Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is the only potentially curative treatment for patients (pts) with myelofibrosis (MF). Outcomes utilizing fully myeloablative conditioning regimens have been disappointing in large part due to transplant related mortality in this generally older pt population. Recently, there have been encouraging results reported with reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) regimens followed by allogeneic HCT. Most of the reports have focused on HLA matched siblings as the stem cell donors. We have treated nine patients with MF (7 idiopathic, 1 secondary to essential thrombocythemia, 1 secondary to polycythemia vera) with RIC HCT utilizing matched unrelated donors (MUD) for 7 of the 9 patients, and sibling donors for 2 patients. The median age was 54 yrs (range 46 to 68); 4 female and 5 male. (See Table) The time interval from diagnosis to HCT ranged from 8 to 156 mos (median 41 mos). By the Lille classification, 4 pts were characterized as high risk, 4 as intermediate, and 1 as low risk. All 9 pts had significant splenomegaly, and 5/9 underwent splenectomy prior to HCT. Eight of the nine pts had ≥ 1% blasts in the PB at the time of HCT; 3 pts had abnormal cytogenetics (although none had +8 or 12p-); and 4 pts had constitutional symptoms. Seven of the 9 pts were RBC transfusion dependent. The RIC regimen consisted of fludarabine (Flu) and a single dose of total body irradiation (TBI) for Pt 1, and Flu/melphalan (Mel) for the subsequent 8 pts. G-CSF primed peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) were used for all patients, except for Pt 6 who received a total of 3 products because of graft failure. The number of CD34+ cells X 10 6 /kg ranged from 0.97 to 17.1 (median 2.8). Prophylaxis against graft vs. host disease (GVHD) consisted of cyclosporin/mycophenolate +/− methotrexate. Seven pts successfully engrafted WBC with ANC > 500 by a median of day +15 (range 10 to 21). Pt 6 never engrafted WBC, and the nadir for Pt 1 was >500. Five pts achieved platelet engraftment (>25k) from 15 to 594 days (median 32), 3 pts never engrafted platelets (Pts 2,6,7), and the nadir for Pt 1 was >25k. At the time of the latest FISH and/or STR analysis, 8/9 pts were chimeric with 96 to 100% donor cells and/or DNA. All but 1 pt developed acute GVHD that was ≥ grade III in 4/8 pts. Four of 6 evaluable pts had extensive chronic GVHD. Six of the 9 pts are alive at the time of last contact with follow-up for the living pts ranging from 3.4 to 48.5 mos (median 11.8). The 3 deaths were from: septic shock due to primary graft failure on day +125 (Pt 6), sepsis related to severe acute GVHD on day + 51 (Pt 4), and sepsis with secondary graft failure related to severe acute GVHD on day +45 (Pt 2). The probability of overall and disease free survival was 64.8% (30.8 to 88.4%, 95% CI). These results demonstrate that MUD HCT utilizing PBSC can be an effective treatment for older pts with MF. Treatment Summary


In 1889 I examined the fossil Reptilia described by Professor Gaudry from the Permian rocks of Autun, and those from Orenburg, described by Eichwald, and obtained subsequently. These remains give no evidence of Pareiasaurians in Europe, though they add to knowledge of the Theriodontia. Later in the year I visited Cape Colony, and examined the Museums of Cape Town and Graham's Town. Every facility for study was placed in my way by the trustees and officers of those museums, but it soon became evident that almost every specimen of obvious scientific interest had been already deposited in the British Museum, in London. There were indications of a few new generic types, but the portions of individual animals which were associated had the bones disconnected and few in number; and of types allied to Pareiasaurus I saw only one imperfect bone, a proximal end of a femur, collected for the South African Museum. If further evidence was to be obtained, it could only be by collecting new specimens.


III) Thermal Diffusivities of Alheira R Alheiras (120 oC) = 15.63±1.72 mm R Alheiras (240 oC) = 16.17±0.84 mm where: J0(x) – Bessel function of order 0; J1(x) – Bessel function of order 1; R(n) Positive solutions of the equation J0(x) = 0  Thermal diffusivity After a long period of time  1st Term of the Serie + Applying logarithms Chemical and thermal characterization of a Portuguese traditional fermented meat sausage Marta Fonte, Ermelinda L. Pereira, Etelvina Pereira, Alfredo Teixeira and Elsa Ramalhosa 1Mountain Research Centre (CIMO), ESA-Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Campus de Sta. Apolónia, Apartado 1172, 5301-855 Bragança, Portugal 2Veterinary and Animal Research Centre (CECAV), University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), Apartado 1013, 5001-801 Vila Real


The characteristics and mechanism of an experimental device with glow discharge plasma for treatment of organic wastewater being difficult to be degraded biologically are reviewed systematically,and the present situation of the researches on glow discharge plasma at home and abroad are introduced in this paper.Furthermore,the problems appeared in the treatment of organic wastewater by this technique and the technique's applicable prospect are discussed.


A useful method of preparing chromosomes for identification was developed by using young citrus leaves. The preparatory procedures are as follows : 3-5 mm long young leaves were enzymatically macerated ; the cell suspension in a hypotonic solution was dropped onto a glass slide from about 30 cm height. The preparations were stained with Giemsa. For the enzymatic maceration, incubating young, finely minced leaves of 'Tosa-Buntan' pummelo (C. grandis [L.] Osb.) in a mixture of 0.3% cellulase and 0.2% pectolyase for 120 to 180 min at 37°C was optimum for chromosome preparation because it allowed morphological characteristics to become visible. The present method using young leaves was considered as a useful chromosome preparation method for chromosome identification in citrus.


This article discusses the application of two important limits and summaries up its rules with the properties of continuous function. This article is helpful to calculate indefinite form of limits 00 and 1 ∞ . The calculating method in this article shows its superiority especially in calculating the limit of a sequence of number where the Rule of L'Hospital can't be applied.


The main purpose of this survey is to introduce the inexperienced reader to additive prime number theory and some related branches of analytic number theory. We state the main problems in the field, sketch their history and the basic machinery used to study them, and try to give a representative sample of the directions of current research. 2000 MSC: 11D75, 11D85, 11L20, 11N05, 11N35, 11N36, 11P05, 11P32, 11P55.


Meta-studies of the effectiveness of ICT (information and communication technology) in education indicate that it has about as much impact as any other innovation (Parr 2000). However, there are great expectations about ICT having as significant an influence in this area as it has had in industry and commerce (Kraver 1997). Where have we gone wrong? Are teachers bound to the past and determined to dismiss any technological innovation until it has truly proven itself reliable? Or are systems rushing into the adoption of computers in schools belatedly for a mixture of social, economic and purportedly pedagogic reasons? I say belatedly, because it is increasingly the case that in several countries students have far easier access to a computer and the Internet at home than in the classroom.This paper describes some of the significant issues threatening greater adoption of ICT, including industrial fears, teacher professionalism supported by school effectiveness research, examination systems, current curricula, and equity policies. It indicates how some of these threats are being met by reference to short case studies and a discussion about evidence of systemic transformation.


Preface and Acknowledgements List of Acronyms List of Figures and Tables Introduction PART I 1. Europe's Compromising Union 2. The Member State Paradigm 3. From Nation-States to Member States: A Brief History PART II 4. European Economic Integration and State Transformation 5. From Nation-States to Member States in European Foreign Policy Conclusion Bibliography Index


Carbonate-bearing fluorapatite rocks occur at over 30 globally distributed carbonatite complexes and represent a substantial potential supply of phosphorus for the fertiliser industry. However, the process(es) involved in forming carbonate-bearing fluorapatite at some carbonatites remain equivocal, with both hydrothermal and weathering mechanisms inferred. In this contribution, we compare the paragenesis and trace element contents of carbonate-bearing fluorapatite rocks from the Kovdor, Sokli, Bukusu, Catalão I and Glenover carbonatites in order to further understand their origin, as well as to comment upon the concentration of elements that may be deleterious to fertiliser production. The paragenesis of apatite from each deposit is broadly equivalent, comprising residual magmatic grains overgrown by several different stages of carbonate-bearing fluorapatite. The first forms epitactic overgrowths on residual magmatic grains, followed by the formation of massive apatite which, in turn, is cross-cut by late euhedral and colloform apatite generations. Compositionally, the paragenetic sequence corresponds to a substantial decrease in the concentration of rare earth elements (REE), Sr, Na and Th, with an increase in U and Cd. The carbonate-bearing fluorapatite exhibits a negative Ce anomaly, attributed to oxic conditions in a surficial environment and, in combination with the textural and compositional commonality, supports a weathering origin for these rocks. Carbonate-bearing fluorapatite has Th contents which are several orders of magnitude lower than magmatic apatite grains, potentially making such apatite a more environmentally attractive feedstock for the fertiliser industry. Uranium and cadmium contents are higher in carbonate-bearing fluorapatite than magmatic carbonatite apatite, but are much lower than most marine phosphorites.


Enterprise and the enterprise culture are regularly referred to in everyday conversation but the term enterprise has a variety of meanings. In its broadest sense enterprise refers to a set of attributes, skills and behaviours which may be demonstrated by an individual. In its narrowest sense it is used synonymously with small business founding and management. In general, enterprising people take bold steps in setting up and managing projects and they require certain knowledge, skills and personal qualities if they are to be considered competent in this context.


Outbreak of Classical swine fever (CSF) in wild pigs of Mizoram, a far North Eastern state of India was confirmed by post mortem examination, histopathology and RT-PCR on tissue samples targeting the E2 glycoprotein and NS5B gene fragments of CSFV. Necropsy examination revealed typical button ulcers in large intestine and infarction on spleen with hemorrhagic pneumonia in lungs. Two isolates of CSFV from outbreaks were subjected to nucleotide sequencing of E2 and NS5B gene fragments for genetic typing. Phylogenetic analysis on 190 nucleotides region of E2 gene and 409 nucleotide region of NS5B gene revealed that both the isolates belonged to the group 2 and subgroup 2.1.


