Ghanbarian-Alavijeh, B., Millan, H. and Huang, G. 2011. A review of fractal, prefractal and pore-solid-fractal models for parameterizing the soil water retention curve. Can. J. Soil Sci. 91: 1–14. The soil water retention curve is an important hydraulic parameter for characterizing water flow and contaminant transport in porous media. Therefore, many empirical, semi physical, and physical models of the soil water retention curve have been proposed. Among them, fractal models appear to be a useful approach for modeling soil as a heterogeneous porous medium and its hydraulic characteristics. Fractal models are mathematically based, and their parameters have physical meanings. In this study, we review published fractal, prefractal and pore-solid-fractal models for soil water retention curves including Tyler and Wheatcraft, Rieu and Sposito, Perrier et al., Perfect, Bird et al., Millan and Gonzalez-Posada, and Cihan et al. models. In the pore-solid fractal (PSF) approach the pore phase and matrix phase have a...


The authors have investigated the detailed behaviors of a stiffened plate and first maintained the concept of the minimum stiffness ratio of the stiffener, γUmin for the ultimate strength in the first paper. Sequently, in the second paper, the authors described the result of investigation into the ultimate strength of a both-sided stiffened plate and γUmin, for the plate.In this paper, a theoretical investigation into the ultimate strength of one-sided stiffened plate and the minimum stiffness ratio, γUmin, against the ultimate strength are carried out. Firstly, the elastic-plastic large deflection analysis by the finite element method is performed and the behaviors of one-sided stiffened plates are devided into three different types according to the stiffness of the stiffener. These are, (1) overall failure after overall buckling, (2) overall failure after local buckling and (3) local failure after local buckling. Secondly, as a simpler analysis, a theoretical elastic large deflection analysis is also performed considering the effect of the plastification of the stiffener in a simplifying way. In order to determine the ultimate strength of a one-sided stiffened plate by the simpler analysis, simple criteria are proposed after both theoretical results are compared. The prediction by this method is accurate enough for the practical purposes. Applying this method, the minimum stiffness ratio, γUmin of one-sided stiffener is defined as the stiffness ratio which guarantees approximately the maximum ultimate strength. A simple analytical method is also proposed to determine γUmin as the intersection of overall buckling strength curve and the maximum ultimate strength curve of the plate. This method is also applied to one-sided stiffened plate with several stiffeners, and γUmin for more general cases are calculated. The effect of initial deflection and welding residual stresses are also discussed, and the effective minimum stiffness ratio, effrUmin is difined for the cases with these initial imperfections.


Evidence based practices (EBP) have been established to enhance the delivery of patients care, reduce cost, increase patient and family awareness and satisfaction and also contribute to professional development. Aim: The study aimed to assess nurse's beliefs and barriers regarding EBP at a selected hospital in Cairo. Design: Descriptive research design was utilized in this study. Research questions: 1What are the nurses beliefs regarding value, knowledge, resources and difficulty of EBP? 2What are the nurses' perception regarding utilization of research into practice, professional and institutional barriers to apply EBP? Sample: A convenient sample of 100 nurses was included over three consecutive months. Tools: Three tools were used: study participants characteristics tool, Evidence Based Practice Beliefs Scale and Evidence Based Practice Barriers Scale. Results: Most of the nurses agreed that EBP results in best clinical care for patients but they disagreed about their ability to implement EBP and to measure the outcomes of clinical care. In addition, EBP consumes too much time and difficult to apply. Moreover, they didn't feel enough authority to implement new ideas. Conclusion: Nurses had positive beliefs toward evidence based practice. However, they were unable to keep up with the current literature and practice evidence based due to different barriers. Recommendations: Administrators should encourage nurses to apply evidence based practice in the clinical setting.


Introduction: Italian Colonial Cultures Patrizia Palumbo PART I. THE SHAPING OF ITALIAN COLONIAL HISTORY: POLITICAL PRACTICES AND THEORETICAL LEGITIMIZATION The Myths, Suppressions, Denials and Defaults of Italian Colonialism Angelo Del Boca Studies and Research on Fascist Colonialism, 1922--1935: Reflections on the State of the Art Nicola Labanca Italian Anthropology and the Africans: The Early Colonial Period Barbara Sorgoni The Construction of Racial Hierarchies in Colonial Eritrea: The Liberal and Early Fascist Period (1897--1934) Giulia Barrera PART II. COLONIAL LITERATURE: FROM EXPLORATION TO A DOMESTIC EMPIRE Gifts, Sex, and Guns: Nineteenth-Century Italian Explorers in Africa Cristina Lombardi-Diop Incorporating the Exotic: From Futurist Excess to Postmodern Impasse Cinzia Sartini-Blum Alexandria Revisited: Colonialism and the Egyptian Works of Enrico Pea and Giuseppe Ungaretti Lucia Re Mass-Mediated Fantasies of Feminine Conquest, 1930--1940 Robin Pickering-Iazzi Orphans for the Empire: Colonial Propaganda and Children's Literature during the Imperial Era Patrizia Palumbo PART III. THE COLONIAL PRODUCTION OF AFRICA AND THE SILENT SCENE OF DECOLONIZATION Colonial Autism: Whitened Heroes, Auditory Rhetoric, and National Identity in Interwar Italian Cinema Giorgio Bertellini Black Shirts/Black Skins: Fascist Italy's Colonial Anxieties and Lo Squadrone Bianco Cecilia Boggio Empty Spaces: Decolonization in Italy Karen Pinkus Notes on Contributors


The Lamb wave phased array theory is utilized to analysis the damage scattered signals to identify the structure defect. The damage scattered signals are gotten by comparing the health signals with the damage signals. Phased array theory based structural health monitoring can scan the structure in a certain range of 0°~180° by controlling the time delay of the excitation signals and the response signals. The processed signals in monitoring direction is shown on 3-D imaging to express the damage location in the structure. The method is verified by the experiment on the composite structure and the result shows that the Lamb wave phased array method can detect the damage in the composite structure and the 3-D image clearly displays the structure damage location.


This is a chapter of the book devoted to the development of highest courts in diverse European legal systems. It describes the establishment and rapid evolution of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.


Aim: Person-centered care is a core issue in rehabilitation; the study aims at: 1) enquiring the outcome expectations of patients in a geriatric rehabilitation ward; 2) matching outcome expectations with actual outcomes. Methods: Expectations of 186 patients [79.4 (8.7) years, 70% females] analyzed through a questionnaire. 80.6% of patients were discharged home; functional recovery = 17.7 (22) points in Barthel Index total score, and 5 (4.2) points in Barthel Index walking subscore; also conditions with nursing needs improved significantly. Results: Patients' expectations were coded as: functional (31.4%), overall (29.6%), and clinical improvement (21.5%), discharge home (7%); no answers or explicit lack of expectations (7.5%). Walking ability recovery differed according to outcome expectations. Highest improvements were achieved by patients wishing clinical improvement, followed by those expecting functional or overall improvement (5 points) [p = 0.009 (Welch)/p = 0.041 (Brown- Forsythe)]; worst improvement in walking ability (2.8 points) were got by patients faulting or declaring explicit failure of expectations. Conditions with nursing needs improved most in those expecting clinical improvements [p = 0.029 (Brown-Forsythe)], and less in case of expectation default. No further matching was found. Conclusions: Improvement in actual outcomes matched expected improvements in two circumstances: recovery in walking ability and in conditions with nursing needs. The high yield of different favorable outcomes may have masked the statistical significance for correspondence between actual and expected results. Special attention is worthy towards patients short of expectations, as their actual outcomes result poorer.


M. Ballicchia1,2, M. Nedjalkov1, J. Weinbub3 1Institute for Microelectronics, TU Wien, Austria 2 Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy 3 Christian Doppler Laboratory for High Performance TCAD at the Institute for Microelectronics, TU Wien, Austria email@example.com We present an analysis of quantum coherent transport inside a nanowire in presence of a repulsive dopant [1]. In particular, we focus on the current that flows inside the nanowire and which depends on the potential energy of the dopant. The latter is modeled by a screened Coulomb potential centered in the middle of the wire. The electron evolution has been studied by using the Wigner transport equation: [ ∂ ∂t + p m ∙ ∇r] fw(r,p, t) = ∫dp′ Vw(p − p′, r)fw(r,p′, t) . (1)


The use of information communication technology in the process of training Russian language Abstract. The guestion of use of information communication technology in the process of training Russian is considered in the article. The fooms of wook organization, methodologicaf anf didactic principles of training Russian are giren.


Use of a material needled veil Velor for cleaning wounds and / or as a cleaning of wounds which adsorbs or absorbs tissue and body fluids from wounds and the skin surrounding the cells, wherein the material needled veil Velor comprises forced to form loops (2) fibers needled material comprising veil Velor a first polymer and a second polymer and the first polymer having a melting point higher than the second melting polymer.


We set up a tripartite entangled state representation |p, χ2, χ3> in three-mode Fock space which is composed of the common eigenvectors of three particles' relative coordinates X1 - X2 and X1 - X3 as well as the total momentum P1 + P2 + P3. The Schmidt decomposition of |p, χ2, χ3 > is made and its application in quantum teleporting a two-particle entangled state or a two-mode squeezed state is analyzed.


A calibration method is proposed for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars. Due to the non-idealities of the radio frequency (RF), the channels should be calibrated before running the direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation algorithms. Traditional calibration method computes the compensation coefficients based on a target placed at a known location. However, the DoA estimation under a traditional calibration method suffers significant performance deterioration when the target deviates from the calibrated direction. In this paper, a multi-directional calibration method is proposed, it computes phase compensation coefficients using a set of samples collected from known targets in multiple directions. The experimental results show that, utilizing the proposed calibration method, DoA estimation algorithm can achieve a consistent performance in the entire field of view (FoV).


