FIGURE 1. Self-purchased prescriptions for HCQ and azithromycin in Taiwan, during January 1 to March 31, 2020. H ydroxychloroquine (HCQ) received global attention as a potential therapy for COVID-19 after a positive report from a small clinical trial was mentioned with supportive claims during a U.S. White House news conference on March 19, 2020. This newswas rapidly disseminated by mass media, leading the public to search for HCQ-related products. However, the effectiveness of HCQ for COVID-19 is not proven, and it may be associated with life-threating adverse reactions. Therefore, clinical management to reduce irrational drug use is critical, especially during the pandemic. In this cross-sectional study, we investigate trends in self-purchased HCQduring the COVID-19 pandemicwithin the largest multi-institutional healthcare system in Taiwan. Notably, we share our experiences of adopting a prescription control process led by pharmacists using computerized provider order entry (CPOE) to manage irrational self-purchase of HCQ. We retrospectively analyzed electronic medical records data from the largest multiinstitutional healthcare system covering approximately 1.3 million individuals (approximately 6% of Taiwan's population) in Taiwan from January 1 to March 31, 2020. We calculated daily prescription rates of self-purchased HCQ among all outpatient prescriptions. Specifically, on March 23, we implemented a prescribing control process for self-purchased HCQ using a CPOE system, whereby any prescription with self-purchased HCQ required additional review by pharmacists to ensure appropriate HCQ use. Our analysis of daily self-purchased prescription rates of HCQ compares the baseline period (from January 1 to March 19), the period of global attention on HCQ (March 20–22), and the period after implementing clinical management to reduce irrational self-purchased HCQ prescriptions (March 23–31).We used SAS Enterprise Guide, Version 7.13 (SAS, Inc, Chicago, IL) for all analyses.


This paper mainly concentrates to present a technique to evaluate exactly the triangular domain integrals with satisfactory degree of accuracy. Hence, the technique instead of the usual Gaussian quadrature formula for triangle will find better place in application when high accuracy is desired. Further, the technique successfully accommodates the readily available Gaussian quadrature formulae for square and therefore it guaranties the high accuracy in evaluating such integrals.


This paper addresses Gaussian minimum-shift keyed (GMSK) receiver performance analysis for limiter discriminator detection with cochannel interference resulting from a combined cellular voice and packet radio network. A specific example is cellular digital packet data (CDPD), which shares spectrum with cellular voice users; thus, the CDPD receiver will see both narrow-band frequency modulation (NBFM) voice and GMSK data interference. Previous studies investigated the performance of a GMSK receiver with a single GMSK interferer and multipath delay. In this paper, we extend earlier work to multiple Rayleigh fading (Doppler spread) interferers having NBFM (f/sub dm/=12 kHz) analog modulation and/or GMSK modulation. Probability of bit-error expressions are derived for the frequency modulation (FM) and GMSK interferer cases assuming medium-to-high signal-to-noise ratio regions. For scenarios of from one to six NBFM interferers, having the same total power, a corresponding Gaussian approximation is within 1.5 dB. Simulation results are also presented for various combinations of FM and GMSK interference. FM interference is only slightly worse than GMSK interference. Delay spread representing an urban scenario resulted in only a slight increase in the error floor.


............................................................................................................................. iv List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction and Background ............................................................................ 1 Chapter 2: Home Exercise Therapy for the Treatment of Osteoarthritic Knee Pain ........ 20 Chapter 3: Conclusion....................................................................................................... 36 References ......................................................................................................................... 38 Appendix A: Knee Conditioning Program ....................................................................... 42 Appendix B: Pain Visual Analog Scale ............................................................................ 48


Objective:To investigate the distribution of the pathogens and antibiotic features of the ventilator associated pneumonia(VAP) in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit(PICU). Methods: The pathogens of respiratory tract secretion of 156 cases with VAP were analyzed. Results: Incidence of VAP was 70.6% in PICU; gram negative bacterium were primary, most of which were pseudomonas aeruginosa, baumanii, klebsiella pneumonia, escherichia coli and staphylococcus aereus. Conclusion: The pathogen monitoring of VAP patients in ICU should be paid more attention; it is very important to select antibiotics correctly for improving the clinical diagnosis and treatment.


In this paper, the principles of image retrieval techniques are introduced, the characters of content-based and text-based image retrieval are described, illustrated by example such as Google, Gography, Eefind, Fotoe ect.


should be limited to 200 words (one-half typed page), state the main scope of the research, and emphasize its conclusions and relevant findings. Because abstracts are circulated by abstracting agencies, it is important that they represent the research clearly and concisely. Text must be typed in 12 point Times New Roman font throughout. A brief introduction should portray the broad significance of the paper; the remainder of the paper should be divided into the following sections: Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and Acknowledgments. Headings within each section must be short, reflect a logical sequence, and follow the rules of multiple subdivision (i.e. there can be no subdivision without at least two items). The entire text should be intelligible to interdisciplinary readers; therefore, all acronyms, abbreviations, and technical terms should be spelled out the first time they are mentioned. The scientific names of species must be written out the first time they are mentioned; subsequent mention of scientific names may be abbreviated. For general style, follow the Style Manual (2008, 30th ed.) published by the U.S. Government Printing Office and Scientific Style and Format: the CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2006, 7th ed.) published by the Council of Science Editors. For scientific nomenclature, use the current edition of the American Fisheries Society's Common and Scientific Name of Fishes from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For species not found in the above and for more recent changes in nomenclature, use the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (available at http://itis.gov/), or, secondarily, the California Academy of Sciences' Catalog of Fishes (available at http://re searcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp) for species names not included in ITIS. Dates should be written as follows: 11 November 2010. Measurements should be expressed in metric units, e.g., metric tons as (t); if other units of measurement are used, NOAA Professional Paper NMFS Guidelines for Authors please make this fact explicit to the reader. The numeral one (1) should be typed as a one, not as a lower-case el (l). Write out the numbers zero through nine unless they form part of measurement units (e.g., nine fish but 9 mm). Refrain from using the shorthand slash (/), an ambiguous symbol, in the general text. Literature cited comprises published works and those accepted for publication in peer-reviewed literature (in press). Follow the name and year system for citation format (list citations alphabetically by the authors' last names, and then by year if there is more than one citation with the same authorship). In the text, cite Smith and Jones (2001) or (Smith and Jones, 2001). If there is a sequence of citations, list chronologically: Smith, 1982; Green, 1997; Smith and Jones, 2005. Abbreviations of serials should conform to abbreviations given in Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (http://www.csa.com/ids70/serials_source_list.php?ab=biolclast-set-c). Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all citations. Literature citation format: Author (last name, followed by first-name initials). Year. Title of report or manuscript. Abbreviated title of the series to which it belongs. Always include number of pages. Cite all software and special equipment or chemical solutions used in the study, not in a footnote but within parentheses in the text (e.g., SAS, vers. 6.03, SAS Inst., Inc., Cary, NC).


We present far-UV (1200-1930 A) observations of the prototypical red supergiant star alpha Ori, obtained with the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The observations, obtained in both low- (G140L) and medium- (G160/200M) resolution modes, unamibiguously confirm that the UV 'continuum' tentatively seen with (IUE) is in fact a true continuum and is not due to a blend of numerous faint emission features or scattering inside the IUE spectrograph. This continuum appears to originate in the chromospheric of the star at temperatures ranging from 3000-5000 K, and we argue that it is not related to previously reported putative companions or to bright spots on the stellar disk. Its stellar origin is further confirmed by overlying atomic and molecular absorptions from the chromosphere and circumstellar shell. The dominant structure in this spectral region is due to nine strong, broad absorption bands of the fourth-positive A-X system of CO, superposed on this continuum in the 1300-1600 A region. Modeling of this CO absorption indicates that it originates in the circumstellar shell in material characterized by T = 500 K, N(CO) = 1.0 x 10(exp 18) per sq cm, and V(sub turb) = 5.0 km per sec. The numerous chromospheric emission features are attributed mostly to fluorescent lines of Fe II and Cr II (both pumped by Lyman Alpha) and S I lines, plus a few lines of O I, C I, and Si II. The O I and C I UV 2 multiplets are very deficient in flux, compared to both the flux observed in lines originating from common upper levels but with markedly weaker intrinsic strength (i.e., O I UV 146 and C I UV 32) and to the UV 2 line fluxes seen in other cool, less luminous stars. This deficiency appears to be caused by strong self-absorption of these resonance lines in the circumstellar shell and/or upper chromosphere of alpha Ori. Atomic absorption features, primarily due to C I and Fe II are clearly seen in the G160M spectrum centered near 1655 A. These Fe II features are formed at temperatures that can occur only in the chromosphere of the star and are clearly not photospheric or circumstellar in origin.


Southern Reh CM, Mittelman SD, Wee C‐P, Shah AC, Kaufman FR, Wood JR. A longitudinal assessment of lipids in youth with type 1 diabetes.


Chongqing is located in the area prone to rainfall-induced landslide in China.Currently,the meteorological department adopts the landslide hazard-weather forecasting model part of statistical models which is only suitable for regional warning and forecasting,while,it can not apply to the monomer landslide.This paper,considering the maximum infiltration depth in the role of heavy rainfall and taking into account the water pressure in tension cracks located in trailing edge of landslide,revises the transfer coefficient method traditionally used to determine landslide stability factor and thrust force.What's more,based on integrating the effective cumulated rainfall and the daily maximum hourly rainfall,this article establishes the statistics-infiltration coupling forecast model for rainfall-induced landslide in Chongqing territory.By referring to the index of landslide occurrence,this model grades its forecasting levels into five:minimal,little,bigger,large and maximal,and justifies the reliability with laboratory model experiment.In practice,it can be incorporated into geological hazard weather forecasting system in Chongqing,and effectively make weather forecast for the typical monomer landslide potentially occurring under the condition of heavy rainfall in territory of Chongqing.