Knowledge about eye health is very important especially about correction refraction disorder. If refraction disorder not corrected, it can cause complication even blindness. One of eye disease that tends to increase and become problem in society is myopia which is a refractive error with a laser beam entering the eye is parallel to the optical axis was brought into focus in front of the retina. This study was conducted to apprehend the knowledge of myopia students of SMA Santo Thomas 1 about eye health. Descriptive study was chosen in this study. A total of 75 samples were included with 0,1 as the precisions (d). Sampling technique used was stratified random sampling and samples were then distributed proportionally based on their level of education. Data were collected by utilizing questionnaires and analyzed by using descriptive statistic. The result of myopia high school students' knowledge in SMA Santo Thomas 1 Medan towards eye health is 60% categorized as sufficient and 40% categorized as good. Respondents with sufficient knowledge base on age is in age group 15-16 years with 62,5%, whereas who has good knowledge is age group more than 16 years with 55,6%. Respondents with sufficient knowledge base on class, majority is in XI SMA class with 80%, whereas respondents with good knowledge with 68% was XII SMA class. And respondents with sufficient knowledge base on gender was female with 60,5% and majority who have good knowledge was male with 40,5%. From the result of this study, then concluded that myopia students of SMA Santo Thomas 1 Medan have sufficient knowledge about eye health. It is expected of the parents from the students to increase their care concerning their children's education about eye health. Furthermore, it is expected of the school also to work together with health service in giving better guidance eye health.


Verifying systems by implementing them in the programming language of a proof assistant (e.g., Gallina for Coq) lets us directly leverage the full power of the proof assistant for verifying the system. But, to execute such an implementation requires extraction, a large complicated process that is in the trusted computing base (TCB). This paper presents Œuf, a verified compiler from a subset of Gallina to assembly. Œuf's correctness theorem ensures that compilation preserves the semantics of the source Gallina program. We describe how Œuf's specification can be used as a foreign function interface to reason about the interaction between compiled Gallina programs and surrounding shim code. Additionally, Œufmaintains a small TCB for its front-end by reflecting Gallina programs to Œufsource and automatically ensuring equivalence using computational denotation. This design enabled us to implement some early compiler passes (e.g., lambda lifting) in the untrusted reflection and ensure their correctness via translation validation. To evaluate Œuf, we compile Appel's SHA256 specification from Gallina to x86 and write a shim for the generated code, yielding a verified sha256sum implementation with a small TCB.


With the maturity of the cloud computing technology, desktop cloud makes applications more secure and flexible. In this paper, we analyze the defects of traditional computer laboratory management, and combined with computer laboratory teaching environment construction and application practice. This method integrates computing power and data storage by cloud computing and virtualization. We also build the experiment teaching environment based on FusionAccess by the technology of desktop cloud, and analyze the feasibility and reliability of the desktop cloud technology. The construction and management of computer laboratory have also been improved significantly.


This paper describes a tangible interface, Playte, designed for children animating interactive robots. The system supports physical manipulation of behaviors represented by LEGO bricks and allows the user to record and train their own new behaviors. Our objective is to explore several modes of interaction, i.e. direct remote control, tangible programming, programming by demonstration, and programming by training, to learn the design principles for more accessible, engaging, and playful robots. We evaluate the system experimentally and report on key observations from play sessions. We conclude that Playte facilitates playful activities and is appropriate for the intended target group (age 6+). Further, we discuss lessons learned regarding pros and cons of the different supported interactions modes.


Replacing coal with electricity, large capacity storage and electricity heating making the composition and characteristics of conventional load change fundamentally. There are the larger changes in the overall features of the power load and the larger randomness and elasticity of loads. As a result, mastering users' characteristics and behavior habits of electricity can be effectively applied in the system of safety evaluation and operation plan. Power system load under the condition of new energy power complied with high permeability is influenced by a variety of external factors. We must take effective measures to fully exert the load ability of adjusting and scheduling, realize the coordinated scheduling of the distribution network. Therefore, the main research contents of this paper are as follows: (1) analyze the charging behavior characteristics of EV and establish the probability model of EV charging load; (2) analyze the control characteristics and operation mode of the heat and power storage boiler, then establish the thermo-electric regulation and control load model of the heat and power storage boiler; (3) analyze the working mode and operating constraints of energy storage battery, and establish the power regulation load model of large-capacity energy storage battery.


Address for Correspondence: Esakkiammal. N, Senior Demonstrator, Department of Anatomy, UCMS & GTB Hospital, Dilshad Garden, Delhi: 110095. Mobile: 91 – 9650525642. E-Mail: email@example.com Background: The common, internal and external carotid arteries are the major source of blood supply to the region of head and neck. The anatomy of the carotid arteries is of special interest to surgeons involved in the management of head and neck pathology. The presence of any anomalous origin and or course of these vessels is usually discovered as an incidental finding when imaging studies are performed during investigations of relevant clinical conditions. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted in the department of anatomy, University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS), Delhi, India. Twenty six formalin fixed head and neck regions belonging to either sex were dissected on both the sides. The level of common carotid artery (CCA) bifurcation and any variation from the normal in the branching pattern of external carotid artery (ECA) were noted and photographed. Results: Out of twenty six head and neck regions studied (52 sides), variations in the level of bifurcation of CCA and branches of ECA were observed. In the present study, in 9 hemi sections of head and neck (Right=5: Left=4), CCA bifurcated above the normal level near to the angle of mandible. On the left side, in 7 specimens lingual and facial artery arose as a common trunk i.e linguo-facial trunk from ECA. In 3 specimens on the left side, superior thyroid artery (STA) arose from the CCA. Superior thyroid artery arose at the level of carotid bifurcation (CB) in 14 specimens (right = 8, left = 6). Conclusion: The present study reports high bifurcation of CCA and variations in the origin of some of the branches of ECA. These findings may be utilised by vascular surgeons operating in the region of head and neck for preventing accidental injury to these vessels.


It is encouraging to note, over the last decade or so, the increasingly active role of the Byelorussian Academy of Sciences in promoting and organizing synchronic and diachronic research into the structure of the Byelorussian language. The centre of this work has been the Academy's Institute of Linguistics, which now publishes, through 'Navuka i Technika', the journal Bielaruskaja Linhvistyka (1972-), as well as scholarly monographs. The latest of these, from the Laboratory of Experimental Phonetics in Minsk, is Padluzny & Cekman's Huki bielaruskaj movy,* which has the distinction of being, if not the first full-length study of the sounds of Byelorussian, at least the first extended investigation of Byelorussian phonetics from an experimental viewpoint.1 It therefore adds an important new facet to our knowledge of Byelorussian phonetics, which has hitherto been mainly concerned with dialectology2 and normative descriptions in the 'kul'tura reci' pattern of Soviet Russian phonetics.3 If the book's subject matter is original, in a sense, its approach is conservative and conventional. It would probably have been unwise for the authors to choose otherwise. In a preliminary investigation, one can only gain from unequivocal techniques and well-tried methods of classification. The book contains four main sections: an introductory chapter on general articulatory phonetics and the physiology of speech (pp. 5-22); an analysis of the consonant phonemes (33-219) and vowel phonemes (220-49) of Byelorussian; and a brief summary of the main results (250-60). Although the authors devote most space to Byelorussian phonetics, they include many comparisons with other Slavonic languages a merit also found in Cekman's diachronic work on palatalization (1970). Most of their comparative data is from Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, as is


The international financial and monetary crisis has blocked the financial flows of emerging economies (and not only), resulting in a significant restraint of their economic activity. Moreover, the positions of these states have changed; thus, if during the latest 10-12 years, economists considered that emerging countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and then South Africa (2011) were the future driving force of the world economy, nowadays more and more people speak of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, Colombia, Vietnam, Egypt, Peru and the Philippines. "MINT", "CIVETS" or "CIPP" are the acronyms assigned to such countries in the analyses of economists and specialists. The hereby paper is an evaluation of the current position of BRICS countries within emerging economies.


