Wheat is one of the most important cereals, occupying a discrete economic position worldwide as a main source for human nutrition due to its content of essential nutrients. Therefore, wheat has a strategic trait in international economic relationships, and most developing countries, including Iraq, are seeking for achieving self-sufficiency from this crop. This study aimed to estimate the profit and cost functions as well as economic, price, cost, and technical efficiencies beside the other economic indices at actual, optimal and profit-maximizing production of wheat. A random sample of 45 wheat farms in Nejaf province was selected during the agricultural season 2016. From efficiency scales of profit function, it was shown that the average production costs had the greatest impact on the profit compared to other variables (product price and yield). According to the cost function, the optimal cost-minimizing production size was 49.40 tons. Both technical and economic efficiencies were 61.96%, while price and cost efficiencies were 35.1% and 0.53 respectively. From these data, it can be concluded that the actual production uses only 62 % from economic resources and it affords 38% extra cost. The study recommends following a production policy which increases the economic efficiency and achieves the optimal exploit for available resources.


Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of services rendered by health professionals in reducing cigarette smoking at the smoking cessation centers.
Methods: Through May 2020 and April 2021, data from hospitals connected with the University of Health Sciences, Lahore, have been collected. During the same time period, information from DHQ and Allied Hospitals Faisalabad were evaluated using a recent retrospective review. Statistical software was used to calculate the incidence and average values. Chi-square also student t tests remained utilized to evaluate associated variables; p 0.06 remained measured statistically.
Results: The average age of entrance was 39.73 13.21 years (min 14; max 92). Women  were older than males at time of admission, although men began smoking earlier. Individuals  with fewer than a high school diploma began smoking at a younger age. Once cured  through medication also behavioral treatment, the smoking cessation rate remained 38.4 percent (n = 218).
Conclusion: Approximately 49 percent of smokers stopped smoking after receiving medication and behavioral counseling. The majority of smokers was between ages of 31 and 51. More smoking cessation clinics should be built to provide smoking cessation tools to more informed individuals.


Bacteriological, physicochemical and mineral analysis of water used in the months of January, February and March 2008, in two major abattoirs in Ado-Ekiti was determined. The bacteriological analysis of water used in two major abattoirs (Atikankan and Adere abattoirs) in Ado-Ekiti was assessed using standard microbiological techniques. Physicochemical and mineral constituents were also determined for the collected water samples. Results from the bacteriological analysis indicated that all the samples collected were highly contaminated with pathogenic organisms, Escherichia coli having the highest observed prevalence (26%) while Enterobacter aerogenes had the least observed prevalence (4%) among the encountered isolates. Highest mean bacterial count observed during the study was 8.5 x 107cfu/ml. Recorded pH and temperature values ranged between 6.60-7.20 and 28.50C-37.50C respectively. The mineral values obtained were Ca (60.2-101.6 mg/L), Mg (71.7-113.3 mg/L), Na (50.9-80.5 mg/L) and K (99.3-120.0 mg/L), while iron, copper, zinc, and manganese had values which ranged from 0.70-1.90 mg/L, 0.1-0.2 mg/L, 2.5-5.1 mg/L and 0.1-0.3 mg/L respectively. The need for improved sanitary conditions in abattoirs in Nigeria is emphasized. Key words: Bacteriological, Abattoir, Physicochemical, Sanitary condition.


Introduction Lower back pain affects millions of people worldwide, and has been linked to degenerative changes in the intervertebral disc (IVD) of the spine. In the "NPmimetic" project, a multidisciplinary team has come together to create a biomimetic nanopolymer based implant and develop a minimally invasive therapy to reconstruct and regenerate diseased nucleus pulposus (NP). The biodegradable nanofibers of the implant can also be designed to carry anti-inflammatory drugs, which can be released in situ promoting healing and preventing inflammation (http://npmimetic.com/). An IVD consists primarily of a proteoglycan-water gel embedded in a randomly arranged collagen network in the NP, and highly ordered collagen lamella in the annulus fibrosus (AF). Disc cells in the AF are elongated parallel to the collagen fibers and produce predominantly collagen I in the outer AF in response to deformation. NP cells are responsive to hydrostatic pressure and synthesize mostly proteoglycan and collagen II. In adults, the cell density in an IVD is very low and cell phenotypes can change in response to altered matrix and stress distribution.1 For successful regeneration, tissue integrity together with the right mechanical environment is essential for normal cell function. To develop suitable biomimetic implants a thorough characterization profile, that can be used as an aspirational target is important. In this study, we use Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microscopic imaging to obtain chemical maps of control and in-vivo CABC-degenerated goat IVDs.2,3 Materials and Methods Goat IVDs were kindly provided from VU University Medical Centre (VUMC), Amsterdam. The IVDs were formalin fixed (10%, overnight), paraffin embedded, and 4 µm sections were mounted on custom- made reflective steel slides. FTIR microscopy in transflection mode was used to generate chemical distribution maps from unstained paraffin sections. One microscopic image covers only a very small area (350 × 350 µm) of an IVD sample (∼2.8 × 2.3 cm, transverse section). Bigger areas are measured by sequential sample movement and image acquisition covering a user-defined mosaic image area. In this example, an area of 80 × 64 images was measured resulting in a total of 10,720 IR spectra per IVD section. FTIR mosaic imaging generally generates many thousands of data points. A major challenge is handling and analyzing such large and chemically complex datasets to extract meaningful information. However, using iterative multivariate curve resolution (MCR) techniques on the reduced data matrix from principal component analysis analysis of second derivative spectra it is possible to deconvolute highly overlapping infrared peaks into single contributions of different molecular species. Results The chemical identity of the extracted component using an iterative MCR algorithm is determined by comparing the extracted spectral profiles with the spectral profiles of reference materials for proteoglycan and collagen. Spectral features matching typical proteoglycan and collagen spectral characteristics are observed. The distribution of the extracted MCR factors for collagen and proteoglycan are compared with consecutive IVD sections, which were stained using traditional histological methods; Masson trichrome staining for collagen and Alcian blue staining for proteoglycan. A good match can be observed between the distribution maps of collagen and proteoglycans derived from FTIR microscopic imaging measurements and the traditionally stained sections. Conclusion FTIR microscopic imaging in transflection mode has been successfully used to generate molecular images of the collagen and proteoglycan distribution of natural IVD material without the use of contrast-enhancing agents. The use of second derivative spectra together with the application of iterative MCR algorithms shows great potential to enhance the chemical specificity of FTIR mosaic imaging and opens up the possibility to distinguish between different proteclycans and proteins as well as their secondary structure, which usually are expressed only through minor peak shifts. Acknowledgments We thank the European Union (NPMIMETIC ref 246351) for 7th Framework Program funding. Disclosure of Interest None declared References Adams MA, Roughley PJ. What is intervertebral disc degeneration, and what causes it? Spine 2006;31(18):2151–2161 Hoogendoorn RJW, Wuisman PIJM, Smit TH, Everts VE, Helder MN. Experimental intervertebral disc degeneration induced by chondroitinase ABC in the goat. Spine 2007;32(17):1816–1825 Hoogendoorn RJW, Helder MN, Kroeze RJ, Bank RA, Smit TH, Wuisman PI. Reproducible long-term disc degeneration in a large animal model. Spine 2008;33(9):949–954


Grazing experiments with freshly caught plankton from Narragansett Bay were performed at weekly or biweekly intervals through most of a seasonal cycle. The laboratory rates (obtained under simulated natural conditions) were multiplied by the zooplankton concentration in the natural environment and the effects of grazing on the phytoplankton community were assessed. Grazing was most extensive in spring and early summer; phytoplankton production was believed to be high and a large standing crop of Skeletonema costatum persisted. The grazing population was severely reduced during summer, but the phytoplankton standing crop did not increase markedly and some other factor must have been limiting primary production at this time. During fall, decreasing light allowed little phytoplankton growth and mild grazing kept the standing crop at a minimum. This grazing ceased in December and with the release in grazing pressure the winter-spring diatom flowering began.

Skeletonema costatum, the dominant bay diatom, was selectively grazed and its longer chains were preferentially removed.


The nature and impact of workplace bullying is addressed in this comprehensive overview. From the perspective of the human resources (HR) department, this practical guide provides the tools to both investigate interpersonal conflict and eliminate the problem. Policy models that not only tackle harassment issues but also implement strategies that comply with legislation are also presented. HR practitioners will learn to handle harassment at all levels of employment and, as a result, create productive work environments.


The study tests 3 hypotheses: a) that late Miocene to early Pliocene constriction and complete closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS), caused decreased productivity in the Caribbean, b) reduced paleoproductivity resulted in decreased diversity in the Caribbean and, c) this decreased availability of food (reduced paleoproductivity) was responsible for larger mean test size in the three most common benthic foraminiferal species Epistominella exigua, Oridorsalis umbonatus and Globocassidulina subglobosa. The hypotheses are tested by applying correlation analysis to 7 groups of paleoceanographic proxies, 3 indices of diversity measures and mean test size data from the Caribbean ODP Site 999, to 47 core samples between 8.3-2.5 Ma.Study concludes: a) the gradual closure of the CAS led Caribbean diversity and paleoproductivity to decrease abruptly at 7.9 Ma, when the nutrient-rich Pacific deep waters were cut off, and then, again with the complete closure of the seaway at 4.2 Ma, b) Caribben diversity and paleoproductivity are positively correlated and, c) that the availability of food influences mean test size; lower availability and decreased abundances lead to larger test size.


The '52 Hand Blocks' is a fighting style associated with African-Americans and penal institutions in the United States. In the closing decades of the 20th century, interest in the '52s' was fanned by references in popular media. The debate over its real-world existence and origins spanned from African-descended folk arts to the ring strategies of professional boxers who learned to box while inmates in juvenile detention facilities. Inevitably, those searching for an origin sought to identify a founder and a direct lineage. In oral tradition, the leading candidate was Mother Dear, a predatory homosexual and inmate of the New York penal system who reportedly used the 52s to beat reluctant sexual partners into submission. According to legend, adepts learned the 52s while incarcerated, frequently after being raped by their mentors. Additional research reveals that the Mother Dear archetype was neither unique nor confined to the African-American community. In fact, substantially similar characters who combine physical strength, fighting ability, and homosexuality appear across the prison lore of the United States. This study explores the psychological and social functions of these figures, with particular emphasis on the Mother Dear and his relationship to similar anti-heroes in African-American oral tradition.


