Differential diagnostic systems provide a ranked list of highly prob-able diseases given a patient's profile and symptoms. Evaluation of diagnostic algorithms in literature has been limited to a small set of hand-crafted patient vignettes. Testing with high coverage and gaining insights for improvements are challenging because of thesize and complexity of the knowledge base. Furthermore, scalable practical methodologies for evaluation and deployment of such systems are missing in the literature. Here, we address this challenge using a novel patient vignette simulation algorithm within an iterative clinician-in-the-loop methodology for semi-automatically evaluating and deploying medical diagnostic systems in production.We evaluate our algorithms and methodology through a case study of a real product and knowledge base curated by medical experts.We conduct multiple iterations of the methodology, report novel accuracy measures, and discuss insights from our experience in applying this method to production


Doctors are worried about the inadequate arrangements for caring for patients in the event of a nuclear, biological, or chemical attack or in other public health emergencies such as an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). One health trust, according to a representative, told its GPs that at the start of a SARS outbreak they should go to a builders' supplier to buy protective masks and to hold consultations with patients by shouting through the letterbox. Dr Simon Eccles, a specialist registrar in accident and emergency medicine, told the meeting that he had to treat a patient with SARS in the back of an ambulance for a time because his hospital had no secure isolation facilities. He cited as an example the nerve gas attack on the underground railway in Tokyo, when the nearest hospital was faced with 500 to 1000 patients without warning. Guidelines for dealing with victims of a bioterrorism did exist, but hospitals were still unprepared for the onslaught of thousands of people who feared that they might have been affected by an attack. Dr John Dracass, a GP in Southampton, said that too little information was available to GPs. Often stories appeared in the media before information from the Department of Health arrived. He wondered how many doctors knew where their local decontamination site was. But Dr Jackie Cassall, from Brighton, said out that all primary care trusts should have an emergency plan and there should be liaison between the Public Health Laboratory Service and the Health Protection Agency. Opposing the call for better arrangements to be put in place, Dr Richard Jarvis, from the Committee for Public Health Medicine and Community Health, said that the key to any response was the involvement of several agencies. He accepted that more funds were needed for such things as practising responses to emergencies. But he criticised the fact that earlier in the year a government select committee had criticised the work that was being done, with the result that the confidence of the agencies concerned had plummeted. The chairman of the BMA's board of science, Sir David Carter, said, "Clearly, more needs to be done." He said that his board was preparing a report on the threats. A Department of Health spokesperson said, "A huge amount of work has been done to improve NHS preparedness for bioterrorist incidents or the outbreak of illnesses. This includes buying new equipment, vaccines, and antibiotics."


THE TERM "electronic power converter" needs some definition. The object may be to convert power from direct current to alternating current for d-c power transmission, or to convert power from one frequency into another, or to serve as a commutator for operating an a-c motor at variable speed, or for transforming high-voltage direct current into low-voltage direct current. Other objectives may be mentioned. It is thus evidently not the objective but the means which characterizes the electronic power converter. Other names have been used tentatively but have not been accepted. The emphasis is on electronic means and the term is limited to conversion of power as distinguished from electric energy for purposes of communication. Thus the name is a definition.


In autonomous exploration tasks, robots usually rely on a SLAM system to build a map of the environment online and then use it for navigation purposes. Although there has been substantial progress in robustly building accurate maps, these systems cannot guarantee the consistency of the resulting environment model. In this paper, we address the problem of robustly guiding a robot back to its starting location after exploring an unknown environment-even if the mapping system fails to produce a consistent map. To tackle this problem, we propose a two-step procedure. First, we check if the current map is consistent using a statistical test. If the map is consistent, we navigate the robot back to its starting location using a standard navigation system. In case of an inconsistent map, however, we propose to rewind the trajectory from the current location to the start without relying on a map. We implemented the proposed system in ROS and showcase its effectiveness on an autonomous exploration robot in real underground and office environments.


For the last 12 years, I have had the great privilege of leading the editorial team at Circulation . As my tenure as editor-in-chief comes to a close, I would like to reflect on the changes that have occurred in the journal, the role of journal editor, and the future of the journal, and do so in light of the rapidly changing landscape of cardiovascular biology and disease.

Circulation has been a premier source of new and important information for researchers, practitioners, and trainees in cardiovascular biomedicine since its inception in 1950. Its editors have always prided themselves on providing the most cutting-edge information to the entire cardiovascular community, aiming to be all things to all readers. While doing so has required greater publication frequency and an ever-increasing number of pages to accommodate the rapid expansion of pertinent information, Circulation , the American Heart Association, and the publisher have risen to that challenge effectively over the last decade. In addition, very soon after I began my tenure, the journal became fully electronic and, beginning in 2008, expanded to a family of journals, with each journal focusing on select cardiovascular subspecialties. Together with the American Heart Association's open-access journal the Journal of the American Heart Association , Circulation and the entire American Heart Association publishing enterprise set as a goal an increase in the number of papers published in this broad family of journals. We chose to do so to accommodate scientifically sound manuscripts that we historically rejected owing to space limitations. As a result of these efforts, published manuscripts increased significantly, as did reviewed manuscripts. These changes in publication format and access were necessary to adapt to the rapidly …


This research study is aimed at making a comparative analysis of proximate, sugar and vitamin contents in peels, seed and fruits of avocado pear and green mangoes from Awka metropolies. The proximate compositions (moisture, ash, fat, fiber, protein and carbohydrate), reducing, non-reducing and total sugar were determined using AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Collaboration) method. The concentration of vitamin A and C was determined by titration technique in aqueous extract of EDTA/TCA solution and titrating with CUSO4. The result show that moisture content of 10.10% was recorded for avocado peels and 47.50% for mango fruit, while the proximate analysis carried out recorded ash (3.87-7.35%), fiber (3.22-7.85%), protein (0.62-3.11%), fats (2.27-17.50 and carbohydrates (37.70-65.32%). Total sugar content ranges from 2.1mg/100g in mango seed to 16.80 in avocado fruit. Vitamin A ranged from 0.11mg/100g in avocado peels to 1.80mg/100g in avocado fruits, while vitamin C ranged (10.30-26.40MG/100g), vitamin D (0.83-3.10mg/100g) and vitamin E (4.18-12.74MG/100g). Vitamin A ranged from 0.11mg/100g in avocado peels to 1.80mg/100g in avocado fruits, while vitamin C ranged (10.30-26.40MG/100g), vitamin D (0.83-3.10mg/100g) and vitamin E (4.18-12.74MG/100g).
The result showed that peels, seed and fruits of avocado pear and green mangoes contain enough vitamin C, an antioxidant essential for human health hence the need to increase the consumption of these fruits, thus there is need to increase the consumption of these fruits.


Objective To explore the expressions of meningioma 1(MN1) and phosphatase and tensin homolog(PTEN) genes,and their relationship with the progression and prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia(AML). Methods RT-PCR technique was used to detect the expressions of MN1 and PTEN mRNA in mononuclear cells of 38 AML patients(16 cases in initial treatment group,12 in remission group and 10 in recurrence group).Thirteen bone marrow specimens from patients with nonmalignant hemopathy and normal individuals were served as controls. Results The positive expression rates of MN1 and PTEN gene in bone marrow mononuclear cells of AML patients were 76.3% and 60.5%,respectively.In initial treatment group,the expression level of MN1 gene was higher than that of the normal control group,while that of PTEN mRNA was significantly lower(F=2.385,2.054;q=2.305,2.867;P0.01);In remission group,the expression of MN1 mRNA level was significantly lower than that in initial treatment group,while PTEN mRNA level was significantly higher(q=2.121,2.756;P0.05);In the recurrence group,MN1 mRNA level increased and PTEN mRNA decreased again versus the normal control group(q=2.361,2.723;P0.05).The expressions of MN1 and PTEN were negatively correlated in AML(r=-0.321,P0.05). Conclusion The expressions of MN1 and PTEN genes are closely related to the occurrence and prognosis of AML,which can be used as significant parameters to predict the occurrence,recurrence and prognosis of this illness.


Coronary heart disease is the single largest cause of death in India and causes large premature mortality and morbidity. Risk factors include smoking, tobacco use, high blood pressure, diabetes, high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol and sedentary lifestyle. Diabetes is a major cardiovascular risk factor and is epidemic in India. Atherosclerotic vascular disease is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in patients with type 2 diabetes. More than 60% patients of type 2 diabetes die of coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes is a major cardiovascular risk factor and in India more than 60% patients with coronary heart disease have diabetes or glucose intolerance. There are macrolevel as well as microlevel mechanisms linking the two diseases. At a macrolevel the sociological (rapid urbanization, rapid affluence), demographic (increased aging) and epidemiological factors (sedentary lifestyle, improper excessive dietary intakes, psychosocial stress and obesity/adiposity) are similar in the two diseases while microlevel vascular factors are common. Mechanistic features unique to type 2 diabetes are vascular effects of hyperglycemia, diabetic dyslipidemia (elevated and/or dysfunctional triglycerides, low density lipoproteins and high density lipoproteins) as well as chronic inflammatory response to hyperglycemia and abnormal adipocytes. Further research to elucidate mechanisms of premature diabetes related vascular disease, that is unique to India, is required. CoRonARy HeART DIseAse In Type 2 DIAbeTes: epIDeMIoLogy AnD MeCHAnIsMs Rajeev Gupta, Jaipur


The results of research on the role of a virtual community during wartime are presented by examining the Belgrade-based online system SezamPro during and after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.


