BACKGROUND
Ants can become efficient biocontrol agents in plantation crops as they prey on pest insects and may inhibit plant pathogens by excreting broad-spectrum antibiotics. However, ants also provide a disservice by augmenting attended honeydew producing homopterans. This disservice may be avoided by offering ants artificial sugar as an alternative to honeydew. Here we tested the effect of artificial sugar feeding on aphid abundance in an apple plot with wood ants (Formica polyctena, Förster), and we tested the effect of ant presence on apple scab (Venturia inaequalis, Cooke) disease incidence.

RESULTS
Over a two-year period, sugar feeding eliminated ant attended aphid populations on the apple trees. Furthermore, scab symptoms on both leaves and apples were reduced considerably on ant trees compared to control trees without ants. The presence of ants on the trees reduced leaf scab infections with 34%, whereas spot numbers on fruits were reduced with between 53 and 81%, depending on apple variety. In addition, the spots were 56% smaller.

CONCLUSION
This shows that problems with wood ant-attended homopterans can be solved and that ants can control both insect pests and plant pathogens. We therefore propose wood ants as a new effective biocontrol agent suitable for implementation in apple orchards and possibly other plantation crops. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Objectives To describe a trend in emergency department (ED) use by homeless children and young adults before and after a state housing policy change in 2012 and to quantify financial and time costs to the health care system. Methods We retrospectively reviewed de-identified electronic medical records of homeless children and young adults aged 0 to 21 years seeking shelter at an urban tertiary pediatric ED in Boston, Massachusetts, between September 1, 2011, and August 31, 2016. Results We identified 1078 visits for homelessness by 916 children and young adults. The median number of visits per month increased from 3 before the policy change to 17 after (P < .001). The total hospital charges were $578 351, with a net payment of $214 231, 97% paid by Medicaid. The average length of stay was 8 hours, totaling more than 8500 hours of occupancy. Conclusions The number of homeless children and young adults who visited a pediatric ED increased significantly following a housing policy change, leading to substantial resource burdens on the ED and Medicaid. Public Health Implications Policymakers should consider potential health care costs when designing housing policies and consider investing in housing to prevent unnecessary ED visits.


Tensor-based estimation has been of particular interest of the scientific community for several years now. While showing promising results on system estimation and other tasks, one big downside is the tremendous amount of computational power and memory required – especially during training – to achieve satisfactory performance. We present a novel framework for different classes of nonlinear systems, that allows to significantly reduce the complexity by introducing a least-mean-squares block before, after, or between tensors to reduce the necessary dimensions and rank required to model a given system. Our simulations show promising results that outperform traditional tensor models, and achieve equal performance to comparable algorithms for all problems considered while requiring significantly less operations per time step than either of the state-of-the-art architectures.


One-dimensional nanostructures exhibit interesting electronic and optical properties due to their low dimensionality leading to quantum confinement effects. ZnO has received lot of attention as a nanostructured material because of unique properties rendering it suitable for various applications. In this paper, ZnO nanowires are synthesized in large quantity through thermal oxidation of brass (Cu0.7Zn0.3 alloy). The epitaxial relationship between the brass substrates and ZnO layer and the epitaxial relationship between the ZnO nanowire and ZnO layer have been examined.


As pediatric anesthesiologists, it is unusual in these days of complex technology and advances in genetic research to find ourselves presented with conflicting information and continued controversy regarding anesthesia plans for a particular group of children. This still occurs, however, when presented with the task of determining the best management for the child with an undiagnosed myopathy (1‐6). Drs Flick et al. (1) in this issue of Pediatric Anesthesia have taken their 13 years of experience to help guide the thought processes for this population of children. The authors reviewed the charts of all children who had undergone muscle biopsies to rule out suspected neuromuscular disorders (NMD). All of the children received volatile anesthetic agents with or without succinylcholine and no child in the review of 274 charts developed malignant hyperthermia (MH) or rhabdomyolysis from the delivered anesthetic. Seven of the patients had biopsies consistent with muscular dystrophy and three consistent with mitochondrial disorder. Although the results of this review should be comforting, no child in their population was subsequently diagnosed with Evans myopathy, King syndrome or central core disease, the only known disorders that are truly associated with malignant hyperthermia (7). Any of these diagnoses would have certainly changed the results, but not the conclusion. Appropriately, Flick et al., rather than assigning a risk of zero based on their findings, have estimated the risk of a patient with NMD to have MH or rhabdomyolysis from exposure to a volatile anesthetic at less than or equal to 1.09%. This is in comparison with the 0.46% risk in an MH-susceptible child of developing an episode of malignant hyperthermia after nontriggering anesthesia (6).


The lymph nodes participating in the lymphatic system of the lung in rodentia were the superior anterior mediastinal lymph node (SAM), superior tracheobronchial lymph node (STB), paraesophageal lymph node (PES, hamster, rat: inconstant), and aortic arch lymph node (AOA, hamster: inconstant). Three lymphatic drainage patterns were observed in the present study, the ipsilateral pathway, the crossing pathway, and the direct pathway to the thoracic duct (TD) via the lateral or medial group of SAM and the AOA. Ipsilateral


The objectives of this study were 1) to evaluate the agronomic traits and yield through multiple environments; 2) analyse the behaviour of the varieties through multiple characters; 3) determine the stability of yield; and 4) selecting varieties based on multiple characters and yield stability. An evaluation of 24 varieties was conducted of blue maize landrace Chalqueno and white grain hybrid H-139 as a control, in six locations in the Central Highlands of Mexico. The experiments were established under an experimental design of randomized complete block with four replications. Significant differences (p≤ 0.001) were recorded between locations, varieties and in the varieties x locations interaction for days to male and female flowering, interval of male-female flowering, plant height, flattened plant, pods per plant and yield. Among localities grain yield ranged from 3.7 to 6.7 t ha -1, the proportion of ears per plant was from 0.59 to 0.86 and the days to male flowering of 82.9 to 107.6 days, the highest values corresponded to localities at 2 400 m elevation. Among varieties yield ranged from 4.7 to 6.4 t ha -1 , the control H-139 yielded 6.5 t ha -1 , the proportion of ears per plant ranged from 0.6 to 0.8 and male flowering 90 to 102 days. The analysis of the varieties through multiple characters, detected the


Gastroesophageal variceal bleeding in patients with cirrhosis is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, as well as a high rebleeding risk. Limited data are available on the role of transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) with covered stents in patients receiving standard endoscopic, vasoactive, and antibiotic treatment. In this multicenter randomized trial, long‐term endoscopic variceal ligation (EVL) or glue injection + β‐blocker treatment was compared with TIPS placement in 72 patients with a first or second episode of gastric and/or esophageal variceal bleeding, after hemodynamic stabilization upon endoscopic, vasoactive, and antibiotic treatment. Randomization was stratified according to Child‐Pugh score. Kaplan‐Meier (event‐free) survival estimates were used for the endpoints rebleeding, death, treatment failure, and hepatic encephalopathy. During a median follow‐up of 23 months, 10 (29%) of 35 patients in the endoscopy + β‐blocker group, as compared to 0 of 37 (0%) patients in the TIPS group, developed variceal rebleeding (P = 0.001). Mortality (TIPS 32% vs. endoscopy 26%; P = 0.418) and treatment failure (TIPS 38% vs. endoscopy 34%; P = 0.685) did not differ between groups. Early hepatic encephalopathy (within 1 year) was significantly more frequent in the TIPS group (35% vs. 14%; P = 0.035), but during long‐term follow‐up this difference diminished (38% vs. 23%; P = 0.121). Conclusions: In unselected patients with cirrhosis, who underwent successful endoscopic hemostasis for variceal bleeding, covered TIPS was superior to EVL + β‐blocker for reduction of variceal rebleeding, but did not improve survival. TIPS was associated with higher rates of early hepatic encephalopathy. (Hepatology 2016;63:581–589)


This paper describes the development of an adaptive control scheme for automated laser fusion welding applications, based on a software module capable of quickly recognizing weld cavity features indicated by sensor data without need for computation. Sensor data arrives to system in a high bandwidth stream, necessitating a quick recognition method in order to attain real time control. The method achieves speed through rigorous offline work within the actual system development. An iterative training procedure is exeuted in order to produce a software module capable of reliably recognizing prescribed weld puddle conditions within complex sensor data. The system is trained to mimic the classifications made by a metallurgical engineer between infrared sensor status and defect presence. Research will thereby attempt to automate existing metallurgical engineering knowledge relating causal relationships between particular states of sensor parameters and a limited set of defect types. The ability of these relationships to support a viable industrial control scheme will be assessed. Also, the required performance (speed, reliability) of the controllers primary component (the neural network) will be assessed. Research leaves the development of a computed reaction to such assessed condition to other research (some of which has been performed earlier at IITRI)


In an era that is very spoiled by this technology, all entrepreneurs in the digital and non-digital fields are competing to make their best products that attract the hearts of their consumers. Apart from things that are beneficial to a company, every individual has a desire to share in their daily life, but sometimes they are confused about how to channel it. One of the things people want to do is share the food they have because they have too much food at home and it has to be eaten quickly because it doesn't last long when stored. It is presented simple problems that mostly customer often encounter in everyday life, which the target market is chosen by crowdsourcing apps with social media users and search engine users. This study aims to compare how many people find out about a new application through their search engine and how many people can be influenced by advertisements on social media and are interested in finding out about the relevant information.


Tone-mapping technology aims to transform high dynamic range (HDR) images into standard dynamic range images for visualizing on standard screens. However, various visual artifacts will inevitably be induced during the tone-mapping process. To quantify the visual quality degradation for tone-mapped images (TMIs) accurately and automatically, a robust blind TMI quality measurement method is developed by the analysis of low-level and high-level perceptual characteristics. Specifically, for low-level visual features, considering that the tone-mapping operator is prone to destroy the local image contrast, which conveys vital structural information, we resort to the joint statistical features based on gradient map and Laplacian of Gaussian response to portray the local image contrast variation in TMIs. In addition, chromatic local binary pattern (CLBP) is leveraged to measure the colorfulness degradation over four chromatic descriptor maps. For high-level quality-aware features, deep-learned features are utilized by a pretrained convolutional neural network to characterize the semantics variation. Finally, the extracted low-level and high-level features are combined and mapped into an overall quality score by regression function. Extensive experiments show that our metric achieves a higher performance over two publicly available TMI benchmark databases.