Using natural language processing (NLP) techniques, we conducted a preliminary diagnosis of the disease from the patient syndrome description. Because patients are not medical professionals, they cannot accurately describe all symptoms. To solve this issue, we build a medical knowledge graph (KG) by constructing symptom-disease relation triples for pre-processing the patient syndrome description. According to the medical KG, the descriptions were reconstructed into KG embedding representation. To avoid the knowledge noise issue, we investigate an inclusion-exclusion knowledge filtering approach (IKFA) for symptom-to-disease triples to load them to a pretrained language model (PLM), i.e., bidirectional encoder representations from Transformers (BERT). To train the IKFA, we built a medical diagnosis question-answer dataset (MDQA dataset), which contains large-scale and high-quality questions (patient symptom description) and answers (diagnosis) (Q&A) corpus with 1.63 million entries in the size of 213 MB. The KG was built based on 8,731 diseases with detailed syndrome descriptions in the size of 1.98 MB. The experimental results showed that the IKFA preliminarily diagnosed 8,731 different diseases based on the patient's initial symptom description with an accuracy of 0.9894.


Long interspersed elements (LINEs) ofthe Li family represent a major class of mammalan repetitive DNA and are present at copy numbers of between 104 and 1V elements per genome. Structural similarities between Li elements and known retrotransposons have led to the suggestion that a subset of Li elements may function as mobile genetic elements and have thus gained their prominent place in the mammalan genome. We describe a consensus mouse Li element that was tagged with a heterologous introi and shown to transpose by way of an RNA intermediate when transfected into baby hamster kidney cells, formally establishing Li elements as retrotransposons. When the putative reverse transcriptase-encoding region of this Li element was deleted, the element still underwent retrotransposition in hamster cells, suggesting that reverse transcriptase activity can be supplied by an endogenous enzyme. Li elements comprise -5% of the mammalian genome and related elements are found in plants and insects (for a review, see ref. 1). The consensus mammalian Li sequence is =-6 kilobases (kb) long. The 5' end of the mouse Li consists of a variable number of 208-base-pair (bp) direct repeats, followed by two open reading frames (ORFs), ORFi (1.1 kb) and ORF2 (3.9 kb). The 3' end of the consensus Li contains a polyadenylylation signal followed by an A-rich tract. Approximately 10%o ofLi elements in the genome are full length; the remainder are missing various lengths from the 5' end. A variety of observations have led to the suggestion that a subset of full-length Li elements may function as retrotransposons. ORF2 possesses regions of sequence identity to known reverse transcriptases (RTase; refs. 2 and 3). ORFi and ORF2 are frame-shifted with respect to one another, a situation reminiscent ofORFs in a variety of mobile elements (4). The presence of a polyadenylylation signal and poly(A) tract at the 3' end of Li also lends credence to speculation that these elements transpose by way of an RNA intermediate. Finally, short direct repeats of chromosomal DNA flank Li elements and may have arisen during integration events (5). In addition to such structural data, other observations provide evidence for the mobility ofthese elements. Different species of mice show extensive differences in the location of Li elements, providing evidence for mobility on an evolutionary time scale (6). In man, evidence for contemporary movement is found in cases of hemophilia A that result from a de novo insertion of an Li element into the human factor VIII gene (7). Moreover, a number ofmalignancies have been described in which tumor tissue contains an Li element at a specific site, whereas surrounding normal cells show no evidence of an element at these locations (8, 9). Many of the Li elements in the mammalian genome have acquired mutations that presumably render them inactive as transposons. In addition, it is thought that Li transposition is a relatively infrequent event and may be confined to specific tissues and stages of development. For these reasons it has been difficult to study Li transposition. The approach that Boeke et al. (10) utilized to demonstrate retrotransposition of a yeast Ty element relied upon the introduction of a heterologous intron into a functional yeast element. A similar strategy has been employed to study retrotransposition of the Li-like element found in Drosophila (11) and the intracisternal A particle found in the mouse genome (12). We have used a similar approach to demonstrate that a consensus mouse Li element can transpose by way of an RNA intermediate. MATERIALS AND METHODS Plasmid Constructs. The Li sequences in pLiZ (Fig. la) were derived from LlMdA2, a genomic mouse Li clone (14). The control lacZ reporter construct pCMZ contains 800 bp of the cytomegalovirus immediate early 1 promoter fused to the 5' end of the Escherichia coli lacZ gene (15). Polyadenylylation and termination signals were supplied by the 500-bp 3' terminus of the mouse protamine 1 gene (13). The ancestral Li element Fxi (Fig. lb) was constructed by replacing the 1-kb Cla I-HindIlI segment of LlMdA2 (14) with the corresponding region from LlMdA13 (16). A linker containing a Sal I site was inserted at the Nhe I site 5' to ORF1 and anXho I-Sal I PCR-amplified fragment of the rat insulin II gene from positions +6 to + 177, containing intron A, was inserted (17). pNUT, containing a dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) resistance gene and the human growth hormone (hGH) gene fused to the mouse metallothionein I (mMT) promoter, was described (18). FxiART was constructed by deleting the Cla I-HindIII fragment of Fxi. Cel Culture. Baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells were grown in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 20% (vol/vol) fetal calf serum. Transfection was by the calcium phosphate method with 35 ,ug ofpFxi linearized with Not I and 7 ,g ofpNUT linearized with Kpn I. Selection with 200 ,uM methotrexate was begun 24 hr after transfection and 200 uM methotrexate was present in the medium thereafter. For transient assays of f-galactosidase activity, BHK cells were transfected with 10 jig of plasmid LiZ and 30 ,ug of carrier herring sperm DNA. Cells were fixed 48 hr after transfection and stained for 2 hr with o-nitrophenyl f-Dgalactopyranoside, a substrate for 3-galactosidase (19). Cells transfected with carrier DNA alone showed no staining after 48 hr. DNA Amplification and Sequencing. Total nucleic acid was isolated as described (20). PCR was performed by adding total nucleic acid or DNA to buffer containing 50 mM KCl, 10 mM Tris-HCI (pH 8.3), 1.5 mM MgCl2, 0.1% gelatin, bovine serum albumin (200 pLg/ml), all four dNTPs (each at 200 ,M), 100 pmol of each primer, and 5 units of Taq DNA polymerase (Perkin-Elmer). Amplification for 37 cycles was performed. Each cycle consisted of 90 sec at 96°C, 30 sec at 50°C, and 120 sec at 72°C. Products were analyzed on a 2% NuSeive/0.8% agarose gel. For Southern blot analysis of PCR products, the gel was soaked in 0.5 M NaOH/1.5 M Abbreviations: hGH, human growth hormone; ORF, open reading frame; RTase, reverse transcriptase. 8792 The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88 (1991) 8793


Owing to the effects of changing environment,such as human activities and climate,the natural annual runoff series for water resources evaluation calculation lost their consistency.In order to adapt to a changing environment demand for inconsistent annual runoff forecast,multi-level recursive method is applied.Different from previous mathematical statistic method with fixed-parameters,the multi-level recursive method is the one just dealing with the time-space variation system.The dependability of forecasted results will be enhanced because the regime of runoff is forecasted based the time-varying parameters forecasted in the model.The paper will illustrate the method by taking Zhuqi station of Minjiang River as an example,and the results will provide scientific basis for planning water use in the future.


The subject of this study was to understand how the development of self-managing teams (SMT) impacted the group process and national employees in a company located in Sultanate of Oman (Middle East). The study also aimed to detail the management interventions that facilitated change from existing hierarchical organisation to SMT structure. Change intended to develop team autonomy in adaptively managing the strategic and operational aspects of the divisions to address workplace problem of scaling up operations and achieving competitiveness, sustainability. Achievement of this objective frees top management from involving in divisional strategic, non-routine and resource management issues, thereby enabling diversification into other market segments. Research questions were framed to focus the study based on these organisational aims. This case study used scholarly practitioner approach by an insider to find answers to the research questions. Findings of the study about the research questions provide a rich description of the change process, thereby alleviating the lack of qualitative studies to develop self-managing teams in the workplace from an insider perspective. The discussions and suggestions to actionable knowledge provide practitioners insights to design change process for enhancing self-management capability and critical stages to be managed to avoid pitfalls due to emergence. Study findings and discussion addresses the paucity of studies for cost-effective strategies to achieve localisation objectives in the context of social forces emanating from the "Arab Spring" - either in Oman or GCC region by developing national employees aligned to workplace values. The constructivist and interpretive nature of the knowledge generated enhances its pragmatic potential. The study findings can assist researchers and practitioners when understanding or developing self-managing teams that compliment organisation strategy to scale business growth, improve responsiveness to clients and increase the commitment of local workforce to enhance localisation.