Mathematical problem solving is an ability that must develop in learning mathematics. That is because, with the development of problem solving ability, the mindset of students will also increase. But in reality, the problem-solving ability of the 10th-grade students of SMAN 1 Lubuk Sikaping is still relatively low. Therefore, the study applied the model Problem-Based Learning to improve student's problem-solving ability. The type of research is pre-experimental with the one-shot class study design. The study subjects were all of the 10th-grade SMAN 1 Lubuk Sikaping for the 2021/2022 year. The results data obtained from quiz and test mathematical's problem-solving abilities. Thus, it concluded that the learning Problem Based Learning positively influenced the mathematical problem solving ability of the 10th grade of SMAN 1 Lubuk Sikaping. Keywords — Problem Solving, Problem Based Learning


The keen competition makes power companies need employees with higher capacity.We built a competence model of technical employee by using Behavior Events Interview(BEI),questionnaire and exploratory factor analysis for G company.The model included nine competences: mission orientation,professional sensitivity,monitoring ability,communication skills,achievement orientation,global concept,decisiveness,creativity,and information acquisition.


Birdcage coil 10 for magnetic resonance imaging apparatus includes a plurality of rungs 12 which are coupled to each of the distal ends 15 of the two end rings 16. The end ring 16 has a plurality of ring segments 18 which are divided for each set of capacitors 20, 22, 24. The rungs 12 is coupled to the end ring 16 by the connector portion 14, the connector portion creates a gap between the crosspiece 12 and the end ring 16. Furthermore, the rungs 12 are determined position above the capacitor 20, 22, 24, the connector portion 14, in order to achieve the position of the desired rail relative to the capacitor 20, 22, 24, the connector portion 14 There is formed so as to offset the position of the crosspiece 12 with respect to the ring segments 18 to be bonded.


Editors' Notes Context Understanding the risks faced by patients after a firearm-related hospitalization (FRH) may help efforts to prevent further injury and improve outcomes. Contribution This statewide-study found that after a FRH, patients were at markedly elevated risks for recurrent FRH, firearm-related death, and firearm- or violence-related arrest. Implication Identification of variables associated with the risk for subsequent adverse outcomes may help guide inter-ventions at the time of FRH. Seventy percent of homicides and 10% of nonfatal violent crimes in the United States are related to firearms (13). There are 40 times as many nonfatal firearm-related crimes as there are firearm-related deaths, and 23% of victims of such crimes sustain an injury (3). Of those with nonfatal firearm-related injuries who receive medical attention in the emergency department, an estimated 30% to 60% are hospitalized, depending on the injury intent (4). Overall, firearm-related hospitalizations (FRHs) are associated with substantial physical and psychological morbidity as well as societal cost (57). Information on the risk for subsequent violent victimization (that is, becoming a victim) or crime perpetration after an FRH is lacking. Such information must be obtained to inform the need for future interventions among this group of patients. For example, interventions, such as brief motivational interviewing, conducted among trauma patients during their hospitalization have been shown to reduce rates of posttraumatic stress and alcohol use disorders as well as trauma and violent behavior recidivism while improving functional recovery (810). An enhanced understanding of the subsequent risk for violent injury, death, or crime perpetration may help frontline health care providers, public health professionals, criminal justice officials, and policymakers devise and implement integrated risk assessment plans and harm reduction strategies at the time of hospitalization and after discharge among patients with an FRH. We conducted a statewide epidemiologic investigation to determine the absolute rates of subsequent violent injury, death, or crime perpetration after discharge among patients with an FRH, and to compare these rates with those of 2 comparison groups comprising patients hospitalized for noninjury reasons and the general population. Our hypothesis was that patients with an FRH were at highest risk for violent injury, death, or crime perpetration after discharge. Methods Overview of Study Design We used a retrospective cohort study design. First, using codes from the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9), we identified all trauma patients hospitalized in 2006 to 2007 in Washington. Each patient's first hospitalization during these years was defined as their index hospitalization. We chose 2 comparison groups: a random sample of patients with a noninjury-related index hospitalization frequency matched with the injury group on age and year of hospitalization, and the general population of Washington. Information on outcomes was collected through 31 December 2011. The Human Subject Division of the Washington State Department of Health approved the study protocol and procedures. Exposures Consistent with prior literature, an injury-related hospitalization was defined as a hospital discharge with a primary diagnosis of an acute injury (ICD-9 codes 800 to 959). Using codes for external causes of injury (E codes), we excluded records for the following mechanisms: injuries from medical and surgical misadventures (E870 to E879), late effects of injury (E929 or E999), and adverse effects of substances in therapeutic use (E930 to E949) (11). Information on index hospitalization was obtained by using the Washington State Comprehensive Hospital Abstract Reporting System (CHARS) (12), which contains coded hospital inpatient discharge information and is used to collect an array of data elements, such as age, sex, payer status, and codes for diagnoses and procedures. Using ICD-9 and E codes, we categorized index hospitalizations into the following distinct subgroups: violent injury, which was further divided into firearm-related (of any intent [assault, self-inflicted, unintentional, or undetermined]) and nonfirearm-related (assault or self-inflicted) injuries; nonviolent injury; and noninjury. We used the definition of a violent death from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) (an injury resulting either from the intentional use of physical force or power against oneself, another person, or a group or community [13]) as a guide to define violent injury in this investigation. Consistent with NVDRS practice, we included firearm injuries of any intent in the subgroup of violent injury. The primary exposure was index FRH. Secondary exposures included index hospitalization related to nonfirearm violence and hospitalization for a nonviolent injury. Index noninjury hospitalization served as the reference category. Outcomes Outcomes measured after index hospitalization discharge were subsequent violence-related hospitalization, death, or arrest. Statewide records on all hospitalizations, deaths, and arrests from 2006 through 2011 were obtained from CHARS, the Washington State Department of Health, and the Washington State Patrol, respectively. Subsequent injury-related hospitalizations and deaths were classified with the same categorization scheme used for index hospitalization. We used specific codes in the Revised Code of Washington to classify arrests as due to a firearm-related or violent crime or a nonfirearm nonviolent crime. Because the Revised Code of Washington does not typically distinguish between violent crimes that involve firearms and those that do not, we grouped firearm-related crimes (such as theft) and violent crimes (regardless of whether a firearm was involved) into 1 class (firearm- or violence-related arrest), as recommended by previous investigators who faced this methodological limitation (14). We used the definition of a violent crime used by the Uniform Crime Reporting program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (an offense that involves force or threat of force, including criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault [15]) as a guide to define a violent crime. Primary outcomes included subsequent FRH, firearm-related death, and the combined outcome of firearm- or violence-related arrest. Secondary outcomes included subsequent hospitalization for a nonfirearm violent injury, nonfirearm violent death, and arrest for a nonfirearm nonviolent crime. Covariates Information on age, sex, payer status, year and season of discharge, and county of the hospital for index hospitalization was captured. We also sought to examine the association of history of a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder, arrest, and conviction with the aforementioned outcomes. For this purpose, statewide records on all hospitalizations, arrests, and convictions from 2001 through 2005 were obtained from CHARS, the Washington State Patrol, and the Administrative Office of the Courts Judicial Information System, respectively. Figure 1 provides a pictorial representation of the overall study design. Figure 1. Pictorial representation of study design. Statistical Analysis Probabilistic algorithms were used to link each patient's index hospitalization record to their hospitalization, vital status, arrest, and conviction records. A subset of identifiers, including first 2 letters of the first name, first 2 letters of the last name, date of birth, sex, and first 3 digits of ZIP code of residence, was used for the linkage. The analytic database was restricted to matches with an accuracy likelihood of at least 99% (Appendix). Follow-up began on the day of index hospitalization discharge and ended on the day of the subsequent event (first hospitalization, death, or first arrest, each in its corresponding analysis) or on 31 December 2011, whichever occurred first. For the analysis of subsequent hospitalization, follow-up began 90 days after index hospitalization discharge to minimize potential misclassification of readmissions for index injury as new recurrent injury events. In a sensitivity analysis, we used a 180-day period after index hospitalization discharge. We conducted an additional sensitivity analysis in which the follow-up time for subsequent arrest began 1 day after index hospitalization discharge to minimize potential misclassification of arrests for index injury as new criminal events. We calculated the incidence rate of each outcome by type of index hospitalization. The cumulative incidence of a subsequent event for each type of index hospitalization was estimated by using the unadjusted cumulative incidence function, with death treated as a competing event for hospitalization and arrest, and other-cause mortality treated as a competing event for firearm-related mortality. In regression analyses, we used the methods described by Fine and Gray (16) to model each outcome with the subdistribution hazards regression, with death treated as a competing event for hospitalization and arrest, and other-cause mortality treated as a competing event for firearm-related mortality. Subhazard ratios (sHRs) and their corresponding CIs were determined by using models that included variables for age, sex, payer status, county of the hospital, discharge year and season, history and type of arrest, and history and type of psychiatric disorder diagnosis. In a sensitivity analysis, history of crime was represented as a combination of arrest and conviction records (convicted, arrested but not convicted, or not arrested). Using the age and sex distribution of the 2000 U.S. Census population, we calculated standardized incidence and mortality ratios to compare the risk for a subsequent FRH and death between patients with an index FRH and persons in the general population of Washington. An level of 0.05 was used to


The aim of the paper is to study wh-scope marking construction/wh-expletive construction in Dakkhini. In these constructions a wh-element typically 'what' is in the matrix clause and another wh-element is in the embedded clause. The wh-element in the embedded clause takes its scope in the higher clause that is the matrix clause. The wh-element in the matrix clause which marks the scope of the embedded wh-element is also termed as wh-expletive. The characteristics of wh-scope marking construction are discussed. The direct dependency approach (Riemsdijk, 1983) and indirect dependency approach (Dayal 1994) are used to explain the wh-scope marking construction in Dakkhini.