Ion potential diagrams can facilitate the description of systems in which ionic species are mobile. They depict qualitatively the spatial dependence of the potential energy for mobile ions, somewhat akin to band diagrams for electrons. The authors construct ion potential diagrams for the mixed conducting (oxide), optically active electrodes of five-layer electrochromic devices, based on reversible Li{sup +} intercalation. These serve to analyze stability problems that arise in these systems. The authors then use them as building blocks to arrive at ion diagrams for complete devices. This allows analyses of (dis)coloration kinetics.


This report on the attitudes of probation officers is the result of a policy research project conducted in 1988-1989 under grants from the Texas Adult Probation Commission and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation. The research was designed to inform continuing education efforts aimed at probation officers. Furthermore, it explores the attitudes of probation officers toward the use of probation and other alternatives to incarceration. This report presents the results of interviews with a statewide sample of probation officers. The analysis of the interview material is presented in the first chapter of the report. The remaining chapters present material on special topics related to alternatives to incarceration.


The present paper on wave-impact events in depressurized environments completes the analysis of Part I by focusing on the dynamical features of the impacts and on the influence of the ambient pressure. Connection is made between the impact regimes typically described in the literature and the stages described in Part I [C. Lugni, M. Miozzi, M. Brocchini, and O. M. Faltinsen, "Evolution of the air cavity during a depressurized wave impact. I. The kinematic flow field," Phys. Fluids 22, 056101 (2010)]. The stages of isotropic/anisotropic compression and expansion of the air cavity are of particular interest. The impact duration at the wall is almost independent of its height above the undisturbed surface level, but its intensity rapidly decreases in the body of the fluid (the peak pressure halves within the first two compression/expansion cycles). The time evolution of the pressure loads on the wall is analyzed by means of the Hilbert transform and an empirical mode decomposition of the signals. This enable...


At FNAL bench measurements of the longitudinal impedance of various beamline components have been performed using stretched wire methods. The basic approach is to use a network analyzer (NWA) to measure the transmission and reflection characteristics (s-parameters) of the beam line component. It is then possible to recover the effective longitudinal impedance from the s-parameters. Several NWA calibration procedures have been implemented in an effort to improve the accuracy of these measurements. These procedures are mathematical techniques for extracting the s-parameters of a test device from external NWA measurements which include the effect of measurement fixtures. The TRL algorithm has proven to be the most effective of these techniques. This method has the advantage of properly accounting for the nonideal calibration standards used in the NWA measurements.


The purpose of this work is to study the processes of static tension deformation and fracture of nitrided sheet samples of 08Kh17T (type AISI 439) and 15Kh25T (type AISI 446) steels using the acoustic emission method. The nitriding was performed with pure nitrogen, at T = 1000-1100°C. Nitriding followed by annealing at 675oC leads to the formation of the nitrogen ferrite structure with the Cr2N type precipitation and decreasing of the grain size across the full cross-section of both steel specimens. In spite of the significant strengthening, the nitrided specimens fail mostly by the ductile or quasi-ductile mechanism. The number of the brittle fracture elements in the fractures of the 15Kh25T steel is higher than in the 08Kh17T steel. Crack nucleation on large particles is a cause of the plastic flow stability loss in 15Kh25T steel in the nitrided state.


Since arriving at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in 1973, I have been involved in projects related to various facets of Alaskan public policy. I have engaged in policy-related research and applied work in Alaska ill the following sequence; in 1975, on contract to the United States Department of the Interior to prepare the draft Environmental Impact Statement on human and cultural resources for an oil lease sale in the Gulf of Alaska; in 1976, as a consultant to the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights; in 1979, as faculty advisor and project designer of a National Science Foundation funded research project which attempted to analyze the adaptations of elderly Native Alaskans to the urban Alaskan environment; in 1980, as an expert witness on behalf of an Alaskan Eskimo village corporation in a legal suit concerning water rights. None of these endeavors involved working through so many different layers and kinds of public and private agencies as has the study of "displaced" Alaskan youth discussed ...


The assessment of ventilation distribution is an im por tant clinical parameter for many respiratory dis or ders. It yields additional information compared to pulmonary function tests, as morphological changes and regional distribution of disease can be vi su al ized. Furthermore, dynamic assessment using paired inspiratory and expiratory imaging is capable of pre dict ing lung function. Thus, ventilation computed tomography (CT) aims to determine the distribution of inspired air in a quantitative, time-resolved and regional fashion. The amount of air in the distal airways will result in changes in density, allowing quantifi cation of air distribution on a regional basis and the assessment of small airway diseases as in spired air becomes trapped at expiration. It is this additional information that makes imaging of ven ti la tion distribution so valuable. Computed tomography (CT) is the current work-horse of clinical radiology and is described more ex ten sive ly in Chap. 3–6. Ventilation CT has benefi ted from the introduction of the slip-ring technology, which made it feasible to speed up the 7.2 CT for Assessment of Ventilation Distribution


The practice of the cultivation of doctors' specialized ability during medical microbiology teaching for undergraduates has been conducted.In accordance with the medical licensing examination,the teaching outline of medical microbiology has been modified.The teaching techniques and examination standard have been reformed.This reform is a high-efficiency teaching procedure in medical microbiology.


Background: Leukocytes present in the airways play very crucial role in the manifestation of obstructive airway disease (OADs). Although some studies have evaluated associations between spirometric variables and sputum leukocyte profile in OADs, association between sputum leukocytes, lung volumes and airway conductance has not been studied extensively. Methods: Among 20 healthy (mean age 63.1±6.7 years), 19 asthmatics (56.4±13.5 years) and 29 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (66.3±6.6 years), we measured lung volumes and capacities using spirometry and body plethysmography and quantified leukocytes from induced sputum. We compared the differences lung function variables and sputum cell counts using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and also performed Pearson9s correlation to test the association between sputum leukocyte profile and lung function variables. Results: Specific airway conductance (sGaw) was found significantly reduced (p Conclusion: Poor airway conductance is an important pathophysiological condition in COPD and, which is manifested by increased infiltration of neutrophils in the airways.


Medical manipulators as well as some clinical applications are given. At the end some prospects and further developments are discussed.


We improve the efficiency of Sampath's diagnoser approach by exploiting compact symbolic representations of the system and diagnoser in terms of binary decision diagrams. We present an algorithm for synthesising the symbolic diagnoser with promising results on test cases derived from a telecommunication application.


This monograph offers a series of questions which are intended to serve as a framework for investigating the status of arts education programs within elementary and secondary schools. It is intended as an aid to parents, educators, and other interested citizens as they evaluate and/or seek to improve arts education programs. The questions are accompanied by comments which serve as general guides to the kinds of answers one might expect and to areas in which additional information might be elicited. The docurient is presented in 11 major sections. Section one characterizes the type of individual for whom the self-assessment questions are particularly relevant: These individuals include parents of artistically gifted children, parents of students with special needs, representatives of Joni cultural organizations, civic leaders, and a member of a board of education faced with budget cuts. Sections two through ten are organized around the following questions: "Is there a formal school board policy or set of goals concerning the arts?" "How are the arts reflected in the school budget?" "How strong is the arts program in the, elementary and secondary schools?" "ArE there arts programs for students with special needs and interests?" "How are the arts integrated into the regular academic program?" "Does the district provide staff inservice programs in the arts?" "Do school arts programs involve the community?" and "Does the district have a comprehensive program in the arts?" The final section offers a check list for evaluating an arts program. These include faculty r expressions cf hope for program improvement, parental input, the amount of staff development throughout the district, atd the degree cf commitment to the arts among school board members and principals.


An oblivious subspace embedding (OSE), characterized by parameters $m,n,d,\epsilon,\delta$, is a random matrix $\Pi\in \mathbb{R}^{m\times n}$ such that for any $d$-dimensional subspace $T\subseteq \mathbb{R}^n$, $\Pr_\Pi[\forall x\in T, (1-\epsilon)\|x\|_2 \leq \|\Pi x\|_2\leq (1+\epsilon)\|x\|_2] \geq 1-\delta$. When an OSE has $s\le 1/2.001\epsilon$ nonzero entries in each column, we show it must hold that $m = \Omega\left(d^2/( \epsilon^2s^{1+O(\delta)})\right)$, which is the first lower bound with multiplicative factors of $d^2$ and $1/\epsilon$, improving on the previous $\Omega\left(d^2/s^{O(\delta)}\right)$ lower bound due to Li and Liu (PODS 2022). When an OSE has $s=\Omega(\log(1/\epsilon)/\epsilon)$ nonzero entries in each column, we show it must hold that $m = \Omega\left((d/\epsilon)^{1+1/4.001\epsilon s}/s^{O(\delta)}\right)$, which is the first lower bound with multiplicative factors of $d$ and $1/\epsilon$, improving on the previous $\Omega\left(d^{1+1/(16\epsilon s+4)}\right)$ lower bound due to Nelson and Nguyen (ICALP 2014). This second result is a special case of a more general trade-off among $d,\epsilon,s,\delta$ and $m$.


The Purpose of the study is to introduce a new type of dual-core concepts, mainly a dual concept, to build a hierarchy of all possible dual-core concepts, and to reveal the peculiarities of forming author's concepts within the theory of text worlds. The method of cognitive-hermeneutic analysis was implemented along with scheming as a result of study. Main findings: peculiarities of using author's dual concepts within the theory of text worlds. Applications of this study: the results can be useв in teaching cognitive linguistics, writing course papers qualification works and in conducting further research. Novelty of this study: author's dual concepts within the theory of text worlds were studied for the first time.