A class of feedback controls is investigated by using comparison theorem of differential equation,the sufficient conditions which ensure the permanence of the system are obtained.


The feasibility of using dika fat and some solid vegetable fats in the formulation of hard gelatin capsules with the soft centre was evaluated in this study. Phenylpropanolamine hydrochloride (PPA HCl) and chlorpheniramine maleate (CM) capsules containing dika fat (DF), stearic acid (STA), stearic acid (STA), Stearolac-S (STS) were prepared by the thermosoftening technique. Dissolution profiles of the formulations in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) showed that a measure of sustained release of the drugs was achieved over 8 hours and that drug release was by diffusion control. These fatty excipients may prove useful in this emerging technology for drug delivery. Keywords : sustained release, hard gelatin capsules, dika fat, hydrogenated fatty acids Nigerian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research , Vol. 8 No 1 pp. 255 - 269 (September 2010)


ABSTRACT Many researchers have highlighted the important role of teachers in creating and managing argumentative, as well as the need for teachers, during their training, to have opportunities to develop knowledge about arguments, enabling them to work from the perspective of argumentation. This study investigates to what extent a context of explicit teaching of argumentation contributed to developing this knowledge. The data sources include video records of explicit teaching of argumentation, collection of materials produced and used by pre-service teachers, and field notes. Analysis of the data indicates that the explicit teaching of argumentation influenced the conceptual learning of pre-service teachers concerning the elements interwoven into argumentative practice, especially evidence and justifications, and the development of pedagogical aspects in the context of argument. Although the pre-service teachers had expressed some teaching knowledge of argumentation in classroom discussion situations, the use of this approach in teaching situations still appears to be challenging for these teachers. The findings of this study highlight contributions to the area of teacher education in argumentation in terms of knowledge that is essential to plan and conduct argumentation-based teaching, and also to the structure of the initial teacher training programmes directed at teaching in argumentation.


The water bed around Dalmine has been heavily polluted by herbicides, mainly atrazine. Since the 80 years, severe depuration measure had to be adopted in order to render drinkable the water distributed for home usage. The purpose of this research has been to verify which changes occurred in the polluted wells after the interruption of the use of atrazine and its replacement with other compounds, in addition to individuate their eventual metabolites. Simazine, terbutylazine and metolachler, and also atrazine, are present in the water bed; among the metabolites, desethylatrazine (DEA), deisopropylatrazine (DIA), desethylterbutylazine (DET) and diethylaniline (DAN) have been detected, the latter being a precursor of a mutagenic compound. Anyhow, after having flown this water on activated charcoal, the concentration of all these compounds falls below the most stringent EU limits for drinkable water.


Objective To observe 180 cases of nipple-areolar involvement in breast cancer. Methods To cut off whole nipple-areolar complex and the sample cut down in slice continuously. Results It was 6.9% for stage Ⅰ disease, 12.6% for stage Ⅱ and 30.4% for stage Ⅲ. Greater frequency of nipple-areolar involvement occurred at advance of stage, proximity of lesion to the nipple-areolar and central location of the breast. Conclusion If we stringent control the standard in reservation of breast, the patients suffering from breast cancer will be safe.


The State Library of New South Wales awarded a grant to Shoalhaven Libraries in 2003 to support a project to index the South Coast Register newspaper from 1926 to 2002. The Register offers local history/family history researchers a record of the daily life of the Shoalhaven district. The index describes a period of dramatic social and cultural change, economic depression, and world war.


It is perhaps misleading to use the word theory to describe the view of language acquisition and cognitive development, which is the subject of this chapter. This word is used as a matter of convenience; it applies here to what is best characterized as a partially completed program of research—a jigsaw puzzle in which certain pieces have been positioned with reasonable confidence, while others have been placed tentatively and many have not been placed at all. The most recent exposition of these ideas is developed in two papers: Wolff (1982) and Wolff (1987). Earlier papers in this program of research include Wolff (1975, 1976, 1977, 1980). Wolff (1982) describes a computer model of linguistic/cognitive development and some associated theory. Wolff (1987) describes extensions to the ideas in the first paper. These papers and previous publications are somewhat narrow in scope, concentrating on detailed discussion of aspects of the theory. The intention here is to provide a broader perspective on the set of ideas. The chapter begins with a brief summary of the presuppositions of the theory. Then the theory is described in outline: first a brief description of the computer model which is the main subject of Wolff (1982) and then a more abstract account, including the developments described in Wolff (1987). The body of the chapter reviews the empirical support for the theory.


The present study investigates the probable effects of peer coaching especially on changes in instructional organization and management contributing to student engagement in learning. In order to research the issue, the coachee's instruction was videotaped three times throughout a school year. Three coaches observed her video-taped lessons and provided coaching three times to her about instructional organization and management. All lessons were transcribed, and coaches discussed main coaching points before each coaching session. Also, an on-line site (on-line cafe) was set up to discuss lesson planning and classroom management in general with the three coaches and the coachee. In every class, the coachee was requested to write teaching journals reflecting good parts and points that needed to be improved in her lessons. Multiple forms of data were collected, and analyses reveal that peer coaching altered current instructional organization and management in lessons which led to students' active engagement in learning. Therefore, this study suggests that integrating peer coaching with in-service teacher education would provide instructional improvements and increase student achievement in the long run.


Background: Hyperthyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid overproduces hormones and associated with a complex physiological and biochemical condition. Hyperthyroidism in children is often caused by toxic thyroid nodule and toxic adenoma, and very rarely caused by adenomatous goiter with incidence only 1, 5%. Case Presentation Summary: We report a 12 years old female with adenomatous goiter hyperthyroidism. The patient's complained of feeling exhausted and there were weight loss in last 3 months. From physical examination body weight is 35 kg (percentile 10-25 CDC 2000), body height 144cm (percentile 10-25 CDC 2000), head circumference 52,5cm (Mean 50% nellhaus). There is a solid mass in the neck, fixed, no redness, tenderness nor signs of inflammation. From laboratory examination revealed thyroid hormone increased with FT4 60,3 ng/dl (0.93-1.70 ng/dl) while TSH decreased in 0,05 IU/ml (0.27-4.20IU/ml), TRAb (-). USG examination showed solid mass with cystic degeneration, CT-scan of head and midface showed cystic solid mass with central necrotic calcification. Fine needle aspiration biopsy showed cytomorphology according to follicular neoplasms with cystic degeneration and biopsy of the nodule showed adenomatous goiter. Patient underwent for total thyroidectomy and after one week post operation the thyroid hormone decline and patient planned for lifelong treatment of thyroid hormone replacement. Summary: Hyperthyroid caused by adenomatous goiter is a very rare case. The manifestation including symptoms and sign of hyperthyroid with biopsy showed adenomatous goiter..


Abstract : Cytokines have been implicated in aspects of vesicant injury/repair. This study describes responses of artificial human skin (Skin2 and EpiDerm) to chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (CEES), defined by interleukin-la (Tb-la), tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) release. Skin2 and EpiDerm in Millicells of 6 well Costar trays containing 1ml of assay media/well were exposed to CEES (2.Omg/L, flow rate 1l/min for 2hr) in humidified air. Control tissues were exposed without CEES. Millicells containing Skin2 or EpiDerm (12/group) were transferred to fresh assay media and incubated for 22 hr. Tissues (6/group) were used for MTT tests. Media from each well were stored in liquid N2. Tb-la (RIA or EbISA), PGE2 (RIA or ETA), and TNF-a (ETA) were measured in thawed specimens. CEES significantly increased release of Tb-la (l92pg/ml plus or minus 34.9, control SSpg/ml i 16.6) and PGE2 (3,977pg/O.lml plus oir minus 1,197, control 2154lpg/O.lml plus or minus 570) from Skin21 but not TNF-a levels, with viability (MTT) 3%. Neither Tb-la nor TNF-a were elevated by CEES-exposed EpiDerm, although PGE2 was elevated (25Bpg/O.lml plus or minus 71 vs 184 plus or minus 79), viability 46%. We conclude pro-inflammatory mediators, Tb-la and PGE21 could play significant roles in CEES injury and that either fibroblasts are critical to the process, or EpiDerm, which lacks fibroblasts, is somehow more resistant.


A pure yeast isolate Clavispora lusitaniae from whey beverage, phenotypically and molecularly characterized, was used to develop a reliable, controllable and reproducible technology for preparation of low alcoholic naturally carbonated beverage from guava var. Allahabad Safeda, Lucknow-49, Punjab Pink and its blends with lemon var. Baramasi under optimized fermentation conditions. The specific growth rate (h -1 ) and generation time (h) of yeast in guava: lemon (1:1) beverage was 0.35 and 1.93 respectively. The physicochemical and microbiological characteristics of Allahabad Safeda-Baramasi (1:1) beverage were juice 12.5%, TSS 12.1 0 B, pH 2.6, acidity 0.51%, ascorbic acid 9.02 mg/100ml, alcohol ( %v/v) 0.85,CO2 1.55 bar and total plate count 15x10 9 cfu/ml ,Lucknow-49Baramasi (1:1) beverage were juice 12.5%, TSS 11.9 0 B, pH 2.6, acidity 0.52%, ascorbic acid 8.4 mg/100ml, alcohol ( %v/v) 0.82,CO2 1.50 bar and total plate count 25x10 9 cfu/ml and Punjab PinkBaramasi were juice 12.5%, TSS 12.1 0 B, pH 2.6, acidity 0.50%, ascorbic acid 10.2 mg/100ml, alcohol ( %v/v) 0.81,CO2 1.50 bar and total plate count 85x10 8 cfu/ml with a shelf life of 90 days under refrigerated conditions (4 0 C ). The beverage scored 'liked very much' to 'liked moderatly' due to naturally produced CO2 during fermentation that added effervescence, sparkle and tangy taste to the beverage. The optimized temperature and potassium metabisulphite concentration to inhibit the left over yeast culture was standardized as 55 0 C for 5 min and 700ppm respectively, but organoleptically heat treated beverage was superior than potassium metabisulphite treated beverage.


