To the Editor—We read with interest the article by Kelly et al [1] who described frailty as an independent risk factor for chronic diseases and mortality in persons living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV; PLWH). Specifically, the authors observed that slow gait speed (GS) was associated with diabetes mellitus (DM). We add to their findings that measures of abnormal glucose metabolism prior to DM development can be linked to prefrail and frail conditions. Data from the Hawaii Aging with HIV-Cardiovascular Disease study [2] were analyzed to assess the association of frailty with insulin resistance (IR). Frailty was characterized using Fried's frailty phenotype (frail ≥3 criteria; prefrail = 1–2; nonfrail: 0) [3]. To assess IR, the homeostatic model assessment of IR (HOMA-IR) and oral disposition index (DIo) were calculated. DIo is also used to assess β-cell function [4]. Of 73 PLWH in our cohort, median age was 51 years and median CD4 count was 466 cells/mm. The majority were male (89%) with plasma HIV RNA <50 copies/mL (84%). We found that 42 participants were nonfrail, 26 were prefrail, and 5 were frail. We ran separate analysis of variance models with a Tukey adjustment to assess the association between handgrip strength (HGS), GS, and IR between frailty groups. Frail and prefrail groups demonstrated significantly lower HGS compared with nonfrail participants (Table 1). Frail participants showed significantly slower GS compared with prefrail and nonfrail participants. HOMA-IR was significantly increased in frail participants compared with nonfrail participants. DIo was significantly lower in frail participants compared with nonfrail participants. DIo correlated with GS (rho = –0.245, P = .036) but not with HGS. Given the limited number of frail participants, we combined the prefrail and frail participants and performed sensitivity analyses on the above results to determine which associations still held. In our comparison of frail and nonfrail participants, we found that HGS and DIo remained significantly lower and GS remained significantly higher. Frailty reflects reduced mobility related to poor skeletal muscle glucose uptake, suboptimal glycemic control, and IR [5]. Of Fried's phenotypes, HGS and GS are the only parameters that provide objective measures of frailty. In clinical practice, implementing HGS and GS may also determine the degree of sarcopenia [6]. In older populations, guidelines to improve sarcopenia [7] have suggested specific measures such as prescription of resistance-based physical activity and protein supplementation. Similar interventional methods should be considered for frail and sarcopenic PLWH. The AIDS Clinical Trials Group A5322 study found that the development of slow gait was associated with baseline hemoglobin A1c [8]. A limitation of our study was that not all participants' frailty measurements were performed at the same time as the IR measurement. Frailty and IR assessment were within 2 years of each other. Additionally, to address confounding by diabetes, participants with DM were removed from the analyses. Despite these limitations, frailty and lower HGS were significantly associated with worsening IR. In summary, we found that frailty was significantly associated with reduced insulin sensitivity and increased IR. The role of chronic inflammation or persistent immune activation in frailty needs to be further explored as well as the utility of objective measures such as HGS and GS.


Stroke rehabilitation technologies have focused on reducing treatment cost while improving effectiveness. Rehabilitation robots are generally developed for home and clinical usage to: 1) deliver repetitive practice to post-stroke patients, 2) minimize therapist interventions, and 3) increase the number of patients per therapist, thereby decreasing the associated cost. The control of rehabilitation robots is often limited to black-or gray-box approaches; thus, safety issues regarding the human-robot interaction are not easily considered. To overcome this issue, controllers working with physics-based models gain more importance. In this study, we have developed an efficient two dimensional (2D) human-robot interaction model to implement a model-based controller on a planar end-effector-type rehabilitation robot. The developed model was used within a nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) structure to control the rehabilitation robot. The GPOPS-II optimal control package was used to implement the proposed NMPC structure. The controller performance was evaluated by simulating the human-robot rehabilitation system, modeled in MapleSim®. In this system, a musculoskeletal model of the arm interacting with the robot is used to predict movement and muscle activation patterns, which are used by the controller to provide optimal assistance to the patient. In simulations, the controller achieved desired performance and predicted muscular activities of the dysfunctional subject with a good accuracy. In our future work, a structure exploiting the NMPC framework will be developed for the real-time control of the rehabilitation robot.


In October of 2004 the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board voted to incorporate 'intelligent design' (ID) into their biology curriculum, sparking a debate that would draw national interest and bring the question of whether the teaching of alternatives to evolution violates the US Constitution's provision for separation of church and state before federal court. Th e board's controversial motion, drawn up by a majority faction of Christian fundamentalist members, read: "Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design." 1 Eleven parents in the school district took issue, and supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans for the Separation of Church and State, and the National Center for Science Education took their case to Pennsylvania's Federal District Court in Harrisburg. Th ough issues surrounding the teaching of evolution and creationism have passed through US courts for almost a century, the Dover case set a new precedent in that the board (despite its overtly religious motivations) was arguing for the placement of intelligent design – the theory that "only intelligent causes adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable" – within the realm of science. 2 Propo


It is shown how the morphology and the bulk physico-mechanical properties of polymer blends and alloys may be tailored, by using proper physical and processing conditions for homogeneous systems, and molecular engineering of the interfaces for heterophase ones.

That approach, which has been substantiated by a physical study of the miscibility situations at molecular level, has been applied successfully to commodity and engineering polymer-polymer blends, but also to polymer-filler and polymer-liquid heterophase systems.


During past decades, the economic reshaping of major French cities has raised the issue of the attractiveness and power of central business districts (CBD). In Paris, recent work suggest that the decline in employment in the city center is leading to a slackening in the attributes of Parisian centrality, causing relatively widespread urban sprawl. This paper is a contribution to the current debate. Based on an original spatial slicing of Ile-de-France municipalities, the definition of key economic sectors, and growth, weight, and specialization as differentiation indicators, several hypotheses are tested. First, is the economic centrality of the Paris CBD really declining? Second, is it in fact growing thanks to the dissemination of control activities within nearby municipalities? Finally, are the economic profiles of peri-central municipalities and central neighborhoods growing increasingly similar? Our results moderate the generally pessimistic reading of the evolution of CBDs and emphasize the current persistence of centripetal forces in the economic geography of the Paris region.


Slowly coming in from the cold David Hayes, Contributing Editor, assesses factors shaping the future of the Central Asian gas grid, focusing on negotiations between five countries emerging from the shadow of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.


Formal training in a second language (L2) could be one of the essential factors for acquisition of the target language. In Malaysia, Malaysian University English Test (MUET) training is provided to pre-university students (Lower Form Six and Upper Form Six) in preparation for the actual test. However, does the amount of MUET training received by these L2 learners influence their speaking performance? This study therefore aims to investigate if the amount of MUET training factor received by pre-university students significantly distinguish them with regard to their speaking performance. To this end, a speaking test was administered to seventy Malaysian pre-university students from two different intact classes (a group of 35 Lower Form Six and 35 Upper Form Six students). The results of the study revealed that the Upper Form Six students who received more exposure to MUET training obtained a significantly higher mean score than the Lower Form Six students in the speaking assessment. Hence, it can be concluded that MUET training provided to the Form Six students seems to have a significant influence on the L2 learners' speaking performance


Brain Activation, written by Per E. Roland, a known expert in the field of neuroimaging and brain research, is a valuable compilation of theory, research findings, examples and experiences. The author's purpose is to discuss the biochemical and biophysical workings of the human brain in vivo. In doing this, each chapter neatly identifies and describes key structures and processes responsible for complex processes such as thought, perception, and spoken language, among others. Conventionally, neuroscience books are hierarchically formatted. Within such a format, authors often begin the first chapter by presenting basic knowledge. Then, in subsequent chapters of such books, authors attempt to b̀uild' on knowledge presented in the initial chapters by introducing increasingly complex processes and mechanisms. This format can be a confounding and frustrating organization for individuals only interested in certain topics; to understand what is discussed in chapter 13, for example, one must first read chapters 1± 12. One of the most inviting aspects of Roland's book is his implicit acknowledgement that, depending on backgrounds and interests, readers may be differentially interested in topics covered by his book (e.g. neurofunctional processes, division/dissection, methodological issues in imaging). As a result, the author usefully organizes the book into four sections, each of which readers could skim or even skip without compromising understanding of another section. This aspect makes Roland's book an especially useful reference tool. In the first section, Mechanisms of Brain Activation, the author provides the reader with a thorough synthesis of the clinical and physical changes occurring during brain activation, such as the generation of excitatory and inhibitory action potentials, the subsequent release of neurotransmitters, and detailed descriptions of events simultaneously occurring on the metabolic and cellular levels during such basic and understood processes. This first section provides excellent, concise detail on these processes and, in itself, could be used as an introduction for students or as a review for practitioners and researchers. In the second section, Imaging Functional Mechanisms in the Human Brain, Roland discusses the functional neuroanatomy of the brain, relating the activation of certain amounts or types of neurons to various cognitive events, such as thinking, movement, learning, and sensation. Striking, colour illustrations and useful real-life examples are used to elucidate research findings and processes described in this section. In the third section, Functional Dissection of the Human Brain, the author identifies and describes sections of the brain in detail. Additionally, within this section, in chapter 16, the author distinguishes his book by taking time to discuss theoretical and epistemological/paradigmatic issues in neuroscience, including notions of mind and behaviour, and the notion of the brain as a self-organizing entity. The book concludes with a unique section entitled `Brain Activation: New Directions, Normal Values, and Technical Notes' . This useful section contains an extensive discussion of available scientific data, norms, methodologies, and technical notes on the use of imaging technologies. This final section, much like the first section, would also be a useful primer for beginning scientists, or review for established practitioners. In the Preface, the author comments that the book is intended for ànybody working in neuroscience in the broadest sense', including ǹeurochemists, neuropsychologists, neuroanatomists, . . . medical and biological students, and the well-informed layman'. As such, Brain Activation accomplishes its goal of being comprehensible to readers with college-level knowledge of neuroanatomy, chemistry, and math. However, the book also frequently lacks clinical, pragmatic discussions of topics that are presented, which could strengthen its utility considerably. The author notes in his preface that it is not a textbook. However, the book could be used as a compliment to studies in neuroscience at an undergraduate or even graduate level. Indeed, the unique features and organization of this book, combined with useful and detailed information on complex processes, should make Brain Activation a primary reference source for students and professionals alike.


