BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to determine the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum levels of EGF containing fibulin-like extracellular matrix protein 1 (EFEMP1) in the patients with meningiomas and explore its potential as a biomarker.

METHODS
Forty-five patients with meningioma, 11 of whom underwent meningioma resection, as well as 30 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. CSF and blood samples were collected preoperatively and postoperatively. Expression levels of EFEMP1 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate its discriminant ability.

RESULTS
CSF EFEMP1 levels were significantly higher in the CSF samples (p < 0.0001) and serum samples (p = 0.0056) of meningioma patients compared to controls. To distinguish meningioma patients from controls by CSF and serum EFEMP1 levels, ROC/AUC analysis indicated an AUC of 0.945 (sensitivity 0.933; specificity 0.833) and an AUC of 0.674 (sensitivity 0.867; specificity 0.400), respectively. Moreover, the postoperative CSF levels of EFEMP1 were significantly decreased compared to the preoperative levels (p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS
The present study suggested that elevated EFEMP1 levels might be a novel diagnostic biomarker for meningioma patients.


irrational behavior could be justified by an apparently noble concept..." (p. 32-33)? Or consider, "what is required of a young healthy tribesman is vigor, recklessness, lack of instinct for self-preservation and, last but not least, the kind of spirit of bravado which reigns supreme in any community where there is no organizational structure and therefore no protection for the weak" (p. 35)—in short, someone who thinks and feels and values with "the Arab mind" (p. 48). Just as social analysis is badly informed and informing in this book, so too is the historical analysis. Some of this is because of plain ignorance—for instance, the Umayyads are portrayed as tribal Arabs who had "no model to follow for a more orderly method of administration" (p. 147); no mention is made of Roman/Byzantine influence. The brief treatment of the Abbasid revolution characterizes it as a "Persian-dominated Shi'ite movement" (p. 141). This, following on an early discussion of Shi'ism, a movement which "rapidly acquired a predominantly Persian character" (p. 125), gives us once again that tidy picture of Sunni Arabs and Shi'i Iranians. It fits Gulf War propaganda well; it doesn't at all fit historical reality. A glance at a few articles in the Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd ed.) would have shown that quickly enough. But then, the EI wasn't consulted, nor were any other up-to-date standards of the field. H. Bender's Au Kurdistan (Paris 1887) and J. A. Maxwell's / Never Saw an Arab Like Him (London 1948) were. The bibliography is no more useful than the narrative. One can hope that the hefty price of this small book will keep it blessedly out of sight of the unwary. JON E. MANDAVILLE Portland State University


It was undertaken(2003~2004) to investigate the distribution of arsenic concentrations in five culture-shellfish from the southern coast of Fujian Province,China.The results show that total arsenic concentrations in the five culture-shellfish vary from 0.65×10~(-6) to 4.80 ×10~(-6),with an overall average of 2.09×10~(-6).The percent of organic arsenic content to the total arsenic one ranges from 61.6% to 98.2%,and the percent of inorganic arsenic is from 2.3% to 38.4%.Their average values are 88.8% and 11.2% respectively.Difference of the inter-specific distribution of the total average concentration in the culture shellfish is little in the same culture area.Overall,the total arsenic average concentration of culture-benthic shellfish in sea beach soil is higher than that of raft-culture shellfish in shallow sea.The total arsenic concentrations in the five culture-shellfish in the Quanzhou Bay,the Meizhou Bay,the Dongshan Bay and the Jiulong Estuary are high, the Weitou Bay and the Zhao'an Bay are low,and in other bays are nearly the same.The pollution index of the inorganic arsenic ranges from 0.05 to 0.76 with an overall average of 0.23.And for the total arsenic,the pollution index is from 0.06~0.48 with an overall average of 0.21.They are all below the arsenics limit of natural food sanitation quality criteria in marine bivalve.The correlation between the total arsenic in the culture-shellfish and its length is overall positive


The article is devoted to the consideration of some aspects of creativity in the context of its essential and conceptual involvement in the educational process. Creativity is a social, cultural and psychological process, but both in the industrial and in the post-industrial paradigm, the educational system is in a subordinate position. Human development as self-development is always a creative act. It is impossible to force a person to be creative: creativity, self-actualization, responsibility should grow "from below", and not descend in the form of command directives "from above". In order for creativity to become the norm of the educational process, it is necessary to organize it in such a way that all its participants can fully realize themselves in it as individuals. The "hidden" level of creativity, included in the considered model "Four-C", reveals the space of creative goal-setting, activities and behavior that trigger mechanisms for realizing creative potential and the ability to adequate, dynamic, flexible response to emerging problems, overcoming arising difficulties, mobilizing internal resources of a person. At the same time, the rationality of the creative process, in which a person is able to penetrate, a particular object of his activity is also determined, accepting it in universal, substantial characteristics, disobjectifying, and not simply using it in a purely external way. Systemic creativity seems impossible without a personal component, but personal creativity is reproduced and funded by the system. The educational system forms an organic unity of creative work and creativity. Decay, disequilibrium, uncertainty, loss in new circumstances at the same time generate and actualize creativity as a response to new challenges, as the only possible way to solve permanently emerging new non-trivial problems, since traditional and classic methods do not help much. Thus, the education system, on the one hand, can be a more or less suitable space for realizing the creative potential of a person, and on the other hand, it itself produces a synthesis of personal and systemic creativity.


Although mammalian thyroid-stimulating hormone increases the low temperature resistance of goldfish, there is no evidence that the increased low-temperature resistance induced by either temperature acclimation or photoperiod control is operating by way of the thyroid gland. Likewise, no evidence was found for increased release of thyroid hormone during cold stress. Mammalian thyrotropin stimulates the secretion of thyroid hormone in goldfish as measured by radiochemical methods. Small doses produce a maximum elevation of plasma-bound radioiodine within 9 to 12 hours. A somewhat higher dosage of TSH seems to be required to stimulate the uptake of radioiodine by the thyroid.


We present an effective method for comparing subjective audiovisual quality and the features related to the quality changes of different video cameras. Both quantitative estimation of overall quality and qualitative description of critical quality features are achieved by the method. The aim was to combine two image quality evaluation methods, the quantitative Absolute Category Rating (ACR) method with hidden reference removal and the qualitative Interpretation- Based Quality (IBQ) method in order to see how they complement each other in audiovisual quality estimation tasks. 26 observers estimated the audiovisual quality of six different cameras, mainly mobile phone video cameras. In order to achieve an efficient subjective estimation of audiovisual quality, only two contents with different quality requirements were recorded with each camera. The results show that the subjectively important quality features were more related to the overall estimations of cameras' visual video quality than to the features related to sound. The data demonstrated two significant quality dimensions related to visual quality: darkness and sharpness. We conclude that the qualitative methodology can complement quantitative quality estimations also with audiovisual material. The IBQ approach is valuable especially, when the induced quality changes are multidimensional.


The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a high strength and high stretched aluminum extruded material having a granular structure, comprising: a billet producing step (S1 step) of producing a billet through a casting process with molten metal of an aluminum alloy; A preheating step (S2 step) of preheating the produced billet to the target temperature in the electric furnace and keeping it for the soaking time; (Step S3) in which the preheated billet is extruded at a ram speed of the extruder set at the extrusion temperature, and extruding the high strength aluminum alloy at a low extrusion pressure to form an extruded material, And the possibility of application as a lightweight component by expanding the extrudability of the high strength aluminum alloy is expanded. In addition, it is possible to improve the productivity by improving the extrudability of the material which can substitute the existing cast iron / The present invention is a useful invention having an excellent advantage that it has excellent granular structure not having a stretched structure and has excellent extrudability and low cost of a product due to simplification of a manufacturing process for a high strength aluminum alloy having a low extrusion rate and a low elongation rate.


Abstract The crystal structure of BaRuO3 has been derived by the bond valence method and sphere packing geometry using only the information obtained from the indexing of a powder pattern of the compound. The structural parameters derived in this way give calculated bond distances that agree with those measured experimentally to within 0.02 A. Since the Ba–O and Ru–O distances that completely satisfy the valence requirements of the atoms are incommensurate under the constraints imposed by the geometry of the structure, the Ba–O and Ru–O bonds of the final model are, on the average, compressed and stretched, respectively. As a result of this analysis it is found that the valences of the two crystallographically independent Ru atoms in the asymmetric unit are very nearly equal. The structure of BaRuO3 is formed by units of three face-sharing RuO6 octahedra, connected to one another by corner sharing. The oxygen atom of the shared faces in each unit are pulled together, thus providing a "shielding effect" that reduces the Ru–Ru interactions.


In this short contribution the author, a Masters in Environmental Education student, introduces his research into a rural community's knowledge about, attitudes towards and extensive use of plants which grow wild in their locality, with specific reference to their diet. Taking an ethnographic approach to the study of people's relationships with plants, Shava spent a number of weeks in a village in Peddie, South Africa. Here he learned that some young people still know much about wild plants and their uses, but that these plants are playing a decreasing role in their diets. He attributes the growing negative attitudes towards wild plants to modernisation, the non-supportive role of formal education, and advertising which encouraged people to rely on store-bought foods. Environmental educators should consider paying greater attention to the role of "wild" foods in the diet. Such attention can contribute not only to the conservation of biodiversity, but also to greater food security and health.


Allometry in size and shape between sexes was investigated in preserved Bearded Dragon Pogona barbata museum specimens. Measurements for snout-vent, head, leg and tail lengths were obtained from 236 individuals ranging from hatchlings to large adults. Juveniles and adults were sexed, and size at onset of maturity was determined. Geographic variation in P. barbata was also studied by comparing lizards from three regions in New South Wales (NSW), which differ in annual rainfall.Relative to snout-vent length, head and leg lengths were in negative allometry in all specimens, and tail length was in positive allometry in juveniles, but negative in adults. Sexual dimorphism was evident in body size and shape. Males grew larger and reached maturity at larger sizes than females. While juvenile shape did not differ between the sexes, mature males had proportionately longer heads, legs and tails than adult females. This generalisation in sexual shape dimorphism did not hold true for animals from different NSW region...


