "fun" teacher was altering teaching techniques and methods rather than being an easy teacher.


Objective The aim of the paper was to explore pathological factor in schizophrenia Methods The lymphocyte of health individual was cultured with serum of schizophrenia The expression of c fos gene protein was observed with immunohistochemistry The protein in serum was analyzed with agarose autoelectrophoresis instrument Control group, internal medicine diseases and health individual, was established Results A factor in serum, which induced superexpressing c fos in lymphocyte, was detected in 7/10 schizophrenia and not detected in control group There was a significant difference between two groups ( P 0 01) The electrophoresis result showed that characteristic change was obtained with multivariate analysis There was also a significant difference between groups( P 0 01) Conclusion There may be a factor that induced superexpressing c fos in schizophrenic serum and related with schizophrenic pathology


Tumors theranostics will be a single and multifunctionaltreatment in the clinic, while transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) of solid tumors is an effective method currently, however, TAE has some insurmountable defects....


In this article, the role of Danylo Shtul in the cultural and spiritual life of Volyn in the period of Nazi occupation (1941–1944) is highlighted. The state of development of this issue in Ukrainian and foreign historiography is determined. Issues that require further study and development are grounded. For the purpose of comprehensive study of the given issues archival documents and newspaper publications are used. In the scientific circle, new documents about life and activities of Danylo Shtul are introduced. In view of the state of development of this issue, the life and activities of Danylo Shtul were divided into three conditional periods. The main stages of life and activities of Danylo Shtul are examined. Information about the birthplace of Danylo Shtul is clarified. The influence of social and political events of the period of Second World War on the activities of Danylo Shtul is considered. Attention to his spiritual, cultural, social and political activities is concentrated. The author's interpretation of the significance of Danylo Shtul's religious, cultural, social activities in the life of Volyn in the period the Nazi occupation is outlined. Therefore, we must note that Danylo Shtul during the Nazi occupation was a supporter of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, supported the idea of creating an independent Ukraine and the spread of the Ukrainian language in the region. Particular attention is paid to the activities of Danylo Shtul as the head of the association «Prosvita». An assessment of Danylo Shtul's activity as a clergyman, cultural and social figure is provided. It is stated, that Danylo Shtul was repressed in 1945 and rehabilitated in 1994. The conclusion on the important contribution of Danylo Shtul to the cultural and spiritual life of Volyn and Ukraine in general in the period of Nazi occupation is made.


A new type of working fluid to be used for boiling or multiphase heat transfer in microgravity conditions is proposed. The advantages of using a complex magnetisable fluid for boiling or multiphase heat transfer in microgravity are presented, based on the theoretical analysis of the body forces exerted by an applied magnetic field in such a fluid, in comparison with the similar phenomena determined by the body forces exerted by an applied electric field in a dielectric fluid. The experimental setup designed to study the effectof the applied magnetic field on the bubble dynamics, to be proposed for a microgravity experiment, and currently in preparation for experimentation under terrestrial conditions, are presented. Author Information Reprint Address: Stoian, FD (reprint author) Politehn Univ Timisoara, Dept Thermal Machines & Transport, 1 Mihai Viteazu Bv, RO1900 Timisoara, Romania.


While humanoid feet are made of rigid plates, human feet have evolved into highly articulated and flexible elements. This adaptiveness provides key advantages. It absorbs impacts and secures grip when interacting with the environment. However, the human foot design potentially increases the energetic cost, because it features actuators and provides less power transfer than a rigid plate does. Here we use neuromuscular models with different foot designs and show that human feet incur about 20% more energetic cost than rigid ones for walking speeds up to 1.2ms−1, which is close to the preferred walking speed. Above this speed, human feet do not show an energetic disadvantage. In addition we propose a foot design for prosthetic or humanoid feet which preserves key features of adaptive feet but does not require actuation, and show that it reduces the energetic cost by 15% or more independent of the walking speed. We conclude that human evolution may have traded the advantages of adaptive feet for energy efficiency, and that robotic systems could gain the former without compromising on the latter.


We have developed a reject option for VQ-based supervised Bayesian classification to improve classification accuracy by sieving out patterns that are classified with a low confidence value. A small codebook extracted from a learning vector quantizer (LVQ) is used to estimate the class-conditional densities of the feature vector. We adapt the two commonly used rejection criteria, outlier rejection and ambiguity rejection, for the VQ-based Bayesian classifiers. Using three high-level image classification problems, we demonstrate how local rejection criteria can improve the error vs. reject characteristics of our classifier over a global rejection method.


An integrated oscillator was designed to analyze the behavior of high-performance SiGe:C HBTs under RF large signal stress. The properties of the oscillator core HBTs can easily be monitored during the whole test period. A complex measurement setup was arranged to perform all tests without the need to reconfigure the measurement setup. First experimental data are presented demonstrating a degradation of the HBT 1/f noise and base current behavior caused by the applied RF large signal stress.


We introduce an efficient approach to generate vortex Bessel-like beams based on high-order fiber mode, which can produce radially polarized Bessel-Gauss beams. Anti -diffraction properties of the produced Bessel-like beams are investigated. © 2020 The Author(s)


Let G3n,p,3 be a random 3-colorable graph on a set of 3n vertices generated as follows. First, split the vertices arbitrarily into three equal color classes, and then choose every pair of vertices of distinct color classes, randomly and independently, to be edges with probability p. We describe a polynomial-time algorithm that finds a proper 3-coloring of G3n,p,3 with high probability, whenever p $\geq$ c/n, where c is a sufficiently large absolute constant. This settles a problem of Blum and Spencer, who asked if an algorithm can be designed that works almost surely for p $\geq$ polylog(n)/n [J. Algorithms, 19 (1995), pp. 204--234]. The algorithm can be extended to produce optimal k-colorings of random k-colorable graphs in a similar model as well as in various related models. Implementation results show that the algorithm performs very well in practice even for moderate values of c.


Abstract A thorough research of the optical properties of ZnO/Ag structures sputtered by RF on PS colloidal crystal molds with different diameters is reported. The influences of the period of the substrates on the performance of ZnO thin films were studied. The results of scanning electron microscopic, X-ray diffraction patterns and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy indicated that the ZnO/Ag thin films were well-covering on PS colloidal crystal molds. The diameter of the polystyrene particles significantly influenced the PL spectrum intensity of ZnO/Ag by affecting the interferences of light. After adding PS colloidal crystal molds with different diameters, all the samples show two luminescent regions, namely a strong, narrow UV emission peak and a wide, weak visible emission band. However, the signal of UV emission increases more significantly. In particular, the maximum enhancement occurs when the diameter is 300 nm. This work proposes an effective way to improve ZnO light emission based on a simple, rapid and cost effective method to fabricate ordered periodic substrates by preparing single layer polystyrene microspheres masks.