Environment-friendly and surfactant-free aqueous cleaning agents have been developed in order to solve various pro- blems generated by surfactants in the aqueous cleaning agents. Aqueous surfactant-free cleaning agents, S-1 and S-2 have been for- mulated with water-soluble solvents such as propylene glycol and propylene glycol ether on their main components and with some additives. These solvents were chosen because of their good solubility in water and excellent solubility of fluxes which are major contaminants of printed circuit board in the electronic industry. Physical properties of the formulated and the imported cleaning agents were measured to predict their cleaning performance, and their cleaning abilities of flux and solder contaminants were evaluated under the various ultrasonic frequencies by a gravimetric method. The measurement results show that the physical properties of clea- ning agent V are generally similar with those of formulated cleaning agents S-1 and S-2. Both the cleaning agent V and the formulated


Although designed by his father, it was the son Washington Roebling who was the chief engineer that saw through to its conclusion the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.


OBJECTIVE To investigate into the effect of electrical acupuncture at Neiguan and the injection of P matter at locus ceruleus area on plasma endothelins of rabbits with acute myocardial ischemia. METHOD With plasma endothelins as the index, observations were made on animal models with myocardial ischemia caused by ligation of coronary arteries to detect the effect of electrical acupuncture at Neiguan and injection of P matter and its antagonist at locus ceruleus area on the recovery process of acute myocardial ischemia. RESULT Electrical acupuncture at Neiguan and injection of P matter at locus ceruleus area could inhibit the abnormal increase of plasma endothelins after the occurrence of acute myocardial ischemia, but the two methods did not have the synergic effect. The injection of the antagonist of P matter at locus ceruleus area has the antagonizing effect against the effect of electrical acupuncture in preventing the increase of the content of plasma endothelins. CONCLUSION The decrease of plasma endothelins may be one of the mechanisms of the recovery of acute myocardial ischemia by electrical acupuncture at Neiguan. P matter may play a role in the correlation between Neiguan and the heart.


The wood identification technique is one of the most important components of wood and forestry science and technology.The precise identification of the timber producing tree species is of great significance to rational and high efficient utilization of the timber resources.The computer database search method to identify the wood species is characterized by the quickness and exactness.The present status of both the domestic and international wood species identification and management system and its development trend were discussed on the basis of introducing the development course of the relevant database,software for the database identification in this paper.


The NIH NIGMS MIDAS grant is focused on building global agent-based models for studying world-wide epidemics. As the chief architect of the MIDAS project, I am part of a team providing informatics support to our researchers from Hopkins, Emory, and Virginia Tech. Because of the number of agents and complex social networks we are dealing with, our models tend to require very large amounts of computational resources. We are working with a combination of high level modeling tools, automated means of scaling models and balancing work across grids and clusters, and sophisticated tools for managing complex simulation experiments. A goal is to integrate these functions into a software workbench that minimizes many of the distractions on the researchers in order to allow them to stay focused in a rapid iterative research and development mode.


The paper focuses on the effect of decalcification on microstructure and the mechanical and electrical properties of cortical bone. Decalcification is produced by placing the specimens into 5% vinegar acid for 72 hours. This acid treatment leads to a decrease in mass of the specimens 7.78 % (averaged over ten acid treated specimens). Microstructure of natural bone and acid treated bone is then compared using confocal microscopy. To estimate effect of acid treatment on electrical resistivity of bone, the specimens are rinsed and saturated with 0.9% NaCl solution for ten minutes. Then electrical resistance is measured by the four-point method and electrical resistivity is calculated. Averaging over ten acid treated specimens and ten control specimens show that decalcification lead to increase of electrical resistivity 5.85 times. Comparison of mechanical properties of natural and acid treated bones is done by three point bending using Instron 5882 testing machine. It is observed that 7.78 % mass loss in cortical bone yields reduction of the Young's modulus about 2.7 times and bending strength of the specimens by 35%. A positive correlation between change in strength and Young's modulus and electrical resistivity of the individual specimens is observed. The obtained results allows one to estimate changes in mechanical and electrical properties of bone from known losses in bone mass and, thus, non-destructively evaluate the decrease in bone strength through changes in electrical resistivity.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Using exp( -APT2 )(d 3 p/E) as the momentum distribution of secondaries produced in ultrahigh-energy collisions--a result predicted by the multiperipheral model, by Feynman's parton model, and by Cheng and Wuts consideration of hadrons as extended objects with many internal degrees of freedom_-we obtain the characteristic features of the angular distribution. We discuss the dependence on incident energy, mass of secondaries, and the value of A. We find that the c.m. angular distribution in the variable two-bump structure, ~~ the.lab angular distribu~ion in is flat. This difference leads us to a discussion of the transformation between c.m. and lab angular distributions. We find that the usual relativistic approximation of the exact transformation leads to incorrect results. Finally, we show that these momentum and angular distributions approach limiting distributions.


Traduccion de J. Schacht. "Law and Justice". from the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. II, pt. VIII/chpt. 4, beginning with pg. 539.


Objective To investigate nursing students' demands for employment guidance,in order to establish the contents and patterns of employment guidance and enhance the students' employment rate. Methods A self-designed questionnaire was used to survey 172 nursing students' demands for employment guidance and their facing problems. Results The students' first three main demands were interview skills(93.6%),preparation of resume and interview(88.9%),and introduction about labor relationship of hospitals(87.8%). Conclusion The detailed employment guidance is a key link of nursing students' political work,and the students' demands for employment guidance should be paid more attention.


Thomas Bernhard's protagonists are practicing all the time. The rigorous practice procedures, however, have no goal other than perfection. The study approaches the described diagnosis with a two-part approach, which brings together results from the subjectivity debate of the 20th and 21st centuries with the aesthetic consequences resulting from the historical situation in Austria after 1945. This leads to the description of an abstract concept of practice which is used to analyze Bernhard's novels and plays. Based on this, the questions – how the constitution of literary subjectivity in Austrian post-war society is undermined in Bernhard's literary representations and how this manifests on the surfaces of the texts – are examined.


By concluding and analyzing actually acquired data,this paper improves the artificial neural network model for rainfall runoff forecasting.Different forecasting systems are analyzed with the improved adaptive BP algorithm,and future developing direction of flood forecasting is proposed.


Retrospective study of the treatment results of acute pancreatitis over the last 20 years. 916 cases of morbidity with acute pancreatitis were analysed, of them 120 were patients with a destructive disease form. The conclusion of increase of the total number of patients was made, including the number of cases of destructive pancreatitis. Basic components of intensive therapy of acute pancreatitis were highlighted. A persistent high level of morbidity cases was noted in the case of this pathology, and suppositions were made with regard to methods of morbidity reduction.


The purpose of the PKM activities is to maximize the performance of principal, treasurer, administration of SMP Kota Tangerang Selatan cluster 02. The focus is on school treasurer tasked with handling the use of BOS funds. BOS Treasurer has a tax obligation that is somewhat different than the government treasurer in general. Procedure of calculation of PPh article 21 on employee's salary is derived from calculating the entire gross income of a month which includes basic salary and allowances, then reduced by the existing deduction, then calculated net income a year. The PKM research object is the principal, treasurer, administration of SMP Kota Tangerang Selatan cluster 02. The problem is derived from the lack of knowledge and the school principal, treasurer related to the tax problems in the use of BOS funds (school operational Assistance). The training Program that will be provided by experts in the field of tax is expected to provide knowledge related to tax calculation of article 21, article 23, and PPh article 4 paragraph 2 to the principal, treasurer, SMP administration of Tangerang City South Cluster 02. Keywords: Training, tax calculation of article 21, article 23, and PPh article 4 paragraph 2


A case of jejunal bleeding is reported. A 68-year-o1d man, who suffered previous gastrectomy and sclerotherapy for esophageal varices presented jejunal variceal bleeding. These varices were sclered and banded with good results.


This chapter, from a handbook on transportation systems and traffic control, presents a discussion on route guidance systems. After first defining route guidance and its many alternative forms, the authors next discuss stand-alone systems, including Internet-based systems and dispatching systems. A discussion on in-vehicle systems follows, in which the authors look at operator-assisted route guidance, autonomous route guidance, and dynamic route guidance systems, as well as discussing the benefits of in-vehicle systems. The authors conclude with a look at the future of route guidance.


Google autocomplete quickly displays suggestions for the search one is attempting before the person finishes typing. According to Google, the autocomplete function is design to help the searchers in many ways. Suggestions provided by autocomplete may prevent lengthy typing, replace misspelled search terms, display a repeated favorite search, and...


This study aims to build a VPN network, develop the use of The Dude as network monitoring and user management of bandwidth sharing using fuzzy logic and using MICROTIC ROUTERBOARD as process controller. The benefit of developing this tool is to facilitate the admin or business owner in the process of monitoring and monitoring on hotspots. This research was conducted by designing, making and implementing system components which include routerboard as process controller, access point as 2.4Ghz signal transmitter, The Dude application as network monitoring and user management as well as VPN as connecting media from public network to local hotspot network. The results of this study indicate that the tools made can function well and are developed on a larger scale.


Since there is a great demand for the quality of agricultural products in the global market. It is very important to improve the quality and standards of agricultural products to competent in the business world. Furthermore cashew is a significant produce in India as well as it takes the major part in the global export market for cashew nut. But the most of the methods proposed for grading system is wouldn't reach the better accuracy. Hence to improve the performance, we proposed the optimized cashew nut grading using Deep CNN and Data augmentation. This CashNet-15 work consists of totally 15 layers of CNN. Here we used 8 convolution layer and 4 Max-poolong layer for feature extraction and remaining are 1 fully connected layer, 1activation function and 1dropout layer. To attain the better performance we used data augmentation methods. To optimize the network, hyperparameter like SGD with Beta momentum and Leaky rectified linear unit was used to reduce the loss function and to obtain the non-linear property.