The WLAN Standard 802.11n is the most popular wireless network nowadays. However, the network performance is always important anxiety for users who is ready to migrant from wired to wireless network. In this paper we analyzed the network performance of IEEE 802.11n physical characteristics of wireless network while running different applications on different wireless network personal computer using physical characteristics of HT PHY5.0GHz 802.11n and in different data rate. Applications included Database, HTTP and FTP. For the experiment, a wireless LAN was built that included 10 wireless clients and an Access point [AP]. The experimental test was completed to analyze 802.11n standard wireless local area network performance on the network with different level of security with Database, FTP and HTTP server application. The network device such as router is configuring throughout Open Shortest Path First routing protocol to decrease utilization, create specific load distribution over the network. In this paper we tested three scenarios that modeled are: 1.No Security Scenario, 2.Limited Security Scenario and 3.Advanced Security Scenario. The level of protection used was 802.11n to filter and block some applications and their performance is analyzed. Twenty workstations are used in the simulation which all accesses the Database, FTP and HTTP server under different scenarios. The relationship between network security and performance are estimated which include the effects of protection such as firewalls on network performance. Various scenarios were evaluated through simulations using Riverbed Modeler Academic Edition 17.5(OPNET17.5) and explained the property of unusual levels of safety on a network using 802.11n wireless network standard then proposed a solution.


This paper reports on a comparative study of pauses made by L2 learners and native speakers of English while narrating picture stories. The comparison is based on the number of pauses and total amount of silence in themiddle and at the end of clauses in the performance of 40 native speakers and 40 L2 learners of English. The results of the quantitative analyses suggest that, although the L2 learners generally pausemore repeatedly and have longer periods of silence than the native speakers, the distinctive feature of their pausing pattern is that they pause frequently in the middle of clauses rather than at the end. The qualitative analysis
of the data suggests that some of the L2 learners'mid-clause pauses are associated with processes such as replacement, reformulation, and online planning. Formulaic sequences, however, contain very few pauses and therefore appear to
facilitate the learners' fluency.


The invention discloses an aluminum slurry composition for a solar energy battery. The aluminum slurry composition is composed of the following components by content in mass percentage: 5-10% of an acrylic resin derivative, 10-15% of a mixed solvent, 64-80% of aluminum powder, 3-10% of glass powder and 1% of a coupling agent KH570. By using the aluminum slurry composition for the solar energy battery, the solar energy conversion efficiency can be increased by 0.2-0.35%.


Gingival cysts of the newborn belong to the group of intraoral cystic lesions. In literature also known as dental laminal cysts and alveolar cysts, and they are benign oral mucosal lesions of transient nature. It could be differential diagnostic dilemma in neonatology. They are often mistaken as natal teeth. We presented gingival cyst at term healthy newborn infant, perinatal period and follow-up of the child. We observed spontaneously shed of the cyst after four week. There was no feeding difficulties in neonatal period, and later dentition in age of one and two years was normally. Medical professionals should be able to explain clinical presentation and self-limiting nature of these cystic lesions at neonates, so that unnecessary surgical intervention can be avoid.


An NHS manager accepted a £225 000 (€265 000; $340 000) settlement as part of a compromise agreement to leave a hospital trust after prolonged "bullying" from his health authority, MPs have heard.

Gary Walker was sacked in 2010 from his job as chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust for gross professional misconduct over alleged swearing at a meeting. However, he claims he was forced to quit for refusing to meet government targets on waiting times and was prevented from speaking out.

MPs on the parliamentary health select committee, as part of their inquiry into the report of the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry,1 quizzed Walker about his experiences of NHS culture.

Walker said that he joined the …


We study the computational complexity of the Word Problem (WP) in free solvable groups S r,d , where r > 2 is the rank and d ≥ 2 is the solvability class of the group. It is known that the Magnus embedding of S r,d into matrices provides a polynomial time decision algorithm for WP in a fixed group S r,d . Unfortunately, the degree of the polynomial grows together with d, so the uniform algorithm is not polynomial in d. In this paper we show that WP has time complexity O(rn log 2 n) in S r,2 , and O(n 3 rd) in S r,d for d ≥ 3. However, it turns out, that a seemingly close problem of computing the geodesic length of elements in S r,2 is NP-complete. We prove also that one can compute Fox derivatives of elements from S r,d in time O(n 3 rd); in particular, one can use efficiently the Magnus embedding in computations with free solvable groups. Our approach is based on such classical tools as the Magnus embedding and Fox calculus, as well as on relatively new geometric ideas; in particular, we establish a direct link between Fox derivatives and geometric flows on Cayley graphs.


It is with profound pleasure that I write this editorial to welcome you to the new journal, "PakistanBiomedical Journal" (PBMJ), an interdisciplinary international journal. PBMJ has successfully completedits first volume and now its the second volume. We greatly appreciate the response of scientists who havecontributed previously and are still contributing to this new journal. The subject of the journal isinteresting and we try to address the health related concerns of public and improve the understanding ofscientific phenomenons by researchers.Research discoveries are happening at a fast pace, in all the fields and PBMJ provides an idealforum for exchange of scientific knowledge in terms of full length papers, surveys, reviews, case studies,letters to editor and systematic analysis. PBMJ is committed to publishing all manuscripts receiving a highrecommendation from reviewers.The intention of PBMJ is to create space for generation of new knowledge, debate, collaborationsamong national and international scientists. Our vision is to promote research that will be helpful forknowledge sharing, new discoveries, development of critical thinking among the upcoming scholars,guidance for policy makers, awareness among the concerned community and ultimately benefitting thegeneral population in improving health and fitness at large.It is a matter of pride for us to have excellent editorial board members from renowned institutes.We aim to have the best standards of quality of the published manuscripts. With every issue, we arecontinuously trying to improve the standards. We look forward for more exciting researches and scientificstudies from all over the world.I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the readers of PBMJ and hope you will join us asauthors, reviewers and editors in future.
Ms. Sidra KhalidEditorPakistan BioMedical Journal


Background & Objectives: Ectopic deciduosis refers to an abnormal occurrence of decidual tissue beyond the endometrium, predominantly on the surface of the uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries and omentum. Diffuse omental and perito-neal involvement is a perplexing manifestation that may mimic peritoneal carcinomatosis. It is not accompanied by any symptoms and complications in most of the cases and does not require treatment. However, rarely it can present with acute abdomen or imitate peritoneal malignancy and, thus, associated with diagnostic difficulties and unnecessary interventions. Aim of this case report is to describe a rare case of peritoneal deciduosis in a young female, found incidentally, during a caesarean section, mimicking metastatic nodules. Afutile hysterec-tomy along with omentectomy was performed.
Methods: A case of diffuse ectopic deciduosis mimicking as peritoneal carcinomatosis in a 29 years young female with full term pregnancy was found during a lower segment caesarian section, undertaken in a tertiary care teaching hospital of Lahore, Pakistan. The histopathological diagnosis was based on common technique of paraffin embedding and hematoxylin-eosin staining along with ancillary immune-histochemical evaluation.
Results: Histopathological evaluation showed ectopic decidual tissue consisted of solid nests and loosely cohesive aggregates; large polygonal cells with abundant granular eosinophilic cytoplasm; sharply defined cell borders, bland nuclei with dispersed chromatin and single conspicuous nucleoli on the surface of uterus and in omental fat. Weak staining for CD30 was observed in the decidual cell cytoplasm and negative staining for CK and Calretinin in decidual cells was found. Calretinin and CK highlight benign mesothelial cells and help to rule out differentials of mesothelioma and metastatic carcinoma.
Conclusion: Peritoneal deciduosis represents a rare entity and it is important to consider this condition in patients, especially in pregnant women, to prevent unnecessary intervention In addition, distinguishing this condition from malignant neoplasms will help in deciding correct treatment options.


Financial intermediary institutions often compete and cooperate with each other at the same time. These financial actors provide services to their investors, and enter into transactions with them. Moreover, these players very often trade with each other to mitigate their market risks related to their exposures against their clients. Decentralized inter-dealer markets differ from the Walrasian textbook markets in three characteristics: transactions are bilateral, market players form a network, market players possess diverse bargaining power. We develop and simulate a single-period model to describe the benefits of those dealers on the network, who not only mitigate the risk, but connect other dealers on these markets.


The need for oleoresin in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries requires the search for natural sources of oleoresin from various spice plants. Ginger Zingiber officinale Rosc. is a spice plant that can be processed into oleoresin because it contains essential oils, non-volatile oils, dyes, vitamins and minerals. The aim of this study are to analyze the water content and duration of ginger oleoresin extraction for different types of ginger. Preliminary research results, from 4 levels of extraction time that is 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours and 4 hours, extraction time of 3 hours is recommended for use in research because it produces oleoresin with a high yield. Where as from 2 stages of drying time of ginger which is 36 hours and 40 hours with a drying temperature of 50 C, drying time of 36 hours at a drying temperature of 50 C is recommended for use in research.


