SUMMARY Bacillus megaterium isolates were recovered from the green apple aphid, Aphis pomi De Geer, collected from apple trees in the Samsun province of Turkey. The lethality of nine B. megaterium isolates was assayed on A. pomi at 28-30°C. The isolates caused between 92% and 100% mortality within one week, with no significant differences amongst them. In contrast, there was a significant difference between all isolates and the control at P<0.05. The highest death rate (100%) was induced by the bacterial isolate No. 23 (Bmin23). After bacterial application on A. pomi, there was a slowing down of movement, cessation of feeding and development of a brown-black discoloration in diseased aphids within three days. Death followed within five days.


The model for description of one-dimensional anisotropic photonic crystals based on anisotropic porous silicon is proposed. The finite difference technique is applied for the scattering matrix parameter computation. Reflectance spectra for two orthogonal polarizations of the incident plane wave are calculated. The dependence of the shift of the spectral position of the photonic band gap edges on the orientation of the optical axis of the structure with respect to the incidence plane of s- or p-polarization incident plane wave is studied.


Hydrogen bonding interactions, phase behavior, crystallization, and surface hydrophobicity in nanostructured blend of bisphenol A-type epoxy resin (ER), for example, diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and poly(e-caprolactone)-block-poly(dimethyl siloxane)-block-poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL― PDMS―PCL) triblock copolymer were investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, transmission electron microscopy, small-angle X-ray scattering, and contact angle measurements. The PCL― PDMS―PCL triblock copolymer consisted of two epoxy-miscible PCL blocks and an epoxy-immiscible PDMS block. The cured ER/PCL―PDMS―PCL blends showed composition-dependent nanostructures from spherical and worm-like microdomains to lamellar morphology. FTIR study revealed the existence of hydrogen bonding interactions between the PCL blocks and the cured epoxy, which was responsible for their miscibility. The overall crystallization rate of the PCL blocks in the blend decreased remarkably with increasing ER content, whereas the melting point was slightly depressed in the blends. The surface hydrophobicity of the cured ER increased upon addition of the block copolymer, whereas the surface free energy (γ s ) values decreased with increasing block copolymer concentration. The hydrophilicity of the epoxy could be reduced through blending with the PCL―PDMS―PCL block copolymer that contained a hydrophobic PDMS block.


Alendronate (alendronic acid) is a nitrogen-containing drug that belongs to the second generation bisphosphonate class of drug. It binds to bone surfaces and inhibits bone resorption by osteoclasts and has been used as a treatment of choice in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis for many years. It is also a suitable drug for treatment of primary osteoporosis in men and for corticosteroid-induced osteoporosis in both men and women.1Oral alendronate (Alendronic acid) 5 or 10 mg/day has shown to produce an sustained increases in bone mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal women with or without osteoporosis, in men with primary osteoporosis and in both men and women with or without osteoporosis receiving systemic corticosteroid therapy. Alendronic acid, administered at 70 mg once weekly or 35 mg twice weekly dose, has shown to increase the effective at increasing BMD as 10 mg/day and thus helps in the treatment or prevention of osteoporosis.1In this review, I will be focussing mainly on the properties of oral alendronic acid in the treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis.


SummaryHoneybee colonies moved at night into new territory had smaller increases in weight than similar undisturbed colonies during the 7-day period following the move. Colonies moved out and back during the same night showed no such reduction in nectar storage. The difference was presumably the result of a need to reorientate to new pasture. Colonies moved in late autumn (November) showed a significantly greater winter consumption of stores than those not disturbed; those moved twice showed still greater consumption. Each move resulted in an additional consumption of 4–5 kg stores per colony between October and April.


The results of a video-based observational study aimed at exploring pedestrian movement behaviour within South African railway station environments is presented, in particular the macroscopic fundamental relationships of speed, density and flow incorporating the ways in which these variables might be influenced by the various personal, situational, and environmental factors that characterise the context in which pedestrians move. The movement trajectories of 24410 pedestrians were investigated in a video-based observational study of three infrastructure environments viz. platforms, stairs and skywalks at Maitland and Bonteheuwel stations in Cape Town, South Africa. Assessment of boarding and alighting rates of 7426 passengers was also observed at these stations. Age, gender, body size, mobility, group size, time of day, and location were contributory attributes observed with each dataset. Tracking pedestrians was done via the use of an in-house developed "video annotator" software tool, to enable an operator to manually mark pedestrians on video files. The marks form a track for each pedestrian, and all the tracks on a video file are recorded into a corresponding data text file. The operator can further document each tracked pedestrian with additional attributes, such as gender, age, type of luggage carried, impairment/disability, destination, activity, or any other recognisable criterion we may want to study. The objective of the study was the determination of various walking speed histograms and the development of macroscopic fundamental relationships that can be applied to calibrate microscopic pedestrian models for local conditions.


Finally, a great number of applications are at the interface of these two worlds: Signal and Image Processing, Multimedia Techniques, etc. Central to all of these subjects is the crucial question of managing very large distributed systems, networks of high performance computers such as computing grids and clouds or telephone networks at the metropolitan or national levels. Date of update May 10, 2017


Dilophus cerestensis sp. nov. is the first described species of this bibionid genus from the lower Oligocene of Céreste (France). The species is characterized by a wing with the crossvein r-m quite shorter than basal part of Rs, a putative symplesiomorphy for this genus, suggesting a position in its stem group. Dilophus is significantly less diverse and frequent in the fossil record (mainly from the Northern Hemisphere) than the other bibionid genera Bibio, Plecia, and Penthetria, possibly related to a Gondwanan origin.


LCL filter is introduced to replace the individual inductance filter of grid-connected inverter.Based on the comparison between grid-side current and inverter-side current taken as its feedback variable of the inner current loop control,a dual close-loop control of inner bridge current loop and outer voltage loop is proposed to remove the instability caused by the inverter system with LCL filter.The control loop with the grid current as its feedback variable is a three-order system,which has good system stability and robustness.A three-phase inverter system for photovoltaic grid connection is established and the performance of MPPT(Maximum Power Point Tracking) and high power factor are realized.The correctness of theoretical analysis and the feasibility of the proposed control strategy are both proved by simulative and experimental results.


Cloton is a framework that produces a picture of a person wearing the target clothing while taking into account arbitrary body shapes and poses. As the generation of an individual image necessitates the extraction of body shape and pose from one image and target clothing from another, the architecture is divided into a number of tasks. With these two images as input, the system generates a new picture of the user wearing the target clothing using a generative network. The output is this generated image, which is then sent back to the user. By using encoder-decoder networks as the generator model and training it using the generative adversarial approach used by GANs, Cloton manages to generate visually appealing garment swapped images of the user. Cloton also has good results in the quantitative analysis of the system as compared to previous works.


We introduce a framework of multiple viewpoint systems for describing and designing systems that use more than one representation or set of relevance judgments on the same collection. A viewpoint is any representational scheme on some collection of data objects together with a mechanism for accessing this content. A multiple viewpoint system allows a searcher to pose queries to one viewpoint and then change to another viewpoint while retaining a sense of context. Multiple viewpoint systems are well suited to alleviate vocabulary mismatches and to take advantage of the possibility of combining evidence. We discuss some of the issues that arise in designing and using such systems and illustrate the concepts with several examples.


: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections continue to be a major problem both within hospitals (hospital- acquired MRSA) and increasingly in community settings (community-acquired MRSA), leading towell-publicized media reports and, as a result, greater public awareness of this problem. Clinically, it is difficult to distinguish between a MRSA and a methicillin-sensitive S. aureus skin and soft tissue infection, and this should be taken into consideration when initiating empiric therapy. There are several oral and intravenous antibio- tics available to treat MRSA infections, some of which are inexpensive, whereas others are extremely costly; all have potential adverse effects and possible drug-drug interactions with which the prescriber should be familiar. Careful monitoringofpatients who receive outpatient intravenous antibiotics and an understanding of various intravenous devices and their associated possible complications in addition to knowledge of the eco- nomics involved are essential to make cost-effective decisions.


This paper discusses the possible use of the Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE) to inform engineering accreditation efforts. The paper is organized as follows: The first section provides background on the genesis of GRCSE. The second section discusses the status of accreditation of systems engineering in the United States and Europe. The third section discusses the objectives, outcomes, and core body of knowledge contained in GRCSE. The last section concludes with a discussion of how the GRCSE work might be expected to influence future accreditation.


In this report, we focus our effort to extract cellulose nanomaterials (CNs) from an agricultural cellulosic waste, Dragon Fruit foliage (DFF). DFF was first pretreated by several mechanical treatments and then bleached by chemical treatment to obtain bleached DFF. CNs were then produced from the hydrolysis of the bleached DFF catalyzed by sulfuric acid. We obtained CNs with a small diameter (50 to 130 nm) and length (100 to 500 nm) and a height of 3 to 10 nm. The CNs have a high crystallinity (crystallinity index 84.8%), high −COOH content (0.74 mmol·g−1), good thermal stability and a good Cu (II) adsorption capacity with an adsorption maximum of ~103 mg·g−1. These findings demonstrated the great potential of converting many agricultural cellulosic wastes into valuable cellulose nanomaterials.


Power line communication (PLC) channel as a medium for high speed data communication transmission based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is considered. It is an environment with frequency selective and multipath fading features which has been contaminated by impulsive noise. These deficiencies in power line communications degrade the accuracy of channel estimation. In this article, an efficient channel estimation method based on bayesian inference is presented. A new proposed kernel function with proper hyper-parameters in relevance vector machine (RVM) is used to estimate the PLC channel impulse response. Bit error rate for hard and soft decisions in Viterbi decoding corresponded to convolutional coded data and mean square error (MSE) are evaluated and compared. Proposed channel estimation algorithm achieves good results respected to recently reported approaches as Huang channel estimation method. It is shown that about 8dB improvement in MSE with respect to Huang method is achieved. Also, for bit error rate (BER=10), about 2.2dB and 1.8dB enhancements in signal to impulsive and background noises ratio (SNIR) respected to Huang method with soft and hard decisions are obtained, respectively. Keywords—Convolutional coding, impulsive noise, multipath effects, OFDM, power line communication, RVM.