ABSTRAK WPSTL termasuk dalam kelompok resiko tinggi dalam penyebaran kasus IMS dan HIVA Indirect sex worker is a part of high risk group in the case of the spread of STIs and HIV & AIDS because their jobs are covert. IBBS Survey 2011 and Research indicates that the use of condoms on indirect sex worker still very low in Indonesia. On the purpose of this study is to support the practice manager at indirect sex worker condom use in preventing STIs and HIV / AIDS in in Ambon City. This research method is explanatory research with cross sectional approach. The sampling method is simple random sampling 100 indirect sex workers. Data collection instrument in the from questionnaires. The data were analyzed by univariate, bivariate and multivariate. The results showed that majority respondent (61%) inconsistent condom use in practice during the last 1 month. Bivariate analysis shows that support from manager are related with practice of using condom. multivariate analysis support manager most influence on the practice of condom use where indirect sex worker who has the support of the manager likely 4.8 times more likely to practice consistent condom use compared indirect sex worker who do not have the support manager. Need guidance for the management of entertainment in support of prevention programs STI and HIV / AIDS. Keywords : Practice of using Condom, Indirect Sex Workers, Support From Manager


A method is developed to printing and dyeing wastewater with a new kind of self-prepared-flocculant,gave colorities below98-99,the CODcr are decreased by 82-91%.It's a simple technological process and easy to operate,the advantages of offective are obtained.


The paper presents the procedures and the results of electrical machine testing accomplished by these authors using a specialized data acquisition and processing system (DAPS), they designed and built. This DAPS is aimed to measure and monitor electrical machines while operating in transient or steady state regimes. The architecture of the DAPS and the functionality of its components are described in the first part of the paper. To emphasize the versatility of the DAPS, some examples of testing electrical machines for periodic and dumped periodic regimes are given. The hardware programmability of the DAPS signal adapter and the modularity of the related software can extend the DAPS applicability to testing any electric high power equipment.


The written works of Ibn Bābawayh (Shaykh Ṣadūq), head of the traditionists and the distinguished figure of Shī'ī ḥadīth in fourth/tenth century, had amounted to 300 books and treatises. A proficient scholar, he has standards and criteria in the field of ḥadīth in general and in criticizing ḥadīth in particular that incorporate approaches and patterns as a guide map and a role model. In order to obtain a relatively more precise and complete image of the nature of the eminent scholarly personality of Ibn
Bābawayh, the cognition of his patterns, standards, and methods in the realm of criticizing ḥadīth and its academic study is useful and of importance in the field of ḥadīth studies; because the above study and cognition can, among other things, contain useful lessons, applicable models, and excellent approaches for a better and more accurate understanding of ḥadīth. Ibn Bābawayh's critical ideas concerning traditions and narrations can be uncovered throughout his works. In this article, Shaykh Ṣadūq's ideas and critical method and approach in the expanse of "criticizing ḥadīth" are studied, examined, and evaluated in such instances as "dissimulative traditions", "extras of traditions", "distortions created in traditions", "the mutifarrid traditions (narrated by only one narrator) and unrecorded traditions in the early shī'a principles", "sectarian tendencies and the narrators' school of thought", "some narrators' mutifarridāt (traditions narrated by only one narrator)", "the category of sanad of some famous traditions", etc.


Most commentators on Aristotle's theory of natural slavery locate the source of slavishness in an intellectual deficiency that Aristotle describes. This paper sets out to show that Aristotle's natural slaves are not intellectually deficient in the way normally assumed, but are lacking an emotional faculty, thymos, which Aristotle connects to actual enslavement through its power to generate a love of freedom. It is also argued that Aristotle's understanding of slavishness entails a risk for a democratic regime, such as Classical Athens, since such a system has highly inclusive criteria for membership in the political association. Commentators have also failed to connect natural slavery to Aristotle's ethical thought and to note the theory's practical relevance to the goal of living a good human life.


We propose a new interpretation of the relationships between the dynamo cycle period P cyc as observed in Ca ii HK, the rotational period P rot , activity level, and other stellar properties. Viewed within this framework, the data suggest that the dynamo alpha parameter increases with magnetic eld strength, contrary to the conventional idea of alpha quenching. The data also suggest a possibly discontinuous dependence of the ratio of cycle to rotation frequency, ! cyc =, as a function of Rossby number, Ro, (or equivalently, activity or age). Stars evolve with ! cyc = / t ?0:35 (or Ro ?0:7), until age t 2 to 3 Gyr (roughly at the Vaughan-Preston gap), where a sharp transition occurs, in which ! cyc = increases by a factor of 6. Thereafter evolution with ! cyc = / t ?0:35 continues. The age at which transition occurs may be mass-dependent, with K stars making the transition rst.


The reaction of tritordeum and its Hordeum chilense and Triticum spp. parents to Septoria tritici was studied in field and seedling experiments. All H. chilense lines were highly resistant to all the isolates and did not allow pycnidia development. The 'durum wheat isolate' developed pycnidia only on durum wheats. The 'breed wheat isolate' was very virulent on bread wheat but also on the wild tetra-ploid wheats. The other two isolates were compatible with durum and bread wheat. All hexaploid tritordeums were highly resistant both in the field and the seedling experiments. Some octoploid tritordeums allowed pycnidial development, but at much lower levels than their wheat parent. Resistance in tritordeum was not associated with plant stature and only in octoploid tritordeum was association of resistance with late maturity detected.


A 52-year-old woman was diagnosed with bilateral necrotizing scleritis (NS) and peripheral ulcerative keratitis secondary to the antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-negative granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) as evidenced by increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, bilateral multiple cavitation lung nodules, and persistent microscopic hematuria. Infective workup and autoimmune tests were negative including the ANCA test. She received multiple courses of high dose intravenous methylprednisolone, intravenous cyclophosphamide, and oral methotrexate. Multiple tectonic patching operations were performed. Despite all the treatment, the disease continued to progress. Eventually, few doses of rituximab were given and the disease was stable for at least a year without any reactivation.


A series of 3-substituted-3,4-dihydro-4-imino-1,2,3-benzotriazines (V) have been prepared by cyclization of the appropriate o-cyanophenyltriazenes (IV) in 70% aqueous ethanol or in ethanol containing 2% piperidine. Triazenes with powerful electron-withdrawing substituents cyclize directly to substituted 4-anilino-1,2,3-benzotriazines (VI). Rearrangement of 3-aryl-3,4-dihydro-4-imino-1,2,3-benzotriazines to the isomeric 4-anilino-1,2,3-benzotriazines has been effected in ethanol or in 2N-hydrochloric acid and is facilitated by electron-withdrawing substituents in the aryl nucleus. The contrasting stabilities of 3-benzyl- and 3-phenethyl-3,4-dihydro-4-imino-1,2,3-benzotriazine have been attributed to a steric affect.


The background of this project is an intelligent energy-saving control system for innovative projects, the main purpose of study: optimizing intelligent control power output,under the premise of full using of natural light, adjusting lights, brightness compensation to saving energy,constant illumination and enjoyment of natural lighting effects. In order to meet the requirements: A microcontroller based on the energy-saving lighting controller is considered, it is embedded in the smart control procedures, which could calculate the current intensity of the illumination scheduled margin, adjust the brightness of light illumination compensation, and effectively realize the green lighting.


The modulation of ligand pKa due to its surrounding environment is a crucial feature that controls many biological phenomena. For example, the shift in the pKa of substrates or catalytic residues at enzyme active sites upon substrate binding often triggers and controls enzymatic reactions. In this work, we developed an experiment using spectrophotometric method to demonstrate how ligand pKa values can be influenced by specific interactions in the protein-binding pocket using riboflavin binding protein (RP) and its ligands (riboflavin, RF, and neutral red, NR). A direct plot of observed absorbance versus pH was analyzed by nonlinear regression. The pKa values of free and RP-bound RF were determined to be 10.0 ± 0.1 and ∼13.3, respectively, and the pKa values of free and RP-bound NR were 6.8 ± 0.1 and 7.8 ± 0.1, respectively. This laboratory clearly demonstrates that the environment of a protein-binding site can affect the pKa value of a ligand. The experiment can be adapted or used as-is for undergraduate ...


Abstract : Target classification is discussed as applied to a ground-based site- security radar system. Discrimination functions were developed for human, vehicle, small animal, bird, and non translating return. Acceptable classification performance was achieved for single-cell assessment, and high- confidence classification is expected for multiple-cell (i.e., track) assessment. (Author)


Urban (and suburban) informal settlements in emerging markets will be the fastest growing population hotspots in the next few decades. This presents a significant challenge in delivery of services, including affordable mobile Internet access. Operator-led upgrades through network densification (rollout of additional operator-maintained sites) are difficult to sustain in those areas due to low revenues, lack of fixed lines, energy scarcity, insecurity, and so on. This calls for alternative approaches in mobile network upgrades and operation. In this paper, we present capacity enhancement approach using user-deployed shared-access small cells in the dense informal settlements. To that end, we consider leveraging macro Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks to backhaul High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) small cells. As a case study, we present comparative network simulations based on an example informal settlement. The results of the study highlight the possibilities for cost-effective capacity upgrades for users in dense settlements for even a limited number of unplanned end-user small deployments and self-backhauling via existing macro sites. In the study, we also note possible system performance enhancements of the small cell backhaul link through improved antenna design, scaling of carrier bandwidth and introduction of traffic steering across HSPA and LTE layers.


From 15.07.12 to 20.07.12, the Dagstuhl Seminar 12291 "Structure Discovery in Biology: Motifs, Networks & Phylogenies" was held in Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz Center for Informatics. The seminar was in part a follow-up to Dagstuhl Seminar 10231, held in June 2010, this time with a strong emphasis on large data. Both veterans and new participants took part in this edition. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar, as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas, are put together in this report. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available.


