Abstract – Sefi Atta's Swallow(2010), News from Home(2010) Amma Darko's Not Without Flowers(2007),Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus(2003) and The Thing Around Your Neck (2010) analysethe role Christianity plays in the underdevelopment of Africa. Introduced into Africa, on one hand toevangilise the Africans so as to put an end to the so-called Africans' heathen customs and to weaken anyform of resistance to colonisation on the other hand, Christianity has had some drawbacks that hinder thedevelopment of Africa. Hence, I seek to explore through Sefi Atta and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie andAmma Darko's characters' conversion to Christianity how this religion affects the development of Africa.In this regard, this paper examines how Christian doctrines favour mass poverty and cultural alienation.Using Claude Ake's approach 'building on the indigenous' I advocate a Christianity that must not onlyempower African culture but it must also guarantee peace and social cohesion in Africa.Key words: underdevelopment, heathen, Christianity, cultural alienation, poverty.Resume – Les oeuvres Swallow (2010) et News from Home (2010) de Sefi Atta, Not Without Flowers (2007)d'Amma Darko, Purple Hibiscus (2003) et The Thing Around Your Neck(2010) de Chimamanda NgoziAdichie analysent le role que joue le christianisme dans le sous developpement de l'Afrique. Introduit enAfrique, d'une part, pour evangeliser les Africains et mettre fin aux pratiques africaines soi-disantpaiennes et d'autre part pour affaiblir toute forme de resistance a la colonisation, le christianisme a eu deseffets collateraux qui freinent le developpement de l'Afrique. Dans cette perspective, j'ai montre a traversla conversion des personnages de Sefi Atta, de Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie et d'Amma Darko auchristianisme comment cette religion a affecte le developpement de l'Afrique. A cet effet, cet articleexamine comment les doctrines chretiennes ont favorise la pauperisation et l'alienation culturelle au seindes populations. En s'inspirant de l'approche de Claude Ake 'building on the indigenous' je plaide danscet article pour un Christianisme nouveau qui non seulement se repose sur la culture africaine mais qu'ilsoit aussi le garant de la paix et de la cohesion sociale en Afrique.Mots cles : sous-developpement, christianisme, paien, alienation culturelle, pauperisation (pauvrete).1. IntroductionMany development theorists relate the present state of Africa to its steadyeconomic growth. But, in practice, there is another hidden factor that hasunbelievably favoured the underdevelopment of Africa; this factor is Christianity.Africans are inwardly religious and this is assumed through the different ritualsperformed at each individual's step of life as Holloway J.E (1990) writes:Religion was (and remains) a vital part of the lives of most Africans. For some itencompassed their entire existence. It substantiated and explained their place in the* ficab1@


ABSTRACT Automatic generation of multi-scale representations from the same spatial data source has been the research focus in map generalization for a long time. Based on the Fourier technique, this paper proposes a continuous, multi-scale representation model for progressive transformation of cartographic curves on the Internet. In our method, all the curves, whether closed or open, are depicted as periodical functions which are further expressed as Fourier series. The convergence degrees of the Fourier series are explored for different kinds of curves, and truncating frequencies are derived based on the similarity between the original and reconstructed curves. Using information theory and the Radical Law in cartography, the relationship between map scales and Fourier frequencies is established. Based on the proposed multi-scale model, we also introduce the principles and implementation of a progressive transmission method. Our method is evaluated using the contours from a topographic map. The results show that our model is a valid approach to multi-scale representation of cartographic curves.


Backgrounds and objectives Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) is an entity whose diagnosis and treatment remain controversial to date. Various modalities of treatment have been tried with varying degrees of success. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a recent modality of treatment for this condition which acts by improving cochlear microcirculation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of HBOT in improving hearing loss and secondary symptoms patients with ISSNHL. Methods This prospective study was undertaken over a 6 month period from the Department of Otorhinolaryngology in a tertiary referral hospital in eastern India. 48 consecutive newly diagnosed ISSNHL patients were included in this study. The patients were subjected to HBOT at 2 A.T.A (Atmosphere Absolute) for an hour over 45 days. Hearing status and secondary symptoms as assessed by clinical tests, pure tone audiogram were analysed before and after HBOT. Results Males comprised 62.5% (30/48) of our study population, mean age of the population was 49.3 ± 13.4 years. 45/48 patients (93.7%) had unilateral ISSNHL, while 3 (6.3%) had bilateral ISSNHL. Average hearing loss in the affected ear before and after treatment was 79.96dBHL and 62.27dBHL respectively. The most common secondary clinical feature was tinnitus (27/48, 56.3%), followed by vertigo (24/48, 50%), aural fullness (15/48, 31.25%) and nystagmus (5/48, 10.41%). After treatment tinnitus and vertigo were showed marked improvement; (22/27, 81.48%) and (18/24, 75%). 5 out of 15 (33.34%) patients showed reduced aural fullness. There was no improvement in patients suffering from nystagmus.


Reversed micelles had the property of protecting biomacromolecules from deactivation and denature.This paper reviewed the characters and applications of reversed micelles,and the factors,which were water content,pH,surfactant,cosurfactant,icon concentration,and extraction time,effected on reversed micelles extraction.


In this article we present a method for generating and applying syntactic motivated patterns in order to develop a foreign language learning mechanism. The patterns have been extracted from a parallel corpus that has been automatically annotated for morpho-syntactic descriptions and syntactic constituents. The proposed language learning framework is not designed around the wellknown list of words. Using this application, the user does not necessarily practice the foreign language lexicon, which is supposed to be known at a medium level. Instead, with this application, the user is guided to learn the so-called "translation knowledge".


Fading and shadowing along with the primary user dynamics make channel quality in dynamic spectrum access networks uncertain. Furthermore, the imperfect design of filters and amplifiers in wireless devices motivates the need for guard-bands (GBs) to prevent adjacent-channel interference. In this paper, we develop novel stochastic GB-aware sequential and batch channel assignment schemes that aim at maximizing the spectrum efficiency. In line with recent IEEE 802.11 and LTE standards, our schemes support bonding and aggregation. We propose two assignment models for each of the sequential and batch schemes: a static single-stage and an adaptive two-stage. In the static model, channel assignment is performed once such that the rate demands are probabilistically met. The adaptive model is a two-stage model, where the initial assignment may be corrected once uncertainties are partially revealed. We refer to our formulations of the sequential and batch static assignments as chance-constrained stochastic subset-s um problem (CSSP) and chance-constrained stochastic multiple s ubset-sum problem (CMSSP), respectively. Moreover, we develop stochastic formulations for the sequential and batch adaptive assignments, which we refer to as two-stage CSSP with recourse (CSSPR) and two-stage CMSSP with recourse (CMSSPR), respectively. Finally, we present computationally efficient simplified versions of CSSP and CSSPR with near-optimal performance.


In a flight through a wave cloud during SUCCESS on 2 sampling opportunity since the particles are only minutes old and May 1996, simultaneous forwardand aft-facing NOy inlets were likely nucleated on sulfuric acid aerosols [Jensen etal., this issue]. used to infer the amount of condensed-phase NOypresent on ice particles that were up to a few minutes old. Condensed-phase 2. Measurements amounts were 25-75 pptv, or 10-20% of gas-phase NOy. Given The "aft-inlet" NOy was sampled through a horizontal inlet the rapid HNO 3 uptake on ice observed in the laboratory, a model calculation implies that virtually all of the gas-phase HNO3 will be tube oriented perpendicular to the ircraft window. The tube's end depleted in the first 1-2 minutes after the appearance of i . Thus face was a45" cut, oriented 45" away from directly aft. This inlet provided a measurement that was dominated by gas-phase NOy the NOy observations re consistent with t e laboratory results but that may also include NOy present on aerosols maller than 1 only if the ambient HNO3/NOy ratio s10-20%. gm or so which are likely tobe ingested (approximate calculations according to Vincent et al. [1986] show that particles with diameters smaller than 1.4 gm are sampled with efficiencies


FIELD: pharmacology. SUBSTANCE: implantable device comprises a flexible polymer film (10) comprising a bioresorbable polymer and eluting drug components. The film has openings (14) extending from the first (10a) to the opposite second surface (10b), raised protrusions (14a). The protrusions (14a) are protruded from the first surface (10a) so that each hole (14) is surrounded by one of the protrusions (14a). To produce a polymer film, a solution is obtained containing a polymer, a solvent and a drug. The solution is placed in a one-sided casting mould with elevations extending from the mould bottom. The polymer solution has a viscosity that suppresses the polymer self-current. The solution distribute around each elevation, followed by curing and forming a meniscus of the cured polymer around each elevation. EFFECT: increased efficiency of implantable devices by improving film strength characteristics, drugs retaining and improving tactile sensations by increasing friction. 31 cl, 30 dwg, 3 tbl, 2 ex


The article highlights the current state of the federal state bodies with a special status in domestic constitutionalism and administrative law. The key theoretical approaches to the definition of the essence and system (list) of these bodies are analyzed, the achievement of scientific unity in recognizing their specific position or special role in the mechanism of the Russian state is noted. The main differences between bodies with a special status and other state bodies, including public authorities, are identified and described. In addition, the feature of the constitutional legitimization of state bodies with a special status is substantiated, their non-belonging to the state authorities is proved in a new way, state-power specifics and characteristics (evidence) of their competence are revealed in detail. For the first time, the author's position is presented and formulated regarding the admissibility of the formation of the bodies in question only with federal status. As a result of combining the essential features of the federal state bodies of special status, their general definition and arguments are given in favor of the inconsistency of the position of scientists who rank among such bodies as the Presidential Administration, the Security Council, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Legislative "presets" are examined, the characteristics and shortcomings in regulation of the status of the Central Bank of Russia, the Federal Accounts Chamber, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, the Prosecutor's Office and the Central Election Commission of Russia as federal state bodies with a special (constitutional) status are identified and analyzed.