The paper studies the effects of new product rumors about the iPhone on the stock price of the Apple company. We scrape iPhone rumors from Macrumors.com, and obtain a dataset covering 1,264 articles containing 180 words on average between January 2002 and December 2015. Moreover, we construct a market-decided lexicon to transform qualitative information into quantitative data, and analyze what type of words and what information embedded in the rumors are apt to impact on Apple's stock price. Unlike previous studies, we do not rely on the widely-adopted Harvard-IV-4 dictionary, as the coefficients of the words from the dictionary are neither significant nor consistent with their polarities, compared with our results. The paper obtains three main findings. First, the spread of rumors has a significant impact on the stock price. Second, positive words, rather than negative words, play an important role in affecting the stock price. Third, the stock price is highly sensitive to the words related to the appearance of the iPhone.


Case Report A 26-year-old woman had a design painted on her right shoulder with what she believed to be henna dye. She had never previously used any kind of skin paints or hair dyes. 2 weeks later, she developed an itchy erythematooedematous reaction that exactly reproduced the original design (Fig. 1). The eruption resolved on treatment with topical corticosteroids leaving slight post-inflammatory pigmentation. Patch testing to the GIRDCA standard series and to the ''henna'' powder brought by the patient showed the following unexpected results:


Objective To study the rules of distribution and combination of TCM syndromes in late-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Methods The TCM syndrome literature of lung cancer during last 25 years were searched and arranged to analyze the data of syndrome and syndrome factor regarding late-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Results Twenty-two kinds of TCM syndromes were presented in 48 articles,including syndrome of deficiency of both qi and yin( 13. 3%),syndrome of qi deficiency( 12. 7%), syndrome of dampness-phlegm( 9. 0%) and syndrome of blood stasis( 8. 0%). There were 29 kinds of syndrome factors,of which 14 kinds were factors of disease location,mainly lung and spleen( 25. 2%),lung( 24. 8%),spleen( 19. 0%) and kidney( 16. 3%). There were 15 kinds of disease-characteristic factors,basically qi deficiency( 29. 9%),yin deficiency( 16. 7%),dampness-phlegm( 14. 7%) and blood stasis( 13. 7%). The majority of combination rules were single factor( 42. 9%) and combination of two syndromes( 44. 3%). Conclusion The non-small cell lung cancer at late stage is mainly characterized by deficiency of both qi and yin,which is involved with lung,spleen and kidney as well as pathological products such as dampness-phlegm and blood stasis.


Pathologies in blood vessels are categorized under two major classes: blockage and bleeding. Bleeding is mainly caused by aneurysm. The aneurysm can grow and become so thin that it leaks or ruptures, causing a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). With the available endovascular treatment options, studies show that the post procedural complication rate is 3% leading to delayed bleeding. The reason behind this rupture is still unclear. One of the main theories behind this rupture is: no change in the pressure within the aneurysm. Our research aims at investigating this rupture problem by designing a wireless, self-powered, passively operated micro (<; 1cm) PolyVinyliDene Fluoride (PVDF) pressure sensor that can be deployed within the aneurysm, during flow diverting endovascular treatment that is very sensitive to small changes in pressure. This work presents the first step of our research, including the concept of the sensing system, a multi-striped piezoelectric PVDF pressure sensor design, its modeling, and preliminary simulation and experimental results. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed sensing structure.


Real-time optical monitoring of the electron-transfer process was achieved and modulated on individual gold nanoparticles functionalized with graphene. We found that charge accumulation on single gold nanorods (GNRs) depends on the rate of Faradaic reaction, which is synchronized with double-layer charging.


In the face of the alarming destruction and loss of diversity in our natural environment many are looking within their own religious traditions and asking difficult questions about the role of religions in the justification of environmental destruction and in fostering hostile attitudes to nature. More positively, they are also looking to see what their traditions may contribute to environmental ethics and to a vision which may help to redress the present situation. In this paper I hope to contribute something to this process by reflection on some aspects of Indian Buddhism and ecology, particularly in relation to Indian Yogacara Buddhism and its understanding of the relationship of self and world. Two different, yet related, approaches might be taken. Attitudes and modes of behaviour could be examined. One could see how a proper relationship with the environment is expressed, for example, through the rules of discipline for the monks and nuns (vinaya) and, in more general terms, in prescriptions concerning behaviour for the laity. Alternatively, one might address the more abstract philosophical ideas which underpin Buddhist metaphysics and explore the implications for a vision of the natural order and for environmental ethics. This paper is concentrated on the second.! It addresses issues which impact on our understanding of ourselves, our place in the world and our ultimate ends. In particular, the paper explores the relationship of self and world in Yogacara Buddhism and its implications for ecology within the wider context of Buddhist metaphysics. Thus I hope to contribute in some way to what has become known as 'deep ecology'.2


456Background: Ampullary carcinoma [AC] is a rare malignancy associated with favorable prognosis among pancreatobiliary tumors. Pancreaticoduodenectomy [PDY] is considered to be curative for early stage cancers. The role of adjuvant chemotherapy [CT] or combination chemoradiation [CRT] remains uncertain for stage I/II. In this analysis we reviewed our institution's experience with AC. Methods: From 2005 to 2015, 62 patients with stage 1 and 2 AC with at least one year follow up after PDY were reviewed. Clinical and pathologic factors and disease status were obtained from chart review. The patients' demographical and oncological characteristics are summarized. The univariate Cox proportional hazard model was conducted for evaluating the parameters associated with overall survival. Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank was used to compare the time-to-events. Results: Adjuvant treatment was administered in 61%: CT (32%), CRT (29%) 39% surgical alone. The median overall survival [OS] for the study cohort is 60 mon...


OBJECTIVE:To study the current situation on the research of pharmacoeconomics of antineoplastics.METHO-DS:The pharmacoeconomic research papers on antitumor drugs published in domestic academic magazines over the 10 years ever since 1995 were evaluated by tabulating of the items.RESULTS:Only a preliminary pharmacoeconomic study on antitumor drugs has been done,however,which are far from standardized and perfect.CONCLUSION:The pharmacoeconomic study on antitumor drugs in itself has its complexity,which should be standardized so as to make the study results applicable further.


Pyrobaculum aerophilum is a rod-shaped hyperthermophilic archaeon isolated from a boiling marine water hole (Völkl et al. 1993). Due to its distinctive characteristics, P. aerophilum is both an interesting and a suitable organism for evolutionary and comparative studies. It has an extremely high optimal growth temperature of 98°C, and yet, in contrast to other hyperthermophiles, it is facultatively aerobic. Furthermore, P. aerophilum can be plated to form colonies within four days with up to 100% efficiency (Völkl et al. 1993). Since strictly anaerobic metabolism predominates at the upper temperature limits of life (Robb and Place 1995), cultivation of hyperthermophiles has been difficult and consequently they are only poorly described. Based on 16S rRNA analysis, hyperthermophiles are the living organisms with the greatest similarity to ancient organisms (Stetter 1992; Woese 1987). Thus hyperthermophiles are of great interest and, due to its ease of cultivation, P. aerophilum is an ideal candidate for development as a model hyperthermophilic organism. We plan the construction of a genetic system which will allow for mutagenesis and reverse genetic studies, and for the analysis of gene function. Determining the entire genome sequence will simplify the development of a genetic system for P. aerophilum and will provide valuable data not only for research on hyperthermophily but also for phylogeny research and the elucidation of the least studied domain of life, Archaea. Our strategy for sequencing the entire genome of P. aerophilum has been primarily a random "shotgun" approach. We have sequenced random fragments from the genome, used computer algorithms to compare the sequences, and then assembled the overlapping sequences into contigs. While the "shotgun" sequencing approach (Fleischmann et al. 1995) is an efficient way to obtain most of the sequence, it becomes impractical to complete the sequence by this method. To close the final gaps in the sequence, a directed approach is desirable. We have developed a genome map in order to facilitate a directed approach to sequence completion, to confirm our sequence Abstract We have constructed a physical map of the approximately 1.7-Mb genome of the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrobaculum aerophilum. Derived from a 123 coverage genomic fosmid library with an average insert size of 36 Kb, the map consists of a single circular contig of 96 overlapping fosmid clones with 211 markers ordered along them. One hundred of the sequence markers have strong similarities to known genes. Many overlaps were also checked using restriction fingerprint analysis. This map is an important step in the elucidation of the sequence of the entire genome of Pyrobaculum aerophilum. To this end we have determined more than 95% of the genome with 15 000 random sequences. Each sequence has been screened against the public sequence databases to identify similarities to known genes. We report here a list of the 474 putative genes we have identified.