The curvature-induced bunch collective interaction in magnetic bends can be studied using effective forces in the canonical formulation of the coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) effect. In this paper, for an electron distribution moving ultrarelativistically in a bending system, the dynamics of a particle in the electron distribution is derived from the Hamiltonian of the particle in terms of the bunch internal coordinates. The consequent Vlasov equation manifests explicitly how the phase space distribution is perturbed by the effective CSR forces. In particular, we study the impact of an initial linear energy chirp of the bunch on the behavior of the effective longitudinal CSR force, which arises due to the modification of the retardation relation as a result of the energy-chirping-induced longitudinal-horizontal correlation of the bunch distribution (bunch tilt) in dispersive regions.


Certain forage crops can absorb and translocate the chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide dieldrin from soil or sand. An extraction technique routinely used for analyses of residues does not quantitatively remove this internal chemical, but a method employing chloroform-methanol extraction leads to essentially quantitative recovery.


Particulate fractions isolated from the growing region of the epicotyl of Pisum sativum L. var Alaska are capable of transferring glucose from uridine or guanosine diphosphate glucose-14C to buffer-insoluble products which are partly alkali-soluble and partly alkali-insoluble. Cellobiose activates the reaction; carboxymethylcellulose and cellodextrins act as competitive acceptor molecules.When the epicotyl is decapitated, glucan synthetase activity disappears from particulate fractions of the growing region within 3 days unless the hormone indoleacetic acid (IAA) is added to the tissue, in which event activity is retained. Other growth regulators (gibberellic acid, benzyladenine) have no such effect. Loss of activity is not due to a change in solubility of enzyme or product or to the absence of substrate, activator, or acceptor molecules, nor is it accompanied by comparable losses in total protein or cellulase activity from the particulate fraction. It is concluded that IAA is needed for the formation and...


The invention provides a method for establishing model data and a system thereof. The method comprises the following steps: obtaining initial model data based on a thickness model; responding with the thickness value of the peak of a part input by a user and regulating the thicknesses of parts of the peaks of the initial model data respectively; responding with the position value of the peak of the part input by the user and regulating the positions of parts of the peaks of the initial model data respectively; and based on the initial model data and parts of the peaks after being regulated, obtaining the model data based on the thickness model. By adopting the method or the system provided by the invention, the edit of the user to the model data is convenient; and moreover, the storage space is saved.


Objective:To investigate the qualitative analysis of the main components of Yinchenhao decoction(YCHT) by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC).Methods:The method was established on a Welch-materials XB-C18column(250 mm ×4.6 mm,5 μm) with mobile phase in gradient elution composed of acetonitrile(A)-0.1%phosphoric acid(B) flowed at 1 mL·min-1.The column temperature was 35 ℃ to test 8 reference substance and the test materials of YCHT on 254 nm,280 nm,440 nm wavelengths and compare the chromatograms controls.Results:Eight components in YCHD havebeen identified as gallic acid,chlorogenic acid,aloe Geniposide emodin,rhein,emodin,chrysophanol and physcion were absorbed well at 254 nm.Gallic acid and chlorogenic acid were also absorbed at 280 nm and they were not absorbed at 440 nm.At 280 nm and 440 nm there is no absorption of geniposide.At the 280 nm and 440 nm these five anthraquinones have good absorption.Conclusion:HPLC which chromatographic conditions have been identified at 254 nm,280 nm,440 nm wavelengths,can be used to analyze the major components of YCHT.


The state consensus problem among groups of linear parameter-varying (LPV) systems is addressed. The systems are assumed to have an identical LPV structure. We consider both homogeneous groups, where the time-varying parameters are identical, and heterogeneous groups, where the parameters can be different for all agents. Motivated by relative sensing we assume static, possibly parameter-varying, diffusive couplings between neighboring agents. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for state consensus and, in the homogeneous case, present design procedures for the coupling gains based on linear matrix inequalities.


ABSTRACT The study was conducted in 20 randomly selected villages of Panhala taluka in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state. A total of 400 dairy farmers were randomly selected from the selected villages for the study. This study aims to assess the impact of Shri Warana Dairy Co-op M P P F Ltd pattern on socioeconomic profile, knowledge and adoption of dairy management practices of dairy farmer member producers and constraints faced by them. The data collection was done by the use of structured interview schedule and through personal interview. The socio-economic status of dairy farmers was raised after becoming the member of Shri Warana Co-op M.P.P.F. Ltd. The highly significant differences were observed in statistical analysis of herd size, annual income, risk orientation, social participation, source of information, knowledge and adoption of dairy farmers as impact of Warana dairy farming pattern after becoming the member except land holding. Almost all the independent and dependent variables of the socio-economic status of the dairy farmers has shown the highly significant impact after becoming the members may lead to the concrete conclusion that the co-operativee movement and mode is responsible for bringing-up the sea change in the livelihood of these farmers.


A common correlation to evaluate success of hydraulic fracturing operation is the productivity index ratio (J/Jo). However, this term only involves a very short time evaluation basis. Thus, we propose a more realistic and economically reliable namely, cumulative production ratio. A correlation is generated from a conceptual reservoir simulation model applying to sensitivity analysis on various parameters to investigate the effect of each parameter. The resulted correlation can be used to determine an optimum fracture half length and fracture number of horizontal well for a certain horizontal length considering reservoir characteristics and also to evaluate hydraulic fracturing effectiveness. By this new correlation, the application of hydraulic fracturing design in horizontal well is expected to be more robust as well as accurate.


UNESCO World Heritage listing is coveted as both an honour and a tourism brand. The accolade is something of a mixed blessing, however, as increased tourism creates an environment in which heritage sites are changed to meet the demands of tourism. In George Town, development - both above and below the radar - has had a detrimental impact on the very heritage values which won the site World Heritage listing in the first place. Development pressures have come in a variety of guises. Buildings have been illegally converted into swiftlet farms or budget hotels. Though a Special Area Plan was drawn up for the site, it remains ungazetted, so management of the site remains an issue. Gentrification has pushed long-time residents out of the city centre, and this too has had a detrimental impact on George Town's intangible heritage. Historic Urban Landscape and other strategies need to be put in place to protect the heritage, both tangible and intangible, that won George Town its World Heritage listing in the first place.


We aim to illustrate how the tenor and character of the initial importation of the concept of gender into the Malawian context continues to impact, construct, and pose challenges to the study of gender in Malawi. Ultimately, we argue that complex and ethnographically grounded approaches to studying gender in Malawi may serve as a corrective to a long legacy of conceptual imperialism that has ramifications for both the researched and researchers in Malawi.


This article examines the motivation, scope, findings and reception of the survey of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham which the French journalist Leon Faucher published in Etudes sur l'Angleterre (1843–5). Sources include Faucher's letters, the original and revised text, the English translator's notes, and reviews in the British, French and German press. Faucher's fieldwork led him to question liberal orthodoxy and propose remedies to alleviate working-class distress. Exceptionally in eighteen-forties Britain, the continental socio-economic treatise was widely discussed and acclaimed. Elucidating Faucher's thought and setting it in context illuminates the contrast between him and other writers, particularly Friedrich Engels.


Cannibalism and intraguild predation of immature stages and adult females of the stigmaeid mite, Agistemus exsertus Gonzalez were studied under laboratory conditions. Agistemus exsertus successfully developed and reproduced on con- and heterospecific eggs. Feeding on the natural prey Tetranychus urticae Koch eggs enhanced the development of A. exsertus, resulted in the shortest mean generation time and was the most commensurate food for the oviposition of the predator, as exhibited by the highest predation rate, fecundity and net reproductive rate. Preying interspecifically on eggs of Typhlodromus negevi Swirski and Amitai and the natural prey T. urticae produced higher intrinsic rates of increase and finite rates of increase for the predator in comparison to feed on conspecific eggs. Preying intraspecifically gave the lowest predation rate, fecundity, net reproductive rate and negative value of intrinsic rates of increase.When the predator confined without prey, no eggs was laid by the predator.This diff...


IN THE literature of experimental hepatic homotransplantation, it has not been emphasized that liver sepsis posed an unusual problem or occurred with exceptional frequency although reports from our laboratory 1 and by Stuart et al 2 and Fonkalsrud et al 3 mentioned the development of liver abscesses as one postoperative complication. In these dogs, heavy antibiotic therapy was given. Moreover, Alican and Hardy 4 observed hepatic abscesses in dogs which had received autotransplantation of the liver and biliary drainage by cholecystoduodenostomy. Their findings were particularly significant since neither an immunologic barrier for immunosuppression were involved in their experiments. Since then, interest has been directed to the specific problem of liver homograft sepsis by the development of hepatic abscesses in four of six children who were treated at our institutions by orthotopic liver homotransplantation. The features and treatment of this complication in patients has been discussed elsewhere. 5 The present report


Liquid spreading is fundamental to many applications in interfacial materials. However, anisotropic spreading inside superlyophilic fabrics, playing an important role in clothing materials, ink printing, medical masks, and paper manufacturing industry, is rarely studied. Here, a special wetting phenomenon is introduced on Chinese Xuan papers, a kind of handmade papers dating from thousands of years ago in China, mainly for painting and calligraphy with Chinese brushes. Different from other papers or porous materials, liquid, such as ink, prefers to spread along the 2D direction, meaning that liquid can spread out rapidly while it seldom permeates through the papers, avoiding blotting of the underlying sheet. The antipermeation test shows that 150 µL of water is added to Xuan papers without permeation, which is attributed to the multilayered spreading, resulting from the layered anisotropic micro/nanofibrous structures. Inspired from this, similarly structured fabrics with liquid 2D prior spreading and antipermeation abilities are electrospun. About 175 µL of water is able to spread completely without permeation. These findings demonstrate a new wetting concept for manufacturing antipermeation materials with controlled ultrafast 2D spreading properties.