Serum, plasma, and urine concentrations resulting from the administration of sulfamethoxydiazine, a new long‐acting sulfonamide, were studied in twelve adults. A single dose of 0.5,1.0, or 2.0 Gm. was found to produce peak serum levels of free drug of 3.6,8.0, and 13.4 mg. per 100 ml. in 6 to 8 hours. Seventy‐five per cent of the peak remained after 24 hours and 50 per cent was still present after 48 hours. About 5 per cent of the drug in the blood was in the acetylated form. Twenty‐five per cent of a dose of SMOD was excreted in the urine during the first 24 hours and 50 per cent in 48 hours; 20 to 30 per cent of the drug in the urine was acetylated. After various "loading doses," SMOD was administered at 24 to 48 hour intervals for 7 to 10 days. The administration of an initial dose of 1.0 to 2.0 Gm. followed by 0.5 Gm. once daily produced serum concentrations of 6 to 14 mg. per 100 ml.; slightly higher levels were produced in individuals given somewhat larger "loading doses." The accumulation of SMOD in the blood levels which followed its administration were similar to those of other long‐acting sulfonamides. No untoward effects were observed.


The paper presents a new Swedish-Lithuanian dictionary (about 28,500 words) based on Swedish Lexin series. It presents a short survey of the Swedish-Lithuanian lexicographical situation, the background to the project, peculiarities and difficulties that we were confronted with while preparing the dictionary, with special attention to semantics and the problem of equivalents. The problems are typical in lexicography when compiling bilingual dictionaries and are based on different historical, cultural, social, etc. conditions of the two language regions.


Abstract : A polystyrene foam container used for shipping and storage of five Submarine Location Markers was tested to Performance Oriented Packaging criteria established by the Code of Federal Regulations Title 49 CFR. The box was tested with a gross weight of 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and met all the requirements.


In order to promote the commercialization and utility of anaerobic fermentation slurry further,according to the physiology biochemical characteristics of the aphides,the text adopted the idea to add different compound additives to the anaerobic fermentation slurry,and carried out an experiment on effect of anaerobic fermentation slurry on killing aphides.The result showed that 5 kinds of the compound additives adopted were able to enhance the effect to kill aphides when they were add into the anaerobic fermentation slurry.It was proposed that the volume ratio between the anaerobic fermentation slurry and the additive were: BP01 8000~11000,BP02 24000~30000,BP03 8333~12500,BP04 18000~25000,BP05 10000~15000.The mechanism of killing aphides of anaerobic fermentation slurry mixture was also discussed.


Paired mongrel dogs of near equal weight were used in two separate series of perfusion experiments. In the first series, the amputated leg of the 'perfused' dog remained connected to the rest of the body by the femur and the femoral nerve. The arterial and venous femoral vessels were anastomosed to the corresponding vessels in the 'donor' dog. Three milligrams per kilogram of 2–4-dinitrophenol was injected intravenously into the donor dog which was now perfusing the amputated extremity. The expired air was collected, analyzed and subjected to statistical analysis. It was found that the minute volume, oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production exhibited an increase of approximately 100% above control values in the donor dogs. The perfused animals in this series also exhibited marked increases in the same parameters. It was discovered that dinitrophenol was reaching the perfused animal via the blood supply of the intact femur. Therefore, a second series of experiments was undertaken in which the femur...


Ha Jin is one of the most important contemporary Chinese-American writers in American literary circles. His diaporic identity, on one hand, offers him the priority to observe and retrospect the two cultures. On the other hand, it makes his composition imprinted with strong features: unique narrative mode and skillful design, through which he exposes thoroughly human nature and probes into the intricacies of the heart.This essay intends to analyze how Ha Jin's cultural and literary capital has enhanced the theme of the novel Waiting. He is especially good at depicting everyday details in simple English with a Chinese flavor. By these detailed descriptions, he gives us insight into the lives of Kong Lin and Manna Wu which are mechanistic and dehumanizing. We can also see how an individual's fate is determined by everyday life from everyday details of the characters in the novel.


Combustible mixtures of lunar regolith with magnesium could be used for production of construction materials on the Moon. The paper presents new experimental results on the combustion front propagation in mixtures of JSC-1A lunar regolith simulant with magnesium. With decreasing the magnesium concentration in these mixtures, a spinning combustion wave was observed, which involved periodical motion of two counterpropagating hot spots along a helical path on the sample surface. These observations confirm theoretical predictions for spin combustion in solid-solid mixtures. High-energy mechanical milling of JSC-1A in a planetary ball mill significantly improved combustion of mixtures with magnesium. In particular, the minimum magnesium concentration required for self-sustained propagation of a planar combustion front decreased to 13 wt%. Experiments under reduced (0 g) and increased (1.5-1.8 g) gravity conditions were conducted onboard research aircraft. The effect of gravity on the combustion of JSC-1A/Mg pellets is small, but there is a slight trend toward a higher combustion front velocity with increasing gravity. Submerging the pellets in silica during combustion increases the strength of the products, which may be associated with different cooling rates.


and archaic theology does not begin, for Evdokimov, when there is nothing more to lick or chew. Those who read his book must be prepared for the intellectual asceticism which trinitarian theology demands. Evdokimov elsewhere disapproves of the thirst for Cartesian clarity which, he thinks, haunts Catholic theology. This disapproval is a matter of degree, for Evdokimov and other outstanding Eastern theologians are quite technical in their trinitarian vocabulary. This follows, inevitably, on their sensitivity to the tradition of the Church Fathers. In turn, this means that 'archaic' does not mean 'anything that is not in the morning papers'. It means that a trinitarian theology which bypasses the experience of the Church over the centuries is bound to get the Trinity all wrong. It means too that a theology of the Holy Spirit which is not grounded in a sound theology of the Trinity will be unbalanced and often quite wrong. This can be illustrated in whole sectors of the history of theology.


Research in entrepreneurship field has magnetized the interest of many researchers as a tool of development for many countries. The study of the factors that leads people to become entrepreneurs has been a question of many researchers.  This study explores the relationship between the Big-Five personality factors, contextual factors and entrepreneurial intention. As such, it fits squarely into the literature on the antecedents of entrepreneurship. Previous research has focused on the need for achievement as well as social psychological characteristics such as attitude and self-efficacy.  This study looks at the extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, perceived barriers, perceived support and close support which are determinants of entrepreneurial intention.  The data was gathered from 123 undergraduate students at one of the university branch campuses in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia. Data collection was based on voluntary basis, informed consent, and anonymity. Regression analyses indicate that entrepreneurial intention is positively correlated with extraversion, openness, and close support. In the final section, we discuss these results and discover a future research agenda.