Filial maturity refers to adult children's ability to perceive parents as other adults with qualities and vulnerabilities. Although few studies have empirically analysed this concept, most have used samples of middle2aged adults. In this study we had two main aims: (a) to test the construct validity of the Filial Maturity Measure (FMM) in a sample of Portuguese young adults; (b) and to examine how compre2 hending and distancing dimensions of the FMM varied with young adults' age and life transitions (i.e., employment and leaving parental home). A sample of 593 young adults aged between 19 and 30 years old was randomly assigned to a calibration (n = 297) and validation (n = 296) sample. Factorial validity and cross2validation of the FMM were tested using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. These analyses gave support to a two2factor measure with nine items; however the distancing factor presented validity problems. Results also showed that the development of filial maturity was associated with life course transitions that led to greater independence from parents.


Objective Probe into tile clinical effect of applying pulmonary surfactant (PS) to prevent high risk neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS). Methods 28 case oF high risk premature were instilled through their trachea with single preventing-dose of PS, then, study and compare their clinical effect withnother 30 case of high risk premature that did not use PS. Results There is distinct difference between this therapy group and comparison group on such aspect as oxygen treatment time, machine aerating time, period of being in hospital, incidence of a disease for heavy symptom HMD (grade 3-4), rate of machine treatment, and occurring rate for syndrome. Conclusions applying PS in preventive-dose can reduce the oxygen treatment time, machine aerating time and period of being in hospital, and decrease the incidence of a disease for heavy symptom HMD (grade 3-4), the rate of machine treatment, as well as the rate of machine treatment and syndrome occurring. Therefore it is worthy to promote such practice in clinic.


This article reframes the work of participatory development architect John Turner in the 1960s Peru as a practical realization of the political potential of autogestive space advocated in Henri Lefebvre's post-Marxist discourse. An analysis of the anarchistic politics that underpin Turner's participatory development reveals a critical intersection of autogestion and informal space and subsequently a questioning of the sociospatial resonances of anarchist practices and Marxist theories. This analysis is exemplified by the critical reframing of Lefebvre's much cited proposition of "The (Social) Production of (Social) Space" against Turner's anarchist questioning of "Who Decides and Who Provides?"


A multivariable proportional-integral (PI) tuning strategy is developed and the advantage of the design is illustrated in an automotive application. The multivariable control design technique developed has disturbance rejection as its main objective rather than set-point tracking, which is the focus of most of the MIMO PI tuning techniques so far in the literature. The benefit of the design is that it does not try to minimize interactions in a multivariable plant and instead uses the interactions to achieve better disturbance rejection. The application of the control design technique is in multivariable speed and air-to-fuel ratio (A/F) control of a lean-burn natural gas engine to achieve less speed drop during load transients at idle.


The specific objective of this paper is to develop multivariable controllers that would achieve asymptotic regulation in the presence of parameter variations and disturbance inputs for a tubular reactor used in ammonia synthesis. A ninth order state space model with three control inputs and two disturbance inputs is generated from the nonlinear distributed model using linearization and lumping approximations. Using this model, an approach for control system design is developed keeping in view the imperfections of the model and the measurability of the state variables. Specifically, the design of feedforward and robust integral controllers using state and output feedback is considered. Also, the design of robust multiloop proportional integral controllers is presented. Finally the performance of these controllers is evaluated through simulation.


The invention relates to a method for the anaerobic ammonia oxidation treatment of low-concentration ammonia nitrogen wastewater. The method is characterized in that sludge containing anaerobic bacteria is inoculated into an anaerobic traverse baffle reactor under an anaerobic condition; the alkalescent ammonia nitrogen wastewater with 10 to 20mg/L of the concentrations of ammonia nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen enters the anaerobic traverse baffle reactor by an inlet water storage bottle, and a constant-current peristaltic pump is used for controlling the hydraulic stay time to be from 24 hours to 48 hours and the reaction temperature to be from 25 DEG C to 30 DEG C; if anaerobic ammonium oxidation bacteria become dominant flora and both the removal rates of the ammonia nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen reach 80 percent for 5 days, the anaerobic traverse baffle reactor is successfully started; then, other low-concentration ammonia nitrogen wastewater enters the anaerobic traverse baffle reactor by the inlet water storage bottle, and the hydraulic stay time is controlled to be from 12 hours to 48 hours; and finally, both the removal rates of the ammonia nitrogen and the nitrite nitrogen can reach about 80 percent.


Respect is a value whose importance in contemporary criminal justice many would endorse in principle. It is well established that every person, by virtue of his humanity, has a claim to respect that need not be negotiated and cannot be forfeited. Rich and ongoing debates about respect beyond criminal justice—notably, in philosophy and elsewhere in the social sciences—indicate that scholarly interest in respect surpasses disciplinary boundaries, that it is of considerable explanatory and normative scope, and that it matters. It is curious, then, that despite academic interest in the democratic design of penal institutions in recent decades, respect is more akin to a slogan than a foundational value of criminal justice practice.


Russian system of environment regulation provides a low level of internalization of environmental damage costs. This doesn't create motivation for polluters to change their behavior. Key regulation failures emphasized. The author showed that pollution charges in Russia can be conceded as Lock-in Effect.


The majority of new technological ventures are started by entrepreneurs, who are leaders in their chosen technological fields, but lack business and management experience. Thus, of the companies that fail, about two–thirds fail for management reasons, and one–third for technical reasons. This paper describes the innovative approach developed at Rensselaer to give management training to technological entrepreneurs and, at the same time to offer management assistance to new ventures in the Rensselaer Incubator and Technology Park. Two new courses 'Principles of Entrepreneurship' and 'Technological Entrepreneurship' are described and case histories are presented. Surveys of the 95 students and 29 companies that have participated in the program to date show high degrees of satisfaction and concrete results. Finally, guidelines are offered for universities and business development organisations intending to offer similar training programs to their communities.


Pollen was produced during my Fellowship at The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in partnership with botanist Dr. Madeline Harley FLS. Extending the tradition of collaboration between artists and scientists in examining and portraying plants, the book provides new scientific insight into the plant world by fusing Harley's original scientific text with my photographic images produced using high-powered scanning electron microscopes.

The evolution of microphotography during the 19th century effectively eliminated opportunity for any artistic interpretation as the images became locked within the scientific community, until recent digital technologies became a shared language. The powerful images of pollen specially created for the book are the result of extended research into electron micrography used in conjunction with digital imaging software. The complex forms appear to lie somewhere between science and symbolism, becoming mesmeric visual icons which draw the viewer in to a hidden world.

Unlike all other works on the subject that are solely aimed at a scientific audience, Pollen uniquely targets a wider audience by revealing the complex forms and structures of pollen and the role it plays within the life cycle of plants. A feature of the collaboration was that the work should be of the highest order and meet with peer approval in both disciplines.


Objective To observe the value of pulsed wave tissue Doppler imaging(PW-TDI) in the evaluation on fetal heart function in pregnancy-induced hypertension(PIH).Methods Sixty-two patients with PIH(PIH group) and 60 normal pregnant women(control group) were enrolled.From four-chamber view,ventricular myocardial velocities were measured at the basal pans of the left ventricular(LV) lateral wall,right ventricular(RV) lateral wall and inverventricular septum(IVS) with PW-TDI.Ventricular myocardial velocities included systolic myocardial velocity(Sm),early diastolic myocardial velocity(Em),late diastolic myocardial velocity(Am) and the Em/Am ratio were statistical analyzed.Results In fetuses of control group,the Em of RV,LV,the Sm of IVS,LV and Em/Am of RV,IVS increased with increasing gestational week(P0.05).In PIH group,the Em,Sm of LV,RV,IVS and the Am of RV,LV increased,the Em/Am of RV,IVS decreased,the Em/Am of LV increased(all P0.05).Compared with fetuses of the same gestational week in control group,the Em,Am,Em/Am of LV,RV,IVS in fetuses of PIH group were significantly different(all P0.05).In fetuses ≥30 gestational week,the Sm of RV of PIH group was higher than that of control group(P0.05),while in fetuses 30 gestational week,the Sm of IVS,LV of PIH group were lower than those of control group(all P0.01).Conclusion Both systolic and diastolic function of heart are damaged in PIH fetuses.PW-TDI can evaluation the heart structure and function of PIH fetuses.


This paper focuses on the effect natural resources have on the intensity of civil conflict in the context of states developing natural resource and counterinsurgency policies. This paper conducts a comparative within-country case study to test the relationship between natural resources and civil conflict intensity. Through a comparative within-country case study, the effect of coca cultivation on the intensity of Peru's civil war is examined to test the hypothesis that natural resources cause more intense civil conflict. This hypothesis is deemed plausible, as evidence is used to test three causal mechanisms: natural resources provide insurgents with wealth, increase the "prize value" of a region, and draw more international attention and intervention. These mechanisms are confirmed for the case of Peru, and a fourth, and initially unexpected, mechanism emerges.


Introduction. Basic Concepts. Work, Energy and Heat - First law or Thermodynamics. Simple Systems. The Ideal Gas. The Control Volume. Heat Engines and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy. Applications of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Availability, Exergy and Irreversibility. Power and Refrigeration Cycles. Ideal Gas Mixtures and Humid Air. Thermodynamic Relations. Equations of State and Generalized Charts. Multicomponent Systems. Equilibrium. Ideal Solutions. Non Ideal Solutions. Chemical Reactions. Appendix: Thermodynamics Properties. Bibliography. Index.


Several synthetic techniques of block copolymer were reviewed,especially on controlled living radical polymerization of ATRP and RAFT. The polymerization mechanism and new research development were also introduced.