Obvious outlier experiments were neither observed during the laboratory process nor by visual inspection of the images of scanned arrays. It can be assumed that all samples share common expression patterns. If any differences are present, correlation with the biology of the sample is likely to be found. One example might be a cluster of all tumours versus a cluster of all NAT samples. Should a single sample show a completely different expression pattern, i.e. it does not cluster with other samples, this can be an indication of a biological outlier, faulty preparation, or major microarray defects. It is accepted practice in microarray quality assurance to use independent global analysis methods in order to detect outliers. In this study, raw probe intensities were adjusted for the background signal and summarised to probe set intensities in pre-processing steps. Before the final normalisation of the probe set intensities, all of these values were globally analysed employing three methods: principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical clustering, and distribution analysis. PCA involves a transformation of all intensity values into uncorrelated variables called principal components. The first principal component explains as much variability as possible. Each succeeding principal component accounts for as much of the remaining variability as possible. Only the first, second, and third principal components of each sample were displayed in a 3D-scatter plot (Supplementary fig. S5–1). A clear separation between almost all tumour samples and NAT samples became evident. In one patient (L1784), the NAT sample clustered together with the tumour samples which might indicate that the adjacent tissue has in fact a high tumour content. Two of the tumour samples (L9 and L14) were found at a distance to the remaining tumour samples. The same result was obtained with unsupervised hierarchical clustering (Supplementary fig. S5–2). Again, two clusters reflecting the pathology are formed. Notably, the NAT sample of patient L1784 was found to be very similar to the tumour samples. Other samples show a higher distance to the prominent tumour and NAT clusters, including the tumour samples of patients L9 and L14. Finally, the distributions of the probe set intensities were compared between the samples. No obvious outlier was identified from the box plot (Supplementary fig. S5–3). All samples show almost identical quartiles and whiskers, which represent the 10 %and the 90 %-quantile, respectively. The spread of the tumour sample of patient L9 was found to be slightly smaller. PCA and hierarchical clustering were also performed using gene level expression values. To this end, all probe set intensities of a gene were summarised to the gene level intensity. PCA of gene level intensity values again showed a clear separation between tumour and NAT samples with the exception of patient L1784 (Supplementary fig. S5–4). Again, tumour samples of two patients (L9 and L14) were found to be more distant from the other samples. Also unsupervised hierarchical clustering of gene level intensity values reveals clustering by pathology (Supplementary fig. S5–5). The NAT sample of patient L1784 was found in the tumour cluster. The tumour samples of patients L9 and L14 still show a high distance; yet, two other samples (L2 and L6152) show a higher distance. Results of the global analysis using gene level expression reconfirm the results obtained using exon level expression values. Together, the global analysis methods demonstrated that there is a distinction in the exon and gene expression pattern between tumour versus NAT. As expected from the tumour biology, the tumour samples are less homogenous than normal lung tissue specimens adjacent to the tumour. Compared to the overall sample collective, NAT of patient L1784 could possibly have a high tumour content. It was, however, not classified as an outlier since the statistical hypothesis tests are sufficiently robust to tolerate a single potential outlier. All tumour samples display diversification, with those of patients L9 and L14 showing the highest distance. As this demonstrates the diversity of individual NSCLC tumours, neither sample L9 nor L14 was flagged as an outlier. From the technical point of view, all microarrays appear to be of high quality and were utilised in the analysis of alternative splicing in NSCLC.


The invention provides an environmentally-friendly glass powdery coating and a preparation method thereof. The powdery coating comprises 650g of epoxy resin, 110g of a phenol curing agent, 10g of a high-efficiency leveling agent, 7g of a brightener, 3g of benzoin, 8g of titanium dioxide, 180g of precipitated barium sulfate, 15.6g of Toyota red, 6.5g of cardinal red and 5g of an adhesion promoter. The method comprises the following steps: taking above raw materials according to proportions of the above formula, adding the raw materials to a mixing cylinder, stirring for 300s, stopping for 60s, stirring for 300s, adding the stirred raw materials to an extruder, setting the temperature of the front zone of the extruder to be 110DEG C and the temperature of the rear zone of the extruder to be 100DEG C, carrying out fusing extrusion, pressing through a cooling roller to form sheets, carrying out preliminary pressing fragmentation on the sheets, adjusting an auxiliary milling motor to 1900 rotations, adjusting a main motor to 2500 rotations, carrying out ultrafine crushing, and screening through using a 200 mesh screen. Compared with traditional oily coatings, the powdery coating has the advantages of material cost, no explosive or inflammable substances, no hidden fire hazard troubles, and improvement of the safety of enterprises.


We propose a data-driven framework to simplify the description of spatiotemporal climate variability into few entities and their causal linkages. Given a high-dimensional climate field, the methodology first reduces its dimensionality into a set of regionally constrained patterns. Time-dependent causal links are then inferred in the interventional sense through the fluctuation-response formalism, as shown in Baldovin et al. (2020). These two steps allow to explore how regional climate variability can influence remote locations. To distinguish between true and spurious responses, we propose a novel analytical null model for the fluctuation-dissipation relation, therefore allowing for uncertainty estimation at a given confidence level. Finally, we select a set of metrics to summarize the results, offering a useful and simplified approach to explore climate dynamics. We showcase the methodology on the monthly sea surface temperature field at global scale. We demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed framework by studying few individual links as well as"link maps", visualizing the cumulative degree of causation between a given region and the whole system. Finally, each pattern is ranked in terms of its"causal strength", quantifying its relative ability to influence the system's dynamics. We argue that the methodology allows to explore and characterize causal relationships in high-dimensional spatiotemporal fields in a rigorous and interpretable way.


It has been suggested that during the neuralization step of primary induction in the amphibian embryo the inductive signals are mediated from mesodermal cells to the responding competent neuroepithelium by means other than cell contacts. This idea corroborated by experiments in which the interacting tissues were separated by a Nuclepore filter with pores of 0.05 μm (series 1) or by a dialyzing membrane with pores of only 12,000 daltons (series 2). After 18–22 h exposure to mesoderm followed by 8–10 days' culture in isolation the ectodermal explants were neuralized in both series with about 80% differentiating into archencephalic structures. These results exclude the possibility of cell contact as a mediating mechanism in this step. In a third series similar experiments were made using a special Nuclepore filter with dense pores of 0.6 μm and the exposure time was prolonged to 24 h. During subsequent culture in isolation the ectoderm was neuralized in every case, except forebrain, the ectoderm also differentiated in 25% to hindbrain and less frequently to spinal cord, myotomes, and in some cases even to notochord. The result is interpreted to mean that during the prolonged exposure the tissues have had time to age to an early neurula stage, and the ectodermal cells, after being neuralized, have had time to form cell contacts by cytoplasmic bridges through the pores resulting in the segregation of the preneuralized ectoderm into more caudal structures than the forebrain.


We summarize the design and implementation of a laboratory model "the Elevator" and its control. We focus on the hardware and software components and on the process of design, actual implementation and application control. The mentioned model is located at the Technical University in Kosice, Department of Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence at the Center of Modern Control Techniques and Industrial Informatics. The model is used for education offering the possibility to implement various algorithms and programs in ladder diagrams.


The progress in studies on genetic diversity of Equus przewalskii is reviewed from the aspect of genetic markers,such as the chromosome,blood group and allozyme,mitochondrial DNA,microsatellite DNA and MHC.After analyzing systematically the achievements in researching the genetic diversity of E.przewalskii at home and abroad,it can be found that there is still an inbreeding depression,which threatens the EPR population and genetic diversity of E.przewalskii,and the taxonomic issue between E.przewalskii and Equus caballus is still in debate.As the historical bottleneck effect and inbreeding have impacted severely the viability of E.przewalskii,it is necessary to document the genetic diversity of E.przewalskii in China so as to benefit the international gene flow and offer a theoretical basis for further conservation of E.przewalskii in China.


Researchers in mathematics education have always stressed the relevance of algebra in school mathematics and have produced a wide range of empirical and theoretical outcomes in relation to this fie ...