Coprological analysis is still commonly employed to diagnose human fasciolosis despite the fact that this method is not utterly reliable. By far serologic methods in this case hold more validity and reliability. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate a 35-mer peptide covering a preliminary epitope of Cathepsin L1, a new purified antigen of Fasciola hepatica, by IgG-ELISA method for diagnosis of human fasciolosis. The advantage of this method is that identical batches of a synthetic peptide could be generated immediately without any variation in prepared batches and can be applied to diagnose thousands of infection cases assertively. Totally 90 individuals coprologically positive for fasciolosis and 15 control negative serum samples were included in the test. The cut-off value (O.D.450 nm; 1:1250 serum dilutions) with this peptide was 0.16. Considering this value 27 cases of false negative were detected; hence the calculation of the sensitivity of the IgG-ELISA was identified as 77%. No cases of false positive were spotted. It is concluded that this peptide is not capable to detect antibody in patients' sera. With reference to other peptides some measurements are being put into operation.


We report herein a comprehensive structural and computational study of noncovalent interactions between a carbonyl group and the sulfur atom of a sulfoxide group. Two main interaction topologies, e...


Long-wavelength vertical cavity lasers have been successfully fabricated on Si substrates using direct wafer bonding. InGaAs-InGaAsP multiquantum-well active layers with 40.5-pair InGaAsP-InP stacked mirrors have been directly bonded on 3.5-pair Al/sub 2/O/sub 3//a-Si mirrors deposited on Si substrates. The sample has been optically pumped at room temperature and lasing operation at 1.58-/spl mu/m has been achieved.


Older people are projected to make up almost one third of the European population by 2060. Healthy and active ageing (HAA) and age-friendly society frameworks offer a method to capitalise on this increasingly older demographic. To inform a new online EU-based taught masters programme, a scoping review and subsequent multinational survey were conducted to identify potential students' learning needs related to these frameworks.

 The scoping review included a systematic search of four databases. Data were extracted from 32 studies, guiding the development of an anonymous online survey targeting senior undergraduates and recent graduates; future employers; relevant academics; and other key stakeholders (e.g. advocacy groups, policy-makers, and 'expert' older people). Participants ranked the importance of 14 broad topics and linked subtopics on a Likert scale, and suggested other key topics. Descriptive data from the first survey wave are presented.

 The scoping review revealed a literature focus on intergenerational learning, age-related design, health, attitudes towards ageing, and collaborative learning. Few studies (16%) surveyed students to determine their learning needs. While 72% of studies reported programme evaluations, most were informal/unstructured. From the 473 responses across the initial five survey participation countries (Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Slovenia), over 90% of potential students, academics, and 'other' stakeholders scored psychological aspects of ageing, health promotion, and social inclusion as important topics. In descending order, the workplace/retirement, human rights, physiological and social aspects of ageing, physical environment, technology, and older people in education, were next-ranked. Participants' suggested other topics included sexual health, oral health, blue zones (regions with marked longevity), and the rights of vulnerable older people.

 This study highlights the limited prior investigation into learning needs around HAA and age-friendly society, and demonstrates key stakeholder priorities for education content. The resulting European Masters in Active Ageing will commence student intake in 2023.


Can we assess a community as we assess an individual? Do persons and communities have the same needs, patterns of behavior, and goals? These questions led us to test whether we could assess a community as we assess an individual. Because the Home Health Division of the Catholic Charities Center of the Old Colony Area had been using the functional-pattern approach in assessing families, we decided to use the same approach in assessing our community. Gordon (1982b) suggested using the functional-pattern approach in community assessment, so we decided to accept this challenge. This article describes this tool-its rationale, development, implementation, testing, and analysis-and makes recommendations for further study. We hope to share ideas and to generate a scholarly discussion of the functional-pattern approach to community assessment.


Abstract This study clarifies the structure of the organized mobilization of student audiences with the film Tokyo Olympiad and attempts to reveal how the Japanese government was involved in the formation of the national identity of postwar generation through the film's distribution process. As the mass mobilization project gradually materialized, the government desired to promote nationalism amongst the postwar generation, superseding the original intention to recoup the production cost. This change induced governmental intervention toward the artistic expression of cinema. It was observed that the method of mobilization of students and the governmental interruption were far from postwar democracy.


We present a new catalogue of high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) in the Galaxy that we call the Galactic High Mass X-ray Binary Catalogue (XRBcats), which improves upon the most recent of such catalogues. We include new HMXBs discovered since previous publications and revise the classification for several objects previously considered HMXBs or HMXB candidates. The catalogue includes basic information (e.g. source names, coordinates, types), other data (e.g. distance and X-ray flux estimates, binary system parameters), and other characteristic properties of the 169 HMXBs catalogued. We also present finding charts in several bands from the infrared to hard X-rays for each object. The aim of this catalogue is to provide a list of all currently known Galactic HMXBs, including basic information on both compact objects and non-degenerate counterpart properties (where available). We also include objects tentatively classified as HXMBs in the literature and give a brief motivation for the classification in each case. The catalogue is compiled based on a search of known HMXBs and candidates in all publicly available databases and literature published before May 2023. The relevant properties in various wavelength bands were collected for all objects, either from the literature or using data provided by large-scale surveys. For the latter case, the counterparts in each individual survey were found by cross-correlating positions of identified HMXBs with relevant databases. An up-to-date catalogue of Galactic HMXBs is presented to facilitate research in this field. Our goal was to collect a larger set of relevant HMXB properties in a more uniform way compared to previously published works.


Thiamin deficiency in alcoholics can lead to the Wernicke-Korsakoff (WK) syndrome, in which loss of memory is a feature (Lishman 1981). The pathological lesions of WK lie in the hypothalamus, thalamus and periventricular grey matter (Victor, Adams and Col lins 1971). Adrenocorticotrophin (ACTH) and vasopressin (VP) may play a role in memory and learning, having short-and long-term effects respectively (DeWied 1977). The source of brain ACTH in man and the rat is the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (Khachaturian, Lewis, Schafer and Watson 1985), and this source is independent of pituitary ACTH (Schlachter, Wardlaw, Tindall and Frantz 1985). Similarly, the site of brain VP synthesis is the anterior hypothalamus, particularly the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei (Tsuji, Takahashi and Akazawa 1981). We studied the effect of thiamin deficiency on the concentration of ACTH and VP in the rat hypothalamus, reasoning that the lesions in WK may lead to ACTH and/or VP depletion, with subsequent memory impairment.


For the image shot by the CCD camera fixed on the moving carrier (such as plane or ship), there is the whole image movement by the movement of carrier besides the movement of targets. For detecting moving targets in the moving background and tracking them, an arithmetic based on wavelet transform multi-layer block matching tracking is suggested in this article. The wavelet of bior1.3 is used to decompose image. It is anti-symmetric wavelet and is fit for detecting variation information in horizontal and vertical direction. It can use many layer son-image to match and the vector of the whole background can be estimated. It can detect moving targets from the background by difference arithmetic, and can work out the figure center of target, and trace out the movement contrail of the targets. Compared with traditional block matching tracking arithmetic, it overcome some disadvantages, such as a mass of operation, inaccurate matching in the low SNR image. Otherwise the matching in N×N area in son-image is equal to the matching in 2 n N×2 n N area in oral image. The searching speed is faster than before. The experiment is done while the moving vector of two neighbor frame is less then 10 pixel and the moving vector of the moving targets in background is less then 5 pixel. The availability and feasibility of this arithmetic is proved by the result.


A multi-layered plastic substrate having superior dimensional stability and a manufacturing method thereof are provided to offer various properties such as small linear expansion coefficient, gas barrier, the dimensional stability, and surface hardness properties etc. A multi-layered plastic substrate(110) is laminated with organic or organic-inorganic hybrid buffer layer(115), a gas barrier layer(120), and an organic hard coating layer(125) in which an inorganic particle is added. The plastic film is one or more selected from a group consisting of a monopolymer, one or more polymer blend, and a polymer composite material in which organic or inorganic additives are added. The polymer composite material in which the inorganic additive is contained is a polymer-clay nano composite in which a clay nano material is dispersed in a polymer matrix.


It may be possible to make governance changes that render large global corporations more beneficial – and less costly – to humanity.


The phase velocities of horizontally polarized shear waves (SH-waves) at the free surface of a layered structure are dispersive. The measured values of the phase velocity can be compared with those calculated for an idealized layered structure. When a match is obtained, the properties of the actual and hypothetical layered structures are assumed to correspond. A system consisting of two layers each of constant thickness, overlying a medium of large depth, represents a common model of a pavement structure. Mathematical expressions are presented which facilitate the calculations needed in analyzing some structures of this type.