A Toroidally Folded Monomolecular DNA Chain : From the perspective of colloidal physics(Poster session 2, New Frontiers in Colloidal Physics : A Bridge between Microand Macroscopic Concepts in Soft Matter) Author(s) Iwaki, Takafumi; Makita, Naoko; Yoshikawa, Kenichi Citation 物性研究 (2007), 89(1): 134-135 Issue Date 2007-10-20 URL http://hdl.handle.net/2433/110904 Right Type Departmental Bulletin Paper Textversion publisher


Walking is very important exercise. Walking is characterized by gait. Gait defines the bipedal and forward propulsion of center of gravity of the human body. This chapter describes the role of artificial neural network (ANN) for prediction of gait parameters and patterns for human locomotion. The artificial neural network is a mathematical model. It is computational system inspired by the structure, processing method, and learning ability of a biological brain. According to bio-mechanics perspective, the neural system is utilized to check the non-direct connections between datasets. Also, ANN model in gait application is more desired than bio-mechanics strategies or statistical methods. It produces models of gait patterns, predicts horizontal ground reactions forces (GRF), vertical GRF, recognizes examples of stand, and predicts incline speed and distance of walking.


Bond lengths in crystalline Si1-xGex alloys are calculated by the valence-force-field model. A zincblende like unit cell is used to simulate the structure of random alloys. The calculated length change normalized to the change predicted by the virtual-crystal approximation is about 0.35. The calculated bond lengths are compared with the experimental results obtained by EXAFS measurements.


Employees represent the resource which play important role in supporting reaching of company efficacy. Therefore, company have to pay attention to the factors influencing employees in working. Good Motivation factor, good environment, appropriate compensation can grow the spirit of high job so that can affect the increase of performance of employees CV. Putra Jaya Sahitaguna, Semarang. This Research aim to know the motivation influence, environmental work, and compensation to employees performance of through spirit job. Sampel in this research is determined with the census approach many as 80 people. Its measurement scale use the scale likert. At data analysis use the simple linear regression test and test the doubled regresi. Research result show the motivate to have an effect on to employee morale of equal to 5,7 gratuity. Environmental work to have an effect on to employee morale of equal to 18,5 gratuity. Compensation have an effect on to employee moraleof equal to 10,4 gratuity.Motivate to have an effect on to employees performance of equal to 5,0 gratuity. Environmental work to have an effect on to employees performance of equal to 12,7 gratuity.Compensation have an effect on to employees performance of equal to 12,2 gratuity. Spirit of job have an effect on to employees performance of equal to 10,9 gratuity. Motivation, environmental work, and compensation to employee moraleof equal to 21,2. Motivation, environmental work the, compensation and employee morale to employees performance of equal to 20,3 gratuity. This research conclude that motivation, environmental work, and compensation have an effect on to employees performance. Companies need to approach the family, consider resting facilities, bathrooms, employee salaries and bonuses.


Urban public space nourishes social relations, at the same time, the evolution and development of public space are also influenced by social relations. As an important factor affecting the development of public space, the interest relation of citizens presents the characteristics of conflict or cooperation in the occupation of public spaces and finally presents itself in the space form. Based on the point, this paper attempts to explain the evolution and development of urban public space from the perspective of stakeholders, and on this basis investigates the generation mechanism of spontaneous order in the development of urban public space. To meet the research aims, this paper first clarified the inherent meaning that space reflects and shapes social relations, and then selected a certain urban area of Jinan in northern China for the case study. Through the data collected from Google earth history images, interviews, and published reports, the evolution of the major public spaces in this case from 2003 to 2020 was objectively presented. On this basis, the author analysed the social relations, appeals, and actions of various stakeholder groups (such as local people and non-local traders) in different periods in this case, as well as the staged outcomes of their effects on the public space. Finally, a game model of stakeholders was established. The results indicated that the development of a city is a process that mitigates the conflict between social and public space resources. In the occupation of public space resources, the relationship between the stakeholders is dynamic: when the cost is high and the return is low, the stakeholders show a trend of "conflict"; when costs are low and returns are high, the tendency to "conflict" diminishes.; When costs and benefits reach some kind of equilibrium, "cooperation" tends to rise and gradually leads to spontaneous order. Although this spontaneous order has its limitations due to the limited rationality of its participants, it still can play a positive role in the development of urban public space. In the concluding section, the paper proposes an optimization strategy of interest integration and coordination for urban space development, which may be of reference value for architects and government management to actively guide this spontaneous order in urban planning and urban governance.


It's no work of fiction, Carnoustie Library is set to have a stunning reincarnation – transforming into a bright, spacious and modern community hub.


ABSTRACT Accurate monitoring of crop moisture content is very important for irrigation scheduling and yield increase. This study aims to construct an optimal estimation model of winter wheat leaf moisture content (LMC) through spectral data processing and feature band selection. LMC and spectral reflectance were measured in 2017-2018 to construct models using simple linear regression (SLR), principal components regression (PCR), and partial least square regression (PLSR); feature bands for modelling were selected through correlation analysis and the effects of feature band number on estimation accuracy were compared. The results showed that data transformation significantly enhanced the correlation between spectral features and LMC. However, the band position corresponding to the maximum correlation coefficient for each transformation was not fixed. The accuracy of PLSR models were significantly higher than that of PCR and SLR models. The comparison of relative percent deviation (RPD) values indicated that the RPD values increased rapidly and then tended to be stable with the increase of feature band number. The R′′ -PLSR model constructed with 28 feature bands (R2c = 0.8517; RPD > 2.0) estimated the LMC more accurately than other models. This study provides a good method for non-destructive monitoring of crop moisture content.


This article argues that civil rights generally and gay rights in particular have increas ingly become the locus for a politics of changing state sovereignty in the USA, one which calls upon the state to empower itself by doing less. The engine behind this 'downsizing' of the state is a conservative discourse of political economy through which rights claims are understood as excessive and deleterious to limited public budgets, to private property and to efficient use of the 'police powers' over health and safety. Two case studies illuminate these claims: Colorado's anti-gay Amendment 2, and Hawai'i's impending legalization of same-sex marriage.


This study focuses up on the process of knowledge management in the context of small and medium enterprises in the particular economy of India. Analysts have emphasized the importance of knowledge management as an important tool to render a strong market presence in the economy. Most of the automotive business of the economy are dominated and clustered with (Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Huge technological advancements have implicated the entire industrial scenario in the recent times and knowledge management has been an important tool in the development of the automotive industry as well as the economy. This study particularly aims to evaluate the implications of knowledge management as an indicator of the growth of the trade opportunities in the particular industry of automobile. The study interprets the significance of knowledge management through extensive literature review of previous research data available from imminent analysts. The significance of knowledge management has been identified through the background review in many aspects including the quality management of a particular small enterprise. Theoretical competency frameworks like the iceberg model has been implemented to properly understand the visible and invisible factors of knowledge management. An innovative research methodology for qualitative and quantitative data analysis has been used. The sampling process consisted of 100 respondents for the quantitative data while for qualitative data, non-probability sampling technique has been used. The study resulted into important conclusions that provide links between the sales and growth of a company as a direct impact of knowledge management. The study established that knowledge management also provided critical competitive advantage to the industry.


This paper discusses the quality of basic education legitimized by the external evaluation and publicized by the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB) - an index that combines the performance of students in the assessment and the school flow, culminating with the establishment of an objective parameter (grade) that aims to reflect the Brazilian educational quality. The arguments are based on the premise that these two elements are incipient to determine the quality of education in the country without taking into account other factors that affect quality, namely: socio-economic and cultural level of the students, teacher training, enhancement of teaching, tangible and intangible working conditions, school management, school infrastructure, supplies, etc. The reflection leading to the debate on the lack of evidence to establish the quality of education travels the ways of the external evaluation in Brazil, the technical rationality of the school management referenced primarily by the IDEB and its governance to achieve the goals determined by this index. The purpose of this essay is to contribute to the current debate on the IDEB as a proposer and mobilizer of policies for the Brazilian public schools.


In the present paper, a three-dimensional finite element model of the Charnley implant has been developed to analyze the stress–strain distribution and deformation over the stem prosthesis. Patient-specific dynamic forces have been considered for the analytical evaluation using commercial finite element code. The impact of each dynamic activity has been analyzed separately using six different biocompatible alloy materials made of titanium and cobalt-chromium. Mechanical parameters have been evaluated to envisage the longevity and functionality of the implant. The performance of different materials for each suitable gait pattern is analyzed using finite element code. Consequently, Cobalt chromium alloys (CoCrMo alloy) demonstrate better results, i.e., maximum stress, minimum deformation, and strain as compared with other materials. Every dynamic motion, viz., walking, standing up, sitting down, going upstairs, and going downstairs are found in good agreement with the safety factor for every biomaterial. Additionally, going downstairs and sitting down gait motion exhibits the maximum and minimum stress–strain level, respectively. Based on the outcome of the presurgical study, it is recommended that CoCrMo alloys should be preferred over other materials.


Purpose
Year 2020 recorded an unprecedented bewilderment of the world with novel COVID-19, thereby threatening global food security. As such, there is need for academic libraries in Nigeria to provide information regarding food security to users to ensure post-COVID-19 food security. This study, therefore, aims to reflect on the role of academic libraries in facilitating post-COVID-19 food security in Nigeria.

Design/methodology/approach
Descriptive research design of survey type was used for the study. Librarians and library officers in academic libraries in south-west Nigeria were considered for the study. Self-structured online questionnaire was sent to the respondents via social media. The data generated were analysed using frequency count and simple percentage.

Findings
It was found that academic libraries performed significant role during the COVID-19 period by disseminating online information on preventive measures, and supporting research team with information on the pandemic. The study further found that the services of academic libraries are strongly required in facilitating post-COVID-19 food security, even in the face of some challenges.

Practical implications
In the face of the looming COVID-19-induced food shortage, it becomes evident that academic libraries have to support individuals, farmers, research teams and organisations with information and information resources that can help in accomplishing global food security.