of Tutorial Growing power demand in all over the world forces the power sector for expanding power generation capacity and also size of the transmission network to supply power at doorstep of every consumers. However, unregulated demand profile makes the generation unit commitment procedure complex and causes serious power imbalance situation. Conventional solution processes like lambda iteration, dynamic programming fail to overcome the afore-mentioned deficiencies due to their limitation to handle large problems with multiple variables. That is why, soft computing techniques are emerging in recent time to address the power system problems. This tutorial aims to discuss elaborately about several soft-computing tools like Artificial Neural Network, Fuzzy logics, evolutionary optimization techniques and swarm optimization techniques. In addition, it will present the application of the soft computing techniques to the power system problems like load forecasting, economic dispatch and unit commitment of thermal generators. Wednesday, December 11 11:45 1:15 Tutorial Session 2: A Tour of Machine Learning Room: IIA-101, Bharti School Chair: Jayadeva J Prof. Jayadeva is the Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He currently holds an Institute Chair. He has served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, and the IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics. He has served on the Steering and Program Committees of several international conferences. He is the co-author of the books "Numerical Optimization with Applications'', and "Twin Support Vector Machines: Models, Extensions and Applications'' (Springer). Notable work includes the Twin SVM, that is insensitive to class imbalance. As of December 2019 it has over 950 citations and was the subject of review articles in Neurocomputing, AI Review, Neural Computing and Applications, the Annals of Data Science, and the Egyptian Informatics Journal. His group was amongst the first to fabricate a SVM based application VLSI ASIC, that contained an A/D converter using a bank of analog SVM classifiers. A more recently taped out chip is likely the first ant colony optimization based network router to be realized on silicon. Sumit Soman holds a Ph. D. from the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi. He is a Principal Technical Officer with the Health Informatics group at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing. His research interests include brain computer interfaces and machine learning. He was a recipient of the Director General, CDAC's Young Innovator Award 2019 and has over 40 research publications in reputed conferences and journals. Mayank Sharma holds a Ph. D. from the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi. He completed his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. He is working as an Applied Scientist at Amazon. His research interests include large scale machine learning, deep learning, bioinformatics and sparse learning. Abstract of Tutorialof Tutorial Machine learning, including deep learning, are fast emerging as active research areas with applications in diverse domains. This tutorial introduces the basic concepts of machine learning and presents exciting applications that have been built using learning models. It also discusses various settings in which learning algorithms are used, as well as the working of a conventional learning pipeline. Recent work on building sparse models and working with unbalanced datasets would also be presented. Wednesday, December 11 2:15 3:45 Tutorial Session 3: Swarm Intelligence: Concepts to Engineering applications Room: IIA-101, Bharti School Chair: Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi (SM'06) received the Ph.D. degree in power systems from Sambalpur University, Sambalpur, India, in 2004. He was a Lecturer with the University College of Engineering, Sambalpur, for 13 years. Since 2005, he has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India, where he became a Professor in 2017. His research interests include intelligent control of flexible ac transmission system devices, digital signal processing, power quality assessment, and application of soft computing techniques to power system planning, operation, and control. Swarm intelligence is one of the most promising nature -inspired artificial intelligence technique which is primarily based on the behavioral models of social insects such as ants, wasps, termites bees etc. The Swarm is a configuration of multiple individuals, trying to solve a complex problem collectively rather than solving it in an individual manner. The swarm chooses to converge to a common solution. During the solution of the problem collectively each individual agent of the swarm interacts with the other following some simple rule. Thus Swarm Intelligence is the complex, collective, self-organized, coordinated behavior of a group of agents following the simple rules to solve a problem. Some of the algorithms that fall under this category are 1. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) 2. Ant Colony Algorithm (ACO) 3. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm 4. Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO) The use of these algorithms are wide in nature and is capable of solving various optimization problems. Few of the algorithms including PSO will be discussed in detail along with its application in solving various engineering problems. Wednesday, December 11 4:00 5:30 Tutorial Session 4: Evolutionary computation applications in the smart grid domain Room: IIA-101, Bharti School Chairs: Pedro Faria, João Soares João Soares has a BSc in computer science (2008) and a master's degree in Electrical Engineering (2011) in Portugal, namely from Polytechnic of Porto. He attained his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (2017) at UTAD university. He currently conducts researcher at GECAD Research Group on Intelligent Engineering and Computing for Advanced Innovation and Development in the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic of Porto and has been recently an invited professor at Ecole Centrale De Lille in the L2EP. He coordinates two projects in the field of energy resource management in smart grids and smart buildings with application of computational intelligence techniques. His research interests include optimization in power and energy systems, including heuristic, hybrid and classical optimization. He published more than 100 publications in this field and his works have been cited over 2000 times (H-index 23 in google scholar) Pedro Faria works in the field of power systems with focus on energy markets, smart grids, and demand response. The current work includes renewable-based distributed generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles. In these fields, optimization, clustering, and classification methods have been applied to real and simulated environment problems. Those include methods based on artificial intelligence, namely meta-heuristics and data-mining. He has been developing business models for the modelling, aggregation, and remuneration of consumers participating in electricity markets and in demand response programs. He has also worked in real-time simulation of power and energy systems, namely using the OPAL-RT platform and Hardware In the Loop (HIL) technics. Pedro Faria participated in a significative number of national and international research projects contributing with models and their implementation, testing, demonstration and piloting. He has several scientific management and coordination responsibilities in those projects, being namely the leader of work packages and tasks in international projects and the GECAD leader of one national project. Pedro Faria is author of 1 patent and of more than 130 scientific papers. Abstract of Tutorialof Tutorial In this tutorial, João Soares will discuss the complexity of some smart grid problems, including energy resource management (ERM) in smart grids (SG). In fact, typical mathematical approaches rely on simplifications to make the formulations tractable. When the models are close to real-world situations, issues related to scalability, execution time, memory computing requirements, or even uncertainty, arise and limit the applicability of these standard tools. To overcome such limitations, computational intelligence (CI), a family of problem-solving/stating techniques that attempt to exhibit the intelligence observed in nature, has successfully been applied to complex problems in the energy domain. This tutorial revises some CI approaches, mainly Evolutionary Computation (EC), for solving complex SG problems, envisaging the potential of such techniques and future research venues of CI in the energy domain. In addition, Joao Soares will present an overview of some tools GECAD has been working in the last years, GECAD is preparing an ERM platform that includes CI optimization algorithms to solve a variety of case studies to be available as an academic tool in the future. The ERM platform includes several EC optimization algorithms for energy dispatching and vehicle-to-grid/smart charging that have been validated and proposed throughout a series of algorithm competitions worldwide. Thursday, December 12 Thursday, December 12 10:30 11:30 Plenary Session 1: Computational Intelligence in Power Engineering Room: Seminar Hall Chair: Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi (SM'06) received the Ph.D. degree in power systems from Sambalpur University, Sambalpur, India, in 2004. He was a Lecturer with the University College of Engineering, Sambalpur, for 13 years. Since 2005, he has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India, where he became a Professor in 2017. His research interests include intelligent control of flexible ac transmission system devices, digital signal processing, power


Based on over 8900 online reviews from travelers staying in six hotels in Guangzhou booked on Ctrip, the qualitative research methods were applied to code the online review data via the qualitative analysis software Nvivo11.0 and extracted six main factors influencing the positive or negative emotions of the comments of travelers staying in the hotel in the hotel industry, revealed that the service was the core influential factor, and put forward the strategic recommendations for the future development in the "Internet + hotel" industry from the perspective of checked in travelers.


The simulation software AMESim was applied to build the hydraulic system model of the upper part of 25T mobile crane. And the characteristics of the multiple-unit valve and the counter-balance valve were simulated and analyzed. Then more research was carried on the luffing system. Based on the simulation model of the boom and key components of the luffing system, the parameters of the luffing system were modified and tested to recur the abnormal working conditions of the mobile crane, such as the unstable flow rate, the pressure impact and the unstable boom swing while the valve has a little opening. Then the luffing system of the crane was analyzed and simulated and several modifications were carried out to the multi-way valve of the luffing and the counte-rbalance valve. After modified, the luffing system was experimented on a real crane truck and the testing data was collected on site. The experimental results showed that the above-mentioned problems could be reduced efficiently after modification. The test results were in accordance with that of the simulation, which verified the accuracy of the simulation model.


The dynamics of a vertical two-dimensional air jet under acoustic excitations at a low Reynolds number are investigated experimentally. The perturbation is introduced by means of a loudspeaker located in a settling chamber before the nozzle exit. The experiments are operated at Strouhal number St ranging from 0 to 1 and for different pulsation amplitudes. A laser plan is used to visualize the flow and the hot-wire anemometry for more specific measures of the mean and fluctuation velocity. The discussion is focused on the influence of two parameters governing the flow: the Strouhal number St and pulsing amplitude. The main results show that the flow consisting of the vortex propagating downstream a nozzle exit is strongly affected by the excitation. Indeed, the introduction of an external perturbation introduces a more rapid degeneration of the potential core with the appearance of vortices near the nozzle as the pulsation amplitude increases. These vortices are amplified and become larger than the nozzle width which induces the enhancing of the entrainment and mixing effects of the shear layers. Another very important phenomenon is observed: the excitation has led to the formation of a switching from the asymmetric mode (sinuous mode) to the symmetric mode (varicose mode).


CT technology has been used to scan the triaxial test samples,and numerous 2DCT images at different sections obtained.Extracting the information of mean value(ME),standard daviation(SD)and the area of the aperture from the images.With those images and MATLAB,programmed to achieve 3D images at different stages during the test.3Dimages show the samples internal damage's 3Ddynamic evolution during the loading procedure,which made a breakthrough that can only analyze plane structure evolution previously.Results show that 3Dreconstruction model we build could observe and measure the soil structure evolution characteristics under different conditions more intuitive;particularly,it's more accurate at describing the sample holes'evolution regulation;3Dsection can reflects the evolution of the fracture surface that contributes to us to understand the sample internal structure evolution's regulation during triaxial shearing experiment in more details.Furthermore,different cylindrical hole area has some influence on the form of holes'structure evolution in shearing process.


Enhancing the reliability of Multi-input converters (MICs) with fault tolerance plays an important role while integrating with independent energy sources with any significant loads. In literature, many MICs are proposed and operated on the time-multiplexing concept. Only one energy source contributes to the loads, and others are idle during a particular duty interval. This leads to the underutilization of the converter as well as the input energy sources. A new configuration of Dual-Input and Single Output (DISO) DC-DC converter with switch and source fault tolerance has been proposed in the proposed work. The fault tolerance is the open-circuit condition due to the power switch fault and against one input short-circuit. The designed converter can deliver the buck, boost, and buck-boost operations. The feasibility of the proposed scheme, a 200W prototype is designed, and experimental results are used for validation.