Background: Morbidly adherent placenta can be diagnosed prenatally by different modalities. 2D, 3D multi-slice Doppler ultrasound and MRI have emerging roles in prenatal diagnosis of morbidly adherent placenta, but histopathological diagnosis is the gold standard. Aim of the work: To detect the accuracy of multi-slice 3D Doppler ultrasound over 2D-Doppler in diagnosis of placenta accreta in relation to postpartum histopathology and intrapartum findings. Patients and Methods: This study was conducted at Ain shams university maternity hospital during the period between March 2020 and September 2020. A total of 50 pregnant women having placenta Previa were included in the study. Patients were included in the study according to the following criteria: Pregnant women with history of previous cesarean section or hysterotomy, placenta previa with its lower edge covering the scar of previous cesarean section, From 28 wks – Full term. Each patient was scanned in a systematic fashion by 2D ultrasonography, 2D-Doppler, Multislice 3D-Doppler preoperatively and results were compared with histopathological examination postoperatively. Results: Crowded vessels over peripheral sub-placental zone had the highest diagnostic characteristics among multislice 3D Doppler signs in diagnosis of placental invasion compared with postoperative histopathology with (sensitivity 95.2%, specificity 93.1%, PPV 90.9%, NPV96.4%, LR 270.00). Hyper vascularity of serosa–bladder interface had the highest diagnostic characteristics among 2D Doppler ultrasonography signs in the diagnosis of placental invasion compared with postoperative histopathology with (sensitivity 90.5%, specificity 89.7%, PPV 86.4%, NPV 92.9%, LR 82.33). Conclusion: Multi-slice 3D Doppler ultrasound is more accurate than 2D ultrasound in diagnosis of placenta accrete and degree of adherence in relation to postpartum histopathology and intrapartum findings.


The mandate that Intercom Ontario be a user-centered trial involved the making of a number of choices. This paper describes what these choices were, the rationale behind these choices, their consequences, and the proposed solutions. The objective of the trial is to determine what services the user community in Ontario wants, needs and will use in the emerging electronic superhighway; and to examine the impacts of these solutions in a real world setting and their practicability over the long term. It is expected that the trial will generate knowledge to support all relevant stakeholders: information users as well as information providers at private, public and government levels.


A study on the catalytic properties of the transition metals (Ni,Co,Mo)-carbides, -nitrides for thiophene and dibenzothiophene hydrotreating was conducted. The (Ni,Co)-Mo carbides and the corresponding (Ni,Co)-Mo nitride phases showed a catalytic activity higher than conventional bimetallic (Ni,Co)-Mo sulfides. In addition, a study was done on the effect of the atomic ratios, i.e., 0.1 M + /(M + + Mo) 0.9 where M + stands for Ni or Co, and the concentration of promoters such as phosphorous, which was a structural stabilizing agent. The catalytic performance of the bimetallic NiMo and CoMo carbides and nitrides was studied using thiophene and dibenzothiophene hydrodesulfurization (HDS) as model reactions at 623 K and P = 1 atm. The catalytic activity of the dispersed carbide and nitride phases on the alumina carrier was more significant than that of the reference catalysts, alumina supported NiMo-S and CoMo-S. The metallic character of the NiMo and CoMo carbides was evidenced by their higher hydrogenation activity in thiophene HDS, while the nitrides favored both hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis type reactions. # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


The invention relates to a rice cooker and a porridge cooking heating control method thereof. The rice cooker comprises a cooker body (1), an inner container (2), an upper cover device (3) and a heating device (4), wherein the heating device (4) is used for heating the inner container. A bottom temperature detecting device (5) for detecting the temperature of the inner container is arranged at the outer side of the bottom of the inner container (2). The upper cover device (3) is provided with a cover temperature detecting device (6) for detecting the temperature of the upper cover, and a control device (7) for controlling rice cooking. The control device (7) comprises a main controller (8), a timer (9) and a memory, wherein the timer (9) and the memory are respectively connected with the main controller (8). The output ends of the bottom temperature detecting device (5) and the cover temperature detecting device (6) are connected with the input end of the main controller (8), and the output end of the main controller (8) is electrically connected with the heat device (8). The invention can quickly and uniformly transfer heat, can avoid the problem of insufficient boiling and heating when temperature rises abnormally and boiling maintenance stage is ended in advance because of the factors of processing technology deflection of the inner container and the like, and avoid the abnormal phenomenon of overflow of fluid foods of porridge, gruel and the like in cooking. The porridge cooking heating control method is simple and convenient to control.


The origin and usage through time of geologia, geognosy, geogony, oryctognosy, geology and geophysics, as characterised by their frequency of occurrence in the Google Books Ngram Corpus, is discussed. The English, French, German, Italian and Spanish corpuses used in this study have been normalised over the same timespan using the average frequencies of occurrence of the same set of 'neutral' words in each language (as advocated by Younes and Reips 2019). Use of the term geology is found to predate publication of James Hutton's Theory of the Earth in 1795 by about 100 years; geognosy, oryctognosy and geogony, much less commonly used, became established in the 1780s and began to fall out of use around 1820. The terms geologist, and geognost follow a similar pattern. The emergence of geophysics is a less familiar field: While the phrases physics of the Earth and physical geography can both be traced back to the early 1700s, geophysics only began to be used in the early 1800s and did not really become common until about 1860; geophysicist becomes common in German after 1860, but more generally after 1880. The first geophysics-related publications were bulletins from magnetic and seismic observatories and its first dedicated journal, Beitrage zur Geophysik, began publication in 1887, eighty years after the formation of The Geological Society of London. The tems earth science and geoscience, popular today, have steadily increased in their usage since being introduced in the 1880s and 1930s respectively.


The survey of six institutions of the Caritas Association Wurzburg provides important evidence for the gaps in medical specialty care (1). Unfortunately, the problems are probably still underestimated.


Background To investigate the associations of genetic polymorphism with high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) levels in Iranian adolescents. Methods This multicentre study was conducted on 10 - 18 year-old students from 27 provinces in Iran. Logic regression approach was used to determine the main effects and interactions of polymorphisms related to HDL-C levels. Results The rs708272 polymorphism was significantly related to HDL-C levels. Moreover, rs708272 increased HDL-C levels and had a protective effect on HDL-C. The interaction of rs2230808 and rs5880 polymorphisms as well as the interaction of rs320 and rs708272 polymorphisms were associated with lower HDL-C levels. Furthermore, the interaction of rs320 and rs1801177 polymorphisms was associated with lower HDL-C levels. Conclusions We found that not only single SNPs, but also interactions of several SNPs affect HDL-C levels. Given the high prevalence of low HDL-C in Middle Eastern populations, further genetic studies are required for detailed analysis.


Conventional quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols include a basis selection process for providing a secure secret key. In contrast, this paper proposes an entanglement-based QKD with no basis selection procedure. Entangled-photon pulse trains with an average photon number less than one per pulse are sent to two legitimate parties, from which a secret key is created utilizing the entanglement nature. Eavesdropping on a transmission line is prevented by a condition of less than one photon per pulse, and sending classically correlated coherent pulses instead of quantum correlated ones is revealed by monitoring coincident count rates.


It is no mere accident of collecting history that American museums are replete with exceptional examples of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century paintings as Jan Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance and Antony van Dyck's Lucas van Uffel . The perceived Protestantism of 'Dutch' painting, in contrast to other European and more overtly religious, i.e. Catholic schools, exemplifying the virtues of honesty, diligence and cleanliness sounded the most familiar note to the emerging collecting class of the American East coast steeped in the mores of Puritanism. The phenomenon of the development of this taste for 'Dutch' painting is the subject of this chapter, particularly as it flourished under our Gilded Era super collectors whose conflicting drive both to monumentalize and redeem themselves informed their actions. For the purposes of the chapter the author abides by the anachronistic moniker 'Dutch' which stood for both the Dutch and Flemish schools well into the twentieth century. Keywords:American museums; Catholic schools; Dutch seventeenth-century paintings; Flemish seventeenth-century paintings; Gilded Era


Foresight studies are regularly conducted at sectoral or geographical scales, in order to help policy makers and economic actors to define their strategy of adaptation to climate change (CC).


An algorithm is introduced and verified, which is designed to retrieve high-resolution wind fields from C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) operating at both vertical and horizontal polarization. SAR wind retrieval is a two-step process: In the first, step wind directions are ex- tracted from wind-induced streaks, which have a typical spacing of 200 to 1600 m and are normally aligned with the mean surface wind direction. In the second step, wind speeds are derived from the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) and image geometry of the calibrated SAR images, to- gether with the local wind direction retrieved in the first step. Several semi empirical C-band models are available, which describe the dependency of the NRCS on wind speed, wind direction and image geometry. To ver- ify the algorithm, wind fields were computed from 84 RADARSAT-1 SAR and ScanSAR scenes of the east coast of North America and compared to co-located results from the high resolution numerical model MM5. I. INTRODUCTION Synthetic aperture radars (SARs) are flown on several satellites, e.g., European satellites ESR-1, ERS-2 and EN- VISAT, Japanese satellite JERS and the Canadian satellite RADARSAT-1. Their independence of daylight and cloudi- ness together with their high resolution and large spatial cov- erage make them a valuable tool especially in coastal areas for measuring and observing geophysical parameters, e.g. ocean waves (1) and surface winds (2), (3). The SARaboard the Canadian satellite RADARSAT-1 operates in the C-band at moderate incidence angles. For this wavelength and range of incidence angles the backscatter from the ocean surface is primarily caused by the small-scale surface roughness, which is strongly influenced by the local wind field. Therefore, the backscatter can be empirically related to the wind. In the past few years much effort has been undertaken to develop algorithms for derivation of wind vectors from SAR images. The wind direction can be retrieved from the direction of wind-induced streaks, which are visible in most SARim- ages and are related to the mean wind direction. The direction of these streaks can either be retrieved by using spectral meth- ods or in the spatial domain by a method based on derivation of local gradients. The wind speed is derived from the normal- ized radar cross section (NRCS), which is retrieved from the SARdata, using semi empirical C-band models which were especially developed for vertical (VV) polarization. In case of HH polarization these models have been extended for the polarization ratio. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a recently developed algorithm for wind field retrieval from SAR, oper- ating at C-band with either VV or HH-polarization (2), and demonstrate its application utilizing RADARSAT-1 data. In contrast to the previously used wind direction retrieval algo- rithms based on filtering in the spectral domain (4) here they are retrieved in the spatial domain (2), (5). The spatial domain is an important improvement, because it enables us to exclude individual areas from the wind retrieval, e.g., areas covered by surface slicks, land or sea ice. Therefore, wind fields can be retrieved in coastal areas or areas partly covered by slicks or ice. II. INVESTIGATED DATA The Canadian satellite RADARSAT-1 is positioned on a near-circular, polar and sun-synchronous orbit at a mean al- titude of 790 km. It has a repeat cycle of 24 days with an orbital period of ∼ 100 min. The satellite operates a SAR with a frequency of 5.3 GHz (C-band) and transmits and re- ceives with linear horizontal (HH) polarization in transmit and receive. In this study different RADARSAT-1 SAR modes were used, which offer a possible range of incidence angles, between 20 ◦ and 49 ◦ perpendicular to flight direction. In the ScanSARmode an area of up to 500 km is covered with a reso- lution of ∼ 100 m and in the SARmodes enable a resolution of ∼ 30 m. All utilized RADARSAT-1 ScanSAR data were pro- cessed by the Alaska SARFacility (ASF) into calibrated SAR data.