Dengue infection is endemic in many parts of India, including the state of Uttar Pradesh. This study describes the changing clinical picture of dengue viral infections observed by us in children admitted to a teaching hospital in Lucknow, India. A total of 139 children with suspected dengue were admitted during this period, of which 124 could be tested by dengue IgM capture ELISA and 102 were positive. However, only 80 of these 102 patients could be followed up. Average age was 5.9 (±3.1) years and 87.5% of them were from rural areas. The male:female ratio was 1.6:1. Seizures were observed in 45% cases, altered sensorium in 53.7%, vomiting in 41.2%, haemorrhage in 38.8%, skin rash in 37.5%, abdominal pain in 25%, headache in 18.8% and jaundice in 2% cases. Gastrointestinal tract was the commonest site of bleeding. On examination, edema was present in 47.5% cases, hepatomegaly in 62.5%, splenomegaly in 60.0% and hypotension in 10.0% cases. The investigations revealed a low platelet count of less than 100 000/mm 3 in 60.3% cases. Mean liver enzyme levels were mildly raised. Definitions of WHO criteria for DHF were present in only 18 (22.5%) cases. Mean total duration of fever in survivors was 14.9±7.3 days. The overall fatality rate in hospital was 5.0%. The results indicated a significant proportion of children presented with little-described features of encephalopathy, edema, splenomegaly and prolonged fever rather than the typical dengue presentation. These features were not noted during the past epidemics and in previous years.


Abstract : Ionospheric layers produced by intense electromagnetic beams are characterized by an electron density profile that is nearly exponential in the lower boundary and an electron collision frequency that is nearly uniform. These features allow such layers to be approximated by Epstein profiles, which affords analytical exact full-wave coefficients subject to only two restrictions: (1) the incident wave is horizontally polarized, and (2) the layer is stratified. Simple criteria for good reflectivity are derived from the reflection- coefficient formulas. For overdense plasma layers having frequencies substantially above the wave frequency, the reflection loss is approximately -5. 8 x 0.00000008 Lcos theta dB where is the electron collision frequency at the layer altitude, 1/L is the height-gradient of the electron density in the layer boundary, and is the angle of incidence. Because calculations neglect roughness, which could be caused by uneven illumination by the ionizing beam, the conditions for good reflection presented in this report should be regarded as necessary--but not sufficient. Keywords: Ionosphere, Electromagnetic, Electron collision, Plasma layer, Reflectivity, Wave frequency, Ionizing beam.


This paper deals with the global soil carbon storage,density and distribution laws at present,and illustrates the soil carbon responses to the climatic changes from several aspects:such as the increase of the global temperature,the addition of the CO_2 concentration in the atmosphere and the intensification of soil erosion caused by climatic changes.In addition,some relevant research achivements at of home and abroad are also described in this paper.


Practitioners of the performance form " InterPlay " utilize dance, storytelling and song to build community and generate social change. I ask how this community of practitioners conceptualizes " social change " and argue that the InterPlay social movement is organized around the application of play to performances of self in everyday life. I explore how the InterPlay non-profit corporation, Body Wisdom Inc., employs this technique to address racial justice in its organizational practices. I also examine how practitioners understand their use of this performance play in places of work, concluding that—even in these endeavors—they see social change as a process immanent to both individual people and the systems they create, not as the intervention of an autonomous external power. Ultimately, I argue that, within late capitalism, play should no longer be conceptualized as an activity separate from everyday sociality but as an immanent process of change constitutive of a socioaesthetic domain. The full directions Bring one of your palms to your partner's palm. Give them a push to see if they are there. Give them a bigger push. Go ahead—push them across the room. Now grab your partner's wrist and pull away—counterbalance. Make that bigger. Come back to standing. Put your palm with your partner's palm. Change the shape of that connection. Change again, and again. Now we are going to change faster than the speed of the mind. Bring your palms back together. Now let that connection move—follow the connection between your two hands wherever it wants to go. Let it take you off your spot. If you haven't already, include your evil twin—that part that wants to trick your partner. Bring your palms back together. Put a little space between your palm and your partner's palm. And a little more. Take a couple of steps away from your partner. Now drop the connection. Find it again. Drop it. And find it. And bring your hands back together. Here are several things that you can do hand to hand. I'm going to put on some music and we will spend some time playing around with this hand to hand connection. Why do it? Hand-to-hand contact is one of the basic forms. It can lead to more involved contact, but it can be extremely satisfying on its own. It allows people to 'converse' in a different way, exchanging a different level of information without being too confronting. It can …


With the development of data center, promotion for efficiency and power density of the voltage regulator module (VRM) is paid considerable attention. Isolated VRM is suitable for the high-conversion-ratio DC/DC application. However, isolated VRM has many magnetic components, which take up a large proportion of the total volume. In this paper, a novel integrated matrix magnetics structure is proposed, which integrates two elemental transformers and four output inductors into a single core. By integrating several discrete magnetic components, the volume of passive components and high-current interconnections are reduced, leading to high power density and high efficiency. The integrated matrix magnetics is employed in an isolated single-stage converter to provide high output current. Finally, a 48V/1.8V 144W prototype of the isolated single-stage converter with integrated matrix magnetics is made and tested to verify the analysis.


New and redesigned version of Internet service MapsOfSerbia is presented in the paper. High quality data for the territory of Serbia cannot be found on worldwide existing services of similar category (Google Maps GM, Microsoft Virtual Earth VE, Yahoo Maps YM). Territory of Serbia is mostly covered by small scaled satellite imagery (Landsat) and major roads network. There are also areas (around some larger cities and on few other locations) where imagery from Ikonos or Quickbird satellite missions is used. The reason for this situation is that large worldwide providers of vector datasets (TeleAtlas, Navteq and others) still do not have larger datasets for Serbian territory (for example, data for the capital city of Serbia, Belgrade). Satellite imagery in fine resolution is available only for areas and locations mentioned above and therefore leading dataset providers do not have significant amount of raster datasets (orthophoto) of Serbian territory in their archives as well. Therefore, Internet services that would fill this gap on the market were needed. A Complete description of such a system is given in this paper – used data, system and application software, and statistical data on system utilization. Having in mind that data was distributed on Internet, and that the system is one of the most visited services of this kind on the Balkan region, certain optimizations of the software were made in order to support high overload of the system. Software techniques and procedures of preparations of the data for Internet distribution are also given.


Magnetic-field measurement is achieved in the magneto-optic nonlinear optical loop mirror (MO-NOLM), which the Faraday and Kerr nonlinear effects of fibers are considered. The maximum magnetic-field sensitivity is 263.93dB/T with the pump power of 24.8dBm.


The current-voltage characteristics of Ti/n-GaAs Schottky diodes measured over a temperature range of 78-299K have been interpreted on the basis of thermionic emission across an inhomogeneous Schottky contact.The experiment shows that the apparent barrier height (φap) increases from 0.437eV at 78K to 0.698eV at room temperature.the plot of φap versus 1/T does not exhibit a simple linear relationship over the whole temperature range,indicating that the barrier height distribution is more complicated than the frequently observed single Gaussian distribution.A new multi-Gaussian distribution model is developed.Our experimental results can be explained by a double Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights.The weight,the mean barrier height,and the standard deviation of the two Gaussian functions are 0.00001 and 0.99999,0.721 and 0.696,0.069 and 0.012eV,respectively.


Allergen immunotherapy uses pharmaceutical preparations derived from naturally occurring source materials, which contain water‐soluble allergenic components responsible for allergic reactions. The success of in vivo and in vitro diagnoses in allergen sensitization and allergen immunotherapy largely depends on the quality, composition and uniformity of allergenic materials used to produce the active ingredients, and the formulation employed to prepare finished products.


Biometrics systems are being challenged at the sensor level using artefact presentation such as printed artefacts or electronic screen attacks. In this work, we propose a novel technique to detect the artefact iris images by decomposing the images into Laplacian pyramids of various scales and obtain frequency responses in different orientations. The obtained features are classified using a support vector machine with a polynomial kernel. Further, we extend the same technique with majority voting rule to provide the decision on artefact detection for video based iris recognition in the visible spectrum. The proposed technique is evaluated on the newly created visible spectrum iris video database and also Near-Infra-Red (NIR) images. The newly constructed visible spectrum iris video database is specifically tailored to study the vulnerability of presentation attacks on visible spectrum iris recognition using videos on a smartphone. The newly constructed database is referred as `Presentation Attack Video Iris Database' (PAVID) and consists of 152 unique iris patterns obtained from two different smartphone - iPhone 5S and Nokia Lumia 1020. The proposed technique has provided an Attack Classificiation Error Rate (ACER) of 0.64% on PAVID database and 1.37% on LiveDet iris dataset validating the robustness and applicability of the proposed presentation attack detection (PAD) algorithm in real life scenarios.


According to the actual operating parameters of tundish in a steel mill, the flow pattern and temperature distribution of molten steel in tundish were studied by CFD and heat transfer calculation method. Changing the height of parapet hole, the effect of parapet hole on flow field and temperature field were simulated. The simulation results show that: the parapet hole height has large influence on flow recirculation position, which can impact surface temperature and outflow temperature of molten steel. When parapet hole height increases, the recirculation vortex moves towards the surface of molten steel in outflow zone, surface temperature rises, but outflow temperature decreases near the narrow wall. Comprehensive analysis show that, when the parapet hole height is 480mm, surface temperature is high, molten steel will not solidify at corner; the reduction of molten steel temperature is small at outflow hole.


It is shown that it is theoretically possible to extend the bandwidth of an op-amp inverting amplifier to near infinity with the help of an additional resistor and an ideal negative impedance converter (NIC).


In this paper, the vibration and damping analysis of a rotating sandwich annular plate with an electrorheological (ER) fluid core layer is studied. The equation of motion for the rotating sandwich system is derived and calculated by the discrete layer annular finite element method. The rheological properties of ER fluid materials, such as viscosity, plasticity, and elasticity can be changed by applying different electric fields, so ER fluid is adopted to control the vibration and damping characteristics of the rotating sandwich annular plate system. Besides, the extensional and shear modulus of ER fluid are described by complex quantities and the complex eigenvalues of the system are calculated numerically, and from these, natural frequencies and loss factors are extracted. Natural frequency and modal loss of the rotating sandwich annular plate with different rotational speeds, applied electric fields, thickness of ER layer, and some designed parameters are also presented and discussed in this study.