A vehicle navigation device, the apparatus comprising: a main road regulation data table, the main rules of the road with the stored road map data associated with a plurality of road segment data, the temporary table with data of the road regulation main road regulation data tables are prepared separately, and the temporary road regulation data table storing the road segment associated with temporary road regulation data, the temporary road regulation data in preference to the main road regulation data is applied; data determination means for determining the validity of data based on a road regulation reference information, with respect to each road segment is determined application data of the main road regulation or temporary road regulation data. Rules of the road to determine the output data.


Several faults in the border area between Netherlands and Germany show a complex structure. Deep seismic lines do not reveal the shallow structure well enough and the density of the available lines is low. We conducted two high resolution seismic reflection lines to clarify some of the geological questions about the fault structure. This paper presents a general discussion on the selection of field parameters for high resolution seismic surveys for shallow applications and the data acquisition and data processing of these two lines. Several aspects of the selection of field parameters for high resolution seismic surveys for shallow applications are discussed. The selection of a station interval is discussed in detail as well as the stack-array principle. © 2019 24th European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics. All rights reserved.


A major challenge in topic classification (TC) is the high dimensionality of the feature space. Therefore, feature extraction (FE) plays a vital role in topic classification in particular and text mining in general. FE based on cosine similarity score is commonly used to reduce the dimensionality of datasets with tens or hundreds of thousands of features, which can be impossible to process further. In this study, TF-IDF term weighting is used to extract features. Selecting relevant features and determining how to encode them for a learning machine method have a vast impact on the learning machine methods ability to extract a good model. Two different weighting methods (TF-IDF and TF-IDF Global) were used and tested on the Reuters-21578 text categorization test collection. The obtained results emerged a good candidate for enhancing the performance of English topics FE. Simulation results the Reuters-21578 text categorization show the superiority of the proposed algorithm.


This article tracks public sector reform in Austria with a focus on the influence of New Public Management (NPM) both as label and as specific set of reform ideas. We analyse to what degree current reforms have been influenced and shaped by this widely acclaimed international trend. In this empirical study we combine the different data sources of media coverage, reform documents and public sector executive survey to cover different levels of analysis. Although the reforms include NPM-features, we see no evidence so far for an archetype change in the Austrian public sector.


Disclosed is the decoction medicine and the preparation method for treating the phlegm and turbid in lung type pharyngitis, which relates to the Chinese medicine herbal formula in treatment of the phlegm and turbid in lung type pharyngitis, the medicine is made from materials with parts by following weights: ten to twelve grams of each of pinellia tuberifera and tuckahoe, eight to ten grams of megnolia hypoleuca, and five to seven grams of sweet basil. The invention is characterized in that the materials are easy to get, the preparation is convenient, the cost is low and the effect is fast.


This contribution is about the method for automatic lips reading from the video picture. The results of this automatic method are used for the next audio-visual speech processing and recognition. The simple image processing method for finding of the human face in the video picture is presented here. The lips are found from the marked human face in the region of interest, where the lips are, with the help of the mathematical gradient method. This gradient method is based on the image histogram. The histogram is computed from the colour value of the region of interest. The first results for visual speech recognition of isolated words are presented in conclusion. The method described here was used for face and lips detection to help speech recognition. Today's computer technology makes possible to use also the visual part of the data used for speech processing and recognition. The visual part of the speech doesn't have such quantity of information about what has been said as the audio part of the speech signal. This visual part can improve, in the combination with the audio part of the signal, the recognition rate in noisy conditions (in the noisy factory, in the street, in the railway station, and so on). We want the recognition response to be very short. It means that speech recognition has to be done in real time. Image processing and recognition is very time consuming compared to audio signal speech processing and recognition. Therefore we need some fast and simple methods for this. These methods for image processing and recognition must be sufficiently robust. The parameters obtained from the found outline of the lips are used in the visual part of speech most frequently. The finding of the lips is done in two steps: The first step is to find the human face in the video picture. In this step we want to know if some human face is in the video picture or not, and if somebody speaks to the camera. The camera is connected to the computer on which runs the program for audio-visual speech recognition. The second step is to separate the region of interest containing the human lips from the detected face. This is very difficult task because the skin colour of the face can be the same like the colour of the lips. The methods based on colour or shape segmentation of the image with the human lips (face) fail in certain specific cases. We concentrate on normal cases (with normal press and temperature for people, when the person isn't sick, and so on) for lips finding and reading for the present. The static and dynamic (from the video stream) visual parameters from the detected outline of the lips in the combination with the parameters from the audio speech signal are used for audio-visual speech recognition than. 2. Finding of the Face of the Human Subject in video picture The face detection is the first task for the quality lips reading. A lot of methods of image processing exist that solve this problem [1]. They include the methods for face detection that work with the skin colour model, shape of the face, and so on. The methods based on skin colour model utilize simple threshold segmentation or segmentation using Gaussian mixture models of the pixels from the skin. Two-mixture models for the people with the "bright" or "dark" colour of the facial skin are used most frequently [2]. We have used the method of segmentation based on one-mixture Gaussian model of the human facial skin. Our method is used only for people with the "bright" colour of facial skin at present. We would like to create a two-mixture Gaussian model for all people in the near future. This method combined with the shape segmentation is fast and satisfactory for robust face detection. The Cr, Cb colour transformation (1) of the colour elements RGB from the original colour picture was used for the creation of the one-mixture Gaussian model of the human facial skin.


The abrasive wear and hot'' hardness of alloys of aluminium and magnesium of various concentrations was investigated at various temperatures. Specimens, cast into a chill mold and subsequently annealed, were studied. They had the following concentrationsn: 0, 1, nesium, the remainder being technically pure aluminum. The following temperatures were selected for testing: specimen of 5 mm diameter, gripped in tongs, was rubbed against the flat surface of a slowly revolving electro-corundum disk of medium hardness and grain size, bonded with a ceramic material. The wearing specimen and the abrasive disk were situated inside an electric furnace. Thc normal load on the specimen was constant (3 kg). The amount of wear was estimated by weighing the specimens before and after the experiment with an accuracy of up to 0.1 mg. The dependence of the total wear of alloys on their concentration at various temperatures is shown. Also, the dependence of total wear on temperature is shown. An aluminium-magnesium equilibrium diagram is included together with wear resistance curves. The reciprocal of the total wear is taken as wear resistance. The relationship between rubbing force and temperature for alloys of the concentrations investigated is given. The hot hardness, tested by the same equipmentmore » at the same temperatures, was taken as a characteristic of mechanical properties. The hardness was calculated. The relationships between hot hardness and alloy concentration at various temperatures, and hot hardness and testing temperature for various concentrations, are shown. The wear by firmly gripped abrasive grains leads to local destruction of the metal by scratching. An effort was made to find a relationship betwveen the volume of metal removed from the surface and the extent of plastic deformation brought about by scratching, which is expressed by the so-called piling-up'' of metal. Specimens containing 0.8 and 16% Mg, were scratched at a load of 0.750 kg. Scratching was carried out at 20, 200, and 400 deg C at very low speed. A typical cross-section of the metal surface, perpendicular to the scratch, is included. The results indicate that the abrasive wear of alloys at low temperatures is the lower, the greater the magnesium content and the greater the static distortions at a constant bond force. This does not apply for high temperatures, as the melting point of the alloy and the degree to which it softens begin to exert a decisive influence. Between the wear resistance and hot hardness there is only a qualitative relationship, and that only at low temperatures. The concentration of saturation of the solid solution by magnesium at various temperatures does not exert any influence on the wear resistance curves. The friction force does not to any extent characterize the resistance to abrasive wear. (TCO)« less


8551 Background: Melanoma is a cutaneous neoplasm known for its high agressiveness and its poor prognosis once metastasized. Dacarbacine chemotherapy is actually considered standard first-line treatment of metastatic melanoma, with reported response rates of 6–7%. Due to this unsatisfactory situation, a number of non-standard anti-cancer drugs have been tested for improved efficacy. The present study was aimed to test doxorubicin plus paclitaxel in metastatic melanoma patients based on in-vitro chemosensitivity of this drug combination in fresh tumor samples. Methods: The primary study endpoint was objective response, secondary endpoints were safety and overall survival. Patients with histologically confirmed metastatic melanoma (AJCC stage IV), measurable tumor parameters, and an in-vitro chemosensitivity to doxorubicin plus paclitaxel which is superior to other test drugs determined by an ATP-based luminescence viability assay, were eligible. Patients received paclitaxel 175 mg/m2 i.v. followed by pegyl...


Harper, R.A., Kong, X., Carpenter, G., Harvey, R. D., Proctor, G., Gambogi, R., Geonnotti, A., Hider, R., and Jones, S. A. (2016). Using a common buffering agent, Tris, to improve the antimicrobial effect of zinc in oral health products. Bioinorganic Chemistry, Gordon Research Conference, Ventura, CA, USA.


The Bloch-Siegert shift of frequency in a rotating frame is investigated. The specific conditions under which the possibility of observation of this shift will be significantly improved were found.


Abstract : Bacteria and other organisms frequently initiate or accelerate corrosion of metals. Experiments were undertaken to ascertain if the presence of microorganisms is necessary for corrosion to occur. In aerated sea water, iron corrodes fairly rapidly whether or not microorganisms are present; but in sea water, from which oxygen is excluded, iron rusts very slowly unless sulfate- reducing bacteria or their metabolic by-product, hydrogen sulfide, is present. To induce rapid anaerobic corrosion, the bacteria must be supplied with carbohydrates or other nutrients. Anaerobic conditions and bacterial nutrients might both be found in the layer of slime that accumulates on the surfaces of structures placed in the ocean.