To the Editor:

Berger et al1 conclude that "BNP levels are a strong, independent predictor of sudden death in patients with CHF." The predictive utility of a diagnostic test is usually expressed as predictive values, either positive predictive value (PPV, ratio of number of patients with true-positive test results to all patients with positive test results) or …


For clinical hyperthermia treatment the heating efficiency of magnetic nanoparticle ensembles is a crucial element. Using efficient algorithms, this heating is studied numerically with a focus on the effects of dipole-dipole interparticle interactions. For the time evolution of realistically modeled systems an approach based on the Landau-Lifschitz-Gilbert equation of motion with Langevin dynamics is taken. Our results suggest a widely negative influence of dipole-dipole interactions on the heating power of nanoparticles . However, considering ensembles within a fixed, given sample volume an optimal particle density exists. The presented results may have important implications for the medical use of magnetic hyperthermia treatment. I. INTRODUCTION


We developed supported platinum on porous silver membranes electrocatalysts using electroless deposition as a green alternative to the state-of-the-art supported platinum-on-carbon electrocatalysts. Porous silver membranes provide high electrical conductivity, give good reactant gas access to the electrocatalyst and are expected to show better oxidation resistance than carbon under conditions found in PEMFCs, improving electrocatalyst's durability and performance.


Performance of the interpreters could in many ways be assessed by the audience, whether professional, or not. Coming out of a conference, or a negotiating session in which an interpreter performed as a mediator between and among a number of individuals involved, s/he may hear a number of different types of comments on his/her performance, such as "had it not been for the quick wit of the interpreter, we wouldn't have come out of the session with agreement.", or " what a talented interpreter. He perfectly handled both sides so swiftly and authoritatively." One thing we must bear in mind is that not all comments are in favor of the interpreters and their performances. It is possible that the interpreters will be the target of strong criticisms by the audience of a lecture delivered, or the negotiating members of a delegation. It is thus the objective of the present paper to glance at the performance of interpreters and find out why some of them prove weak in their performances. In other words, the present paper is aimed at providing interpreter trainees and probably novice interpreters with certain clues so that they can overcome their weaknesses and prove successful mediators in probably all sessions their performance is required. Now, let us investigate the probable weaknesses of interpreters and find out if it is possible to categorize them. Attempts will also be made to/ provide possible solution to the probable problems in this connection.


This study describes the nasal system in Ecuadorian Siona, an endangered Western Tukanoan language spoken in the Ecuadorian province of Sucumbíos, using the Earbuds Method to analyze nasal events acoustically. This method provides a visual representation of the timing and duration of velum gestures through intensity (dB) and amplitude (Pa) fluctuations in the nasal and oral cavities. The studied events include nasal spreading (nasal harmony), triggers, targets, blockers, and transparent segments. Meanwhile, differences between nasal phonemes and nasal allophones are also identified along with the effects of morpheme boundaries during nasal spreading events. Results reveal that, unlike many other Tukanoan languages, /m/ and /n/ function as individual phonemes independent of their oral counterparts (/p̰/ & /t̰/). In addition, nasal harmony was identified as predominantly rightward spreading apart from syllable-delimited leftward spreading to vocoid segments. Moreover, suffixes responsible for blocking nasal spreading appear to be reminiscent of oral suffixes in Eastern Tukanoan languages. Finally, more blockers were identified in Ecuadorian Siona than in most Eastern Tukanoan languages.


A sensitive, simple and rapid spectrophotometric method is developed for the determination of thallium(Ill) using rhodamine B. The proposed method is based on the reaction of thallium(Ill) with potassium iodide in an acidic medium to liberate iodine, which bleaches the pink colour of rhodamine B, and which is measured at 560 nm. The decrease in absorbance is directly proportional to thallium concentration. The method obeys Beer's law in the concentration range of 0.1 - 0.75 ig ml{sup -1} of thallium, having molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity of 8.26 x 10{sup 4} lmol{sup -1} cm{sup -1} and 2.4 ng cm{sup -2}, respectively. The detection limit of thallium(Ill) is 25 ng ml{sup -l}. The developed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of thallium in mineral samples. (author)


Objective To investigate the effect of phosphorylated protein kinase B (pAkt) on the gene expression of cellular FLICE inhibitory protein (c-FLIP) in colon cancer cells. Methods HT-29 cells were treated with 10nM, 20 nM and 40 nM of specific inhibitor of Akt wortmannin for 0, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h. Cells were harvested and cell viability was estimated using MTT assay. Furthermore, total protein and RNA were extracted from the cells which were treated with 40 nm wortmannin for 0, 3, 6, 12 and 24 h, respectively. Western blot was used to detect the level of pAkt and c-FLIP protein and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to determine transcription of c-FLIP mRNA. Results Wortmannin caused a decrease of cell viability. Western blot revealed a significant decrease of the protein expression of pAkt and c-FLIP in HT-29 cells after 3 hour′s treatment with wortmannin compared with the control. Meanwhile, the expression of c-FLIP mRNA decreased by 40% and 25% compared with control after 3 hour′s and 24 hour′s treatment, respectively. Conclusion The findings suggest that wortmannin inhibits the growth of HT-29 cells that may depend on an Akt/FLIP pathway.


Undried coir cellulose was prepared by chlorite bleaching method and hydrolyzed by 50% sulphuric acid to obtain highly crystalline nanocellulose. The proximate analysis of the coir fibre such as; moisture, ash, crude fibre, protein and its mineral composition were investigated using the AOAC standard protocol. The effect of hydrolysis on coir cellulose morphology was investigated using Xray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM). SEM, TEM and AFM images revealed that the nanocellulose dispersion consists of individual nanocellulose whiskers of about 200 nm in length and 10-30 nm in width. This study showed that cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) will be appropriate templates for surface nanostructures particularly in applications aimed at incorporating biomaterials in materials fabrication. Original Research Article Ikhuoria et al.; ACSJ, 9(1): 1-11, 2015; Article no.ACSJ.18766 2


Empirical auto-tuning is getting attention in the field of high-performance computing (HPC) because it effectively reduces programmers' burden to improve the execution performance of an application. In the tuning process, a programmer selects a high-performance kernel variant of the application by evaluating the performances of multiple kernel variants. Since HPC applications need quite a huge number of floating-point operations, not all kernel variants produce exactly the same computation result as the original code. Although it is possible to verify the correctness of each kernel variant by executing the whole application to the end, it takes a long time to verify the final computation results of all kernel variants especially in the cases of long-running applications. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework that reduces the time for verifying the computation result on tuning a large-scale application. The framework uses user-specified information of the final computation result of the application to verify the correctness of every kernel variant. The framework also automatically skips unnecessary verifications to reduce the overall verification time. As a result, the framework streamlines empirical auto-tuning.


The warm extrusion process of base mandrel for 6061 aluminum alloy LED light has been introduced in the text.Comparing with the former mechanical process,the raw material has been reduced by 64%,and CNC machining time has been decreased by more than 50%.The new process has cut the production cost greatly,which improves the competitive power in the international market.


The objective of this work by the Energy {ampersand} Environmental Research Center (EERC) is to assist in the development of new materials that can be used for the construction of high-temperature components in advanced energy systems. This work will include the development of data on corrosion resistance of selected high- temperature alloys and the development of a patentable technique for joining large silicon-based advanced ceramics in the field. The key to developing a successful joining technique will be the use of reactive joining compounds to lower the joining temperature without leaving continuous channels of unreacted compounds that can weaken the joint at temperatures over 1400{degrees}C or serve as conduits for transport of corrodents. Special efforts will be made in this project to transfer the developed technologies to the materials industry via licensing agreements through the EERC Foundation.


Toll‐like receptor 3 (TLR3) is a component of the innate immune response that responds to dsRNA viruses and virus replication intermediates. In this study we show that activation of astrocytes with the dsRNA mimetic polyinosinic‐cytidylic acid (pI:C) results in loss of expression of connexin43 (Cx43) mRNA and protein while upregulating the expression of the ionotropic P2 receptor P2X4R. Analysis of the signaling pathways involved failed to demonstrate a role for the p38 MAP kinase, ERK, or JNK signaling pathways whereas an inhibitor of the PI3 kinase/Akt pathway effectively blocked the action of pI:C. Using adenoviral vectors containing a super‐repressor of NF‐κB (NF‐κB SR) construct or a dominant negative interferon regulatory factor 3 (dnIRF3) construct showed that inhibition of both transcription factors also blocked the effects of pI:C. To explore the functional consequences of pI:C activation we used a pore‐forming assay for P2X4R activity and a scrape loading assay for gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC). No pore‐forming activity consistent with functional P2X4R expression was detected in either control or activated astrocytes. In contrast, robust Lucifer yellow transfer indicative of GJIC was detected in resting cells that was lost following pI:C activation. The dnIRF3 construct failed to restore GJIC whereas the NF‐κB SR or the NF‐κB inhibitor BAY11‐7082 and the PI3K inhibitor LY294002 all significantly reversed the effect of pI:C on GJ connectivity. We conclude that activation of the innate immune response in astrocytes is associated with functional loss of GJIC through a pathway involving NF‐κB and PI3 kinase. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


ObjectiveTo observe the clinical effect of Jie-jing Mixture in treating spasticity of apoplectic hemiparalysis.Methods60 cases with spasticity of apoplectie hemipuralysis were divided into 2 groups.30 case for treatment group (routine treatment added by Jie-jing Mixture ) and 30 case for control (only receiving routine treatment ).ResultsThe effective rates was 86.7% (treatment group )and 33.3%(control group )with statistical significance ( P0.01).Conclusions The Jie-jing Mixture has better effect in treating spastisticity of apoplectic hemiparalysis than that of the conventional therapy.