of a chimera would very strongly suggest, though its absence would not of course disprove, an origin from two separate ova and its presence might depend upon a third separate (and binovular) twin. There have been several recent interesting reports of conjoined twins. Franklin et al. (1958) have recorded a craniopagus, and mention that this is the sixth recorded since 1949. This figure obviously does not include the Keighley twins, for these authors state that the last case known to have been born in England was that of Cameron (1928), and it is unlikely to include the Homburg twins, for I do not think these have been described in the literature. Stiggelbout (1958) records stillborn macerated conjoined twins in Kaduna, Nigeria, and notes the relative prominence of that country in the history of conjoined twins. He mentions the twins which I reported earlier (Aird, 1954) and the Port Harcourt twins reported by Roddie in 1957. In fact, Nigeria has been even more prolific of surviving conjoined twins. McLaren (1936) recorded successful separation of conjoined twins born to a Hausa woman in Sokoto, Nigeria, and they are still surviving. In addition to these were the stillborn twins recorded by Bowesman (1940). The survivor of the Nigerian twins that I separated in 1953 is alive and well, a very bright child, normal physically and mentally. Unfortunately her mother died of a placenta praevia in 1957. The history of the separation of twins can now be fairly clearly documented. The first successful operation was that performed by Professor Doyen in 1902 in Paris for the separation of the Radica-Doodica sisters, one of whom had developed abdominal tuberculosis. The tuberculous sister died but the other survived. It is notable that Professor Doyen had a cinematograph film made of the operation, and by courtesy of the editor of the Nursing Mirror I have a copy of a print of two of the frames from the film. This film preceded the opening of the first public cinema theatre by about two years, though it was not the first example of the use of a motion-picture camera in the operating theatre. I am told that Professor Doyen was accused of having shown this film to the general public for profit, and felt impelled to vindicate his honour in a duel. The second successful separation was done in October in 1912 in the Military Families Hospital at Portsmouth by an unnamed R.A.M.C. officer; one of these twins died four months later, but the other survived and was well in 1954, though we have since lost sight of her. The third successful operation was that done by Dr. Holm, of Minnesota, on January 8, 1927, and the fourth was by Dr. D. W. McLaren (1936) in Nigeria.


This paper focuses on evaluating the uncertainty of three common regionalization methods for predicting continuous streamflow in ungauged basins. A set of 268 basins covering 1.6 million km2 in the province of Quebec was used to test the regionalization strategies. The multiple linear regression, spatial proximity, and physical similarity approaches were evaluated on the catchments using a leave‐one‐out cross‐validation scheme. The lumped conceptual HSAMI hydrological model was used throughout the study. A bootstrapping method was chosen to further estimate uncertainty due to parameter set selection for each of the parameter set/regionalization method pairs. Results show that parameter set selection can play an important role in regionalization method performance depending on the regionalization methods (and their variants) used and that equifinality does not contribute significantly to the overall uncertainty witnessed throughout the regionalization methods applications. Regression methods fail to consistently assign behavioral parameter sets to the pseudoungauged basins (i.e., the ones left out). Spatial proximity and physical similarity score better, the latter being the best. It is also shown that combining either physical similarity or spatial proximity with the multiple linear regression method can lead to an even more successful prediction rate. However, even the best methods were shown to be unreliable to an extent, as successful prediction rates never surpass 75%. Finally, this paper shows that the selection of catchment descriptors is crucial to the regionalization strategies' performance and that for the HSAMI model, the optimal number of donor catchments for transferred parameter sets lies between four and seven.


This paper reports for fundamental relationship between tip thickness of crushed cutter and thickness of indented sheet. By varying the tip thickness of trapezoidal center bevel cutter, the resistance of cutter indentation and the shared profile of aluminum sheet were inventigated experimentally. For discussing the deformation mechanism in the necking stage, Hill's solution with slip line theory and finite element analysis with elasto-plastic model were applied to this wedge indentation. The derived results were as follows : the load response after the local maximum point of the cutting force is characterized by the necking mode due to the wedge effect of cutter; the necked height of sheet material varies with the tip thickness of cutter; the occurrence limit of necking deformation exists in terms of the sheet thickness; the line force at the deflection point is varied with the tip thickness of cutter, but not with the sheet thickness; the residual sheet thickness beneath the cutter tip depends on the tip thickness of cutter.


Objective:  This paper reviews evidence regarding the deviance disavowal approach to alcohol‐related violence. It focuses on whether alcohol intoxication is used to excuse domestic violence, and whether this can explain alcohol/violence association.


Thiourea reacts with dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylates in acetone to form 1:1 adducts, which undergo a cyclization reaction to produce alkyl E-2-(2-imino-4-oxo-1,3-thiazolan-5-yliden)acetates, in fairly high yields. Under the same conditions, thioacetamide reacts with dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate to form dimethyl E-2-(ethanimidoylsulfanyl)-2-butenedioate. The products are stable crystaline solids whose structures are supported by IR, MS, 1 H NMR, 1 3 C NMR spectroscopy, and elemental analyses.


Currently there are conflicting results regarding optic neuropathy in diabetes mellitus. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate optic neuropathy in diabetic patients. We studied visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in 20 diabetic patients (6 insulin dependent, 14 noninsulin dependent; 8 women, 12 men; mean age: 49.70± 18.22 years; mean duration of diabetes: 9.33 ± 5.75 years) and 20 age-, and sex-matched healthy subjects (7 women, 13 men; mean age: 52.40 ± 16.02 years) as a control group. Nine of 20 diabetic patients had sensorimotor neuropathy, and 5 diabetic patients had both sensorimotor neuropathy and autonomic neuropathy, as well as 3 diabetic patients had diabetic retinopathy. P 100 wave latency was significantly longer in diabetic patients than those of the control group (p


Molecules that inhibit DNA dependent processes are the most commonly used agents for the treatment of cancer. The genotoxicity associated with their mechanisms of action, unfortunately, make them extremely toxic to the patient and cancer cells alike. The work presented in this thesis outlines the development of Py-Im polyamides as non-genotoxic DNA-targeted antitumor molecules that interfere with RNA polymerase II elongation. We initially characterized the pharmacokinetic profiles of two hairpin polyamides to establish their bioavailability in the serum and tissues after a single administration. We next determined the molecular mechanism that contributes to toxicity of a hairpin polyamide in human prostate cancer cells in cell culture and we demonstrated antitumor effects of the compound against LNCaP xenografts in mice. Finally, we conducted animal toxicity experiments on 4 polyamides that vary on the gamma-turn with respect to the substitution of amino and acetamide groups at the alpha and beta positions. From this study we identified a second generation compound that retains antitumor activity with significantly reduce animal toxicity. This work sets the foundation for the development of Py-Im polyamides as DNA targeted therapeutics for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.


This article describes a knowledge preservation and re-use tool designed to capture the knowledge of a specific individual at the US National Science Foundation, for later retrieval by successors after his retirement. The system is designed in a Q&A format, where it is sufficiently intelligent to ask for clarifying questions. The primary objective was to create a system that would result in acceptance of the system by the users. The domain of interest to be preserved and re-used was programmatic knowledge about the NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Centers (I/UCRC) Program, and more specifically, the knowledge of its long-time director, Dr. Alex Schwarzkopf. The system is called AskAlex and it uses a trio of techniques to accomplish its objectives. Contextual graphs (CxG) are used as the basic knowledge representation structure. CxG's are assisted by a search engine and an ontology of terms to help find the proper contextual graph that can best answer the question being asked. Evaluations with users and potential users generally confirm our selection and provided some guidance for improvements in the system.