It has been know for at least one decade [1] that functional MRI time series display long-memory properties, such as power-law scaling in the frequency spectrum. Concomitantly, multivariate model-free analysis of spatial patterns, such as spatial Independent Component Analysis (sICA) [2], has been successfully used to segment from spontaneous activity Resting-State Networks (RSN) that correspond to known brain function. As recent neuroscientific studies suggest a link between spectral properties of brain activity and cognitive processes [3], a burning question emerges: can temporal scaling properties offer new markers of brain states encoded in these large scale networks? In this paper, we combine two recent methodologies: group-level canonical ICA for multi-subject segmentation of brain network, and wavelet leader-based multifractal formalism for the analysis of RSN scaling properties. We identify the brain networks that elicit self-similarity or multifractality and explore which spectral properties correspond specifically to known functionally-relevant processes in spontaneous activity.


Nanning Branch of China Mobile Guangxi Co.,Ltd.has been working on exploring employment and comes up with the new capacity-based management model that features peopleoriented ideological and political work and is built upon putting people first and management innovation.The article introduces the capacity-based systems of election,perfor- mance-based salary,cares and incentives on which the new flywheel model of people-oriented ideological and political work has built to strike a balance between the development of the enterprise and that of the employee.


The quality of sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua L., and loblolly pine, Pinus taeda L., as a foodsource for gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar (L.), larvae was evaluated using caged F 1 -sterile gypsy moths in a field study in southeastern Virginia. A 1st experiment compared host species at 3 sites. Because early instars do not feed on loblolly pine, 2nd and 3rd stadia larvae were caged only on sweetgum, and allocated to sweetgum and loblolly pine at the onset of the 4th stadium. On sweetgum, survival of L2 and L3 gypsy moths was 32% across sites and was 17% higher on the best site compared with the worst. Survival of L4 to pupae was not affected by site, but survival was significantly higher on sweetgum than loblolly pine during this period. Host species did not affect duration of the larval stage, pupal weight, duration of the pupal stage, or development time to adult of F 1 -sterile gypsy moths; however, site had a significant effect on duration of the larval period. A 2nd experiment using L4-L6 examined the effects of detaching branches, on both host species, on the duration of the larval period, relative growth rate, and pupal weight. The main effects of host species, branch detachment, and frequency of larval handling (frequent versus infrequent) were not significant for any response variable. The interactions of branch detachment by host species and larval handling by host species were significant. On loblolly pine, larvae caged on detached branches developed more slowly than those on intact branches, but those larvae caged on intact branches and moved infrequently developed the slowest of any treatment. Larvae on sweetgum were unaffected by branch detachment or frequency of handling.


This article presents an overview of mining and metallurgy in northern Peru from late pre-hispanic times into the seventeenth century. It covers management of and sharing natural resources, labor, processing, and miners on both the coast and highlands.


The nature of the limitations to the right to strike in essential and public services in the nine sub-regional countries of Southern Africa – South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe – is examined in this contribution. While all of these countries share common influences and face common challenges, there appears to be a vast disparity in the approaches taken to the right to strike in public and essential services in the region. A brief overview of the demographics and labour markets in the countries under discussion is sketched, the salient features of the ILO's approach to strike in essential and public services is highlighted, and a broad overview of the contrasting and disparate approaches to essential and public services in the region is provided. The focus is, however, on the legislative approach taken to essential service employees in South Africa. It is concluded that – with the exception of South Africa and Namibia – the limitations to the right to strike of public sector employees exceed those endorsed by international conventions, and the broad definition of essential services generally relied upon effectively results in an outright ban of public sector strikes in the sub-region.


Limb ulceration is a common finding amongst intravenous drug abusers especially in urban settings. The authors present a case of severe neglected bilateral lower limb ulceration in such a patient. Theories regarding the mechanism of this ulceration are explained.


P. Korshunov's contribution to the theory of bibliography is discussed; the discipline structure and development stages are analyzed. The main principles of Oleg P. Korshunov's theory are outlined: dialectical method of rising from the abstract to the concrete applied to bibliographic phenomena studies; the view of document communication system as a metasystem of bibliographic functioning. The theory also sees the contradictions/information barriers existing in the system of document communications as an intrinsic reason for the emergence of mediating social institutions (libraries, archives, bibliography, etc.), which mission is to establish correspondence between documents and end users. Oleg P. Korshunov also developed the concept of bibliographic information as an intrinsic distinction of bibliography from other types of information activity; he derived the modes and functions of bibliographic information and common patterns of bibliographic activity. The author specifies several rival bibliography theories: information-cultural (M. G. Vokhrysheva, N. B. Zinovieva), ideographic (N. A. Sliadneva), management (A. A. Grechikhin), semiotic (G. Ya. Uzilevskiy), and synergetic (T. A. Novozhenova). The author points to the conceptual diversity of the theory of bibliography in Russia and current unavailability of the single theory. The author demonstrates the achievements and challenges of the theory of bibliography within the framework of academic studies, as well as maturity of bibliography subdisciplines, i. e. theory and methodology of bibliography, history of bibliography, management of bibliographic activities, bibliographic methods and technologies. The prospects of theory of bibliography are specified as stated by Russian scholars on the basis of Thomas S. Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions. They unanimously connect development history of theory of bibliography to the bibliological and documentological paradigms (in different terminologies), while interpreting the future of bibliography in different ways though always with dominating technological issues.


10534 Background: Esophageal GIST (ESOGIST) are rare tumors, accounting for less than 1% of all GISTs, requiring special consideration regarding evaluation, diagnosis, perioperative treatment and c...


Due to the enormous accumulation of experimental data and the increasing need for combining heterogeneous data sources, the field of systems biology yields novel and very interesting problems in data analysis. The development of high-throughput technologies has opened the possibility to study the behavior of many cellular components simultaneously. Therefore, there is an increasing interest and effort in not only understanding the functions of single isolated components, but also revealing the interactions and functional relationships between different components. Often, the outcome of large-scale measurements is conveniently represented in a structured form; prominent examples are proteinprotein interaction networks, coexpression networks for genes, and bipartite graphs of associations between experimental conditions and regulated genes. This thesis presents different methods that aim at finding interesting patterns in such data. The main contributions are as follows. First, an exact enumerative approach to dense cluster detection is proposed. Given a weighted interaction network and a default weight for missing edges, the density of a node set is defined as the average pairwise interaction weight. The described method finds all patterns that satisfy a user-defined minimum density threshold. Conceptually, this task is a generalization of clique search; however, the standard techniques to solve that problem are not appropriate for the generalized question. Fortunately, an efficient enumeration strategy can be achieved by adopting the reverse search paradigm. Remarkably, the same algorithmic framework is applicable to discover cluster patterns in other types of structured data, like asymmetric binary relations and multipartite graphs, as well as hypergraphs, n-ary relations, and tensors. Second, our approach integrates additional constraints in order to focus the search on clusters that are relevant for the specific application at hand. For example, if each node in a network has an annotation profile attached to it, we can identify dense clusters where the nodes share a common subprofile. The principal idea is that the user provides the datasets of interest and defines desired properties of


Pain caused by medical care is a major concern of patients. Patients undergoing hemodialysis are submitted to two venous punctures at rate of two or three times per week and this by means of big needles gauge. Where pain during Arterio-Venous Fistula (AVF) cannulation should be the object of adequate take care. However few works are dedicated to it. Our purpose was to estimate prevalence, risk factors and take care of pain due to AVF cannulation to hemodialysis patients. It was monocenter study realized from 1st till 30 September 2013 in the unit of hemodialysis of University Teaching Hospital Ibn Rochd of Casablanca. It included 92 hemodialysis patients, who's carried AVF dating of at least three months and having agreed to participate that study. The investigation was realized by a doctor. The content of the tools used for investigation was established and validated by our department. Intensity of pain estimated by means of an analogue visual scale, was quoted from 0 to 10. The pain was estimated at every patient's during two consecutive hemodialysis sessions just after the bipunction of AVF by means of needles of 16 gauge by the same nurse. The mean age was 43,76 ± 13,6 years with a parity of sex. Prevalence of pain was 60,9 % with a moderate intensity expressed in 63 % of cases. About 31,5 % had apprehension of puncture. The anesthetic cream was the only method used for pain take care and its rate of use was 3,6 %. The risk factors of the pain were: proximal situation of AVF (p=0,020), apprehension of puncture (p=0,037). In our hemodialysis center, pain during AVF cannulation remains a real problem both by its high prevalence and its lower take care. Where it imports to elaborate a strategy to manage this pain.


The invention relates to a human sleep monitoring method and system. The method and system synthesizes motion, heart rate and body temperature signals. The system comprises a core processor, a reflective type photoelectric pulse sensor, a temperature sensor, a three-axis gravity acceleration sensor and a capacitive skin contact sensor which are respectively used for measuring heart rate in real time, measuring body surface temperature in real time, detecting motion state in real time, and performing wearing identification. The human sleep monitoring system has the advantages that by synthesizing human body sign information and motion states, the system can automatically monitor the sleep state and the waking state of a user and can identify different sleep stages including shallow sleep, deep sleep and rapid-eye-movement sleep; the system further comprises a display module and a miniature motor vibrating module which are used for displaying specific sleep information and awakening the user on the basis of sleep quality; the problems that an existing sleep monitoring device cannot naturally awaken the user at an appropriate time, physical and mental health of the user is affected, and the existing sleep monitoring device is inconvenient to use are solved.


Pro-environmental behavior is needed to overcome complex problems in economic development. The tourism sector is one of the sectors supporting the regional economy. The attraction that is highlighted by the City of Denpasar is a historical heritage site. The behavior of tourists will greatly influence the existence of the site. This study aims to investigate whether energy conservation, mobility and transportation, waste avoidance, recycling, consumerism, and vicarious behaviors toward conservation play a role in the formation of pro-environmental behavior among tourists visiting sites in the city of Denpasar.