This study summarizes the available information on the technical characteristics and costs of those sulphur abatement technologies in operation at present or coming into operation in the near future. Relying on disaggregated source data and using engineering cost functions and various technical and economic assumptions, the least cost curves of abatement for all the European countries have been derived and some examples are presenter. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of abatement strategies and costs to some alternative assumptions about energy futures is presenied. JEL Classification: Q2


The doctrines of trademark genericism and functionality serve similar functions under the Lanham Act and the common law of unfair competition. Genericism, in the context of word marks, and functionality, for trade dress, bar trademark registration under the Lanham Act and, both under the Act and at common law, render a trademark unprotectable and invalid. In the word mark context, genericism stands for the proposition that certain parts of our vocabulary cannot be cordoned off as trademarks; all competitors must be able to use words that consumers understand to identify the goods or services that they are selling. Functionality likewise demands that certain aspects of product design cannot be legally protected as trade dress, as to do so would potentially limit competitors' ability to make products that work as well, at the same price. The core concern, for both doctrines, is or should be the preservation of free and fair market competition. The types of trademarks typically at issue when making genericism and functionality determinations – word marks that are, at best, descriptive, or product design functioning as trade dress – are correctly described as weak. The genericism and functionality doctrines therefore play a critical role in marking the boundaries of trademark law. To properly draw those lines, decision makers need to correctly define and understand the theory underlying both doctrines. Both genericism and functionality, in their practical interpretation and purpose, should more clearly reflect the core principle of protecting fair competition. In particular, the concept of viable, competitive alternatives – either in the form of words or alternative designs – should play an enhanced role in determining whether an erstwhile trademark is generic or functional. The various tests for genericism and functionality currently employed by the courts often attempt to draw artificial distinctions among categories of words or product features that may confound business owners (and their lawyers) and divert the focus of the courts' inquiry in such cases away from the core value at the heart of both doctrines: preserving fair competition.


Informed patient consent is a subject explored with increasing frequency in the current legal and medical literature, and a number of guidelines have been set forth for obtaining consent for work with investigational new drugs. Even so, few definitive directions have been available to indicate the best way to ensure informed consent. A recent proposal, 'The Two-Part Consent Form," by R. Miller and H. S. Willnerl is of particular interest, since we developed a similar method three years ago to be used in testing therapeutic delivery systems. Our procedure, as described below, has been well received by patients and investigators and offers considerable benefits in obtaining and documenting a patient's understanding of the clinical study before participation.


The new round of collective forest tenure reform implemented since 2003 has provided farmers with more integrated and secure forestland rights. Drawing on household data collected in Jiangxi province in 2011 and 2013, this paper examines the impacts of households' recognition of tenure integrity and security on forestland transfer activities. Our empirical results show that households with higher perception of their use rights and mortgage right have a lower probability and intensity of transferring-in land, while households with lower expectations of future forestland redistribution or expropriation are more likely to transfer in forestland and more of it. In order to develop a forestland transfer market, the government should strengthen the enforcement mechanisms underlying the forest tenure reform and provide and /or improve supplementary measures, including the establishment of an effective transfer platform and a reliable rural social security system.


Inkjet printing is a promising approach towards the solution processing of electronic devices on an industrial scale. Of particular interest is the production of high-end applications such as large area OLEDs on flexible substrates. Roll-to-roll (R2R) processing technologies involving inkjet printing have especially high potential, since they allow a continuous production of large volumes with high throughput. Here we report on our research activities to scale up printed OLED production on foils to an industrial scale. When building up the device, necessarily deposition will have to be done on very different types of surfaces, some of which are highly prone to damage upon mechanical load. Inkjet printing as a non-impact technology is therefore expected to have decisive advantages compared to e. g. screen printing. We have evaluated both methods for silver shunt line deposition on a barrier layer which protects the OLED against humidity. Screen printing on the barrier layer resulted in a significantly higher number of defects than did inkjet printing. For post-deposition treatment we have used photonic flash sintering as a highly efficient and R2R compatible method. We were thus able to demonstrate that a core step of OLED production can be carried out by R2R processing. Finally, our efforts resulted in the production of fully functional large area OLED devices, with inkjet printed silver shunt lines. Our future plans include moving towards fully integrated R2R production of OLEDs to demonstrate this concept's feasibility for industrial scale manufacturing. cop. 2014 Society for Imaging Science and Technology.


Florida Power and Light desires to examine the prospect of achieving zero liquid discharge from the gasification area of their proposed 900-MW coal gasification-combined cycle (GCC) power plant expansion at the Martin station. This report provides information about the technologies available, cost, and process selection methods, and recommends a preferred system for achieving zero liquid discharge from the gasification block. The recommended system consists of primary clarification and vapor compression evaporation, followed by carbon adsorption post-treatment of the evaporator distillate. Dry solids are produced from the evaporator concentrate with a crystallizer/centrifuge combination. The system recovers 99 percent of the wastewater as pure distillate vater. The predicted capital cost for the 265-gpm system is $12.5 million; the predicted operating costs are $18.60/1000 gallons. Both costs are in 1990 dollars. Promising treatment technologies to examine for future designs are cooling tower treatment and freeze crystallization.


To evaluate the risk of scientific cognitive value deviation due to irrational factors in scientific research, the system of evaluation which including 11 irrational factors in scientific research and five levels of evaluation is created based on the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method optimized by Uncertainty Measurement Theory. First, the arithmetic mean value of data of preliminary study serves as the weight of the evaluation indicator and the matrix of fuzzy subordinate relation is gained from the definite weighted functions. Then, the comprehensive risk level of the testing object is gained following the Credible Degree Recognition Criterion. Finally, the simulation tests of 4 groups of data from random function verify that the assessment results are the same by two way of Credible Degree Recognition Criterion and the accuracy of judging comprehensive risk level by the optimized Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method is higher than one by the general Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method.


Reversed-phase gas chromatography in the Henry region was used to study the adsorption properties of chitosan and its modified analogue obtained by oxidation of chitosan by sodium chlorite with respect to C 6 H 1 4 -C 9 H 2 0 n-alkanes and CH 3 OH-C 3 H 7 OH n-alcohols. The ability of the modified analogue to participate in the dispersion interaction with the test adsorbates was found to be higher than that of chitosan. For modified chitosan, the energy contribution from alcohol-adsorbent hydrogen bonding is higher due to the formation of more ordered structures.


This paper examines one of the main Bible passages on church polity, 1 Timothy 3, and, in particular, in verses 8-13, the list of qualifications for those who would aspire to the office of deacon. In recent years, many have revisited the question "Can women be deacons?" On the whole, the question arises from the Greek text itself, or more precisely, the ambiguity of the word, γυναικας, used in this text which semantic range can include either meaning of "wives" or "women." This paper purposes to show that rather than teaching the office of female deaconess, the passage in 1 Timothy 3 teaches the positive importance of the wives of officers in the church in assessing their husbands' qualifications for office. 1


Emissions of NO,N_2O and SO_2 during coal combustion in a 30kW scale circulating fluidized bed(CFB) combustor were experimentally investigated.Three kinds of coals from western China were tested.The CFB combustor consists of a riser and a downer.The riser was designed as the coal combustor and the downer was used for the solid material circulation.The influence of combustion temperature,excess air number,air staging and coal rank on the emissions of NO,N_2O and SO_2 were studied and discussed.The experimental results show that increasing the combustion temperature can result in an increase of NO and a decrease of N_2O in the flue gas.Air staging can decrease the NO emission significantly,but no obvious changing of N_2O emission is found during the combustion of coal with high volatile content.Increasing the excess air number can lead to an increase of NO and N_2O emission.A large decrease of NO emission and a slight increase of N_2O emission can be observed when increasing the char concentration in the riser.About 85% percent of fuel-N is converted to N_2 for the combustion tests performed at 1120K and with the excess air number of 1.25.However,no obvious variation is observed for SO_2 and CO emission with changing the CFB operation parameters,such as excess air and air staging.


In order to study the influence of temperature on the structure of deployable antenna, a dynamic analysis method was proposed. ANSYS finite element software was used to establish the modular space deployable antenna support truss structure model, subspace method was used to conduct modal analysis of the space deployable support truss structure, the natural frequency and mode of the structure was obtained. At the same time, the temperature environment of the deployable antenna in orbit is simulated, the deflection of the structure at 100 temperature is analyzed, and the deflection diagram of the support truss structure at 100 temperature is obtained. The results show that temperature has a great influence on the deflection of the antenna structure, and corresponding measures should be taken to reduce the influence of temperature on the deflection of the antenna structure during the design of deployable antenna. The dynamic analysis method proposed in this paper can provide reference for other truss deployable antenna structures.