Objective:To investigate the preventive effect of Tianzhen decoction on migraine with blood and hlegm stasis syndrome. Methods:67 patients were randomly divided into treatment group receiving Tianzhen decoction , twice a day, control group receiving sibeline caps, once a day. Results: There was significant difference between Tianzhen decoction group(70.59%) and sibeline caps group(42.42%) about total effective rate(χ2=5.4110,P=0.02).Tianzhen decoction could effectively amendment anxiety-depression(χ2=4.35,P=0.03). Conclusion: Tianzhen decoction could effectively shorten headache duration, alleviate headache level and cumulative time as well as amendment simultaneous phenomenon and anxiety-depression, no obvious adverse reaction was found, which was suitable for migraine with blood and hlegm stasis syndrome.


The primordial rights of the human being are safe kept through the traditional indemnification remedy and mainly of inhibitory tutelage. In face of innovative characteristics brought to the civil liability theory by the personality's
rights derived from its peculiar goal, it becomes inappropriate to wait for the concretization of the damage only for a posteriori reception of a juridical answer.
By this way, the difficulty (or the impossibility) of reparation is essential so that we avoid the concretization or the repetition of the damage, which is enabled by the inhibitory tutelage.


Linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control is applied to the application of active vibration cancellation. The virtual mass of a vibration motor is controlled based on measurements of acceleration. The final controller is a modified LQG design developed for an augmented model of the vibration motor. This paper describes the modeling and parameter identification of the vibration motor, development of performance specifications for the controller, design of the LQG controller, and experimental testing of the resulting control system. Modeling of the vibration motor was based on both theoretical derivation and experimental data collection. Development of the specifications for the controller was drone primarily in the frequency domain, using the return ratios of two different transfer functions. Controller design was done using the continuous-time LQG algorithm. The controller was implemented as an analog circuit with operational amplifiers. Some closed-loop stability issues were observed during the experimental testing, and an explanation is offered for these problems.


Ellipsometry has been widely used for measuring Si oxide thickness in semiconductor industry. However, as the gate oxide (SiO 2 ) thickness for MOS (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) ULSI's (Ultra-large-scale Integrations) decreases with the increasing integration density, the error in measuring the thickness has become a problem. In this study, it is shown on the basis of the ESCA studies of the oxide concentration, chemical state and SiO 2 /Si interface structure that the oxide thickness can be defined and obtained from Si2p (oxidized) intensity as measured by ESCA (Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis).


Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is a commonly encountered problem in the surgical departments, especially after emergency surgeries. The incidence of SSI after emergency laparotomy is still high, which increases the morbidity of the patient as well as the hospital expenses. Therefore, it is essential to attempt to reduce the frequency of SSI by applying our knowledge from evidence based studies. Aim: The present study is done to evaluate the incidence of SSI after emergency laparotomy, to assess the risk factors and nd the organisms involved and their susceptibility to antibiotics Methods: A total of 270 cases of emergency laparotomy done over a period of one year were included in the study, out of which SSI were diagnosed in 64 cases on the basis of criteria by National Healthcare Safety Network. All the cases were treated and followed up for a period of 30 days with simultaneous record and analysis of data. Results: Out of 270 cases,64 had SSI (23.7%).It was found to be common in 50-59 years.Anaemia was a common comorbid condition. SSI was more common in Class IV surgical wounds with duration of surgery more than 2 hours. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common isolated organism. Conclusion: Surgical site infections, still a very common complication after emergency laparotomies can be reduced considerably with effective asepsis and antisepsis.


Using a model of a transient response characteristic of an engine and a model of a stationary characteristic of the engine, a disturbance estimation value is calculated. Using this disturbance estimate initial instruction values of a nozzle opening degree of a variable nozzle turbo charger and a nozzle opening degree of an exhaust gas recirculation system to be adapted to reduce model errors and treat the disorder suitable. Thus, it is possible that an air mass flow and boost pressure follows the target values stable.


The services delivery business is highly dynamic and highly competitive, with thin profit margins. Strict service quality targets coupled with highly variable service request arrival patterns and ever increasing cost containment targets make it challenging for a service delivery provider to deliver consistent quality and remain profitable. In this chapter we present a modeling and optimization framework that provides a solution to this challenge. A discrete event simulation model is used as a proxy for the real world service delivery environment, containing the interaction among dynamic customer workload and strict service level constraints. Afterwards, an optimization model provides recommended staffing levels while considering the skills required to respond to different types of service requests, and the shift schedules that the service agents must follow. We demonstrate the applicability of the modeling and optimization framework in a large IT services delivery environment.


General practitioner Hawick 1964-94 (b Hawick 1932; q Edinburgh 1962; DRCOG), d 14 August 2002.

Ford did house jobs at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Peel Hospital, Galashiels, and, after obstetric training in Dumfries, he returned to his home town of Hawick, where he joined his father in practice. He was a past chairman of the Scottish Borders division of the BMA and served on the Scottish Council for many years. After retiring he became a non-executive director of the Borders Community NHS Trust. A keen sportsman, he contributed a great deal to the local community as club doctor to Hawick rugby football club and as a church elder. He leaves a wife, Helen; three daughters; and six grandchildren.


The use of plastic and goods made of plastic have been rising in day to day. Increasing use of plastics is a consequence of the development of technology, industry and population. On one hand, the invention of plastic has a remarkable positive impact, because it has many advantages compared to other materials. But on the other hand, the plastic waste has negative impact that too worried, so its solutions need to be looked for. One of the alternative handling of plastic waste that currently extensively researched and developed is converting plastic waste into fuel. Converting plastic waste into fuel oil can be done with cracking process. There are three kinds of process that is hydro cracking, thermal cracking and catalytic cracking. Fuel oil produced from the cracking of plastic waste depending on the plastic type, cracking process used, catalyst type, pyrolisis temperature and condenser temperature.


This study is aimed at studying the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions by nickel ferrite/graphene oxide (NGO) nanocomposite. The nanocomposite was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller-specific surface area, and vibrating sample magnetometer analyses. The interactive effects of critical variables including pH, initial concentration, and contact time on the adsorption capacity of NGO for MB were studied using response surface methodology (RSM) according to composite central design. In RSM models, the predicted values agreed well with verification experiments, with a high correlation coefficient of 0.9887. The adsorption process followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm models. The maximum capacity for adsorption of MB onto NGO was found to be 476.19 mg/g. Based on these results, NGO has the potential as an efficient adsorbent for the removal of MB from water.


Recently, new Fuzzy Decision Tree (FDT) approaches have been developed for doing classification tasks. In this paper, one of these FDTs is adapted for performing the imbalanced classification tasks. First, our proposed method utilizes k-means algorithm to cluster the majority class samples into some clusters. Then, each cluster is labeled as a new class and thereby the binary imbalanced classification problem is converted to the multi-class classification problem. Eventually, FDT algorithm is employed for classifying the new data set. The obtained results show that our proposed method outperforms almost all the other fuzzy rule based approaches over highly imbalanced data sets.