Vegetable oil has been used for cocking and ethnomedicinal purpose in developing countries. The aim of this research was to determine the toxicological effect of Balanites aegytiaca seed oil in albino rats. Acute and sub chronic toxicological evaluations were carried out on albino rats. The albino rats were divided into six experimental groups (n = 6 albino rats/ group). Five different doses of Balanites aegytiaca seed oil; 1000mg/kg, 2000mg/kg, 3000mg/kg, 4000mg/kg and 5000mg/kg were administered orally (gavage) to groups 2 – 6 respectively, once per day for 28 consecutive days. While control group received saline with Tween® 80 2%. Standard laboratory methods were used to assess liver and kidney functions indices. The acute toxicity screening revealed that the Balanite aegyptiaca seed oil (BASO) was non-toxic with LD 50 above 5000mg/kg. The liver function test parameters revealed non-significant (p>0.05) difference in serum AST and ALT activities between control group and treated groups. However, there is significant (p<0.05) increased of serum ALP activity in treated groups when compared to normal control group. Serum albumin concentration significantly (p<0.05) decreased in treated groups when compared to normal control group.  No significant difference (P>0.05) in the concentration of total protein, total and direct bilirubin observed in treated groups when compared to normal control group. While kidney function test parameters showed alterations in serum creatinine and Potassium concentrations in treated groups compared to normal control group. Oral administration of B. aegyptiaca seed oil for 21 days did not displayed signs organs damage. The results suggest that prolonged consumption of Balanites aegytiaca seed oil could not cause adverse effects on the liver and kidney organs.


Abstract The deadly heat wave of July 1995 that affected much of the U.S. midwest, most notably Chicago, Illinois, has been put into historical perspective. The heat wave has been found to be remarkably unusual, but only partially because of the extreme high apparent temperatures (an index of the combined effect of temperature and humidity on humans), where the authors calculate a return period of the peak apparent temperature of ≤23 yr. Of greater significance were the very high temperatures that persisted day and night over an extended 48-h period. Analysis presented here indicates that for Chicago such an extended period of continuously high day and night apparent temperature is unprecedented in modern times. The 2-day period where the minimum apparent temperature failed to go below 31.5°C (89°F) is calculated to be an extremely rare event (probability of occurrence <0.1%) based on a 10 000-yr-long simulation of a four-parameter (temperatures related to the mean, the intraseasonal daily variance, the i...


During an experiment on labor division in a bee colony, a daily marking of newly emerged bees with color-dots on the thorax or abdomen was undertaken. August 4, 1930, a colony of Italian bees was opened for the purpose of marking the young bees. On the inner surface of the inner cover, a few bees were crawling around. Three or four of these were without marking and hence were bees that had emerged within the previous twenty-four hours, the time when the last marking of bees took place. One of these bees attracted my attention by its unusual manner of locomotion. It moved slowly as all young bees do, but backwards instead of forward, in a manner characteristic of crayfish. Taking the specimen in my hand I noticed its extremely narrow face. An examination under the binocular microscope revealed the fact that I was dealing with a freak bee, a bee with only one compound eye. This was situated in the middle of the head, in the frontal region, symmetrically placed. In the laboratory the specimen continued to march backwards and ate in a normal manner the droplets of honey which I offered it from the tip of a toothpick. I could not make it crawl forward even though I placed the honey a short distance in front of its head.


Large-span open prefabricated spatial grid structures are characterized by light mass, high flexibility, low self-oscillation frequency, and low damping, resulting in wind-sensitive structures. Meanwhile, their height tends to be relatively low, located in the wind field with a large wind speed gradient and high turbulence area. Therefore, surface airflow is complex, and many flow separations, reattachment, eddy shedding, and other phenomena occur, causing damage to local areas. This paper took the Evergrande Stadium in Guiyang, China, as the research object and used the random number cyclic pre-simulation method to study its surface extreme wind pressure. Firstly, five conventional distributions (Gaussian, Weibull, three-parameter gamma, generalized extreme value, and lognormal distribution) were fitted to the wind pressure probability densities at different measurement points on the surface of the open stadium. It is found that the same distribution could not be chosen to describe the probability density distribution of wind pressure at all measurement points. Hence, based on the simulation results, the Gaussian and non-Gaussian regions of this structure were divided to determine where to apply which distribution. Additionally, the accuracy of the peak factor, improved peak factor, and modified Hermite moment model method were compared to check their applicability. Finally, the effect of roughness on the extreme wind pressure distribution on the open stadium surface was also investigated according to the highest accuracy method above. The findings of this study will provide a reference for engineers in designing large-span open stadiums for wind resistance to minimize the occurrence of wind damage.


Social Internet of Things (SIoT) is a concept that integrates the Internet of Things and human social networks. An SIoT system has to store and manage device reputation values, which are used by end devices to determine the trustworthiness of another one. This device trustworthiness can also be affected by its geographical location. In this work, we introduced an architecture that includes the geospatial context in the part concerned with reputation management. The proposed architecture is based on the cloud-fog-edge architecture and uses the fog layer as the management system. The devices in the fog layer form an Ethereum Blockchain network and store the Smart Contracts. These in turn allow the management functionalities to be carried out in a decentralised, transparent and secure way, which are the advantages of Blockchain. To enable the characteristics with a geospatial component, it is necessary to apply a geocoding technique. This work shows how geocoding techniques can be adapted to cover the main geospatial functionalities and compares two geocoding options (Geohash or S2). The results showed that it is possible to include the geospatial context in a decentralised reputation management system by using hierarchical geocoding techniques, and the experiments showed that both Geohash and S2 can offer a similar performance in the proposed architecture.


Design, implementation and measurement of low power CMOS analog baseband stages used in a Medical Implant Communication Service and Body Area Network receivers are presented. The analog stages presented in this work include an operational transconductance amplifier, a 5th order tunable active elliptic filter and a limiting amplifier. The designs are implemented in IBM 0.18 m RF CMOS process using a 1-V reduced supply voltage.


Abstract The reductive elimination-amination of 2(a, b) in the presence of amines 3 (a, b) under ultrasound irradiation provides pyrrolidines 5 (a,b,g,h) in excellent yield.


Maitland and Boyd proposed at ICICS 2001 an offline electronic cash system based on the group signature scheme. Their scheme cannot be used to solve blackmailing and other anonymity problems such as money laundering and illegal purchases. In this paper we extend the electronic cash system of Maitland and Boyd to prevent blackmailing, money laundering and illegal purchases by using a secure coalition-resistant group blind signature scheme. Also, our electronic cash system ensures traceability of double spenders.


v . 4 , n o . 4 ' , L973a, F iss iont rack ages of Ple is tocene volcanic ash dep o s i t s i n t h e C e n t r a l P 1 a i n s , U ' S ' A ' : I s o c h r o n ' / W e s t ' n o ' g ' P ' 3 9 4 3 ' , 19?3b , F i ss ion t r . ack ages o f Pea r l e t t e Fami l y ash beds : C o m m e n t s : G e o l o g Y r V ' 2 , n o ' 1 ' P ' 2 I ' , ! g T 3 c , T e p h r o c h r o n o l o g y , p e t r o l o g y , a n d s t r a t i g r a p h y o f s o m e P l e i s t o c e n e d e p o s i t s i n t h e C e n t r a l P l a i n s U . s . A . : u n p u b l i s h e d P h . D . d i s se r ta t i on , Lou i s i ana s ta te Un i ve rs i t y a t Ba ton Rouge , ! 9 .7 p . , ava i l ab le f r om Un ive rs i t y M ic ro f i lms , Ann A rbo r ' M ich igan ' , 1973d, F iss iont rack dat ing Ple is tocene Tephra of the central prains u.s. , Abstracts of the Ninth congress, rnternat ional union for Quaternary Research, Christchurch' New Zeal-and' P' 3I-32' C h a n b e r l i n , T . C . , 1 8 9 6 , E d i t o r i a l : . J o u r . G e o ] . 1 V . 4 , P . 9 7 2 8 7 6 . Chr is t iansen, R.L . l and B lank , H.R. , J r . , Lg72, Vo lcan ic s t ra t ig raphy o f the euarernary rhyol i te plateau in Yel lowstone National-?ark: U'S' Geol ' Survey Pro f . PaPer 729 'B , 18 P '


This paper focuses on the digital image authentication and forgery localization using demosaicing artifacts. The aim is to make an algorithm allowing a bridge between the color filter array pattern and demosaicing algorithm estimation, and thus the statistical analysis of demosaicing artifacts in spatial domain to reinforce the authentication and localization performance. After analysing the evolution of demosaicing traces privately acquisition pipeline, a robust feature statistic characterizing demosaiced digital images is first developed on the thought of the noise residue of green channel. Such a feature statistic may be a smaller amount sensitive to the edges problem because only the graceful region of green channel is used within the event. Next, one normal mixture model is proposed to elucidate the probability distribution of feature statistics for both original and tampered images. Therefore, normality tests are often used to authenticate automatically digital images. The authentication performance are often further improved by human interpretation of supported graphic tools. Finally, a penalized expectation-maximization algorithm is used to localize forged areas in tampered images. Numerous comparative studies on four wellknown datasets show that the developed algorithm yields better performance and robustness than existing forensics algorithms of the same kind. Keywords— Demosaicing traces, digital image authentication, forgery localization, normal mixture model, penalized expectation-maximization algorithm.


Tuberculosis of the pericardium is not an unusual observation at necropsy, 1 particularly in cases of advanced disseminated tuberculosis; but the presence of clinically manifest, or clinically primary, tuberculous pericarditis is unusual in adults and rare in children. 2 Recognition of this lesion during life has led to a small number of observations on the effects of increased intrapericardial pressure on various circulatory phenomena; 3 that these phenomena are sometimes peculiar and not altogether in accord with those produced by experimental cardiac tamponade 4 is understandable when one keeps in mind that the pathologic changes in the visceral and parietal pericardial membranes complicate the physiologic alterations produced by excess pericardial fluid alone. The majority of writers have felt that the most satisfactory treatment for this condition, in addition to the familiar measures used against any active tuberculous infection, consists of paracenteses, performed as frequently as necessary for the relief of


An acid-base titration of boron in silica refractory was established.After being dissolved with water and filtrated,the sample solution was adjusted to pH 7.0and added with mannitol as reinforcer.Phenothalin was used as titration indicator of the end point,and sodium hydroxide was used as titrant to turn the solution to red.The effect of dissolution methods,temperature,sample particle size and mannitol dosage was tested.It showed when the sample was ground to 80μm,the titration effect was optimal with 6g of mannitol in water-dissolved sample at room temperature.The proposed method was applied to determine two silica refractory samples,whose results were consistent with those of inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry.The relative standard deviation(RSD,n=6)was 0.016%-0.017%.