Objective Mutations in the type II collagen gene are associated with certain human disorders, collectively termed type II collagenopathies. They include Legg–Calvé–Perthes disease (LCPD) and avascular necrosis of the femoral head (ANFH). These two diseases are skeletal dysplasias, inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion, characterized by groin pain, dislocation of the hip and diminished joint mobility. Coxa vara and elevation of the greater trochanter of the femur comprise the typical phenotype of LCPD, but do not occur in ANFH. Lack of synthesis of type II collagen and structural defects are responsible for the major clinical outcomes, because collagen is the essential matrix protein of all connective tissues. Type II collagen, encoded by the COL2A1 gene, contains N- and C- terminal regions that are cleaved after secretion into the extracellular matrix, and the core area is composed of a triple helical (Gly–X–Y) domain. If the Gly in this specific region is replaced by other amino acids, the structure of type II collagen will be destroyed. Method Forty-five members of a four-generation family were recruited and investigated. Diagnosis was made by independent orthopedic surgeons and radiologists. A mutation of the COL2A1 gene was detected. Result In our research, we identify a heterozygous mutation (c.1888 G>A, p. Gly630Ser) in exon 29 of COL2A1 in the Gly–X–Y domain, in a Chinese family affected by LCPD and ANFH. Our findings provide significant clues to the phenotype–genotype relationships in these syndromes and may be helpful in clinical diagnosis. Furthermore, these results should assist further studies of the mechanisms underlying collagen diseases. Conclusion Our data add new variants to the repertoire of COL2A1 mutation resulting in related collagenopathies.


To the Editor We would like to add additional information about the data collection for our recent manuscript on dexmedetomidine sedation.1 Parents assisted with measurement of sedation time, onset of sedation, and recovery time. Specifically, parents notified the physician or nurse for further evaluation once patients fell asleep after receiving medication. Parents were taught to help children awaken once the examination was finished. While we mention the role of parents in the concluding paragraph of the discussion, we wish to emphasize the extent to which we relied on parental help in collecting the data on dexmedetomidine drug effect.


The aim of this Master Thesis was to investigate the energy flows in the bleachery at Domsjo Fabriker AB and to create a calculation model that could be used in the future for energy audits. The ma ...


Using a laser created plasma switch,a 1.58 ns short output pulse from a UV-preionized XeCl excimer laser is obtained.The influence of the beam energy intensity focused on the film surface for the generated plasma density is analyzed.The pulse shorting effects of different plasma density and hold time are discussed,and the experimental results are presented with the resonant cavity operating in stable cavity and unstable cavity modes separately.Working in stable cavity mode,the pulse width can be narrowed to 2.87 ns.While in an unstable cavity mode,by reducing the focused beam area to improve the energy intensity,a 1.58 ns short output pulse is obtained.This technique can applied to any other excimer laser.


An exhaustive study dealing with the kinetic and mechanistic behavior of alkyl- and arylpalladium complexes bearing pyridyl−thioethers (NS−R) and quinoline−phosphines (NP) as ancillary ligands when reacting with 2,6-dimethyl isocyanide (DIC) and tosylmethyl isocyanide (TosMIC) was undertaken. In these reactions some differently substituted isocyanides insert into the palladium−carbon bond of alkyl and aryl complexes bearing mixed (NS or NP) ligands. The reactions were carried out under equimolecular conditions since such a restrictive approach allows the determination of the rate constants related to the isocyanide insertion attack. Reactions carried out under nonstoichiometric conditions were also taken into account and the reaction products characterized. Usually the formation of an inserted bis-substituted isocyanide halide derivative of palladium(II) was observed. In a particular case the formation of an imidoyl dimer was detected. The structures of the monoinserted [Pd(NSt-Bu)(C(Tol)NR2)I] (NSt-Bu = ...


Graphical forms such as scatterplots, line plots, and histograms are so familiar that it can be easy to forget how abstract they are. As a result, we often produce graphs that are difficult to follow. We propose a strategy for graphical communication by climbing a ladder of abstraction (a term from linguistics that we borrow from Hayakawa, 1939), starting with simple plots of special cases and then at each step embedding a graph into a more general framework. We demonstrate with two examples, first graphing a set of equations related to a modeled trajectory and then graphing data from an analysis of income and voting.


Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are conservation tools that promote biodiversity by regulating human impacts. However, because MPAs are fixed in space and, by design, difficult to change, climate change may challenge their long-term effectiveness. It is therefore imperative to consider anticipated ecological changes in their design. We predict the time of emergence (ToE: year when temperatures will exceed a species' tolerance) of 30 fish and invertebrate species in the Scotian Shelf-Bay of Fundy draft network of conservation areas based on climate projections under two contrasting emission scenarios (RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5). We demonstrate a strong Southwest-to-Northeast gradient of change under both scenarios. Cold water-associated species had earlier ToEs, particularly in southwesterly areas. Under low emissions, 20.0% of habitat and 12.6% of species emerged from the network as a whole by 2100. Under high emissions, 51% of habitat and 42% of species emerged. These impacts are expected within the next 30–50 years in some southwestern areas. The magnitude and velocity of change will be tempered by reduced emissions. Our identification of high- and low-risk areas for species of direct and indirect conservation interest can support decisions regarding site and network design (and designation scheduling), promoting climate resilience.


This article presents the analysis of interconnection between readiness to risk and self-relation. The self-relation structure is analyzed in three generations. The comparative analysis of expressiveness of components of the self-relation is given at men and women. Distinctions are established in an assessment of components of the self-relation depending on age of examinees: the young generation appreciates highly self-interest, elderly self-sequence. Gender distinctions are established in an assessment of components of the selfrelation. Men appreciate highly self-esteem, women self-interest. Using of psychodiagnostic tools of «A self-relation questionnaire» (V. V. Stolin, R. S. Pantileev), «Readiness for risk» (G. Schubert) allowed to establish readiness for risk depends on such components of the self-relation as: global self-relation, relation of others, self-interest.


With assessment at the tertiary level still based largely on writing output, the ability to write well is a decisive factor in academic success. This is one reason behind the popularity of an academic writing course at a New Zealand university. Arts faculty targeted admission programme requirements and English language diagnostic recommendations have increased enrolments in this course, but disproportionately poor outcomes for Pasifika students indicate the course may be acting more as a barrier than the intended step to academic success for this group. This paper describes a project undertaken to identify and address immediate issues contributing to such outcomes for Pasifika students. Steps taken include finding out more about the students, closer collaboration between support and academic staff, adaptation of course content, assessment processes and classroom practice, and a greater focus on student engagement throughout the course. Interim results of this project in its first semester of operation will be reported. Introduction With assessment at the tertiary level firmly based on writing output, and increasing numbers of students from traditionally underserved groups arriving at university (Middleton, 2008; Ministry of Education, 2010), demand for bridgingtype writing courses has increased. Enrolments in English Writing 101, a creditbearing, academic writing skills course at The University of Auckland, have tripled from 2006 to 2012, as more students recognise a gap between writing skills learned at high school and those required at university. Part of the increase in enrolments in English Writing comes via referrals from DELNA (Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment) (2010), the university language-diagnostic system, or via the Targeted Admissions Scheme (TAS) run by the Faculty of Arts. TAS provides entry to students who Improving outcomes for Pasifika students in an academic writing course • • • 60 might otherwise be excluded due to recently raised university entry criteria. TAS students are required to complete an academic writing course in their first year. A significant number of TAS students are Pasifika, with numbers in English Writing increasing from 35 (19%) in 2008 to 116 (35%) in 2012. Pasifika achievement is lower in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA); in 2009 for example, 46.1 per cent of Pasifika achieved an NCEA Level 3 qualification, compared to around 75 per cent for Asian and Pakeha/European groups (Statistics New Zealand, 2010, p. 38). English Writing is designed to help students with English as a first language write in an academically appropriate way. The course combines process and product, providing practice in skills such as generating ideas, drafting, revising, peer review and integration of sources, and exploring a range of academic text types through illustration and practice. Students receive detailed feedback on their writing from experienced tutors, with peer review practised and completed online. Students who successfully complete the course can reasonably expect grades in other courses to improve, as their writing will be better structured, and ideas expressed more clearly in an appropriate style. In effect, English Writing acts as a stepping stone to broader success at university. Pasifika student outcomes However, for some students English Writing appears to be acting more as a barrier than a step to success. Table 1 illustrates the problem for Pasifika students, who had a mean pass rate of just 55.3 per cent from 2008 to 2012, almost 16 per cent lower than all English Writing students over the same period.


Intersections affect the safety and capacity of urban traffic. Therefore, the design and selection of the type of intersection need to be made very carefully. According to the demand level, a different intersection can be designed. Signalized intersections are one of the intersection types in which the sequence and duration of the flow at the intersection are provided by the lights. Generally, this type of intersection is used on roads with high traffic volume. Modern roundabouts are one of the types of circular intersections that provide advantages over other types of intersection in terms of smooth operation and safety. Modern roundabouts exist in several types today worldwide. In practice, the distinction about the kinds of roundabouts would not be fully clarified; as a result, queuing and delay can be seen as negative effects.

 In this study, to make a distinction and clarify the kinds of roundabouts, first, the roundabouts types are introduced according to geometric and operational aspects. A signalized intersection, where a circular island is placed and also signalized, was investigated in terms of capacity, delay, and emissions located in Niğde. The traffic flow performance of the current state (nested signalized roundabout) was calculated with HCM Method (for signalized intersection) using SIDRA and compared with roundabout solutions of the intersection with HCM6 (for roundabout) method using SIDRA Intersection analysis software.

 From the results of the intersection capacity analysis study based on HCM6, it was seen that the application of a roundabout scenario (intersection considered as a modern roundabout) showed higher performance at the intersections than the intersection having a secondary signal. Capacity increased to 67.8%, the average delay decreased to 72.8% and 95th percentile queue dropped to 82.2%.

 Roundabout controlling instead of a nested signal system can be an example of the increase in the performance of traffic flow. This highlights the importance of choosing the appropriate roundabout design.


Objective of the present study was to compare VARC‐2 access and bleeding complications of a complete percutaneous versus a surgical cut‐down approach for transfemoral TAVI "in a real world‐all comers" setting.