Ascorbic acid (1 g/kg) accentuated anorectic and locomotor effects of amphetamine (5 mg/kg) and delayed development of tolerance to anorectic effect. On the contrary, it did not alter the pattern of reverse tolerance to increased locomotor activity. The results suggest that modulation of dopamine receptor sensitivity by ascorbic acid may be the reason for the delay in development of tolerance to amphetamine induced anorexia.


Rare earth elements are an elemental family with special geochemical properties, and they always exist with each other in geological processes and reflect characteristically the nature of individual primitive material so that the REE composition patterns are always


Not only Lao She's humorous receives the influence of the Western humorous thought,also has the aboriginal factor.It is not separated from the realistic soil of the Chinese folk society,with the Beijing folk populace point of view,as well as ultra strong tolerance to the misery,forming the unique folk connotation in Lao She's humorous.


This qualitative study involves five women elementary teachers who began their teaching careers in 2001in various communities across the Northwest Territories, Canada. Semi-structured interviews at three stages during the year provide a window into their personal, professional and cultural experiences as they built on their pre-service identities and worked toward developing individual teaching styles. Phase one reveals initial impressions of their schools, community cultures and teaching assignments. Phase two presents a dynamic process of adjustment to the demands of teaching. In phase three, the five teachers reflect on their learning journey through pre-service education, learning through practice, and professional development. Finally they describe the induction supports they received and the areas where they felt they needed more assistance. The experiences of the five teachers ,are paralleled by the researcher's induction experience in Baker Lake, Northwest Territories in 1969. In addition to adjusting to the role of teacher, the five participants in this study describe their introduction to cross-cultural communities and the lessons they learned from the ambiguities of conflicting world views and outcomes ofpost-colonialism played out in their classrooms and in their communities.


Objective:To observe?compare and evalute the efficiency and safety of low molecular weight heparin(LMWH)and Aspirin in the treatment of unstable angina pectoris(UAP).Methods:60 cases were classified randomly into two groups:In the curing group,500IU LMWH In the comparative group,the patients were given Aspirin 100mg daily,the other therapies were the same in both groups.Results:The effective rate of the curing group was 96.6%,the comparative one was 67%,respectively,There were significant difference between two groups( P 0.05 ).Conclusion:The LMWH and Aspirin have more advantage of safety and efficiency than simple Aspirin in the treatment of UAP.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between normal-tension glaucoma (NTG) and allergic rhinitis in a population-based setting using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Exam Survey (2010–2012). Methods: The authors selected a total of 8,614 participants aged 40 years and older for this study. All participants completed an ophthalmic examination required for diagnosis of NTG based on the International Society for Geographical and Epidemiological Ophthalmology criteria. An interview regarding nasal symptoms was also performed. The included participants were classified into NTG (n = 604) and control (n = 8,010) groups. The authors compared the groups in terms of prevalence of allergic rhinitis and identified risk factors of NTG. Results: In NTG patients, allergic rhinitis prevalence was 29.1% (176/604), which was significantly higher than that of the control group (25.0%, 2,000/8,010; p = 0.023). There were significant associations between NTG and allergic rhinitis (odds ratio [OR]= 1.34, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.12–1.62, p = 0.002), even after adjusting for potential confounders (age, sex, diabetes, hypertension, number, of family members, household income quartile, frequency of eating out, and smoking status). In particular, patients with NTG aged 60–69 years, those aged 70–79 years, and those who were male had significantly higher ORs for prior allergic rhinitis compared with control subjects (OR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.16–2.26, p = 0.005; OR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.06–2.18, p = 0.024; and OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.10–1.83, p = 0.007, respectively). Conclusions: This study showed a significant association between NTG incidence and allergic rhinitis, especially in males and elderly patients (>60 years of age). These results suggested that allergic rhinitis may have a potential role in the development of NTG. Therefore, ophthalmologists and allergic rhinitis patients should remain vigilant to this potential risk factor. J Korean Ophthalmol Soc 2018;59(10):960-967


Inspired by adaptive possibilities of agents in multi-agents system, we have developed the new concept of modular artefacts using intelligent building blocks (I-BLOCKS) [1]. This paper describes early a scientific research related to technical design, inheritable development and evaluation of a concept of neighborhood information awareness among I-BLOCKS allowing users to develop modular systems. The processing technology presented in this paper is embedded inside each DUPLO brick by housing microprocessor as well as adding selected sensors and actuators. Behavior of an IBLOCKS modular structure is defined by the internal processing functionality of each I-Block in such structure and communication capacities between I-BLOCKS. Users of the I-BLOCKS system can do "programming by building" and thereby create specific functionalities of a modular structure of artefacts without the need to learn and use traditional programming language. From approaching different fields e.g. modular robotic system, ubiquitous computing, etc, IBLOCKS may have potential possibilities to apply for many distributed modular systems. To illustrate these possibilities, the paper presents different scenarios in which modular artefacts have been used to set-up: information awareness of modular robotic system, exploration of behavior among mobile robot group, localization of a moveable artefact and reconfigurable context awareness. The paper reports briefly about earlier experiments of I-BLOCKS in different research fields, allowing users to construct distributed systems by using modular artefacts.


Ultrabroadband electro-optic sampling (EOS) provides direct access to phase-locked electric-field transients in the mid infrared. So far, these waveforms were generated by single-pass optical rectification [1] or ultrafast electronic transport [2]. Here, we exploit EOS to characterize the intense output generated by a system with feedback – an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) operating in the subharmonic regime.


SASE's 29th conference, to be held in Lyon from 29 June to 1 July 2017, will explore the various impacts of these new forms of exchange and production on different sectors in a comparative way. It will inquire about the future of the collaborative (and disruptive) economy – will it really and durably effect more traditional exchanges or, in the end, will it be business as usual? The 2017 SASE conference in Lyon, France, hosted by the University of Lyon I from 29 June to 1 July 2017, will welcome contributions that explore new forms of economy, their particularities, their impact, their potential development, and their regulation.


Reed–Muller (RM) codes are known for their good maximum likelihood (ML) performance in the short block-length regime. Despite being one of the oldest classes of channel codes, finding a low complexity soft-input decoding scheme is still an open problem. In this work, we present a versatile decoding architecture for RM codes based on their rich automorphism group. The decoding algorithm can be seen as a generalization of multiple-bases belief propagation (MBBP) and may use any polar or RM decoder as constituent decoders. We provide extensive error-rate performance simulations for successive cancellation (SC)-, SC-list (SCL)- and belief propagation (BP)-based constituent decoders. We furthermore compare our results to existing decoding schemes and report a near-ML performance for the RM(3,7)-code (e.g., 0.04 dB away from the ML bound at BLER of 10−3) at a competitive computational cost. Moreover, we provide some insights into the automorphism subgroups of RM codes and SC decoding and, thereby, prove the theoretical limitations of this method with respect to polar codes.