To the Editor. —The report by Gellert et al 1 on childhood lead poisoning in Orange County, California, contrasts with our San Francisco experience. In 1991, a total of 1199 children younger than 6 years were screened. Like the Orange County study, our sampling was provider based, nonrandom, consecutive, and convenient. Ninety percent of our sampling was through Child Health and Disability Prevention program providers and met the low-income eligibility (Medicaid or income Our 8.26% overall prevalence of elevated blood lead level was similar to that in Orange County (7.25%), but the prevalence of the higher levels was 5.5-fold greater in San Francisco. A common source of exposure was lead-based paint: all eight children with blood lead levels of 1.20 μmol/L (25 μg/dL) or higher had paint-related exposures, including chewing on painted surfaces, home remodeling, or parents working in painting or construction; six also


Edible wild mushrooms are becoming more and more important in our diet for their nutritional and pharmacological properties. The aim of this study was to gather information about edible wild mushroom species existed in mycobiota of Vezirkopru district of Samsun province that are economically important and are collected from nature by the villagers and sold in the local markets. The mushroom samples were identified based on their macroscopic and microscopic features. The information, obtained on the collecting time, local names and habitats of the mushrooms was inquired from the sellers, consumers and traders. Cantharellus cibarius, Morchella spp. and Boletus edulis species are not only sold in the Vezirkopru market but also exported. Amanita caesarea, Cantharellus ferruginascens, Craterellus cornucopioides, Clitocybe geotropa, Hydnum repandum, H. rufescens, Lactarius deliciosus, L. semisanguifluus, L. vellereus, L. vinosus, Macrolepiota procera, Ramaria spp., Russula delica and Tricholoma terreum are species of mushrooms with high edible quality and economical importance.


Abstract The occurrence of airborne fungi at an urban coastal site was compared with that at a rural inland site in the South of Sardinia. Spore concentrations at the two sites differed markedly with lower concentrations at the urban site but the spore types found were similar. The general trend of the fungal airspores was also very similar at both sites as a result of the similar climatic conditions. Mould spore concentrations were greatest in late spring (May-June) and autumn (October-November) with a decrease during summer months at both sites sampled. Cladosporium was the most common spore type identified followed by Basidiomycetes, Alternaria, Fusarium. These taxa are well known as allergens. It is recommended that further aeromycological surveys should be performed in different areas to determine the clinical importance of fungi as allergens in Sardinia.


The utility model relates to an ultraviolet-and-ozone-combined (UV/O3) advanced oxidation reactor for treatment of micro-polluted water, belonging to the technical field of water treatment equipment. The reactor consists of a plurality of reaction monomers; each reaction monomer is of a cylindrical shell body, an UV lamp tube and a quartz glass tube sleeve are arranged at one end inside the shell body, and an O3 aeration head is arranged at the other end; and the two sides of each shell body are respectively provided with a water inlet and a water outlet, the reaction monomers are arranged in parallel, the water inlets and the water outlets of every two adjacent reaction monomers are communicated with one another so as to form a series structure, and the water inlet of the head reaction monomer and the water outlet of the tail reaction monomer are the water inlet and water outlet of the UV/O3 reactor. The reactor is applicable to the treatment of micro-polluted water, and has the advantages of high ozone utilization ratio, good treatment effect and the like compared with the existing reactor.


Following a trend in both popular and scholarly literature, food has become a hot topic amongst scholars of Judaism in antiquity. In particular, scholars have honed in on how Jews in antiquity used regulations concerning what, and with whom, to eat as a means of constructing their own identity (e.g. Freidenreich, 2011; Kraemer, 2009; Rosenblum, 2010a; Weiss, 2010). Thus, meals were used to establish and maintain borders between those with whom "we" eat (Us) and those with whom we do not eat (Them). In this chapter, we will explore rabbinic meal practices. The rabbis, who flourished in Palestine and Babylon after the destruction of the Second Temple by Rome in 70 AD, often discuss what, with whom, and how one should eat. Judaism in antiquity was, much like today, quite diverse, including groups as varied as the early followers of Jesus and the separatist Qumran sect that composed and collected the Dead Sea Scrolls. While the rabbis do not represent the entire range of ancient Judaism, focusing on them offers two advantages. First, though they do not represent the majority of Jews in antiquity, their small movement slowly develops into normative Judaism. Today, "Judaism" is rabbinic Judaism. Second, they both conserve and innovate meal practices. Thus, the rabbis draw from their surrounding (Jewish and non‐Jewish) milieus, while at the same time creating new customs. The rabbis' dual roles as conservators and innovators allow us to set into relief how they use food and meal regulations to connect with their surrounding (Jewish and non‐Jewish) world while simultaneously disconnecting from it. We begin by asking four questions. First, what did Jews in late antiquity eat? Second, how did they obtain their food? Third, how did they prepare their food? Fourth, how did they eat their food? In answering these questions below, we will learn much about how the rabbis, and Jews in antiquity in general, used culinary (what one eats) and commensal (how one eats) regulations to construct their identity. Then we will be able to examine how Jews in antiquity explained why they ate the way they did. Jewish Meals in Antiquity


Abstract Introduction: Children with cerebral palsy (CCP) benefit from intensive arm training. Exergames that can be played at home offer the possibility to increase the frequency of therapy but require reliable and accurate real-time motion tracking via easy-to-use sensors in unsupervised settings and magnetically disturbed environments. Method: We propose an inertial-sensor-based method with a single sensor on the wrist for real-time tracking of the inclination of the forearm. The control parameter of the game was validated with an optical marker-based ground truth system. Results: First experiments with a therapist performing training movements in a healthy and simulated spastic manner show that the forearm inclination well captures the motion dynamics. The accuracy of the inertial-sensor-based measurement is validated with respect to the reference system in three healthy subjects. Orientation offsets between the inertial sensor and the forearm marker set in the range of 2° ̶ 6° and dynamic measurement errors about 3.1° were obtained. Conclusion: This work demonstrates that the proposed method is suitable for real-time control of exergames of CCP. The validation with an optical reference system showed that the forearm inclination can be used as for feedback and therapeutic progress monitoring.


Health policy education in public affairs and administration programs is a timely subject because of fundamental changes in health services financing, organization, and delivery and the associated policy implications. In this study, an examination of health policy core curricula in MPP, MPA, and health-specific degrees provides a hint of what health policy graduates from public affairs and administration programs offer to health industry employers. Examination of benchmark programs suggests that emphasis varies by degree type, with MPP degrees preparing economics-based, quantitative policy analysts and the other degrees providing broader-based generalist foundations. Examining health administration and policy programs within public affairs and administration programs is timely in the wake of over two decades of fundamental changes in health and medical care policy, financing, organization, and service delivery. The shift from an era when physicians provided outpatient care in independent practices, hospitals were primarily organized to deliver inpatient medical care, and insurers paid the bills is largely complete. Today, healthcare takes place in an increasingly technology-based system and is delivered in a wide variety of settings, ranging from complex organizations such as vertically integrated health systems made up of physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers, diagnostic


The Bay Area– based independent filmmaker Toney W. Merritt has been creating work for over fifty years. His unique corpus of personal films and videos draws upon and subverts numerous experimental, narrative, and documentary strategies and techniques. Like the work of acclaimed African American visual artist David Hammons, who rose to prominence in Los Angeles and New York in the 1970s and 1980s, Merritt's work shares some of the same allegorical and selfreferential aspects and obscure humor and is distinguished by an unusual combination of playfulness, opacity, and formal concision. As a graduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in the late 1970s, Merritt was part of a thriving subculture of personal cinema and radical individualism. Like many of his teachers and peers of the time, such as James Broughton, Mike Henderson, George Kuchar, Robert Nelson, Dean Snider, Babeth M. VanLoo, Marian Wallace, and Al Wong, Merritt made art firmly rooted in a San Franciscan bohemian tradition and style.1 Iconoclastic, performative, and disarmingly funny, Merritt's films belong to a broader repudiation of the aesthetic seriousness that dominated experimental cinema culture in the 1970s.


Text sentiment analysis is an important natural language processing (NLP) task and has received considerable attention in recent years. Numerous deep-learning based methods have been proposed in previous literature in terms of new deep neural networks (DNN) including new embedding strategies, new attention mechanisms, and new encoding layers. In this study, an alternative technical path is investigated to further improve the state-of-the-art performance of text sentiment analysis. An new effective learning framework is proposed that combines knowledge distillation and sample selection. A dually-born-again network (DBAN) is presented in which the teacher network and the student network are simultaneously trained through an iterative approach. A selection gate is defined to deal with training samples which are useless or even harmful for model training. Moreover, both the DBAN and sample selection are further improved by ensemble. The proposed framework can improve the existing state-of-the-art DNN models in sentiment analysis. Experimental results indicate that the proposed framework enhances the performances of existing networks. In addition, DBAN outperforms existing born-again network.


Abstract The feed back control mechanism proposed to explain the inhibition of N 2 fixation by N was investigated using Vicia faba cv. Fiord. Plants were grown under controlled conditions without mineral N in coarse river sand. Asparagine was supplied to plants actively fixing N 2 by absorption through cut roots and via a wick or direct injection into the stem just above the bottom leaf. Responses in N 2 fixation were measured by acetylene reduction (AR). Feeding plants with [ 14 C]-labelled asparagine showed that the amide was taken up when exogenously applied. Asparagine (10 mM) supplied by the above procedures resulted in a 50-70% inhibition of AR by 48 h. Glutamine produced a similar effect. The cut root method allowed higher levels of these amides to be supplied but the inhibition observed with 10 mM asparagine was only increased slightly with higher levels of the amide. The antibiotic Securopen prevented bacterial contamination of root solutions of asparagine and glutamine and had no effect on nodule activity. It is concluded that accumulation of asparagine of glutamine or the resultant increase in the pool of soluble N in the plant cause a feedback effect on the activity of nitrogenase.