The present invention discloses a method of scanning a multimedia file based storage system android. The scanning method is divided into first and second phases, the first phase of the storage device is mounted to the Android system, scanned document to be classified, and each class corresponding respectively acquire the information, and to update the database in establishing the appropriate file directory; then, enters in the respective database files in the directory in the second stage, to view the current document to be scanned or absence of the directory, until the desired file is found to be scanned, and enter the desired document to be scanned, to obtain the corresponding information, to complete the scan. The present invention is based on a scanning method of a multimedia file storage device android system reduces scan time, reducing the scanning process consumes memory and the CPU android system, reducing the storage space of the scanning overhead, thus improving the physical effect of the user's .


Hexacarbonyl diiron complexes of N-substituted sulfimides (SNR) have been obtained from the parent tetrahedrane, Fe2(CO)6(μ-SNH) (1), by deprotonation to give the anion Fe2(CO)6(μ-SN-) (2) and subsequent reaction with either trialkyloxonium or carbenium tetrafluoroborates. The new aza-diferra-thia-tetrahedranes, Fe2(CO)6(μ-SNR) (R = CH3 (3a), C2H5 (3b), CPh3 (3c), cyclo-C3Ph3 (3d), cyclo-C7H7 (3e), and cyclo-(C7H7)M (CO)3 with M = Cr (3f), Mo (3g), W (3h)) were characterized by their 1H and 13C NMR as well as their IR and MS spectra. The molecular structure of Fe2(CO)6[SN-cyclo-C7H7Mo(CO)3] (3g) has been determined by X-ray diffraction.


In order to validation soil moisture products from remote sensing platforms, an accurate and verified ground dataset is necessary. However, the diversity of in situ soil moisture networks makes the aggregation of available data difficult because of the difference in quality and accuracy. A testbed was initiated as part of the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite mission to intercompare the current and emerging in situ soil moisture technologies. The testbed is located in Marena, Oklahoma, USA, in a large grass pasture. Four base stations were installed in May 2010 with more sensors to be added as they are manufactured. Included in the testbed are the new COSMOS soil moisture instruments and GPS receivers which are emerging technologies measuring soil moisture on a large scale. Regular soil moisture and vegetation sampling will be conducted to check the accuracy and representativeness of the sensors.


In this paper, the convention Gaussian mixture models with spatial constraints for noisy image segmentation is proposed. Gaussian mixture model is an effective algorithm suitable for image segmentation based on the Bayes theorem. Unlike the fuzzy c-means clustering with spatial constraints, it is able to consider the density distribution of input data. The experimental results on a synthetic image and a real image show that our proposed algorithm is more effective than fuzzy c-means with spatial constraints.


to exploring new opportunities. Sometimes I purposely choose something that is not (a student's) preferred learning style, because I feel that they need to expand their own repertoire. It comes down to that I don't want people to see me as the person with the answers; I want this to be an environment in which the students or participants are finding their own answers and own approaches, and that often, there is more than one right answer.


Heat is critical for the occurrence of salt intrusion. Increased temperature greatly reduces the ultimate strength of salt and eliminates work hardening. When salt is heated above 400°F (205°C), it becomes soft and plastic and flows indefinitely with a pressure gradient of about 33-100 kg/cm2 (460-1,400 psi). It is plastic during the entire process of intrusion, and even during extrusion at the surface. Thus, at the time of extrusion, salt can flow by simple gravity, like a "glacier," as long as it remains hot. When buried at a depth of more than 25,000 ft, sedimentary salt becomes mobile because of the high temperature and behaves hydrodynamically; it moves laterally to places of lower overburden pressure, where doming or piercement occurs. Once flow is initiated, it will continue until the supply of salt is depleted or cut off, either by the coming together of the overlying and underlying strata or because additional supplies of salt have not been heated to the temperature necessary to maintain plasticity. The energy impelling the lateral or radial flow to the place of piercement can be attributed only to an imbalance in geostatic load of the overburden, but after piercement occurs, the geostatic load differential and the ever-increasing effect of buoyancy cause the salt to rise rapidly th ough the overlying strata. Buoyancy becomes an effective force only when the height of the intrusion has increased greatly. Buoyancy is not a requirement for intrusion, but it has a modifying effect. The emplacement of igneous masses such as volcanic plugs, granite batholiths, diamond pipes, carbonatites, and serpentine bodies (Gussow, 1962), and of such intrusive masses as mud volcanoes, shale diapirs, ice piercements or pingos (Gussow, 1954), and frost boils (Gussow, 1962), is similar to that of salt piercements. In all cases the prime motivating force for intrusion is the weight differential of the overburden, or geostatic load (Gussow, 1962). The writer postulates that salt-dome intrusion is a thermally activated process and that the rate of intrusion is rather rapid--probably catastrophic on a geologic time scale. The movement which has been interpreted as salt-dome growth is actually a measure of rate of compaction of the adjacent sediments. The fundamental mechanics outlined for salt diapirism are applicable to igneous intrusion generally, and to other forms of diapirism.


The scorpions of the genus Tityus are a group widely distributed throughout the world, having greater richness and diversity in South America, they are of medical importance in the region, however they have been little studied in Bolivia. A review of the specimens of the Immunoglobulin Production Laboratory of INLASA was carried out, using different dichotomous keys of the genus from Latin America, as well as the study of the original descriptions of some species described for Bolivia. An updated list of Tityus species from Bolivia is presented, 9 species are mentioned with their respective localities: T argentinus (Villa Tunari and Chapare in Cochabamba, Buena Vista and Campeche in Santa Cruz and in the Chaco of Chuquisaca), T. birabeni (Villa Tunari, Cochabamba), T. bolivi-anus (Tipuani, La Paz), T. confluens (Villa Montes, Tarija), T. horacioi (San Mateo, Cochabamba), T. kaderkai (Rurrenabaque and San Joaquín, Beni), T. proseni (Locotal, Cochabamba), T. sorataensis (Sorata, Cheje and Quime, La Paz) and the presence of T. metuendus is confirmed for Bolivia in the department of Pando. Thus, the number of Tityus species for the Bolivian territory was updated, as well as the distribution of T. metuendus .


An in vitro analysis of the adsorptive power of commonly used preparation for antacids intestinal adsorbents and peptic ulcer drugs to norethisterone acetate revealed a reduction of the availability of norethisterone acetate in HCl (0.1 mol/1) depending on the nature of the adsorbent tested (activated charcoal magnesium trisilicate dried aluminum hydroxide gel and light kaolin). Increasing the concentration of the adsorbents reduced the percent dissolution of the hormone drug from 25% with 1% of activated charcoal to 0% with 3% or more of the adsorbent. Activated charcoal exhibited the worst effect. It was concluded that since adsorbents alter the pharmacological effect of oral contraceptives it is inadvisable to co-administer oral contraceptives with antacids intestinal adsorbents and peptic ulcer drugs.


This study examines the problem of developing process standards and content standards which are important variables in improving teacher performance. Teacher performance is increasingly important to improve in line with the increasingly complex demands of teachers as professionals. The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the influence and comparison of the development of process standards and content standards on improving teacher performance which focused on the main problems, namely: (1) the magnitude of the influence of developing process standards on teacher performance, (2) the magnitude of the influence of developing content standards on performance. teachers, and (3) the magnitude of the influence and comparison of the development of process standards and content standards simultaneously on improving the performance of state high school chemistry teachers in Bandung Regency. In this study, the Embedded Concurent model of the Mix Methods approach was used. Data were analyzed using descriptive analysis techniques and inferential analysis techniques. The results of the analysis show that the development of process standards and content standards together contributes positively and significantly to improving teacher performance, which is stated based on the positive correlation coefficient and determination coefficient values with an effect of 76%, meaning that the effect is good, this proves that the better the development of standard processes and the development of content standards are carried out, the better the increase in teacher performance. Meanwhile, the remaining 24% is influenced by other variables


We have developed a compact low-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system that can be integrated with a magnetoencephalography system to facilitate the simultaneous measurement of magnetoencephalography and MRI for small animals. The superconducting quantum interference device gradiometer that detects the nuclear magnetic resonance signal was operated by a band-pass type flux-locked loop, and the artifact produced by the decay of the polarizing field was improved. Our MRI system includes a desktop-sized planar coil set (350 × 350 × 188 mm3). It has five pairs of coils: a pair of cylindrical coils for the polarizing field and four pairs of shielded planar coils for the measurement field and the 3-D gradient fields. On account of the grace of the coil patterns that were created by a target field method, the homogeneities of the magnetic field were below ±0.2% over 40 mm diameter sphere volume (DSV). The pulse sequence to detect the spin-echo signal was designed for 2-D Fourier imaging. A 41-mm field-of-view with a pixel size of 1.3 mm was achieved. We carried out a 2-D imaging measurement using a phantom created by a 2 × 103 mm3 NiCl2 aqueous solution and obtained a clear image.


Aromatic oligoamide sequences programmed to fold into stable helical conformations were designed to display a linear array of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors at their surface. Sequences were synthesized on solid phase synthesis. Solution 1H NMR spectroscopic studies and solid state crystallographic structures demonstrated the formation of stable hydrogen bond-mediated dimeric helix bundles that could be either heterochiral (with a P and an M helix) or homochiral (with two P or two M helices). Formation of the hetero- or homochiral dimers could be driven quantitatively using different chlorinated solvents - exemplifying a remarkable case of either social or narcissistic chiral self-sorting or upon imposing absolute handedness to the helices to forbid PM species.


Researchers have paid more and more attention on the issue of corporate bond liquidity and,along with theory expansion and practice deepening,many different metric indicators have come into existence to measure liquidity.The paper mainly classifies and summarizes the corporate bond liquidity measuring methods,expounds and analyzes the existing liquidity indicators in four aspects: price difference,price impact on trade,bond characteristics and latent liquidity.


Method of increasing quality of CDP/LOG-VSP tie by stacking primary reflections of PP- and PS-waves from several shot points. The efficiency of this method was illustrated on synthetic and real data.