This paper proposes a variable thickness radome for application in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radar at missile warhead, so as to figure out the radiation distortion caused by uniform thickness radome (UTR). By choosing a appropriate condition of wall thickness of radome, the adverse effect of field reflection and phase delay on radiation pattern is minimized. Moreover, the radome thickness is further optimized through simulation, by which the ripple variation of main beam is effectively mitigated and radiation pattern become more symmetric. Simulated results show that the radiation performance of the 24-GHz off-center antenna array with our proposed radome has been improved a lot in terms of beam symmetry and broadside gain level.


A classifier ensemble method with fuzzy integral for fuzzy classifier is proposed.The object of this method is to reduce subjective factor during constructing a fuzzy classifier,and to improve the classification recognition rate and stability for classification system.For this object,a method of determining fuzzy integral density with membership matrix is proposed,and the classifier ensemble algorithm based on fuzzy integral is introduced.The proposed method is evaluated by the comparison of experiments with standard data sets and the existed classifier ensemble methods.


TiN coating plays a positive role in improving the abrasion resistance and impact resistance of aero-engines in sand and dust environments. However, little research has been done on the laser cleaning of TiN coatings that failed on aircraft engines. In this paper, TiN coatings are deposited on Ti6Al4V alloys by magnetic filtered cathodic vacuum arc (MFCVA). The TiN coating was laser cleaned with different parameters. By analyzing coating morphology, surface composition and sample profile, the research reveals the morphological change of the TiN coating after cleaning and the laser cleaning mechanism. The results show that for TiN–Ti6Al4V structure, when the laser average power density is 2.54 × 103 W/cm2, the cleaning mechanism of the coating is thermal expansion; The laser average power density is increased to 5.08 × 103 W/cm2, the cleaning mechanism is thermal expansion, accompanied by the thermal melting of the substrate, a small amount of molten substrate overflows from the crack. When the laser average power density is 5.08 × 103 W/cm2 and the number of cleanings doubles, the cleaning direction is perpendicular to each other, the cleaning mechanism is thermal expansion and thermal melting, both the substrate and the coating are melted, and the cleaning is obviously effective.


Objective To investigate the role of Noggin( bone morphogenetic protein 4 antagonism, BMP- 4 antagonism) inducing apoptosis of human prolactinoma cell. Methods The growth inhibition and apoptosis induction effects of Noggin on prolactinoma cell was observed by MTT, flow cytometry with Annexin V and electron microscope. The expressions of BMP- 4 and BMP- 4 mRNA were analysed by the method of immunohistochemistry and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results The IC50 of Noggin to PRL cell was 11 μ g/mL, moreover, Noggin inhibited prolactinoma cell growth in a dose- dependent manner. Flow cytometry, electron microscope confirmed both apoptosis and death of prolactinoma cell were induced by Noggin. The expression levels of BMP- 4 mRNA and BMP- 4 protein decreased in prolactinoma cells. Conclusion Noggin can induce prolactinoma cell apoptosis; it may be a promising inhibitory agent by direct induction of prolactinoma cell apoptosis.


Over time, members of organizations develop entitlements-preferences about how they
wish to be treated and beliefs about how they should be treated. The formation of
entitlements is an important subject for strategy researchers because employees resist changes
that violate their perceived entitlements; thus entitlements constrain an organization's ability
to adapt quickly in a changing environment. In this paper, we use psychological research
to propose a two-part model of entitlements formation: (i) Preference formation makes
people likely to resist change because preferences adapt to experience, and thus change
imposes painful losses; (ii) Belief formation leads to over-entitlement, and this produces
resistance because employees perceive changes to be unfair or unjust. Over-entitlement
happens because (a) psychological limitations in judgement and (b) strategic distortions in
the character and content of information exchanged in relationships lead employees to
perceive their entitlements as richer and more systematic than intended by the organization.
Combined, the preference and belief formation processes can produce substantial resistance
to change.
In stable environments firms may have an incentive to allow entitlements to develop since
they enhance employee security and commitment. However, in changing environments,
entitlements constrain firms' ability to mobilize resources to meet competitive challenges.
After presenting our model of entitlement formation, we use the model to organize and
analyze a set of suggestions about how the employment relationship might be managed to
avoid problems of entitlement formation, thus enabling firms to adapt more effectively in
a dynamic environment.


Four healthy Cyr-old Valencia sweet orange trees on rough lemon rootstock were planted 1 to 1.5 m away from each of 12 blight-affected Valencia sweet orange trees on Carrizo citrange rootstock (15-yr-old). For the 12 replications, a limb-grafted and a non-grafted control tree were protected from natural root-graft transmission by 1.2 m deep soil barriers. A non-barrier control tree and a root-grafted receptor tree were also placed equidistant from each donor tree. These treatments were established in 1986 on a deep sandy soil site with no history of citrus blight. Limb and root grafts were maintained for 6yrbetween the receptor and donor trees. Two of the twelve donor trees eventually proved to be blight-free. All receptor trees root-grafted to blight donor trees were positive for the 12-kd blight-associated protein by year 5, and these trees showed some visible symptoms of blight a t least by year 6. Two of the non-barrier control trees and one of the barrier control trees were positive for the blight protein by year 6, but showed no visible blight symptoms. Extensive mingling of root systems had occurred beyond the barrier extension and under the non-barrier trees. None of the limb-grafted receptor trees showed symptoms of citrus blight or were positive for the blight protein after 6 yr suggesting that no graft transmissible agent for this disorder is present in the aboveground portion of the tree. Index words. root grafts, citrus blight proteins. The cause of citrus blight still remains unknown, but repeated root-graft transmission from blighted donor trees to healthy receptor trees indicates that a graft transmissible agent is involved (5, 6). Earlier attempts to transmit citrus blight by budding from blightaffected trees or reconstituting trees by grafting small stems and roots from blight trees were unsuccessful (7). The purpose of this study was to determine if blight could be transmitted from affected (donor) trees to healthy (receptors) through long-term grafts of aboveground parts, which would presumably provide along-term source of the infectious agent even if one existed for only short periods above ground. MATERIALS AND METHODS Donor trees were selected from a block of 15-yr-old Valencia sweet orange on Carrizo citrange rootstock. These blight-affected trees were selected on the basis of the high concentration of bark zinc (1) and moderately reduced water uptake by the syringe method (4) compared to healthy looking trees *Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Series No. R-03232. but with only a slight wilted appearance. Representative early decline trees had zinc levels in bark tissue from 87 to 168 ppm compared to 63 to 72 ppm for apparently healthy trees. Water uptake into the trunk was 2.6 to 5.8 mllmin compared to 11 to 13 mllmin for these same sets of trees. Therefore 12 trees with bark zinc levels above 90 ppm were selected (Table 1). These 12 TABLE 1 ZINC CONCENTRATION IN BARK OF VALENCIA SWEET ORANGE TREES ON CARRIZO CITRANGE ROOTSTOCK USED AS DONOR TREES Bark zinc concentration (ppm) Replication Before After no. transplanting transplanting 1 92 2 102 3 99 4 194


A digital twin platform framework for multi-rotor UAV is proposed in this paper. The platform is composed of simulation system, physical UAV and service center, which is designed to solve the problem about UAV advanced capability training and algorithm verification. As we know, a good UAV system verification method is to make full use of virtual simulation before repeated physical tests. However, there is a gap between the virtual simulation and physical test results, because the simulation model is difficult to completely describe the actual physical object. So the hidden risks may exist in actual physical tests by only using the results of virtual simulations. Based on the feedback control idea, the actual state data of the physical UAV is fed back to virtual simulation platform, and the virtual simulation platform completes virtual and real joint training and verification based on this. That is, the technology of digital twin is introduced into the UAV system development process in this paper. In addition, the digital twin platform structure of two-way interaction between virtual space, physical space and service center is proposed. The 4G/5G communication interface is developed to improve the platform's real-time interaction capabilities. Besides, the components of the platform and the construction process are introduced in detail. Finally, three platform test experiments are used to verify the interactive characteristics of the platform and introduce the operating process of the platform.


While manual limbal relaxing incisions and femtosecond femtosecond astigmatic keratotomies can address mild to moderate astigmatism, toric IOLs are quite effective at all ranges of astigmatism, relates one surgeon.


Abstract The selection of an appropriate strain is important for the sustainability of algae-based oil industries. In the current study, a novel omega-3 fatty acid-rich microalgal strain was isolated and identified as Desmodesmus sp. Dal Lake Kashmir (DLK) based on its morphology and molecular characterization. Its potential as biofuel feedstock was established based on its appropriate fatty acid profile and enhanced lipid productivity. The growth of Desmodesmus sp. DLK was evaluated using varying concentrations of three exogenous carbon sources (glucose, glycerol and sodium acetate) to examine the potential of the freshwater microalga to ameliorate biomass and lipid production for proficient biofuel production. A phenomenal enhancement in biomass productivity (12.8-fold) and lipid productivity (22-fold) was detected with 1% glucose in comparison to control. Supplementation with glycerol boosted the productivity of biomass and lipid maximum by 11.4-fold (5 g.L−1 gly) and 26.8-fold (10 g.L−1 gly), respectively. Analyses of fatty acid methyl esters from mixotrophically grown culture, via gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, exhibited a prevalence of palmitic acid (C16:0; 37%) and oleic acid (C18:1; 53%) demonstrating desirable properties for biofuel quality. This study highlights that the mixotrophic cultivation of Desmodesmus sp. DLK redirects algal metabolite fluxes towards the production of improved lipids, suitable for biofuel production.