An integrated geothermal system in which heat pumps for air conditioning and hot water both share the same ground loop was proposed in our previous study. Although this system produced electricity savings of 15% compared to a conventional system in which the two heat pumps operated on their own ground loop, practical requirements regarding further lowering the operation cost of the integrated geothermal system and the possibility of the energy savings being low during winter initiated further investigation into potential energy conservation measures at no initial cost increase, if possible. Outdoor reset control for hot water supply and sequential heat pump operation, both of which could be included at no extra cost, were subsequently targeted as potential measures for greater electricity savings and economic feasibility. When these measures were incorporated into the integrated geothermal system, electricity savings of approximately 25% during the heating season compared to the conventional system were predicted. Eventually it led to annual electricity savings of about 25% compared to the conventional system, which is up to 9.6 million South Korean won a year at today's rates. Additionally, it reached the break-even point earlier than one year after installation.


In recent years ,there is a contradiction between some regulations of current Budget Law and economic situation and reform measures. At the same time, the implementation of budget management system is lack of legal basis due to the blanks of the current budget law. To be effective legally and build up healthy order of socialist market economy, we should modify and supplement our current budget law.


Detection of transformer faults avoids the transformer's undesirable loss from service and ensures utility service continuity. Diagnosis of transformer faults is determined using dissolved gas analysis (DGA). Several traditional DGA techniques, such as IEC code 60599, Rogers' ratio method, Dornenburg method, Key gas method, and Duval triangle method, but these DGA techniques suffer from poor diagnosis transformer faults. Therefore, more research was used to diagnose transformer fault and diagnostic accuracy by combining traditional DGA techniques with artificial intelligence and optimization techniques. In this paper, a proposed Adaptive Dynamic Polar Rose Guided Whale Optimization algorithm (AD-PRS-Guided WOA) improves the classification techniques' parameters that were used to enhance the transformer diagnostic accuracy. The results showed that the proposed AD-PRS-Guided WOA provides high diagnostic accuracy of transformer faults as 97.1%, which is higher than other DGA techniques in the literature. The statistical analysis based on different tests, including ANOVA and Wilcoxon's rank-sum, confirms the algorithm's accuracy.


We study the partition function of two versions of the continuum directed polymer in 1 + 1 dimension. In the full-space version, the polymer starts at the origin and is free to move transversally in R, and in the half-space version, the polymer starts at the origin but is reflected at the origin and stays in R−. The partition functions solves the stochastic heat equation in full-space or half-space with mixed boundary condition at the origin; or equivalently the free energy satisfies the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation. We derive exact formulas for the Laplace transforms of the partition functions. In the full-space this is expressed as a Fredholm determinant while in the half-space this is expressed as a Fredholm Pfaffian. Taking long-time asymptotics we show that the limiting free energy fluctuations scale with exponent 1/3 and are given by the GUE and GSE Tracy-Widom distributions. These formulas come from summing divergent moment generating functions, hence are not mathematically justified. The primary purpose of this work is to present a mathematical perspective on the polymer replica method which is used to derive these results. In contrast to other replica method work, we do not appeal directly to the Bethe ansatz for the Lieb-Liniger model but rather utilize nested contour integral formulas for moments as well as their residue expansions.


AIM To examine whether nizatidine stimulates duodenal HCO_3~- secretion in rats by inhibiting AChE activity. METHODS Under pentobarbital anesthesia,a proximal duodenal loop was perfused with saline,and the HCO_3 secretion was measured at pH 7.0 using a pH-stat method and by adding 10mM HCI.Nizatidine,neostigmine,carbachol or famotidine was administered i.v.as a single injection. RESULTS Intravenous administration of nizatidine(3-30 mg/kg)dose-dependently increased duodenal HCO_3~- secretion,and the effect at 10mg/kg was equivalent to that obtained by carbachol at 0.01 mg/kg.This nizatidine action was observed at the same dose range that inhibited acid secretion and enhanced gastric motility,mimicked by i.v.injection of neostigmine(0.03 mg/kg),and significantly attenuated by bilateral vagotomy and prior s.c. administration of atropine but not by indomethacin,a cyclooxygenase inhibitor,or N~G-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester,a NO synthase inhibitor.The HCO_3~- secretory response to acetylcholine(0.001 mg/kg)was significantly potentiated by the concurrent administration of nizatidine(3mg/kg,i.v.).The IC_(50)of nizatidine for AChE of rat erythrocytes was 1.4×10~(-6)M,about 12 times higher than that of neostigmine.Neither famotidine(10~(-3)M, 30mg/kg,i.v.)nor cisapride( 10~(-3)M, 3mg/kg,i.v.)had any influence on AChE activity or duodenal HCO_3~- secretion.Duodenal damage induced by acid perfusion(100 mM HCI for 4 h)in the presence of indomethacin was significantly prevented by nizatidine and neostigmine,at the doses that increased the HCO_3~- secretion. CONCLUSION Nizatidine stimulates duodenal HCO_3~- secretion,in both vagal-dependent and atropine-sensitive manners,and the action is associated with the anti-AChE activity of this agent.


Upper reaches of watersheds drained into four Ge rman drinking-water reservoirs are located on the Czech territory. Extensive studies of geo -morphological, meteorological, climatic, hydrographical, hydrological, soil, geology and hydrogeology conditions together with risk analyses of water resources quality and quantity due to both land use and point and non-point pollution sources had been performed in 1998 -2000 period leading to proposals of protective zones to be applied in accordance with amendments of the Czech Water Law reflecting recent implementation of the EU water legislation. General and special regulations and good management practices have been specified within the four-level protective sub-zoning together with proposed compensation rates due to limited usage of private property when land use restrictions are implemented. Some kind of co-operative agreements between the reservoir administrator/water producer, local farmers, settlement authorities and probably other parties is supposed to be necessary in order to strengthen mandatory regulations usually applied within drinking water reservoir watersheds.


Multi-electrode neurophysiological recordings produce massive quantities of data. Multivariate time series analysis provides the basic framework for analyzing the patterns of neural interactions in these data. It has long been recognized that neural interactions are directional. Being able to assess the directionality of neuronal interactions is thus a highly desired capability for understanding the cooperative nature of neural computation. Research over the last few years has shown that Granger causality is a key technique to furnish this capability. The main goal of this article is to provide an expository introduction to the concept of Granger causality. Mathematical frameworks for both bivariate Granger causality and conditional Granger causality are developed in detail with particular emphasis on their spectral representations. The technique is demonstrated in numerical examples where the exact answers of causal influences are known. It is then applied to analyze multichannel local field potentials recorded from monkeys performing a visuomotor task. Our results are shown to be physiologically interpretable and yield new insights into the dynamical organization of large-scale oscillatory cortical networks.


The implementation of decentralization in Iraq was asymmetrical, leading to different forms and paces of implementation. Comparing four cases of Basra, Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Sulaymaniyah indicate that these cases differ in their political stability and autonomy in a way that led to a different forms of decentralization. This paper argues that the higher the level of political autonomy from the federal government, the more efficient the governance model, and the more efficient the governance model, the more legitimate the system (trust), and the more legitimate a system, the more accountable elected officials. Therefore, it recommends reforming the institutional setup of decentralization by having districts, instead of provinces, as the building block of decentralization.


This chapter aims to advocate the development of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and creative problem-solving skills in global education, thus describes the theoretical and practical overviews of PBL and creative problem-solving skills, the significance of PBL in global education, and the significance of creative problem-solving skills in global education. The application of PBL and creative problem-solving skills are critical in the educational institutions that seeks to serve the educational administrators and students, increase educational performance, sustain competitiveness, and fulfill expected accomplishment in global education. Therefore, it is required for educational institutions to utilize PBL and creative problem-solving skills and develop a strategic plan about PBL and creative problem-solving skills towards satisfying the requirements of the educational administrators and students. The chapter argues that advocating PBL and creative problem-solving skills has the potential to improve educational performance and reach strategic goals in global education.