The status of health care services is one of the critical measures particularly mother's health. It is important to the communities, families and the nation due to its immediate effects on the health of the mother and survival of the new born.Maternal health care includes antenatal care (ANC), Safe Delivery and Postnatal Care (PNC). Timely Investigation of the health of the mother is essential in order to prevent and diagnosis the likely complications and problems that may develop in the process of child birth. Despite the various interventions of the government to provide better health care services to the pregnant woman, access to these services remain low particularly in rural areas. This paper is an attempt to study status of the utilisation of maternal health care services and the various factors associated with the utilisation of it in rural Arunachal Pradesh. Methods: The Study is descriptive in nature and cross sectional in design. Sample size was determined by the number of households in a particular village.  From each selected villages 15 percent of the households were covered. The total number of households surveyed was 279. As the sampling was Purposive in nature only those households in which women had at least one delivery in the last five years preceding the survey, were selected for interview. The purposiveness of sampling was further disaggregated to snow balling techniques. Snowballing is a purposive sampling approach, where one participant gives the researcher the name of another subject, who in turn provides the name of another, and so on. It works as a chain sequence of recommendation or introduction from one respondent to another. Main Results: It is found that the utilisation of maternal health care services in the Mebo sub- division is far above the state average. About 69.2 percent of women who had at least one delivery in the last five years preceding the survey had received ANC. As far as institutional delivery is concern, it is lower than the state average at 33.3 percent. Further only 17.2 percent of the women and new born received post-natal care. The home delivery (66.7 percent) is found to be twice that of the institutional delivery (33.3 percent). Response to Post-natal care is very low as 82.8 percent of the women did not access it. Age, Educational status, occupation, previous history of pregnancy of the mother and distance from the health facility influence the utilisation of health care services.


The present study aimed to investigate the effect of the stimulatory heterotrimeric GTP‐binding (Gs) protein signaling system on cisplatin‐induced apoptosis of lung cancer cells and its underlying mechanism as an attempt to develop a novel strategy to improve the therapeutic efficacy of cisplatin. Overexpression of the constitutively active α subunit of Gs (GαsQL) in A549 human lung cancer cells increased cisplatin‐induced apoptosis, and knockdown of Gαs with small hairpin RNA decreased the percentage of apoptotic cells. GαsQL increased the expression of the proapoptotic proteins B‐cell leukemia/lymphoma‐2 genes (Bcl‐2) homologous antagonist killer protein (Bak) and Bcl‐2 associated X protein (Bax), and decreased the expression of the antiapoptotic proteins Bcl‐2 and Bcl‐Xlong protein. Knockdown of Bak blocked the augmentative effects of GαsQL. GαsQL decreased the degradation rate of the Bak protein, and increased Bak mRNA transcript levels. GαsQL increased Bak‐luciferase activity in a protein kinase A and cyclic AMP response element‐dependent manner. GαsQL also augmented cisplatin‐induced apoptosis of H1299 human lung cancer cells that lack functional p53. From this study, it is concluded that Gαs augments cisplatin‐induced apoptosis of lung cancer cells partially through upregulating Bak expression by increasing transcription and by decreasing the rate of protein degradation. (Cancer Sci 2009; 100: 1069–1074)


We report on large scale non‐equilibrium atomistic simulations of shock‐induced solid‐solid phase transformations. As an example the α → e transformation in iron and the A11 (GaI)→cI12 (GaII) transformation in gallium are discussed. The use of semi‐empirical descriptions of the inter‐atomic forces and today's parallel computing resources allow for a quantitative comparison of the theoretically calculated data with the experimental results. The discussion will include the crystallographic orientation dependence on the transformation process in single crystals. Simulations containing several millions of iron atoms reveal that above a critical shock strength, many small close‐packed grains nucleate in the shock‐compressed bcc crystal. For shock waves in the [001] direction the initially small grains are growing on a picosecond time scale to form larger, energetically favored, grains. For the two other major crystallographic directions, here the annealing processes are slower and and have not finished within the time scales accessible with atomistic simulations (up to 50 ps). Furthermore, crystals shocked in [111] direction produce solitary waves ahead of the actual shock front.We report on large scale non‐equilibrium atomistic simulations of shock‐induced solid‐solid phase transformations. As an example the α → e transformation in iron and the A11 (GaI)→cI12 (GaII) transformation in gallium are discussed. The use of semi‐empirical descriptions of the inter‐atomic forces and today's parallel computing resources allow for a quantitative comparison of the theoretically calculated data with the experimental results. The discussion will include the crystallographic orientation dependence on the transformation process in single crystals. Simulations containing several millions of iron atoms reveal that above a critical shock strength, many small close‐packed grains nucleate in the shock‐compressed bcc crystal. For shock waves in the [001] direction the initially small grains are growing on a picosecond time scale to form larger, energetically favored, grains. For the two other major crystallographic directions, here the annealing processes are slower and and have not finished within ...


Measuring sentence similarity is a classic topic in natural language processing. Light-weighted similarities are still of particular practical significance even when deep learning models have succeeded in many other tasks. Some light-weighted similarities with more theoretical insights have been demonstrated to be even stronger than supervised deep learning approaches. However, the successful light-weighted models such as Word Mover's Distance [Kusner et al., 2015] or Smooth Inverse Frequency [Arora et al., 2017] failed to detect the difference from the structure of sentences, i.e. order of words. To address this issue, we present Recursive Optimal Transport (ROT) framework to incorporate the structural information with the classic OT. Moreover, we further develop Recursive Optimal Similarity (ROTS) for sentences with the valuable semantic insights from the connections between cosine similarity of weighted average of word vectors and optimal transport. ROTS is structural-aware and with low time complexity compared to optimal transport. Our experiments over 20 sentence textural similarity (STS) datasets show the clear advantage of ROTS over all weakly supervised approaches. Detailed ablation study demonstrate the effectiveness of ROT and the semantic insights.


A subshift $X$ is called $c$-block gluing if for any integer $n\geq c$ and any two blocks $u$ and $v$ from the language of $X$ there exists an element of $X$ which has occurrences of $u$ and $v$ at distance $n$. In this note we study the topological entropies of $c$-block gluing binary one-dimensional subshifts. We define the set $R_c$ to be the set of entropies of all $c$-block-gluing subshifts, and $R=\cup_{c\in \mathbb{N}} R_c$. We show that the set $R$ is dense, while $R_1$ and $R_2$ are not; in particular, they have isolated points. We conjecture that the same holds for any $c$.


Commercial samples of Quebec maple syrup (1, amber; 3, dark) were extracted successively with diethyl ether, an acid solution, a basic solution, and then finally dichloromethane. Capillary gas chromatographic analysis of the dichloromethane extract indicated the presence of methylpyrazine, 2,3-dimethylpyrazine, 2,5-dimethylpyrazine, 2,6-dimethylpyrazine, ethylpyrazine, and trimethylpyrazine. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry confirmed the presence of the six pyrazine compounds and also suggested the presence of the 2-ethyl-6-methylpyrazine


By taking the influence of events as foundation,modern cities make event tourism planning to promote urban competitive power.However,discussion to the event tourism is still less and incomplete.With analysis to the necessity and function,cultural mechanism drivers,social participation drivers and social effect drivers of event tourism,this article conducts multi-level discussions on how to develop urban event tourism.It is concluded that significant events take the whole world as goal market,symbolic events take domestic place as goal market,regional events take regional place as goal market,and local events take locality as goal market.Finally,two major problems are proposed on how to develop urban event tourism.