This paper analyzed the structure of a direct-drive wind power generation,studied the control strategy of the variable speed constant frequency system.Based on conventional PID controller and fuzzy control principle,combined with practical working condition and control target,this paper designed a fuzzy PID controller.The simulation result indicates that fuzzy PID controller can effectively control the pitch angle by MATLAB software platform.


The effect of 2,2',5,5'-tetrachlorinated biphenil (TCB) on the activity of the respiratory chain modules of rat liver mitochondria oxidizing succinate (+ rotenone) in state 3 was studied using a modular kinetic approach. The kinetic dependencies of CoQ and cytochrome c reducing and oxidizing modules on the reduction state of common intermediates (CoQ and cytochrome c, respectively) were determined in the control and in the presence of 20 µM TCB. Analysis around cytochrome c revealed that TCB inhibited components of both modules. The same type of analysis around CoQ revealed that TCB had no effect on the kinetics of the CoQ-reducing module, however, it inhibited the CoQ-oxidizing module. In conclusion, our results showed that TCB inhibited cytochrome bc 1 but did not affect succinate dehydrogenase. However, this study did not provide evidence whether or not TCB has a direct effect on cytochrome oxidase.


As a new minimally invasive technique, NOSES has been widely applied and developed in our country. By combining the concept of "no scar" with conventional minimally invasive instruments, the technique of removing the specimen through the natural orifice provides an ideal minimally invasive effect with good operability and feasibility. However, there are still many problems and technical bottlenecks in NOSES. How to rationally analyze and solve these problems is an obstacle to further promote the NOSES.

Key words:
Colorectal neoplasms; Natural orifice specimen extraction surgery; Open surgery; Laparoscopic surgery; Minimally invasive surgery


It was an August afternoon in 2003 when the lights went out on Broadway, and for that matter, throughout most of the Northeast, Midwest, and Ontario—a power blackout left 50 million customers in the dark overnight. Despite complaints about the inconveniences, the stranded commuters, and the food spoilage in restaurants and markets, many city dwellers were also awed; as evening came on, they gazed upward, and between the dark skyscrapers they could see something amazing—the starry night sky. The New York Times reported spontaneous stargazing gatherings in the usually electrified cities of the Northeast.


The present invention provides a detection apparatus which detects an object to be detected, the apparatus including an illumination system configured to illuminate the object with light containing a first wavelength range and a second wavelength range different from the first wavelength range, a detector configured to detect light from the object illuminated by the illumination system, and an optical member configured to set a transmittance for light in the first wavelength range and a transmittance for light in the second wavelength range to be different from each other, thereby reducing a difference between an intensity value of the light which has the first wavelength range and is detected by the detector and an intensity value of the light which has the second wavelength range and is detected by the detector.


We appreciate the comments of Drs. Kushner and Chappell highlighting the importance of DAA treatment during pregnancy. We are in full agreement with their opinion that providers are placed in a challenging situation absent the safety and efficacy data for which we advocate. We would, however, provide a note of caution as to whether pregnant individuals always prefer to be treated during pregnancy. Our own research indicates there is a range of views, with some individuals who clearly prefer treatment and others who just as clearly do not.


Diffuse pollution of water resources due to pesticides uses is a major environmental issue in the European Union, regulated by specific legislations: the Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC) and the Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides. Solving this environmental problem requires methods and tools for spatial risk analysis, notably at a local scale (agricultural parcel level). This paper presents the first developments of a decision support system aiming to assess surface and ground waters pollution risks due to pesticides uses, based on a Geographic Information System (GIS). Different factors affecting pesticide environmental propagation are taken into account, as for example land use, pesticides properties and application modalities, environment characteristics (soil properties, topography, climate, ...) as well as surface and ground waters characteristics. A pesticide emission model is used to assess pesticide leaching or runoff to water resources. The reference scale for risks assessment is the agricultural parcel. The quality of the results obtained will be assessed by comparison with existing water monitoring data and related studies.


Nanocrystalline cadmium sulfide thin films are prepared using chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique in aqueous alkaline bath at 60 °C and their subsequent condensation on glass substrates. Effects of annealing on structural, morphological and optical properties are presented and discussed. The best annealing temperature for CBD grown CdS films is found to be 350 °C from optical properties. The optical and structural properties of CdS films are found to be sensitive to annealing temperature and are described in terms of XRD, SEM, transmission spectra and optical studies. The structural parameters such as crystallite size have been evaluated through XRD while SEM micrographs exhibit ordering of grains upon annealing. The transmission spectra shift towards higher wavelength upon annealing indicating increase in crystallinity. Annealing over 350 °C is found to degrade the external structure and optical properties of the film.


The purpose of this survey of methodological and interpretive problems in historical Jesus scholarship is to understand, first, the somewhat differing methodological foundations on which such portraits are constructed and, second, the important theoretical questions that drive the quest of historical Jesus. If the contemporary quest of the historical Jesus is to make substantial theoretical progress, it must become self-aware of its own location(s) in human discourse. The starting point for reconstructing the historical Jesus is clearly the early "Jesus tradition" - the bulk of literary sources containing sayings of Jesus. The first concerns is both the reconstruction of a tradition history of each saying and judging the extent to which a particular saying is dissimilar from the characteristic interests of early Jesus movement. A second problematic area concerns the criterion of dissimilarity. This criterion isolates materials that are dissimilar, both to the characteristic emphases of contemporary Judaism and of primitive Christianity. Keywords:Christianity; criterion of dissimilarity; historical Jesus; Judaism; literary sources; location; method; quest; tradition


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to research the price strategies of online knowledge payment product by considering network externality in the C2C sharing economy.

Design/methodology/approach
Considering the characteristics of online knowledge goods and the social network externality of consumers, this study establishes a consumer utility function. On this basis, a multistage game pricing model of online knowledge products is established based on three kinds of network price strategies under a completely competitive market structure. It also analyzes the influence of consumer social network structure and consumer utility on online knowledge product pricing and producer profit, as well as the influence of consumer quantity and discount rate on pricing strategy.

Findings
The consumer social network and consumer utility affect the pricing of online knowledge product under different price strategies. In the growth period of the platform, adopting the price discrimination strategy, the profit of producers is significantly higher than that of other price strategies, and producers should choose effective price strategies for reasonable pricing in combination with their own sales objectives.

Originality/value
This study enriches the literature on the pricing model of online knowledge payment product and owns a practical significance to guide the knowledge producers' marketing strategies to increase profit.


The vibration and disturbances from operating the compact disk layer have an effect on the play ability. As the excitation sources of the compact disk player, there are the vibration of the motors and gears, impact by mechanical parts and the external excitations. So, most of the compact disk player have a anti-vibrational system, which is included some rubber or oil dampers. In this study, the vibration characteristics of rubber damper which is used home compact disk player are investigated. The materials and shape of rubber damper are changed, and the transmissibility is measured. As a conclusion, the natural frequency is moved to higher frequency and the transmissibility is reduced by the increasing rubber stiffness. In comparison to butyl rubber damper, the transmissibility of silicon damper was increased by larger restitution elasticity. The hollow damper was effective to reduced the transmissibility.


A standard for quantitative electron microprobe analysis of organic sulfur in coal has been prepared and tested. The standard consists of spherical carbon beads 75 to 200 ..mu..m in diameter that contain 4.1 +- 0.1 weight percent sulfur. The composition of the standard is very similar to coal and is therefore well suited for coal studies. Resulting data from use of the standard indicates: (1) a consistent relative order of various coal macerals with respect to organic sulfur content; (2) higher organic sulfur contents in high-sulfur coal than in low-sulfur coal; and (3) no organic sulfur gradient within coal macerals near sulfide grains. Analysis of organic sulfur content in macerals is suggested as a means for improved interpretation of molecular structures of coal.


Previous localization solutions in wireless sensor networks mainly focus on using various techniques to estimate node positions. In this paper, we argue that quantifying the uncertainty of these estimates is equally important in practice. By using the quantitative uncertainty of measurements and estimates, we can derive more accurate estimates by better fusing the measurements, provide confidence information for confidence-based applications, and know how to select the best anchor nodes so as to minimize the total mean square errors of the whole network. This paper quantifies the estimation uncertainty as an error covariance matrix, and presents an efficient incremental centralized algorithm---INOVA and a decentralized algorithm---OSE-COV for calculating the error covariance matrix. Furthermore, we present how to use the error covariance matrix to infer the confidence region of each node's estimate, and provide an optimal strategy for the anchor selection problem. Extensive simulation results show that INOVA significantly improves the computation efficiency when the network changes dynamically; the confidence region inference is accurate when the measurement number to node number ratio is more than 2; and the optimal anchor selection strategy reduces the total mean square error by four times as much as the variation-based algorithm in best case.


Henry S. Dennison (1877-1952) was a Boston paper-products manufacturer l who, in a career spanning some fifty years, was a devoted exponent of scientific management, a pioneer advocate of unemployment insurance, and a leading corporate liberal of the interwar period. He lectured at Harvard Business School and was active in Harvard academic life, maintaining firm contacts with his friends Edwin Gay (in the Business School), Felix Frankfurter (in the Law School), and John Kenneth Galbrait4 (in the Department of Economics). He was also an adviser to the Wilson, Harding, Hoover and Roosevelt administrations. In both his private and public life, Dennison demonstrated an activist concern with the rationale and character and with the control and management of business enterprise, as well as with the impact of the capitalist business cycle on broader society. He sought to deal with these issues in his role as a business leader and public figure, as a practitioner or "doer." But he also did so as a theoretician or "thinker," in the disciplines of both economics and management. His thought was published widely in economics, management and other social science journals, and in the five monographs he published, two of which were with John Kenneth Galbraith. It was the tension between Dennison's practice and his theoretical bent, viz. his praxis, which shaped his thought and led him to embrace institutionalism. Though piecemeal efforts have been made to chronicle aspects of Dennison's thinking/ these snippets of insight have usually been part of a wider story dealing with more general and wide-ranging topics of interest to economic, business and labor historians rather than students of institutionalist economic thought. There has been no serious attempt to systematically explore the substantial opus of thought, both published and unpublished, that Dennison left in his wake. This paper seeks to amend this oversight and undertake an overview of Dennison's thought in order to pull him out of relative obscurity and discern how his thinking on the nexus between


The invention relates to a method for quickly fertilizing and improving barren farmland soil. The biogas slurry waste residue, humic acid, straw mulching and water-retaining agent are mixed to form a fertilizing material and then the fertilizing material is applied to the farmland in the form of base fertilizer. According to the invention, the organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents of the soil can be obviously increased; the soil can be quickly fertilized; the crop yield and the water use efficiency can be obviously increased; the method can quickly become effective and is easy to popularize.