Social implications
Failure of academic libraries to offer the required support in terms of provision of necessary information resources on agriculture may make the attainment of COVID-19 food security difficult.

Originality/value
Ensuring post-COVID-19 food security is an issue of global concern. This study encourages academic libraries to expedite action to contribute towards ensuring post-COVID-19 global food security.


Vehicle lightweighting is required to improve vehicle fuel economy in accordance with environmental regulations. Aluminium sheet is one of materials which satisfy lightweighting. Because aluminum sheet has low formability, it is difficult to apply metal forming process to the material. So warm and hot formability process is applied to aluminum sheet. One of ways to improve formability of the hard-to-form typed aluminum is to apply embossing shaped pattern to the material. The aluminum sheet to which the pattern is applied has enough formability at a high temperature. The purpose of this study is to improve formability of aluminium sheet at a high temperature. To achieve that, this researcher applied pyramid shaped pattern to aluminum sheet and conducted deep-drawing formability test to check how much formability is improved. The test result revealed that the sheet with pattern application improved formability around 120% higher than the sheet without pattern application.


Fog computing has been emerged as a promising paradigm with the different applications from industry to academic area. In this paper, we proposed a new concept, namely fog learning with the aim of addressing the critical thinking as a demanding issue in academic area. Due to the distributed architecture of our fog learning model, it can be used anywhere, anytime, and with the minimum latency in comparison with the existing mobile and cloud learning models to foster the critical thinking. To test the effectiveness of the proposed method, we applied the Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) as well as the acceptance test. We firstly showed that more than 74% of participants suffered from lack of critical thinking. Moreover, the participants indicated that they use several critical thinking skills during information seeking process, which shows there are relationships between critical thinking skills and the information seeking processes. According to the relationships between critical thinking skills and the information seeking processes, we designed a prototype for cultivating of critical thinking on the basis of fog learning. The results of the prototype evaluation emphasized on its positive role to foster critical thinking.


Copper and aluminum of the air conditioning heat exchanger are the important non-ferrous metal,and it is urgent to separate the copper and aluminum effectively at present.This paper introduces the advantages and disadvantages of rolling and the linear cutting,researches on the production process and the material properties and uses the way of hot pulling out to make more thoroughly separation and more convenience.The expansion coefficient of copper and aluminum is different,we can use it to reduce the stress of expansion pipe through heating or cooling and designs the machine for polling out the copper tube from aluminum.


Today Kazakhstan needs active, creative people who are able to think outside the box, make urgent decisions. Therefore, in the classroom it is necessary not only to solve educational goals, but also to consider ways to develop personal qualities and abilities of children. The definition of ways and means of developing a child's creative abilities has been studied in psychology and pedagogy for a very long time. The fact that the creative world was in the center of attention of thinkers of the era of the gift of culture can be traced due to numerous searches for the creation of a "theory of creativity". The goal of each child on the path of developing creative abilities is to increase the level of his knowledge, increase interest in classes, search.


Background: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is one of the most common disorders of reproductive age, and it is reported that 90% 85% of the people are suffering from this disorder. Among the multiple symptoms of mental premenstrual syndrome, dysphoria, irritability, tension, anxiety and physical symptoms of bloating and breast pain are more common symptoms that can interfere with personal, family and community relationships. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the frequency of the symptoms of PMS (physical, psychological and social) and the level of self-esteem in girls with PMS in 2013. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 200 girl high-school students of Shiraz city who had PMS. The study tools included demographic questionnaire, premenstrual symptoms, screening tool (PSST), (completed in two consecutive months) and Cooper Smith questionnaire. Data was analyzed by applying SPSS (version 16) and descriptive statistics. Results: The mean age of the study population was 16.34 ± 1.06. About 50.5 percent were within 14-16 years old. 11.43 ± 3.89, 12.87 ± 4.49, and 39.28 ± 16.2 were the mean scores of physical, mental and total symptoms in girls with PMS, respectively. Moderate and high levels of self-esteem were reported 53% and 47% respectively among the patients with PMS. Conclusions: The results showed that high self-esteem is decreased in patients with premenstrual syndrome. Due to the mood disorders, the subjects may avoid their perfection tendency and intensify their negative self-concept leading to low self-esteem. Different treatments, particularly psychological remedies, are required for those suffering from PMS.


. The aim of this paper is to bring into consideration the actual situation of the human resources management in the industry of tourism and hospitality, the challenges this factor is going through and the possible perspectives in the future. This study is based on the statistical data published by international authorized institutions and different studies of the field, compared and analyzed under an accurate literature review process made by the author. What comes up from this study is that eventhough the labor force of the tourism industry is the biggest ever known until now, half of it is part time employed and no qualified, dominated by students and emigrants groups who in general are low payed. In constrast to this, in most developed countries, where this industry is one of the most important regarding to income generation, happens that the service receiver-the tourist, is generally served by the low qualified employee. So, the failure or the success in this industry actually depands on the lowest payed and under evaluated part of the labour force. This industry suffers from negative perceptions regarding the employment practices, which in mostly cases are supported by evidence in fact. The phylosophy of human resources management is actually oriented toward short term objectives and responsabilites than toward long term ones like as the human resources development and its effective carrier path. This tendency needs to be changed due to the new challenges of the global tourism market development and smart tourist profile. Related to this last point this study offers recomandations.


We review various methods used to estimate uncertainties in quantum correlation functions, such as parton distribution functions (PDFs). Using a toy model of a PDF, we compare the uncertainty estimates yielded by the traditional Hessian and data resampling methods, as well as from explicitly Bayesian analyses using nested sampling or hybrid Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. We investigate how uncertainty bands derived from neural network approaches depend on details of the network training, and how they compare to the uncertainties obtained from more traditional methods with a specific underlying parametrization. Our results show that utilizing a neural network on a simplified example of PDF data has the potential to inflate uncertainties, in part due to the cross validation procedure that is generally used to avoid overfitting data.


To establish the controlling system of the blood inventory in the department of transfusion, it is expounded in this article that the properties of the controlling system of the blood inventory in the department of transfusion. The characteristic of the collection and supply blood should be combined and the appropriate inventory of the save blood should be kept for reducing the blood waste and debasing the cost. The management measure is provided in allusion to the characteristic of the save blood of the transfusion department and the reference is also provided for the management of the transfusion department.


A mixed-mode parallel machine's processing elements (PEs) are capable of operating in and switching between the SIMD and MIMD modes of parallelism. The paper analyzes various mappings of image correlation algorithms onto a mixed-mode parallel processing system. The trade-offs that exist between the SIMD and MIMD modes explain why some sequences of instructions are performed better in one mode than in the other and are the primary basis employed in comparing different mappings of a parallel algorithm onto a mixed-mode system.<<ETX>>


This study focuses on Thailand's Chinese teaching based on four Bangkok middle schools and analyzes their classroom environments,foreign language curriculums,class hours and size,teachers,teaching and management levels and attitudes.Based on the observations in Chinese classes,this study discusses the factors affecting Chinese teaching in Thailand's middle schools.With interviews with TCF teachers,it also analyzes the textbooks,teaching methods,and teaching materials as well as the major difficulties.Based on the aforementioned analyses,it finally gives suggestions on revising the Thailand Middle-school Chinese Teaching Standard.


The utility model relates to an optical fiber grating sensor with little current flow and low voltage, which comprises a light source, an optical coupler, an optical fiber grating, a piezoelectric ceramic and a signal demodulator, wherein the light source is connected with the input end of the optical coupler through transmission optical fiber, an output end of the optical coupler is connected with the optical fiber grating which is arranged on the piezoelectric ceramic in parallel through transmission optical fiber, and the other end of the optical coupler is connected with the signal demodulator through the transmission optical fiber, and the other end of the optical fiber grating is a gathering end of measured electrical signal, and the piezoelectric ceramic is connected with the positive and the negative poles of the measured electrical signal. The optical fiber grating can be fixedly arranged on the piezoelectric ceramic in parallel, and also can be vertically and fixedly arranged on the piezoelectric ceramic. The piezoelectric ceramic is constituted by metal thin plates and piezoelectric ceramic plates which are coated on the metal thin plates. The optical fiber grating sensor has the advantages of small volume, light weight, simple structure and convenient manufacturing, which can solve the problem of signal collecting and transmitting in hostile environment, and can also be applied in detecting low current flow and low voltage in electric power, bergol and various businesses.


AIMS
Bioresorbable scaffolds were designed to overcome the limitations of permanent stents. In the BIOSOLVE-I study we aimed to assess the long-term safety and performance of a drug-eluting absorbable metal scaffold (DREAMS) at three years.

METHODS AND RESULTS
In this prospective, multicentre first-in-man study, 46 patients with 47 de novo lesions were enrolled. We report the final results at three-year follow-up. Mean age was 65.3±9.7 years, lesions were 2.73±0.48 mm in diameter and 10.99±4.59 mm long. Follow-up at three years was available for 44 patients (one patient died of a non-cardiac cause and one patient withdrew consent). Three target lesion failures (TLF) occurred (6.6%), consisting of two clinically driven target lesion revascularisations at scheduled six-month angiography (4.3%) and one myocardial infarction after drug-eluting balloon treatment in a non-target lesion but target vessel at 12-month angiography (2.2%). No cardiac death or scaffold thrombosis occurred. Seven patients had additional angiographic follow-up at 28±4 months: in-scaffold late lumen loss had improved from 0.51±0.46 mm (median 0.28 mm) at 12 months to 0.32±0.32 mm (median 0.20 mm).