actual performance of this simulator is compared with the performance of the prototype and the difA low cost air mass 2 solar simulator isin ferences re discussed. We also discuss lamp life, A low cost air mass 2 solar simulator is in s nd bulb oding, and long term changes in operation at the Lewis Research Center. It is lamp and bulb coding, and long term changes in used in the testing of flat plate collectors for solar energy utilization. The design of the As originally designed, the simulator provides only simulator and performance of a small prototype the direct (or near direct) component of incident have already been reported. Collector performances solar irradiance. For many flat plate collectors, have also been determined and reported. This this may be sufficient. However, other collectors paper will discuss modifications and improvements may perform differently under diffuse irradiance on the simulator and present the performance (hemispherical). Hence, it was decided to add the characteristics of total irradiane, uniformity capability of simulating the diffuse component of irradiance, spectral distribution and beam in addition to the direct component. subtense angle. The simulator consists of an array of 143 tungsten SIMULATOR DESCRIPTION halogen lamps hexagonally spaced in a plane. A corresponding array of 143 plastic Fresnel lenses shapes the output beam such that the simulator The solar simulator is located in the indoor test shapes the output eam such that the simulator \ facility at the Lewis Research Center. A view of irradiates a 1.2 m by 1.2 m area with uniformThe simulator collimated irradiance. (Uniformity L10 beam the facility is shown in figure 1. The simulator subtense angle 12() is suspended to irradiate the collector on the floor below at zero incidence angle and at a separation distance of 4.6 meters (15 ft). This Since the output of each individual lamp varies position is adjustable through angles of 25 to with manufacturing tolerances, the uniformity of 720 from the horizontal to accommodate different irradiance can be optimized by proper placement collector tilt angles. At the separation distance, of the lamps in the array. Details are given the irradiated area is 1.2 by 1.2 meters (4 by concerning individual lamp output measurements the irradiated area is 1.2 by 1.2 meters (4 by and placement of the lamps. Data on lamp life and 4 f cost are given. The simulator's dimensions are approximately 1.9 by 1.9 meters (75 by 75 in) by 1.3 meters (50 in) Originally, only the direct component of solar deep The rear section tapers to a 0.8 meter (30 irradiance was simulated. Since the diffuse deep The rear section tapers Saffect the performance of some in) diameter opening for exhausting the cooling component may affect the performance of some air. Construction is mainly aluminum. Total collectors, the capability to simulate it is being weight is estimated at00 poaluminum. Total added. An approach to this diffuse addition is discussed. A cutaway view of the simulator is shown in figure 2. The square frontal section is covered with 143 hexagonal lenses in a closely fitted array. A INTRODUCTION structurally reinforced plate containing 143 lamps is parallel to and behind the lens section. In an ongoing program at the Lewis Research Center, It is approximately 28 centimeters (11 in) from flat plate collectors are being tested for the lenses. The optical axis of each lamp is ORIGINAL PAGE IS OF POOR QUALITY coincident with that of its respective lens. The Lamp Cooling and Lamp Life lenses are flat plastic (acrylic) Fresnels having a focal length of 25 cm. (10 in) and a circular The lamp manufacturer specifies an average life of groove density of 39.4 lines per cm (100 lines 35 hours at rated voltage (120 volts), providing per in). They are commercially available in 17 cm the lamp is operated horizontally. Since life of (7 in) squares which are then cut into hexagons a tungsten filament lamp is inversely proportional measuring 15 cm (6 in) across the flats. The to approximately the 13th power of the voltages, lamps (General Electric Quartzline ELH) are also calculated life at 105 volts and 115 volts would commercially available and intended for use in be 201 and 61 hours, respectively. Although, film projectors. Rated 300 watts at 120 volts, calculated life is seldom achieved in practice, it each lamp consists of a tungsten halogen bulb does provide useful approximations. The first set fixed into a stippled, front surface dichroic of lamps exhibited failures beginning at 31 hours. coated glass, open ellipsoidal reflector. Surprisingly, operating at reduced voltage apparentr ly had no effect on life. Forced air cooling of the lamps is provided by an exhauster motor with a blower cayacity of 2.2 The lamps were operated over a range of voltages cubic meters per second (4700 ft /min). The from 95 to 115 volts. Based on a maximum operatdirection of the cooling air in the simulator ing voltage 115 volts the calculated life should is shown by the air flow arrows in figure 2. Air be 61 hours when in reality it was ich less. The enters the enclosed simulator between the lenses manufacturer recommends that the base temperature and lamps through eight air filters. It then of the lamp (at the surface) never exceed 288 C. enters the lamp plate openings adjacent to each Thermocouple measurements verified that this lamp and is redirected with deflecting vanes temperature was indeed never exceeded. We then (figure 3) to pass over the rear reflector surreturned a number of failed lamps to the manufaces and bases of the lamps. It is finally facturer for inspection. Their analysis indicated exhausted to atmosphere through a flexible 0.8 too low an operating bulb temperature. Overmeter (30 in) diameter duct. cooling of the bulb interfered with the tungsten halogen cycle leading to premature failure. Power to the lamps is controlled through two switches at the remote console. Each switch The most expedient solution for our simulator was operates a motor driven bank of autotransformers, to reduce fan speed, and thus bulb cooling. Too and the output voltage of each bank is directed great a reduction though, could threaten lamp life to half the lamps of the simulator. Another by increasing base temperature. The motor and fan switch permits the.voltage readout of each bank pulley wheel arrangement was modified and fan speed on a common digital voltmeter. A more complete was reduced. Improvement was noted in the second description of the entire simulator is furnished set of lamps, which showed over 60 hours of life i reference2 1. Total cost was less than $10,800/ before the first failure. Some thought has been m ($1000/ft ). given toward maximizing this particular improvement which would involve measurements relating bulb and base temperatures with exhauster motor speed-or a OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE AND IMPROVEMENTS damper setting) for different operating lamp voltages. Access to the simulator for this purpose has Since becoming operational, the simulator has not been made available as of this writing. accumulated over 150 hours of running time on solar collector tests. Results of tests on 5 Lamp Variation, Measurement and Placement collectors have been reported. Operating experience gained during this period indicated Initial measurements of total irradiance districertain areas in need of improvements, and bution in the test plane showed uniformity poorer modifications were made to upgrade simulator than expected. Several regions of excessive brightperformance. The modifications had to do with ness were also in evidence. Determining the cause (1) lens preparation and mounting, (2) lamp of the nonuniformity led to the measurement of cooling and lamp life, and (3) lamp variation, the relative radiant outputs of each of the 143 measurement, and placement. These are described lamps through its corresponding lens at a constant below. voltage setting. This was accomplished by means of a specially built radiometer. The relative Lens Preparatiop and Mounting readings ranged from 67 to 93, about + 16% variation from the average. In addition, five readings Shortly after becoming operational, several lenses were abnormally high, ranging from 103 to 124. cracked, although two thermocoupled lenses showed Under close examination, these five lamps were no excessive temperature during operation. Cracks found to have one or more turns of the coiled filadeveloped at the mounting holes and at the outside ment electrically shorted and drawing excessive edges of the lens. Stresses at the hole were current. These lamps were discarded and replaced. eliminated by cushioning with a fabric-reinforced neoprene wapher between each screw and the lens. Subsequent measurements confirmed the +16% spread The cracks at the edges originated at small nicks in lamp differences for each set of 143 lamps used. occurring during the cutting of the lenses from Shorted filaments have not recurred. These difthe square into its hexagonal shape. New lenses ferences were not uncovered during tests on the were cut approximately 0.08 cm (1/32 in) over12 lamp prototype (Ref. 1) when +5% uniformity of size, and then sanded to final size. No further irradiance in the test phase was achieved. Imcracking occurred, proving uniformity by limiting lamps employed to a narrow band at the center of the deviation


Summary — Crosslinking copolymerization of N-vinylformamide (NVF) and divinylbenzene (DVB) has been carried out in reverse suspension in presence of water which serves as porosity generating feature (porogene). The continuous phase was provided by silicone oil or paraffin oil. In silicone oil the copolymer resulted in form of regular spheres what was not the case when paraffin oil was used. After base hydrolysis anion-exchangers were obtained having primary amine groups attached to the backbone. Exchange capacity, degree of swelling, water content in air conditioned resin and the specific surface were determined.


Numerical investigations have been carried out to examine the characteristics of unsteady freezing heat transfer in water-saturated porous media. As a physical model, a two-dimensional vertical cavity is considered. The temperature of the porous media is initially maintained at the temperature of the hot wall. The vertically opposite wall is abruptly cooled below the freezing temperature. The equation of momentum includes Forchheimer's extension as the resistance to flow in the porous media. For the governing equations in the frozen and unfrozen porous layers, the transformations of variables are performed by the boundary fixing method, and the finite-difference equations are obtained by integrating the governing equations over the control volume. The successive overrelaxation method is utilized to solve the equations numerically. Modified Nusselt numbers are introduced to characterize the unsteady freezing heat transfer in water-saturated porous media. The flow patterns and the temperature distributions ...


It is necessary to evaluate the safety of power plant in order to ensure its safe production. This paper measured and predicted the safety of power plant according to the uncertainty cloud theory, using the comprehensive evaluation method by applying system engineering. The evaluation index system was built according to scientific and representative principles while the expert judgment method was used to determine the weight, and the inverse normal cloud generator was taken to establish evaluation algorithm. Compared with other evaluation methods of level analysis, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and principal component analysis, this method presents the safety evaluation index of power plant at the same time with a measure of fuzziness and randomness. Some specific examples are used to verify that this method is reliable, applicable, and provided a new theory and algorithm for the safety evaluation of power plant.


During the past three decades, the Israeli military occupation brought about a deterioration of the environment and infrastructure services, and the depletion of natural resources in the Palestinian lands. For instance, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights reports that since 1967, Israeli authorities have uprooted more than one-half million trees, 70 percent of which were olive trees.


Context: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited disease that leads to death at a young age. No definite treatment has yet been found to CF. Therefore, it is important to find new therapeutic and medicinal approaches for CF. Flaxseed is an antioxidant dietary and anti-inflammatory supplement with a high omega-3 fatty acid content. In this article, the mechanism of action potential of Flaxseed as a novel supplemental treatment for CF is discussed. Evidence Acquisition: In this review, we searched Iranian Traditional Medicine (ITM) that Zakhire-Kharazmshahi and Qanoon fi al-teb are two examples of such sources. Then, from inception to October 2020, data sources including Google Scholar and Pubmed in the English language were comprehensively explored for the mechanism for action potentials of this herbal remedy on CF. Results: Flaxseed may possess effects on CF gastrointestinal disorders due to its properties, including consumer acceptance as a functional food, being the best non-animal reservoir of omega 3 fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid )ALA(, and soluble fiber, as well as its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects with modulating intestinal microbiota. Conclusion: Regarding the mentioned potential mechanisms of action, it could be hypothesized that Flaxseed can serve as a novel medicine for CF.


To combine the merits of fiber communication and wireless communication, photonics-aided terahertz-wave (THz-wave) technology has become a popular technology in recent years. In this paper, a 92 Gbit/s photonics-aided 0.3-THz wireless transmission system based on digital sub-carrier multiplexing (DSCM) is proposed and simulated. In order to compensate the phase noise, both Viterbi-Viterbi and maximum likelihood (VV&ML) algorithm and decision directed digital phase lock loop (DD-PLL) method are considered and compared. According to the simulation results, DSCM based scheme can provide better performance than single carrier (SC) based scheme in the case of low received optical power (ROP) or input optical power (IOP) while there is no advantage in the case of high ROP or IOP. For SC based scheme, DD-PLL has 1 dB sensitivity gain compared with VV&ML when BER drops from 10-3 to 10-4, while 2 dB sensitivity gain was obtained for DSCM based scheme for ROP. For SCM based scheme, DD-PLL has 1 dB sensitivity gain compared with VV&ML when BER drops from 10-3 to 10-4. On the whole, DD-PLL outperforms VV&ML in terms of performance in high ROP case for both SC and SCM based scheme. Besides, DD-PLL has lower computation complexity than VV&ML.