It is important for the clinical pharmacist to maintain the safety and efficacy of drug therapy for individual patients. In order to improve prescribing and help patients to understand their medication better, we began checking prescriptions and providing medicines to patients individually in the oncology surgery ward of our hospital in January 2003. Before preparing medications, we investigated the compliance of each patient through counseling, checked their prescriptions, and pointed out prescription errors to physicians. On the following day, after filling the prescriptions, we handed them to individual patients and explained the medication to each patient. Half a year after introducing this system, we calculated pharmacist prescription intervention rates and analyzed the results. We found a 49% error rate in prescriptions and pointed out the errors to physicians, 93% of which they acknowledged. To evaluate our system, we conducted a questionnaire survey of the doctors and nurses in the oncology surgery ward on the provision of medication by clinical pharmacists. We obtained a 95% response rate and the results were very satisfactory. The checking of prescriptions by clinical pharmacists in this ward reduced inappropriate ordering of medicines, as well as the time taken for us to dispense them and that taken for nurses to distribute the medicines and instruct patients on how to take them. Providing medicines directly to patients enabled us to practice patient counseling more closely and helped ensure that they were taken properly.


Fiber Bragg gratings have been demonstrated as a versatile sensor for structural health monitoring. We present an efficient and cost effective multiplexing method for fiber Bragg grating and fiber Fabry-Perot sensors based on a broadband mode-locked fiber laser source and interferometric interrogation. The broadband, pulsed laser source permits time and wavelength division multiplexing to be employed to achieve very high sensor counts. Interferometric interrogation also permits high strain resolutions over large frequency ranges to be achieved. The proposed system has the capability to interrogate several hundred fiber Bragg gratings or fiber Fabry-Perot sensors on a single fiber, whilst achieving sub-microstrain resolution over bandwidths greater than 100 kHz. Strain resolutions of 30nε /Hz1/2 and 2 nε/Hz1/2 are demonstrated with the fiber Bragg grating and fiber Fabry-Perot sensor respectively. The fiber Fabry-Perot sensor provides an increase in the strain resolution over the fiber Bragg grating sensor of greater than a factor of 10. The fiber Bragg gratings are low reflectivity and could be fabricated during the fiber draw process providing a cost effective method for array fabrication. This system would find applications in several health monitoring applications where large sensor counts are necessary, in particular acoustic emission.


Remembering aneventinvolves notonly whathappened, butalsowhereandwhenitoccurred. We measured regional cerebral bloodflowbypositron emission tomography during initial encoding andsubsequent retrieval ofitem, location, andtimeinformation. Multivariate image analysis showedthatleft frontal brainregions werealways activated during encoding, andright superior frontal regions werealways activated atretrieval. Pairwise imagesubtraction analyses revealed information-specific activations at(i)en- coding, iteminformation inleft hippocampal, location infor- mation inright parietal, andtimeinformation inleft fusiform regions; and(ii) retrieval, iteminright inferior frontal and temporal, location inleft frontal, andtimeinanterior cingu- late cortices. Theseresults point totheexistence ofgeneral encoding andretrieval networks ofepisodic memorywhose operations areaugmented byunique brain areas recruited for processing specific aspects ofremembered events.


Objective To observe the efficacy and adverse reaction of bortezomib plus chemotherapy in treating newly-diagnosed and relapsed multiple myeloma(MM) patients.Methods Ten patients of multiple myeloma,7 newly-diagnosed patients and 3 relapsed patients,who used BAD regimen(bortezomib 1.3 mg/m2 on days 1,4,8 and 11;epidoxorubi 10 mg per day on days 1 to 4;dexamethasone 20-40 mg on days 1-4,8-11) or BD regimen(bortezomib 1.3 mg/m2 on days 1,4,8 and 11;dexamethasone 20-40 mg on days 1-2,4-5,8-9 and 11-12);Each patient received 2 to 4 cycles in the therapy.Results Among 10 patients,3 patients had complete response(CR),3 had near complete response(nCR),2 had partial response(PR),1 had minimal response(MR),1 had no change(NC),and the overall effective rate of CR + nCR + PR was 80.0%.The main adverse effects were peripheral neuropathy,gastrointestinal symptoms,leucopenia,thrombocytopenia,etc.Conclusion Bortezomib plus chemotherapy was well tolerated and effective in treating either newly-diagnosed or relapsed MM patients with slight adverse effects.


At the times of information explosion,MIS(others are CRM,ERP in large Enterprise) becomes more and more important for enterprises.Importing voices,graphics,animations and videos into the MIS is widespread now.In this paper,general method and normal way are introduced through a simple practical example of MIS added multimedia elements and multimedia functions,so that more valuable,long time and sustained research will be made in this field.


In the power supply system of petroleum drilling,a mud generator is often used to supply power for the instruments while drilling.Because the rotor and stator of mud generator are separated structurally,the DC power of rotor side can't directly supply power for instruments while drilling in the stator side.So a series resonant full-bridge converter which has a separate transformer is introduced to couple power.This paper analyses the characteristics of series resonant full bridge converter.Aiming at the underground high temperature environment,the resonant frequency tracking control owing to the great variation of resonant parameters with temperature is introduced to ensure the converter always working at resonant frequency for the maximum coupled power from the rotor side to the stator side.Then the design of control loop is provided.Eventually,the experimental verifications are presented.The results show that resonant frequency tracking control can work very well and realize the maximum coupled power.


Critical assessment of the recent monograph by J. Kuppers ( Die Fabeln Avians , Bonn 1977), with special focus on the much disputed problem of Avianus' sources (probably not a complete Latin paraphrase of Babrius, as many scholars assume) and the allegorical value of his collection.


Virtually from the beginning "collective biography," or "prosopography," has been seen as one of the most powerful and useful techniques of the "new" quantitative history. As Lawrence Stone succinctly described that technique, it is " … the investigation of the common background characteristics of a group of actors by means of a collective study of their lives." It is not case, of course, as Stone also makes clear, that the new quantitative historians invented collective biography. In fact, the approach was used by historians and other social scientists well before the advent of quantitative history. Even so, the technique has frequently been employed by quantitative historians and may even be seen by some as virtually a hallmark of that approach to historical studies.


The application of robust control method is required for the design of the automatic control system of the unmanned underwater vehicle which is operated in underwater environment under great disturbance. Sliding Perturbation Observer (SPO) was developed to overcome the chattering phenomenon which is a weak point of the sliding mode control. This control method can be applied to the control of underwater vehicle operating in strong environmental disturbances because it has the advantage of estimating and compensating for nonlinear components, modeling uncertainties and environmental disturbances of the system. In this study, the sliding mode control with sliding perturbation observer (SMCSPO) is simulated in an underwater vehicle to evaluate the disturbance compensation performance and compare it with a PID controller.


The following addition to the set of recently published proposals dealing with suprageneric names (Reveal in Taxon 47: 183-191. 1998) comes as a result of discussions via electronic mail (see http://www.inform.umd.edu/PBIO/fam/articles.html). There the idea of providing a simplified means of establishing purposefully unranked suprageneric names was discussed. The termination "-ina" adopted by me initially was deemed inappropriate as the termination is used in the zoological Code and retained in the proposed BioCode (Hawksworth & McNeill in Taxon 47: 123150. 1998). Accordingly, the termination "-itae" is proposed. A specific statement regarding the typification, or lack thereof, of such names has been added as well.


Abstract This research is devoted to the study of vertical movements of the European crust on the basis of two independent methods, namely tide gauge and GNSS observations results. The description and classification of factors affecting sea level change has been made. The precision with which the movement of the earth's crust according to the results of tide gauge observations can be explored has been calculated . A methodology to identify the duration of tide gauge observations required for studies of vertical movements of the earth 's crust has been presented. Approximation of tide gauge time series with the help of Fourier series has been implemented, the need for long-term observations in certain areas has been explained. The diagram of the velocities of the vertical movements of the European crust on the basis of the tide gauge data and GNSS observations has been built and the anomalous areas where the observations do not coincide have been identified.


A solid understanding of the difference in the electric properties of conductors and insulators is key to making sense of the rest of the material in introductory electricity and magnetism. When asked "What is a conductor (or insulator)?" many introductory physics students can easily tell you: "A metal is a conductor," and/ or they recite the definition. However, when asked "How do you know or how do you convince a friend in your physics class that electric charges can move freely in a (electrical) conductor?" most students have great difficulty answering the question.1 Don't be surprised if they just tell you that is what the textbook or physics professor says. This paper will illustrate a simple demonstration using an aluminum pie pan and foam board that helps students develop a solid understanding of the fundamental difference between a conductor and insulator. Table I shows detailed information on how to prepare the demonstration. Like any other electrostatics experiment, this demonstration requires l...