Sense of belonging means people's mental perception from the environment and their more and less conscious emotions from the environment surrounding them that put the person in an inherent relationship with the environment so that the person's understanding and emotion get linked and integrated with the field of meaning of the environment. Iranian arts and culture has fostered its myths during various periods of history and in every period of history, by getting influenced by the available fields and backgrounds played an important role in a conscious orientation in creating myths. In the meantime, after the advent of Islam in Iran, due to the role of myths and symbols to create unity among Iranian and Islamic culture, the transmutation of myths and symbols can be seen to create unity among Iranian and Islamic culture. According to the myths' roles in the past and present life of culture, arts and architecture of Iranian society, investigation of how and why the symbolism based on Iranian mythology and investigation of the optimal orientation of Iranian society seem to be important in this case. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n2s2p209


Mentors and mentoring in a dilemmatic space : Analysis of changed preconditions for mentoring due to a Teacher Registration Reforms


The invention discloses a touch display system and a correction method thereof. A correction image is displayed on a touch display surface of the touch display system, wherein the touch display surface has an electrode line layer and an alignment pattern configured on the electrode line layer; the alignment pattern has a plurality of marking patterns used for forming a plurality of alignment regions; the electrode line layer has a plurality of electrode sensing regions; and each alignment region has a preset ratio relationship with each electrode sensing region. According to a capture correction image and a capture image generated by the marking patterns, a position corresponding relationship between the correction image on the touch display surface and each alignment region is corrected. The touch display system and the correction method can effectively shorten the time required for touch point correction and improve the correction accuracy of a touch point.


Dispiro[22.214.171.124]hept-1-yl triflate (3), 7-bromo-7-phenyldispiro[18.104.22.168]heptane (4) and 7-chloro-7-phenylsulfanyldispiro[220.127.116.11]heptane (6) were prepared from bicyclopropylidene (5) in 50, 77 and 90% overall yield, respectively. 7-Bromo-7-cyclopropyldispiro[188.8.131.52]heptane (8) and 7-bromo-7-methyldispiro[220.127.116.11]heptane (11) were obtained by hydrobromination of 7-cyclopropylidene- (7) and 7-methylenedispiro[22.214.171.124]heptane (10) (78 and 95% yield, respectively). Methanolyses of triangulane derivatives 4, 6, and 8 as well as acetolysis of 6 all proceed with retention of the dispiro[184.108.40.206]heptane skeleton yielding the corresponding 7-substituted 7-methoxydispiro[188.8.131.52]heptanes 15, 21, and 23 as well as 7-acetoxy-7-phenylsulfanyldispiro[188.8.131.52]heptane 22 in 90, 100, 100 and 88% yield, respectively. Methanolysis of 1-bromo-1-cyclopropylcyclopropane (24) also gave mainly the ring-retained product 25 (66%) along with the ring-opened product 26 (33%). Apparently, an increasing number of spiro-annelated three-membered rings stabilizes a cyclopropyl cation against ring opening under solvolysis conditions. The rate of solvolysis, however, is only slightly affected by this spiroannelation, as the rate coefficient for the triflate 3 in sodium acetate-buffered methanol was determined to be k = 3.5 × 10−4 s−1 at 50 °C and 1.6 × 10−4 s−1 at 40 °C which is virtually the same as that for cyclopropyl triflate itself (4.02 × 10−4 s−1 at 70 °C in acetone/H2O 3:2). No reaction was observed for the bromotriangulane 11 in pure methanol, and solvolysis of 11 in aqueous methanol only led to products 27−30 which were formed by ring-enlarging and ring-opening rearrangements of the initially formed 7-dispiro[22.214.171.124]heptyl cation. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2003)


The current methods of ordering, delivering and invoicing of materials in the construction industry is enormously inefficient, with vast quantities of paperwork, duplication of effort, scanning, re-keying and resolving mismatches between invoices, delivery dockets and purchase orders. This paper sets out the results of a successful 2005 pilot project which achieved a three-way electronic match of the purchase order, delivery note and supplier invoice information. The paper goes on to describe the opportunities and challenges of introducing such a system in the Irish construction industry.


This paper describes the current state-of-the-art language model for the Serbian language, and also a specific way of dealing with one of the issues that is present in Serbian automatic speech recognition systems. This issues arises from the fact that Serbian is a highly inflective language, which leads to recognition mistakes where the basic form of the word is guessed correctly, but the word ending is not. The mistaken word ending can indicate, for example, a wrong word case, grammatical gender or grammatical number. A way to solve this problem was to use additional lexical and morphological word features as neural network input while assessing the likelihoods of predicted words. The experiments have shown significant reduction in word error rates when employing certain combinations of these additional features.


A new set of Euler angles for the generalized Lorentz group O+( p,n−p) are defined, which turn out to be much simpler than the ones defined in a couple of earlier papers, and have the useful property that each factor in the factorization of a general element itself belongs to the same group.


Abstract Although community college educators believe their programs benefit their students through cognitive development, until now no good evidence was available. The fourth follow‐up of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 allows the controlled assessment of the value of two‐year institutions. The results indicate that while whites benefit cognitively from two‐year post‐secondary programs, blacks do not. In 1947, the President's Commission on Higher Education (1947, p. 9) concluded that, "The first goal in education for democracy is the full, rounded and continuing development of the person. ... To liberate and perfect the intrinsic powers of every citizen is the central purpose of democracy, and its furtherance of individual self‐realization is its greatest glory." From these principles the specific goals of higher education are derived (Bowen, 1977). The formal academic program and extra‐curricular life of an academic community are intended to help students develop in thre...


In electric drive a contactor plays an important part.This article introduces to affect four factors of electrical life of the contactor,that is usage category;rated current;operating frequency and working environment,and improves the electrical life of the contactor from this analysis.


This paper presents a SFF(shape from focus) algorithm using a new focus measure based on higher order statistics for the exact depth estimation. Since conventional SFF-based 3D depth reconstruction algorithms used SML(sum of modified Laplacian) as the focus measure, their performance is strongly depended on the image characteristics. These are efficient only for the rich texture and well focused images. Therefore, this paper adopts a new focus measure using HOS(higher order statistics), in order to extract the focus value for relatively poor texture and focused images. The initial best focus area map is generated by the measure. Thereafter, the area refinement, thinning, and corner detection methods are successively applied for the extraction of the locally best focus points. Finally, a 3D model from the carefully selected points is reconstructed by Delaunay triangulation.


Aiming at the problem of artificial preservation in seafood transportation, this article has designed an intelligent preservation system during seafood transportation based on Proportion Integration Differentiation (PID) and Evolvable Hardware (EHW). This system can collect real-time humidity and temperature information by the sensor-module, and upload the data through GPRS network. We can analyze and process the data received in the remote control office, pattern-match it in the control-module libraries, and then take effective measures to preserve corresponding live seafood. The system is highly real-time and reliability and can solve the preservation problem in seafood transportation scientifically and effectively.


Abstract : The report presents the results of investigations concerning the feasibility of various arresting gear system concepts for potential runway use at a maximum capacity of one hundred million foot pounds. In addition to existing and proposed complete systems, consideration is given to the integration of components from various systems to produce a new arrangement having desirable characteristics. A discussion of other factors related to airfield arresting systems is included. (Author)


A compound widely used in the separation of the enantiomers of Δ,Λ-[Ru(bipy)3]2+ (bipy = 2,2′-bipyridine) and originally described as "a curious lattice compound" with the formula Δ-[Ru(bipy)3]3[Sb2(R,R-tart)2]2I2·18H2O (tart = tetradeprotonated, carboxyl and hydroxyl, tartaric acid anion) has been crystallographically characterized as this species with a slightly higher degree of hydration (19.5H2O). The crystal lattice has a layered structure in which sheets containing Δ-[Ru(bipy)3]2+ cations and iodide anions alternate with those containing [Sb2(R,R-tart)2]2– anions and water. The role of the iodide ions, which lie in pseudohexagonal cavities formed by the array of three inequivalent but very similar Δ-[Ru(bipy)3]2+ cations, all having their C3 axes directed very close to perpendicular to the sheet, appears to be to favor the orientation of the maximum number of CH units toward the [Sb2(R,R-tart)2]2– entities and to engender formation of (Δ-[Ru(bipy)3]2+)3([Sb2(R,R-tart)2]2–)2 groups optimizing the ass...


There is a lot of talk around professionalism in early childhood. Internationally, influential
discourses, both scholarly and political, link ambitious goals to workforce requirements. Despite
huge differences between countries' approaches to early childhood institutions, and to
qualifications and roles of staff (Oberhuemer, 2005), there appears to be a broad consensus that the
workforce is central to achieving the ambitious policy goals, for example, of increasing both
quantity and quality of provision (Siraj-Blatchford et al, 2002; Dalli, 2003; MacNaughton, 2005;
Oberhuemer, 2005; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006). In these
discourses, the workforce and its members are regularly referred to as something that has to be
professionalised, not least in order to be able to cope with the increasing challenges of the work
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001, 2006).
This special issue of Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood is undoubtedly placed within these
discourses to further develop, rethink and re-form the early childhood profession. It does not,
however, promote one particular answer; it does not attempt to offer one specific solution to the problem of early childhood professionalism. Instead, it challenges the notion that there is one
problem that should be dealt with by applying a specific (right) solution.