Babalola (2012), Mishra and Suar (2010), Teimouri et al. (2011) revealed a positive relationship between CSR and firm performance. Here CSR activities involved external perception on the firm. Surroca et al. (2010) and Maduenoa et al. (2015) also indicated that maximizing the firm"s intangible resources as a mediating factor will improve CSR influence on the firm"s performance. Olowokudejo et al. (2011) Olusanya et al. (2012), and Okwemba et al. (2014) on the other hand, emphasized that there is no relationship between CSR and firm"s performance. Maduenoa et al. (op.cit) stated that CSR indicates a very close reciprocal relationship between firm and stakeholders. Therefore, the relationship of CSR can be mediated by relationship capacity to improve the firm performance. The relational capacity can be done through active involvement of a community in CSR programs of firm"s activities and hence, be beneficial to the community. The CSR practice of manufacturing industries focusing on environmental issues in order to reduce negative effects of the firm"s activities and hence be beneficial to the community. The CSR practice of manufacturing industries focusing on environmental issues need the involvement of environmental management (Post et al. 2011). For a manufacturing firm whose activities require the involvement of wider community, whether as Abstract: Manufacturing firms contribute to environmental pollution and social costs in Nigeria today. To pay back to society and also increase long-term performance and stakeholder trust, manufacturing firms undertake corporate social activities in communities they are located. This study examines the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the performance of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. A casestudy of Ariaria shoe making and footwear company ltd, Abia State, Nigeria (2005-2006). An ordinary least square regression is applied to annual aggregate data to determine the type of relationship that exist between the dependent and independent variables. A simple linear regression model is used in this study. The dependent variable is the performance indicator while the independent variable is: corporate social responsibility expenditure (ECSR). The financial performance indicators include: Profit after tax (PAT), Asset Financial Value (AFV) and Return on Investment (ROI), while the non-financial performance indicators are; Average Manufacturing Capacity Utilisation (AMCU), Employee's Productivity rate (EMR) and Company's output rate (COR).The technique used in estimating the parameters of the specified model is the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation method. The results of this study show that Corporate Social Responsibility Expenditure (ECSR) has a positive and significant impact on the Financial and non-financial Performance of Manufacturing Firms. A number of recommendations are made based on the research questions, research objectives and research findings prominent among them is the need for increased spending on CSR to improve the symbiotic sustainable relationship between CSR activities and firms' performance.


This paper puts its attention on the application of Chebyshev complex polynomials in the development of an extensible lumped-parameter model of unbounded soil.The normalized flexibility function of foundations is adopted to improve the accuracy of the model and to reduce the parameters in modeling.A ratio of two Chebyshev complex polynomials is adopted to represent the normalized flexibility function of foundations.Through performing a partial-fraction expansion on this Chebyshev complex polynomial-fraction,a Chebyshev complex polynomial-fraction is designed as two basic discrete-element models.The accuracy and validity of the lumped-parameter model are extensively investigated for the case of foundations.Subsequently,these models are applied for representing the dynamic stiffness functions of foundations.The proposed method may be easily applied to analyze various practical problems in soil-structure interactions in a time domain and nonlinear analyses.


Pose calibration is widely used in the fields of 3D (three-dimensional) shape reconstruction, vision-based robot navigation, augmented reality, and so on. However, if two cameras have the non-overlapped FOV (Field Of View), existing methods cannot calibrate their relative position because the calibration target is invisible to one camera. This paper presents a novel calibration method for two cameras with non-overlapped FOV by using a calibration target and a flat mirror. For the camera invisible to the calibration target, the camera can capture the virtual image via the flat mirror. PNP (Perspective-N-Point) problem is solved via the captured virtual image, and then the relative orientation between the virtual calibration target and the camera is obtained. Based on the reflection theory, moving the mirror to several positions, the orthogonal constraint equations are established. This orthogonal constraint is satisfied by all mirror positions and the reference points on target. Therefore, one can obtain the external orientation between the calibration target and the camera. For the camera visible to the calibration target, the traditional calibration method is used to obtain the external orientation between the target and the camera. After obtaining the relative orientation of the two cameras to the calibration target, an ICP (Iterative Closest Point) algorithm is used to compensate binocular pose matrix. The calibration results are analyzed by using an error model. The experimental results show that the proposed calibration method can obtain the relative orientations between two cameras effectively and accurately.


The slum area of Meranti is one of seven slum areas in Pekanbaru City according to Mayor's Decree No. 151/2016 . The method used in determining the potential of infrastructure activity in the slum area of Meranti is by analyzing the secondary data and primary data through the use of questionnaires and interviewed and field observation. The results of the analysis of the space requirements for housing and public service facilities needs is obtained that the potential settlement infrastructure activities is a priority in the arrangement slum area of Meranti is the provision of drinking water, environmental drainage, waste water management, solid waste management and the availability of public open space.


Hemostasis is one of the key factors in the success of surgical procedures.An absorbable hemostatic material is an absorbable device that is placed in the body during surgery to produce hemostasis by accelerating the clotting process of blood.In recent years,absorbable hemostatic materials have been of intriguing interest for their fast hemostasis action.However,the risk assessment of the products is hindered by their complicated components and hemostatic mechanisms and lack of guidelines.This review is mainly focused on the classification,hemostatic mechanisms and elements of safety evaluation of absorbable hemostatic materials from the perspective of mode of action.


With defined nine plant defensins as references,twenty eight plant species database had been searched in the DFCI by BLAST to find the homologous sequences.One hundred and fifteen new plant defensin-like genes had been found in twenty four species.The results of sequences alignment,signal P and phyligenetic analysis indicated that all the one hundred and fifteen defensin-like genes showed high homology and had the basic characteristics of plant defensin.


Background: Novel nanoparticle drug therapy could be an effective method to enhance peripheral nerve regeneration. Objectives: The current study aimed to determine the effect of Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NP) coated with omega-3 on sciatic nerve regeneration in Wistar rats. Methods: The rats' left sciatic nerve was crushed with a non-serrated clamp. Animals in experimental groups were given Fe3O4@ω3 NPs (10 or 30 mg/kg/d) for one week. The recovery of functions was then assessed over eight weeks using a walking track analysis and a hot plate test. In addition, histomorphometry was used to assess the histomorphometric factors. Results: Results showed that Fe3O4@ω3 NPs may have enhanced sciatic nerve regeneration and improved sensorimotor rehabilitation in comparison to the negative controls. These therapeutic effects were significantly greater in Fe3O4@ω3 NPs at a dose of 30 mg/kg. Furthermore, Fe3O4@ω3 NPs treatment, compared to negative controls, significantly reduced gastrocnemius muscle atrophy and improved histomorphometric parameters. Conclusions: It was determined that Fe3O4@ω3 NPs had great potential for nerve regeneration due to the ease of their manufacturing and their desired efficacy.


Presentation for the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) Archives Community Group virtual meeting held on May 12, 2020. The presentation is a demonstration of the IIIF by the University of North Texas' digital collections.


In today's context, the level of religious intermarriage is increasingly questionable and negative. Even such negative imagery is legitimized by bible texts, for one thing: Ezra 10: 1-44. The text of Ezra 10: 1-44 explicitly shows Ezra's action against intermarriage between the Israelites and foreign nations. Such resistance is based on understanding that when the Israelites mix with foreigners their allegiance to YHWH is eroded. This post is the result of ideological criticism with a pluralism perspective on Ezra 10: 1-44. Interpretations reveal that the prevailing ideology that represented Ezra 10: 1-44 was the attempt to maintain the purity of the cult YHWH. Thus, the writer finds it necessary to do a dialectic with the problem of religious interfaith that takes place in today's context. The dialectic done was to find a correlation between the context of Ezra and current readers. On the other hand, based on the ideological theories of sheila brigs and Robert Setio, the writer offers a counter-ideology, producing a theological offer in the plural context of Indonesia.


Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2016 In an effort to decrease wait times, decrease expense and expedite institution of therapy for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), home sleep testing (HST) has become increasingly more popular since the 2007 AASM clinical guidelines on home portable monitoring.1 The term HST is not entirely accurate, as these devices do not measure sleep. They are respiratory monitors applied to the patient during the estimated sleep time. The term sleep apnea testing is preferred as this is geared towards establishing the diagnosis of OSA. Regardless, the HST is easy to perform and can be done in the comfort of the patient's home environment. HST throughout the world has shown a good sensitivity and specificity for detecting OSA for patients with a high pretest probability.2 Scoring of these studies may be performed by computer only, computer assisted with manual oversight or by a trained specialist. Scoring criteria have been established by the AASM,3 but comparison of these criteria internationally has been limited. Magalang et al. examine the agreement between independent scorers in six countries using AASM scoring criteria from 2007.3–5 The initial studies were performed in a single center and then reviewed at different institutions. Apnea hypopnea index (AHI) had a strong correlation when scoring was performed from nasal pressure (NP) recordings. Hypopneas were more easily recognized from the transformed NP tracing, which has been previously demonstrated.6 NP and transformed NP tracings performed better than respiratory induction plethysmography (RIP) in the detection of apneas. The detection of central apneas had less sensitivity and specificity, however transformed NP waveform was superior to NP and RIP analysis for central apnea identification. Respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) waveform analysis was less effective for identification of apneas, probably because it is not calibrated in clinical practice. Even when calibrated, RIP may erroneously classify events as central since it does not detect respiratory effort in up to 9% of patients.7 Clinical interpretation of HST is at times troublesome because of recognition of sleep onset and offset as well as recognition of artifacts. Editing the data manually improves the accuracy of the study interpretation.8 These variables were appropriately excluded from this study since the aim was the analysis of the scored respiratory events. In practice, COMMENTARY


An algebra (L; ν, ^, *, +, 0, 1) of type (2, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0) is a distributive double p-algebra provided (L; ν, ^, 0, 1) is a distributive (0, l)-lattice, and *, + are unary operations of pseudocomplementation, or dual pseudocomplementation, respectively: the operation * satisfies x<a* if and only if x^a = 0, while x>a+ holds if and only if xνa = 1.