Late Mesozoic neritic-continental strata of East Asia show intercalations of conglomerates including microfossil-bearing clasts. Some clasts are presumed to have originated in mid-Mesozoic accretionary complexes (ACs) of East Asia. Microfossils ( e.g ., radiolaria, conodonts) in these clasts can provide age constraints. Relationships between rock facies and age in sequences of the mid-Mesozoic ACs have been clarified in previous studies; therefore, the rock facies and the age of the clasts offer a clue about denudation history and provenance of the mid-Mesozoic ACs. This study compiles previous studies of microfossil-bearing clasts within the Late Mesozoic in the Outer and Inner Zone of Southwest Japan and in the Gyeongsang Supergroup in the southeastern Korean Peninsula. The compilation, at present, recognizes three denudation stages (Stages A, B, and C) of the mid-Mesozoic accretionary complexes. Stage A (Oxfordian-Hauterivian) is characterized by an initial and narrow denudation. The denudation of the mid-Mesozoic ACs started at some point in this stage, but it was of limited extent. Stage B (Barremian-early Albian) is characterized by wide denudation: the mid-Mesozoic ACs became largely exposed. Afterwards, some younger geologic bodies of the mid-Mesozoic ACs, which were structurally underlying, were exposed and denuded. Stage C (late Albian–) is characterized by denudation of almost all the mid-Mesozoic accretionary complexes. This denudational evolution might be related to some tectonic and igneous events in East Asia, such as the uplift of the Tetori Group in late Hauterivian-early Barremian and the initiation of the granitic magmatic activity in middle Albian.


The images: can we picture to ourselves, when we hear of a plurality of images, not a collection of discrete individual images but an abundance unsurveyable and without internal differentiation? Just as one hears in so many languages of the waters: die Wässer, les eaux. . . . In the flux of experience it may be no more possible to isolate a singular "image" than it is to isolate a singular "water." The waters, according to Roberto Calasso in his meditation on Hindu mythology, Ka, symbolize the glittering flow of inner images, the ceaseless proliferation of specters and simulacra, that constitutes consciousness.1 Nevertheless, in the most prevalent theories of images developed by theology, by classical epistemology, by the academies of art, premodern and modern alike, and by anthropology, the image is paradigmatically still, framed, and graspable. The image stands alone, outside time. Whereas in experience, which is a flow of images in time, every image is in the process of becoming another image, for percepts, memories, and dreams are images generated and coordinated by the body. According to Henri Bergson, perception is nothing other than an aggregate of images "referred to" one particular image, the body.2 The body itself is an image insofar as it receives movement, and in


Bilateral rupture of the quadriceps tendon is an uncommon and serious injury that usually occurs in middle aged to elderly patients. It is frequently associated with chronic metabolic disorders like diabetes, hiperparathyroidism, gout, chronic renal failure or the chronic use of steroids.


Argument The paper is an exploration of the interactions between Einstein and Oppenheimer. It highlights the sharp differences in Einstein's and Oppenheimer's approach to physics, in their presentation of self as iconic figures, and in their relation to the communities they considered themselves part of. To understand their differing approaches to physics it briefly reviews the kinds of unifications that took place in physics during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century and points to the 1961 MIT centennial celebration to demonstrate the potency of Einstein's vision that there might be a fundamental theory from which all known theories could be derived. It also briefly reviews various aspects of the development of theoretical physics and of general relativity in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, to better understand the context of the sharp, negative remarks that Oppenheimer made about Einstein and about his theory of general relativity in 1965 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Einstein's death. To answer the question: "Why the antagonism on Oppenheimer's part?" it looks at Oppenheimer's and Einstein's relation to their Jewish roots, their stance regarding nationalism, and their philosophical commitments.


As biomedical full-text papers are becoming more available in digitized form on-line, there is a need for tools to mine information from all parts in the papers. Notably, since figures and their legends/captions in biomedical papers provide important information about research outcomes, mining techniques targeting them have attracted a great deal of attention. However, even a simple-sounding task such as recognizing gene/protein and chemical compound names (named entities) in figures is very difficult, so the automatic extraction of all information in figures is a major challenge. Liu, et al. developed a figure legend indexing and classification system [1]. They defined schematic representations of protein interactions and signaling events in biomedical literature as an interesting figure type, and took a supervised machine learning approach to classify figures and performed indexing of figures by using figure legends. However, they did not utilize the main text referring to the figures, nor the contents of the figures that often contain more information than their legends. Shatkay, et al. used graphical features of images combining with the text of PubMed abstracts for biomedical document categorization [3]. They did not extract textual information in figures as well. Additionally, figure legends and the full-text were not used at all. Especially in biomedical papers, figures and text data contained in their legends and the main text tend to complement each other, so effective figure mining should be performed on all of them. Nevertheless, such an integrated mining system has not been achieved to our knowledge. Our goal is to build a figure finding system, which we call FigFinder, to retrieve figures relevant to a user's query (gene/protein or chemical compound names) based on information contained in figures, their legends and the main text in an integrative manner.


Electronic and nuclear motions and the interactions between them strongly influence the structure and properties of a molecular system. Therefore, a complete description of the dynamics of a molecule can be achieved only when the interactions between electronic and nuclear motions are taken into account. The understanding of the coupling between electrons and vibrations in transient molecular species, such as radicals, ions, and excited states, are of particular importance because these play key roles in chemical transformations and in biological processes. The determination of the expected correlation between the molecular structure and the vibronic coupling requires experimental techniques capable of structural characterization and probing of the vibronic transitions. Single-molecule studies with the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) enable conformation-selective probing of the vibronic coupling, which would otherwise be masked in studies on ensembles of molecules with different adsorption configurations and local environment. We have used a low-temperature STM to probe the vibronic states of single molecules adsorbed on an ultrathin oxide film grown on a metal substrate. The extended lifetime of the transient charged state of the molecule on the oxide film compared to bare metal surface allows observation of vibronic progressions in differential conductance and STM-excited fluorescence spectroscopy. The different vibronic progressions observed for the same molecule by these two different probing methods highlight the importance of both the initial and final electronic states of a vibronic transition in determining the vibrational modes that strongly couple to the electrons.


Based on some ideas of Greene and Krantz, we study the semicontinuity of automorphism groups of domains in one and several complex variables. We show that semicontinuity fails for domains in , , with Lipschitz boundary, but it holds for domains in with Lipschitz boundary. Using the same ideas, we develop some other concepts related to mappings of Lipschitz domains. These include Bergman curvature, stability properties for the Bergman kernel, and also some ideas about equivariant embeddings.


The 6th International Conference on Science and Sustainable Development (ICSSD 2022) was held between 12th and 14th October, 2022 with the theme "Sustainable Development Goal: Science and Technology as the Key Player". The meeting was an hybrid (onsite and online) event which enabled those been held by travel restrictions to join virtually via ZOOM while those that could travel were able to participate physically. The ICSSD is an annual meeting since 2017 which was inaugurated in order to run in line with the SDG goals. The Conference was organized by the Department of Physics in conjunction with the Department of Estate Management, Covenant University. The conference was held (onsite) at the Conference Room of the College of Science and Technology, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. Prof. Ojo Kolawole ADEKUNLE, Department of Crop Production and Protection, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria; Prof. Fabian Ifeanyichukwu EZEMA, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; and Prof. K. Srinivas REDDY, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Inidan Istitute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India were the keynote speakers for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 of the event. The Vice-Chancellor, Covenant University, Prof. Abiodun Humphrey ADEBAYO and the Dean, College of Science and Technology, Prof. Timothy Ashibel ANAKE delivered insightful lectures on the impact of Science and Technology in 21st century during the opening ceremony. The Head, Department of Physics, Covenant University, Prof. Mojisola Rachael USIKALU, and the Head, Department of Estate Management, Covenant University, Prof. Mayowa Olusola AJIBOLA gave their welcome addresses on Day 1 and Day 2 of the event, respectively. The goodwill message was also delivered by the Chair ICSSD 2022, Dr. Maxwell OMEJE. There were plenary sessions on Day 2 and Day 3, followed by discussion and interactions by speakers and attendees. There were two parallel technical sessions on Day 1 afternoon, Day 2 morning and Day 2 afternoon each, with the closing ceremony on Day 3. The conference consisted of 5 expanded sub-themes which tackled essential topics on Energy, Engineering, Applied Sciences, Environmental Issues and Built Environments. This conference brought together leaders from industry and academia to exchange and share their experiences, present research results, explore collaborations and to spark new ideas with the aim of developing new projects and exploiting new technology. Some of the papers presented at ICSSD 2022 are published in this volume which are captured under Sustainable and Health Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Earth Sciences and Sustainable Energy. List of Organizing Committees, Editorial, Logistics, Exhibition/Support, Registration, Welfare, Theophilus Aanuoluwa ADAGUNODO, Ph.D is available in this pdf.


Some normal (maize, wheat, barley, rye) and high amylose (barley) starches were studied using the method of differential scanning microcalorimetry (DSC). It was shown that a decrease of heating rate from 3 K/min to 0.25 K/min for 1% aqueous dispersions of starch does not lead to changes of the thermodynamic melting parameters of crystalline lamellae irrespective of the origin of starches. With the exception of the results for maize starch, the same behavior is observed for melting of amylose-lipid complexes. For maize starch, a decrease of heating rate and an annealing of crystalline lamellae lead to an increase of melting enthalpy of amylose-lipid complexes but does not change their melting temperature. The melting cooperative units for crystalline lamellae of the cereal starches were calculated. Using the average value of the melting cooperative unit, the lamellar thickness was determined. It is practically equal to the thickness of crystalline lamellae in the amylopectin model proposed by Robin. It was shown that the temperature dependence of the heat capacity for starch maize lipids has a negative increment. Some concepts concerning melting mechanisms of crystalline lamellae and amylose-lipid complexes are discussed.