Based on the chemical topological theory,Kier's molecular connectivity indexes(Xi),molecular shape indexes(Km)and molecular electronegativity-distance vector(Mk)were calculated.The QSPR/QSAR(quantitative structure-property/activity relationship)models of hydrophobic property parameter(lgP)and toxicity(-lgc)to freshwater ciliate of nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds were constructed by multiple linear regression with the correlation coefficient(R)of 0.998 1and 0.980 6,respectively.The models exhibited excellent stability and predictability evaluated by Jackknife method and leave-one-out(LOO)cross-validation procedure.In order to improve the correlation of the later model,three structural parameters were used as the input neurons of artificial neural network, and a 3∶3∶1network architecture was employed.A satisfied model could be constructed with the back-propagation algorithm,and the correlation coefficient R was 0.993 3.It is concluded that the models can be used to predict the physicochemical properties and bioactivities of nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds.


PURPOSE: A head drum assembly of a tape recorder is provided to greatly reduce the length of a flexible printed circuit contacted with a rotary trans of a fix drum. CONSTITUTION: The head drum assembly comprises a head drum rotatably supported by a public rotation shaft, wherein a magnetic head is mounted, a fix drum mounted upon a main base of a deck to be located under the rotation drum, a flexible printed circuit electrically connected with a rotary trans mounted upon the rotation drum and the fix drum to transmit a data signal read by the magnetic head to a main circuit board, and a first connector mounted upon an edge of the main circuit board to electrically connect the flexible printed circuit with the board. A penetration ball is formed on a bottom of the fix drum. The flexible printed circuit is fetched thereunder to penetrate the ball, electrically connecting the first connector with a second connector mounted upon the main circuit board.


Harmonic measurements of the longitudinal and transverse voltages in BiSb/Co bilayers are presented. A large second harmonic voltage signal due to the ordinary Nernst effect is observed. In experiments where a magnetic field is rotated in the film plane, the ordinary Nernst effect shows the same angular dependence in the transverse voltage as the damping-like spin-orbit torque and in the longitudinal voltage as the unidirectional spin-Hall magneto-resistance respectively. Therefore, the ordinary Nernst effect can be a spurious signal in spin-orbit torque measurements, leading to an overestimation of the spin-Hall angle in topological insulators.


Based on the merit, the uncertainty of the results, and the lack of depth of existing researches in connecting gender and cognitive level, hence, the purpose of this research is to analyze the difference of students' mathematics ability in bloom's taxonomy domain based on gender. This research is quantitative research with 156 students taken as sample, consisted of 81 male and 75 female students. Two-way anova employed in this study, with LSD (Least Significant Difference) and HSD (Honestly Significant Difference) as post hoc test. The results show that all assumption tests for variance analysis are fulfilled. From two-way anova test, obtained the result that Fcount > Ftable at α = 0.05 (Fcount = 10.57 dan Ftable = 2.22) which means that there is interaction between gender and students' cognitive level. LSD test shows that at level C1, male students perform better than female groups. However, there is no difference between both groups for overall performance. HSD test also reveals that there is significant different on students' performance in C1, C2, and C3, but not in C4, C5, and C6.


Currently,along with the rapid development of automobile industry in China,there is a significant increase in the demand for auto sales,technology and other related services.Thus,Automobile technology service and marketing specialty come into being.Meanwhile,Globalization and economic development trend causes the increasing integration of automobile industry in China with the world economy,which puts very high demands of professionals' comprehension quality,especially English practical ability.So it is necessary to explore practical English teaching content and method of Automobile technology service and marketing specialty in Higher Vocational College.


The Y‐source inverter has a high voltage gain by using a small shoot‐through duty ratio, so it is very suitable for photovoltaic (PV) systems. However, the input current of the traditional Y‐source inverter is discontinuous, and the leakage inductances in the coupling inductor lead to dc‐link voltage spikes and reduce the dc‐link voltage. To address these issues, an improved Y‐source inverter topology is proposed in this paper. The improved Y‐source inverter provides continuous input current and a higher voltage gain by adding one additional inductor and one capacitor. Compared to the traditional Y‐source inverter, the improved Y‐source inverter has lower voltage spikes and higher dc‐link voltage. Moreover, the proposed inverter can suppress resonant current at startup. In this paper, the operating principles and effects of the leakage inductances are analyzed. Finally, a 200 W laboratory prototype is built based on a TMS320F2812 digital signal processor to verify the performance of the improved inverter. © 2018 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


To explore the role of Mitochondrial fission factor (MFF) in female fertility and oocyte development using a Mff knockout mouse model.

 Mff deficiency influences mitochondrial dynamics in oocytes at germinal vesicle stage (GV), and results in premature ovarian failure (POF) and female infertility.

 Mff regulates mitochondrial quality control (MQC) by influencing mitochondrial dynamics. MQC has critical effects on oocyte development and POF. However, little is known about the role of Mff in oocyte development and female fertility.

 The Mff knockout (Mff-/-) mice were generated via the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Adult Mff-/- female mice were compared to wildtype (WT) female mice. Female mice at 2-month old from each group (Mff-/- or WT, n = 5) were used to assess the fecundity for 10 months. The follicle development (n = 4 mice), the number of GV oocytes (n = 5 mice) and metaphase II (MII) oocytes (n = 5 mice) were determined.

 Female mice from each group were mated with adult WT males to assess the fecundity. Follicle development was evaluated in ovaries after fixation, paraffin embedding, and sectioning, followed by hematoxylin and eosin staining. MFF and DRP1 protein expression was evaluated by western blot. Oocyte mitochondria were stained with the Mito-Tracker Red CMXRos.

 The Mff deficient ovaries had significantly lower levels of MFF (0.056 vs. 1, p < 0.01) than the WT ovaries. Mff-/- female mice were infertile (0 vs. 39, p < 0.05). Mature (8-week-old) Mff deficient ovaries had significantly lower weight (0.0043 vs. 0.011, p < 0.05) compared to the WT. The 2-month-old female Mff-/- mice had a lower number of primordial (220 vs. 775, p< 0.05), primary (128 vs. 580, p< 0.05), secondary (29 vs. 82, p< 0.05) and antral follicles (5 vs. 23, p< 0.05). The numbers of GV oocytes (18 vs. 37, p< 0.05) and MII oocytes (2 vs. 16, p< 0.001) were lower in the Mff-/- mice than the WT mice. In addition, the Mff-/- ovaries expressed significantly less mitochondrial fission key regulator DRP1 (0.54 vs. 1, p< 0.05). Mff-/- oocytes contained elongated and aggregated mitochondria compared to the discrete and evenly distributed mitochondria in the ooplasm of WT oocytes. Herein, we found that the Mff played a concerted role in oocyte and follicle development.

 The present observations in mice may not be applicable to humans. The results are derived global knockout of Mff. It is not known which kind of cell plays a vital role in fertility. Further investigation is needed to explore the regulatory mechanism of Mff in oocyte development and fertility regulation.

 This study provides important insights into the relationship between mitochondrial dynamics and female fertility.

 not applicable


The purpose of this study was to explain determinants of Chinese tourists" revisit intention to Seoul and to compare differences by travel type(e. g. Package tourist and FIT). The secondary data from "Research on the foreign tourists in 2015" by the Korea National Tourism Organization is investigated for this study. According to the results, the determinants of revisit intentions for FIT were satisfaction on "guidance service", "travelling expenses", "attractive degree of tourist destination", "food", "communication", "process of emigration and immigration". On the other hand, the satisfaction on "food", "attractive degree of tourist destination", "communication", "guidance service", "process of emigration and immigration" were the determinants of the revisit intention for package tourists. The results of this study will be used as a practical information to develop marketing strategy.


Swirl flow characteristics in a DI diesel engine as a reference engine of an HCCI engine development were numerically analysed. Moving meshes for the unsteady conditions were generated with the help of a commercial CFD code. Unsteady swirl flow analyses were conducted with the combination of 3 intake port inlets, then the results of air flow velocity distributions and swirl ratio for an analytic case were compared with the results form the other cases. Strong usability and possibility of unsteady CFD methods for the intake port design of diesel engine as a reference engine of an HCCI engine were suggested in the current study.


Objective: Survivors of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) report impaired quality of life despite long duration of cure. Research regarding predictors of quality of life in this population has largely been limited to demographic characteristics. Type D personality (high levels of negative affect and social inhibition) is correlated with quality of life in other chronic illness populations, but has not been thoroughly assessed in survivors of DTC. Therefore, the present study assessed Type D personality as a predictor of quality of life in survivors of DTC. Depressive symptoms were controlled for in analyses to address concerns regarding conceptual similarity of Type D personality to depression. Methods: Participants included survivors of DTC as registered in the Patient Reported Outcomes Following Initial Treatment and Long-term Survivorship (PROFILES) registry. Questionnaires on psychosocial functioning were mailed to 334 survivors. Data from eligible respondents (N = 284) were utilized in logistic regressions to assess relationships between Type D personality and quality of life domains. Results: Type D personality did not predict physical, social, cognitive, or role functioning beyond what was predicted by depression. Type D personality did add to the prediction of impairment in emotional functioning at the .01 alpha level. Depression significantly predicted impaired quality of life across all measured domains. These findings were replicated across categorical and continuous measurement approaches. Conclusions: Depressive symptoms robustly predict quality of life in survivors of DTC. Type D personality does not predict quality of life beyond what is accounted for by symptoms of depression in most quality of life domains.


High temperature stress is one of the major disasters in the process of rice growth.By observing and analyzing leaf temperature of single-season rice on ear sprouting to flowering period in Tongcheng Anhui province,factors of impacts on leaf temperature of single-season rice in clear day was found out.Prediction model of leaf-air temperature difference was established.The results could provide a reference to diagnostic analysis the high temperature etress to rice.