Abstract The present study concerns with the effect of bending moment coefficient in the stress distribution in a balanced boron/epoxy single lap joints subjected to tensile loading. The main feature of the single lap joint is the eccentric loading path, which results in large deflections of the outer adherend and the overlap, and the joint edge moment or bending moment coefficient at the end of the overlap. Theoretical models such as Goland–Reissner, Oplinger and Hart-Smith are examined in detail for different l/c and η/t ratios. Four different overlap lengths have been analysed. A geometrically non-linear, two-dimensional finite element analysis is also performed to provide useful comparisons with the theoretical analysis. The analytical results mainly prove that the Oplinger's model is the most appropriate for the specific geometry and materials, and the values of the bending moment coefficient are compared with the additional model of Zhao for four different l/c ratios.


The introduction of new materials into the process flow, the continuous reduction of device sizes, and the change in thermal budgets from new technologies, all require a continuous assessment and, if necessary, a development of new monitoring capabilities for defects and contamination in the semiconductor industry. Besides the detection of physical defects with optical wafer inspection systems, the detection of thin monolayer contamination, so called "non-visible" residues (NVR), requires increasing attention. These surface contaminations change the local chemical state of the substrate surface and can be detected by the measurement of the surface potential difference across the wafer. In this study, we describe a method for improving analytical capabilities for contamination control in support of process engineering and development.


Correspondence: Sashka Krumova Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev Str., bl. 21, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria. Tel: +3592 979 26 08, Fax: +359 2 8723787 e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com ABSTRACT Multiple myeloma (MM) is hematological disease with increasing incidence. Due to the development of novel tools for diagnosis and monitoring of the effect of treatment there is a significant improvement in patients' survival but there is still no cure and the nature of the disease remains elusive. Our previous works have demonstrated the potential of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to classify the different MM types into specific calorimetric groups and to distinguish them from healthy controls. Here we elaborate on another biophysical technique based on the fluorescent properties of NAD(P)H claimed to be useful for metabolism dysfunction detection in cancer sera. A group of patients diagnosed with MM with secretion of immunoglobulin M (IgM) paraprotein that are well characterized on basic clinical criteria was studied. Our data reveal that about half of the studied population could be distinguished on the basis of NAD(P)H fluorescence and demonstrate that the ability of NAD(P)H fluorescence approach to detect the malignant state is far lower than that of DSC.


The primary goal of the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) Demo II program is to demonstrate the utility of advanced unmanned systems to conduct tasks that enhance the Department of Defense force structure. Some of the key technologies being developed include perception, autonomous navigation, and passive stereo vision and an active scanning laser rangefinder, both for obstacle detection. A good portion of this technology has direct relevance to the US Department of Transportation's Automated Highway System (AHS) program. The program focuses on a planned evolution to an automated highway, starting from today's vehicle-highway system. The envisioned AHS would operate properly equipped vehicles under full automated control on dedicated lanes. This paper presents each applicable reuse capability, including supporting hardware and software required. We also note any special "lessons learned" during integration and/or operation of the specific technology. Reuse technology is mapped to the AHS minimum functions such as lateral vehicle control.


The aim is to find out development status of edible oil processing industry research in China,and use CNKI as statistics data source with Bibliometric analysis and mathematical statistics method by using Statistical A- nalysis Toolkit for Informetrics,Excel and other software tools. Those edible oil processing industry research papers in China from 2002 to 2012 were statistically analyzed from their quantity,research institutions,periodical distribu- tion,research topic,cited frequency and fund and other aspects. The results indicate that the research of edible oil processing industry in China is continuously improving,and there are rapidly increasing quantity of paper published in Core Journals of China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database since 2002.


The invention discloses a modified melamine-series water-reducing agent and a method for preparing the same. Phosphorylated melamine derivatives are used as main adsorption radicals of the modified melamine-series water-reducing agent instead of the traditional carboxyl and sulfonyl. The modified melamine-series water-reducing agent and the method have the advantages that the modified melamine-series water-reducing agent is excellent in comprehensive performance, is particularly high in cement adaptability and low in clay and sulfate sensitivity, and accordingly the modified melamine-series water-reducing agent and the method have broad market application spaces.


Passenger transport in New Zealand was 'deregulated' from 1 July 1991. While in many respects the NZ 'deregulation' legislation is modelled on the 1985 UK Transport Act, there are a number of important regulatory differences and substantial differences in the market and financial environments. As a result, only around 15% of NZ's urban passenger transport services were registered to be provided commercially from July 1991, as compared with about 85% in the UK following deregulation. The remainder of the NZ services are being provided through a competitive tendering process, which took place in February-May 1991. It is evident that this process is central to the overall success (or otherwise) of 'deregulation' in NZ. This paper describes the principles and approach adopted by Transit NZ (the central government agency) in developing competitive tendering procedures (building on experience of other countries), and the way that these principles have been translated into practice by regional councils, which are the main tendering authorities. It also reports on the experience and results from the first tendering round, recently completed.


A thermal ionization mass spectrometric procedure was developed for the measurement of platinum. Single- and double-filament techniques were investigated. Negative Pt ions were produced in the source of a thermionic quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with a secondary electron multiplier operated in ion counting mode. A high-purity platinum aqueous solution of natural isotopic composition was used as sample on a rhenium filament This method allows the natural amount ratio of the major isotopes n( 194 Pt)/n( 195 Pt) to be measured with a repeatability of 0.3%.


This paper intends to dig out some linguistic features of journalistic discourse by doing initiative fixed-amount analysis of features of words of English journalistic discourse and Chinese journalistic discourse,aiming at helping language learners gain a better understanding of features of journalistic discourse,get more language knowledge and information,and facilitating communication and in a certain extent,promoting foreign language learning and teaching.


Whenever the central nervous system is damaged, two types of symptoms and signs emerge. Negative ones, such as weakness, paralysis, fatigability, and lack of dexterity, result from either disconnec...


An experiment was conducted to evaluate the optimum inclusion of Azadirachta Indica (Neem) leaves for replacing groundnut haulms in complete diets of kids. Twenty non-descript male kids of 4–5 months of age with an average body weight of 11.38 kg were allotted to four treatment groups. The ratio of neem leaves and groundnut haulms in T1, T2, T3 and T4 complete diets were 0:60, 20:40, 40:20 and 60:00. The average daily gain in kids was not significantly different among T1, T2 and T3 (42.62, 40.58 and 38.24 g). The ADG was significantly lower (P<0.01) in T4 (32.46 g). The crude fibre digestibility in T4 was the lowest (P<0.01). However, DMI (kg/100 kg live weight and g/kgw0.75) of kids was not statistically significant among the treatment groups. The feed cost per kg live weight gain was lowest (Rs. 50.54) in T3 compared to Rs.57.02, Rs.54.62 and Rs.51.69 in T1, T2 and T4 groups. It was concluded that neem leaves could be incorporated up to 40% level in complete rations without affecting the growth rate in kids.


The requirement on sound insulation of living environment is becoming higher along with the living standards improves.Japanese made much research on improving the sound insulation of dwelling house and got much progress in the last few years.This paper briefly introduces some Japanese research results on sound insulation of floor impact noise that is difficult to insulate.Though the national conditions between Japan and China are quite different,in Japan the dominant dwelling houses are wooden construction,but the results still have some reference worth to improving the sound insulation of concrete construction dwelling house.


Introduction : Extensive encircling pulmonary vein isolation (EEPVi) is a gold standard therapy in atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. Additional ablation (linear ablation, CFAE ablation, low voltage ablation, rotor ablation, and so on) remains controversial, but it is reported that BOX isolation (BOXi; left atrium posterior wall isolation) is effective especially in the cases of persistent AF in several papers.


The technique of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) has proven to be very useful for characterization of nanocrystalline particles, particularly for catalysts (for useful reviews see Malm et al. 1-3 ). As in the case of large crystals, interpretation of HRTEM images of nanocrystals requires some care. For large crystalline areas, the standard method of image interpretation in terms of specimen structure is by comparison of experimental images with simulated crystal-structure images computed under the appropriate electron microscope conditions. 4 such image simulations are routinely carried out for "semi-infinite" models of crystalline specimens, they can also be used to produce useful information from particle images, such as the crystal structures of the particles, as well as their approximate shapes, sizes, and orientations. 5 However, for accurate simulations of nanocrystal images, the calculation must be modified to allow the specimen model to contain the crystal edges. Early simulations of HRTEM images of edges 6,7 showed that the supercell method of model construction, previously developed for embedded defects 8 , also works for these cases.


Objective To study the ultrastructural changes of diaphragmic muscle in death by anterior limbs suspension in rabbits.Methods Diaphragmic muscle and gastrocnemius muscle of rabbits died from anterior limbs suspension were sampled and the ultrastructure of the muscles were observed under transmission electron microscope in comparison with those of rabbits died from stranglulation by ligature.Results The nuclei,cytoplasm and cell membrane of the muscle fibers in the suspension group showed the hypoxic lesions.The myofibrils and mitochondria were the most obvious.The similar changes were also detected in the stranglulation group,but more slightly.No evident alterations were found in the gastrocnemius muscle.Conclusion Suspension by anterior limbs can cause ultrastructural lesion of the diaphragma,which may provide experimental evidences for the medicolegal investigation in cases suspected of death from positional asphyxia.


Abstract. This paper presents the application of Level-set based Topology Optimisation to a convectively cooled multi-material heatsink design problem. Two level set functions are used to model two solids and a single fluid with minimum thermal compliance considered as the optimisation objective. Both the level set functions are evolved by solving Hamilton Jacobi equations and are re-initialised at regular intervals. Topology optimisation is carried out for number of different fluid-solid conductivity ratios and, additionally, at a number of different solid volume fractions. Details of numerical modelling and results obtained are presented in this article.