Objective: To investigate the possibility of using MDM2 mRNA antisense oligonucleotide(ASON) on preventing restenosis following angioplasty,the effection of the MDM2 ASON on MDM2 and p53 was studied in vascular smooth muscle cells.Methods: An ASON targeted to MDM2 mRNA were synthesized.RT-PCR and Western-blotting were carried out to assay the MDM2 and p53 mRNA and protein level after vascular smooth muscle cells were transfected with liposome-coated ASON.Results: The mRNA level of MDM2 and p53 had significant different at different concertration of ASON(P0.01).The protein level of MDM2 and p53 were significant different at different concertration of ASON(P0.01).Conclusion: The MDM2 ASON can be specially hybridized to the MDM2 mRNA and inhibit MDM2 gene expression and increase p53 gene expression in vascular smooth muscle cell in vitro which provide a basis for it to be used in drug eluting stent study.


The present invention provides an optical disk and an optical disk apparatus. The disc is a hybrid disc having the BD layer and the DVD layer according to the DVD standard basis of the BD standard, the BD layer having a management area, the management area is recorded information regarding the structure of the optical disc, the management area comprising the information which indicates the presence or absence of packages other than the BD standard and the DVD standard optical disc standard other information layer, and in the case where the presence of the other optical disk according to the standard information layer, the information indicating that the information layer is reproduction-only type or a recordable type.


Alvarez lenses (AL) consist of a pair of aspheric surfaces such that their relative lateral displacement results in tunable lenses from positive to negative powers. In applications requiring a range of only positive powers, the use of AL results in an inefficient use of the lens size. In this work, we introduce a basic design methodology by showing formulas to shape the surfaces to overcome this problem. On the other hand, a tradeoff between the sensitivity and dynamic range of a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWS) occurs when choosing the largest focal length of the lenslet array that allows each spot of the sensor to remain in the field of view of its lenslet. On the basis of the proposed formulas, the design parameters to construct an array of micro-ALs for a Shack–Hartmann sensor with a variable dynamic range are also given.


This paper presents the effect of tamper weight shape on the dynamic compaction method in granular soils. Although the dynamic compaction method appears to be very simple, it requires careful design of the compaction process. The aim of this study is to improve the efficiency and decrease the cost of deep compaction by using cylinder-shaped tamper weights. The influence of the shape of the bottom of the tamper weight on dynamic compaction efficiency was evaluated experimentally on sandy soils. Sands of three different densities were used to evaluate the compaction efficiency. Conical-bottom tamper weights were studied with the conic angle approximately the same values as the internal friction angles of the three different densities of soil. Also, in order to compare results, a flat-bottom tamper was used with the same weight. The results indicated significant increases of the amount of ground improvement by using a conical rather than a flat-bottom load. Cet article traite de l'effet de la forme du poids ...


The planning for major international sporting events such as the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games require the use of a range of Field of Play facilities. Often these are required to be temporary overlay installations due to the cost of constructing new standalone facilities. The planning for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games included the construction of several permanent new build facilities that would be retained as legacies for the Gold Coast and Brisbane regions. The games will also include several temporary overlay Field of Play facilities; these are the competition and warm-up athletics track and field and the beach volleyball facilities. The design of such temporary overlay sites need to ensure the construction adheres with the governing sport body as well as providing quick and economical construction methodology. This paper provides an overview of the design for the temporary Field of Play facilities.


Cryogels are macroporous cross-linked polymeric structures. Affinity chromatography is a type of chromatography based on some adsorption purposes, which is either naturally occurring or artificially formed in biological systems. The wide pores and superior choice properties of cryogels have enabled these materials to be used in different affinity applications. The types of affinity chromatography were quite common when some of the biological biomacromolecules were separated. Advantages of cryogels have been utilized in applications for separation, purification and molecular recognition. In this review, the production of cryogels and affinity chromatography types have been summerized.


This paper presents a dual-redundancy CAN bus system for space robot control system.The differences between our design and other redundancy methods and the hardware design scheme of the dual-redundancy CAN bus system are proposed in detail.This paper also introduces the software fault tolerance strategy for the hardware structure of the bus.We tested the redundancy function and transmission performance of the dual-redundancy CAN bus system.


Abstract Indigenous iron‐oxidizing bacteria in soil were acclimated in three different contaminated soils to remove toxic heavy metals. The adaptation was carried out at a pH of 4.0 and a room temperature of 24 ± 2°C in a gyratory shaking incubator. The iron‐oxidizing microflora was adapted in three to four successive transfers. Ferrous iron was supplemented by addition of FeSO4.7H2O. The oxidation of ferrous iron was associated with an increase in ORP up to 500 to 600 mV. The final pH in the soil solution after bacterial adaptation was lower than 2.5 for all the soils tested. Amendment of the soil with ammonium sulphate and dipotassium hydrogen phosphate increased the rate of iron oxidation by iron‐oxidizing microflora. The acclimation of the indigenous microflora reduced the metal leaching period from 18–30 days to 2–8 days. The metal leaching capacity of the indigenous iron‐oxidizing bacteria seems to be influenced by the speciation of the metals in the different soils. This process of bioleaching appe...


In the article the remains of the base of the minaret, found in 2009 at the medieval fortress shakhristan Aktobe, which is located along the courses of the rivers Balta and Aksu. The minaret, which consists of two parts: the stylobate in the pit and base part refers to the XI-XII centuries. The preserved height of the building is 3.6 meters. Volume stylobat quadrangular minaret, the corners of which are aimed at the four corners of the world amounts to 8,65 x8, 5 m, height – 2.6 m. Diameter octagonal upper cap of 7.85 m and a height of preserved – 1 m. This minaret is of particular importance among the historical and architectural monuments of Kazakhstan, as it is so far the only minaret belonging to Karakhanid epoch in which Islam was the state religion. Key words—Aktobe, medieval, minaret, stylobate.


The present investigation "Stability, Inheritance and Mcchanisrns of resistance to Helicovcrpa armigern (Hub.) in Chickpea (Ciccr arietinum Linn.)" was taken under laboratory, glasshousc and field conditions at ICRISAT, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patanchcru during 2000-2002...


Quick Response (QR) codes have been used for both non-authentication purposes and authentication & authorization of a user. The visual representation of a QR code requires a reader/decoder to c ...


Abstract:Charitable aid is sometimes characterized as an activity saturated with emotion, in which outpourings of feeling and care draw individual volunteers to the work (Muehlebach 2012, Adams 2013, Malkki 2015, Caldwell 2017). Yet the affective practice of humanitarian care can take different cultural forms, some of which may not appear deeply affecting. Drawing upon ethnographic research with the long-term US volunteers of a faith-based medical aid organization in Minneapolis/St. Paul, this article develops a linguistically and semiotically informed approach to affect in order to deepen understanding of charitable affect as an actively made experience with cultural variability among long-term charitable volunteers, rather than a singular or stable phenomenon. It argues that affective displays are central to a multifaceted ethical practice through which charitable volunteers seek to demonstrate virtuousness in their ordinary aid activities. The article explores how, within the Minneapolis faith-based organization International Health Mission, volunteer commitment is culturally scaffolded or made socially legible through a combination of conversational exchanges, embodied labor practices, and examples of the ethically disfavored course of action. Applying linguistic and semiotic tools to the analysis of charitable aid illuminates the mechanisms through which affect economies are variously realized, contested, and practiced. Though charitable volunteers may seek to demonstrate a sense of duty or care for other people, the ways they culturally exhibit these complex ethical positions may vary substantially. Charitable work can produce the feeling of participating in a shared social contract, of rectifying the inequalities and failures of the state in some cases. This article concludes that the affect practices central to mobilizing such action may not be the same, nor importantly look the same across charitable endeavors


Sexual dichromatism, the colour difference between males and females, has been particularly important for studying the interplay between sexual and natural selection. However, previous studies on the evolutionary forces of sexual dichromatism examing the Darwin's and Wallace's model have produced mixed results. Phasianidae is a species-rich family with worldwide distribution, occupancy in nearly all terrestrial habitats, and a wide diversity of plumage patterns and colourations. Here, we use phylogenetic comparative methods to test the relationship between sexual dichromatism and colour complexity of males and females on both evolutionary direction and tempo including all species in Phasianidae. We show that the evolutionary direction of sexual dichromatism is negatively correlated with colour complexity in females but not males, and the evolutionary rates of sexual dichromatism are positively correlated with the evolutionary rates of colour complexity in both sexes. These results highlight the important role of female colour evolution in shaping sexual dichromatism in the pheasant family, and provide strong empirical supports for Wallace's hypothesis via a mosaic of sexual and natural selection in both sexes.