What drives entrepreneurial action to create a lasting impact? The creation of new ventures that aim at having an impact beyond their financial performance face additional challenges: achieving economic sustainability and at the same time addressing social or environmental issues. Little is known on how these new hybrid organisations, aiming for multiple impact dimensions, organise and prioritise for their social, environmental, and financial goals. A dataset of 4,125 early-stage ventures is used to gain insights into how blended values are converted into financial, social and environmental impacts, giving shape to different types of hybrid organisations. Our findings suggest new hybrid organisations might opt to sacrifice financial impact to achieve social impact, yet this is not the case when they aim to generate environmental or sustainable impact. Therefore, the tensions and sacrifices related to holding blended values are not homogeneous across all types of new hybrid organisations.


It is generally considered that elevated values of coulombic efficiency and capacity retention are absolute indicators of the existence of a stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI). Here, we challenge this notion by analyzing how the effect of side reactions on cell capacity depends on the choice of electrodes. More specifically, we demonstrate that the extent of measurable capacity fade due to SEI growth is modulated by the shape of the voltage profile of the cathode and anode at the end of charge and discharge half-cycles. This shape-dependency creates a mismatch between SEI growth and cell capacity loss, which is relatively small for graphite anodes but sizable for silicon-containing electrodes. We illustrate this point by showing that, at the same coulombic efficiency and capacity retention, cells containing silicon-based materials could actually exhibit rates of SEI growth that are as much as ≥ 40% higher than graphite cells. The main implication of this behavior is that, for certain systems, capacity measurements may be an unreliable source of information about the extent of reactions at the SEI, allowing other consequences of these side reactions (such as electrolyte depletion) to proceed unchecked while the cell appears to be stable


Are you unknowingly a director or shareholder of a regulated private company? If so, what effect does this have on transactions involving the company's shares?


In order to find out the limiting factors for NO-reduction in the bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) combustion, a detailed case study was carried out. The research work for the low-NO x concept was based on the tests done with the 200 kW fuel BFB-combustion test rig, the modelling package based Ardemus computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the modelling of detailed reaction mechanisms describing nitrogen and hydrocarbon chemistry. In this study, the fuel used was wood with low fuel ratio, high moisture and low nitrogen content. The elementary reaction set developed at Abo Akademi University and the plug flow reactor model of the Chemkin III code were utilised in the search for the optimal environment for nitrogen oxide (NO x ) reduction in the BFB combustor. The combustion parameters under consideration were temperature, stoichiometric ratio and residence time between secondary and tertiary air levels. The effect of these parameters was also tested with the aid of BFB-test rig. CFD-based modelling was used to design the test arrangement, and the measurents during the test runs were used to validate the modelling results. It is generally known that the relatively low temperature level in the BFB combustion gives low thermal NO x emissions. However, low temperature prevents the utilisation of reburning reaction. A clear correlation between the maximum NO-reduction through reburning and temperature exists. It was found out that the limiting factor for NO-level in typical BFB conditions was rather low temperatures than short residence times between secondary and tertiary air level. The optimum stoichiometric ratio in the sense of NO reduction depends on temperature. Unfortunately, only little can usually be done to increase temperature in combustor in order to improve the reduction. Anyhow, according to the preliminary experiments with test rig as well as CFD simulation, significant NO reduction can be achieved by having good control of local temperature and gas concentrations.


In symbolic systems, meaning arises as patterns of relationships and elements mutually engage and define themselves. As Hillier and Hanson (1984) have pointed out, in some symbolic systems, such as built space, relational properties are far more important to the construction of meaning than any provisionally crystallised elements. Therein lies an important distinction between built space, as a morphic language, from language proper. The theory of space syntax has shown how generic social and cultural functions do indeed arise from the relational properties of built space. This does not preclude the possibility that the emergence of provisionally crystallised formal elements may have a role in the constitution, reproduction and activation of syntactic patterns, or that architectural meaning does depend upon the presence of crystallised elements. The relationship between elements and relationships is open to further exploration. Through a limited analysis of some works by John Hejduk, we explore the way in which the mutual definition and interplay of elements and relationships is associated with a deeper interplay between syntactic and semantic structures, not only presupposed but also emergent through design transformations. As leaves falling The manner in which linguistic syntax and semantics may interact with the spatial arrangement of words on the page in order to construct poetic meaning is well illustrated by some of the poems by E. E. Cummings. The following two examples have three distinguishing characters. First, the fragmentation of words, normally the smallest meaningful entities. Second, the spatial arrangement of words and word fragments. Third, the use of punctuation. Meaning arises as the reader cognitively reconfigures the relationships between fragments and sounds in a conscious act of reading. In the following poem, for example, reconfiguration calls into question the very sequence in which the poem is to be read, retrospectively revealing the spatial order of marks on the page to work as an exemplification of the very swirling of the firstname.lastname@example.com firstname.lastname@example.com


DDoS defenses based on network capabilities advocate fundamental changes to the Internet. However, despite the many point solutions, there has not been a rigorous study of the entire solution space for capability architectures. We believe the proposed changes to the Internet will inevitably introduce challenges and tradeoffs. To better understand the tradeoffs and identify challenges, we propose a taxonomy to categorize possible options and map the potential solution space. Our taxonomy identifies key components of capability architectures, separates fundamentals from implementation details, and opens up new directions to explore in these architectures.


Data are presented on the resonant tunneling-related abrupt redshift observed in the temperature-dependent electroluminescence spectra of high-brightness InGaN∕GaN multi-quantum-well green light-emitting diodes (LEDs). It is found that the redshift arises mostly between 120 and 150K, and brighter LEDs yield larger redshifts. These results are well explained by the proposed nanocrater model which comprises a Ga-rich quantum barrier surrounding the In-rich quantum-dot-like localized state. Intensity analysis manifests that the resonant tunneling from the quantum-well to the nanocrater-shaped localized states induces such an abrupt energy shift and enhances the room-temperature emission.


The kinetics of bromination of the 1,2-dihydro-1,3-dimethyl-2-oxopyrimidinium cation (Q+) in aqueous media (pH 0–5) have been studied using the stopped-flow method. At the higher acidities (pH   4) it appears that pseudobase formation is rate determining. The change occurs because at high acidity the reversal of the pseudobase QOH to the cation is fast relative to bromine attack, whereas at low acidity the converse is true. Results obtained at intermediate acidities (pH 2–4) are consistent with this interpretation.A separate kinetic study of pseudobase formation (and decomposition) yielded rate constants in good agreement with those derived from the bromination study.


A 73-year-old patient had been followed for aortic arch aneurysm of 54 mm in diameter. He was hospitalized complaining of chest and back pain. A chest CT scan showed ruptured aortic arch aneurysm extending to mid-descending thoracic aorta, and an emergent operation was decided. The trachea was intubated with a univent tube providing a movable blocker (System Corporation) which was directed to the left bronchus for differential lung ventilation. The descending thoracic aorta was exposed through the left 4th intercostal thoracotomy just at the site intending to anastomose a prosthetic graft because of dense pulmonary adhesion. The ascending and arch aorta was approached via median sternotomy. Under deep hypothermia and retrograde cerebral perfusion, total arch and descending aortic replacement was performed using an arch graft providing four branch grafts for neck vessels reconstruction and pump perfusion. The patient showed moderate pulmonary bleeding during and after cardiopulmonary bypass, but improved gradually. He was weaned from the respirator on the 13th post-operative day. During extensive thoracic aortic surgery using left thoracotomy combined with median sternotomy, left lung deflation using a univent tracheal tube with a blocker, and circulatory arrest during distal aortic anastomosis, are useful in preventing lethal pulmonary bleeding caused by lung injury under the fully heparinized condition. However, in cases associated with dense pulmonary adhesion, it is important to dissect carefully just a small area necessary to anastomose a graft, and to take elaborate assistant measures.


Aiming at the problem of perturbation of parameters in the mathematical model of lateral control of heavy vehicles, this paper designs an H∞ robust controller according to the hybrid sensitivity design idea, and laterally controls the four-degree-of-freedom heavy vehicle lateral-pendulum-roll coupling dynamic simulation model. Simulation results show that the controller can maintain good robustness and anti-interference ability when the parameters of the lateral control of heavy vehicles are perturbed, which provides a theoretical basis and certain reference value for solving the model uncertainty in the lateral control of heavy vehicles.


Steam gasification process converts biomass into a mixture of CO, CO2, CH4, and H2. In this work, a fly ash derived lithium silicate material (Li-FA) was tested for the removal of CO2 using simulated syngas at low gasification temperature. The CO2 uptake tests were carried out using a high-pressure thermogravimetric system at 380°C and 500°C, 15 bar and simulating a synthetic biomass derived syngas mixture. The tests confirmed that the material is able to selectively absorb CO2 at 380°C (1.2 mmol CO2 / g sorbent) and 500°C (2.77 mmol/g) and in presence of 50% H2O, 30% H2, 20% CO2 at 15 bar. However, only 75% of the adsorbed CO2 was desorbed under the same capture temperatures and 15bar, by switching the reactor atmosphere from CO2 to N2. This suggests that a pressure swing process or a higher desorption temperature are required for complete desorption. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of GHGT-13.


relevant. In that case it was held that a banker's deposit note was good indicia of title, and the fact that the particular deposit note did not state the rate of interest current at the date of deposit was considered of no real importance. The court was in some difficulty as the evidence showed that, although prima facie the production of the deposit books was a term of the deposit, in' practice this term was not generally insisted upon. The defendant failed, however, to discharge the onus of proving that the term was a dead letter, and so the court felt obliged to give effect to it (thus distinguishing Delgoffe v. Fader (supra)). Further difficulty was found in the fact that the deceased had requested the plaintiffs to pay an outstanding bill, out of the moneys given. In fact the claim to the account, out of which the bill was paid, was abandoned by the plaintiffs, yet the court suggested that in this case the request was not inconsistent with the parting of dominion. S P G


This study sought to investigate the attitudinal behavior and perceptions of undergraduate students in University of Fort Hare and Rhodes, towards their utilization of e-information resources (EIRs). The essence was to ascertain whether their attitude and perception have a positive or negative impact on e-resource use in selected universities in Eastern Cape, South Africa. The purposive and proportionate stratified random sampling techniques were employed in selecting the study population and sample size while questionnaire and oral interview were used as instruments for data collection. The findings revealed that the respondents usually encounter difficulties which negatively influence their attitudes and behavior towards e-resource use. They assume that additional special computing skills are required before one can be competent enough to effectively utilize these resources. In carrying out this research, a total of 377 copies of the questionnaire were randomly distributed to undergraduate students in all the faculties of both institutions, and the results were analyzed using the Statistical Package of the social Sciences (SPSS Version 32). Additionally, hypotheses were tested in order to validly make assertions based on the collected data, and the results state that perception and attitude of undergraduate students affect their utilization of E-journals. Recommendations were made, and these include the need for mass enlightenment campaign on the use and benefits of E-resources among undergraduate students through training and re-training, seminars, and workshops.