We present fabrication and optical time-resolved photoresponse characterization of MgB2 superconducting thin films. The films were prepared on crystalline and flexible plastic substrates by vacuum co-deposition of B and Mg precursors and high-temperature annealing in an Ar or vacuum atmosphere. The post-annealed films exhibited very smooth surfaces and amorphous structures with nanocrystal inclusions. The best films exhibited the critical temperature Tc of up to 38 K, the transition width of 1 K, and the current density jc at 4.2 K of about 106 A/cm2. In our pump-probe photoresponse experiments, we used 100-fs-wide optical pulses generated by a Ti:Sapphire laser. The pump and the probe beams had 800-nm wavelength and the measurements were performed in the temperature range from 3.5 K to room temperature. The transient reflectivity change (ΔR/R) signals exhibited around 300-fs (10%-90%) risetime. At room temperature and far above Tc, (ΔR/R) the transient reflectivity change was characterized by a ~160-fs, single-exponential decay, interpreted as the electron-Debye-phonon interaction time. Below 60 K and in the superconducting state, the ΔR/R photoresponse was biexponential, with the initial femtosecond decay followed by a much slower, several-ps-long relaxation. We associate the latter slow relaxation with the electron-phonon interaction related to the Cooper pair recombination dynamics. The existence of this signal above the nominal Tc of our films, we tentatively interpret as the presence of superconducting fluctuations in our MgB2 films. Our work gives the first insight into the carrier dynamics in MgB2 by time-resolved experimental studies of the Cooper pair breaking and thermalization mechanisms for the films perturbed by femtosecond optical excitations.


The internal gas pressure during clad vent set (CVS) welding is vented through aligned vent notches in each cup. For Galileo, Ulysses, and most of Cassini CVS production, the vent-notch dimensional requirements for both cups were as follows: (1) vent-notch depth, 0.15/0.20 mm; (2) vent-notch width, 0.25/0.35 nun; (3) bottom of vent-notch comers, sharp to full radius; (4) top of vent-notch edge, 0.05 mm maximum break; and (5) maximum variation between vent notch and grit-blasted triangle centerlines, 3{degrees}. During the fuel encapsulation operation (with {sup 238}PuO{sub 2} fuel pellets) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), excessive bulges or blowouts at the CVS closure-weld tie-in location occurred with 11.8% (27 out of 229) of the flight-quality welds made with the aforementioned standard vent-notch dimensions. These bulges and blowouts are primarily the result of inadequate venting of the increased gas pressure during the thermal cycle of the closure-weld operation. Proper venting is dependent mostly upon the weld parameters and the total vent-notch area. Because of the increased incidence of bulges/blowouts in the {sup 238}PuO{sub 2}-fueled CVS units, LANL personnel requested that consideration be given to increasing the vent-notch size to minimize further the loss of CVS hardware and the potential loss of {sup 238}PuO{sub 2} pellets. Thus, increasing further the production yield of the closure-weld operation would avoid potentially severe schedule delays.


The age dynamics of the Krylov pine growth, formation and stability in dry-steppe zone forest belts of Transbaikalia Region is considered. The research results testify that 40 year old Krylov pine continues to grow well in height and on the diameter, has rather high current amount of growth, good covering needles, it is not damaged by timber worms and diseases, it has good renewal near the forest belt.


Abstract The aim of this article was to determine the effect of convective drying parameters on the mechanical properties of Oak (Quersus canariensis) and stone pine (Pinus pinea) wood boards (dimensions 20 × 50 × 300 mm−3). Dried wood samples were subjected to flexural and bending loading tests to determine the mechanical properties. Results indicated that drying time, modulus of rupture (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE) of dried samples decreased with increasing drying temperature. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that only the MOE of oak wood in axial compression test was affected by drying temperature. Means mechanical properties of dried woods boards were compared to those for air-natural drying revealing that convective drying at 55 °C has a lesser impact on mechanical characteristics of end product. Highest MOR and MOE means values in three-point static bending and axial compression tests of two woods were observed at 55 °C while the lowest means values were recorded at 85 °C. Results revealed that air-natural drying has a negative impact on the flexural and axial compression properties of two types of wood.


We develop a new protocol based on Y-function for accurate statistical extraction of electrical parameters of High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) devices for GaN technology. Relevant electrical parameters such as oxide capacitance, threshold voltage, effective mobilities and access resistance are extracted. This protocol has been verified over a large range of channel lengths for two normally-off device HEMT GaN wafers having different levels of access resistances.


The recovery of gallic acid (GA) from GA processing wastewater was studied via solvent extraction. Tributyl phosphate (TBP)/4-methyl-2-pentanone (MIBK)/n-hexane, TBP/n-octanol/n-hexane and n-hexanol were used as the extractants. The effects of the component proportion in the mixed extraction solvent, stirring speed, extraction time, pH, phase ratio (extraction solvent/GA solution), temperature and salt on extraction rate were investigated. After univariate crossover experiments, the optimum conditions were obtained as a component proportion in the mixed extraction solvent of 1:2:1 at pH 1.5 with a phase ratio of 1:1, stirring speed of 150 rpm, extraction time of 60 s and temperature of 30 °C. The maximum extraction rates through the one-stage process were 88.2%, 82.5% and 76.7% for TBP/MIBK/n-hexane, TBP/n-octanol/n-hexane and n-hexanol, respectively. FT-IR spectroscopy was used to characterize the extracted organic phases. Afterwards, Box–Behnken design was used to optimize the three most influential parameters including pH, temperature and phase ratio whose values were optimized to 0.5, 30 °C and 1:1, respectively and subsequently, the extraction rate through the one-stage process using TBP/MIBK/n-hexane, TBP/n-octanol/n-hexane and n-hexanol further increased to 95.5%, 86.8% and 78.1%, respectively. TBP/MIBK/n-hexane was proved to be the most effective extractant in this study and more than 94.4% of GA was recovered through a four-stage stripping process. Finally, TBP/MIBK/n-hexane was used in actual GA processing wastewater with 92.5% of GA being extracted and more than 88.7% was recovered after the four-stage extraction and stripping process. The results can be referred to for the selection and design of processes to efficiently recover GA from GA processing wastewater.


Market power refers to the ability of sellers or buyers to exert a perceptible control over market outcomes that enables them to attain higher individual welfare levels than they would achieve under competitive market conditions. In traditional microeconomic analysis, market power is deened in terms of price and quantity decisions. Market power is said to exist when sellers or buyers have power over prices, in the sense that their quantity decisions have a perceptible innuence on the prices that are paid for these quantities Varian (1992, Chapter 14)]. A commonly used proxy for market power is the extent to which the price actually paid for a good or service deviates from the marginal cost of producing that good or service, for price is equal to marginal cost in a competitive market. Market power accruing to sellers is referred to as monopoly power and market power accruing to buyers is referred to as monopsony power. Monopoly power is often illustrated in terms of a single seller facing a downward sloping demand curve, and monopsony power is often illustrated in terms of a single buyer facing an upward sloping supply curve. For example, in labor economic textbooks, monopoly power is typically analyzed in terms of a labor union that faces a downward sloping labor demand curve and engages in collective bargaining with employers to determine wages and employment. Monopsony power is typically analyzed in terms of an employer facing a labor supply curve that slopes upward due to factors such as search costs and the need to pay eeciency wage premiums to elicit and maintain satisfactory eeort levels from individual workers. See, for example, Ehrenberg and Smith (1997). These traditional microeconomic illustrations of market power in terms of single agents optimizing against a xed demand or supply curve are misleading in their simplicity. When markets are more realistically modelled as a network of multiple sellers and buyers interacting strategically over time under possibly asymmetric structural conditions, the complex nature of the relationships linking market structure to market behavior and market power are more clearly revealed. For example, the extent of market power at any given time will now depend on aspects of market structure such as the relative size distributions of sellers and buyers Barla (1998)] as well as on their relative total numbers. In particular, it will depend on how many units 1


Radiation damage studies were performed on polystyrene and poly(vinyltoluene) samples containing different concentrations of either an antioxidant (A O-2) or a plasticizer (PP-4). In addition, parallel studies were carried out utilizing samples of these polymers prepared in the presence of cross-linking agents such as NPG, HDA, and DVB. The samples were irradiated using a {sup 60} Co source to total doses of 1 and 10 Mrad, at a dose rate of approximately 1 Mrad/h. Transmittance measurements were recorded before and immediately after irradiation, and after oxygen annealing. These experiments showed that none of these agents improved the radiation resistance of polystyrene and poly(vinyltoluene) with regard to their optical properties.


Business and information technology alignment plays an important role in the business operation, especially in today's growing competition environment. It can make IT fulfill the business needs and IT value realize. Unfortunately, in spite of the improvements, alignment continues to the top executive surveys as a critical initiative. Alignment needs special skills, tools and methods. Enterprise architecture (EA) is an emerging approach which has been proven in some organizations to meet alignment demand. This paper introduces the alignment background, analyzes some alignment issues, and presents a brief introduction of EA framework's common components. Finally, a practical method is described to implement the alignment so as to improve organizations innovation competency.


In the paper neural network is applied to fault dlagnosis system to overeome shortcomings of traditional fault dlagnosis and reduce error brought by single method.Furthermore beeause fault symptom space have eomplieated non-linear relations,the mathematical model of diagnosis system is difficult to get.Artifieial neural networks proposes a new way for this problem.Thereby neural network is used as fault-classifying implement in exploit ting the system.


This paper reports the first universal and versatile database on aggregate materials for the field of aggregate science research. At the current stage, the database (http://18.104.22.168:8080/) contains over 1000 entries of organic aggregate material systems (mainly luminescent systems at the current stage) with a unique data structure which is designed particularly for aggregate materials and containing the photophysics and physicochemical properties of the compounds in different statuses of aggregation, including dilute solution form, pristine solid‐state, stable crystalline, and nanoaggregates formed in solvents. The web‐based interface of the database provided functions to index, search, manipulate, fetch and deposit data entries. In addition, a background calculation service optimizes the chemical structure of new entries on different levels of accuracies. The database also provided background API for interactive developments of prediction or regression models based on machine‐learning algorithms.