Aim: To investigate the factors involved in care management. Method: This is a descriptive study, performed with 32 nurses from Basic Care units in Maracanau, Brazil, from May to July 2012. The methodological process used was the Discourse of the Collective Subject, to order and organize the data. Results: The most important concerns were: excessive demand, resistance of the users to the proposed activities in health prevention and promotion and precarious organizational structure. The facilities presented were: support from the health department, teamwork and autonomy of the nurse. Discussion: The difficulties experienced generated a gap between the caring service and the managerial process, especially those linked to the instability of the work processes and the traditional assisting model, but on the other hand, the teamwork, the support of management and autonomy stimulated the interaction between caring and managing. Conclusion: The Attention Care Service presents ambivalences because sometimes it permits and at other times it separates caring and care management.


The physical setting plays an important role in the lives of pre-schoolers and can be an important component of children's experience and development when it is wisely and meaningfully designed. The classroom organization enhances and supports the pre-schooler capability to perform activities himself, initiate and finish tasks, creates the possibility of his own determined choices and responsibilities, permits to connect and interrelate with educators and other participants easily and helps to improve his cognitive skills. In this research, the classroom environment is approached in terms of diverse aspects, as a relation between physical atmosphere and the curriculum philosophy, the planning of proceedings, adjustments, safekeeping topics and assignment of zones, equipment resources, illumination, surfaces and other environmental factors. Article visualizations:


The Cygnus X-3 binary system could have an active, ejecting pulsar with an age tapprox. =10/sup 5/ yr. Over this time span the nebula resulting from the supernova outburst would have faded from visibility. The magnetic field strength on the surface of the neutron star is Hsinthetaapprox. =5x10/sup 10/ gauss, and the rotation period Papprox. =4x10/sup -3/ sec. These parameters would maintain the system at its full luminosity of approx. =3x10/sup 38/ erg/sec for approx. =10/sup 5/ yr.


Abstract A taxonomic study of the genus Homalota Mannerheim in Korea is presented. Five species are recognized, one of which, Homalota serrata (Assing), comb. n. is transferred from Anomognathus Solier. Homalota fraterna (Sharp), Homalota mikado Likovský, Homalota sauteri Bernhauer, and Homalota serrata are newly added to the Korean fauna. A key, descriptions, and illustrations of the diagnostic characters are provided.


Despite the diversity of microbes associated with decayed hearts of living trees (71,89), the degradation of the cell wall components is still ascribable to Hymenomycetes. Our discussion here is limited to them, although we by no means want to discount their probable interactions with other microbes that might play key roles in the decay process (89). Of the several thousand wood decaying fungi, only a small number-a few hundred-can cause decay in the hearts of living trees (95). The term heartrot is used to include the overall process that culminates in degradation of the wood in the hearts of living trees; decay per se may be only a part of the total process. The interior, primarily nonliving portion of a tree is referred to here as the heart. The term heartwood has been avoided. A great deal is known about the mechanisms by which fungi degrade the principal components of wood. Recent advances have been stimulated primarily by a desire to exploit cellulases and lignin-degrading enzymes. Another lesser incentive has been to understand and control decay in wood products. A desire to understand the mechanism of heartrots, with a view to their eventual control, has been of essentially no consequence in stimulating research on the mechanisms of wood decay. Nevertheless, there is no reason t o suspect that the basic mechanisms of wood deterioration during heartrot differ from those in the same wood after the tree dies or has been converted into products. Indeed, two of the most studied wood decay fungi that destroy slash and products have been reported also to cause heartrots (Coriolus [ Polyporus] versicolor [ 11,21] and Poria placenta [=P. monticola] [11]) although these do not appear to be very important heartrot-causing fungi. Despite a few exceptions like these, however, the same species of fungi usually are not involved in both heartrots and wood products decay (23). This introduces three intriguing questions concerning the unique features of heartrots, which we shall discuss here: What special capabilities enable some fungi to invade and decay the hearts of living trees? Why do many, if not most, heartrot fungi cease to cause decay when the tree is cut or even when it dies (11,23)? Why is the durability of wood in use not always related to its resistance to decay in living trees (11)? In the following, decay mechanisms and factors affecting wood decay are reviewed with these questions in mind. The three questions are then addressed specifically in a final section.


Purpose: Many benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients were accompanied by pelvic pain apart from urinary symptoms. Therefore, we evaluate the treatment outcomes of alpha-blockers via a change of international prostate symptom score (IPSS) according to pain score of the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (NIH-CPSI). Materials and Methods: A total of 356 male patients with BPH from March 2011 to May 2014 were analyzed retrospectively. Prostate specific antigen, prostate volume, IPSS, NIH-CPSI, international index of erectile function (IIEF-5), and uroflowmetry were collected. Patients were categorized according to 2 groups based on the presence and severity of pain and baseline characteristics and treatment outcomes were analyzed. Results: Two hundred twenty-nine patients (64.3%) reported pain/discomfort on NIH-CPSI. Mean IPSS, mean voiding symptoms, mean storage symptoms on IPSS, and mean IIEF-5 showed a significant difference in groups 1A and 1B. Logistic regression analysis showed that NIH-CPSI pain score was a significant predictive factor for severe IPSS (odds ratio, 2.830; 95% confidence interval, 1.307-6.129). After treatment for 3 months, improvement of IPSS, voiding symptoms, storage symptoms, and quality of life was observed in all groups (p=0.001, p 5) showed greater improvement of symptoms and statistically significant difference compared with group 2A (pain score ≤5) (p=0.029, p=0.026). Conclusions: We suggest that the presence and severity of pain score are helpful for therapeutic efficacy in patients with BPH.


Quantum algorithms often assume independent spin qubits to produce trivial | ↑〉 = |0〉, | ↓〉 = |1〉 mappings. This can be unrealistic in many solid-state implementations with sizeable magnetic interactions. Here we show that the lower part of the spectrum of a molecule containing three exchange-coupled metal ions with S = 1/2 and I = 3/2 is equivalent to nine electron-nuclear qubits. We derive the relation between spin states and qubit states in reasonable parameter ranges for the rare earth Tb and for the transition metal Cu , and study the possibility to implement Shor's Quantum Error Correction code on such a molecule. We also discuss recently developed molecular systems that could be adequate from an experimental point of view.


The experience of patients living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and their views on the quality of healthcare they receive is not currently captured in patient reported measures. Aim: To develop and validate a patient reported experience measure to assess experiences of living with COPD and perceived quality of healthcare provision.

Method: Previous work with 83 COPD patients identified 38 items for inclusion in a patient reported experience measure. These, together with the COPD Assessment Test and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were administered to patients with COPD. Items demonstrating significant gender or age bias (p 15%, or high item to item correlations (r>0.8) were removed. Rasch analysis was applied to the remaining items.

Results: 174 patients (Mean age 71 years, SD 9; 91 female; Mean Forced Expiratory Volume1 59%, SD 21.9) were studied. 29 items were removed, providing a 9-item unidimensional scale (chi-square p=0.33) with a wide scaling range (logits from -0.1 to +0.2). These cover experiences of living with COPD (e.g. I feel that I am in control of my condition) and health care (e.g. I am concerned that my GP won't listen to my point of view). Internal consistency was good (PSI= 0.77) and correlations between the COPD PREM-9, COPD Assessment Test and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were moderate (r=0.42 and r=0.30, respectively).

Conclusions: The COPD PREM-9 demonstrated good internal reliability and showed a wide scaling range suggesting, regardless of severity, people with COPD can have good or bad experiences. There were low to moderate correlations with the COPD Assessment Test and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, which suggests the PREM COPD-9 is measuring a different concept. The COPD PREM-9 may be a useful measure of quality of care that complements measures of health status and mood.


Tendencies in the information personnel analytics, relevance of measurement of personnel indicators, the most often measured indicators, for example, cost of recruitment; complexity of measurement of the more difficult, soft indicators, such as level of engagement of personnel, and other indicators, relevance of measurement of them, approaches to the solution of this task are presented in the.


1. INTRODUCTION: BIOPROSPECTING, ETHNOPROSPECTING, AND THE SCIENCE OF SINGULAR THINGSThe belief prevails in some scholarly circles that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz undertook his official duties as historian of the House of Brunswick only grudgingly, preferring instead to devote his energy to his true love: apriori reflection upon universal truths.' In fact, however, Leibniz pursued his historical research with great interest, if more slowly than his employer would have liked, and even saw it as inseparable from his broader intellectual project - his philosophy, if you will. The perception that Leibniz was better suited to a priori speculation than to the investigation of particulars is one that hounded Leibniz even during his own lifetime. Thus he complains to the Swedish Slavist Johan Gabriel Sparwenfeld in a letter of 1698 that "people criticize me when I attempt to take leave of the study of mathematics, and they tell me that I am wrong to abandon solid and eternal truths in order to study the changing and perishable things that are found in history and its laws".2In a 1708 draft of a proposal to Peter the Great for the classificatory system to be used in the eventual library of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Leibniz identifies history, alongside mathematics and physics, as one of the three 'Realien' or distinct domains of science, namely, the one that "involves the explanation of times and places, and thus of singular things [res singulares]", including "the descriptions and attainments of kingdoms, states, and peoples".3 Besides what might be called civil or political history, another central branch of history - again, understood as the science of singular things - was the study of plants, animals, and minerals. This study was generally carried out with an eye to the utility of the things studied. Now it is uncontroversial to note that a central motivation for the colonial expansion of Europe throughout the world in the early modern period was the prospect of natural resource extraction, and this practical end required for its success a deepened theoretical grasp of the real variety of things in nature. At the same time as the field of natural knowledge was expanding, there was a growing awareness of the inadequacy of the ancient texts, such as those of Dioscorides, Theophrastus, and Pliny, which for centuries had been able to pass as exhaustive classifications of the kinds ofthing in the natural world. What resulted was, to use Londa Schiebinger's term, the early modern global system of 'bioprospecting': the communal effort to discover and classify plants and animals (though mostly plants) throughout the world (mostly those parts of the world left unstudied by the ancients), particularly with an eye to discovering the useful kinds, and bringing them back to Europe for commercial gain.4 While Schiebinger's work has been very useful in drawing attention to a widespread early-modern phenomenon, in a number of respects what she describes fails to adequately capture the full significance of the prospecting activity of a figure such as Leibniz. By describing this activity here, we hope to add some nuance to the scholarly discussion of of early modern bioprospecting.Some scholars have emphasized the important role of cameralism, in the German and Northern European context, for stimulating much natural-historical prospecting.5 One thing that has become clear from these studies in particular is that there is a sharp difference between the German and Northern European context of prospecting on the one hand, and other European (and particular Iberian) contexts on the other. Much of this difference had to do with the fiscal organization of the smaller German principalities, duchies, and electorates, which often relied on inventive men such as Leibniz to find new streams of revenue from the limited natural resources of the sovereign's regio, very much in contrast with the massive global enterprises of the Iberians. …


Living labs are one of the most prominent and growing areas within the popular open innovation paradigm. The potential of living labs has been acknowledged globally because they offer a fruitful architecture for deploying open innovation through user involvement and co-creation mechanisms (Nyström et al., 2014). The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) has over 150 active living lab members worldwide, but the organization has recognized more than 400 living labs since its inception in 2006. While some members eventually disengage from operations for one reason or another, each call for members brings a new "wave" of applicants from around the world. Simultaneously, there has been a parallel wave of increasing scholarly research on living labs.