In order to evaluate the control strategy and working effects of the prototype of a solid-state fault current limiter with bypass inductance in 10 kV/500 A/2 500 A (maximal virtual value of fault current), a corresponding experimental model in 50 V, 1 A/5 A is designed. Based on this strategy, an experiment has been made on the model in different short circuit faults. The results of experiment indicate that the mixed-mode inversion and subsequent flow strategy, which is used by the solid-state fault current limiter, can not only limit the short circuit current to the proposed level, but also has many advantages such as the simplicity and reliability of the control method and the exact judgment of the fault types, the capability of decreasing the load of fly-wheel thyristor T7 and T8 to a low level in the course of limiting or disconnecting the short circuit current.


Abstract This study investigated whether the risk factors and challenges emerging contractors encounter have an impact on their business operations and sustainability within the construction industry. The study adopted the qualitative research approach to meet the study objectives and aims. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to interview participants from emerging contractors with Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Grading one (1) to four (4) in the Gauteng Province, South Africa. Qualitative content analysis for the collected data by grouping the responses into themes and frequency and percentage derived for the various themes. The main findings of the study revealed that the challenges affecting emerging contractors are the lack of financial support from the commencement of projects and during project execution; the extraordinary level of competition among the pool of emerging contractors and delay in payment from government institutions and client which have impacted their business operations. The study was done on emerging construction companies that are in the Gauteng Province of South Africa only, but the results may be applicable in other provinces, even beyond South Africa. The empirical results confirmed that the challenges and risk factors which have been identified as lack of financial support from financial institutions in the initial stage of projects and during project execution; high level of competition among emerging contractors and delay in payment from government institutions and client faced by emerging contractors have an impact on their operations and sustainable growth in the construction industry.


In the past, many Muslims maintained strong reservations about using English as a means of communication, interaction, and intellectual practices mainly due to its association with British colonialism. In the postcolonial world Muslims and other religious communities, as well as various ethnic and indigenous groups, have moved away from the ideological and political assumptions of a binary relationship between English and their cultural and religious identities. As a result, several hundred million Muslims now use English as their first or second language, and more books on Islam are published in it than in any other language. However, Ismail al-Faruqi (1921-86) sees a serious anomaly in how Muslim names and Islamic theological terms are transliterated and translated, as the dominant practice shows not a loyalty to meaning, but to the norms of the target language. Such an approach causes these names and terms to lose semantic associations and religious connotations. To rectify this, al-Faruqi proposes the introduction of "Islamic English." Based on his linguistic diagnosis and remedy, I will discuss this approach from a postcolonial perspective.


The VaRTM process is a low cost composite fabrication technique, differing from prepreg laminated composites, the resin is infused into dry fabric formed on a mold near product shape under vacuum pressure and cured in an oven. This process has already been utilized in the manufacture of commercial products such as windmills. This study examined ways to improve existing VaRTM techniques so that they can be applied to the fabrication of aircraft primary structures, and to improve VaRTM materials, processes, and cost. It was verified that the mechanical properties of VaRTM materials are almost equivalent to those of prepreg materials, and that the prospects of applying them to the empennage of the Mitsubishi Jet are feasible. Development work is proceeding with the aim to realize further cost reductions and to obtain conformance to regulatory on the application of this process to the production of civil commercial aircraft in the future.


With the development of society and progress, the computer technology has been widely used to the life of people, now fairy many teaching using multimedia technology, British and American literature course makes students' compulsory course for English majors, for students to British and American literature, oh sister have a vital role to improve your English, multimedia technology has been widely applied to the British and American education mode, education technology in British and American literature play a crucial role in the education reform, the application of multimedia teaching, make the British and American literature course more vivid, more effective.


Lornoxicam is a non steroidal anti-inflammatory dru g with analgesic properties. The purpose of this study was to develop a taste masked oral disintegra ting tablet of poorly soluble Lornoxicam by direct compression technique with β-cyclodextrin (BCD) complexes using various super disintegrants like sodium starch glycolate, crospovidone and croscarmellose s odium. Prepared tablets were evaluated for differen t properties like drug content, hardness, friability, disintegration time and in vitro dissolution study . The different formulations showed disintegration time between 22 to 58 s. Drug release showed time between the ranges of 8 to 20 min. Among all the formulations, L6 showed 99.85% drug release within 8 min. Thus, L6 was considered best among the other formulations. The stability st udy was conducted as per the ICH guidelines and the formulations were found to be stable, with insignif icant change in hardness, drug content and disinteg ration time. The tablets showed enhanced dissolution hence better patient compliance.


The objections to some of the quality of batches of No.65 wire rod drawing fracture defect samples were analyzed by optical microscope,scanning electron microscopy,chemical analysis by means of its production in the cold drawing process "cup cone" shaped fracture of the samples analyzed,the results show that the "cup cone" is a slab fracture of the formation of the main shrinkage,abnormal rod organizations,sorbite low level of segregation within the center and other causes.


Active thermography has been modeled in terms of electrical equivalent circuit by using the correspondence between the fundamental laws of heat transfer and electricity. 1D, 2D and 3D electrothermal models have been given for finding direct solutions of active thermography problems. A Thermal nondestructive testing (TNDT) method ensuring the determination of characteristics of tested objects from an analysis of their temperature fields including the heat engineering characteristics has been presented. Thermal non-destructive testing is a whole field and non-contact technique for defect detection. The current work describes a variation of TNDT for subsurface defect detection based on frequency modulated thermal wave imaging (FMTWI). The apply has been made for the frequency dependence of thermal diffusion length, to achieve entire depth scanning of a sample in one run. This novel technique overcomes some of the drawbacks associated with traditional pulse and Lock-in thermography. Experimental results are presented in sustain.


Increasing costs and environmental concerns require route planners to investigate more thoroughly the consequences of their road location decisions. A useful method for doing this is topometrics, the process of producing x, y, and z coordinates rapidly and accurately from topographic maps. Desk-top computers with digitizers, plotters, printers, and specially designed analytic routines offer a low-cost, readily available route evaluation system. A projected route can be evaluated from the standpoint of horizontal and vertical alignment, earthwork, and mass diagram computations at the rate of up to 1,000 ft (305 m) of road per minute, depending on the map scale. Plotted and printed results are produced at each step. This interactive design system allows the designer to see the results of his decisions immediately, make desired changes, and carry out many more design cycles than are possible with manual methods or even some methods using large-scale computer systems. Cost, safety, and aesthetic factors can be more easily evaluated because of the quantitative nature of the results.


Two studies are reported which aim to test the generality of the conclusions drawn from previous literature on the effectiveness of flowcharts with adult participants. In Experiment One secondary school children of different ages took part, and in Experiment Two a group of senior citizens participated. In both experiments, the effectiveness of a flow chart was compared with that of short contingency statements for finding a solution to a complex problem.

In Experiment One there was an initial advantage for the flow chart over the contingency statements in terms of speed but this was not the case in Experiment Two. Furthermore, the results showed there to be no significant differences in error rates between the two modes of presentation in both experiments. Participants who were particularly accurate responders did not respond any more slowly (or quickly) in Experiment One.

Practice at the task had marked effects. The differences in speed between the two modes of presentation on trial 1 were markedly reduced on trial 2 in both experiments and performance speeded up with practice. Age also played a part. In Experiment One, older children performed more rapidly than younger ones. In Experiment Two, the elderly participants found both formats very difficult to use. It seems that the generally accepted view that flowcharts are superior to contingency statements might not hold for younger participants or for the elderly, especially when accuracy is the main criterion.


The increase in energy consumption is affected by the developments in technology as well as the global population growth. Increasing energy consumption makes it difficult to ensure electrical energy supply security. Meeting the energy demand can be achieved with the right planning. Proper planning is critical for both economical use of resources and low cost for the end consumer. On the other hand, erroneous estimation of demand may cause waste of resources and energy crisis. Accurate estimation is possible by accurately modeling the factors affecting electricity consumption. Apart from known factors such as seasonal conditions, days of the week and hours, modeling in extreme events such as pandemics that affect all our behaviors increases the success in modeling the future projection. This ensures that the security of electrical energy supply is carried out effectively with limited resources. For this purpose, in this study, a hybrid multiple linear regression‐feedforward artificial neural network (MLR‐FFANN) based algorithm model was proposed, taking into account the estimated impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the energy consumption values of Bursa, an industrial city in Turkey. The aim of the hybrid MLR‐FFANN approach was to simultaneously optimize the β polynomial for multiple linear regression and the weight and bias coefficients for the forward propagation neural network using the adaptive guided differential evolution, equilibrium optimizer, slime mold algorithm, and stochastic fractal search with fitness distance balance (SFSFDB) optimization algorithms. The success of the model whose parameters were optimized using the optimization algorithms was determined according to mean absolute error, mean absolute percentage error, and root mean square error evaluation criteria and statistical analysis of these results. According to the results of the analysis, the MLR‐FFANN approach whose parameters were optimized with the SFSFDB algorithm was more successful in the training of the dataset containing the COVID‐19 precautions.