CONCLUSIONS
The BIOSOLVE-I study showed excellent long-term outcomes at three years with a low TLF rate and no cardiac death or scaffold thrombosis. No TLF event was observed beyond 377 days.


The increase of cancer incidence and mortality rates makes the problem of cancer care system financing one of the sufficient social and economical problems of modern society. The treatment of cancer patients is extremely expensive, that is why the costbenefit analysis of medical technologies applied in cancer care system is of great importance for rational use of resources. Lots of research, conducted mostly by medical practitioners using factor analysis, show the great influence of the stage of disease (at the moment when cancer is firstly diagnosed) on medical results and cost of treatment of patient. But quite a few research deal with quantitative estimation of medical and economical effect of cancer prophylactic measures on the level of population. Our purpose is to answer, what changes we should expect in terms of average life duration and average cost of treatment of cancer patient in cancer care system because of introducing concrete prophylactic program in the region. Such cost-benefit analysis is necessary for making rational management decisions in cancer care system. For achieving the purpose mentioned above, mathematical model of cancer patient states and transitions was developed based on international classification of


Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease believed to be triggered by erroneous activation of self-reactive T cells specific for myelin proteins such as myelin basic protein (MBP). Inflammation is limited to the CNS, suggesting that the myelin-specific T cells encounter their Ags only after they cross the blood-brain barrier. However, our previous studies in mice showed that MBP epitopes are constitutively presented in lymphoid tissues. Here we identified which APCs in lymph nodes present endogenous MBP epitopes and determined the functional consequences of this presentation for both naive and activated MBP-specific T cells. Both CD8α+ and CD8α− dendritic cells were potent stimulators of proliferation for both naive and previously activated/memory MBP-specific T cells. Surprisingly, resting B cells also presented endogenous MBP that was acquired using a BCR-independent mechanism. Interaction with resting B cells triggered proliferation of both naive and activated MBP-specific T cells. Activated/memory MBP-specific T cells proliferating in response to resting B cells presenting endogenous MBP did not produce cytokines and became more refractory to subsequent stimulation. Interestingly, cytokine production by activated/memory T cells was triggered by resting B cells if the number of MBP epitopes presented was increased by adding exogenous MBP peptide. These results suggest that activated MBP-specific T cells may become less pathogenic in vivo following encounter with resting B cells presenting steady-state levels of endogenous MBP but can expand and remain pathogenic if the amount of MBP presented by B cells is increased, which could occur during chronic demyelinating disease.


The authors have designed, built, and tested an electric current tomograph suitable for applying the adaptive current algorithm described by D. Isaacson et al. (1988). Usable images can be obtained by a relatively primitive reconstruction algorithm. Demonstrable improvement in these images is obtained when optimal current patterns are used.<<ETX>>


Abstract The main objectives of this research work are the determination of the quantities of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) that can be excepted from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Transport Regulations, the establishment of quantities of NORM that can be transported in excepted packages as well as the provision of sound basis for the establishment of limiting values for the classification of NORM as low specific activity material I raw for transport purposes, in order to compare with the actual transport limits established in the IAEA Transport Regulations for this type of material.


Dimensions of Nurse-Physician Communication by Rachel Malek Hamdan MS, American University of Beirut, 2011 BS, American University of Beirut, 2006 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration Walden University January 2017 Abstract Hospital leaders set quality and safety as high priorities in their strategic goals. Improving the quality and safety of patient care requires improving internal processes that have direct implications for patient care. Hospital leaders need to improve health care providers' communication as part of improving quality and safety. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of strategies health care administrators use to guideHospital leaders set quality and safety as high priorities in their strategic goals. Improving the quality and safety of patient care requires improving internal processes that have direct implications for patient care. Hospital leaders need to improve health care providers' communication as part of improving quality and safety. The problem addressed in this study was the lack of strategies health care administrators use to guide nurse-physician communication patterns in a university medical center in the Middle East. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore communication strategies that health care administrators use to guide nurse-physician communication. Relational coordination informed the conceptual framework of the study. The research question was designed to identify strategies health care administrators use to guide nurse-physician communication patterns. Data were collected and thematically analyzed through semistructured interviews with 5 administrators, 3 nurses, and 3 physicians, and the hospital policy manual. Analysis revealed 4 major themes: nurses' empowerment, nurses and physicians' accountability, multidisciplinary care delivery, and mutual respect. Strategies were identified through the exploration and analysis of the 4 themes. The key findings included that administrators considered holding nurses and physicians accountable for their work to be a key strategy that guides communication, and that effective communication is directly connected to mutual respect among different teams and individuals. The implications for social change include improved patient care and safety, and increased job satisfaction through health care leaders applying the identified strategies to enhance nurse-physician communication. Dimensions of Nurse-Physician Communication by Rachel Malek Hamdan MS, American University of Beirut, 2011 BS, American University of Beirut, 2006 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration Walden University January 2017 Dedication This work is dedicated to my parents, Malek and Noura. ...يندلا صلختل كبحب نانبل ايو ...يندلا سمّشتبو يندلا جلتتب Acknowledgments This work would not have been possible without the support of many people. I thank Dr. Franz Michael Gottleib, my committee chairperson, for his leadership and encouragement throughout this journey. I sincerely appreciate his exceptional expertise, countless reviews, and round-the-clock availability. I also thank him for his constant efforts in expediting the process. I also thank Dr. Denise Land, my second committee member, and Dr. James Savard, my URR, for their efforts in ensuring that this dissertation meets the highest scholastic levels. I thank the administration of the data collection site for believing in the importance of research and evidence-based practice. I also thank the study participants for their time. I truly appreciate their input that served as a basis of the study outcomes. I thank my close friends for being there for me each in their unique way. I thank them for going out of their way in helping me reach my goal. I also thank them for listening to my endless nagging; and continuously encouraging me throughout my journey. Finally, I thank my family. All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my family. I cannot thank you enough for giving me the strength and determination to complete this work.


The dry shrinkage of aerated concrete blocks and plaster mortar was measured by experiments,at the same time the compressive strength and split strength of plaster mortar were investigated as well.The deformations of surface of the aerated concrete walls and aerated concrete blocks were measured in outdoor environment condition.The results denoted that the shrinkage value of the testing wall surface changed with age,maximum value reached 1600 microstrain,and the crack risking of surface plaster mortar is over critical.


Available online xxx JEL classification: H7 I3 a b s t r a c t Following a partial equilibrium approach, this paper studies the effect of fiscal policy on income distribution in Argentina, based on budget information corresponding to the year 2004. Specifically, it aims to provide an empirical answer to a set of questions related to the responsibility of different levels of government (national or provincial) in ensuring the equitable distribution of income; how this responsibility is accomplished in practice, when this function is shared among two or more levels of government; whether an incompatibility arises among the policies from different levels of government; and the effect of fiscal policy on personal and regional income distribution.The main results of the paper are summarized as follows. At the aggregate level, both national and provincial budgets have a redistributive impact on personal income distribution, through a combination of progressive expenditures and (slightly) regressive taxes. Regional redistribution depends on two fiscal tools: the national budget and the revenue sharing regime. The progressive effect of expenditures and taxes interacts with the geographical effect of the revenue-sharing and the national budget, reinforcing progressivity in net-receiving groups and creating a trade-off between progressivity and (negative) regional transfer in net-financing ones. Provincial budgets have more impact than the national budget, both being compatible in pursuing the redistributive goal.


Purpose: Research demonstrates tremendous harmful effects for children and adolescents that have experienced trauma of various forms before the age of eighteen. These effects are profound as not only are they linked to current detrimental effects such as increased rates of substance abuse, early sexual activity, higher rates of depression, and suicidal ideation, but they also have shown to be damaging in adulthood. This systematic review provides an examination of interventions that reduce the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) for Black/African American children and adolescents.

Methods: This study used an intervention assessment tool to determine the methodological rigor derived from the American Psychological Association on assessing interventions as the risk of bias tool. The methodological rigor was used to assess the interventions that reduce the effects of ACEs. Effect sizes for controlled trials, pre-post effect sizes, and pilot studies were calculated.

Results: This search identified a total of 1,594 studies in which 617 were screened and five were selected. The five utilized harm reduction interventions to address the effects of ACEs. All of the study participants were Black/African American children and adolescents. The effect sizes that were available ranged from medium to large. The Strong African American Families Program (SAAF) intervention had the strongest methodological rigor with a medium effect size.

Conclusion: The review suggests that the combination of individual therapy, group therapy, and psychoeducational training techniques provided positive effects on the reduction of ACE related symptoms for Black/African American children and adolescents. The randomized control trials yielded the greatest improvements from the interventions. However, the findings were few and the need for interventions for this population continue to grow.


Purpose The 21-gene recurrence score (RS) is a genomic test developed as a prognostic and predictive tool to improve the treatment decision making in cases of estrogen receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative early-stage breast cancer. This study examined the clinical and economic impact of its use in 4 Basque Country university hospitals. Methods Taking into consideration the RS result, we recorded the recommended initial systemic adjuvant therapy (endocrine therapy with or without chemotherapy) according to standard clinicopathologic factors and the final decision about chemotherapy. Then, if the RS was high, chemotherapy was recommended; it was not recommended if the RS was low; for those with an intermediate RS, clinicopathologic factors were considered, and the initial recommendation based on those factors was maintained. In addition, the probability of switching treatment was calculated. Then, we developed an economic evaluation by measuring the treatment's incremental short-term budget impact from both the societal perspective and that of the Basque Health System. Patients' characteristics and chemotherapy use were analyzed using logistic regressions and receiver operating characteristic curves. Results Without an RS, chemotherapy would have been prescribed to 56% of 401 patients, but, with RS use, that percentage decreased to 25. The overall rate of decision change was 35.4%. Test inclusion led to a reduction in chemotherapy costs of €922 per patient in the total population. Although this reduction did not entirely offset the cost of the test, the productivity loss per patient was reduced by €1,977. Conclusion The 21-gene RS test significantly changed the indication for chemotherapy. As chemotherapy treatments with no benefit were avoided, patients' quality of life was improved. The short-term economic impact was negative for the Basque Health Service, but savings resulted when sick-leave costs were included.