Fruit quality is determined by numerous genetic factors that affect taste, aroma, color, texture, nutritional value and shelf life. To unravel the genetic components involved in the metabolic pathways behind these traits, the major goal of the project was to identify novel genes that are involved in, or that regulate, these pathways using correlation analysis between genotype, metabolite and gene expression data. The original and specific research objectives were: (1) Collection of replicated fruit from a population of 96 RI lines derived from parents distinguished by great diversity in fruit development and quality phenotypes, (2) Phenotypic and metabolic profiling of mature fruit from all 96 RI lines and their parents, (3) 454 pyrosequencing of cDNA representing mRNA of mature fruit from each line to facilitate gene expression analysis based on relative EST abundance, (4) Development of a database modeled after an existing database developed for tomato introgression lines (ILs) to facilitate online data analysis by members of this project and by researchers around the world. The main functions of the database will be to store and present metabolite and gene expression data so that correlations can be drawn between variation in target traits or metabolites across the RI population members and variation in gene expression to identify candidate genes which may impact phenotypic and chemical traits of interest, (5) Selection of RI lines for segregation and/or hybridization (crosses) analysis to ascertain whether or not genes associated with traits through gene expression/metabolite correlation analysis are indeed contributors to said traits. The overall research strategy was to utilize an available recombinant inbred population of melon (Cucumis melo L.) derived from phenotypically diverse parents and for which over 800 molecular markers have been mapped for the association of metabolic trait and gene expression QTLs. Transcriptomic data were obtained by high throughput sequencing using the Illumina platform instead of the originally planned 454 platform. The change was due to the fast advancement and proven advantages of the Illumina platform, as explained in the first annual scientific report. Metabolic data were collected using both targeted (sugars, organic acids, carotenoids) and non-targeted metabolomics analysis methodologies. Genes whose expression patterns were associated with variation of particular metabolites or fruit quality traits represent candidates for the molecular mechanisms that underlie them. Candidate genes that may encode enzymes catalyzingbiosynthetic steps in the production of volatile compounds of interest, downstream catabolic processes of aromatic amino acids and regulatory genes were selected and are in the process of functional analyses. Several of these are genes represent unanticipated effectors of compound accumulation that could not be identified using traditional approaches. According to the original plan, the Cucurbit Genomics Network (http://www.icugi.org/), developed through an earlier BARD project (IS-3333-02), was expanded to serve as a public portal for the extensive metabolomics and transcriptomic data resulting from the current project. Importantly, this database was also expanded to include genomic and metabolomic resources of all the cucurbit crops, including genomes of cucumber and watermelon, EST collections, genetic maps, metabolite data and additional information. In addition, the database provides tools enabling researchers to identify genes, the expression patterns of which correlate with traits of interest. The project has significantly expanded the existing EST resource for melon and provides new molecular tools for marker-assisted selection. This information will be opened to the public by the end of 2013, upon the first publication describing the transcriptomic and metabolomics resources developed through the project. In addition, well-characterized RI lines are available to enable targeted breeding for genes of interest. Segregation of the RI lines for specific metabolites of interest has been shown, demonstrating the utility in these lines and our new molecular and metabolic data as a basis for selection targeting specific flavor, quality, nutritional and/or defensive compounds. To summarize, all the specific goals of the project have been achieved and in many cases exceeded. Large scale trascriptomic and metabolomic resources have been developed for melon and will soon become available to the community. The usefulness of these has been validated. A number of novel genes involved in fruit ripening have been selected and are currently being functionally analyzed. We thus fully addressed our obligations to the project. In our view, however, the potential value of the project outcomes as ultimately manifested may be far greater than originally anticipated. The resources developed and expanded under this project, and the tools created for using them will enable us, and others, to continue to employ resulting data and discoveries in future studies with benefits both in basic and applied agricultural - scientific research.


Dispersions of monodisperse macroionic spherical particles self assemble into bcc or fcc crystalline colloidal arrays (CCA), which efficiently Bragg diffract light in the near-IR, visible, and UV spectral regions, depending on the lattice constant and the crystal structure. We report here the observation of an anomalously intense "secondary diffraction", which occurs at half the wavelength (λB/2) of light diffracted by the lattice planes with highest particle density (the bcc (110) or the fcc (111) planes). This diffraction is >10-fold more intense than the primary diffraction at λB, and is narrow for light incident normal to the bcc (110) or the fcc (111) planes. This secondary diffraction results from fortuitously superimposed diffraction from numerous lattice planes oriented such that they diffract ca. λB/2 light. We quantitatively modeled the primary and secondary diffraction by using dynamical diffraction theory. This efficient diffraction phenomenon should be useful for optical device fabrication.


Background. Currently, parental presence at the bedside of critically ill children in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a necessary family-oriented condition. In the published sources, there is enough evidence that shows the special emotional state of parents, their complex interactions with the medical staff of the PICU, as well as the attitude of doctors and nurses to parental presence in the department, especially during the manipulation on patients. In Ukraine, only in some pediatric medical centers parents were allowed to visit their children in the PICU, but permanent stay at the patient's bedside was not allowed. In 2016, the order of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine No. 592 "On the approval of the Procedure for the admission of visitors to patients undergoing inpatient treatment in the intensive care unit" determined the procedure and rules for the admission of visitors to a patient who was in the intensive care unit. However, this Order established only rules for the admission of visitors to adult patients undergoing inpatient treatment in the intensive care units. The purpose of the work is to consider various strategic directions for ensuring access of parents to their sick children in the PICU and try to adapt some issues to the current state of our pediatric intensive care. Results. The article discusses issues such as the ethical and practical situation regarding the visiting and presence of parents at the bedside of a critically ill child in the PICU. The concepts of "visiting" or "presence" are considered, and the conditions are defined when parents can only visit, and when they can stay at the bedside of a sick child for a long time; the possibility of their presence during manipulations and procedures; the role of doctors and nurses in communicating with parents in the intensive care unit and the impact on their emotional state. Conclusions. Given the real need for parents to be present and visit their children in the intensive care unit, we must be careful and prudent in making this decision. You can face a lot of problems and inconveniences, but you must strive to change the established principles, because the presence of family members, their participation in providing assistance to children will improve the psychological environment in the intensive care unit and increase the humaneness of the work of its medical staff.


A Dammann grating is used as a spatial filter for passive coherent beam combining of YDFAs array by an all-optical feedback loop, the visibility of the far-field interference pattern is up to 88.7%.


In recent days, the deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) in automobile sector is increasing the load demand in the distribution system. To deal with this load demand, the charging management needs to be improved. Nevertheless, an EV needs several hours to complete charge. Reducing the charging time, energy consumption is a huge contest to deal with the promotion of EV over conventional vehicles. The condition of the itineraries may affect the energy consumption of the EV, which needs to be considered before fulfilling the energy demand. In this article, these are considered assigning suitable charging stations (CS) to individual EVs and their scheduling is taken as an optimization problem. The first part deals with the proper assignment of CS, which is a linear optimization problem and the second deals with the charging scheduling problem. An "intelligent charging scheduling algorithm (ICSA)" is proposed with the integration of Henry gas solubility optimization to minimize total daily price incurred by the CS operator. Later, ICSA is clubbed with other standard optimization techniques considering practical constraints. A 2 m point estimation method has been utilized to tackle the uncertainty and its performance has been compared with the Monte-Carlo simulation technique. The robustness of ICSA is evaluated and confirmed using the Wilcoxon signed rank test and Quade test.


The foundation of cloud computing is to leverage virtualised physical computing resources by offering them on demand as elastic infrastructure services. Processing, storage and networking resources can thus be perceived and traded comparable to existing utility services. A restriction of conventional infrastructure services is the missing flexibility for scenarios in which coarse-grained provisioning from a single provider is not sufficient anymore. Cloud federation and multiplexing are recent techniques to overcome the provider binding and lock-in limitation. In this article, we give a brief overview about this research direction and then present a new variety, nested clouds, which helps overcoming the coarse-grained virtualisation, billing and trading limitations. In particular, we contribute a design for the Nested Cloud virtual machine and the corresponding spot market Highly-Virtualising Cloud Resource Broker and report on our experience with these systems. We argue that nested clouds help consumers in decreasing their costs and increasing their flexibility for infrastructure services by recycling and repurposing unused capacities.


In this paper, analytical and numerical solutions are developed for the pile with a rectangular cross-section under vertical load in layered soils. The rectangular cross-section is considered as a circular cross-section with a proposed formulation of equivalent radius. A number of bar elements models the pile and soil column below the pile tip while a series of independent springs distributed along the pile shaft with spring stiffness determined by properties of the corresponding soil layer models the surrounding soil. The method is based on energy principles and variational approach and the 1D finite element method is used in a pile displacement approximation. A new equation for modulus reduction appropriate for the rectangular pile is also developed to match the results of the proposed method to those of the three-dimensional (3D) finite element analyses. The proposed solution verified by comparing its results to the 3D finite element analyses and the comparisons are in excellent agreement.


The content of silicon inclusions in steel was analyzed by original position statistic distribution analysis technique.The relationship between the signals of abnormal sparks and the content of silicon inclusions was investigated by combining with physical and chemical phase analysis,scanning electronic microscopy and energy spectrum analysis in this paper.The quantitative parameters for the analysis of silicon inclusions were introduced,and a mathematical model of original position statistic distribution analysis has been developed.The composition of silicon inclusions was determined by the combining technique of spectrum channel,and the mathematical model was applied to analyze the content of silicon inclusions in some medium and low alloyed steels with different chemical compositions.The results had good coincidence with the value obtained by chemical methods and scanning electron microscopy.


THIS REPORT COMPRISES THREE VOLUMES BOUND AS ONE, AND ABSTRACTED AND INDEXED SEPARATELY. IT IS THE SECOND GENERAL ANALYSIS OF DATA COLLECTED FOR THE INTERSTATE SYSTEM ACCIDENT RESEARCH STUDY AND REPRESENTS A JOINT RESEARCH EFFORT OF THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION AND 40 STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTS. ALL DATA WERE COLLECTED BY A STANDARD PROCEDURE, REVIEWED BY THE STATES, EDITED, AND USED BY FHWA TO PREPARE STUDY FILES.