The era of touch-enabled mobile devices has fundamentally changed our communication habits. Their high usability and unlimited data plans provide the means to communicate any place, any time and lead people to publish more and more (sensitive) information. Moreover, the success of mobile devices also led to the introduction of new functionality that crucially relies on sensitive data (e.g., location-based services). With our today's mobile devices, the Internet has become the prime source for information (e.g., news) and people need to rely on the correctness of information provided on the Internet. However, most of the involved systems are neither prepared to provide robust privacy guarantees for the users, nor do they provide users with the means to verify and trust in delivered content. This dissertation introduces three novel trust and privacy mechanisms that overcome the current situation by improving widely used ecosystems. With WebTrust we introduce a robust authenticity and integrity framework that provides users with the means to verify both the correctness and authorship of data transmitted via HTTP. X-pire! and X-pire 2.0 offer a digital expiration date for images in social networks to enforce post-publication privacy. AppGuard enables the enforcement of fine-grained privacy policies on third-party applications in Android to protect the users privacy.


Objective To investigate the reliability of full-automatic microplate technique on blood donors ABO blood groups testing. Methods The date on the results of ABO Blood groups testing with full-automatic microplate technique at Jiangmeng Central Blood Station from January to December, 2001 were gathered and analysed. Results It showed that 99.8% blood samples among 28 379 blood donors with full-automatic micropkte technique give a correct result and 0.13% couldn't give a satisfactory result, 1 blood sample give an incorrect result. Conclusion The full-automatic microplate technique can be used for ABO blood groups testing from blood donors.


The kinetics of the following reactions in decalinhave been studied : the complexes [MnRe(CO)10] and [Tc2(CO)10] with triphenylphosphine, [MnRe(CO)8(PPh3)2] and [Tc2(CO)8(PPh3)2] with carbon monoxide, and decomposition of [Tc2(CO)10] under oxygen. The results are consistent with initial reversible homolytic fission of the metal–metal bonds so that the activation enthalpies for the rate-limiting steps can be taken as a kinetic measure of the strengths of the metal–metal bonds. Attention is drawn to correlations between the activation enthalpies for the decacarbonyls and spectroscopic parameters related to the bond strengths.


The electronic structure and magnetism of the Mn2FeZ (Z=Al, Ga, Si, Ge, Sb) Heusler alloys have been studied by density functional calculations. Two half-metallic ferromagnets, namely, Mn2FeAl and Mn2FeSb, are predicted. It is found that a small expansion of the crystal lattice can restore the half-metallicity in Mn2FeSi. The calculated total magnetic moments Mtot are 1μB/f.u. for Mn2FeAl and Mn2FeGa, 2μB/f.u. for Mn2FeSi and Mn2FeGe, and 3μB/f.u. for Mn2FeSb, which agree with the Slater–Pauling curve quite well. The moments of Mn (A) and Mn (B) are large and antiparallel to each other, which is indicative of ferrimagnetism in Mn2FeZ alloys. Fe shows only a small moment and its moment is parallel to that of Mn (B). By investigating the effect of lattice distortion on the half-metallicity and magnetic moments of Mn2FeZ, it is found that the half-metallic properties of Mn2FeSb are insensitive to the lattice distortion and a 100% spin polarization can be obtained within the wide range of 5.4–6.05 A. This is ...


Through the sampling investigations of the production status of the direct-seeding early indica rice and late rice in the Poyang Lake double-cropping rice area in 2011,the paper analyzed the characteristics of abnormal climate and its damage to the high-yielding cultivation of double-cropping direct-seeding early indica rice and late rice,then put forward some relevant preventive countermeasures based on the climate characteristics in the Poyang Lake area.


As the method of payment in company strategy M&A, stock-for-stock is not only the payment between listed companies, but also an effective instrument for solely state-funded enterprises to get listed on the stock market by M&A. This paper verifies the performance of Chinese listed companies which happened M&A events during the period 1998 to 2007 after M&A from the perspective of short-term and long-term event study. Empirical results show that shareholders of the majority acquiring firms gain positive average abnormal return in one month after M&A, but suffer significant wealth loss in one to two years. Finally, this paper gives a profound analysis of causes of low performance in stock-for-stock, and also gives some advises to improve the M&A performance.


Sprinkling irrigation experiment were done on three soils in the South China area.Key characteristic values of soil infiltration were extracted,and the recognition model of soil infiltrability category was built by using neural network.The infiltration depth predictive model of irrigating water was generated by using experimental data.The verification experiments were done in laboratory.The results showed that the recognition model of soil infiltrability category could sort the two checked soils,The percentage error between the predictive filtration depth and the real depth was less than 10%.


The method of numerical simulation on two-layer structures such as a-SiSi and a-SiSiO2 is used to study the influence of mechanical stresses on the start temperature of self-sustaining crystallization of an amorphous film, on the waiting time for the start of crystallization (or melting) t0, and on the expected time of film crystallization tn which is compared to the duration of a heating pulse. In case of simulation of the transformation kinetics the energy of strain field of a lattice during the doping is estimated for the substitutional position of impurity atoms by the difference of their size from that of silicon atoms. Isotropy of the stress field, the local action of an impurity, the possibility of incorporation into a lattice and of excess over equilibrium solubility are included. Numerical calculations are made for the degree of deformation of 0.1 and variations of a free energy by 56 meV and of an activation energy of transformation by 1 eV typical of amorphous silicon obtained by ion implantation. It is shown that (t0 and tn decrease by 103 to 104 times for A C and by 10 to 103 for A L transformations, the melting being most likely as usual. The proposed way of taking into account the influence of mechanical stresses can be used in simulation of the crystallization process by the method of finite differences.

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Disasters in general leave a long lasting impact on the mankind & society as a whole. The materialistic damage that it causes have a chance to be reinstated to a major extent but the internal psychological damage that it causes to the people takes ages to heal and sometimes remains unhealed as not much help is available in that area. In this paper we have analyzed the psychological problems faced by the rescuers and victims during and after the disaster starting from day 1 to day 30 of the disaster, beginning from facing the victim in the field to rehabilitation of the victim after the disaster. The research methodology includes expert opinions and focus group discussions from various stake holders of Disaster management including psychologists, NGO, Defense personnel and academicians who are involved in the teaching of Disaster management. Detailed interviews were also conducted of the rehabilitated victims of disasters; reports from the media have also been referred. We have limited our study to Natural & Manmade Disasters excluding civil commotions, riots and wars .The paper is conceptual in nature and it aims at providing suggestions and possible solutions on the psychological problems identified during the research


The past few chapters have described the many applications of fiber optics in fixed
telecommunication systems. Fibers also are used in a variety of mobile systems for civilian and military systems. Fiber cables can be used for remote control of robotic vehicles and guidance of tactical missiles. Fiber cables also are used inside vehicles ranging from battleships to private automobiles. This chapter briefly surveys these diverse applications, explaining how and why fibers are used.


Abstract A total of 460 bulls of different breeds from the Swedish performance testing stations and 90 bulls from an experimental station were scanned monthly from 9 to 12 months of age and from 9 months to slaughter, respectively. Scanning was performed at the 2nd lumbar vertebra and on certain occasions also at the 13th and 10th thoracic vertebrae. When the bulls from the experimental station were slaughtered, the composition of each carcass was inspected closely. The scanning pictures of the cross-sectional area of M. longissimus dorsi and average subcutaneous fat thickness were interpreted. Significant differences in the scanning measurements were found between beef breeds and between year-batches. Repeatabilities, expressed as intraclass correlation for muscle area when interpreted by different persons, varied between 0.35 and 0.58. The corresponding values for fat thickness were 0.35 and 0.42. The higher values were obtained by persons who had earlier trained interpretation together. It was conclude...


This paper begins by describing the dramatic changes in both the scale and mode of financing of public education in the United States during the past century. It then sketches and critiques the theoretical interpretation of those trends provided by neoclassical economics, a line of interpretation which hinges on such concepts as "human capital" and "external benefits." Marxian political economy is then offered as an alternative, and superior, theoretical framework with which to analyze the evolution of public school finance. The paper concludes with a Marxian interpretation of school finance reform in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s.


Natural disasters affect tourist travel patterns and tourist characteristics in socio-economic aspects as well as aspects of tourist behavior. This study aims to find out and analyze changes in the pattern of travel of tourists visiting Bali after natural disasters. The research was conducted in Bali tourism destinations related to the eruption of Mount Agung natural disasters in 2017. Data analysis techniques used qualitative descriptive and Likert scale techniques by distributing questionnaires to 200 tourists. The results of the study show changes in the pattern of tourist travel with natural disasters where tourists are more selective in choosing tourist attractions in these tourism destinations. Tourists state that they are not affected by natural disasters as long as there is access to the tourism destination, but information plays an important role in providing a factual description of the current conditions of tourism destinations. The motivation of tourists visiting after natural disasters did not show a significant difference.


The pathways by which proteins fold into their specific native structure are still an unsolved mystery. Currently, many methods for protein structure prediction are available, and most of them tackle the problem by relying on the vast amounts of data collected from known protein structures. These methods are often not concerned with the route the protein follows to reach its final fold. This work is based on the premise that proteins fold in a hierarchical manner. We present FOBIA, an automated method for predicting a protein structure. FOBIA consists of two main stages: the first finds matches between parts of the target sequence and independently folding structural units using profile–profile comparison. The second assembles these units into a 3D structure by searching and ranking their possible orientations toward each other using a docking‐based approach. We have previously reported an application of an initial version of this strategy to homology based targets. Since then we have considerably enhanced our method's abilities to allow it to address the more difficult template‐based target category. This allows us to now apply FOBIA to the template‐based targets of CASP8 and to show that it is both very efficient and promising. Our method can provide an alternative for template‐based structure prediction, and in particular, the docking‐basedranking technique presented here can be incorporated into any profile–profile comparison based method. Proteins 2011; © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Based on the book numbers definition and its functions,the paper expands that book number research should be insisted on the rational knowledge,the attitude of seeking truth from facts and the thoughts of dialectics.