The establishment of diplomatic relations with Peking was long overdue. It should have been done as early as 1949. Not to have done it at that time was a mistake. Mistakes can become a source of new obligations which should not be lightly discarded. In old fashioned ethics, when a wealthy gentleman made a poor girl pregnant, he was supposed at least to support the mother and child, and the prospect of a brilliant marriage with some heiress could not suddenly free him from this moral obligation. The early American mistake of siding with Chiang Kai-shek against a majority of the Chinese people, against history and against common sense, eventually bore one entirely unexpected fruit: modern, dynamic Taiwan with its thriving seventeen million people who, at this stage, do not have the slightest desire to become subjects of the People's Republic and who should be guaranteed the right to pursue their own separate destiny as long as they deem fit.


implications of China's involvement in the international political economy will be an ever more complex task, from an economic point of view as well as related security issues. Hence, it is essential to understand the outcome of China's economic rise, that is, the institutional and politico-economic reality created by the going-out strategy. The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed a rapid growth in China's heavy industry fuelled by resources imported from other parts of the world. There have been price hikes in world markets for all products that China had to import to sustain this stateled industrialization effort. Its foreign policy has facilitated these domestic needs. This multifaceted development is generally termed as 'China's rise'. However, such conceptualization is insufficient for assessing China's evolving role in international governance, because non-economic ideological and geostrategic premises also have to be taken into consideration. The three books by Harris, Economy and Levi, and Taylor provide a better understanding of essential forces that will continue to shape China's international behaviour. Its leadership has to manage large-scale investments in unstable regions in all parts of the world under conditions of a frail domestic economy, while balancing the interests of big state-owned enterprises with social and environmental concerns that call for adjustments to the model of rapid economic growth. This inheritance from the previous era will considerably constrain China's international role in the near future. The three books under review are indispensable for assessing China's policy moves and related domestic and external factors. Undoubtedly, it is necessary for the international community to be familiar with the Chinese debate on the country's grand strategy and the view of its leaders, as Wang Jisi advocates. Yet, to comprehend China's conduct on the world stage it is even more important to have a good understanding and knowledge of the main pillars of its foreign policy, the opportunities and constraints that come with Chinese global economic activities, and the relationship between the state and vital economic sectors. The books by Harris, Economy and Levi, and Taylor cover these salient issues in a masterly fashion. These books provide students of contemporary China, international relations scholars, and people with a general interest in global affairs with a good overview of the various facets of China's rise and help them reflect on the government's vision and goals which China's propaganda machinery will be inclined to disseminate in the future.


This study was conducted to evaluate effects of dietary pine cone meal on growth performance, blood characteristics, carcass quality and fecal noxious gases compounds in finishing pigs. The total of sixty [(Landrace×Yorkshire)×Duroc] pigs(86.01±0.25kg in average initial body weight) were used in 35 days assay. Dietary treatments included 1) T1(2% cottonwood sawdust), 2) T2(1% cottonwood sawdust+1% pine cone meal) and 3) T3(2% pine cone meal). There were three dietary treatments with five replicate pens per treatment and four pigs per pen. During the overall periods, there were no significant differences in ADG(Average daily gain), ADFI(Average daily feed intake) and gain/feed ratio among treatments (P>0.05). Also, Nutrient digestibilities and blood characteristics were not affected by dietary treatments. At the end of this experiment, a*-value of logissimus dorsi muscle color and sensory evaluation color were higher in T3 treatment than T1 treatment(P


This work presents a beam-steered infrared light communication (BS-ILC) system that enables high data rate wireless optical transmission to individual mobile users. The BS-ILC system comprises arrayed waveguide grating router-based optical antennas, camera-based user localization, and optical receivers (each integrated with an infrared tag). A high-speed photodetector has typically a small active area to minimize its junction capacitance, but this small size will result in a very limited field of view (FoV), which is detrimental to an optical wireless system aimed to provide some degree of mobility to users. Thus, the desired BS-ILC system requires precise and automatic alignment to establish a high-performance optical link between users and optical antennas. In this work, we propose an optical wireless receiver that can automatically align its orientation with respect to the optical antenna to ensure the light angle of incidence within the receiver's FoV. The automatic receiver consists of a motorized actuator and an optimization control algorithm. The actuator controls the orientation of the receiver, and the optimization algorithm is developed to accelerate the searching process of the actuator. In an indoor laboratory system setup, the amount of less than 200 ms has been demonstrated to establish gigabit-per-second optical link, and seamless transmission has also been realized for the mobile receiver while on the move with the FoV of $\pm 0.6^{\circ }$.


Charles George's group that 50% of patients in Europe, Japan and North America fail to take their medicine properly [2], largely because health care professionals have been ineffective as patient educators. Clearly, here is an eminently preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. Improved education and communication by and with health care professionals and the public are the obvious antidotes. The newly formed Medical Benefit/Risk Foundation, subtitled the Foundation for the Safer Use of Medicines, is a registered charity which has as its chief objective the promotion of high standards of drug safety. This will be done by promoting research in pharmacovigilance and medical decision-making and, above all, by promoting education in the benefits and risks of medicines so as to


The article is organized in four sections. The first describes the range of reforms and initiatives; the second summarizes the nature of the critique; the third presents new data profiling the orientations of one new segment of the teacher workforce; and a final section evaluates the implications.


costs, government, business, and insurers are striving to decrease health care utilization. At the same time, many Americans lack adequate access to health care services. In this charged atmosphere, Mark Blumberg's concer about the appropriate application of epidemiologic research to health policy1 is both legitimate and important. I share with Dr. Blumberg the fundamental goal of bringing the scientific method to bear on available data to better inform public and private decisions in health care. Dr. Blumberg is correct in his assertion that there are differences in morbidity between regions and cities in the United States and


Introduction P~ra{ysis agitans or Parkinson's disease, until a ter the epidemics of acute encephalitis from 1918 on, was a disease limited chiefly to old age and was seldom seen in persons under the age of fifty years. fDuring the nineteen-twenties, many persons o ~arly middle age or younger, who had had epidemic encephalitis in virulent, mild, or ~ven abortive and undiagnosed form, began ~ develop characteristic symptoms, preVIO~sly seen only in the arteriosclerotic PatIent. Although the postencephalitic baralysis agitans differed not only in severity, f ut in the multiplicity of symptoms, the tUndamental picture was the same in both Ypes of Parkinsonism. The disease being bfogressive and unrelenting in its course, ecame a greater challenge to the medical trofession, and especially to the neurologist, r~~ whom these unfortunate victims seek re ief from their disabling symptoms. UMany new drugs have been employed to \ ay the course of this handicapping and ~ ronic disease. Some have been more ~ectual than others, some more toxic than ~hhers, and it has been necessary to balance a e beneficial effect against toxic and disw'h.eeable side reactions in all the drugs th ich are in common use. The majority of f es~ drugs are of the atropine-belladonna thmlly and the side reactions are similar, bough they vary in intensity as well as in the eneficial effects achieved. , in 1947, a synthetic compound, later called c!' r.tane " became available for experimental , +n~cal Use. This compound chemically is a 1. flhexyphenidyl ' (3N-piperidyl)-I-phenylsYCYclohexyl-I-propanol hydrochloride) a p nthetic propane alcohol, a derivation of f/opane. I t was selected for clinical trial bOm among a series of similar compounds, s ecause of its effectiveness as an antir~as~odic, as well as its minimum of side rna~~lons. It is an atropine-like anti-spass;: rc, which exerts a relaxing effect on the be Ooth musculature. The compound had en carefully tested in both laboratory and by


In general, the invention relates to an improved assembly for insertion of an intravenous catheter and method of insertion which minimizes or eliminates the potential for exposure to blood and other bodily fluids during the use and insertion of an intravenous catheter. An intravenous catheter hub has a side opening directly to connected to a port of a multi-port stopcock. A modified syringe and hollow-bore needle are attached directly to the base of the catheter and when properly inserted, the needle extends slightly beyond the tip of the catheter. After the needle is inserted beneath a patient's skin, the syringe is used to generate slight negative pressure so that blood immediately flows into the syringe as soon as a vein is punctured by the needle.
The syringe is then removed and the flow of fluids into the patient may be regulated by the multi-port stopcock.


Configuration has a number of related topics such as mass customization, software product lines, design, planning, recommender systems, software configuration, and product data management. For a discussion of mass customization, refer to Chapter 9; a discussion of software product lines can be found in Chapter 6. The other topics are discussed in this chapter.