Bone Marrow transplant activity started in 1999 in Pakistan when Bismillah Taqee Institute of Health Sciences & Blood Diseases Centre started functioning in the southern port city of Karachi, Pakistan. Two years later in year 2001 Armed Forces Bone Marrow Transplant Centre started functioning in the northern part of country, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. In 2004 another transplant centre, started in Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan. Since the establishment of these transplant centers a total of 349 allogeneic transplants have been carried out for various hematological disorders. The major indications included aplastic anaemia (n=166), β-Thalassaemia major (n=76), chronic myeloid leukaemia (n=57), acute leukaemias (n=37) and misc disorders including MDS, Fanconi anaemia and others (n=13). A total of 22 autologous transplants in lymphomas and multiple myeloma have also been carried out. Since this number is very small, only data of allogeneic transplants is being presented here. Major post transplant complications encountered were neutropenic fever in 92.6% patients with 27% culture positivity (412/1571). Infective complications included bacterial infections (both gram+ive and gram-ive) in 194 patients (56%), fungal infection in 32 patients (10%), CMV infection in 15 patients (5%), herpes infection in 16 patients (5%), tuberculosis in 9 patients (3%) and PCP in 1 patient (0.28%) and malaria in 1 patient (0.28%). So post transplant infections were confirmed in 76.6% (268/349) patients on the basis of clinical assessment, microbiological, virological and histopathological analysis. Non infective post transplant complication included aGvHD (grade II-IV) in 80 patients (23%), cGvHD 46 patients (13.1%), VOD liver in 25 patients (7.2%), haemorrhagic cystitis in 27 patients (7.7%), ARF in 13 patients (3.7%), primary graft failure in 5 patients(1.4%), graft rejection in 17 patients (4.9%) and relapse in 14 patients (4%). Transplant related mortality was observed in 93 patients (26.6%). Infective & non infective causes of mortality included septicemia in 15 patients (4.3%), CMV in 8 patients (2.3%), fungal infections in 8 patients (2.3%), tuberculosis in 2 patient (0.6%). herpes encephalitis in 1 patient (0.3%) VOD in 8 patients (2.3%), aGvHD in 12 patients (3.4%), cGvHD in 7 patients (2.0%), ARF in 8 patients (2.3%) and intracranial haemorrhage in 3 patients (0.9%). Graft related mortality due to graft failure and relapse was observed in 6 patients (1.7%) and 14 patients (4%) respectively. Unrelated accidental death in 1 patient (0.3%). Overall survival was observed in 256 patients (73.3%) and DFS in 250 patients (71.6%). The OS and DFS was 72.7% and 70.9% in BTIHS & BDC patients, whereas OS & DFS was 72.8% and 70.7% respectively in AFBMTC patients. The OS & DFS was 82.6% at AKUH. Disease wise overall survival in aplastic anemia, β-Thalassaemia, CML and acute leukemia was 78.3%, 76.3%, 63.1% and 59.5% respectively.


The sharply rising level of
atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from anthropogenic emissions
is one of the greatest environmental concerns facing our
civilization today. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class
of materials that constructed by metal-containing nodes bonded to
organic bridging ligands. MOFs could serve as an ideal platform for
the development of next generation CO2 capture materials owing to
their large capacity for the adsorption of gases and their
structural and chemical tunability. The ability to rationally
select the framework components is expected to allow the affinity
of the internal pore surface toward CO2 to be precisely controlled,
facilitating materials properties that are optimized for the
specific type of CO2 capture to be performed (post-combustion
capture, precombustion capture, or oxy-fuel combustion) and
potentially even for the specific power plant in which the capture
system is to be installed. For this reason, significant effort has
been made in recent years in improving the gas separation
performance of MOFs and some studies evaluating the prospects of
deploying these materials in real-world CO2 capture systems have
begun to emerge. We have developed six new MOFs, denoted as IFPs
(IFP-5, -6, -7, -8, -9, -10, IFP = Imidazolate Framework Potsdam)
and two hydrogen-bonded molecular building block (MBB, named as 1
and 2 for Zn and Co based, respectively) have been synthesized,
characterized and applied for gas storage. The structure of IFP
possesses 1D hexagonal channels. Metal centre and the substituent
groups of C2 position of the linker protrude into the open channels
and determine their accessible diameter. Interestingly, the channel
diameters (range : 0.3 to 5.2 A) for IFP structures are tuned by
the metal centre (Zn, Co and Cd) and substituent of C2 position of
the imidazolate linker. Moreover hydrogen bonded MBB of 1 and 2 is
formed an in situ functionalization of a ligand under solvothermal
condition. Two different types of channels are observed for 1 and
2. Materials contain solvent accessible void space. Solvent could
be easily removed by under high vacuum. The porous framework has
maintained the crystalline integrity even without solvent
molecules. N2, H2, CO2 and CH4 gas sorption isotherms were
performed. Gas uptake capacities are comparable with other
frameworks. Gas uptake capacity is reduced when the channel
diameter is narrow. For example, the channel diameter of IFP-5
(channel diameter: 3.8 A) is slightly lower than that of IFP-1
(channel diameter: 4.2 A); hence, the gas uptake capacity and
Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area are slightly lower than
IFP-1. The selectivity does not depend only on the size of the gas
components (kinetic diameter: CO2 3.3 A, N2 3.6 A and CH4 3.8 ) but
also on the polarizability of the surface and of the gas
components. IFP-5 and-6 have the potential applications for the
separation of CO2 and CH4 from N2-containing gas mixtures and CO2
and CH4 containing gas mixtures. Gas sorption isotherms of IFP-7,
-8, -9, -10 exhibited…


Objective To observe the influence of combined treatment [Chinese herbal remedies(CHR) with the actions of activating blood circulation and removing stasis combined with hyperbaric oxygen(HBO)] on the expressions of platelet membrane glycoprotein and leukocyte adhesion molecules in mice after cerebral ischemia and reperfusion.Methods The model of cerebral ischemia and reperfusion was established by using temporary common carotid arteries occlusion(CCAO).All mice were divided into 7 groups,including the sham-operation group,model group,HBO group,high-dose combined treatment group,mid-dose combined treatment group,low-dose combined treatment group and mid-dose CHR treatment group.The HBO group was treated with HBO after model establishment for one day,and all treatment groups were respectively given relevant drugs orally once a day 5 days before model establishment.After 1,3 and 5 days the mice were killed in all groups and the blood samples(1 mL) were collected from mouse orbital artery and vein.The changes of platelet membrane glycoprotein CD31,CD61 and CD62p,and leukocyte adnesion molecules CD11a/CD18,CD11b/CD18 and CD62L were observed at different time points in different groups by applying flow cytometry.Results ①CHR combined with HBO inhibited effectively the abnormal expressions of platelet membrane glycoprotein CD31,CD61 and CD62p,and leukocyte adhesion molecule CD11a/CD18,CD11b/CD18 and CD62L.The effect of mid-dose CHR combined with HBO was the best based on the effects of three doses on detective indexes.②Mid-dose CHR inhibited significantly the abnormal expressions of platelet membrane glycoprotein CD31,CD61 and CD62p,and leukocyte adhesion molecule CD11a/CD18,CD11b/CD18 and CD62L too.Conclusion CHR with the actions of activating blood circulation and removing stasis can prevent the brain lesion after cerebral ischemia and reperfusion.


The merits of water-heating geothermy were introduced.The coil pipe materials were selected,and the radiation loss of the room was calculated.The heat transfer mechanism of floor radiation heating was discussed,and the coil pipe demand was calculated.


Escharotic agents have been used as alternative therapy for treatment of skin cancer and skin problems for centuries. Internet web sites such as online health product stores and eBay have made them widely available to the general public. The use of these agents carries risk of incomplete removal of tumor, damage of surrounding healthy tissues and marked scarring with poor cosmetic outcome. We report the case of a 27‐year‐old man who presented with history of moles and self‐treatment with an escharotic agent containing bloodroot in order to document the histopathologic findings of topical bloodroot treatment and to show the clinical consequences that may occur in the unsuspecting public. To the best of our knowledge, the histological features following use of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) have not yet been documented.


Saliva started for been less studied than other body fluids, but in the last years it has being receiving an increased attention. Until now, more than 2000 different proteins and peptides have been identified in whole saliva and salivary glandular secretions [1]. From these, more than 90% derive from the secretion of the three pairs of "major" salivary glands (parotid, submandibular and sublingual glands). The remaining 10% derives from "minor" salivary glands and from extra-glandular sources, namely gingival crevicular fluid, mucosal transudations, bacteria and bacterial products, viruses and fungi, desquamated epithelial cells, and food debris [2].


The task-based method consists in dividing an application into interdependent sections, called tasks, and providing the dependencies between them. The dependencies allow obtaining valid parallel executions, i.e. with a correct execution order of the tasks and without any race conditions. The method has gained popularity in the high-performance computing community because it allows parallelizing with an abstraction of the hardware by delegating the task distribution and the load balancing to the dynamic schedulers. See [1] for an illustrative application that relies on the method. While all aspects related to the TB parallelization are active research topics, the method is mainly used by HPC experts because parallelizing a code must be done manually. With this in mind, the position aims in solving the challenges to bridge the gap between automatic parallelization and the task-based method.


In the stratosphere, ozone performs an important role by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun and acting as a protective layer for life on earth. Sweden, the country of origin of the author, has been one of the leading forces examining the scientific evidence and ramifications of ozone depletion. This book provides a scenario of life under a thinning ozone layer and the effects of increasing UVR on people, plants and animals. It is written from the viewpoint of an interested lay person trying to find answers to questions about this important environmental issue. It may therefore appear superficial in content for some scientists expert in specific fields. However, the eleven chapters of this readable book do provide an interesting and accessible insight into the world of ozone depletion and related subjects. The scene is set by a summary of the history and evidence for ozone depletion, particularly in relation to polar regions, which concludes that some of the `truths' presented to the mass media are far from clear-cut and that some warnings have been misguided because of the lack of understanding of the relevant biology. There follows a discussion of some of the basic science behind ozone depletion and the evidence for increased UVR at the earth's surface. By combining information from direct measurements with the results from radiation transfer models, the UVR dose, weighted for DNA damage, increased globally from 1979 to 1989, except in the tropics. The changes ranged from 5% at latitudes to 40% in Antarctica. A consideration of the marine environment concludes that further knowledge is required in understanding the chemistry of the marine environment and the light-induced reactions inside the cell of plankton organisms. Subsequently, the plant ecosystem is considered with particular reference to agriculture, forests, grasslands and deserts. Here the conclusion is that most studies have concentrated on the effects of increased UVR levels on individual species and only 5% of all studies have been performed under natural field conditions. The long-term consequences of a changing light environment might be more subtle and work on the level of the ecosystem as a whole rather than on individual species. Other global issues such as the Greenhouse effect and atmospheric pollution are then explored. Health issues (erythema and skin cancers) are dealt with under the title `Red alert'. A particularly striking image is an anguished sun worshipper roasting on a spit with the slogan `Vissa lär sig aldrig' (the book provides the translation!). Further health issues relating to immune response and the eye are then discussed. The health messages from these chapters are presented in a 12 point plan of advice to reduce sun exposure. `Do Patagonian sheep need sunglasses?' is the title of a chapter that provides a limited insight into the effects of increased UVR levels on the animal kingdom. Being only four pages long, this chapter is perhaps the one for further scientific development. It deals with the aspects of eye disease in grazing animals, the declining population of some frog species and the effects of coral bleaching. The early reports that some Patagonian sheep were blinded by the effects of ozone depletion have been shown to be false and, although increased UVR levels may be implicated in some animal processes, other factors, such as global warming, may also play a role. Finally, the pros and cons of the debate are summarised. Under the title `Shaky risk assessments' it is stated that much of the research and reviews on the effects of ozone depletion have concentrated on making risk assessments. Many of these have been moderated as new information and scientific controversy have surfaced and very few effects of increased UVR due to ozone depletion have been satisfactorily quantified. Non-melanoma skin cancer might be the exception, although heavily influenced by people's behaviour in respect to sun exposure. Much of the action towards research and policy in this area is based on a precautionary principle and the continuing integrity of the Montreal Protocol governing the phase-out of ozone depleting substances. The final sentence reflects this: `Will we breathe a sigh of relief if nothing visible happens and feel satisfied that we acted in time, for once?'