This paper investigates the spectral properties and the bit error rate (BER) performance of enhanced FQPSK (EFQPSK) and constrained envelope modulation (CEM) techniques. Both the techniques are found to provide good spectral efficiencies. The EFQPSK signals are found to generate spectral lines for unbalanced data. An analytical spectral study for the spectral lines is presented. While the performance of CEM techniques has been presented in [6] for an ideal nonlinear amplifier, we present results for more realistic amplifiers with AM/AM and AM/PM effects. It is shown that such an amplifier generates spectral regrowth and a predistorter is required to reduce the adverse effects. A BER performance study with/without channel coding is also presented for the two techniques. KEY WORDS EFQPSK, Bandwidth Efficient Modulation, Nonlinear Amplifier, and Constant Envelope Modulation. INTRODUCTION Due to the growing demand on high data rate transmissions in the face of decreasing frequency allocations, bandwidth efficient modulation techniques have received considerable attention in recent times. Both linear and nonlinear modulation techniques have been extensively investigated in the literature. While linearly modulated signals are highly bandwidth efficient in linear channels, their spectral efficiency degrades significantly when power efficient nonlinear amplifiers are used. A nonlinearly modulated signal, such as the Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK), can pass through nonlinear amplifiers without spectrum regeneration and performance degradation. However, its spectrum efficiency is low. Therefore, a large number of techniques have been developed in recent times to achieve better spectrum utilization, yet with little performance degradation under nonlinear amplification. The Enhanced Feher-Patented Quadrature Phase-Shift-Keying (EFQPSK) and constrained envelope modulation for linearly modulated signals are two such techniques. EFQPSK [1] [2] is an enhanced version of Feher's QPSK [3]. This technique emphasizes on symbol by symbol representation of the cross correlation operation. As a result, instead of the crosscorrelator of the conventional FQPSK, the EFQPSK can be described directly in terms of data transitions on the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) channels. The EFQPSK also improves upon the smoothness of the modulating waveforms, thus improving the power spectral density roll off. Further, the BER performance has also been significantly improved by exploiting the correlation inherent in the modulation. This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Grant NAG 5-9323 The CEM technique has been investigated by several authors [4], [5], [6], [7]. In this technique, a band-limited correcting function is added to a linearly modulated signal in order to constrain its envelope fluctuations. This correction signal limits the signal values at the periodically selected positions. However, it causes the signal to exceed the amplitude threshold at other positions. The CEM technique has been applied to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in [4], [5]. In [6] and [7], it is used for conventional PSK and APSK signals, and it is shown that the back-off level of the nonlinear amplifier can be reduced, thus obtaining efficient amplification without sacrificing the spectral quality. In this paper, we investigate the spectral properties and the BER performance of EFQPSK and CEM techniques. Both balanced and unbalanced data are considered. It is observed that EFQPSK signals generate spectral lines for unbalanced data. An analytical spectral study for the spectral lines is presented. While the performance of CEM techniques has been presented in [6] for an ideal nonlinear amplifier, we present results for more realistic amplifiers with AM/AM and AM/PM effects [8]. It is shown that such an amplifier generates spectral regrowth for CEM techniques and a predistorter is required. A BER performance study with/without channel coding is presented for the two techniques. SYSTEM MODEL Enhanced FQPSK Modulation: The baseband signal is constructed using eight waveforms , described in [1]. Each waveform occupies only one symbol interval. So, in every symbol interval, one waveform is chosen for the I channel and another waveform is chosen for the Q channel. The selection of an I/Q waveform depends on the most recent data transition on that channel as well as two most recent successive transitions on the other channel. The I channel baseband waveform during the -th signaling interval "!" #$ % & ' )(* + ,!" # is given by .-0/1 2 3 546 7 8 9#: , where /1 ;2 3 is the -th I channel bit ( is obtained as >?-A@CBEDF G/1 2 3H I/1 2 3KJML "!ND (O! BEDF G/9PQ2 3KJMLR I/9PQ2 3KJ9S; "!NDK(TDU G/9PQ2 3V W/9PQ2 3KJML X "!ND (1) Similarly, the Q channel baseband waveform NPY during the -th signaling interval 9# W )(* + # is given by NPY Y-*/9PQ2 3 5Z[ 7 8 9#: , where \ is obtained as \]-*@^BEDF G/9PQ2 3H I/9PQ2 3KJML X ,!ND (E!=BODF G/1 2 3H W/1 2 3KJMLX "!NDK(_DF G/1 2 3;` LR W/1 2 35 "!ND (2) The overall complex envelope of the transmitted signal 7 is 7 Y-$a /1 ;2 46 R #: b(dcHa /9PQ2 Z[ e( # ! #: (3) where 46 and 5Z[ have support only over fF g#g "!h #g "! i . The received signal is passed through a noise limiting filter and sampled at the rate of j samples per symbol interval. Note that 7 is not a strictly bandlimited signal, and therefore, j must be large enough so that the Nyquist criterion is satisfied with respect to a modified bandwidth definition (say, -60 dB). The effects of j is investigated in [10], where it is found that the optimal receiver's performance is not degraded due to the sampling rate. However, suboptimal receivers may be seriously affected if a low sampling rate is employed. Constrained Envelope Modulation (CEM): The CEM signal is generated by first obtaining a baseband equivalent linearly modulated signal 5k as 5k+ lm a UnoJ m /p rqs R #6 (4) where t u+/p wv is the sequence of x -ary symbols, qs is a pulse-spreading filter, # is the symbol period, and !,yz({ is the total number of symbols transmitted. The transmit filter, in our study, is a root raised cosine (RRC) filter with a roll-off, | , }|* ~ . Therefore, the bandwidth of qs is limited to D€D6 ' ƒ({|" X ,! # . Thus, discrete time samples at the Nyquist rate and above can adequately describe the signal 5k+ . In [7], a sampling rate j…-†! is considered. For a general integer j , the samples can be divided into j subchannels, so that the subchannel , W ‡ ?jˆ { , contains the samples u‰ k5 ' 9#NŠ ‹ ‹ 5k5 ' g(Œj, #NŠ‹ ‹ ‹ 5k X %(…!‰j, #NŠ‹ ‹ 5  rv , where #oŠV#g ‰j . As shown in Fig. 1, all signal samples at the output of the symbol filtering unit pass through a delay unit on way to the combiner. The subchannel samples are, however, processed and appropriately filtered in order to constrain the amplitudes at the combiner output. Considering the subchannel 0, the th sample is 5k+ #: l-&  5(8/p ŽJML qs #6 Q(8/p rqs G p b(8/p U` LGq ' g#6 b(A   (5) Since qs " is the largest magnitude of the filter (e.g., RRC) samples, the most significant contribution to 5k #: comes from /p qs G p . The remaining terms in (5) are individually small. However, depending on the symbols, they may all add up in correct phase to produce a large magnitude sample 5k #: requiring larger trasmitter power. To reduce this increased power requirement, a constrained generator is used as shown in Fig. 1. Each sample, k5 #6 , from the output of filter qs at point A is fed to the constrained-envelope generator for subchannel 0, and the magnitude of the sample, D' 5k5 #: D , is compared to the threshold value '1"'q p , where '1" is the largest magnitude of a signal point in the constellation diagram. If D' 5k5 #: Db "'1"'qs " then the discriminator output is made zero. However, if the signal magnitude D€ k5 #6 D exceeds the threshold '1"'qs G p , then the discriminator output generates an error signal sample •5"X2 as •5"X2 Q-$ 5k #: – D' 5k #: +D5 W'9" qs p D' 5k5 #: +D qs " — (6) This complex error sequence is passed through the bandlimited pulse-spreading filter qs to generate the constrained bandwidth error signal for subchannel 0, •‰˜ "'™ Ya •5"X2 q " #: (7) This error signal is combined with 5k , resulting in ˜ "'™ Y-$ 5k N ]• ˜ "'™ , so that the -th sample is ‰˜ "'™ #: l5k #: R 8 k5 #6 – D€ 5k #: +D+ I'1"'qs G p D' 5k #: +D — 5k #: – '1"'qs G p D' 5k #: +Dš— (8) Thus the magnitude of the combined signal sample ˜ "'™ #: is reduced to '1"'q p . Similarly, considering subchannel , œ› , the -th sample at the output of the symbol filter is 5k+ ' )( j" #oŠ; l-&   (/1 šJML qs X ƒ(j" #oŠ; b(8/p q ' 9#NŠ‹ b(/1 F` L qs X = Wj, #NŠ b(*   (9) The error samples for subchannel are then obtained as •53K2 o5k ' )( j" #oŠ; – D' 5k ' )( j" #oŠ; +D+ W'1"'qs G p D€ 5k X )( j, #NŠ‹ D qs G p — (10) This error sequence generates the constrained bandwidth error signal • ˜ 3‹™ Yž •53K2 Ÿq ‰ œ ' ( j" #oŠ . The combiner output, due to symbol filtering and subchannel processing, becomes a CEM signal 7 Y-$ 5k " ŠXJML a 3;n[" •‰˜ 3‹™ m a UnoJ m /p rqs R #: l ŠXJML a 3;n[" m a UnoJ m •53K2 qs R A ' ƒ( j" #oŠ; (11) Delay s(t) output CEM (subchannel 0) Sampler Discriminator spreading filter p(t) Pulse− Threshold sample value


The effects of diet quality (DQ), physical activity (PA), and socioeconomic status (SES) on the risk of NAFLD are unclear. We examined the association among DQ, PA, SES, and NAFLD risk.


Pain evaluation in newborns is becoming a mandatory task in clinical practice. Currently, despite its complexity, pain assessment is entirely delegated to subjective estimates. The aim of this study is to propose an automated -- thus objective -- approach for neonatal pain evaluation focusing on facial expressions. From patients' face detection, a set of relevant parameters were extracted; both pixel-based image processing and analysis of facial landmarks led to final pain scores which were computed with respect to 3 widely adopted pain scales. The algorithm has been validated in a trial based on 15 videos acquired at the Neonatal Unit of AO Ordine Mauriziano Hospital, Turin, during heel stick procedure for blood sampling. The proposed algorithm scores have been compared to those subjectively assigned by health care professionals. The results confirm that manual pain assessment is a challenging task that often results in an elevated variance across scores between different operators, making automated evaluation highly desirable. The proposed algorithm is a first step in this direction, and despite difficulties in handling rapid facial changes, it is preparatory to the definition of an experimental protocol which merges video analysis, including the most relevant facial metrics, with audio processing for improved reliability.


While new technologies are explored as a way of creating authentic learning environments for the learner, for example, creating simulations and web-quest, there is little research on the potential use and application of Web 2.0 tools and technologies in enhancing the learning process in an authentic environment. The participatory nature of Web 2.0 tools, amplified by portable mobile technologies, empowers users by enabling the ability to create, co-create, collaborate and communicate, and has the potential to bridge the gap between authentic learning activities and the learner"s interaction with the surroundings (context), self (cognitive and meta-cognitive) and peers. This paper outlines the findings of a one-year-long project where authentic learning formed the underlining platform for learning and teaching in a Boat Building course (Certificate in Applied Technology, Level 4) where Web 2.0 tools and learner owned mobile devices were integrated to enhance the learning process.


Emerging workloads, such as graph processing and machine learning are approximate because of the scale of data involved and the stochastic nature of the underlying algorithms. These algorithms are often distributed over multiple machines using bulk-synchronous processing (BSP) or other synchronous processing paradigms such as map-reduce. However, data parallel processing primitives such as repeated barrier and reduce operations introduce high synchronization overheads. Hence, many existing data-processing platforms use asynchrony and staleness to improve data-parallel job performance. Often, these systems simply change the synchronous communication to asynchronous between the worker nodes in the cluster. This improves the throughput of data processing but results in poor accuracy of the final output since different workers may progress at different speeds and process inconsistent intermediate outputs.
In this paper, we present ASAP, a model that provides asynchronous and approximate processing semantics for data-parallel computation. ASAP provides fine-grained worker synchronization using NOTIFY-ACK semantics that allows independent workers to run asynchronously. ASAP also provides stochastic reduce that provides approximate but guaranteed convergence to the same result as an aggregated all-reduce. In our results, we show that ASAP can reduce synchronization costs and provides 2-10X speedups in convergence and up to 10X savings in network costs for distributed machine learning applications and provides strong convergence guarantees.


Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University is an open university, offering distance education that focuses on self-study without having to attend regular classes. Online instruction is one method for students to learn by themselves at a convenient time and place. However, there has not been any model that can respond to student performance. The researcher, therefore, designed and developed smart online learning for Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University's undergraduate students. This research studied the results of using smart online learning for Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University's undergraduate students who enrolled in the 52311 course, First Aid and Basic Treatment in the second semester of the academic year 2018. The sample group of 173 students was obtained from a simple random sampling method. Research tools included pre-test and post-test, ability assessment form, and satisfaction assessment form. Data was analyzed by using average statistics, standard deviation, and t-test. The results of the research were as follows: 1) The comparison of the difference between the mean scores of academic achievement before and after learning showed that the scores after studying (M= 27.9, SD.= 5.75) were higher than the score before studying (M= 20.98, SD.= 4.96) with statistical significance at the level of .05, 2) The overall learning activity scores showed that the sample group had the ability to do activities at a high level (M= 2.80, SD = 0.45), and 3) the sample group had satisfaction at a high level (M= 4.18, SD = 0.63). When considered each item, it was found that the learning process design was at a high level (M= 4.21, SD = 0.64) and the smart online learning system was also at a high level (M= 4.16, SD = 0.63).


[1] Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to investigate the relationships between vertically settling dust and the horizontal dust flow from which the particles originate. The study primarily focused on the grain size characteristics and on the horizontal and vertical sediment fluxes, Simultaneous samplings of vertical deposition flux and horizontal transport flux were carried out at an almost identical altimetric level (a very narrow layer immediately above a water surface generating no resuspension). This made it possible to relate deposition flux to the horizontal transport flux and to study how deposition alters the sedimentological characteristics of horizontally moving dust. The use of water as a deposition surface implied that the dust was subjected to some degree of dispersion after the settling. This restricted the analysis to grains >10 μm, but the trends for grains 50 μm no longer affect these relationships. Vertical mixing created by the turbulent nature of the flow strongly affects deposition of atmospheric dust. Mixing significantly hampers deposition of the grains, especially the small ones. The wind tunnel experiments allowed the magnitude of the effect mixing exerts on deposition to be calculated. For coarse grains the effect is small, but for fine grains mixing may hamper deposition by several dozen per cent. Theoretical dust deposition models should thus consider vertical mixing or otherwise include it in the numerical value of the velocity of deposition v d .


Introduction: Corporate Hegemony and the Possibility of Resistance Part I All the Way Down and All the Way Back: Toward a Critical-Postmodern Hermeneutics Hegemonic Double Binds The Sound of One Hand Clapping: Counterintuitive Lessons Extracted from Paradoxes and Double Binds in Participative Organizations Part II Women in Positions of Service: The Politicized Body The Too Aggressive--Not Aggressive Enough Paradox Part III Corporate Lampoonery as a Hermeneutic Sign of Our Times: Reading "Dilbert" from Critical and Post-structuralist Perspectives The Corporate Consumption of Higher Education Technology and McEducation Part IV Building Resistance(s) Through Radical Pedagogy and Tactical Storytelling A Critical Reflection Epilogue: A Skeptic's Forecast Notes References Index


Persons with transfemoral and transtibial protheses experience changes in the volume of their residual limb during the course of the day. These changes in volume unavoidably lead to changes in quality of fit of the prosthesis, skin irritations, and soft tissue injuries. The associated pain and discomfort can become debilitating by reducing one's ability to perform daily activities. While significant advancements have been made in prostheses, the undesirable pain and discomfort that occurs due to the volume change is still a major challenge that needs to be solved. The goal of this program is to develop smart prosthetic sockets that can accommodate for volume fluctuations in the residual limb. In this research, fluidic flexible matrix composite wafers (f2mc) are integrated into the prosthetic socket for volume regulation. The f2mc's are flexible tubular elements embedded in a flexible matrix. These tubular elements are connected to a reservoir, and contain an internal fluid such as air or water. Fluid flow between the tubes and reservoir is controlled by valves. The f2mc's can achieve more than 300% increase in volume and potentially several orders of magnitude of change in stiffness. Experimental results for a prosthetic socket demonstrate that the flexible matrix composite wafers can achieve changes in volume when pressurized.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Ribavirin added at a concentration of 10 mg/L or more to in vitro cultures of Vitis vinifera 'Liemberger' infected with grapevine leafroll delayed the onset of symptom expression by an average of 50 days. At the concentrations tested, the effect was independent of drug concentration and a 30-day treatment was as effective as a 90-day treatment.Key words: Ribavirin, tissue culture, grapevine leafroll


We propose a new compression algorithm that is tailored to database applications. It can be applied to a collection of records, and is especially effective for records with many low to medium cardinality fields and numeric fields. In addition, this new technique supports very fast decompression. Promising application domains include decision support systems (DSS), since fact tables, which are by far the largest tables in these applications, contain many low and medium cardinality fields and typically no text fields. Further, our decompression rates are faster than typical disk throughputs for sequential scans; in contrast, gzip is slower. This is important in DSS applications, which often scan large ranges of records. An important distinguishing characteristic of our algorithm, in contrast to compression algorithms proposed earlier, is that we can decompress individual tuples (even individual fields), rather than a full page (or an entire relation) at a time. Also, all the information needed for tuple decompression resides on the same page with the tuple. This means that a page can be stored in the buffer pool and used in compressed form, simplifying the job of the buffer manager and improving memory utilization. Our compression algorithm also improves index structures such as B-trees and R-trees significantly by reducing the number of leaf pages and compressing index entries, which greatly increases the fan-out. We can also use lossy compression on the internal nodes of an index.


Abtract: Haemonchosis is common disease and one of the most pathogenic nematodes of sheep caused by H.contortus which hinders the production and productivity of sheep in Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence of ovine heamonchosis from November 2015 to April 2016 at selected four urban peasant associations (PAs) and three peasant associations in and around Nekemte town of East Wollega zone of Oromia regional state, western Ethiopia. Fecal samples from 384 sheep were collected and examined by using Baerman technique for parasitological examination. The overall prevalence of haemonchosis in sheep was 121 (31.5%). The prevalence was compared with, age, sex, origin and body condition of the sheep. Body condition score was found to be statistically significant ( P < 0.05) with highest prevalence in poor (57.4%), followed by medium (31.4%) and good body condition (19.2%). However, there was no statistically significant difference (P>0.05) observed among age, sex and origin. The prevalence of haemonchosis in males and females was 30.67% and 32.1% respectively. With age group highest prevalence showed in sheep above three years (35.2%), followed by age between one to three (33.6%) and bellow one year (28%). Based on origin prevalence was vary with the highest and lowest prevalence of parasite was found Bekenisa Kese (41.5%) and Cheleleki (22.2%) respectively. The current study revealed that ovine Heamonchosis was the constraint for sheep production in the study area. Therefore, effective prevention and control should be designed.


The paper shows by means of an example that bibliographies are important auxiliaries in examining the structure of knowledge. A first approach consists of an attempt to ascertain to what extend the life of the Belgian physician Joseph Plateau has taken place between art and science. By an informetric analysis done with Semac® the structure of the contents of his publications is made visible. The comparison with the results of a previous investigation is undertaken in order to examine if elements of psychophysics Plateau worked on, have been noticed by the artistic world. A direct connection cannot be stated. Plateaus influence on the scientific network that led to Paris and from there back to Belgium may not yet be excluded from the first.


The present study was designed to investigate the influence of vacuum packaging on chemical and microbial parameters of beef during frozen and refrigeration storage. Quality assessment of vacuum packaged beef up to 10 weeks was done by the monitoring of quality, TVB-N, free fatty acids (FFA), thiobarbituric acid (TBA), Histamine, pH and some bacterial count such as Enterobacteriaceae count,Psychrotrophic counts,Mesophilic count and lactic acid bacteria. A total of 100 fresh beef samples,20 samples of them were examined biochemically and bacteriologically on zero day before starting the experiment and the rest of 80 samples were divided into two main groups, 40 samples each. First main group divided into two subgroups, 20 samples each. First subgroup (A) stored in freezer without vacuum packaging for ten weeks at -18°C. The second subgroup (A) were vacuumed byVacsy system and kept in freezer for ten weeks at -18°C. The second main group was divided into two subgroup, 20 samples each. First subgroup (B) stored on shelf of refrigerator without vacuum packaging for 5 days at 4°C. The second subgroup(B) were vacuumed by Vacsy system and stored in cyst of vacuum then all samples of the second main group were kept on shelf of refrigerator for 5 days at 4°C. 4 samples were taken from each subgroup of the first main group (A) every two weeks until the end of the experiment(ten weeks),also 4 samples were taken from the second main group (B) daily for 5 days (4 samples from each subgroup) and subjected to biochemical and bacteriological examination. Obtained results showed that TVB-N, (FFA), (TBA), Histamine and pH values of vacuum packaging samples were significantly lower than those in non-vacuum packaging samples. Results indicated that vacuum packaging was effective in reduce lipid oxidation and increased shelf life of beef. Similarly the microbial load of vacuum packaging samples were significantly lower as compared to non-vacuum packaging samples. Results also indicated that vacuum packaging had a very good effect on the organoleptic properties such as color, odor and taste during refrigeration, but their was no clear effect during freezing period on the organoleptic properties. Thus, the employment of vacuum packaging alone or in combination with other protective strategies is recommended. Key wards : vacuum packaging, beef, frozen and refrigeration. Egypt. J. Chem. Environ. Health, 2 (2):408 -424 (2016) On line ISSN: 2536-9164.


This paper presents the digital deep space transponder developed for the ESA next missions (Rosetta, Mars Express) placing emphasis on the digital design, turnaround ranging and achieved performance.


In the stage of popularization of higher education,almost all of the universities in China have established the system of guaranteeing quality of undergraduate teaching. Monitoring teaching quality is the important part of guaranteeing teaching quality. To implement the key control of teaching quality can ensure the validity and pertinence of monitoring quality of undergraduate teaching. Accuracy of choosing monitoring point for teaching quality has a close bearing on the effectiveness of management of teaching quality. Choice of monitoring point for assessing teaching quality has the characteristics of relativity,finiteness,hierarchical and periodic. The scope of choice of monitoring point is involved in cost of management. Therefore,choice of monitoring point for assessing teaching quality should follow the principles of being scientific,effectiveness,being dynamic and appropriateness. This paper also elaborates three fundamental methods of choosing monitoring point for assessing teaching quality.