To evaluate color Doppler characteristics of small recurrent tumors detected within the central pelvis in follow‐up patients treated for gynecological malignancy.


The advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994 brought new challenges in transformation including service delivery and economic development. In order to address these challenges, the new government adopted the approach of bringing government to the people through the decentralization of decision making and devolution of powers and functions. The vehicle through which this was to be done was the institution of wall to wall municipalities referred to as 'local government'. In other words, unlike in the past, all areas of South Africa including rural areas were incorporated into local government structures which were charged with the functions of service delivery and development. In order for these municipalities to carry out their mandates they were classified as 'developmental local governments' and not merely administrative units. They are also autonomous spheres of government. It was clear from the onset that one of the major constraints faced by the newly created municipalities in achieving their developmental objectives is insufficient financial resources. In terms of the constitution of the country, the municipalities have access to equitable shares from the national coffers and conditional grants from both the national and provincial governments. These are however insufficient in the light of the inherited service delivery and developmental backlogs coupled with the high expectations and impatience of their people who had long been denied these services and developments. Consequently, local government had to find other sources of revenue. One of such sources was to charge service user fees. However considering the state of poverty and unemployment prevailing in most of these municipalities, the revenue base here is very limited. To broaden their tax bases therefore, it became necessary to implement property taxation systems. As a result, the Local Government: Municipal Property Rates Act, 2004 was promulgated.


LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT • COMMON SHAREHOLDERS • INVESTORS • CEO • SALARIES I magine that a company's performance hasn't improved – or even that it's worsened – in the last year. If you were a company shareholder, would you be in favor of raising the CEO's salary? Common sense and economic theory on optimal incentive provision would advise against it. However, according to data by Proxy Insight cited in the New York Times, investment fund managers like BlackRock, Vanguard and Fidelity vote in favor of the compensation packages they are presented with 96 percent of the time, without considering whether compensation levels are linked to company performance. How can we explain this seemingly contradictory situation? The study that we conducted with professors Florian Ederer (Yale School of Management) and Martin Schmalz (Michigan Ross) links upper management salaries with the growing presence of common investors with an interest in listed companies of the same sector. These investors have no incentive to reduce salaries if these salaries ease the competition among the companies they hold. A common way to offer incentives to managers is to link their salaries to company performance. The drawback of this approach is that sometimes performance is positive because the industry is doing well or because the cost of oil has fallen. In this case, a shareholder can think, "I'm paying the CEO for sheer luck!" For this reason, shocks (whether positive or negative) that don't depend on the CEO's work tend to be filtered out. Instead, managers should be paid more when a company performs better than its competitors (following what is known as the relative performance evaluation). That's to say, we pay the CEO more when his or her company is doing well, but less if competitors are also performing really well. AN ADDITIONAL CHALLENGE FOR EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION: COMMON SHAREHOLDERS


In order to adapt to characteristic and requirement of the future naval battles,how to improve the penetration capability of anti-ship missile has become an important research of every country.On the basis of overload control,a composite controller of linear/AVSC is designed using the method of nonlinear control in this paper.Its flight control system is designed through the control of height and lateral displacement based on overload stable loop.By designing the maneuverable signal at terminal trajectory of anti-ship missiles,the missile can realize longitudinal climb and snaky trajectory.


El imperio safAivida (1501-1722) supone el fin de un largo periodo de inestabilidad polAtica en la regiA³n, siendo el sha Abbas (1571-1629) el mayor exponente de la dinastAa debido a sus A©xitos polAticos y econA³micos entre los que podrAamos destacar la monopolizaciA³n del comercio sedero y la extensiA³n de la autoridad central en lugares donde dinastAas locales habAan sobrevivido al imperio safAivida. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el proyecto polAtico del sha y su impacto sobre dos lugares concretos, MazandarAin junto al mar Caspio y Lar cerca del Golfo PA©rsico. The present work aims to study the strengthening of the figure of Shah Abbas (1571-1629) in the Safavid Empire, as well as the expansion of it. Based on the relations that had with two provinces traditionally ruled by autonomous dynasty, although vassal of the Safavids. On the one hand, the lordship of Mazandaran, by the Caspian Sea, a land suitable for the production of silk whose sovereignty could be claimed by Shah Abbas; on the other, the lordship of Lar, in the Persian Gulf, a meeting point between the Iranian, Indian and European worlds. Two provinces which, when occupied by the Shah, would help with their resources to sustain the power of the sovereign over their quizilbash vassals, as well as to promote its ghulam servants to the top of the institutions. I also speak of the great mercantilist project of Shah Abbas, in close collaboration with the Armenian oligarchy, without whose existence the fate of Lar and Mazandaran, even the Safavid Empire, could have been very different.


A new lateral reentry guidance method for maneuver glide vehicles is presented specially to satisfy the geographic constraints. Different entry trajectory constraints including the common path constraints and the geographic constraints are considered, and a guidance strategy is developed. The conventional linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is used to track the longitudinal profiles. A lateral guidance algorithm based on target prediction is studied for the mission of matching waypoints. With the target's cross range error, the reversal logic and fine adjustment method of bank angle are designed. According to the mission of avoiding no-fly zones, a lateral guidance algorithm with on-line designed dynamic heading error corridor is presented. Simulation in nominal case indicates that the geographic and other constraints can be satisfied with only 5 bank reversals. The Monte Carlo simulations are taken for the distribution of initial condition and aerodynamic dispersions. The lateral guidance provides good performance cooperated with the longitudinal guidance, and has a perfect interference capacity for the disturbance.


AbstrcatThe Qunjisayi intermediate-basic intruded subvolcanic complex is located in the Awulale Mountain of the western Tianshan, Xinjiang, and was formed in the rift structure environment after the collision orogenesis of the Late Palaeozoic Era. The Qunjisayi copper deposit occurred mainly in the intermediate basic intruded-subvolcanic complex, For example, the copper body NoⅡlay in the cryptoexplosion breccia pipe This discovery supplied the new exploring key for exploring copper deposit in the area. The cryptoexplosion breccia pipe type of copper deposit may be a most important copper deposit type for exploring copper deposit in the area. The cryptoexplosion breccia pipe of the complex was the volcanic apparatus, which directly controlled the mineralization and alteration of the copper deposit, so there was an exploring foreground for large scale copper deposit controlled by the cryptoexplosion breccia pipe in this district.


Ce.sup.3+ -doped LiSrAlF.sub.6 crystals are pumped by ultraviolet light which is polarized along the c axis of the crystals to effectively energize the laser system. In one embodiment, the polarized fourth harmonic light output from a conventional Nd:YAG laser operating at 266 nm is arranged to pump Ce:LiSrAlF.sub.6 with the pump light polarized along the c axis of the crystal. The Ce:LiSrAlF.sub.6 crystal may be placed in a laser cavity for generating tunable coherent ultraviolet radiation in the range of 280-320 nm. Additionally, Ce-doped crystals possessing the LiSrAlF.sub.6 type of chemical formula, e.g. Ce-doped LiCaAlF.sub.6 and LiSrGaF.sub.6, can be used. Alternative pump sources include an ultraviolet-capable krypton or argon laser, or ultraviolet emitting flashlamps. The polarization of the pump light will impact operation. The laser system will operate efficiently when light in the 280-320 nm gain region is injected or recirculated in the system such that the beam is also polarized along the c axis of the crystal. The Ce:LiSrAlF.sub.6 laser system can be configured to generate ultrashort pulses, and it may be used to pump other devices, such as an optical parametric oscillator.


The phenominal demand for computer education has placed heavy burdens on most educational institutions. University computer science departments all over the country are hard pressed to supply faculty and facilities for the "masses" of students desiring an education in computer science. Secondary schools have experienced this same demand on the part of the students. Even though the problems that these demands cause are equivalent in many respects to those in universities, solutions at the secondary level are not as easy or as speedy.


The gut microbiota appears critical in the metabolic health and anti‐disease activity. In this review, we discuss three brown seaweed polysaccharides (alginate, laminarin, fucoidan) for their structural information, the digestive behaviour and the effects on gut microbiota. Bioactivities are associated with various physicochemical properties, like solubility, viscosity, hydration properties, molecular weight, monosaccharide composition, and so on. Brown seaweed polysaccharides can be completely utilised by microbes in the large bowel, and they can regulate the gut microbiota. The ultimate metabolite of these polysaccharides is mainly short‐chain fatty acids, which are able to regulate the ecology of the gut microbiota by increasing the growth of beneficial bacteria and inhibiting the growth of some harmful bacteria. In addition, this article also discusses the relationship between the structure and activity of modulating the gut microbiota. Results show that polysaccharides with low molecular weight are more conductive to modulate gut microbiota.