Abstract A new series of pyridines 2a,b , (1,8) naphthyridines 3a,b and diazepines 4a,b were synthesized in one-pot reaction under phase-transfer catalysis conditions (PTC) starting with cyanoketene S,S-acetals 1 and cyanothioacetamide, cyanoacetamide or cyanoacetohydrazide in different molar ratios. The reaction of 2a with halo compounds in equimolar ratio gave thienopyridines 5a-d , while on using 1:2 molar ratio afforded pyrrolothienopyridines 6a-d. Also, bis thieno (1,8) naphthyridines 7a-d , bis-pyrrolo (1,8) naphthyridine 9 and bis (1,6) naphthyridines 10a-c were obtained by treating (1,8) naphthyridine 3a with the suitable reagents.


Damping control for packaged micro mechanical devices, such as an accelerometer, is desired to achieve wide frequency range by preventing the overdamping and suppressing the resonance. For capacitive detection type devices, which have narrow gap in a sealed cavity, the control of the cavity pressure is required for the damping control. We developed a novel cavity pressure control method using non-evaporable getters (NEG) and inert gas in anodically bonded glass-silicon structure. From the experiments using deflection of thin silicon diaphragm, the cavity pressure could be controlled at 120 and 5900Pa as designed. In application to the accelerometer, vibration behavior of seismic mass was studied experimentally and simulated by using Molecular Gas film Lubrication (MGL) equation. The result indicates that the critical damping under controlled pressure can be well designed to achieve wide frequency range.


The Ka-band radio spectrum is now being used for a wide variety of applications. This paper highlights the use of Ka-band as a frequency for precise deep space navigation based on a set of reference beacons provided by extragalactic quasars which emit broadband noise at Ka-band. This quasar-based celestial reference frame is constructed using X/Ka-band (8.4/32 GHz) from fiftyfive 24-hour sessions with the Deep Space Network antennas in California, Australia, and Spain. We report on observations which have detected 464 sources covering the full 24 hours of Right Ascension and declinations down to −45 deg. Comparison of this X/Ka-band frame to the international standard S/X-band (2.3/8.4 GHz) ICRF2 shows wRMS agreement of ~200 micro-arcsec (μas) in α cos δ and ~300 μas in δ. There is evidence for systematic errors at the 100 μas level. Known errors include limited SNR, lack of instrumental phase calibration, tropospheric refraction mis-modeling, and limited southern geometry. The motivation for extending the celestial reference frame to frequencies above 8 GHz is to access more compact source morphology for improved frame stability and to support spacecraft navigation for Ka-band based NASA missions.


Although the key distinguishing feature of Islamic finance is compliance with Sharīʿah, there is criticism from various quarters on the Sharīʿah compliance of its products. However, there is no objective way to assess the Sharīʿah compliance of Islamic financial contracts. This article develops a structured framework for analysing Sharīʿah compliance of Islamic financial contracts by deconstructing them and developing principles of evaluation based on concepts from Islamic legal theory. Other than providing a framework to assess Sharīʿah compliance of Islamic financial contracts, this article also alludes to an important issue regarding the contracts' flexibility. Using concepts from Islamic legal theory, the article classifies different contractual stipulations according to their legal weight, and identifies how legal perspectives on the requirements of compliance can determine the flexibility of contracts. An evaluative framework is used to assess the Sharīʿah compliance of an actual muḍārabah (silent partnership) contract and finds it to be defective.


IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to be a chemical scientist or engineer these days without an acute awareness of the challenges that face this world when it comes to energy. One of the major themes of the 2011 International Year of Chemistry (IYC) is energy and sustainability. All the IYC events that I have attended—the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization IYC opening and the official IYC events in the U.S., South Africa, Israel, the Philippines, Jordan, and Brazil—have expressed the urgency of our growing energy needs and climate-change challenges, and more pointedly, the responsibilities (as well as capabilities) of chemical scientists to address these challenges. The severe weather experienced in the middle and southern sections of the U.S. recently and the terrible drought and wildfires we are experiencing in my hometown of Albuquerque—whether connected with global climate change or not—add a personal anxiety to the urgency of the energy problem. In light of ...


THE INCREASING COSTS ASSOCIATED with tertiary study in Australia coupled with limited government assistance for education have had a significant impact on the preparation of students for the early childhood sector. Increasing costs have meant that a greater number of students than ever before need to undertake full- or part-time employment (Kember, 1999), which, paired with family responsibilities, challenges the more traditional university experience enjoyed by students in the past. Today's students are less likely to enrol in university programs straight from school. Rather, by means of a range of pathways following college training at Diploma level, employment for several years, marriage and families, they enter university with very different skills and very different expectations regarding study from those of previous generations of students. This article examines some of the changing structures and competing priorities in students' lives, as part of a larger investigation around the use of alternate pedagogies in teacher-education programs. It notes how one university is modifying its early childhood teacher-education programs to provide more equitable but still workable solutions for students challenged by their multiple life-roles.


This paper deals with the preliminary results of a detailed study based on the microfacies analysis and diagenetic settings of the Upper Cretaceous shallow water carbonate deposits from Borizana section, Kruja zone, Albania. In the Makareshi structure, the Upper Cretaceous deposits, in the mainly consists of limestones, dolomitic limestones and different levels of dolomite intercalations. The study was carried out after a systematic sampling of a total of 230 rock samples and then by studying selected thin sections from individual beds and from different parts of the same bed. 250 thin sections were studied from a 1000m thick section in order to analyse its sedimentology, microfacies assemblages and diagenetic featuress. Different types of microfacies mainly represented by laminated, peloidal and bioclastic grainstones along with presence of dolomitized microfacies at some levels were determined. Also different types of cement and diagenetic features such as compaction, dolomitization and neomorphism were also observed in Borizana section. All these microfacies associations and their diagenetic features indicate that this formation has been deposited in a restricted platform interior facies belt (FZ8, FZ9). DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n2p95


A ten-year-old girl with right conductive hearing loss was found to have unilateral congenital stapedial tendon ossification. Exploratory tympanotomy revealed absence of the incus long crus, anomaly of the stapes superstructure and a stapedial tendon ossification. After excision of the tendon and insertion of the cartilage piece between the malleus neck and the superstructure, her hearing was almost normal.


We present GALEX ultraviolet (125-300nm) images of Centaurus A over a 1.1 degree field. We detect UV emission from young stars and shocks at the interface between the outer jet and an HI cloud, at locations where the inner jet bends or is disrupted, and in the central disk. Although some of these star-forming regions were previously imaged with HST, not all have been. We also detect faint, diffuse UV emission from several regions where young stars are not obviously present. New radio images of the Northern Middle Lobe of Cen A may also be presented, depending on the progress of data reduction.


We discuss principles of optical surface quality assessment. The micro topography of well polished fused silica, CaF2 and Si surfaces was examined locally and by covering large sample areas. Power Spectral Densities (PSD) were used for consistent roughness description. Subsurface damage was detected by a modified white light interferometer technique and total scattering measurement.


The iron-manganese oxide (FeMn-ox) is a material that has carried great interest in recent years because of the promising application in environmental remediation, hydrogen production, and catalytic degradation of organic pollutants [1-3]. Since the strong relationship of structure and properties was found in the crystalline materials, the analysis of in-situ changes of the structure has carried attention due to constitute a useful tool for developing formation mechanisms [4, 5]. In addition, it is known that the energy content in the electron beam of the transmission electron microscope (TEM) can promote repositioning of the atomic species and structural changes in metal oxide nanoparticles [6]. Therefore, the beam energy can be used to induce a phase transformation of FeMn-ox nanoparticles. In this work, iron-manganese oxide (FeMn-ox) nanoparticles were synthesized by the hydrothermal method. Four aqueous solutions were required: sodium dodecyl sulfate (0.15 M), sodium hydroxide (2.5 M), iron (III) chloride (0.3 M), and manganese chloride (0.3 M). The solutions were mixed, and a total volume of 25 mL was introduced into an autoclave for heating the entire system at 80 ⁰ C, under an isothermal process, for 1h. Afterward, the sample was cleaned in an ultrasonic bath of deionized water. The characterizations were focused to study the phase transition in a single FeMn-ox nanoparticle by transmission


A small-scale wind turbine is an attractive renewable energy source, but its economic viability depends on wind speed. The aim of this study is to determine economic viability of small-scale wind turbine in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The potential energy generated has been determined by wind speed data and power curved of. Hourly wind speed data of Kuantan throughout 2015 was collected as the input. Then, a model of wind turbine was developed based on a commercial a 300W mini wind turbine. It was found that power generation is 3 times higher during northeast monsoon season at 15 m elevation. This proved that the northeast monsoon season has higher potential in generating power by wind turbine in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. However, only a total of 153.4 kWh/year of power can be generated at this condition. The power generator utilization factor PGUI or capacity ratio was merely 0.06 and it is not technically viable. By increasing the height of wind turbine to 60 m elevation, power generatio...


The objective of this work was to evaluate the forage yield of alfalfa cultival s in two sowing methods in experiments conducted under field co...


This paper summarizes the intension of creation thought and sesthetic creation thought,and discusses necessity and the feasibility of training mathematics sesthetic creation thought.The writer introduced emphatically how to help students in teaching practice form knowledge group piece,overall assurance problem and raising sesthetic consciousness level,so,raise the ability of the crucial essential factor of student mathematics sesthetic creation thought——mathematics sesthetic thinking in images,mathematics sesthetic intuition thought and mathematics sesthetic imagination.


We report the application of spray pyrolysis (SP) for the deposition of high quality zinc oxide (ZnO) films and the fabrication of thin-film transistors. The chemical, structural, optical, and electronic properties of as-deposited ZnO films are studied using infrared spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, UV-visible spectroscopic ellipsometry, and field-effect measurements. SP ZnO films are found to be uniform and polycrystalline with a band gap of 3.32 eV. ZnO transistors exhibit n-channel characteristics with electron mobility in the range 10–22 cm2/Vs. Device performance is found to depend on the work function of source/drain metal electrodes and on the device architecture employed.