Object-oriented method is one of the basic ways to develop GIS. The geographic space and its various geographic elements in GIS are analyzed by using object-oriented method, the basic geographic element models and visual object model in GIS are established, Based on the object model for oil-gas oilfield development GIS is presented.


An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus that gives a convincing sense of victory or defeat result of the competition game to the player. And A deck forming unit 114, a parameter determination unit 115, a storage unit 12, a determination unit 112, and a parameter changing unit 116, if the parameter change condition is determined to be satisfied, the parameter changing unit 116 using the deck parameter value after being changed by determining the outcome of the battle game, and, if the parameter change condition is determined not to be satisfied, the deck parameter determined by the parameter determination unit 115 the value the match process 117 for determining the outcome of the battle game by using, after a win or loss is determined by the competition processing section 117, the deck parameter value after being changed by the parameter changing unit 116, or by parameter determining section 115 screen data parameter information indicating the value of the determined deck parameter Generated by generating unit 118, the display unit 14. .The


Anton et al., "Nipple Reconstruction With Local Flaps: Star and Wrap Flaps, Perspectives in Plastic Surgery 5(1):67–78 (1991). Grossman et al., "An Alternative Technique for Modified Radical Mastectomy With Immediate Reconstruction," Con temporary Surgery 36:20-24 (1991). Maxwell, "Iginio Tansini and the Origin of the Latissimus Dorsi Musculocutaneous Flap." Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 65(5):686–692 (1980). Primary Examiner Michael J. Milano Assistant Examiner Tram A. Nguyen Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Lyon & Lyon LLP


Vascular aging can be simply defined as the structural and functional changes in the large arteries that occur with the progression of age (Laurent 2012). Arteries can be classified into elastic (large), muscular, and resistance arteries. While some researchers categorized the brachial artery into a muscular artery (Laurent 2012), researchers have demonstrated the coexisting behavior of elastic and muscular arteries in the brachial artery, suggesting the presence of a transition between elastic and muscular arteries in the brachial artery (Bjarnegård et al. 2003, 2004). The structural components of the arterial wall include the tunica intima (composed of endothelium and subendothelial loose connective tissue), tunica media (usually abbreviated as "media," chiefly composed of smooth muscle fibers), and tunica adventitia (composed of loose connective tissue). The media of elastic arteries is also made up of huge amounts of elastic membrane and elastic fibers, which endows the elastic arteries with a "reservoir" function in the cardiac cycle. During systole, huge amounts of blood are ejected into the elastic arteries in a very short period of time. In addition to causing blood and pulse waves to move forward toward the periphery, it expands the elastic arteries while transforming its kinetic energy into the elastic potential energy of the elastic arteries. During diastole, when the heart no longer pumps blood into the elastic arteries, the elastic arteries relax and transform its elastic potential energy back into the kinetic energy of the blood, causing continuous and uninterrupted blood during the entire cardiac cycle. In general, vascular aging is characterized as the following structural and functional changes: luminal dilation, increase in arterial stiffness, endothelial dysfunction, diffused intimal thickening, and changes in the arterial shear pattern (Laurent 2012; Credeur et al. 2009). Specifically, luminal dilation and increases in arterial stiffness are more pronounced with aging of the elastic arteries; while the change of endothelial function


We study the determinants of emission leakage using a two-country general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and Cournot competition. We show that firms from the nonregulating country respond to the implementation of Pigouvian emission taxes on their competitors abroad and the subsequent gain in comparative advantage by increasing markups rather than output. We find that this effect, jointly with the exit of the least productive and most emission-intensive firms, can provoke a reduction of emissions in the nonregulating country and thus increase the effectiveness of the unilateral emission tax. Border emission taxes dampen the market power gains of nonregulated firms and thus reduce the effectiveness of a unilateral emission tax.


We present in this work a method for estimation of equatorial plasma bubble (EPB) mean zonal drift velocities using keograms generated from images of the OI 6300.0 nm nightglow emission collected from an equatorial station–Cariri (7.4° S, 36.5° W), and a mid-latitude station–Cachoeira Paulista (22.7° S, 45° W), both in the Brazilian sector. The mean zonal drift velocities were estimated for 239 events recorded from 2000 to 2003 in Cariri, and for 56 events recorded over Cachoeira Paulista from 1998 to 2000. It was found that EPB zonal drift velocities are smaller (≈60 ms−1) for events occurring later in the night compared to those occurring earlier (≈150 ms−1). The decreasing rate of the zonal drift velocity is ≈10 ms−1/h. We have also found that, in general, bubble events appearing first in the west-most region of the keograms are faster than those appearing first in the east-most region. Larger zonal drift velocities occur from 19 to 23 LT in a longitude range from −37° to −33°, which shows that the keogram method can be used to describe vertical gradients in the thermospheric wind, assuming that the EPBs drift eastward with the zonal wind. The method of velocity estimation using keograms compares favorably against the mosaic method developed by Arruda, D.C.S, 2005, but the standard deviation of the residuals for the zonal drift velocities from the two methods is not small (≈15 ms−1).


The paper analyzes a range of regional indicators and composite indices characterizing the development in the subjects of the Russian Federation over 2000-2007 and 2008-2010. We offer a technique based on the spatial and temporal laws of socio-economic development and designated for building generalized curves (genotypes) to describe regional development. We also present our forecasts of how the RF multiregional system could develop within the context of the given genetic scenario


A cellular automata (CA) method is proposed in this paper for the optimal operation of hydropower multi-reservoir systems. The beginning and the end of the operation periods are taken here as the CA cells leading to the storage volumes of the system being defined as the cell state. This choice naturally leads to a cell neighbourhood defined by the previous and next periods of the underlying cell. The objective function and constraints of the underlying optimal operational problem are projected on each cell to arrive at the local updating rule of the CA method. The resulting updating rule is, therefore, defined by an optimisation sub-problem of a size equal to the number of reservoirs in the system which is subsequently solved by NLP technique to get the updated values of the cell states, storage volumes of the reservoirs in the system. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed CA method is tested against two multi-reservoir systems, namely four- and ten-reservoir problems over 12, 60 and 240 monthl...


An increase of the interaction speed can lead to the problem of over-relations. Due to psychological and temporal burdens caused by the excessive relationship, users feel fatigue and users are avoiding using SNS. SNS fatigue and SNS anxiety is regarded as SNS stress related to the side effects caused by the SNS use. This study is to approach negative view which is SNS stress and find out causes of stress from the over-relation of interaction. This study used total of 261 samples from Facebook users. As a results, all hypothesis are accepted using SEM(Structural Equation Model). Information sharing and communication have positive effect on social interaction overload and it causes technostress. The results of this study show that SNS characteristics occurs technostress. This study is significant in that it examines that the features of SNS have negative results.


TNF- (cid:1) regulates the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis at several levels. It has been shown to modify adrenal steroidogenesis in many species, and it is supposed to act as an auto/ paracrine factor. However, its significance in human adrenocortical function remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the effect of TNF- (cid:1) on adrenal steroidogenesis, expression of thekeysteroidogenicgenes,apoptosis,andcellviabilityinthehumanadrenocorticalcelllineNCI-H295R.TNF- (cid:1) treatment (1 n M for 48 h) decreased the basal production of cortisol, androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), and aldosterone (14, 18, 35, and 52%, respectively), and the 8-bromo-cAMP-induced production of cortisol, androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and DHEAS (44, 66, 58, and 48%, respectively). However, when the steroid production datawerenormalizedbythecellnumber,TNF- (cid:1) increasedthe basalproductionofcortisol,androstenedione,DHEA,DHEAS, and aldosterone (137, 121, 165, 73, and 28%, respectively), and the 8-bromo-cAMP-induced production of cortisol, DHEAS, and aldosterone (122, 121, and 256%, respectively). This was accompanied by a parallel increase in the expression of the genes encoding for the steroidogenic acute regulatory pro- tein, 3 (cid:2) -hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 2, and 17-hydroxy-lase/17,20-lyase (74, 200, and 50%, respectively; quantitative real-time RT-PCR analysis). TNF- (cid:1) increased caspase 3/7 activity (an indicator of apoptosis) and decreased cell viability dose and time dependently. The effect of TNF- (cid:1) on apoptosis was neutralized by a monoclonal TNF- (cid:1) antibody. These find- ings indicate that TNF- (cid:1) is a potent regulator of steroidogenesis and cell viability in adrenocortical cells. TNF- (cid:1) may have


Groundwater contamination cause different risks to society, promoting rise of the disease's cases, in addition to reduce the hydric disponible and to degrade the aquifers, that are strategic reservoir to hydric sustainability of society. Therefore, this study was aimed to applies the groundwater contamination risk index – IRCAS, identifying they efficiency in indication/prediction of water contamination in a urban watershed on Fortaleza City/Brazil. For this, we applied the vulnerability aquifer model GOD to set natural susceptibility and to match environment sanitation index – ISA for to produce the IRCAS. For identify the efficiency this model, we accomplish 2 field campaign, one at the end of the rainy season (July), and other in dry season (November), to analyzed physics and chemistry parameters of groundwater collected of the wells. The major contamination was caused to nitrate, that presented 53 and 46% of the sample out of potability standard on rainy and dry period, respectively. The variance analyses – ANOVA report model efficiency of 61 and 54% of explication of the nitrate contamination variance for on rainy and dry period, respectively.