San Pedro leucogranite from A Coruña, in the Northwest of Spain, has been a building stone widely used in the Middle Ages. Colour, rarity, appearance and petrophysical properties have led to the use of this leucogranite. Monuments such as churches, tombstones and the basement of the Hercules Tower lighthouse, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009, make it an ideal candidate for designation as a Global Heritage Stone Resource. Peer-review responsibility of the organizing committee of the of the European Geosciences Union


The Beurling-Ahlfors operator reveals a rich structure through its representation as a martingale transform. Using elementary linear algebra and martingale inequalities, we obtain new information on this operator. In particular, Essén-type inequalities are proved for the complex Beurling-Ahlfors operator and its generalization to higher dimensions. Moreover, a new estimate of their norms is obtained for dimensions n ≥ 3. Finally, we discuss a purely analytic approach to further investigate these norms that is suggested by the probabilistic method presented here. §0. Introduction. The complex Beurling-Ahlfors transform and its generalization to higher dimensions have been used to study properties of quasiregular mappings for several years. It is of particular interest to identify the L-norms of these operators. These norms are directly connected to the regularity of quasiregular mappings, as well as conditions for a closed set to be removable under such maps. Identification of the norms would also have implications for the existence of minimizers of conformally invariant energy functionals and regularity of solutions to the generalized Beltrami system. See [IM1], [IM2], [IMNS] and [IL] for further discussion of these operators and their relationship to quasiregular mappings. The Beurling-Ahlfors operator in several dimensions was introduced by Donaldson and Sullivan as the "signature operator" in their paper Quasiconformal 4manifolds [DS]. The first systematic study of this operator as a Calderón-Zygmund singular integral in higher dimensions was made by Iwaniec and Martin in [IM1]. There it is observed that the operator possesses a rich invariance structure. The probabilistic study of the Beurling-Ahlfors transform was initiated in [BW] and [L]. Using some new sharp martingale inequalities inspired by the recent work of ∗,∗∗Research of both authors supported in part by the NSF under grant DMS9400854


It is an economic way to transmit large capacity of wind power in combination with thermal power to far away.Considering the current renewable energy policy and the operation characteristics of thermal plant,this paper proposes a strategy to transmit wind power in combination with thermal power,which takes both wind power priority and minimum technological output of thermal into consideration.The annual output characteristic of wind farms is described by the wind power duration curve,based on which the annual transmitted power and the congestion loss due to transmission limitation are calculated.The optimal transmission capacity is calculated by making a balance between congestion loss and the cost of transmission line,also,the negative effect on thermal power while transmitting power in combination with wind power is considered.The result shows that the proposed method can minimize the transmission cost;also the negative effect of both wind power and thermal power can be relieved.


The objective of the present work was to investigate how grass feeding in cattle influences the fatty acid (FA) composition in marrow tissue. For a split plot designed experiment, marrow was obtained from the femur, humerus, radius and tibia of four crossbred steers slaughtered at 28 mo of age and fed o n mixture of cool season grasses and legumes. There were no bone type by location within bone interactions (P > 0.42), and the only within bone effect was for trans-vaccenic acid (TVA) where values for medial bone were lowest (P = 0.03) and highest for distal and proximal bone. Total monounsaturated FA and desaturation index were lower (P = 0.01) and total saturated FA were greater (P = 0.01) for proximal vs. distal bone marrow lipids. Marrow conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) was greater (P = 0.02) for distal bones (1.32 %) than for proximal bones (0.86 %). Overall, proportions of 18:3 n-3, CLA, and TVA were 0.60 %, 1.09 % and 2.50 %, respectively. We conclude that the FA profile of marrow in grass-fed cattle represents a healthy, nonatherogenic, animal-based fat source.


The future of the LHC is discussed, considering aspects related to the accelerator, experiments, and physics. This includes the recently-approved high luminosity upgrade, HL-LHC, and beyond.


The definition of 'terrorist activity' is fundamental to Canada's anti-terrorism legislation. Following the recent trial of Momin Khawaja before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, it is clear that the 'armed conflict' exclusion – exempting wartime activities undertaken in accordance with international law – poses serious challenges to the coherence of this legislative regime, threatening the effectiveness of future domestic terrorism prosecutions. This article examines the 'armed conflict' exclusion and its judicial treatment in Khawaja, identifying key challenges and making specific recommendations to address them. Coupled with other issues arising from the 'armed conflict' exclusion, Khawaja serves to highlight a clear and pressing need for amendment of the statutory definition of 'terrorist activity.'


The recycling and remanufacturing of e-waste is linked to a worldwide emphasis on the establishment and implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility system (ERP), which has become an important problem in the process of cycling economy. Meanwhile, with the development and expansion of large-scale retail enterprises, the power structure of supply chain channels is showing a tendency towards diversity as well. However, few studies on closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) have considered both recycling modes and channel power structures. We aim to explore the influence of different recycling modes and channel power structures on the optimal decisions and performance of a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC), considering three recycling channels including manufacturer recycling, retailer recycling and hybrid recycling of retailer and manufacturer and two dominant modes including manufacturer-led and retailer-led. We construct six closed-loop supply chain models under different combinations of three recycling channels and two dominant modes. We analyze the effect of different recycling channels on company decision-making under the same dominant mode, whether participating in recycling has an impact on company decision-making under different dominant modes, and the effect on supply chain members and supply chain system under different dominant modes and recycling channels. The results show that the hybrid recycling strategy is always optimal for both supply chain members; the sub-optimal recycling strategies are both recycled by the subordinate enterprise, and the worst recycling strategies are both recycled by the leading enterprise. Moreover, it is always the worst strategy for manufacturer to participate in a closed-loop supply chain dominated by retailer and recycled by retailer; participating in a closed-loop supply chain dominated by manufacturer and recycled by manufacturer is always the worst strategy for retailer. From a system point of view, system efficiency is the highest under hybrid recycling, and system efficiency is the lowest if leading company recycles separately.


The paper describes method based on measurement of ions concentration to estimate water cut of well production from different producing intervals when using single-tubing-string dual completion systems.


Take the 3# tunnel of a highway project as an measurement example by comparing two style inner tunel plance control measurement method as double leading like and linear intersect leading line net;it finds a high precision,easy control and high efficient method,it has a leading effect.


The study was conducted to assess the impact of various factors like maternal age parity gestational age ante-natal care and anaemia on birth weight. Twenty seven per cent of the newborns were found to have a low birth weight. Low birth .weight babies were born more to the mothers with age below 20 years (30.8%) as compared to women more than 20.years of age (25.3%). Neonates with a gestation period of less than 37 weeks were more prone to low birth weight The subjects who were not availing of ANC services had more number of low birth weight babies as compared to those who received ANC services (29.3% and.25.5% respectively). Female babies were more prone to low birth weight as compared to the male babies. The adjusted odds ratios were 1.36 for maternal age less than 20 years 1.58. for period of gestation (POG) less than 37 weeks 1.23 for non-utilizers of ANC and 1:32 for female babies. The authors suggest that marriage beyond 18 years of age for the girls and increase the coverage of ANC to cent per cent for pregnant women may be promoted.