This paper aims to explore the practicality of transfer learning regarding to the emotion recognition task. We present superior performance of the transfer learning from the face identification, compared with the solutions of train-from-scratch feed-forward deep neural networks and general transfer learning from object classifications. We illustrate that the better adaptation of source domain can help with the initialization of the network, providing more efficient learning from the target training samples. In such way even network with complex architecture can overcome over-fitting problems thus having better results than other solutions can do having the same amount of training data. We discuss the detailed training strategies to the get best performance of such transfer leaning using fine-tuning mechanisms on the classical VGG-16 architecture network based on the public accessible FER2013 emotion database.


'Gay people have had enough positive images', Mark Ravenhill once suggested in an interview to mark the opening of Shopping and Fucking in New York. 'What those nellies need is some negative images...


Time series analysis is ubiquitous in many fields of science including gravitational-wave astronomy, where strain time series are analyzed to infer the nature of gravitational-wave sources, e.g., black holes and neutron stars. It is common in gravitational-wave transient studies to apply a tapered window function to reduce the effects of spectral artifacts from the sharp edges of data segments. We show that the conventional analysis of tapered data fails to take into account covariance between frequency bins, which arises for all finite time series -- no matter the choice of window function. We discuss the origin of this covariance and show that as the number of gravitational-wave detections grows, and as we gain access to more high signal-to-noise ratio events, this covariance will become a non-negligible source of systematic error. We derive a framework that models the correlation induced by the window function and demonstrate this solution using both data from the first LIGO--Virgo transient catalog and simulated Gaussian noise.


Marginality and Modernity: Ethnicity and Change in Post- Colonial Balochistan. Paul Titus. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.332 pp.


Executive Summary The study highlights the need for measures to accelerate the pace of the business correspondent (BC) model for financial inclusion in India. The financial analysis of the existing BCs with the existing products and services in practice shows a very diffusive break-even (more than 7 years). The occurrence of such a long-term break-even point can be a potential threat to the sustainability of new and struggling entrepreneurs like a Customer Service Point (CSP). A CSP agent runs a kiosk of a certain bank in a rural context, functioning like a BC between the bank and the beneficiaries. The primary investigation found that high cost and low volume of transaction at the CSP points are two major causes of the long break-even. In this context, the study revisited the constructs related to cost structure, market outreach, market potential and commission structure for channellizing respective banking and non-banking products. The major categories of products include (a) banking operation, (b) loan and over-draft, and (c) social security schemes. In search of a solution, the study adopts a non-random stratified sampling technique with a semi-structured interview process to collect the data from different stakeholders in the BC operation. To develop an economically viable BC model, the researchers use a standard financial modelling technique. In contrast to the existing kiosk model of CSP operation, the study found that while applying the new model a CSP agent takes three years to break-even under the same condition as that of the existing model. The study can also be applied in the domain of bottom of the pyramid (BOP) marketing by treating to create value among the low-income customers and business partners like CSPs. This research can further be extended to investigate the viability of the BC model from the banks' return on investment perspective.


We present a unified dark fluid model to describe the possible evolutionary behavior of $\Delta N_\mathrm{eff}$ in dark radiation. This model can be viewed as an interacting model for the dark sectors, in which dark matter interacts with dark radiation. We show that the evolution of $\Delta N_\mathrm{eff}$ can be nicely explained without some drawbacks, such as the blowup of $\Delta N_\mathrm{eff}$ and the non-vanishing interaction at the late time.


An earlier study focused on the stochastic features of PD in terms of phase or time-resolved statistics and the mechanisms underlying the various phases of PD including inception, propagation and extinction in the movement of the low-frequency charge along the polymer, which exists during and after PD. This subsequent effect can account for in part the abnormal space charge accumulation, dielectric loss and electric field distortion. This paper presents a first attempt to observe the slow current flow induced by PD and describes its dynamics along different polymer films under AC electric field. We designed a measurement system to acquire the slow current component by cancelling the displacement current, intrinsic conduction current and the transferred PD current from the total current flow. It is shown that the PD-transferred charge is independent on the polymer material while the PD-induced slow current is the opposite and presents a stepped variation with applied electric field. To understand the findings, the trap depth, trap density and carrier mobility of each polymer film were measured, and the surface current is not measured through the grounded guard electrode. The bulk slow current is found to be closely related to the trap parameters and mobility of the dielectric. A preliminary model considering space charge and driven by electric field is proposed which may facilitate the understanding and analysis of the complicated charges dynamics during PD at AC electric field. The relationship between the heat by slow current and the degradation of dielectric is discussed.


The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between the measured bioaccessibility and the solid-phase distribution of arsenic in Wellingborough soils. Arsenic is known to be present in soils in the Wellingborough area of Northamptonshire at concentrations up to c. 100 mg kg-1, which is above the soil guideline value of 20 mg kg-1 for this element in residential gardens, with or without plant uptake, and allotments. Four different locations were chosen from around the Wellingborough area as test sites for use in the study, two gardens, a Country Park and a new housing development site. In total 21 samples were collected to represent the ranges of As in the Wellingborough test soils at these locations.

To achieve the aim of this study the test soils were chemically characterised using a combination of analytical techniques that included XRFS and mixed acid digestion/ICP-AES, XRD, soil pH, TOC and CEC. The bioaccessible arsenic content of the soils was measured using a physiologically based extraction test (PBET). The physico-chemical distribution of arsenic between the different soil components present was determined using the CISED test and cluster analysis. The majority of total arsenic was found to be held in pure iron oxides but the bioaccessible arsenic was found to be associated with impure iron oxides, clays and carbonate sources.

The bioaccessibility of arsenic, for the oral ingestion pathway, in the Wellingborough test soils was shown to be below the SGV of 20 mg kg-1. A strong positive relationship between the total arsenic and iron present in the test soils was identified. The bioaccessible arsenic was shown not to be related to the total arsenic content of the test soils. The bioaccessible arsenic was shown to be derived from soil components derived from iron and non-iron dominated sources and is dependant on the interaction of different soil constituents.


Objective
To assess the value of maximum heart distance (MHD) in predicting the dose of tangential field heart irradiation in left-sided breast cancer.

Methods
A total of 40 left-sided breast cancer patients who were given adjuvant tangential field irradiation on the left chest wall after modified radical mastectomy in our hospital from January 2010 to December 2011 were selected in this study. For each patient, the following parameters were derived using three-dimensional treatment planning system: MHD, mean dose (Dmean) to organs at risk including the whole heart, left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery, left ventricle (LV) , and anterior myocardial territory (AMT) , thickness of the contralateral breast tissue, and thickness from the sternum to the body surface (measuring body fat). The relationship between MHD and each Dmean was analyzed by curve fitting equation. The reliability of R2> 0.8 represented a good correlation.

Results
The MHD of 40 patients was between 1.14 and 5.34 cm ((2.66±0.16) cm)). The R2 values of first-, second-, and third-order curve fitting equations were 0.869, 0.875, and 0.883, respectively, between MHD and whole heart Dmean (all P=0.000) ; 0.777, 0.799, and 0.813, respectively, between MDH and AMT Dmean (all P=0.000) ; 0.598, 0.601, and 0.633, respectively, between MHD and LV Dmean (all P=0.000) ;and 0.418, 0.470, and 0.472, respectively, between MHD and Dmean of the LAD coronary artery (all P=0.000). The Dmean of all the heart compartments was not affected by the body fat thickness.

Conclusions
MHD is a reliable predictor of the mean dose to organs at risk (whole heart and AMT) in tangential field radiotherapy for left-sided breast cancer.

Key words:
Maximum heart distance; Mean heart dose; Breast neoplasm/radiotherapy


The influence of Re on the grain boundary (GB) strength, phase evolution, and 982 C mechanical properties of fine-grain Mar-M247 superalloy was investigated. Quantitative statistical analysis showed that an increase of Re content in Mar-M247 resulted in a decrease of the size, and an increase in the number of GB carbides. The results of tensile and 982 C/200 MPa creep tests showed that tensile properties and creep life both increase with an increase in Re up to a maximum at 3 mass%. The tensile and GB strength increased with increasing the number of fine GB carbides. The addition of 1 3 mass% Re reduced steady-state creep rates and postponed the onset of the acceleration stage in three ways: (1) by increasing the amount of primary cuboidal 0 phase; (2) by increasing the strength of matrix; and (3) by increasing the development of 0 raft. It also prolonged the duration of the accelerating creep stage by refinement and an increase in the number of GB carbides. The above mentioned factors resulted in a prolongation of creep life. It is noted that the GB carbide evolution and GB strengthening effect by addition of Re have not been reported in the nickel-base superalloy before. However, addition of greater amounts of Re, such as 5 mass% Re, causes deterioration of the tensile and creep properties due to the formation of P phases. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.M2011136]


The main reason for slow development of energy-saving buildings are differences in the benefit of all stakeholders to appeal. Identifying stakeholders, and on the basis of analysis all parties interests and needs, energy-saving building Life Cycle Cost-Benefit Model was established. Then we can find the equilibrium point among the government, developer and consumer, and factors of impacting the development of energy-saving buildings. Last we provide advice for the rapid development of energy-saving buildings.