Marx proposed,England to China's industrial product exportation because all sorts of reasons extremely will be difficult,the opium trade will be one kind compared to a slave trade more serious disaster.England's opium trade and the cannon from in the ignorant condition which passed on from generation to generation awaken the Chinese,cause they to produce the revolutionary struggle enthusiasm;It will break the condition which China will close the borders and practice isolationism,will cause China to realize with the outside world relation,thus will promote Chinese ancient regime demise;China's social development in the process which will affect mutually is realizing with the Western country social development.


Background: The increased use of computed tomography (CT) results in higher occult hemothorax detection in blunt chest trauma. The indication for pleural decompression is not well defined. This research aims to study the overall factors determining pleural decompression. Methods: All blunt chest injury patients were retrospectively reviewed from the institutional trauma registry. Patients who underwent chest or whole-abdomen CT within 24 h were reviewed by a radiologist to identify initial occult hemothorax defined as a negative chest X-ray with the presence of hemothorax in the CT. The data included demographic data, mechanism of injury, complications, treatments, and characteristics of the hemothorax from the CT. Results: Six hundred and eighty-six blunt chest injury patients were reviewed over a period of 30 months. Eighty-one (24.9%) patients had occult hemothorax. The mean time from injury to CT was 5.7 h. Most patients (87.6%) were male. Most patients (70.2%) suffered from traffic collisions and 84.4% had rib fractures. Pleural decompression was performed in 25 patients who had significantly thicker hemothorax (1.1 cm vs. 0.8 cm,P < 0.01), higher rate of occult pneumothorax (88% vs. 53.8%,P < 0.01), and lung contusion (44% vs. 15%,P < 0.05) than those who did not undergo decompression. Multivariable logistic regression showed that a thickness of hemothorax >1.1 cm was associated with increased risk of pleural decompression (odds ratio [OR]: 5.51, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.42–21.42) and occult pneumothorax (OR: 6.93, 95% CI: 1.56–30.77). Conclusions: Drainage of occult hemothorax after blunt chest trauma was significantly associated with concomitant occult pneumothorax, lung contusion, and hemothorax thicker than 1.1 cm.


The narration mode of Humboldts Gift is to construct a story by means ofmental time and space.It activates the plot through the description of the mentality of the protagonist.In the story,the stories are overlapping,and the time_space mixing together.Thus the narration of the story finished.


In the near future, radar and communication systems will share the spectrum. This motivates the study of how the two systems, which have traditionally operated in different bands, may co-exist. This paper investigates the effect of radar interference (unaltered, beyond the communication system designer's control) on an uncoded communication system, using complex-valued modulation schemes when the Maximum-A-Posteriori (MAP) detector is used. For all commonly used higher order modulation schemes, the Symbol Error Rate (SER) exhibits an "error floor" for the radar interference much larger than the signal power, which can be exactly characterized; in this regime the optimal MAP detector behaves like an interference canceller; interestingly, in this regime the channel behaves as a real-valued phase- fading AWGN channel with receiver CSI, thus indicating a loss of one of the two complex dimensions compared to the complex-valued interference-free channel.


Discusses some instances in Classical or Romantic sonata forms when the onset of the recapitulation occurs gradually, without any obvious sign, making impossible for the listener to discern an exact point of reprise. This recapitulatory strategy is labelled "Ongoing reprise", and its emergence is possibly related to the Homeric vogue in Europe in the eighteenth century.


The paper introduces a correlation function of the excluded volume necessary for a real-space description of scattering from dense systems of spherical particles.


Data have been compiled to derive animal product transfer coefficients for radionuclides to update the values given in
Technical Reports Series No. 364. Significant new data inputs have been incorporated from an extensive review of Russian
language information and inclusion of data published since the early 1990s. The resultant database has been used to provide
reference transfer coefficient values for a range of radionuclides to (i) cow, sheep and goat milk, (ii) meat (muscle) of cattle,
sheep, goats, pigs and poultry and (iii) eggs. The approaches and procedures used to identify and collate data, and
assumptions used are given. For most animal products, transfer coefficient values for elements additional to those in
Technical Reports Series No. 364 are provided, although some elements were considered in the earlier evaluation which were
not included in this review. Differences between the Technical Reports Series No. 364 'expected' values and the reference
values from this document, which will be incorporated into the revised transfer parameter handbook, are discussed. An
alternative approach to quantifying transfer by using concentration ratios is evaluated and CR values which could be applied
across animal species have been provided for milk and meat. Information on fractional gastrointestinal absorption in adult
ruminants has been compiled and reference values presented. Despite these improvements many data gaps remain.


Over the last decade the Texas Military Forces Museum has evolved in a very dramatic way. Collection storage and archival spaces have been modernized, climate controlled and brought up to current standards in the museum field. The library and photo archives have seen similar upgrades. Staff and volunteers have steadily worked their magic on the museum's indoor and outdoor exhibits. The Great Hall has seen a major transformation with the addition of the


Despite its high educational relevance, relatively few CAL studies have examined whether their computer-based treatments search for and/or utilise any potential link between procedural and conceptual mathematical knowledge. This paper summarises some of the findings of studies of this kind, explains how these knowledge types may be linked and proposes two constructivist CAL environments which enable a desired link.


Numerous fires in the aviation community are typically initiated and sustained when a flammable fluid leaks onto a heated surface sometimes resulting in a catastrophic event. Due to the complex fluid thermal nature of these phenomena a two-prong effort was undertaken. Within this phase of the effort the focus is to provide insight into the fluid dynamic and thermal nature of a flow field induced by a heated surface. To this end the current work discusses the temperature and velocity fields immediately above a circular flat plate 20 cm diameter and which was heated to temperatures between 150 °C and 550 °C. Both Schlieren and laser light sheet methodologies had been used to acquire data for qualitative and quantitative examination of the flow field. It has been found that the streamlines referred to as collision lines which emanate from the edge of the plate point radially inward towards the plates center. These lines connect and form cellular structures adjacent to the plates' surface. These cell-like structures appear to be reminiscent of Rayleigh Bernard type cells of either 5 or 6 sided constructions. In addition, at certain surface temperatures, pool boiling of the fluid is initiated; however, at even higher temperatures film boiling typically occurs which is thought to lead to ignition and flame propagation. The results concluded that as the distance increases from the plate the velocity of the vortical structures increases while the temperature decreases.


The analysis of change trend of runoff of Yingluoxia Station in Heihe River over the past 50 years shows that: the runoff in Heihe River basin as a whole is subject to high flow and low flow alternating periodic change,multiple high flow periods and low flow periods have appeared,the emergent probability for high flow year and low flow year is roughly equal;in future,Heihe River basin runoff will continue to periodically alternate with high flow and low flow and annual mean runoff of Yingluoxia Station will continue to fluctuate around 1.58 billion m3.


There is provided an apparatus for equalizing the pressure of a closed volume with its environment and a equipped with such a device electrochemical energy storage. The apparatus comprises a pressure equalization cylinder with an ambient fluid inlet, an outlet and a fluid outlet. The fluid outlet is adapted to be coupled to the closed volume. Further, the apparatus comprises a slidable piston for dividing the pressure compensating cylinder into a first volume and a second volume. Here, the ambient fluid inlet to the second volume is pneumatically coupled. Additionally, the second fluid outlet is coupled to the first volume.


Purpose: The purpose of this prospective study is to compare the results of arthroscopic reconstruction of ACL using autologous hamstring tendon (Group 1) and autologous bone patella tendon bone (Group 2). Materials and Methods: From Jan. 2004 to Dec. 2007, fifty patients were analyzed in this study. A single surgeon performed the ACL reconstruction with autologous hamstring tendon (25 patients) and autologous bone patella tendon bone (25 patients) alternatively each other. The mean follow up period of two groups was 38 months (range 25~58 months). We evaluated the result of Lachman test, Pivot shift test as a physical examination and Lysholm score, Tagner activity scale as patients' satisfaction and functional status and Telometer for anterior instability of each groups at the time of final follow up. Results: In final results, negative or mild positive findings on Lachman test were 24 out of 25 cases (equally) in each groups. Twenty two cases in the Group 1 and 21 cases in the Group 2 were negative on Pivot shift test. Lysholm scores mark 94.6 points in group 1 and 92.3 points in group 2 at the final follow up and Tegner activity scales mark 8.5 points (Group 1) and 8.1 points (Group 2) at the time of last follow up and there were no differences between the two groups statistically. The numbers of patients who have less than 5 mm of anterior translation of tibia under telometer at 20 degrees of knee flexion are 24 cases in group 1 and 23 cases in group 2. Conclusion: The overall improvements of clinical scores (Lysholm scores and Tegner Activity scales) of the group 1 were a little bit superior to those of the group 2, but there were no significant statistical difference between two groups.


The relationship between plasma protease inhibitor (PI) trough concentrations and hyperlipidemic effects were evaluated retrospectively using data from 2 pilot clinical trials of a double‐boosted PI regimen (saquinavir/lopinavir/ritonavir) in 25 HIV patients. The patients' median age was 39 years (range, 25–60). At baseline, PI‐naive patients had a median viral load of 53 500 copies/mL and median CD4 of 296 cells/mm3, while PI‐experienced patients had 37 750 copies/mL and 214 cells/mm3. Plasma PI trough concentrations of saquinavir, lopinavir, and ritonavir at week 12 were 520, 4482, and 153 ng/mL, respectively. At week 12, median fasting lipids increased significantly from baseline: total cholesterol increased from 165 to 189 mg/dL (P = .0005) and the triglyceride increased from 113 to 159 mg/dL (P = .001). There were no associations between PI trough concentrations at week 12 and the percent total cholesterol change at week 12. No associations were found between PI trough concentrations and lipid changes in HIV patients on a double‐boosted PI regimen (saquinavir/lopinavir/ritonavir). Factors other than systemic exposure to PIs (such as host or genetic factors) may modulate the hyperlipidemic effect of PIs.