So far, multiple stellar systems harbor more than 130 extra solar planets. Dynamical simulations show that the outcome of planetary formation process can lead to various planetary architecture (i.e. location, size, mass and water content) when the star system is single or double. In the late phase of planetary formation, when embryo-sized objects dominate the inner region of the system, asteroids are also present and can provide additional material for objects inside the habitable zone (hereafter HZ). In this study, we make a comparison of several binary star systems and their efficiency to move icy asteroids from beyond the snow-line into orbits crossing the HZ. We modeled a belt of 10000 asteroids (remnants from the late phase of planetary formation process) beyond the snow-line. The planetesimals are placed randomly around the primary star and move under the gravitational influence of the two stars and a gas giant. As the planetesimals do not interact with each other, we divided the belt into 100 subrings which were separately integrated. In this statistical study, several double star configurations with a G-type star as primary are investigated. Our results show that small bodies also participate in bearing a non-negligible amount of water to the HZ. The proximity of a companion moving on an eccentric orbit increases the flux of asteroids to the HZ, which could result into a more efficient water transport on a short timescale, causing a heavy bombardment. In contrast to asteroids moving under the gravitational perturbations of one G-type star and a gas giant, we show that the presence of a companion star can not only favor a faster depletion of our disk of planetesimals but can also bring 4 -- 5 times more water into the whole HZ.


Many auditors use risk-based audit as a methodology that emphasizes assessing audit risk. A holistic perspective during strategic assessment encourages the auditor to focus on the big picture. They understand the industry and client business and determine the risk of material misstatement asan initial hypothesis about the client. Previous research found that a holistic perspective in strategic assessment causes a halo effect. This study focuses on the phenomena of a halo effect in analytical procedures, the impact of a client's profile and scope of information that be presented to auditor in planning an audit. We propose that auditor judgment is impacted by the client's profile and professional judgment will be different in a holistic perspective. This study is motivated by bounded rationality of individuals and uses representative heuristics to evaluate clients. The holistic opinion of the person tends to be consistent when analyzing detailed diagnostic information about the person. In an analytical procedure context, understanding of the industry and client business influences the extent to which they adjust account-level risk assessment. We propose two hypotheses. The first hypotheses is that the risk of material misstatement after presentation of client's profile is positively correlated with the risk of material misstatement after get financial information of client. The second hypothesis is an auditor who obtains information about a client in the scope of holistic information would determine the risk of material misstatement lower than auditor who obtains information in scope of specific information. Data from laboratory experiment using various levels of auditor were collected. The finding suggest a halo effect is generated during analytical procedures and when auditors obtain information about the client in holistic scope.


Achieving economic development is one of the most important economic goals of every country. Identifying the determinants of economic growth, is a useful tool for adopting appropriate economic policies. This study, therefore, empirically examines the impact of trade openness, foreign direct investment, and financial development on economic growth, across 62 countries over the period 1995–2016. These countries are divided into two groups: low-income and high-income countries. We employ the pooled mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and dynamic fixed effect (DFE) estimation techniques on the cross-country panel data. The findings show a positive long run association between trade openness, foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development, labor, government expenditure, and economic growth in low-income countries, with a positive and negative short run effect from capital and government expenditures, respectively. For high-income countries, a positive long run association between trade openness, FDI, capital, and economic growth exist. The short run estimates indicate a positive effect on trade openness and capital as well as a negative effect on government expenditure. Our study shows that the adoption of policies that improves access to skilled labor and international trade, affect the attainment of a sustainable economic development.


In order to develop the multi wireless communication services by hardware, the cost and time have been increased and circuit size becomes large. Therefore Software defined radio (SDR) is a quite attractive field of research since it can reduce time consuming prototype development time from research themes. SDR can replace hardware problem by software problem since it define wireless communication system including the radio processing parameter by software. This paper presents the architecture of the back-end of "1seg" receiver with the C-language program is configurable. "1seg" receiver developed by SDR turned out to be feasible technology according to the evaluation of CPU execution time.


Intraperitoneal injections of guinea pig serum are more effective in inhibiting growth of the solid form of the Murphy-Sturm lymphosarcoma carried in Wistar rats when there is a latent period of at least 5 days. Disparities between two groups of animals that have shorter and longer latent periods, respectively, are manifested by differences in: ( a ) the number of tumors that are completely inhibited, ( b ) the length of the latent period, and/or ( c ) the number of tumor regressions.

Intraperitoneal injections of guinea pig serum are shown to be effective in inhibiting growth of the more virulent ascites form of this tumor.


The task for my Bachelor's work is to outline the issues concerning subsidies from the European Union for the community and to analyse the use of subsidies by the municipality Terezin. The theoretical part describes the characteristics of the village in general, and its economic management. This is followed by an explanation of basic concepts associated with subsidies, looking at examples for single grants, the end user, and NUTS. The next part describes European funds and programs that are available for the community to draw from, and the last chapter outlines the overall process for applying for subsidies from the EU. The analytical part defines Terezin's community, its economic management and provides an analysis of the village's use of subsidies, followed by a SWOT analysis of the community. The document concludes with subject recommendations for subsidies to enable future dovelopment opportunities for the community.


Objective
To explore the clinical value of serum procalcitonin (PCT) level combined with CURB scoring system on prognostic evaluation in elderly patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (SCAP) .

Methods
There were 116 cases of elderly patients with SCAP enrolled in this study. All patients were divided into pneumonia severity index (PSI) ≥130 group (n=91) and PSI<130 group (n=25) according to PSI within 24 h after admission, CURB≥3 group (n=60) and CURB<3 group (n=56) according to CURB scoring system within 24 h after admission, death group (n=32) and survival group (n=84) according to the situation of survival 28 days after admission. Serum PCT levels at the 1st day and 4th day after admission (PCT-1 and PCT-4) were detected by chemiluminescence method, and the difference between two PCT levels (ΔPCT) was calculated. The independent risk factors influencing the prognosis of senile patients with SCAP were analyzed by multivariable Logistic regression analysis. The predictive efficiency of independent risk factors was assessed by the area under the ROC curve (AUC) .

Results
The proportion of patients with PSI≥130, the proportion of patients with CURB≥3, PCT-1, PCT-4 and ΔPCT in death group were higher than those in survival group, and the differences were statistically significant (χ2=6.121 and 15.430, t=5.623, 26.894 and 19.625, P all 1.33 ng/mL combined ΔPCT>0.09 ng/mL was higher than that of single index for 28-day survival situation in senile SCAP patients with the AUC, sensitivity, specificity and Youden' index of 0.856, 84.6%, 91.5% and 0.761, respectively.

Conclusions
The dynamic change of PCT combined with CURB scoring has certain clinical value for predicting the mortality risk in elderly patients with SCAP.