OBJECTIVE To investigate the pharmacokinetic behavior of Sanqi Tongshu and Sanqi Tongshu capsule(enteric pellets)in beagle dogs.METHODS The cross-over design(two-periods) was employed.Six Beagle dogs were orally administrated a single dosage of 14 Sanqi Tongshu capsules and 10 Sanqi Tongshu capsule(enteric pellets),respectively.The concentration of Notoginsenoside-R1,ginsenoside-Rg1 and ginsenoside-Re in plasma of 6 dogs at different sampling time were detemined by HPLC.The phamacokinetic parameters were calculated by 3P87 program and compared by statistic analysis.RESULTS The mean concentration-curve of Notoginsenoside-R1,ginsenoside-Rg1 and ginsenoside-Re in Sanqi Tongshu capsules and Sanqi Tongshu capsule(enteric pellets)were both fitted to two-compariment model with the main pharmacokinetic parameters as follows:AUC0→t were 10.230,10.898,6.816 μg·h·mL-1 and 10.058,13.218,6.703 μg·h·mL-1,respectively;t1/2α were 1.759,1.383,1.019 h and 2.074,1.652,0.887 h,respectively;t1/2β were 5.159,3.687,7.177 h and 6.032,3.922,6.292 h,respectively.CONCLUSION The AUC0→t of R1,Rg1 and Re in two preparations were no significant difference.Two preparations has the similar bioavailability.


Wild edible mushroom is one of the non-timber forest products that is important to the forest ecosystems. Locally known as Kulat Siau, Hygrocybe conica is one of the wild-edible mushrooms from the peatland ecosystem. In this study, we conducted a survey with the community about the identification, foraging activity, utilization, and economic value of H. conica. Proximate analysis was also carried out to determine the nutritional content of this mushroom. The results of the study show that some local people still do foraging activity to get this mushroom and sold it to the local market. Hence, this means that this non-timber forest product has economic value for the community who lives near to the forest. This mushroom is mostly harvested in secondary peat forest. As a food, H. conica is quite popular and can be processed into various menus. The proximate analysis result showed that the mushroom had a high dietary fibre and vegetable protein. In addition, it also contains antioxidants and vitamin C which is good for maintaining body health.


Topological semimetals and metals have been extensively studied in nonmagnetic materials, while those in magnetic materials are still quite rare. Here, based on first-principles calculations, we reveal that a family of hexagonal compounds $X{\mathrm{TiO}}_{2}$ ($X$ = Li, Na, K, Rb) with ferromagnetic ground states host excellent topological electronic structures. In their low-energy band structures, they show two Weyl nodal loops and two Weyl nodal surfaces, where each nodal loop and nodal surface is contributed by the electron states in the same spin channel, namely, spin-polarized nodal loops and nodal surfaces. In particular, the nodal loops in these materials show type-II band dispersions and are robust against spin-orbit coupling because of the protection of the mirror symmetry. These nodal loops are featured with spin-polarized drumhead surface states. We build an effective Hamiltonian, which can well describe the type-II nodal loops in the system. Besides the type-II nodal loops, these materials also possess two spin-polarized nodal surfaces, protected by specific nonsymmorphic symmetry. The findings in this paper can serve as good material platforms to study the fundamental physics of type-II nodal loop and nodal surface fermions in a time-reversal-breaking system.


*A complete list of references may be obtained free of charge upon request. Characteristics of the Mangrove Ecosystem at Ca Mau Cape Minh Hai Minh Hai has the widest mangroves in Viet Nam. The mangrove vegetation at Ca Mau Cape develops faster than in other areas in the number of species, tree size, forms of communities, as well as biomass and biological productivity. The Ca Mau vegetation consists of 32 true mangrove species and 32 associate mangrove species. The growth rate of the mangrove in Ca Mau is fast (planted Rhizophora grow by 0.58-1 m/year in height and 0.7 0.8 cm/year in diameter). In a forest belonging to Dat Mui Forestry Enterprise where Rhizophora apiculata account for more than 90%, the total biomass is 276.83 kg/ha as mentioned by Hong and Tri, 1984. Compared to the biomass of 286.80 kg of the 28-year old mature forests in Malaysia, the biomass of Ca Mau Rhizophora forests is only a little smaller but still larger by 251.28 kg/ha of the R. mangle forests south of Florida. The productivity of mature forests is also high. The 1984 report of the Forest Investigation and Planning Institute showed an annual timber and firewood yield of 349.88 m3 from one hectare of mature Rhizophora forests (with 305 stands of the average height of 25 m). Middle-aged Rhizophora forests (673 stands/ha average height 22 m) yielded 278.16 m3 of timber and firewood. Ca Mau mangroves have outstanding characteristics due to favorable local natural conditions: hot. humid climate; low topography, (regularly inundated with diurnal tide); and the rich soil from the alluvia flowing in from the Mekong River and the detritus produced by trees, algae and animals that accumulate on the forest ground. As a result, the content of humus and total composition are high whereas the contents of exchanging actions harmful for trees' growth like Fe2+ and Al3+ are usually low. The rich dense system of rivers and canals of Ca Mau Cape rapidly transport tide water and rain water to mangrove forests. Though receiving very little water from upstream (more than 2,400 mm/year), the salinity is not too high and does not vary much due to the high rainfall. Thus, the trees' physico-biological function are not affected much. These natural conditions are also favorable for the natural regeneration and rehabilitation of the forests. However, under serious over-exploitation of timber and firewood to build embankments for large shrimp ponds, the soil quality degenerates and the tree growth is stunted due to insufficient entry of tide water into the ponds and forests. In some areas where evaporation is high due to strong sunshine and high temperature and when tide water exchange is absent, the salinity rises fast, adversely affecting and killing the local fauna and flora.


Emotional intelligence (EI) is considered to be an important parameter in the world of sports, as it affects the athletic performance and wellbeing of athletes. The purpose of this study was to examine EI in athletes of Acrobatic gymnastics (ACROGYM). Furthermore, potential differences in EI that may be associated with athletic profile (age, years of participation in ACROGYM, number of competitions, competition category) were investigated. In total, 95 acrobatic gymnasts, 9-18 years old (15.92 ± 3.17 years) participated voluntarily. The athletes' EI was assessed with the Emotional Quotient Inventory-Youth Version (EQ-i: YV), culturally adapted for the Greek population. According to the results, the ACROGYM athletes presented high levels of EI. However, the correlation analyses revealed that the association between the athletes' profile and scores on EI scales was not statistically significant (p >.05). The t-tests and the MANOVAs applied showed no statistically significant differences in the EI subscales associated with gymnasts' (a) participation in national competitions (p > .05); (b) frequency of training sessions per week (p > .05); (c) (not) being a member of a duet or a trio (p > .05); (d) position in the group (base, middle, top). It can be concluded that Greek acrobatic gymnasts present high levels of EI regardless of their age, their sport's experience or their level of performance. Moreover, neither their participation in a group nor their role in it seem to differentiate the dimensions of EI. Nevertheless, further research is needed in order to shed more light into EI in gymnastics.


SIR,-Dr. J. Prineas and Dr. J. Marshall in their interesting report on hypertension and cerebral infarction (1 January, p. 14) emphasize quite rightly the difficulty of separating haemorrhage from infarction as the cause of a stroke. It might therefore have been wiser if they had called their report "Hypertension and Stroke," because the evidence on which they diagnose cerebral infarct.on in their hypertensive group is slender, and I therefore doubt whether they are justified in implying that the prognosiL of cerebral infarction in hypertensive patients is better than it is in the normotensive. I suggest that the deeply placed lesions they describe, which have a good prognosis for future disability, may be small haemorrhages associated with the micro-aneurysms on the cerebral perforating arteries to which they refer. In support of this possibility there is their own necropsy evidence in which two out of three acutely fatal cases were found to have cerebral haemorrhage rather than infarction. I agree that some of the lesions may be infarctions, but I submit that they may equally well be small haemorrhages. To me the value of this report lies in the clear and well-documented distinction it makes between the prognosis of large cerebral infarcts occurring often in normotensive patients due to atheromatous occlusive cerebrovascular disease, and that of the smaller and deeper lesions that may be small haemorrhages or infarcts usually found only in hypertensive patients. If my view is correct the therapeutic implication is that hypertension as defined by Dr. Prineas and Dr. Marshall should be carefully controlled by hypotensive therapy in younger patients with a stroke, because it is often impossible to tell whether the underlying pathological lesion is hemorrhage or infarction.-I am, etc.,


A field case study was conducted to elucidate the dynamic characteristics and the load of N leaching in paddy-wheat rotation fields during one year planting. The results showed that total nitrogen (TN) in natural leaching water declined significantly during the paddy season. Nitrate (NO-3-N) fell rapidly at the first several days of immerging, which was from more than 10 mg·L-1 to under 2 mg·L-1. Ammonia nitrogen (NH+4-N) kept at a low level (1.3 mg·L-1). Flush irrigation, which changed the oxidation-reduction potential of paddy soil, as well as fertilizer application, both had great effect on the N concentration in leaching water. Along with the prolonged flooding, NO-3-N decreased dramatically and NH+4-N increased slightly. NO-3-N was the dominant species in wheat season, and it rose quickly after fertilizing (average 7.11 mg·L-1). NH+4-N concentration was low in wheat season, as in fertilizing plot it was 0.38 mg·L-1, and in control plot was 0.36 mg·L-1. Under the conditions of an application rate of 2.50×104 kg·km-2 in paddy season and of 2.14×104 kg·km-2 in wheat season, the N leaching loads were 6.08×102 kg·km-2 and 7.42×102 kg·km-2 separately, and were 2.4% and 3.5% of total fertilizer application. In one year planting, the N leaching load in fertilizing plot was 108.7% higher than in control plot.


10009Background: Little is known about the use of checkpoint blockade in pts aged 80+. Here we report the efficacy and safety of these agents in this pt population. Methods: We identified mel pts a...