Agro forestry systems are believed to provide several ecosystem services; however, until recently evidence in the agro forestry literature supporting these perceived benefits has been lacking. This paper aimed to provide empirical information on the role of agro forestry in ecosystem maintenance and climate change adaptation and mitigation provided by agro forestry. Agro forestry has played a greater role in the maintenance of the ecosystem and mitigation of CO2 than monocropping and open cereal-based agriculture but less than natural forest. Agro forestry is important for preserving biodiversity, CO2 sequestration, and adapting to climate change. CO2 sequestration through above and ground biomass, offsetting CO2 emission from deforestation and microclimate modification are major climate change mitigation effects. Provision of numerous ecosystem services such as food, fodder, and fuel wood, income source, and enhancing soil productivity help the community to sustain changing climate effects. Hence, considerable attention needs to be given to agro forestry to contribute considerable benefit to the maintenance of the ecosystem, and climate change mitigation and adaptation next to a forest.

https://universepg.com/public/storage/journal-pdf/The role of agro forestry in ecosystem maintenance and climate change.pdf


AbstractRosemary Rosmarinus officinalis oil has shown potential for use as a phytobiotic fish feed supplement with antioxidant properties that can inhibit the growth of Flavobacterium psychrophilum, the pathogen that causes bacterial cold-water disease (BCWD). To determine the in vivo effectiveness of rosemary oil in preventing or minimizing BCWD, Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss were fed commercial feed top-coated with one of two concentrations of rosemary oil (1% or 3% of the feed) or a control diet for 14 d. Fish from each feed treatment were then challenged with one of two doses of F. psychrophilum via subcutaneous injection, and mortality was monitored for 28 d. In both F. psychrophilum challenges, fish treated with feed coated with rosemary oil at the 1% and 3% levels experienced significantly higher mortality than fish treated with only soybean oil–coated feed. While the use of rosemary oil as a top-coat on feed increased mortality among Rainbow Trout subjected to a disease challenge in the curren...


Efficient and accurate segmentation of hippocampi from preterm and aging brain MR images is one of the most fundamental steps in understanding hippocampal growth and development or diagnosing and monitoring various clinical conditions. Current hippocampus segmentation methods for preterm and aging brain are limited due to: 1) they can rarely achieve preterm infant hippocampus segmentation; 2) the computation cost is high; 3) current deep learning models cannot well handle the hippocampal feature learning; 4) they are not open obtainable. To deal with these problems, we propose an efficient, open-source algorithm, 3D densely connected fully convolutional network (3D-DCFCN) for the infant and aging hippocampal segmentation. Specifically, we search for a suitable distribution of the hierarchical receptive field size and a joint loss function to balance local and global information and lead to better optimization. In addition, we use image cross-registration for vast augmentation of the infant training data and incorporate multi-modality infant brain information. We compare the performance of our algorithm with those of several state-of-the-art methods. The results show that our method outperforms all comparison methods on infant and aging datasets and achieves much faster speed (less than 0.11s per image). We also provide a notably comprehensive evaluation of the method. Our experiments further demonstrate our model can 1) well generalize to the dataset with different magnetic fields; 2) satisfactorily find hippocampal atrophy in cognitive-decline groups compare with normal controls.


Increasing international travel and trade have rendered U.S. borders more porous and dramatically increased the risk of introductions of invasive plant pests into agricultural crops (3). The current USDA system for protecting agricultural industries has been overwhelmed and has sometimes failed to intercept a number of introductions of exotic pests, including plant pathogens. Such introductions threaten crops and can hinder national and international agricultural markets and trade. Currently in Florida, one such invasive species is


Efficient perovskite solar cells can be produced by a wide variety of different methods. Previous results show that controlling the film morphology is critical to enhance the efficiency of the prepared devices. Here, grazing‐incidence wide‐angle X‐ray scattering (GIWAXS) is used to study the morphology and especially the orientation distribution of CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPI) perovskite films prepared by five typical methods. We find that the investigated one‐step methods produce non‐oriented films, while the two‐step deposition methods produce varying degrees of orientation depending on the method chosen to convert the highly oriented PbI2 precursor, providing direct evidence for different perovskite conversion mechanisms. In particular, we show that the morphology and crystal orientation of MAPI films is tunable by varying the spin‐coating temperature and by adding chloride to the conversion solution. By relating the precursor morphology to the resulting MAPI film morphology, we link the observed preferential orientations to specific conversion mechanisms, thereby establishing GIWAXS as an important tool toward a rational development of new synthesis methods.


Efficacy of Bollgard® II (DP50BII) was compared against Bollgard® (DP50B) and a conventional variety (DP50) for the suppression of the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa zea (Boddie), tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (Fabricius), soybean looper, Pseudoplusia includens (Walker), beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua (Hubner), and pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) in Texas and Arizona. Trials included systems trials demonstrated a commercial-type setting with insecticide applications prompted when insect populations exceeded economic thresholds; unsprayed trials comparisons based on no insecticide applications, regardless of insect populations; and sprayed / unsprayed trials which included the unsprayed comparisons as well as comparisons where all varieties were sprayed when the conventional variety exceeded the economic threshold. Relatively low tobacco budworm and cotton bollworm infestations caused significantly less damage and resulted in significantly higher yields in the Bollgard and Bollgard II plots as compared to the conventional cotton. No differences were observed between the Bollgard and Bollgard II plots. Beet armyworm per acre averaged across three sites were 389 for Bollgard II, 11,621 for Bollgard and 24,682 for conventional cotton. Bollgard II produced the highest yield at all three locations though the differences were not significantly higher in all cases. Soybean looper larvae numbers and foliage damage was significantly lower for Bollgard II compared to conventional and Bollgard varieties. Yields were significantly higher in Bollgard II versus conventional cotton, but were not significantly higher than Bollgard yields. Bollgard and Bollgard II both provided excellent control of pink bollworms compared to conventional cotton though there were fewer insect infected bolls overall for Bollgard II than for Bollgard. These results show that Bollgard II can provide increased efficacy and consistency of control across a broader spectrum of insects. Yield advantages depend on the insect species present and the level of infestation. Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Beltwide Cotton Conference Volume 2:833-833 (2001) National Cotton Council, Memphis TN


Fast radio bursts offer the opportunity to place new constraints on the mass and density profile of hot and ionized gas in galactic haloes. We test here the X-ray emission and dispersion measure predicted by different gas profiles for the halo of the Milky Way. We examine a range of models, including entropy stability conditions and external pressure continuity. We find that incorporating constraints from X-ray observations leads to favouring dispersion measures on the lower end of the range given by these models. We show that the dispersion measure of the Milky Way halo could be less than 10 cm$^{-3}$ pc in the most extreme model we consider, which is based on constraints from O VII absorption lines. However, the models allowed by the soft X-ray constraints span more than an order of magnitude in dispersion measures. Additional information on the distribution of gas in the Milky Way halo could be obtained from the signature of a dipole in the dispersion measure of fast radio bursts across the sky, but this will be a small effect for most cases.


In the agrarian economy like sub-continent, the land revenue has traditionally remained a major source of revenue collection by the government especially in absence of industrialization. Mughals established the skeleton of the land administration in subcontinent and the colonial regime of Britain later developed muscles on it. Purpose was maximum collection of revenue to bear the expenses of state craft. In order to maximize the potential of wasteland especially in Punjab, the British introduced the most extensive and efficient system of canal irrigation at that time. Huge but hitherto unpopulated and uncultivated tracts of west Punjab now Pakistan were made irrigable by means of digging of a network of canals from Indus River System and by offering lucrative grants of fertile lands to the leading agriculturist classes in east Punjab now India. This scheme opened new vistas for development in plains of five rivers in Punjab and a new socio-economic milieu took birth here by employing the prowess and entrepreneurship of landed gentry from east Punjab. Not only theses engineering and administrative feats changed the demographic profile as well as subsequent socio-economic and political landscape of Punjab but also greatly enhanced the avenues of land revenue collection. Many new taxes, rents, fees and cesses were introduced under the relevant Acts to be collected from the landowners, peasants and tenants as the case might be. The base of the land revenue widened a great deal and the revenue increased tremendously. This phenomenon of canal colonies was awesome and remains so for many till today. However, the subject matter of present study is the efficiency of the revenue administration and its efficacy in collection of land revenue. For that matter, the district Faisalabad has been selected as area of study first because it was at the heart of the Chenab Colony, the biggest canal colony and secondly the researcher worked there in the revenue department at tehsil and district level and directly imbibed information from the environment and came up with multiple observations on its present working.


This paper treats the influences of the W-particle size and the firing temperature on the metallization bonding strength of the W-metallized alumina substrate co-fired in the wet reduced atmosphere. As the result, it has been revealed that there is an optimum firing temperature at which the metallization bonding strength becomes the maximum and that this temperature increases with the increase of the W-particle size.


BAM phosphors were coated with Y(OH)3 by co-precipitation method.The surface morphology and the crystal structure were characterized by SEM and XRD,respectively.The emitting spectra of BAM phosphor particles coated without and with Y(OH)3 were investigated.The results indicated that the surface of BAM phosphors were evenly coated by Y(OH)3 and the crystal structure of the coated BAM phosphors remained the same as the uncoated samples,and also demonstrated that the initial luminance of coated BAM phosphors was lower than the uncoated samples.But after heat treatment under the same condition,the luminance degradation of the coated BAM phosphors was apparently lower than that of the uncoated phosphors.


The precipitation during hot-rolling,normalization and secondary recrystallization annealing in a Hi-B steel containing MnS and AlN as inhibitors was investigated by TEM and SEM.The results show that the distribution of precipitates and their volume fraction changed along the thickness of hot-rolled sheet.The distribution of precipitates in three typical layers,which were the surface layer with completely recrystallized microstructure,the subsurface layer(or transition layer)and the center layer with deformed structure,respectively,was discussed.The normalization process after hot rolling did not change the distribution of precipitates but promoted new fine AlN to appear and kept precipitates in suitable size to exert strong Zener pinning force.The number of inhibitors kept constant and AlN particles were not easy to discompose due to the N2 from protecting atmosphere during secondary recrystalliztion annealing,which led to postpone the onset temperature of secondary recrystallization to 1013℃.