Let's start with a little quiz. Name this country: richest in the world, largest military power, world-class standard of living, world center of influence and innovation. And the answer, of course, is England ... in 1912. This is a classic example of a paradigm shift, that is, a fundamental change from one way of thinking to another, a change in viewpoint. But I see that a few of you may have missed it. Fortunately, there is a bonus question, so you still have a shot at winning an invaluable No-Prize. Name this state: best funded for mosquito research and control, largest mosquito control workforce, world-class mosquito research, world center for mosquito control influence and innovation. And the answer, of course, is New Jersey ... in 1949. And today you ask? Florida maybe, or California, but not New Jersey. What happened?! This morning, I will show that Tommy Mulhern was the fulcrum for an abrupt paradigm shift in 1949 in what Gordon Patterson has termed The Mosquito Crusades (Rutgers University Press, 2009). It is a story filled with lessons about innovation, leadership, commitment, values, service, and even passion—one man's passion for this association. To understand this paradigm shift we must return to the ''Golden Age of Mosquito Control.'' American universities have long been the nerve center for the intellectual and technological advances that made this country great. During the 1st half of the last century, the center for mosquito control innovation was Rutgers University. Guided by 5 men—Smith, Headlee, Ginsberg, Granett, and Mulhern—Rutgers and New Jersey led the world from the dawn of mosquito control more than a century ago, until the end of the Golden Age in 1949 (Fig. 1). The Golden Age started in 1896 when Rutgers Professor John B. Smith turned his attention to mosquitoes. It is Smith who kicked open the door for mosquito control in the USA. Smith resembled Galileo and his telescope: wherever he looked he made a discovery. He conducted pioneering studies on mosquito larvicides and natural repellents, made the 1st powered spray application in 1907, and was a leading figure in mosquito identification and taxonomy. Extensive studies on mosquito-eating fish made him an early advocate for biological control. His massive abatement program against salt marsh mosquitoes resulted in 5 million feet of hand-dug ditches by 1912. And he conducted outreach programs to encourage the public to eliminate backyard mosquito habitats. Smith's background as a lawyer equipped him for his most important role: mosquito control crusader and advocate. The New Jersey mosquito laws were a direct consequence of Smith's basic research on mosquito dispersal. Smith's seminal paper on the mosquitoes of New Jersey (1904 Report of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station) established with an evidence-based approach to New Jersey policy makers that 1 This Memorial Lecture was presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Mosquito Control Association in Atlantic City, NJ, February 24–28, 2013. Professor Randy Gaugler Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, 29(2):181–190, 2013 Copyright E 2013 by The American Mosquito Control Association, Inc.


The paper introduced the development of a pixel CdZnTe detector by our research group,including the preparation of the CdZnTe detectors and the performance test.The size of the 4 4 pixel detector is 11 11 6.3mm~(3)and the pixel size is 2 2mm~(2).The energy resolution of the best pixel for ~(137)Cs 662keV gamma ray is 1.4%.After adding a guard ring and the peak position normalization,the total energy resolution is 2.08%.


Conclusions The central theme of this thesis has been the role of the environment in the development and maintenance of selectivity. We introduced this concept in Chapter 1, and explored some simple low dimensional environments. In the one dimensional environment, using the BCM learning rule, it was shown that fairly complex oscillations result that depend on the internal parameters of the neuron, and also on the value of the input. This type of behavior could lead to an experimental determination of those internal parameters in a fairly straightforward fashion. It was also shown that significant differences could be seen between models which may at first seem to be similar. This difference was explored more rigorously, in a much more realistic environment in Chapter 2. We continued our goal of comparison to experiment, using the deprivation protocols as a basis. It was found that a parameter regime could be obtained for BCM which was consistent with the rough dynamics of all the major deprivation experiments (monocular deprivation, binocular deprivation, and reverse suture). It was critical to have a single parameter set to be consistent with all the experiments, in order to confidently state that the model was truly consistent. It was further found that the PCA rule had some inconsistencies with the timing of deprivation experiments. The most drastic of these is for binocular deprivation, where the PCA rule and any other correlation-based rule perform a random walk about the normal state, not significantly losing selectivity. Other problems with correlation-based rules were outlined in Chapter 2, leading to the conclusion that rules which depended only on second order statistics did not lead to consequences in agreement with experiment. One noteworthy observation from the PCA rule was the dependence on noise for the timing of the deprivation. It was found that, for PCA, the more noise into the closed eye for monocular deprivation, the slower the drop in response of the cell to the closed eye. This was the opposite behavior obtained for BCM, where more noise into the closed eye leads to a faster drop in response. This observation was the motivation for an experiment to determine which rule was consistent with nature. In Chapter 3 we introduced other learning rules, which depended on higher order statistics.


The necessity to develop a strategy for businesses (companies) is considered. The main methods of strategy development are introduced. The structural reforms in a business (company) have been proved to be reasonable. Factors influencing business efficiency are also presented. Special attention is given to fractal approach of business strategy development.


The recombination of injected electrons with oxidized redox species and regeneration behavior of copper redox mediators are investigated for four copper complexes, [Cu(dmby)2]2+/1+ (dmby = 6,6′-dimethyl-2,2′-bipyridine), [Cu(tmby)2]2+/1+ (tmby = 4,4′,6,6′- tetramethyl-2,2′-bipyridine), [Cu(eto)2]2+/1+ (eto = 4-ethoxy-6,6′-dimethyl-2,2′-bipyridine), and [Cu(dmp)2]2+/1+ (dmp = bis(2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenantroline). These complexes were examined in conjunction with the D5, D35, and D45 sensitizers, having various degrees of blocking moieties. The experimental results were further supported by density functional theory calculations, showing that the low reorganization energies, λ, of tetra-coordinated Cu(I) species (λ = 0.31–0.34 eV) allow efficient regeneration of the oxidized dye at driving forces down to approximately 0.1 eV. The regeneration electron transfer reaction is in the Marcus normal regime. However, for Cu(II) species, the presence of 4-tert-butylpyridine (TBP) in electrolyte medium results in pen...


Dry sieving, wet sieving, and soil analytical techniques were used to study the levels of organization within dry aggregates of virgin and cultivated krasnozem soils. Three mechanisms of aggregation appeared to exist. In the c 0.5 mm size range, the mechanism was independent of cultivation and was connected with basic soil particle properties. In the 5.0-0.5 mm range the hydrophobic properties of organic matter are proposed as important in determining water stability. In the range > 5.0 mm, binding of roots in the virgin soil and clod formation by implements in the cultivated soils appeared to be operative. Reduction in clay crystal size and surface activity appeared to be connected with phosphate fertilizer application.


A passive UHF RFID system may be used as a self-sensing devices able to sense the geometrical and physical variation of the tagged object without the use of any specific sensor. This possibility is constrained to the design of multi-chip tags and to the definition of proper measurements modalities. This theoretical idea is here fully demonstrated experimentally for what concerns the wireless monitoring of the change of materials inside a plastic container. The paper describes some measurement techniques and simple data inversion algorithms.


Composition of semiconductor polymer, comprising: - an ethylene copolymer (A) comprising comonomer units of methyl (meth) acrylate, in which the ethylene copolymer (A) has a melting temperature of 80 ° C or lower; and - carbon black, in which the ethylene copolymer (A) is produced in a high pressure autoclave reactor or in a multi-feed tubular reactor, and - a polymer (B) which is an alpha-olefin copolymer, comprising : * alpha-olefin monomer units (Q) selected from a C2 to C10 alpha-olefin; and * monomer units (R) selected from one or more alpha-olefins other than (Q).


Market sentiments influence the dynamics of Hong Kong's macro-critical property market, but the unobservable nature of market sentiments makes it difficult to assess systemically this sentiment channel. Using text-mining techniques, this paper sets up a news-based property market sentiment index and a Google Trends-based buyer incentive index for Hong Kong, and studies the sentiment channel of transmission in the Hong Kong property market. The news-based property market sentiment index can reflect the change in sentiments in past key events, with the sentiments in the primary market tending to lead that of the secondary market during the low housing supply period. For the Google Buyer Incentive Index, we find that it has value-added in forecasting (or nowcasting) the official property price index. In mapping out the sentiment channel using a structural vector-autoregressive (SVAR) model, we find that an improvement in market sentiments could stimulate buyers' incentives, which then together would affect property prices and transaction volumes.


The detection of trans-unsaturated lipids in single HeLa cells by Raman microspectroscopy was recently reported in this journal by Onogi et al. Based on our previously published Raman microspectroscopy data of individual macrophage foam cells, a detailed comparison between our spectra and spectrum reported by Onogi et al., and the reported literature spectrum of cholesterol oleate, we here provide evidence that cholesterol esters instead of trans-unsaturated lipids have been detected by Onogi et al.