Table of contents -
State of the Union and key challenges for Europe's future, Janis A. Emmanouilidis and Paul Ivan;
Europe's economic challenges and the importance of ideas
and innovation, Herman Van Rompuy;
The growth challenge for Europe and the EMU, George Pagoulatos; Strengthening the euro area, Daniela Schwarzer; Social Europe. Can the EU again improve people's life prospects?, Laszlo Andor; Solidarity and cohesion, Pawel Swieboda; The single market and competitiveness – the challenges
for the Juncker team, Malcolm Harbour; A European response to the resource and climate challenge, Jo Leinen; Renewal through international action? Options for EU foreign policy, Rosa Balfour; EU migration policy – new realities, new opportunities, Cecilia Malmstrom;
Freedom of movement of persons – the building-block of
European growth, Radoslaw Sikorski; Building up European leadership – an assessment of the recent process, Maria Joao Rodrigues; Populism in the EU: new threats to the open society?, Heather Grabbe; Differentiated Europe needs strong institutions, Alexander Stubb; Improving decision-making in the EU, Fabian Zuleeg; The need for a New Pact, Janis A. Emmanouilidis.


Aim: To assess the relationship between dietary intake and adiposity in young rural South African adults. Methods: A total of 728 young adults participated and dietary intake was assessed using the 24-hour recall method. Linear regression models were used to determine the association between dietary intake and body mass index (BMI) before and after adjustment for age and gender. Results: Females showed higher mean BMI values than males in all age groups. An age group of 27to 30-year-old females had a mean value of 28.1 kg/m while males had a mean value of 21.9 kg/m. The distribution of BMI categories (underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese) was 20.5, 61.7, 9.3 and 3.1% in males, and 8.6, 42.5, 23.1 and 25.8% in females (p ≤ 0.05). Cholesterol intake was significantly (p ≤ 0.05) associated with BMI (beta = 0.002, 95% CI: 0.00–0.004) as well as overweight and obesity (odds ratio = 1.734; 95% CI: –1.09–2.75) after adjustment for age and gender. Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of overweight and obesity among rural Ellisras females. Moreover, increasing cholesterol intake was associated with overweight and obesity in the overall sample.


Future missions carrying humans to the moon will require fast and resilient communication infrastructure to allow occupants to communicate between various orbiters, rovers, and stations—and to relay valuable data back to Earth. This work begins by examining the two core enabling technologies for space communications: radiofrequency and optical links. These approaches are compared in the context of recent and ongoing missions by NASA and private entities. We then propose a set of recommendations for lunar communications infrastructure to enable habitation. Three pillars unify the approach: scalable design and capabilities, resilience to environmental and cyber threats, and universal applicability to a wide range of mission profiles. The engineering efforts and areas of focus necessary to mitigate identified weaknesses and achieve the described capabilities are discussed. We conclude by highlighting the significance of several upcoming missions that will serve as milestones in proving the viability of optical links as dependable communications infrastructure.


Study on the pathogenicity of four native entomopathogenic nematodes, Heterorhabditis sp. (IISR-EPN 01), Steinernema sp. (IISR-EPN 02), Oscheius sp. (IISR-EPN 08) and O. gingeri against shoot borer larva (SBL), by dose response and time exposure assay and determination of lethal dosages (LD50) and lethal time (LT50) by regression analysis. LD50 were calculated using four densities of test EPNs viz., 25, 50, 75 and 100 IJs/SBL and LT50 was calculated using one nematode density 100 IJs to mortality of SBL at 24, 48 and 72 hrs. Although the SBL was susceptible to test EPNs, there were differences among these EPNs in their ability to kill the insect. Among test EPNs, Steinernema sp. (IISR-EPN 02) and O. gingeri appears to be the most promising. The per cent mortality of SBL increased with the increase the dosages as well as exposure time. A positive correlation was found between dosages as well as exposure time and mortality. Probit analysis indicated that Oscheius sp. (IISR-EPN 08) required less number (48 IJs/larva), whereas Steinernema sp. (IISR-EPN 02) took less time (29 hrs) for desired mortality of SBL. This study will be helpful in the shoot borer management under field conditions.


This article established the mathematical model of system identification of composite trimaran pitching and heave motion model based on the genetic optimization algorithm, using VB language to write the recognition software, Design and produce a composite trimaran test model, doing the free pitching and heaving decay test, then completing the pitching and heave motion system identification according to the test data, and got their motion equation which will be used to do the forecast, the results of forecast can well match with the test results, confirmed the feasibility of this set of identification method. Also using the simulation software called SIMULINK in MATLAB to simulate the vertical acceleration, getting the ideal forecasting result.


Ursolic acid in Cynomorium songaricum was ultrasonically extracted and detected by HPLC. According to singlefactor experiments,three levels of four factors including ethanol concentration,material-liquid ratio,ultrasonic time, and ultrasonic power were selected for the orthogonal design.The results showed that the calibration curve of ursolic acid was linear(r=0.999 8) in the range of 4.0~16.0 μg / μL.The equation was y=622.7x-85.517,r=0.999 8,and recovery was 98.08%.The optimum extraction was carried out in 85%(V / V) ethanol for 30 min with the ultrasonic power of 150 W,and the material-liquid ratio 1∶25.Under the optimal conditions,the content of ursolic acid was 1.53%.The method can extract ursolic acid efficiently,and provide a reference for evaluation ursolic acid in medicinal materials.


This volume contains the papers presented at PPDP'02, the Fourth International ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming, held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA October 6-8, 2002.


We consider the null controllability problem for the wave equation, and analyse a stabilized finite element method formulated on a global, unstructured spacetime mesh. We prove error estimates for the approximate control given by the computational method. The proofs are based on the regularity properties of the control given by the Hilbert Uniqueness Method, together with the stability properties of the numerical scheme. Numerical experiments illustrate the results.


Background: Overall health of middle-aged women have become a major public health concern, there is therefore a need to evaluate the effectiveness of comprehensive nursing intervention program with the intention of reducing their symptom experience and increasing their health-related quality of life.
Aims: The aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of comprehensive nursing intervention program on reducing the symptom experience and increasing their health related quality of life.
Methodology: Menopausal Rating Scale (MRS) was used for assessing postmenopausal symptoms and WHOQOL-BREF quality of life scale was used for assessing quality of life of postmenopausal women. 60 post menopausal women attending at B.V.V.Sangha's Akkanabalaga Bagalkot were selected for the study using Simple random technique with Lottery method and then 30 post menopausal women were randomly assigned to experimental and control group respectively using computer generated random sequence. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25v.
Findings: Findings related to significance of difference between post-test symptom experience and health related quality of life scores of experimental group and control group postmenopausal women revealed that, there was a significant difference between the post test symptom experience scores of experimental group and post test symptom experience scores of control group [t=26.052, p=0.000]. Similarly, there was significant difference between post test health related quality of life scores of experimental group and post test health related quality of life scores of control group [t= 23.117,p=0.000].
Conclusion: The study concluded that the comprehensive nursing intervention was highly effective in reducing the symptom experience and health related quality of life scores of post menopausal women.

Keywords: Symptom Experience, Quality of Life, Postmenopausal Women, Comprehensive Nursing Interventions.


The ruling consciousness is an important prerequisite for success in national administration. Although not all modern ruling parties need to face this issue, it is of vital importance to the CPC, whose political power was seized through violent revolution. It is the element that determines whether the CPC can complete the mindset transfer from a "revolution party" to a "ruling party" (rather than merely obtaining the ruling position), and hence follow the common rule of national administration. This is proved by the 60-year ruling history of the CPC. Nowadays, the ruling ability of the CPC is challenged by the complexity of situations home and abroad. Therefore, much can be learned from the past experience.


The health status of the individuals is determined by the microflora inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract. Diet, stress, diseases, treatments and the environment influence the composition and activity of microorganisms in the gut. One way to restore the balance of the gastrointestinal microflora is the administration of beneficial lactobacilli and bifidobacteria in the form of probiotics or probiotic foods. Probiotics are live microorganisms that confer beneficial effects to the host, when administered in adequate amounts [2, 7]. Their beneficial effects in gastro-intestinal infections, reduction of serum cholesterol, protecting the immune system, suppression of infections caused by Helicobacter pylori, Krohn's disease, restoring the microflora in the gut and intestine after antibiotic treatment, their anti-cancer properties, antimutagenic effect, antidiarrheal properties and others are well known [1, 8, 10, 12]. The main components of probiotics are lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Pediococcus, Lactococcus, Streptococcus, Leuconostoc) and bifidobacteria that are applied in the manufacture of probiotic foods as well [7, 10, 11], the largest proportion being the lactobacilli. Not all the lactobacilli can be included in the composition of the probiotics and probiotic foods, but only those that have certain characteristics [9, 10, 13]: to be part of the natural microflora in humans and animals; to adhere to epithelial cells or cell lines; to survive under the conditions of the stomach and the intestines, i.e. to survive under the conditions of acidic pH in the stomach and to be resistant to the action of bile [12]; to be able to reproduce in the gastro-intestinal tract; to suppress the pathogenic and toxigenic microorganisms [5, 6] and to push them out of the biological niche utilizing advantageously the substrate; to allow industrial fermentation; to possess antimicrobial activity against conditionally pathogenic, carcinogenic and pathogenic microorganisms; to produce antimicrobial substances; to modulate the immune response; to be safe for clinical and nutritional uses [14]. The purpose of the present work was to investigate some probiotic properties of Lactobacillus plantarum BG24 (isolated from naturally fermentirala cereal drink boza) resistance to different values of pH and enzymes (pH=2 + pepsin, pH=4.5 + pancreatin and pH=7 + pancreatin), different concentrations of bile salts, and the profile of its antibiotic resistance.


The use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) to improve animal performance and health has been practiced during the last 50 years. Nevertheless, a full ban on the feed use of AGP came into effect in the European Union in 2006, based on the potential for a reservoir in food animals of an antibiotic resistant bacteria population that could be transferred to humans. There are several kinds of antibiotics alternative developed and used currently, among which readily memorable natural substances for customers and medicinal plants with excellent physiologically activity are getting attention by researchers (Hernandez et al., 2004). In Viet Nam, plants having antimicrobial actions have been used in curing for humans but for animal are not so many. For this reason, the research and using the phytogenic antimicobial as an alternative AGP on animal feed is necessary.