In most differentiated cells, microtubules reorganize into noncentrosomal arrays that are cell-type specific. In the columnar absorptive enterocytes of the intestine, microtubules form polarized apical–basal arrays that have been proposed to play multiple roles. However, in vivo testing of these hypotheses has been hampered by a lack of genetic tools to specifically perturb microtubules. Here we analyze mice in which microtubules are disrupted by conditional inducible expression of the microtubule-severing protein spastin. Spastin overexpression resulted in multiple cellular defects, including aberrations in nuclear and organelle positioning and deficient nutrient transport. However, cell shape, adhesion, and polarity remained intact, and mutant mice continued to thrive. Notably, the phenotypes of microtubule disruption are similar to those induced by microtubule disorganization upon loss of CAMSAP3/Nezha. These data demonstrate that enterocyte microtubules have important roles in organelle organization but are not essential for growth under homeostatic conditions.


Will the perennial bachelor Samuel Pickwick ever marry? Will he travel abroad? Will he die? Will he be mistaken for a lunatic and locked in an asylum? These and other questions remain unanswered by The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Into this narrative void hastened a league of imitating authors, with imitative names such as Bos and Quiz and Poz; they knew the answers and were keen to share them in exchange for shillings and pence. Commentators from Edgar Johnson to John Bowen have identified this Pickwick "mania" or "phenomenon," and diligent Dickensians have produced annotated lists of various plagiaristic publications. (1) Although Dickens himself could complain, in the fiery Nickleby proclamation, of "cheap and wretched imitations of our delectable Works" (781), critical writing on the subject is not extensive. One can find sustained analysis in Louis James and Mary Teresa McGowan, but contemporary readers have generally accepted Dickens's dismissal of the "wretched imitations." Without exonerating their malfeasance (which may be real), I want to argue that early imitations of The Pickwick Papers can be illuminating--and strange. Anonymous, hackneyed and cheap publications such as Posthumous Papers of the Cadgers' Club and Pickwick in America will each offer a reading of Dickens's text. Despite the title appended above, plagiarism is in some ways an imperfect description of the Pickwickian excrescences, which flourished from 1837 to 1842 and range from novel-length sequels to aborted serial publications to songbooks, jest books and theatrical adaptations. (2) According to the OED, plagiary derives from plagiarius, a kidnapper, someone who abducts children or slaves. Dickens certainly may have experienced a paternal pang at the loss of his intellectual progeny, but Peter Shaw further defines plagiarism as "the art of using the work of another with the intent to deceive" (327). It is not clear the degree to which deception was intended in works that are Pickwick-branded. Many Pickwickian spinoffs are forthright about their imitative status. In the incomplete Droll Discussions and Queer Proceedings of the Magnum-Fundum Club (1838), the narrator admits that "the glorious achievements which 'Boz' has recorded of the Pickwickians, gave rise to the foundation of the Magnum-Fundum Club" (2). Of course, lax nineteenth-century copyright laws made such creative intervention possible. By today's standards, some of the more enthusiastic Pickwick-inspired works might be read as forms of fan fiction. A tension emerges between two views of a literary text. D. F. McKenzie explains that in the first view, a text is "authorially sanctioned, contained, and historically definable"; according to the second view, a text is "always incomplete, and therefore open, unstable, subject to perpetual re-making by its readers, performers, or audience" (45). Writing The Pickwick Papers, Dickens perhaps imagined that he was composing text No. 1, but the Pickwickian successors decided that his book was, in fact, No. 2. Rather than compel the imitations of Pickwick into an existing category (such as plagiarism or fan fiction), one might consider this unwieldy batch as "prostheses"--artificial extensions to the Pickwick corpus. (3) Pickwick prostheses make available aspects of the original that are omitted, muted, implied, curtailed, forgotten, repressed, or secreted to distant corners. They interpret and interpenetrate with The Pickwick Papers and stand, alongside reviews and newspaper extracts, among the earliest and most vivid responses to Dickens's text. Two categories emerge: works that retain the Pickwickian innocence and those that draw on darker, hidden energies and discover instances of anti-Semitism, racism and sexual desire. By way of introduction, it will help to foreground a specimen from the field, one that is emblematic of the Pickwick prostheses. The Penny Pickwick, by "Bos," may or may not be the best of the lot, but it is certainly the longest; it was published weekly, from 1837 to 1839, and was gathered into twenty-eight monthly parts. …


: In the presence of manganese chloride (10%), Grignard reagents readily react in THF with aryl bromides, chlorides and even fluorides, as well as aryl methyl ethers bearing in the ortho - or para -position an electron withdrawing activating group (CN, CH=NR, oxazoline). Aryl and N-or S -alkylmagnesium halides have been used successfully. The reaction is performed under mild conditions (0 °C to room temperature, 30 minutes to 24 hours) and leads to cross-coupling products in good yields.


Internationalisation of domestic capital is decomposed into four distinct processes. As a result, it is possible to show that, from a national perspective, increased internationalisation and deinternationalisation of the national economy may occur at the same time. A brief historical analysis of internationalisation processes in the electronics industry also reveals that extensive phases are followed by intensive phases of reorganisation of capital. These are more 'political' in nature and do not follow the pattern of typical 'market forces'. Basic concepts such as power and dependency structure are more suitable to the analysis of these phases. This is illustrated by the case of Philips, an international electrotechnical company. Part of the movement of Philips capital is determined by comparative costs advantages and export substitution; in particular, the movement towards Third World countries. An increasing part of its capital is flowing, however, towards countries in the core of the world economy, with larger (state) markets. This second movement can be understood as a strategic response to the increased dependency of multinational firms upon economic 'backing' powers of the state. As a result, employment in multinational firms, located in small industrialised countries like the Netherlands, is squeezed between these two capital movements. A quantitative analysis of the changing distribution of jobs within Philips worldwide is introduced to illustrate these issues. The data also show that a dual process is not only typical for small core countries, but also for large industrialising countries in the periphery. This, however, has been observed before, and it has played a role in modern theories of 'imperialism', like that of Galtung. In view of the present analysis, however, this theory should be refined: workers in small core countries have more interests in common with workers in some Third World countries than predicted by Galtung's theory.


Hitherto, dynamic hemodynamic indicators based on "heart-lung interactions" are the gold standard for guiding fluid resuscitation, but such indicators often were obtained by invasive monitoring and complexity process. In recent years, with the emergence of non-invasive methods such as continuous non-invasive arterial pressure (CNAP), hemodynamic monitoring system and ultrasound mon-itoring system were used in clinic, new prospects for the application of heart-lung interactions indicators for volume therapy were opened up. This review describes the dynamic hemodynamics indicators based on "heart-lung interactions" measured by CNAP system and ultra-sound monitoring for estimating the volume responsiveness. Application of both methods has certain debate. Non-invasive monitoring for assessing volume responsiveness is the trend of clinical fluid therapy. However, it is not currently recommended to use a non-invasive method to guide fluid therapy because its application conditions are limited. But it can be used as a supplement of invasive monitoring to help doctors perform proper fluid management and reduce adverse events.

Key words:
Heart-lung interactions; Ultrasound; Continuous non-invasive arterial pressure; Fluid responsiveness


We consider new methods to select useful sets of ratio features in hyperspectral data to detect contaminant regions on chicken carcasses using data provided by ARS (Athens, GA). A ratio feature is the ratio of the response at each pixel for two different wavebands. Ratio features perform a type of normalization and can thus help reduce false alarms, if a good normalization algorithm is not available. Thus, they are of interest. We present a new algorithm for the general problem of such feature selection in high-dimensional data. The four contaminant types of interest are three types of feces from different gastrointestinal regions (duodenum, ceca, and colon) and ingesta (undigested food) from the gizzard. To select the best two sets of ratio features from this 492-band HS data requires an exhaustive search of more than seven billion combinations of two sets of ratio features, which is very excessive. Thus, we propose our new fast ratio feature selection algorithm that requires evaluation of a much fewer number of sets of ratio features and is capable of giving quasi-optimal or optimal sets of ratio features. This new feature selection method has not been previously presented. It is shown to offer promise for an excellent detection rate and a low false alarm rate for this application. Our tests use data with different feed types and different contaminant types.


FIELD: chemistry. SUBSTANCE: object of the present invention is a method of producing difluoroacetic acid and salts thereof. The invention also relates to obtaining an acyl fluoride of difluoroacetic acid which is used as an intermediate product in production of difluoroacetic acid and salt thereof. EFFECT: method of producing difluoroacetic acid according to the invention is characterised by that it includes a step of preparing an acyl fluoride of difluoroacetic acid by reacting an acyl chloride of dichloroacetic acid with hydrofluoric acid in a gaseous phase and in the presence of a chromium-based catalyst, followed by a step of hydrolysing the obtained acyl fluoride of difluoroacetic acid. 18 cl, 9 ex


Among the five major basilicas built in Voskopoje over a period of 60 years (1699-1759), the church of St. Nicholas is known as one of the most magnificent buildings of this style. With its construction it is opened the series of three basilicas which were built within four years (St. Nicholas -1721, -1722 St. Michael and St. Thanas-1724). The church was the main church (temple) of St Nicholas neighborhood. According to its ktitoric inscription, the church was built mainly by the Arcond Haji Jorgji Hira's costs within a period of 17 months from June 1721 to September 1722. Keywords: Basilica, church, saints, salvation, icons, temple, etc.