Aperiodic oscillations in the sorption of H2 or D2 in metallic Pd powder have been observed, and a novel method to confirm their deterministic rather than random character has been devised. A theorem relating the square of a function, with the derivative and integral with variable upper limit of the same function has been proved and proposed to be used as a base for a chaos-vs-random test. Both the experimental and the computed time series may be tested to detect determinism. The result is a single number within the interval [0,2]. The test is designed in such a way that its result is close to zero for the datasets that are deterministic and smooth, and close to 2 for the datasets that are non deterministic (random) or non smooth (discrete). A large variety of the test results has been obtained for the calorimetric time series recorded in thermokinetic oscillations, periodic and quasiperiodic, accompanying the sorption of H2 or D2 with Pd as well as for several non oscillatory calorimetric curves recorded in this reaction. These experimental datasets, all coming form presumably deterministic processes, yielded the results clustering around 0.001. On the other hand, certain databases that were presumably random or non smooth yielded the test results from 0.7 to 1.9. Against these benchmarks, the examined, experimental, aperiodic oscillations gave the test results between 0.004 and 0.01, which appear to be much closer to the deterministic behavior than to randomness. Consequently, it has been concluded that the examined cases of aperiodic oscillations in the heat evolution accompanying the sorption of H2 or D2 in palladium may represent an occurrence of mathematical chaos in the behavior of this system. Further applicability and limitations of the test have also been discussed, including its intrinsic inability to detect determinism in discrete time series.


This paper presents an experimental investigation on the behavior of six weight reinforced concrete beams under elevated temperature. An expanded clay aggregate (LECA) was used in six reinforced concrete beams with cross sectional dimensions of 150mm ×240 mm (width× height); and 1250mm total length. All RC beam specimens were designed according to ACI Committee 318-2014 and exposed to different elevated temperatures. The experimental test results have revealed that the lightweight reinforced concrete beams have more fire endurance than the normal weight reinforced concrete beams under same elevated temperature. Analysis of the test results has also indicated that when the exposed temperature increases, the failure mode of all beam specimens transforms from flexure to combined shear and flexure.


As the most sustainable means of modern transportation, modern railway is approaching a new era of intelligence. A major part of this momentum is the autonomous driving of railway vehicles to enable energy efficiency and safety. The derivation of an energy-optimal solution to the intelligent train driving problem in an efficient fashion, however, proves to be a significant challenge due to the high dimension, nonlinearity, complex constraints, time-varying characteristics as well as the limited computing power of onboard computers. This paper proposes a human experience driven fuzzy strategy tree framework for online generation of the energy optimized driving solution for railway trains. Starting from the frequent driving patterns of human drivers, we propose a fuzzy strategy tree structure to effectively encode the driving strategy for different working conditions. The strategy tree is built with an error driven Ripple Down Rules (RDR) method through trip simulations. The genetic algorithm is exploited to optimize the strategy parameters. We also incorporate fuzzy inference methods to handle the uncertainty of a trip. An onboard automatic controller searches the fuzzy strategy tree according to the route information to identify an optimized driving strategy for detailed control operations. Such hybrid techniques make it feasible to identify and apply the best practices of human drivers under a computation-efficient framework. The proposed techniques are validated by field test on commercial trains and enable an energy saving of over 10%.


Due to the sudden sharp increase in tin demand, the production of tin through carbothermic reduction process requires refreshment by assembling important required data and disseminate to the potential producers. The current paper presents a review on different parameters that have been tested on different tin ores. Basicity, although simply defined as ratio between the basic oxides and acidic oxides, more information unfolds depending on whether the basic oxides or acidic oxides can be interchanged or replaced by another. The effects of interchanging a basic oxide by another on the kinetics and the slag composition and behaviors are discussed in the current paper. Since different ores have different compositions the adjustment of basicity may require different basic or acidic oxides. Different effects of such parameters on the carbothermic reduction of tin are here gathered and discussed.


Summary The number of beans in a cacao pod is a component of pod value and as such an important yield factor. Studies on open pollinated pods harvested from monoclonal, biclonal and polyclonal plots and four Amazon seedling trees over various periods show that season, genotype and their interaction have a significant effect on number of beans per pod. The character shows a high variability as a result of the natural pollination process. The excessive variation observed in the number of beans of pods from the clone Na32 in a biclonal plot could be attributed to its self-incompatibility, location and flowering pattern.


In this extended abstract, we show the supervised learning approach to predicting passenger load of trams, based on historical passenger load patterns. We look at two different cases: predicting long-term passenger load of any given day and time, and predicting short-term passenger load at a particular public transport vehicle.


We introduce a framework designed to analyze the thermodynamics of an abstractly defined logical computer like a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) or a Turing machine, without specifying any extraneous parameters (like rate matrices, Hamiltonians, etc.) of a physical process that implements the computer. Earlier investigations of how to do this were based on the continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) formulation of stochastic thermodynamics. These investigations either assumed that there was exactly zero irreversible entropy production (EP) generated by the physical system implementing the computation, or allowed the EP to be nonzero but only considered the "mismatch cost" component of the EP. In addition, they only applied to a single type of computer. Our framework neither requires that EP equal zero nor restricts attention to the mismatch cost component of EP, and is designed to apply to all types of computational machines. In contrast to earlier investigations using the CTMC-based formulation, our framework is based on the inclusive Hamiltonian formulation, in which the combination of the system of interest and the baths evolve in a Hamiltonian (or unitary) dynamics. Here, we use our framework to derive an integral fluctuation theorem for computers, in which the expectation value is strictly less than 1. We also derive an exchange fluctuation theorem, and a mismatch cost formula involving first-passage times. We analyze the EP generated by a DFA, a Markov information source, and a noisy communication channel. In particular, we use the Myhill-Nerode theorem of computer science to prove that out of all DFAs which recognize the same language, the "minimal complexity DFA" is the one with minimal EP for all dynamics and at all iterations.


Energy characteristics of a lead vapor laser are investigated in wide ranges of helium buffer gas pressure variations (from 35 to 150 torr). It is demonstrated that a 4fold increase in the buffer gas pressure results in a 25% decrease of the specific energy output. The conclusion is made about the possibility of developing a Pb laser with active element lifetime exceeding 1000 hours.


FIELD: technological processes. SUBSTANCE: invention can be used for coloring paints, printing inks, inks, polymeric materials, glasses, ceramic products and decorative cosmetic preparations. Metallic luster pigment comprises aluminum substrate plates having a thickness of 1 to 50 nm, monolithically constructed and, optionally, passivated and enveloped by at least coating B of metal oxide, having a refractive index of at least 1.9. Coating B has a thickness of at least 50 nm, and comprises a metal oxide, selected from the group consisting of iron (III) oxide, chromium (III) oxide, vanadium (V) oxide, titanium (III) oxide, titanium dioxide and/or zirconium oxide. Between the surface of aluminum substrate plates and the coating B there is at least one coating A, enveloping the substrate plates and consisting of at least one oxide, having a low refractive index of at most 1.8, and selected from the group consisting of SiO 2 , B 2 O 3 , MnO 2 , MgO, GeO 2 and Al 2 O 3 . Substrate plates further comprise coating C, different from the underlying coating B and consisting of silicone dioxide, silicon oxide hydrate, aluminum oxide, zinc oxide, tin oxide, titanium dioxide, zirconium oxide, iron (III) oxide or chromium (III) oxide. EFFECT: invention provides a metallic lustre pigment having a higher coverage and allows reducing its combustibility and explosion hazard. 7 cl, 4 dwg, 1 tbl, 3 ex


Railway projects pass through numerous spaces and complicate terrains,different terrains witness different degrees of water and soil erosion,so pertinent techniques should be adopted to prevent water and soil loss in regions of diverse topographic conditions,and to protect ecological environment along the railway lines. According to the construction status of Anhui Section of Hefei-Fuzhou Railway,data collection and comparison method was used to establish water and soil loss prevention techniques and measures,and compare the investment in water and soil preservation on plains with gentle slopes and in low hilly areas. It was concluded that low hilly areas are major regions for water and soil erosion control along the Hefei-Fuzhou Railway,and the research provides references for the water and soil conservation in similar projects.