This thesis deals with acoustic feature transformations in automatic speech recognition to improve basic performance of a speech recognizer. The aim of acoustic feature transformations is to reduce dimensionality of long-term speech features without losing discriminative information among the different phonetic classes. First, we focus on optimizing acoustic feature transformations using criteria with which to maximize the ratio of between-class scatter to within-class scatter. This approach is based on a family of functions of scatter or covariance matrices, which is frequently used in practice. Typical methods in this approach include linear discriminant analysis (LDA), heteroscedastic linear discriminant analysis (HLDA), and heteroscedastic discriminant analysis (HDA). Although LDA, HLDA and HDA are the most widely used in speech recognition, the connections between them have been disregarded so far. By developing a unified mathematical framework, close relationships between them are identified and analyzed in detail. The framework termed power LDA (PLDA) can describe various criteria by varying its control parameter. PLDA includes LDA, HLDA and HDA as special cases. In order to determine a sub-optimal control parameter automatically, a control parameter selection method is also provided. The effectiveness of the combinations of acoustic feature transformations and discriminative training techniques of acoustic models is investigated and additional performance improvement is obtained. Unfortunately, the transformation methods mentioned above may result in an unexpected dimensionality reduction if the data in a certain class consist of several clusters, because they implicitly assume that data are generated from a single Gaussian distribution. This study provides extensions of HDA and PLDA to deal with class distributions with several clusters. Second, we focus attention on acoustic feature transformations which minimize a kind of classification error between different phonetic classes. As the performance of speech recognition systems generally correlates strongly with the classification accuracy of features, the features should have the power to discriminate between different classes. The existing methods for this approach attempt to minimize the average classification error between different classes. Although minimizing the average classification error suppresses total classification error, it cannot prevent the occurrence of considerable overlaps between distributions of some different classes with low frequencies, which is critical for speech recognition because there may be class pairs that have little or no discriminative information on each other. Instead of the average classification error, minimization methods of maximum classification error are proposed herewith so as to avoid considerable error between different classes. In addition, interpolation methods that minimize the maximization error while minimizing the average classification error are also proposed and achieved the best results. Acknowledgments First of all, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor Prof. Norihide Kitaoka for giving me the opportunity to do my PhD at Nagoya University and for being always willing to answer questions or discuss problems. He also had been a former senior colleague at DENSO CORPORATION. Things I learned from him during his years at DENSO CORPORATION have helped me in work even after he left. I am also grateful to my vice supervisors, Profs. Kazuya Takeda and Hiroshi Murase, for their in-depth reading of this thesis and the valuable comments. They provided useful and valuable feedback on my thesis and helped guide it to completion. My special thanks to Prof. Kazuya Takeda for the numerous interesting and enlightening discussions. My gratitude goes to Profs. Yukio Sato and Jun Sato of Nagoya Institute of Technology where I started my research career. Prof. Yukio Sato (currently a Professor at Keio University and a Professor emeritus at Nagoya Institute of Technology) introduced me to the field of pattern recognition, and taught me so much about it. I must also thank the late Research Assistant Kazuyuki Hattori for infusing me with his intellectual honesty. I have been greatly influenced by his attitude to research, and I was immensely saddened by his sudden passing. My research on speech recognition has been supported and encouraged by Dr. Yoshiki Ueno, Dr. Nobuaki Kawahara, Ichiro Akahori, and Dr. Manabu Otsuka of DENSO CORPORATION. I would like to thank Yuya Hattori, who generously helped to run a part of the experiment in Chapter 3. I would also like to express my deep appreciation to all current and former colleagues of the Speech Group. Without them I could never have realized my study while working at DENSO CORPORATION. I am extremely grateful to Prof. Seiichi Nakagawa of Toyohashi University of Technology. His expertise, vast knowledge, and suggestions have been very useful on improving my work. My thanks also to the doctoral meeting members of Nakagawa Lab. for their valuable suggestions. My research has also benefited from constructive advice and suggestions from Assistant Profs. Takanori Nishino (currently a Professor at Mie University) and Chiyomi Miyajima, and the doctoral meeting members of Takeda Lab. of Nagoya University. Finally, special thanks to my friends, my parents, my brother and my wife who have always been there for me with their unfailing love and assistance.


In this paper, a new formulation at the small time scale is proposed for multi-scale fatigue crack growth analysis and an in-situ SEM testing methodology is used to verify the basic hypotheses of the model. 12Very high resolution imaging analysis is performed to quantify the crack tip deformation behaviour and crack growth kinetics. In the in-situ SEM testing, the crack closure phenomenon is observed during the crack growth process. It is also observed that crack growth is not uniformly distributed within a loading cycle and only happens during a small portion of loading path. Based on the experimental measurement, the new prognosis model is developed and shows a good agreement with coupon level fatigue crack growth testing data under both constant loading and simple variable loading.


Background:The Amur leopard, one of nine recently recognized subspecies of leopard, is still most threatened in a stochastic procession of extinction. The potential harmless to the conservation of the Amur leopard originating from the disease is in need of urgent attention. Unfortunately, the research on the potential risk to Amur leopard caused by disease is rare. When the parasites were concerned, even the elementary data, such as parasitic fauna, are absent. Our aim in the study is to accumulate the knowledge of it for a better comprehension.
Results: There are 7 parasite species, including 3 nematodes (Toxocara cati, capillarid-type parasite, and Metastrongyloidea-type parasite), 2 cestodes (Spirometra sp. and Taenia sp.), 1 trematode (Paragonimus sp.), and 1 protozoa (Cystoisospora felis), were found in this research. The Toxocara cati was highest frequent occurrence, followed by Spirometra sp.
Conclusion: The Amur leopard was infected by seven parasites firstly reported.


The free aldimine is probably the intermediate in the asymmetric allylboration of N-trimethylsilylaldimines in the presence of water (see scheme), which is critical for the reaction. The aldimine is rapidly captured by the allylborating agent. Ipc2 BAll=B-allyldiisopinocampheylborane.


In this paper, FAA WAAS ionosphric grid corrections algorithm is tested by using the-data of 18 GPS observation stations over the time span of two months. Its accuracy is discussed. The results show that the algorithm prediction error is smaller in mid-high magnetic latitude than the one in low magnetic latitude , smaller in low solar activity period than in high solar activity period, and smaller in the morning and at night than in the day time.


In this paper we propose Q-learning with continuous action space and extend this algorithm to a multi-agent system. Conventional Q-learning needs a pre-defined and discrete state space. But it is not practical because the states of the environment in the real world and actions are both continuous. The algorithm will use a concept that is similar to the SRV (Stochastic Real-Valued Unit) to train the actions in each state. The convergence of the SRV may fall into local solution even if it has never reached the optimal solution. In order to overcome this drawback, the Q-learning with SRRV (Stochastic Recording Real-Valued unit) is proposed, and it shows that the SRRV will converge more quickly.


Vocational education has long been an unproblematic endeavor. Commonly regarded as little more than functional training for work (regardless of whether any work actually exists), it rarely delves into the nature of work, the culture of workplaces, or why so many work processes are tedious, demeaning, or dangerous. Too many vocational education programs instrumentally advance &dquo;skills&dquo; over meanings or promote compliance to, rather than questioning of, dominant practices. Students are rarely asked to examine how ideas about work might be socially or historically shaped or learn how education might be a vehicle for social change and empowerment. In such programs, the notion that labor can be one of the more noble expressions of human dignity tends to get lost in the headlong rush to prepare workers for the ever-increasing demands of the modem workplace. Joe Kincheloe's latest book challenges these assumptions head on. It is designed to help vocational and labor educators &dquo;make sense of the social, economic, cultural, political, and educational worlds that shape work, work education, and worker consciousness.&dquo; At the core of his work is the cre-


To the Editor: Recombinant Factor VIIa (rFVIIa) has been a useful treatment for hemophilia patients with inhibitors. We present two episodes of obstructive hydronephrosis associated with high dose rFVIIa in a 12-year-old boy (weight 51 kg) with severe factor VIII deficiency and an inhibitor (40 BU). The first episode occurred in the left kidney after rFVIIa (14.4 mg, then 9.6 mg, then 4.8 mg) was given at home for hemarthrosis. Gross hematuria and left flank pain ensued, severe enough to require hospitalization and narcotics for symptom control. Computerized tomography (CT) revealed a non-calcified mass, consistent with hematoma, within the left renal pelvis causing hydronephrosis. Right sidewas clear.With vigorous hydration, clots were passed and the hematuria resolved. Eightmonths later, a target hemarthosiswas treated at homewith rFVIIa at increased dose (24mg then 19.2mg). Gross hematuria and right flank pain began. CT revealed a mass in the right renal pelvis with obstruction and hydronephrosis. Left side was clear. Vigorous hydration helped in resolving the mass and passing clots. Five months later, a CT scan revealed that both kidneys and collecting systems were normal. Subsequent doses of rFVIIa at more conventional doses have not resulted in further problems. This patient had no previous history of hematuria, renal stones, or pertinent trauma. Maximum BUN was 16 mg/dl, baseline was 12 mg/dl. He has congenital severe factor VIII deficiency with a genetic inversion. By age 1, he had an inhibitor. He had a prolonged trial of immune tolerance, but abandoned this at age 5. He uses central venous catheters. His first exposure to rFVIIa was in 1999. He had a previous radionuclide synovectomy of the right knee. Vascular imaging in 2004 was consistent with a left internal jugular vein and left subclavian vein thrombosis. The patient requires a wheelchair. Both episodes occurred within months of a previous febrile illness. Three months before the first episode, the patient developed S. marcesens bacteremia, treated with intravenous antibiotics. Because of an increased frequency of bleeding, a trial of daily FEIBA had been started, with some success. The central line was eventually removed, and daily FEIBA had been stopped 2 weeks before the first episode. Two months before the second episode, he was treated with empiric antibiotics for a fever, but blood cultures were negative. Activated protein C resistance, prothrombin alleles (G21210), fibrinogen, antithrombin III, protein C, protein S, and homocysteine levels were normal; anticardiolipin antibodies were negative. Several factors might have caused a predisposition to these episodes, including the proximal history of fever and antibiotic therapy, the patient's sedentary routine, and the high doses of rFVII. We speculate that he had renal bleeding into the urinary collecting system that formed an obstructive mass, rather than nephrotoxicity. Thromboembolic events have been reported with rFVIIa [1].