Feedback can considerably simplify the task of approaching and achieving the performance limits predicted by information theory. This paper determines some of the potential offered by feedback in a typical sensor network situation that could be termed monitoring: the task is to monitor an underlying physical reality at the highest possible fidelity. Since the sensed signals are often analog, and the communication channels noisy, it will not generally be possible to exactly communicate the sensed signals. Rather, such sensor network scenarios involve both a compression and a communication problem. It is well known that in general, these two tasks must be addressed jointly for optimal performance, but optimal performance is generally unknown. Instead, this paper focuses on the scaling behavior of performance, i.e., its dependence on the number of nodes in the network. For a Gaussian sensor network situation, where the goal of the data collector is to estimate the underlying sources to within mean-squared error distortion, we determine an explicit lower bound to the achievable distortion as a function of the number of sources, sensors, and base stations, as well as the sensor transmit power and the bandwidth of the communication channel. Our lower bound allows for feedback, and for arbitrary collaboration between the sensors. We then argue that a simple amplify-and-forward strategy achieves the optimum scaling law for a class of sensor networks, as long as the (spatio-temporal) source bandwidth is equal to the (spatio-temporal) channel bandwidth, leaving no scaling-law relevant role for feedback. When the channel bandwidth is larger than the source bandwidth, such a simple strategy is no longer sufficient to exploit the additional resources. In this paper, we analyze a simple feedback coding strategy for the sensors that permits to match the source bandwidth to the channel bandwidth whenever the latter is larger. We establish that this strategy exploits the additional channel bandwidth optimally in the scaling sense.


We propose to study high-energy neutrino intersections in the NAL 30 m{sup 3} bubble chamber. A slight alteration of the chamber design will allow a large-solid-angle quantameter to be placed just outside the thin (1/2 inch steel) wall of the bubble chamber. A detector, designed to identify the muon of the interaction is placed outside the vacuum tank. With this hybrid system they can reconstruct the neutrino's energy, the lepton momentum transfer squared, Q{sup 2}, the lepton energy transfer and measure many features of the final hadron state. This system detects with high efficiency over the entire range of variables and is well suited to making a detailed general survey of neutrino interactions in the neutrino energy range 15 to 80 GeV. A million-picture exposure would yield tens of thousands of neutrino interactions with circulating protons at 200 GeV. A similar number of events should be obtained with protons at 500 GeV.


In this paper, charging processes of dust grains immersed in plasma are analysed.A set of self-consistent three-fluids equations are given for dust plasma. From theseequations, fluctuation of charge on dust gtaln is studied and dispersion relations arederived for electrostatic waves in a unmagnihzed dust plasma. The influence of chargefluctuation on electrostatic waves is discussed for space dust plasma


Recent research has studied animated, light-emitting diode (LED) signal heads used to prompt pedestrians to look for oncoming vehicles. An animated LED "Eyes" sign for drivers is also used as an application of ITS to improve pedestrian safety by notifying drivers of crossing pedestrians. Studies have shown significant pedestrian safety benefits from this innovative treatment by increasing pedestrian traffic awareness and reducing conflicts. This paper describes the application of LED animated pedestrian eyes and treatments for a pedestrian safety project along SR 99 in Shoreline, Washington. The pedestrian treatments included special advance yield bars and walkway striping. The paper outlines the project background, design challenges, effectiveness and equipment for the 2 animated LED Eyes pedestrian signals and driver signs, as well as summarizing safety benefits and cost savings for using the animated LED Eyes pedestrian signals.


ABSTRACT Liquid crystals (LCs) doped with photo-sensitive materials exhibit large optical nonlinearity, which makes them attractive for holographic display. In this paper, we present a 3D holographic display based on a nematic LC doped with quantum dots (QDs). With this QD-doped LC, a fast response time of 8.46 ms is achieved. Using this fast-updated recording material, a video-rate 3D holographic display system is implemented, which provides vivid RGB colours and high brightness, and offers all depth cues correctly. In combination with optical multiplexing techniques, the presented system is capable of realising large-sized holographic display. Graphical Abstract


The main intention of this specific study is to develop an electricity demand projection for Electric Vehicles (EV) in Turkey for the period 2012-2035. For that purpose , electricity demand forecasting for transport sector till end year 2035 has been carried out by taking into considerations of official projections, and energy infrastructure improvement expectations as well as the sector based growth and development expectancies. Results of a survey for end user perceptions towards electric vehicles have also been adopted as input data in the model.


Using two-stage survey data and some technological indexes of natural forest protection engineering,and combining with the software of ViewGIS 3.0,the management system of GIS is set up of natural forest protection engineering which combined GIS technology with natural forest protection engineering,and thus provide a high-tech approach for the scientific and reasonable planning and designation and management of natural forest protection engineering.


PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a string-shaped article for an industrial material, having sufficient strength and dimensional stability, and excellent light stability. SOLUTION: The string-shaped article for the industrial material comprises a polyethylene naphthalate fiber. The polyethylene naphthalate fiber has 100-200 nm 3 of a crystal volume obtained by X-ray wide-angle diffraction of the polyethylene naphthalate fiber, and 30-60% of crystallinity. Preferably, the polyethylene naphthalate fiber contains phosphorus atoms of 0.1-300 mmol% based on the ethylene naphthalate unit, or a metal element. The metal element is preferably one or more kinds of the metal elements selected from the group consisting of group 3-12 metal elements in forth and fifth periods in the periodic table, and Mg, and the strength is preferably 6-11 cN/dtex. COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT


Modeling and analysis techniques are used to investigate the performance of a massively parallel version of DIRECT, a global search algorithm widely used in multidisciplinary design optimization applications. Several high-dimensional benchmark functions and real world problems are used to test the design effectiveness under various problem structures. Theoretical and experimental results are compared for two parallel clusters with different system scales and network connectivities. The present work aims at studying the performance sensitivity to important parameters for problem configurations, parallel schemes, and system settings. The performance metrics include the memory usage, load balancing, parallel efficiency, and scalability. An analytical bounding model is constructed to measure the load balancing performance under different schemes. Additionally, linear regression models are used to characterize two major overhead sources, interprocessor communication and processor idleness, and also applied to the isoefficiency functions in scalability analysis. For a variety of high-dimensional problems and large-scale systems, the massively parallel design has achieved reasonable performance. The results of the performance study provide guidance for efficient problem and scheme configuration. More importantly, the generalized design considerations and analysis techniques are beneficial for transforming many global search algorithms into effective large-scale parallel optimization tools.


Figure 8 (Left) Complex window to be modeled (Right) Familiarize yourself with the layers of space to be modeled – here yellow represents the farthest plane (the glass) and orange represents the closest plane (the wall in which the window is set) DIVIDE INTO SUB-SELECTIONS IF NESSCEARY 3. It may be useful to divide the point cloud into sub-selections based on their depth in space or on separate areas to model – Rotate the object to view it from the side or top view -> fence the area to be subselected -> RC -> Point Cloud Subselection -> Add Inside Fence Geospatial Modeling & Visualization A Method Store for Advanced Survey and Modeling Technologies


The new possibilities offered by 5G and beyond networks have led to a change in the focus of congestion control from capacity maximization for web browsing and file transfer to latency-sensitive interactive and real-time services, and consequently to a renaissance of research on the subject, whose most well-known result is Google's Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip propagation time (BBR) algorithm. BBR's promise is to operate at the optimal working point of a connection, with the minimum Round Trip Time (RTT) and full capacity utilization, striking the balance between resource use efficiency and latency performance. However, while it provides significant performance improvements over legacy mechanisms such as Cubic, it can significantly overestimate the capacity of fast-varying mobile connections, leading to unreliable service and large potential swings in the RTT. Our BBR-S algorithm replaces the max filter that causes this overestimation issue with an Adaptive Tobit Kalman Filter (ATKF), an innovation on the Kalman filter that can deal with unknown noise statistics and saturated measurements, achieving a 40% reduction in the average RTT over BBR, which increases to 60% when considering worst-case latency, while maintaining over 95% of the throughput in 4G and 5G networks.


The hydrolytic dissolution of some Zr-bearing minerals has been measured in aqueous KCl and KF solutions. Depending on the mineral being investigated, Zr concentrations varied from about 9 ppb to nearly 40 ppm in equilibrated solutions; this validates the notion of Zr mobility in some crustal fluids. At 50 C, {Delta}{sub f}G were determined (using the measured solubility products) for Na catapleiite, elpidite, vlasovite and weloganite to be {minus}4,654.2 {+-} 5.6, {minus}7,391.0 {+-} 11.6, {minus}5,181.0 {+-} 7.3 and {minus}7,130.5 {+-} 1.0 kJ/mol, respectively. Calculated phase relationships among the zirconosilicates found at the Strange Lake peralkaline complex indicate that elpidite and gittinsite cannot coexist stably implying a two-stage hydrothermal mineralization process. The relative stability of Zr-bearing minerals and the aqueous geochemistry of Zr has been attracting some recent interest owing to their relevance to the problem of radioactive waste management, hydrothermal Zr mineralization, the geochemical cycle of zirconium and the role of zirconium as a strategic metal.


Descending Through Drums is an interpretive field study of two traditional religious groups called Brekete and Yeve. Based on four weeks of field research in Ghana, with the majority of time spent in the coastal villages of the southeastern Volta Region. Through specific experiences, the research aims at explaining the rituals of the two religions, the music, and the functions of the cults; and how they might explain the phenomenon of spirit medium-ship and possession.


A number of indices are currently used by ecologists to measure the similarity or difference between community samples. Nearly all are symmetrical, in that the degree of similarity is equal for both parties being compared. There are situations, however, where an asymmetrical measure is more appropriate, most notably in studies of dispersal and its effects. I propose 2 variants of a potentially useful asymmetrical similarity index for use in such circumstances. In most respects, they are well behaved, reflecting the similarity and nestedness of samples, while being relatively insensitive to sample size and species diversity. They are also simple to compute and intuitively meaningful. Nonetheless, they provide anomalous results in cases where one plot contains a nested subset of the commonest species of another. I welcome suggestions for a better asymmetric index of similarity.


The modernity implies two connotations of social and literary levels.We stern Linterary modernity has two extremely clear stages while Chi nes Literary modernity has not such c lear stages .