An air bleed flow compresses originating from a vein (3) of the compressor is performed by the first holes (13) to a plurality of conduits (5, 6) leading out of the casing, creating a favorable dividing the flow through the cavities (11, 12) neighboring in the housing (1). These provisions allow to pass a large air flow even if the sections of cavities (11, 12) are small.


Abstmct- An efficient numerical approach to model antennas including a microstrip element radiating in the presence of material layers is developed. The class of antennas considered here is Fed through the ground plane by a coax transmission line. The reaction integral equation is formulated by treating the coaxial aperture as part of the antenna. The substrate thickness can be arbitrary; therefore, this numerical technique is suitable for high frequency applications. The effects of the substrate are also included in the analysis. Numerical results are obtained for the current distribution and input impedance. The algorithm is validated with experimental results.


Vitamin K 3 is synthesized by using 2-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone and hydrosulfite of sodium as reactants. The effects of molerotio of reactants, temperature and time on the reaction have been investigated. Experiments have been made to repeatedly make use of crystalliferous liquid. The ratio of product reachs 75%.


Relapse prevention is a major goal of schizophenia management and failure to comply with medication is a significant cause of relapse in mental health patients. The Road to Recovery Nurse Adviser Programme was launched in 2002 initially to provide effective training in the correct administration of risperidone long-acting injection (Risperdal Consta). This article details the elements of the programme and how it is run, and includes some thoughts of a community mental health nurse who has completed the training.


Starting with Bourdieu's habitus and capital theory, this paper focuses on the question of whether the cultural resources of families and students have an impact on the status attainment process between the ages of 15 and 45. The analysis is based on the LifE survey, which follows up a youth study conducted by Fend et al. between 1979 and 1983. It can be shown by means of a structural equation model that there is a substantial transmission of cultural capital between parents and their children and that students' cultural resources have an effect on their educational attainment (reproduction effect). Besides this social inheritance, the amount of cultural capital acquired by age 35 also depends on educational attainment. The effect of cultural capital over the life course is limited to the period up to the completion of vocational/professional education.


Two new Co(II) coordination polymers, {[Co3(Hchda)2(chda)2(bpp)2(H2O)2]}n 1 and {[Co(chda)(bpe)(H2O)]·3H2O}n 2 (H2chda = 1,1-cyclohexanediacetic acid, bpp = 1,3-bis(4-pyridinyl)propane and bpe = 1,2-bis(4-pyridinyl)ethylene), were hydrothermally synthesized and then characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Complex 1 possesses an infinite metal-organic layer based on triply bridged linear trinuclear subunits and complex 2 exhibits a square (4,4) grid layer with dangling lateral arms resulting from eight-membered rings above and below the layer. In addition, magnetic properties of complexes 1 and 2 are also given.


In the Relevance Theory,Sperber and Wilson(1986/1995)put forward the idea of "dynamic context"and"the optimal relevance".They hold that communication is an ostensiveinferential process,and the communicator's presumption of relevance decides his/her choices of styles.Verschueren(1999)claims that communication is an adaptation process and pragmatics is a general cognitive,social and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behaviour.This paper attempts to show the explanatory power of Relevance-Adaptation Model,a new model which is based on the two theories,in the context of intercultural communication.This model achieves adequacy in terms or description and explanation which the relevance theory and the adaptation theory are deficient in.


THE GOVERNMENT must provide an extra £700 million to social services if it is to avert a crisis in the care of older people, an inquiry by health thinktank the King's Fund has concluded.


This paper summarizes a project to investigate the factors that shape the structuring of multilateral, horizontal alliances, and the implications for corporate governance of firms within such an alliancing environment. The paper argues that the positioning of an airline within an alliance group depends on the airline's resource configuration and is furthermore a function of environmental constraints forcing certain types of airlines into certain choices; of conscious, rational strategy devising; and of the degree to which alliance membership gains institutional legitimacy. Because the organizational phenomenon under study can be understood as both a social and a technical phenomenon, the study uses a dual theoretical approach. First, the positioning of airlines in the alliancing environment is examined using a resource dependence perspective. It is suggested that the success of an airline within an alliance group depends on that airline's resource configuration and on its ability to position itself in the alliance network according to that configuration. In addition, it is suggested that in a federated environment, partners fare best if they specialize. The second perspective used is that of institutional theory. Based mainly on the material gathered in interviews with senior management from 10 different airlines, the aim is to identify the lines along which alliancing is becoming a part of actors' mindset. The paper concludes with the discussion of a model depicting the factors that influence the development of multilateral alliances between autonomous but interdependent firms, accounting for both centripetal forces (pushing toward tighter member integration) and centrifugal forces (pushing for looser coupling).


Preface. 1. Introduction L.C. Wagner. 2. Electrical Characterization S. Frank, et al. 3. Package Analysis: SAM and X-Ray T.M. Moore, C. Hartfield. 4. Die Exposure P.D. Ngo. 5. Global Failure Site Isolation: Thermal Techniques D.L. Barton. 6. Failure Site Isolation: Photon Emission Microscopy Optical/Electron Beam Techniques E.I. Cole, D.L. Barton. 7. Probing Technology for IC Diagnosis C.G. Talbot. 8. Deprocessing D. Yim. 9. Cross-Section Analysis T. Haddock, S. Boddicker. 10. Inspection Techniques L.C. Wagner. 11. Chemical Analysis L.C. Wagner. 12. Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy P.D. Ngo. 13. Auger Electron Spectroscopy R.K. Lowry. 14. Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, SIMS K. Evans. 15. Failure Analysis Future Requirements D.P. Vallett. Index.


Objective
To improve the understanding of leptomeningeal metastasis (LM), we analyzed the data of clinical manifestations, imaging findings and cytological analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in a group of patients with LM of malignant solid tumors.

Methods
The clinical data of 94 patients with LM of malignant solid tumors between 2009 and 2014 in our hospital were retrospectively analyzed. We compared the clinical manifestations and auxiliary examinations of patients with different pathological types of LM. The Chi-square test was used to compare the results.

Results
The pathological types included adenocarcinoma (61), small cell carcinoma (24), squamous carcinoma (6), melanoma (1), large-cell carcinoma (1), and hepatocellular carcinoma (1). The median age was 58 (37-75) and the median KPS score was 40 (10-80). About 98.9% (93/94) patients had neurologic symptoms. Neuroimaging examination was performed in 84 patients, with the sensitivity of 88.1% (74/84); cytological analysis of CSF was performed in 85 patients, with the sensitivity of 88.2% (75/85); while CSF biochemical examination was performed in 85 patients, with the sensitivity of 90.6% (77/85). The sensitivity of cytology in adenocarcinoma (96.6%, 56/58) was higher than those in small cell carcinoma (80%, 16/20; P=0.056). The sensitivity of neuroimaging in small cell carcinoma (95.8%, 23/24) was higher than that in adenocarcinoma (83.3%, 45/52; P=0.409). However, the sensitivity of cytology (1/5) and neuroimaging (4/6) in squamous carcinoma was low, which led to the need of comprehensive analysis for the diagnosis. The incidence of headache, spinal nerve-related symptoms, ependymal enhancement and metastatic nodules of lumbosacral intraspinal in adenocarcinoma and small cell carcinoma showed statistically significant difference, which was 88.5% (54/61) and 29.2% (7/24; P<0.01), 18.0% (11/61) and 45.8% (11/24; P=0.008), 2/6 and 25.0% (6/24; P=0.017), 1.9% (1/61) and 50.0% (12/24; P<0.01), respectively.

Conclusions
Neuroimaging and CSF examination are still the key points for the diagnosis of LM of malignant solid tumors. The clinical manifestations are correlated with pathological types of primary tumor.

Key words:
Meningeal neoplasms; Neoplasm metastasis; Carcinoma, small cell; Adenocarcinoma; Neuroimaging; Cytodiagnosis


Market integration of agricultural product has been widely used to indicate overall market performance. Hence the study was under taken to test market integration of wholesale prices of Cotton among major Cotton producing states in India. The major states selected for the study were Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states. Results revealed that, all the Cotton price series are non-stationary at level and become stationary after first differentiation confirms that all the price series are integrated of same order [I(1)]. From market integration results, we can say that, all the Cotton state markets under study are co-integrated and converge to long run equilibrium.


Clearance insufficiency of effusions from the middle ear, as encountered in secretory otitis media, can be considered from various points of view: 1) overproduction of the effusion; 2) deficient patency of the Eustachian tube; 3) insufficient absorption into the blood and lymphatic system; and 4) inadequacies of the middle ear mucociliary system, the study of which is the purpose of this communication.


This article provides data of axial load-bending moment capacities of plain and fiber-reinforced geopolymer concrete (GPC, FRGPC) columns. The columns were reinforced by double layers of longitudinal and transverse reinforcement using steel and/or glass-fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. The concrete fiber-reinforcing materials included steel and synthetic fibers. The columns data included different parameters like the longitudinal reinforcement ratio, the applied load eccentricity, and the columns' slenderness ratio. The data was collected from different analysis output files then sorted and tabulated in usable formatted tables. The data can support the development of design axial load-bending moment interactions. In addition, further processing of the data can yield analytical strength curves which are useful in determining the columns stability under different structural loading configurations. Researchers and educators can make use of these data for illustrations and prospective new research suggestions.