Results Multiple areas were identified where reduction in WM FA in the PIGD vs. Controls reached significance (p<0.05). These were all found in the left hemisphere and included the Posterior and Superior corona radiate, Posterior thalamic radiation (include optic radiation), Retrolenticular part of internal capsule and Superior longitudinal fasciculus (Fig. 1). These changes were not present in the other two- regressor analyses. Covariance analysis failed to demonstrate a significant correlation between WM FA and PD scores. ROI cross tract analysis of mean FA identified a group specific trend (Fig. 2), with a significant group difference (Wilks' Lambda p=0.04). Bilateral moderate to marked leukoaraiosis was noted in 2 TDPD and 1 PIGD. Discussion Our analysis is the first to be successful in using DTI and TBSS to investigate the changes that occur in the WM of PwPD. We have demonstrated reduced Fractional Aniostrophy (FA) in the WM preferentially in PwPIGD. Posthoc analysis identified a significant subgroup concordance. These changes were unrelated to Parkinson Severity Scales that mainly portray motor symptoms. Lack of correlation with Cognitive Scores, however is likely to reflect limited cognitive impairment of the study group. Nevertheless it is known that the PIGD subgroup is particularly prone to developing dementia 3 In fact a recent study of PwPD with impaired executive function showed reduced left parietal WM FA 4 . Conclusion The tract specific findings located to the temporo-parietal association tracts & the subgroup concordance are consistent with a possible underlying mechanism of cognitive impairment PD.


Herein, we developed trimetallic FeCoPd polyhedral alloy nanoparticles (NPs) as a new highly efficient and promising bifunctional electrocatalyst for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction (HER, OER). The as-synthesized polyhedral NPs...


We show that two factors contribute to the forward-backward angular asymmetry in low-energy electron emission by ion impact: the deviation of the target potential from a pure Coulomb potential and the two-center effect. We perform calculations with various theories that include these two effects: the continuum-distorted-wave{endash}eikonal-initial-state (CDW-EIS) and the CDW approximations based on distorted-wave perturbation theory and a close-coupling calculation using a discrete representation of the continuum. The various theories give consistent results on the asymmetry but discrepancies remain between theory and experiment. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}


It is difficult to obtain the point estimation and confidence interval estimation of the parameters simultaneously by using a single model in the current reliability evaluation method of zero-failure data. If different methods are used for point estimation and interval estimation, the consistency of the results will be caused. In order to solve this problem, the reliability analysis of rolling bearings at rotating joints in an intelligent tool changing robot system without failure data is carried out, and a new reliability evaluation model based on zero-failure data is proposed. The E-Bayes method is adopted by the new model to derive the probability distribution curve of product life, and then the point estimation of product reliability is obtained. Then, the parameter Bootstrap method is used to re-extract new samples from the life probability distribution, and the interval estimation of product reliability is obtained from the new samples. The point estimation and interval estimation of product reliability are obtained simultaneously without reducing the credibility of the result. The case analysis shows that the new model not only meets the requirements ofreliability assessment, but also improves the accuracy of reliability interval estimation under Weibull distribution. The proposed model is validated to be feasible in the process of reliability evaluation of zero-failure data, and it is also convenient for engineering application.


Pressure drop of axial air flow through an annulus with a rotating inner cylinder was experimentally studied The results obtained are as follows : (1) When the outer cylinder surface is smooth, secondary flow called Taylor-vortexes occurs in the annular gap. Using a dimensionless number X=Re2a/Rw (Rea : Reynolds number, Rw : rotating Reynolds numbers ; Both number are based on hydraulic diameter.), the friction factor λ can be expressed by λ=2.2Xlt;-1/2> (X = 5000) (2) When the outer cylinder surface is deep-slotted, secondary flow occurs in the sloths. The friction factor can then be expressed by λ=3.25X-1/2 (X 4000).


[Objective]This study aimed to investigate the mutations of OmpF from an isolated antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli strain.[Methods]The mutant OmpF(mOmpF)from antibiotic resistant E.coli was amplified by PCR with Pfu DNA polymerase and ligated into the expression vector pET28a.Subsequently,the expression vector pET28-mOmpF was sequenced and analyzed by DNAMAN software and Swiss-Model online.[Result]Sequence analysis revealed that the open reading fragment of mOmpF was 903 bp long,which was mutated dramatically compared to that of the 1 020 bp long model OmpF.The DNA sequence shared only54.5%homology with OmpF.mOmpF was 44.6%identical to that of OmpF.Protein structure predication and analysis through Swiss-Model online suggested that the structure of mOmpF changed dramatically compared to OmpF.[Conclusion]The present study provided basis for further analyzing the relationships between the structure and functions of mOmpF from antibiotic resistant E.coli.


Purpose The elevation of intraocular pressure (IOP), a major risk factor in glaucoma, is an important parameter tracked in experimental models of this disease. However, IOP measurement in laboratory rodents is challenging and may not correlate with some key pathological events that occur in the development of glaucoma. The aims of this study were to quantify changes in ocular morphology in DBA/2J mice that develop spontaneous, age-dependent, pigmentary glaucoma and to check the possible correlation of these parameters with IOP. Method Eye morphology was evaluated with MRI in DBA/2J, DBA/2J-Gpnmb+/SjJ, and C57BL/6J female mice ages 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months. The animals were anesthetized with isoflurane. A planar receive-only surface coil (inner diameter = 10 mm) was placed over each animal's left eye and the image was acquired with a 7T small animal-dedicated magnetic resonance tomograph and T2-weighted TurboRARE sequence. Ocular dimensions were manually quantitated using OsiriX software. IOP was measured with rebound tonometry. Results In the control animals, no age-related changes in the ocular morphology were noted. Since 6 months of age, the anterior chamber deepening and elongation of the eyeballs of DBA/2J mice was detectable. We found a significant, positive correlation between IOP and axial length, anterior chamber area, or anterior chamber width in C57BL/6J mice but not in DBA/2J mice. However, after excluding the measurements performed in the oldest DBA/2J mice (i.e. analyzing only the animals ages 3 to 12 months), we demonstrated a significant positive correlation between IOP and anterior chamber width. Conclusion High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging of the eye area in mice enables reproducible and consistent measures of key dimensions of the eyeball. We observed age-dependent alterations in the eye morphology of DBA/2J mice that mostly affected the anterior chamber. We also demonstrated a correlation between some of the ocular dimensions and the IOP of C57Bl/6J mice and DBA/2J mice with moderately advanced glaucomatous pathology.


The present invention relates to a navigation device (10). The navigation device (10) is arranged to display navigation directions (3, 4, 5) on a display (18). The navigation device (10) is further arranged to receive a feed from a camera (24). The navigation device (10) is further arranged to display a combination of a camera image fr>m the feed fr>m the camera (24) and the navigation directions (3, 4, 5) on the display (18). ® KIPO & WIPO 2008


In the Egyptian deserts, new land reclamation projects have been recently established to meet the increasing-population growth rate and food demand. These projects mainly depend on the different groundwater aquifers. El-Farafra Oasis is one of the "1.5-million-feddan reclamation project" areas recently established in the Western Desert of Egypt where the only available water source is the world's largest fossil freshwater reservoir "the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS)". Groundwater-dependent springs, and their artificial counterpart "drilled wells", are reliable water systems throughout the world. In the present study, hydrochemical parameters were collected in 2015 from 16 different springs and wells of the El-Farafra Oasis, and analyzed using the different water quality indices. The calculated water quality index (WQI), its correlations with the water quality parameters Gibbs, Piper, US Salinity-Lab Staff and Wilcox diagrams, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were used to evaluate the groundwater suitability for human drinking and irrigation purposes. WQI values revealed good-to-excellent groundwater quality for human drinking. In addition, the spring and well water samples investigated showed good indices for irrigation activities. Gibbs and Piper's diagrams were presented, with most samples falling into the rock-dominance category, and belonging to hydrogeochemical facies determining the following water types: Mg(HCO3)2 type water (37.5% of the samples), no dominant ions (mixed water-type category; Ca/MgCl2) (50% of the samples), and, finally, NaCl water type (the remaining 12.5%). The groundwater chemistry in the study area is mainly controlled by rock-water interactions, particularly the dissolution of carbonate rocks and silicate weathering. The elevated nutrient concentrations, in particular nitrates, are most likely due to agricultural activities, indicating substantial anthropogenic activities in the area studied.


Posaconazole for Prophylaxis of Fungal Infection in Pediatric Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia undergoing Induction Chemotherapy Seung Min Kim, Yoon Sun Ree, Jae Song Kim, Soo Hyun Kim, Eun Sun Son, and Chuhl Joo Lyu Department of Pharmacy, Severance Hospital, Yon-sei University Health System, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea Department of Pediatric Hematology Oncology, Severance Hospital, Yon-sei University Health System, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea (Received February 20, 2018 · Revised March 26, 2018 · Accepted March 27, 2018)


Lupinus albus cv. Ultra and Lupinus angustifolius cv. Unicrop were evaluated relative to soybean meal as sole protein concentrates in wheat-based diets for growing pigs. To ensure that this comparison was on an equal protein and lysine basis, small amounts of free lysine were added to the lupin diets. The digestible energy contents of the soybean, Ultra and Unicrop meals were 15.2, 15.0 and 15.3 MJ/kg (air-dry basis) respectively. The performances of pigs fed on diets based on the Unicrop and soybean meals were similar in all parameters, except that the Unicrop diet resulted in a significantly lower dressing percentage (P < 0.01) and a slightly higher feed conversion ratio (P < 0.05) when calculated on a carcass basis. Pigs fed on Ultra lupins showed significantly lower (P < 0.05) growth rates and significantly higher (P < 0.05) feed conversion ratios during the 20–45 kg growth phase; and significantly lower carcass gains (P < 0.01) and higher feed conversion ratios on a carcass basis (P < 0.05) during the 20–80 kg growth phase. The dressing percentage of pigs fed on Ultra lupins was similar to that of those fed on Unicrop lupins and significantly lower than for pigs fed on soybean meal (P < 0.01). The Ultra lupins contained 3750 ppm manganese, and this may have contributed to the depressed performance of pigs on Ultra meal.