Journal Burn Surgery BU001 DYSPHAGIA IN THE ELDERLY BURN PATIENT: BURN LOCATION IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH DYSPHAGIA AND ITS COMPLICATIONS IN PATIENTS OVER 75 YEARS NICOLA CLAYTON, CAROLINE NICHOLLS, KAREN BLAQUEZ, CHERYL BROWNLOW, PETER MAITZ, OLIVER FISHER AND ANDREA ISSLER-FISHER Concord Repatriation General Hospital, NSW Purpose: Management of the elderly burn patient is complex with advanced age known to be associated with elevated risk for morbidity and mortality. The presence of dysphagia and its sequelae may further increase this risk. We aimed to determine the prevalence and identify a set of risk factors for dysphagia in patients admitted with severe burn injury over the age of 75 years. Methods: All patients over 75 years admitted to Concord Repatriation General Hospital with severe burn injury (2013-2017), were assessed for dysphagia on admission and continually throughout their stay. Key data points captured included: burn size and location, premorbid medical history and cognitive function, presence and severity of dysphagia, nutrition assessment and indication for nutrition support, number of surgical procedures requiring general anaesthetic, mechanical ventilation, medical complications during admission and discharge destination. Results: A total of 66 patients (35 male; 31 female) aged 75-96 years (median 82 years) were recruited over the study period. 46.97% were identified as dysphagic during their hospital admission. Presence of dysphagia was significantly associated with pre-existing cognitive impairment (p=0.035), need for mechanical ventilation (p=0.001), increased days of enteral feeding (p<0.001), increased hospital length of stay (p<0.01), inhospital complications (p<0.001) and mortality (p=0.003). There was no association identified between burn location, burn mechanism, surgery and presence of dysphagia. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that regardless of burn location, burn patients with advanced age are at risk for dysphagia and dysphagia related complications. BU002 THE 3D BURN SMART-PHONE APPLICATION VALIDATION STUDY: ACCURATE, FREE & FAST? ANDREW CHEAH, TANASIT KANGKORN, EI HUAN TAN, MUI LIAN LOO AND SI JACK CHONG Singapore General Hospital, Singapore Background: Accurate Total Body Surface Area Burn (TBSAB) estimation is a crucial aspect of early burn management; it helps guide resuscitation and is essential in the calculation of fluid requirements. Conventional methods of estimation can often lead to large discrepancies in burn percentage estimation. We aim to compare a new method of burn estimation using the "3D Burn" smart-phone application against conventional methods of estimation Rule of Palm, Rule of 9's and the Lund & Browder chart. Methods: 3 volunteer subjects were moulaged with simulated Burn injuries of 25%, 30% and 35%. Healthcare workers were invited to use both the 3D Burn smart-phone application as well as the conventional methods stated above to estimate the volunteer subjects' Burn percentages. Results: Collective relative estimations across the groups showed that when used, the Rule of Palm, Rule of 9s and L&B all over-estimated Burns by an average of 10.6%, 19.7% and 8.3% respectively. The 3D Burn application under-estimated burns by an average of 1.9%. There was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between the 3D burn application estimations vs all 3 other modalities. The average time to completion for the Rule of Palm, Rule of 9s and L&B was 3.1minutes(mins), 2.97mins and 3.13mins respectively. The average time for completion of TBSAB assessment using the 3D burn application was 5.1mins. Conclusions: The 3D burn application, although slower, allowed more accurate TBSAB measurements when compared to conventional methods. The study has shown that the application could be useful in improving the accuracy of TBSAB measurement. BU003 CHANG GUNG MEMORIAL HOSPITAL BURN CENTER RESPONSE TO DISASTER: STAFF EXPANSION AND PREPARATION IN FORMOSA COLOR DUST EXPLOSION YUN-HUAN HSIEH, SHELLEY J. LIU AND SHIOW-SHUH CHUANG Burn Centre at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan Objectives: Formosa Color Dust Explosion is the worst manmade disaster in Taiwan, resulting in 499 overall burn casualties from the estimated of 3000 people at the scene. This paper is aimed to narrate basic patient presentations and outcomes and describe the process of nursing staff expansion and preparation in CGMH. Method: Data of overall casualties and severity were obtained from Ministry of Health and Welfare. Patient-specific data were collected from the electronic patient chart of CGMH. Data of recruited number of nurses and numbers claimed over time were obtained from head nurse of the Burn Center and head nurse of Microsurgery ICU. Descriptive data were used and analyzed for patient-specific data analysis as well as the evaluation of efficiency and adequacy of nursing staff expansion, maintenance, and management in response to the disaster. Results: 49 patients were transferred to CGMH, 76% of patients were admitted to Burn and Microsurgery ICU with average TBSA of 43.8%. The overall mortality rate is 2.4%. The number of recruited nurses increased steadily over the first week and peaked at 40 per day. Day shift consists of the greatest number of recruited staff, yet with the greatest fluctuation. The claimed over time was increased dramatically immediately after the disaster and followed by a steep decline. Conclusion: CGMH responded adequately to this disaster event. The current system is sufficient for rapid nursing staff expansion, maintenance, and management. The system is sustainable and capable of providing satisfactory care for all admitted patients. BU004 A NOVEL APPROACH TO PAEDIATRIC FULL THICKNESS FACIAL BURNS: APPLICATION OF MATRIDERM WITH SIMULTANEOUS AUTOLOGOUS SKIN GRAFTING NICK TELLAM AND SANDRINE ROMAN Westmead Children's Hospital, NSW Purpose: The operative management of full-thickness burns to the face remains a challenge for burn surgeons. Key features of facial skin including colour, texture, contour and facial expression remain difficult to reproduce in this setting. Traditionally, grafting techniques have resulted in unfavourable outcomes. Here we report the first documented case in Australia of using the dermal substitute, Matriderm, on the face for primary burn wound closure. Methods: A 2yo girl was admitted to Westmead Children's Burns Unit with full thickness burns to 70% of her body including the entire face after an accidental flame injury. Following surgical debridement on day 10, Matriderm was applied followed by a split thickness skin graft in a one-stage procedure. Results: At 5 months post Matriderm application, improved cosmesis and skin quality was observed when compared to traditional techniques. Furthermore, preserved facial expression was evident. Conclusion: This is the first documented case in Australia of using Matriderm on the face for primary burn wound closure. We are of the opinion that this procedure results in improved cosmesis and skin quality when compared to traditional techniques and has the potential to provide a more reliable reconstructive tool for facial burns management in the future. BU005 ABLATIVE FRACTIONAL RESURFACING FOR BURN SCAR MANAGEMENT: EFFECT ON NUMBER AND NATURE OF ELECTIVE SURGICAL RECONSTRUCTIVE PROCEDURES AND HOSPITAL LENGTH OF STAY ANDREA ISSLER-FISHER, OLIVER FISHER, NICOLA CLAYTON, PETER HAERTSCH


With the increasing appreciation for sex as a biological variable and the inclusion of female mice in research, it is important to understand the influence of the estrous cycle on physiological function. Sex hormones are known to modulate vascular function, but the effects of the mouse estrous cycle phase on arterial stiffness, endothelial function, and arterial estrogen receptor expression remain unknown. In 23 female C57BL/6 mice (6 months of age), we determined the estrous cycle stage via vaginal cytology and plasma hormone concentrations. Aortic stiffness, assessed by pulse wave velocity, was lower during the estrous phase compared with diestrus. In ex vivo assessment of isolated pressurized mesenteric and posterior cerebral arteries, the responses to acetylcholine, insulin, and sodium nitroprusside, as well as nitric oxide-mediated dilation, were not different between estrous cycle phases. In the aorta, expression of phosphorylated estrogen receptor α was higher for mice in estrus compared with mice in proestrus. In the cerebral arteries, gene expression for estrogen receptor β (Esr2) was lowest for mice in estrus compared with diestrus and proestrus. These results demonstrate that the estrous phase is associated with lower in vivo large artery stiffness in mice. In contrast, ex vivo resistance artery endothelial function is not different between estrous cycle phases. Estrogen receptor expression is modulated by the estrous cycle in an artery-dependent manner. These results suggest that estrous cycle phase should be considered when measuring in vivo arterial stiffness in young female mice.


According to the total amount and statues of chemical fertilizer consumption, and grain yields during the last 10 years (1990-1998) in each county of China, regional differences in grain productivity and grain productivity increased by additional application of fertilizers were analyzed and compared. Results of the study are concluded as follows:Grain productivity and grain yield increased by additional application of fertilizers in most of the counties varied from 3500 kg/hm2 to 5250 kg/hm2 and from 300 kg/hm2 to 600 kg/hm2, respectively. The index of grain yields increased (IGYI) by additional application of per kilogram of fertilizers varied from 5 kg grain/ kg fertilizer to 10 kg grain/ kg fertilizer.The grain yield and grain productivity were found to be 5372 kg/hm2 and 7462 kg/hm2 in Eastern Region with high input of fertilizers, to be 4940 kg/hm2 and 7216 kg/hm2 in the Central Region with middle input of fertilizers, and to be 3844 kg/hm2 and 5470 kg/hm2 in the Western Region with low input of fertilizers. It was indicated that potential of grain productivity increase per sowing area was 754 kg/hm2 in the Central Region that was lower than that in the Western Region (948 kg/hm2) and higher than that in the Eastern Region (714 kg/hm2).The IGYI for different regions were found to decrease as the following order: Western Region (9.41 kg grain /kg fertilizer) Central Region (7.17 kg grain /kg fertilizer) Eastern Region (-11.1 kg grain /kg fertilizer).It is concluded that the Eastern Region had the highest grain productivity, but had lowest potential for yield increase when more fertilizer is used because less response of grain yield was found to the additional application of fertilizer. However, the response of grain yields in the Western and Central Regions were higher to the additional application of fertilizer Therefore, more fertilizer should be used in the Western and Central Regions to improve China's grain production.


Today's large-scale softwareintensive systems exhibit an increasing complexity due to a broad spectrum of technical and socio-technical components. Due to the very dynamic character of such systems as well as fast evolving technologies, most requirements cannot be planned a priori. To overcome this problem, we suggest a method to gather enduser needs for requirements engineers at any time by applying a geographical deployed feedback system. End-user needs are gathered in-situ by utilizing mobile devices. In this paper, we present the implementation of our feedback system enabling end-users to submit feedback with smartphones at very low effort and cost.


This paper aims to analyze the accessing degree of the European funds allocated to Romania for the period 2007 - 2013, in order to achive an efficent use of funds for future programming phase. From the analysis it is found that the National Rural Development Programme has a good degree of access compared to other operational programs implemented in Romania. To enhance the competitiveness of the agricultural sector and the quality of life in rural Romania, it is important to allocate funds for the next programming period that contributes to equitable and sustainable development of rural areas.


This paper provides a taxonomy of constructive induction problems and reports on an empirical comparison of several constructive induction methods. In this paper a representation space is said to be poorly suited for learning because of three types of problems: 1) inappropriate attributes or attribute values, 2) incomplete attribute values, attribute sets or examples and 3) incorrect attributes or examples. Most current constructive induction methods are designed to correct one of these types (or sub-types) of problems which limits the types of problems for which this method is effective. In order to build a more general multistrategy method of constructive induction an understanding of when some methods for constructive induction are useful and when they fail is important. Five methods of constructive induction are evaluated: DCI attribute construction (AQDCI), HCI attribute construction (AQ-HCI(ADD)), HCI attribute removal (AQ-HCI(REMOVE)), HCI construction and removal (AQ-HCI), and attribute-value removal (AQ-SCALE). The results point to the need for a multistrategy constructive induction approach for solving a wide variety of induction problems.