Adaptive logic module (ALM) in modern field programmable gate array can serve as one 6-input lookup table (LUT) or two smaller lookup tables under certain constraints. In a typical design flow, a netlist of LUTs formed after technology mapping has to be merged into ALMs and then packed into coarse-grained logic blocks (CLBs) before placement and routing. How the LUTs are merged and the ALMs are packed has a significant impact on the quality of the placement. We propose a novel wirelength-driven algorithm to merge the LUTs and pack the ALMs to ensure that it will not adversely affect the final wire-length. Experimental results show that substituting AAPack [8] by our algorithm yields about 14.54% reduction in number of tracks required for routing and 17.97% wirelength improvement for ALM-based FPGA. Applying our algorithm to traditional FPGA, the minimum channel width and wirelength are reduced by 16.59% and 17.57%, respectively, compared to T-VPack.


The MNC(Multinational Corporation) pursues its market value to maximize,chooses the suitable financing way and the best debt-to-equity ratio,and searches the best capital structure.The best capital structure is a reasonable standard of weighing enterprise′s financing behavior and financing decision which can make MNC market value maximum or the capital cost minimum.This article is to build a determination frame for Multinational Corporation capital structure through the media of debt financing cost of Multinational Corporation.And then it analyses the positive and negative effect about the debt financing cost on the multinational corporation international management,and then to research how it will affect the capital structure of Multinational Corporation.


Past and current population trends in Morocco are described. The author points out that the rapid population growth that has occurred during the twentieth century has exacerbated the economic and social problems inherited from the colonial era. Since independence, unequal regional rates of development have resulted in the development of a large-scale system of migration from peripheral to central regions.


In June 2017, the Victorian Planning Authority (VPA) appointed Stuart Moseley as its new CEO. His appointment follows over 30 years of experience across private practice, local government, and State government over three states. Stuart holds postgraduate qualifications in urban planning and public management, a Masters degree in business administration and is a former President of the UDIA South Australian Division.


With the rise in smart devices, challenges such as traffic management particularly in the indoor scenarios have also increased. Wireless technologies seek to address these needs by using new radio access technologies that offer faster connectivity and access to the Internet. While 4G and 5G provide faster connectivity outdoor, Wi-Fi still remains the dominant technology in indoor scenarios due to its low cost and easy deployment. However, the IEEE 802.11 standard does not address the fairness of load in user-access point (AP) associations, resulting in unequal user distributions and subpar resource utilization. Densification has been employed in the past to address the aforementioned issue, but it is costly as it requires more hardware. Load balancing is necessary in high-density Wi-Fi networks in order to guarantee quality of service (QoS). To avoid the densification and issues related to load balancing at the APs this paper introduces tetra indicator Wi-Fi associations (TiWA), a combined SDN-based user association and channel assignment solution for Wi-Fi networks. TiWA considers multi-criteria to make better association decisions. The wireless stations from an overloaded OpenFlow enabled AP (OAP) are handed to an underloaded OAP by considering multi-metrics such as the packet loss rate, received signal strength indicator (RSSI), throughput and channel occupancy. Extensive experimentations on 5G EmPOWER platform show that TiWA surpasses previous research methods based on load balancing in terms of aggregated throughput by 39%, offering superior level of load fairness and supporting greater numbers of users and traffic prior to hitting the point at which densification is required.


Abstract The effect of 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), an antimetabolite of glucose was studied in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) exposed to radiomimetic drug bleomycin and an alkylating agent mitomycin-C. The PBL were exposed to 2-DG (5 mM), 30 minutes pretreatment and with Bleomycin (10 to 80 μg/ml) and Mitomycin-C (2 to12 μg/ml) for three hours. The drug as well as 2-DG was removed by washing the cells with HBSS buffer. Then the cells were cultured for 48 hours to study chromosomal aberrations (CA), Translocations (TL) and 72 hours for micronuclei (MN) and Sister Chromatid Exchanges (SCE). Exposures of PBL to Bleomycin and Mitomycin-C showed, a concentration dependent increase in the aberration frequencies, both in the presence and absence of 2-DG. While, the regression analysis showed, that the presence of 2-DG reduced bleomycin induced TL, CA frequencies and Mitomycin-C induced CA and MN frequencies significantly (P<0.001) when compared to PBL treated with the drugs alone, Bleomycin induced MN frequencies and Mitomycin-C induced SCE's reduction were not significant. The difference could be attributed to the mechanism of the action of drugs on the cells. Furthermore the alteration in the cell cycle kinetics, suggest that the presence of 2-DG during drug exposure, alter the cellular environment and delay the cell proliferation and provide sufficient time to repair the damages, could resulted in the reduced aberration frequencies.


The invention relates to a braking device for wheel brakes of a vehicle, especially a passenger car, to whose brake disc coaxial with the friction rings of the brake disc a brake drum is disposed. It was assumed to the high temporal and material of expenditure on the production of previous braking devices as well as existing in such devices thermal influence on the composite brake disk and the brake drum. The object of the invention therefore to provide a braking device for wheel brakes, which requires less time and material used for its manufacturing effort and thermal influences on the components of the braking device can be prevented in accordance with the related to the type of vehicle technical requirements with the case requirement. This object has been solved by the brake drum along the peripheral edge radial grooves and the friction rings radially facing inner edge radially have at their brake bell outwardly extending recesses which are designed such that the brake drum are positively joined together with the friction rings to the composite disc brake while at least the after assembly the brake piston facing lateral outer surface of the composite disc brake forms a plane. Advantageously, the braking device turns at high thermal influences in that the brake piston of the caliper have heat-insulating ceramic material and / or respectively between the contacting surfaces of the recesses in the brake drum with the surfaces of the inserted into the wells annular hub of the friction rings on all sides heat insulating materials of ceramic compounds or titanium are introduced.


Background. Extraperitoneal radical prostatectomy (RP) in patients with prostate cancer is useful when there are no oncological indications to lymph node dissection (e.g. in low and intermediate-low risk of the disease), and allows to perform precise anastomosis and facilitates the early postoperative period. However, even minimally invasive approach does not avoid such factors as a urinary catheter that may disturb patients.Objective. We assessed the possibility to remove the urinary catheter as early as possible.Materials and methods. 28 patients with low (n = 22) and low-intermediate (n = 6) prostate cancer risk (according to NCCN (National Comprehensive Cancer Network) criteria) underwent an extraperitoneal laparoscopic RP from March 2017 to November 2018. All operations were performed by the same surgeon (A. Nosov). The inclusion criteria were the following: localized prostate cancer, prostate specific antigen (PSA) <10 ng/ml, ISUP group 1–2, life expectancy of more than 10 years and preoperative patient's counseling (awareness about early catheter removal and discharge). All patients were continent before surgery. During surgery, the prostate and seminal vesicles were removed extraperitoneally without peritoneal cavity opening and conversion. Bladder neck sparing was performed in all cases but nerve-vascular bundles were spared according to indication (preoperative International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), oncological reasons). Vesicourethral anastomosis was performed by two V-Loc circular sutures. No drainage tubes were inserted to control bleeding/urinary leakage. A urinary catheter Foley 20 Fr was inserted into the bladder after anastomosis completion. No other urinary drainage (suprapubic tubes, etc) was used. Anastomosis resistance and completeness were checked at the end of surgery by filling the bladder with 150 ml of saline through the catheter. Except for cases with macroscopic hematuria, urinary catheters were removed on the 1st postoperative day's morning (<24 hours) with an active followup (daily voiding assessment, pelvic ultrasound and postvoided residual volume assessment) on Day 1. Immediately after the catheter removal, alpha-blockers (for urination alleviation) and PDE-5 inhibitors (in patients with neurovascular sparing) were prescribed. All patients were available for a 3-month follow-up. During the follow-up, a monthly combined assessment was performed, including IPSS, QoL, PSA analysis, pelvic ultrasound and urofloumetry.Results. The average patient's age was 63 years (52–71 years). The median preoperative PSA level was 7.6 ng/ml. The intraoperative technique was unremarkable with no blood transfusion or conversion. All early postoperative complications were classified as minor – grade I, II and IIIa in 2 (7.2 %), 5 (17.8 %) and 1 (3.6 %) patients, respectively. Related to the early catheter removal complications included 1 (3.6 %) patient with urinary leakage (resolved by repeated prolonged urinary catheter insertion) and 4 (14.3 %) with urinary obstruction – resolved by single catheterization (n = 2), percutaneous suprapubic cystostomy (n = 2). No major complications were noticed during the follow-up. Totally, 22 (78.6 %) patients were discharged on the next day after the catheter removal – on the 2nd postoperative day. All discharged patients did not need readmission during the follow-up. Remained 6 (21.4 %) patients stayed at the hospital for 5–18 days. The pathological investigation showed upgrading in 9 (32.1 %) patients with low risk and in 1 (3.6 %) patient with low-intermediate risk. Upstaging to locally advanced forms was noticed in 6 (21.4 %) patients. All patients had the PSA level of <0.2 ng/ml 30–90 days after surgery. Postoperative assessment showed improvement in urinary function and erectile function sparing in selected patients, with no compromising functional results due to the early catheter removal.Conclusion. Despite the common widespread of minimally invasive RP, there is no consensus on the terms of a urinary catheter removal. According to our data, we suggested it might be of some benefit to remove a urinary catheter early in selected and well-informed patients. A thorough vesicourethral anastomosis pursuance, nerve-sparing, bladder neck sparing and Retzius sparing procedure, intraand postoperative assessment is necessary in all cases.