The utility model relates to a wide passage double door extending means used for solving the door control problem of large people flow rate, wherein, an external door is a sandwich construction formed by two boards, an internal door is embedded in the sandwich layer and connected with the external door by a pin, the internal door is joggled with a semicircular constant pitch through a semicircular movable pitch, and the internal door can extend to the external door or retractg into the sandwich of the external door; the external door is connected with a push rod A which is fixed on a base through a principal axis, the other push rod B is also fixed on a base through a principal axis; an electromagnet is fixed at the push rod B and absorbed with an iron piece arranged at the push rod A, making the push rod A and the push rod B be combined to a whole; the push rod B is also connected with a connecting-rod which is connected with the gear of the motor through a rocker arm; a door limit transducer is arranged at the base; the principal axis is sleeved with a torsion spring, when in the status of power down, the push rod A twisted by the torsion spring is lengthways moved to the upright position, achieving the effect of automatic door opening in the status of power down. The utility model has the advantages of simple and firm structure, adapting to the entering and leaving of mass flow people.


The genus Corynebacterium is composed of a wide variety of Gram-positive, non-acid-fast, nonmotile, rod-shaped, catalase-positive bacteria. The bulk of the species is considered to be normal cutaneous, pharyngeal and gastrointestinal flora of humans.1Corynebacterium diphtheriae is recognized as an obligate human pathogen but several normally avirulent diphtheroids such as Corynebacterium jeikeium, striatum, xerosis, minutissimum and pseudodiphtheriticum have been shown to cause a variety of infectious diseases in humans.2Corynebacterium xerosis has been reported as a rare but serious cause of bacteremia, septicemia, pneumonia, septic arthritis, vertebral osteomyelitis, meningitis and, most commonly, endocarditis in adults.3–13 It has also been isolated from wounds including amputation sites, from an arterial-venous shunt and from an implanted vascular catheter.4, 14 To our knowledge we describe the first case of ventriculoperitoneal shunt infection caused by C. xerosis. In addition we provide a review of the current literature concerning invasive disease produced by this organism.


To verify the clinical toxicity and adverse effects of QLZGPin animals.Dogs were treated with oral QLZGP 0.167mg/kg/d ,0.334mg/kg/d,0.668mg/kg/d,methylnorethindrone 0.154mg/kg/d and nilestriol 0.514mg/kg/d respectively for 180 days.The toxic reations during treatment and the recovery situation 21 days after of stopping treatment were observed.The results showed that loss of weight occurred in the large dosage group (QLZGPand methylnorethindrone)and there were no significant changes in other dosage groups 150 days after durg using.After withdrawal of drugs ,all toxic symptoms disappeared and the abnomal indexes were restored.The safe dosage of QLZGPfor dogs was about 0.668mg/kg/d.


In Pakistan, groundwater resources are depleting because of its unaccounted use for agricultural purposes. Its sustainable management will play a vital role in the socio-economic development which would be possible by developing a flexible groundwater modelling system which has the ability to incorporate all the natural processes responsible for groundwater dynamics. With this in mind, a Decision Support System (DSS) based on multi-source vector and raster data has been developed. Raster based groundwater simulations on monthly temporal resolutions have been carried out, which incorporates all the natural processes by using groundwater flow model (i.e. r.gwflow). The developed DSS is tested for two irrigation sub-divisions (Bhagat & Sultanpur) located in Rechna Doab, Punjab, Pakistan. Groundwater balance in the region has been analyzed for the recent cropping conditions and simulations were performed for different interventions in irrigation and cropping practices. The modeling results indicate that, maximum groundwater abstraction has been observed in the months of May and June, exceeding 250 Mm . Out of total crop consumptive water, 51% is fulfilled by 3 canal water supply only. The best cropping practice with reference to maximum saving in groundwater resource is the cultivation of cotton, fodder (millet) during kharif cropping season and cultivation of wheat, fodder (oats, barley) during the rabi cropping season.


Particle transport in rod and plane geometry random media is considered. The cross section is assumed to be a continuous random function of position, with fluctuations about the mean taken as Gaussian distributed. In rod geometry, an exact closure is constructed for semi-infinite media that yields exact equations for the ensemble-averaged scalar flux {phi} and current J. The same closure scheme yields a Fokker-Planck equation for the joint probability distribution function of {phi} and J, from which ensemble-averaged equations for higher order quantities are derived and solved exactly for an arbitrary correlation function. Finally, the penetration of a beam of charged particles in a highly forward scattering random medium is considered, and circumstances that yield a closed ensemble-averaged transport equation are determined.


Despite the rapid progress of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies targeting normal speech in recent decades, accurate recognition of dysarthric and elderly speech remains highly challenging tasks to date. Sources of heterogeneity commonly found in normal speech including accent or gender, when further compounded with the variability over age and speech pathology severity level, create large diversity among speakers. To this end, speaker adaptation techniques play a key role in personalization of ASR systems for such users. Motivated by the spectro-temporal level differences between dysarthric, elderly and normal speech that systematically manifest in articulatory imprecision, decreased volume and clarity, slower speaking rates and increased dysfluencies, novel spectro-temporal subspace basis deep embedding features derived using SVD speech spectrum decomposition are proposed in this paper to facilitate auxiliary feature based speaker adaptation of state-of-the-art hybrid DNN/TDNN and end-to-end Conformer speech recognition systems. Experiments were conducted on four tasks: the English UASpeech and TORGO dysarthric speech corpora; the English DementiaBank Pitt and Cantonese JCCOCC MoCA elderly speech datasets. The proposed spectro-temporal deep feature adapted systems outperformed baseline i-Vector and x-Vector adaptation by up to 2.63% absolute (8.63% relative) reduction in word error rate (WER). Consistent performance improvements were retained after model based speaker adaptation using learning hidden unit contributions (LHUC) was further applied. The best speaker adapted system using the proposed spectral basis embedding features produced the lowest published WER of 25.05% on the UASpeech test set of 16 dysarthric speakers.


In this paper, we report two types of novel mode-matched disk resonators consisting of multi rings made by single crystal (100) silicon. One of the resonators compensates the frequency mismatch using a combination of thick ring and multiple thin rings, showing the mode mismatch as small as 43 ppm. The other one uses elliptic shape connection structures, showing the mode-mismatch as small as 61 ppm. Considering the robustness of mode matching against fabrication errors, the crystal orientation error increases the frequency mismatch more significantly in the first design, and the ring width variation causes larger frequency split in the later design.


Objective To investigate the ankylosing spondylitis syndrome type and HLA-B27 and immune inflammation index correlation.Methods 60 patients with AS were randomly selected from March 2010 to March 2012 in our hospital and collaboration in the hospital department of traditional Chinese medicine,department of orthopedics,department of internal medicine and department of rehabilitation treatment,including kidney SHI-re-bi resistance,kidney yin deficiency,kidney deficiency in each 20 cases.Comparison of three kinds of syndromes of patients in the expression of HLA-B27,ESR,C reactive protein,platelet counts,immunoglobulin levels and other differences were observed.Results The kidney SHI-re-bi resistance,kidney yin deficiency,kidney deficiency of ankylosing spondylitis HLA-B27 positive rates were 95%,55%,35%,the index of kidney deficiency type heat blockage of ankylosing spondylitis in patients with ESR,CRP,PLT levels were significantly higher than kidney yin deficiency the indexkidney yang asthenia type(P 0.05),but the three types of immunoglobulin levels had no significant difference(P 0.05).Conclusion Ankylosing spondylitis syndrome type and HLA-B27,ESR,CRP,PLT has certain correlation.


In 1984 we began planning a migration to another timesharing system. A search group was established to explore other timesharing systems and choose the one that seemed to fit our network needs the closest. North Dakota State University (NDSU) is the academic host site for the Higher Education Computer Network IHECN). Since this decision affected the academic portion of the HECN, the search group consisted of NDSU Computer Center personnel and academic faculty from each of the eleven schools that comprise our network.


The purpose of this article was to review the growth of the use of blockchain technology in the healthcare data. In this article, an analysis of the existing blockchain technology research and findings in the health care domain was conducted. The goal was to find relevant implementation of the blockchain technology in the healthcare domain and highlight the challenges and potential methodologies. This article covers an overarching introduction and Background about blockchain in the healthcare domain. Furthermore, the research methodology, an analysis of the information and the results found. The results show that Blockchain still has many challenges such as scalability and security problem [3], however the usage of blockchain is increasing in different scientific research areas [4-7] in general and in healthcare area in particular is growing exponentially [8]. International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Information Sciences


The study of political knowledge is an established field of research in the United States, although there is a dearth of such research in Australia. Knowledge of political facts and issues is important for making informed political choices. Age, gender, educational attainment and occupational status all distinguish knowledge of politics in Australia, although their impact varies across domestic and international political issues. Political knowledge also influences political behaviour. At the 2004 federal election, politically knowledgeable Australians were more likely to vote for the Greens than the Coalition in the House of Representatives, and more likely to vote for the Greens than for the major parties in the Senate. Political knowledge also increases the likelihood of voting strategically, particularly for the Labor Party in the House of Representatives and Greens in the Senate.