Haberkorn et al. use the atmospheric model PLASIM. The methodology, which they propose, consists in iteratively adjusting seasonal sea-surface temperatures over a large region of the North Atlantic Ocean basin. The adjustment is proportional to the difference between 'simulated' and 'observed' temperature, using a set of seasonal coefficients describing a linear dependency of Ammersee temperature on North Atlantic SST. It is not entirely clear from the manuscript whether the coefficients are first determined based on a series of off-line sensitivity experiments, or whether they are adjusted iteratively until convergence between the simulated temperature and the 'observed' one. Compared to previous studies in this vein, Haberkorn et al. innovate in playing on the 'boundary conditions' of their model, and introducing the sensitivity parameter λ that plays the role of a simplified adjoint.


The invention discloses shaping graphite for a cathode material of a lithium ion battery and a preparation method thereof. The technical problem to be solved is to provide a cathode material with high specific energy of a lithium ion power battery. The shaping graphite is natural graphite, graphite particles are spherical, near-spherical, ovate, potato-shaped and/or blocky, and the surfaces of the particles are provided with lithium carbonates. The preparation method comprises the steps of crushing, continuously grading and shaping, purifying and performing surface treatment. Preparation equipment consists of a low-speed crusher, a cyclone material collector and a high-speed crusher which are connected through a high-pressure feeding pipeline. Compared with the prior art, the shaping graphite has the stable reversible capacity of over 350mAh.g and the first cycle coulombic efficiency of over 88 percent. The preparation method has the characteristics that: the method is easy to operate, the production process is full-automatic, work efficiency is high, dust in a workshop is avoided, the labor intensity of workers is low, noise in the workshop is reduced, energy is saved and consumption is low; and the preparation period is shortened, product yield is improved and cost is reduced.


The accuracy of reservoir flood forecast directly affects the decision-making and effectiveness of disaster prevention and mitigation.So,timely and effective flood forecasting program is particularly important in flood control.In order to improve flood forecasting program in Taizhou,Zhejiang Province,a two-stage reservoir flood forecasting is proposed as pre-flood forecasting and real-time forecasting according to different key concerns in flood control decision-making at different stages.And the Xin'anjiang Model is simplified here to accord with the current technique status in small or medium reservoirs,so as to improve the generality and practicality of flood forecasting scheme,which is proved to be effective and practical in the applications in recent years.


Diagnosis of brain tumor has been markedly improved by using magnetic resonance imaging, which can delineate detailed anatomic structures with excellent tissue contrast on T1-, T2-, and proton density-weighted images, and can disclose abnormal enhancement after intravenous administration of Gd-DTPA due to brain-blood-barrier disruption. In this paper, we present our work on computer assisted radiology development with the use of client server Internet gateway and multimedia support to discover the relevant knowledge for brain tumor diagnosis. The developed system described here has provided the methodology to analyze physiological information of the functional image by the modeling technique, which is used to estimate the physiological parameters, such as metabolism rate of glucose, cerebral blood volume (CBV), cerebral blood flow (CBF) and mean transit time (MTT) from functional images. It also has shown the advantage of the proposed system for improving the quality of image diagnosis in medical applications, and it provides the opportunity for the development of human brain function understanding in the long run.


Purpose - The objective of this paper is to explore the sensitivity of industry-specific stock returns to monetary policy and macroeconomic news. The paper looks at a range of industry-specific South African stock market indices and evaluates the sensitivity of these indices to various unanticipated macroeconomic shocks. Design/methodology/approach - The authors begin with an event study, which examines the immediate impact of macroeconomic shocks on the stock market indices, and then use a Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) analysis, which provides insight into the dynamic effects of the shocks on the stock market indices, by allowing them to treat the shocks as exogenous through appropriate setting of priors defining the mean and variance of the parameters in the VAR. Findings - The results from the event study indicate that with the exception of the gold mining index, where the CPI surprise plays a significant role, monetary surprise is the only variable that consistently negatively affects the stock returns significantly, both at the aggregate and sectoral levels. The BVAR model based on monthly data, however, indicates that, in addition to the monetary policy surprises, the CPI and PPI surprises also affect aggregate stock returns significantly. However, the effects of the CPI and PPI surprises are quite small in magnitude and are mainly experienced at shorter horizons immediately after the shock. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study conducted on South Africa which analyses the impact of a wide range of unanticipated macroeconomic shocks on stock returns. This paper improves on earlier efforts by using measures of monetary policy, as well as other macroeconomic news, which more cleanly isolates the unanticipated elements of the monetary policy variable and other macroeconomic indicators, in studying the impact of these surprises on stock returns in South Africa.


This article reports the findings of a study of family-friendly workplace policies at 17 institutions in one midwestern state to analyze the potential impact of policies on the career pathways of social work faculty on the tenure track who are mothers. The findings suggest that although institutions have responded by establishing a supportive environment for faculty mothers, they lack formal policies that support career success. The study highlights the importance of separating career-friendly policies from family-friendly policies to tackle persistent gender inequity for this subgroup of women academics.


ing also serves as an effective public relations tool for the school toward our local community in that this is probably the most visible part of our total program for the average community member. The marching "season" lasts only three weeks, with participation in three local parades. Actual work on correct marching techniques is done the week preceding each parade. Thus, the total time spent on marching in this program is three weeks. As the high school band director who will have many of the eighth grade students the following year, I have found that three weeks is ample time for developing marching techniques without overemphasizing the nonmusical aspects of repetitious marching. The major emphasis during the first quarter is still the development of musical skills in the classroom setting. This is done through the use of an appropriate method book and with work on quality concert literature. The march used for the parades is not "overdrilled" but treated as a concert selection. The rationale for including any marching at the junior high level is that the actual marching helps develop a student's sense of meter. By having students concentrate on marching to the correct pulse of the ensemble, the students develop a physical feel of meter and tempo. This sense of meter is important to an ensemble and thus can be reinforced through the use of marching. We have found that our groups develop an ensemble "feel" of meter that carries over to our concert playing and small-ensemble playing. The factor to remember is that marching is not the reason junior high bands exist, but that it is one small part of a total music education curriculum. In order for this program to work, the director must discuss with administrators what music education involves and explain that no one area of performance dominates the overall objective of the program. With proper administrative support, community members will understand the role the marching band plays in the school curriculum and in the community setting. The main goal must be the development of musical skills and musical sensitivity in the students enrolled in the program.-Mark D. Babiarz, assistant band director, Roosevelt Junior High School, Selma, California


. When the wound arises there are some effects that will arise such as the loss of all or part of the organ function, bacterial contamination. Wound healing can be accelerated with the use of traditional medicine. Some traditional remedies such as iodine plant ( Jatropha multifida L) can accelerate wound healing maximally. Method: This type of research is a laboratory experiment conducted on test animals based on Completely Randomized Design (RAL). Processing for wound healing data processing is analyzed using Anova (One Way Anova). With exstract consentration 25%, 50% and 75% Result: Based on this research can be concluded that the formulation of ointment extract of iodine plants fulfill the requirements of the ointment qualities ranging from organoleptic test, homogeneity test and pH test. 25%, 50% and 75%. Anti-wound ointment with a concentration of 75% Conclusion: Anti-wound ointment with a concentration of 75% gives the best wound healing effect in comparison with other test preparations.


The article is a review and presents the results of research conducted in 2022 using the method of systematic review of scientific articles published in the English-language Addiction journal, i.e. the oldest journal on addiction which has a long history of publishing (since 1884) by the Society for the Study of Addiction. The review question was the following: What treatment methods currently used in the psychotherapy of addictions in adults can be combined to optimize the recovery process of patients with disorders associated with the use of psychoactive substances, in light of the systematic review of the Addiction journal from 19932022? The results of research conducted in accordance with the assumptions of the PRISMA standard indicate the most frequently combined methods, referring to the cognitive-behavioural approach with pharmacotherapy, elements of motivational dialogue and motivation training. The results of the study canbe used to distinguish research variables for broader meta-analytical studies or to conduct further field research in addiction treatment.


Liquidity injections for the markets allow asset management companies to show positive dynamics for their clients-investors. However, inability of some companies to estimate adequately a market situation, to hedge risks, lacks of internal control and risk management systems lead to rather adverse consequences for clients caused by high level of moral hazard, put in asset management contracts.


All interatomic distances in the title compound, C6H3BrN2O4, previously reported by Watson [Nature (London) (1960), 188, 1102–1103] and Gopalakrishna [Acta Cryst. (1969), A25, S-150], can be considered to be normal. The benzene ring is very slightly distorted from planarity. The weighted least-squares planes calculated through the atoms of the nitro groups make angles of 42.3 (3) and 9.7 (3)° with the benzene ring plane, for the 2- and 4-nitro groups, respectively. In the crystal, one weak C—H⋯O intermolecular hydrogen bond and two stacking interactions can be found. The structure is assembled into a three-dimensional net via these interactions.


We studied the small mammal assemblage (bats, marsupials and rodents) of Parque Nacional Chaco and Capitan Solari (Chaco Province, Argentina) based on captures and analysis of owl pellets. Twenty-one species were recorded during a brief survey, including two marsupials, seven bats, and twelve rodents. In addition, we documented the first occurrence of the bat Lasiurus ega in the Chaco Province, and extended to the southwest the distribution of the didelphid marsupial Cryptonanus chacoensis and the oryzomyine rodent Oecomys sp. We also provided a second occurrence site in the ents Calomys laucha and Holochilus brasiliensis . Identified taxa belonged to species that are typical of the Humid Chaco ecoregion of Argentina.


The thermodynamic process of the strong solution of water/lithium-bromide absorbing the water vapor is explained by Fick Law,but it seems like imperfect.The chemical potential is the real mass-transfer driving potential,and the absorption thermodynamic process based on the chemical potential was analyzed.The results show that the temperature of the water vapor from the evaporator is lower than that of the sprinkling solution,however,the chemical potential of water vapor is higher than that of the solution,so the solution absorbs the water vapor.The higher the solution temperature is,and the easier the water vapor is absorbable,so an improved opinion is proposed for designing the absorber in this paper.