Graphical User Interface (GUI) is a common feature for modern software systems, while there are still many legacy systems that do not have GUIs, but only provide text and commands for user interaction. In this paper, we report our experiment on using runtime models to support the rapid, generation-based development of simple GUIs for such legacy systems. We construct runtime models for the target system as an intermediate representations of the underlying system state, and in this way wrap the low-level interaction mechanisms of the legacy systems. After that, we visualize the models with a graphical editor. Due to the causal connection between runtime models and the runtime system state, users can monitor and control the system state by reading and writing the models, and in this way, using the graphical model editor as the GUI of the system. Based on the existing framework for runtime model construction and model visualization, it is possible to achieve the rapid development process of such GUIs in the form of high-level specification and automated generation. We experiment with this idea by using two existing frameworks, Sm@rt and GMF, to develop a series of GUIs for an electricity simulation system named GridLAB-D. We also enhance the existing Sm@rt framework with cache mechanisms in order to suit GUIs.


This paper is an extension of work by He and Kundu (1991) in which the task of object recognition is performed on silhouettes or outlines. He and Kundu reduce a 2-dimensional image to a 1-dimensional segment sequence and use the autoregressive (AR) model for feature extraction and hidden Markov model (HMM) for classification. We show that due to the AR model's inability to estimate abrupt changes (i.e. where the signal is not bandlimited), poor image modelling is obtained. By direct application of vector quantization (VQ) to the normalized data segments, the image features are retained better than with AR modelling. Furthermore, by replacing the HMM classification with VQ distortion, better recognition results are obtained with reduced training times as compared to the HMM algorithm.<<ETX>>


Polarity-dependent charge trapping and defect generation have been observed in SiO2 / Al2O3 gate stacks with TiN electrodes. For the substrate injection case, electron trapping in the bulk of the Al2O3 films dominates, whereas hole trapping near the Si substrate is observed for gate injection. This asymmetry in defect creation causes an asymmetry in oxide reliability. For gate injection, reliability is limited by the thin SiO2 interfacial layer, yielding low beta values, independent of the Al2O3 thickness. For substrate injection, reliability is limited by electron trap generation in the bulk of the Al2O3 film, yielding a strong thickness dependence of the beta values, as expected from the percolation model and as observed in SiO2 layers of similar thickness.


Construction cost management system mainly include system maintenance subsystem,project management manifest subsystem,etc.In this section we will have a brief description of system infrastructure,module design and data base design,etc.


It introduces the moving particle semi-implicit(MPS) method and it's a theoretical model.It's a numerical method based on Lagrange point.The fluids are represented by a finite number of moving particles,governing equations are discretized based on particle interaction models representing gradient,Laplacian and free surface,do not need to establish the grid.Therefore,do not suffer grid distortion effect,suitable for the simulation on large deformation of hydraulics problems.And at the same time introduce the concept of particle number density and the semi-implicit algorithm,effectively maintain the incompressible of the fluids.The numerical diffusion derived from the convection terms does not arise because of fully Lagrangian description.With this method an example of single droplets of 3d visual effect is simulated,the simulation results are very realistic.


Abstract A primary motivation of this paper is to draw together, in one source, information on the nature, extent and performance of Australia's evolving toll road network which is currently spread across many disparate published and unpublished sources. This paper provides key information (e.g. length, toll rates, year opened, operator(s) and payment alternatives) on all of the fully interoperable toll roads in Australia that are present in Sydney (e.g. the M2, M4, M5, etc.), Melbourne (CityLink and EastLink) and Brisbane (the Gateway Bridge, the Logan Motorway and the Gateway Extension). Where available, we compare and discuss actual traffic levels and forecasts, revealing the sizeable gap or 'error' in forecasts, especially during the first year of operation. Ordinary least squares regression and panel random effects regression models are developed to identify potential sources of explanation of differences in error forecasts between the Australian toll roads at various points post the opening date. A separate analysis of a sample of toll roads in the USA was also undertaken that supports the main findings from the Australian toll road network. Key influences on errors in forecasts are the capacity of a toll road, the elapsed time that the toll road has been in place, the specific period of time in which a tolled road is introduced into the network (which influences the complexity of route options including multiple tolled routes and hence toll saturation), the length of the tolled route, the presence of cash payment and the charging regime (i.e. fixed vs. distance‐based or variable user tolls).


ABSTRACT In typical heavy duty gas turbines the multistage axial compressor is provided with anti-surge pipelines equipped with on-off valves (blow-off lines), to avoid dangerous flow instabilities during start-ups and shut-downs. Blow-off lines show some very peculiar phenomena and somewhat challenging fluid dynamics, which require a deeper regard. In this paper the blow-off lines in axial gas turbines are analyzed by adopting an adiabatic quasi-unidimensional model of the gas flow through a pipe with a constant cross-sectional area and involving geometrical singularities (Fanno flow). The determination of the Fanno limit, on the basis of the flow equation and the second principle of thermodynamics, shows the existence of a critical pipe length which is a function of the pipe parameters and the initial conditions: for a length greater than this maximum one, the model requires a mass-flow reduction. In addition, in the presence of a regulating valve, so-called multi-choked flow can arise. The semi-analytical model has been implemented and the results have been compared with a three-dimensional CFD analysis and cross-checked with available field data, showing a good agreement. The Fanno model has been applied for the analysis of some of the actual machines in the Ansaldo Energia fleet under different working conditions. The Fanno tool will be part of the design procedure of new machines. In addition it will define related experimental activities.


Recent worldwide gains in girls' schooling are raising new questions about the continued relevance of gender for educational inequality. At issue is whether the time has come to shift the policy focus away from gender to socioeconomic status. Answers to this question, we suggest, depend on how gender gaps close, i.e., do they close irreversibly, evenly, and faster than socio-economic (SES)-related inequality?

Against this background and building on contrasted sociological perspectives on inequality, our chapter examines the recent convergence trajectories of several sub-Saharan countries, asking if these trajectories warrant a policy shift away from gender.

Our findings are mixed. Although, the magnitude of sex-related inequality in schooling is consistently smaller than SES-related inequality, the process of gender convergence remains reversible and it unfolds in top-down fashion. Such findings warrant continued attention to gender in sub-Saharan Africa, but with particular focus on poor girls and on synergies that address both female and poor children. This conclusion supports theoretical advances that transcend the Manichean divide between focus on cultural recognition and socioeconomic redistribution.


Two studies were conducted with the objective of evaluating the effects of feeding different levels of whey ensiled with wheat straw and wheat middlings (whey silage) compared to control diets on production parameters in growing cattle. Whey silage was included in diets at 55 and 65.5% on a dry matter basis with net energy for maintenance and crude protein calculated to be similar to control diets containing a combination of alfalfa hay, corn silage and wheat middlings at 1.74 Mcal kg-1 and 13.4%, respectively. Dry matter intake averaged 8.41 versus 8.91 kg d-1 (P 0.05) in feed efficiency (8.73:1 versus 8.71:1) were observed. However, the higher dry matter intake (DMI) of cattle fed diets wi...


The disclosure is the decoder-side region of interest (ROI; region-of-interest) relates to video processing. A video decoder determines whether or not the ROI assistance information is available. If the ROI assistance information is not available, the decoder does not implement a decoder-side ROI processing. Decoder-side ROI processing may estimate the reliability of ROI extraction in the bitstream domain. If ROI reliability is favorable, the decoder applies bitstream domain ROI extraction. If ROI reliability is not favorable, the decoder applies pixel domain ROI extraction. The decoder intra- may apply different ROI extraction processes for the coded (P or B) data-coded (I) data and inter. The decoder intra- may be used based ROI generation-color for the coded data-use-based ROI generation, and the inter-coded data for the coded block pattern (CBP). ROI tablets intra- may involve purification based-based purification, and inter-and color-motion for the coded shape data for the coded data.


COLLECT is the premier annual fair in Europe for international contemporary craft of museum quality.

Originally held at the V&A, and now re launched at the Saatchi Gallery in London, COLLECT has an enviable reputation as a major event on the international cultural calendar, with a loyal audience of private collectors and museum curators.

Andrew exhibited with The Bishopsland Educational Trust (group show of vessels and objects curated by leading curator Amanda Game) and Tyger Glyn Gallery (16 pieces of jewellery)


Urban heat islands (UHI) are growing in size and intensity, which is partly attributable to the large amount of anthropogenic waste heat. Moreover, heat emitted from building exterior walls accounts for a large portion of the total anthropogenic waste heat. Thus, strategies and technologies for preventing the emission of heat from building exterior walls are being pursued by researchers worldwide. Amongst these technologies, the potential of use of retro-reflective (RR) materials instead of diffuse highly reflective (HR) materials applied to building envelopes for UHI mitigation is being studied widely. However, RR materials haven't been applied to building envelopes in practice due to their unproven weather resistance. In order to develop RR materials with high weather resistance for application to building envelopes, two types of micro glass beads with different refractive indices (1.5, 1.9) and five different colors of base layers were evaluated in this study. Their RR performance was measured by optical experiment and compared to two types of RR sheets commercially available in Japan. The results showed that the glass bead RR samples with a refractive index of 1.9 had much higher retro-reflectivity (better RR capacity) compared to those with a refractive index of 1.5.