Key words:
Community-acquired infections; Pneumonia; Senium; Procalcitonin; CURB scoring; Prognosis


Il Sistema WEB CSRS - Centri Storici e Rischio Sismico e uno strumento condiviso di indagine per il monitoraggio dell'esposizione al  rischio sismico dei centri storici italiani, attraverso una rete nazionale di scambio di informazioni tra diversi livelli di governo territoriale. Abstract The monitoring of exposure to seismic risk of the Italian historical centers The Italian territory is densely populated and anthropized; on it there are heritage buildings built mostly in not recent age. The historic  centers  are  the  most  important  example  of    cultural heritage in the anthropic landscape.  For the Civil Protection Department is pressing the necessity of a survey aimed at assessing the "cultural interest" of the historic centers and the risk of losses to which they are exposed, for the application of policies prevention and planning for risk reduction. In accordance with Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, was implemented the Web system CSRS, shared with all levels of land government, for the monitoring of seismic risk with the collection, in interoperability via standard network services, of information (including maps) about exposure and vulnerability of historical centers.


It had been shown that array weight vectors using uniform circular arrays (UCAs) in multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) can generate helical phase distribution used in orbital angular momentum (OAM) communication system. In this letter, the MIMO channel, or OAM multiplexing characteristic, was investigated by means of eigenvalues. It was also found that the OAM is not effective as the distance between transmitting and receiving antennas increases because the radiation pattern along the direction of propagation is null with helical phase front. It was found that MIMO and/or OAM performance improve in near‐field region. It was also found that the performance improves when radius of UCAs becomes large.


The symmetries of relativistic spin-1/2 particle equations are discussed for the cases of non-zero and zero rest masses. The Majorana-Weyl equivalence for the physical neutrino is particularly considered.


Fuel cell stack's output has unavoidable low voltage & high current characteristic. So we should deign adoptable PCS. The output inverter makes an ac ripple current which is twice frequency as output. If the 120㎐ ripple current passed to FC stack it caused negative impact to fuel cell stack. Such as shorten fuel cell life span and also, whole FC system efficiency is reduced. Thus in this paper, find transfer function that influence to fuel cell stack and study reduction countermeasure using passive way and active way.


T etiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a term that comprises Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (UC), is not known clearly, but the occurence of high antibodies to enteric bacterias supports the idea of bacterial origin in the pathogenesis.1,2 The presence of Shigella or Shigella-like toxin, Salmonella, and Yersinia has been investigated as a possible cause of UC, whereas Clostridium difficile toxin has been associated with disease exacerbation.3 The colonic mucosal barrier is a complex physicochemical structure that separates the internal milieu from a polluted luminal environment. Barrier function ultimately depends on the integrity of the mucosa and the reactivity of dynamic defensive factors, such as mucosal blood flow and epithelial secretions. Indeed, some bacteria might alter mucosal barrier function and be incriminated in this defect.4 Oral aminosalisilats (such as mesalazine) are used in the treatment of mild and moderate active UC. It has been shown that mesalazine had bacteriostatic effects on the sulphate producing and amino acid fermenting bacteria.1,2 Propolisis (PP) is a vegetable resin collected by bees, which they used against fungus. Its composition differs with the geographical changes. There has been more than 150 kinds of PP detected. Usually PPs include different chemical components, such as poliphenols (flavonoid aglicons, phenolic acids and esters phenolic aldehides alcohol, ketons terpenoids steroids, and amino acids).5 The antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiinflammatory, hepatoprotective, immune regulator and anticancer effect of PP has been shown by previous studies.5 In recent studies, it has been shown that PP had toxic effects at doses of 2000-7000 mg/kg, whereas it had antiinflammatory effects at a doses of 300-600 mg/kg.5 In our study, we investigated the effect of PP and mesalazine on bacterial translocation in experimental colitis. Forty adult male Wistar Albino rats, weighing between 200 and 250 g were used. The animals were acclimatized for one week in our laboratory conditions prior to experimental manipulation. They had free access to standard laboratory chow and water ad libitum. The protocol of this study and animal experimental procedures were approved by the Ethical Committee of the Mustafa Kemal University School of Veterinary, Antakya-Hatay, Turkey. A 5% propolisis tincture was prepared by mixing 1900 ml of 70% ethanol and 100 g of propolisis. They were kept in a container, sealed the top, and shaken twice daily for one week. It was filtered and kept in a clean, dark bottle at 4 oC until it was used. Distal colitis of rats was induced by intracolonic installation of 2 ml of 4% acetic acid (Merck Laboratories, Germany; pH=2.6). This model has been used extensively to investigate the pathogenesis of the acute phase of inflammation. After an overnight fast, each rat was lightly anesthetized with ether, and a 5F polypropylene catheter was inserted into the colon via the anus. The catheter was advanced so that the tip was 8 cm proximal to the anus, and at this point acetic acid was instilled. Finally, each rat received a 2 ml colonic wash containing saline. The animals were randomly assigned into 5 groups: group 1 (G1), control (n=8); group 2 (G2), colitis, received no treatment (n=8); group 3 (G3), colitis + mesalazine (Salofalk; Ali Raif, Istanbul, Turkey), 2 ml once a day via enema (n=8); group 4 (G4), colitis + PP, 600 mg/kg once a day via intragastric lavage (n=8); group 5 (G5), colitis + mesalazine + PP, 2 ml via enema and 600 mg/kg via intragastric lavage once a day (n=8), for one week. The control group received 2 ml of isotonic saline solution into the colonic lumen. Rats were sacrificed 7 days after the rectal installation of saline or acetic acid. On day 7, ether or ketamine anesthesia, or both, was performed after skin disinfection with betadine. A midline thoracoabdominal incision was performed and blood, mesentery lymph node (MLN), liver, and spleen samples were obtained. A blood sample of 1-2 ml was taken in blood culture tubes by cardiac function (Hemoline, Biomerieux, France). The bottles were incubated for 7 days. The samples taken from the tubes in which there was bacterial incubation were dyed with Gram. The samples of mesentery lymph nodes, liver, and spleen were incubated in tyogluconate for 24 hours. The samples were inoculated on Colombia agar with 5% sheep blood, and eosine methylene blue (EMB) agar (BioMerieux, Marcy I'Etoile, France), and incubated at 36oC for 18-24 hours. After homogenization, the samples were inoculated in EMB and 5% blood in aerob and anaerob conditions. The incubating bacteria were identified with standard conventional and automated methods (API system, Biomerieux, France). Bacterial identification was based on biochemical and automated methods (ID 32E API, BioMerieux, Marcy I'Etoile, France). Susceptibility testing was performed by the disk diffusion method using the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards criteria. Susceptibility was tested on Mueller-Hinton agar at Brief Communication


The effects of planting and harvest dates on violet betacyanin (BC) and yellow betaxanthine (BX) pigment concentrations and the BC : BX ratio were studied in three table beet (Beta vulgaris L.) genotypes. The R'R, Rt'r, and R'r genotypes, conditioning high (violet), medium (red), and low (orange) BC/BX ratios, were studied using two planting and three harvest dates. Total pigment (BC + BX) increased with both later planting and later harvest dates. BC : BX ratio increased with later planting date but decreased with later harvest dates. For any planting date-harvest date combination the three genotypes showed distinct pigment ratios. The Rt'r genotypes planted on 1 July and harvested at 50 days had a pigment ratio similar to the R'R genotype planted on 1 July and harvested at 100 days. Environment can affect betacyanin and betaxanthine production differently, altering pigment concentrations and ratios.