Aiming at the measurement of radar cross section(RCS) of non-cooperation target,this paper puts forward a method using the track direction to calculate the target course,only deals with the general RCS measurement results especially,the RCS distribution characteristic measurement for the non-cooperation target at every shipboard direction can be realized.


Program. I am as always grateful for the technical assistance of John Fraser for keeping everything running and the data flowing, and also for review comments.


The excited states of some odd A nuclei near the stability line have been systematically investigated from light to intermediate mass with the spherical relativistic mean field (RMF) model. The ratio between the valence nucleon root-mean-square (RMS) radius and the core rms radius, the separation energy and the density distribution have been deduced as signatures for halo or skin structure. We have presented the scaling laws of the ratio of valence particle rms radii and square-potential radii versus the scaled separation energies. The probability for a valence particle being out of the binding potential has also been extracted. We proposed a relaxed necessary condition for nuclear halo occurrence.


We consider the almost semicontinuous step-process ξ(t). The conditional characteristic functions of the jumps of ξ(t )h ave the form E e iαξk /ξk > 0 = c(c − iα) −1 . For such processes, the boundary functionals related to the exit from a finite interval are investigated. The problems on the exit from a finite interval for the process ξ(t )( t ≥ 0 ,ξ (0) = 0) with stationary independent increments were considered by many authors (see, for example [1, ch. IV, § 2]). In [1], the joint distributions of extrema and the distributions of values of the process up to the exit from the interval were expressed in terms of rather complicate series of the "convolutions" of Γ ± (s, x, y )=E � e −sτ ± (±x) ,γ ± (±x) ≤ y � , where τ ± (±x )=i nf{ t> 0: ±ξ(t) >x } ,γ ± (±x )= ±ξ(τ ± (±x)) ∓ x, x > 0. Simpler relations for the Wiener processes are established in [1, p. 463] and in [2, § 27]. In [3] - [6], the mentioned problems were investigated for semicontinuous processes ξ(t )( ξ(t) have jumps of one sign). For these processes, the distribution density of ξ(t )u p to the exit from the interval was represented [7], [8] in terms of the resolvent functions Rs(x) (introduced by V.S. Korolyuk in [3]). We consider the compound Poisson process ξ(t )= � k≤ν(t) ξk, where ν(t) is the Poisson process with rate λ> 0. The distributions of ξk satisfy the next condition (F (x) is a cumulative distribution function) (1) P {ξk 0} ,c >0 ,p + q =1 . The process ξ(t) is the almost upper semicontinuous piecewise constant process. We can represent ξ(t) as the claim surplus process ξ(t )= C(t) − S(t) with the stochastic premium function C(t )= � k≤ν1(t)


We revisit the interlayer tunneling theory of high temperature superconductors and formulate it as a mechanism by which the striking systematics of the transition temperature within a given homologous series can be understood. We pay attention not only to the enhancement of pairing, as was originally suggested, but also to the role of competing order parameters that tend to suppress superconductivity, and to the charge imbalance between inequivalent outer and inner CuO2 planes in a unit cell. Calculations based on a generalized Ginzburg-Landau theory yield results that bear robust and remarkable resemblance to experimental observations.


The article describes how an innovative program, Alcohol, Drugs, Driving and You (ADDY), is using role-playing to teach the risks of drinking and driving. A scenario is described which gives students an opportunity to practice how they would avoid dangerous and illegal situations in their own lives before they are actually confronted with them. ADDY goes beyond the traditional approach of giving information on alcohol and drugs by teaching steps in decision-making. The 5-part curriculum covers legal and financial consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Supplementing the classroom materials are posters, a student assembly guide, a media/activity kit for promoting safe driving in the community, and a parent-teen discussion guide. ADDY has grown into a multi-faceted program that carries a positive message into the community. It is noted that ADDY works best when there is regular feedback from teachers, parents and students. A parent-teen discussion guide was developed when teachers recognized the critical role parents can play in helping to shape and reinforce the attitudes towards drinking and driving.


It is widely accepted that male determinant genes must be present, at least in primordial germinal cells, in order to determine testicular differentiation. However, exceptions have been reported, such as the existence of XX in apparently normal males and in the majority of true hermaphrodites. Several theories have been advanced to explain the existence of testicular tissue in the absence of a Y chromosome, but they have not been confirmed cytologically. The present work attempts to detect the presence of a Y chromosome by the quinacrine fluorescence technique in histologic sections of gonads from three patients with true hermaphroditism and somatic cell karyotypes 46,XX. Typical fluorescence of the Y chromosome was found in the testicular tissue from the three patients, indicating the existence of the Y chromosome in gonadal tissue. These findings strongly support the hypothesis that a Y chromosome is necessary for testicular differentiation.


Go Tell It on the Mountain is the African-American writer James Baldwin's masterpiece that made him world famous.One of its composing skills is vague narration,which employs unclear and implied narrative techniques to achieve characters' cognitive confusion.By vague narration,the characters in the novel come to bewilder about the identity of themselves and those around them.Consequently,the African Americans' identity and subculture are fragmented and racialized in the dominant white American culture.


Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) represents a major challenge in modern cardiology. As described previously, in HFpEF comorbidities promote a systemic inflammatory state, leading to diffuse myocardial fibrosis resulting in myocardial stiffening. Gut dysbiosis which is considered as the novel source of chronic systemic inflammation has been actively investigated as the risk factor for the development and aggravation of cardiovascular diseases including heart failure. Cardiac magnetic resonance T1-mapping is a novel tool, which allows noninvasive quantification of the extracellular space and diffuse myocardial fibrosis. Moreover, the extracellular volume (ECV) fraction can be calculated, providing information on the relative expansion of the extracellular matrix, thus being a noninvasive alternative to myocardial biopsy studies.

 The research was aimed at investigating the correlation between the left ventricular ECV and gut microbial genera in patients with HFpEF.

 42 patients with confirmed HF-pEF (mediana and interquartile range of age 67 [64; 72] years, 47% men, body mass index <35 kg/m2 with no history of myocardial infarction or diabetes mellitus) were enrolled in the study. The patients underwent transthoracic echocardiography with Doppler study, HF-pEF was confirmed according to the recent ESC guidelines (based on E/e' ratio, N-terminal pro-B type natriuretic peptide >125 pg/ml and symptoms of heart failure). The intestinal microbiome was investigated using high-throughput sequencing of bacterial 16S rRNA gene. As the last step of research T1-myocardial mapping with the modified look-locker inversion-recovery protocol (MOLLI) sequence at 1.5 Tesla was performed to assess left ventricular extracellular volume fraction.

 The mean±std in ECV was 31.02±4.4%. The relative abundance (%) of the most prevalent phyla in gut microbiota was 48±22.5 for Firmicutes, 47.4±22.8 for Bacteroidetes and 1.5 [1.5; 2.5] for Proteobacteria. The analysis showed significant negative correlations between ECV and the following bacterial genera: Faecalibacterium (r=−0.35), Blautia (r=−0.43), Lachnoclostridium (r=−0.32). Moreover ECV positively correlated with Holdemania (r=0.4), Victivallis (r=0.38), Dehalobacterium (r=0.38), Enterococcus (r=0.33) and Catabacter (r=0.32). All correlation values with p<0.05.

 We discovered both negative and positive significant correlations between ECV – the non-invasive marker of myocardial fibrosis and several bacterial genera, which may have negative impact on myocardial remodeling in HF-pEF.

 Type of funding source: None


BOOS is a formal association of institutes from Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Denmark taking national responsibility for operational oceanographic services, which shall support the protection of lives and properties and the promotion of the development of society. BOOS was officially formed in 2001 by the members signing a Memorandum of Understanding; but the planning and cooperation was initiated several years earlier and the first BOOS strategy was already formulated during 1999 (Buch and Dahlin, 2000).


The present study aimed to clarify the meaning of the context an individual lives in on the basis of the direct relationships between individuals who emerge from a situation of psychiatric nursing care. The subject of the present study is the description of nursing practice in the words of a psychiatric nurse.


A side-mounted type wireless parking space state detector comprises a shell, an ultrasonic receiving probe, an ultrasonic transmitting probe and a control circuit board. An encoding and high-frequency transmitting plate are mounted in the shell, a transmitting antenna is mounted on the encoding and high-frequency transmitting plate, the ultrasonic receiving probe and the ultrasonic transmitting probe are fixedly mounted on a rotating shaft, two ends of the rotating shaft are fixed at fixing ends of adjustable fixing plates on two sides of the shell, adjusting holes are arranged at adjusting ends of the adjustable fixing plates, the adjustable fixing plates are fixed on the shell via adjusting bolts in the adjusting holes, the control circuit board is fixedly mounted at the bottom of the shell, wherein an input end of the control circuit board is successively connected with output ends of the ultrasonic receiving probe, the ultrasonic transmitting probe and a built-in dry battery, and an input end of the encoding and high-frequency transmitting plate is connected with an output end of the control circuit board. The side-mounted type wireless parking space state detector is convenient in installation and repair, ultra-low in power consumption, high in detection precision, adjustable in angles of the probes and applicable to various complex parking lots.


Background: The net health benefit of statin use in the oldest patients remains controversial. Preclinical models and previous clinical studies have suggested statins may exhibit neuroprotective ef...


A fractional-N PLL synthesizer is designed in 65 nm CMOS general process for Bluetooth low-energy applications. For low-power consumption, the PLL synthesizer is designed in a single 1-V supply. The tuning range of PLL Synthesizer is 1.9–2.7 GHz to cover the ISM band for 1/5-fRF sliding-IF receiver. The simulated VCO phase noises at 1 MHz offset are −110 and −120 dBc/Hz at 2.7 and 1.9 GHz, respectively. With a fast VCO frequency calibration process included, the total lock time of the synthesizer is 12 μs. The synthesizer dissipates 3 mW from 1 V supply voltage.