In this paper, the analysis of capital markets takes place using the advection-diffusion equation. It should be noted that the methods used in modern theoretical physics have long been used in the analysis of capital markets. In particular, the Fokker-Planck equation has long been used in finding the probability density function of the return on equity. Throughout the study, a number of authors have considered the supplement of the Fokker-Planck equation in the forecasting of equity markets, as a differential equation of second order. In this paper, the first time capital markets analysis is performed using the fractional diffusion equation. The rationale is determined solely by the application nature, which consists in generation of trading strategy in equity markets with the supplement of differential equation of fractional order. As the subject for studies, the differential operator of fractional order in partial derivatives was chosen – the Fokker-Planck equation. The general solutions of equation are the basis for the forecast on the exchange rate of equities included in the Dow Jones Index Average (DJIA).


Turtles are one of the most threatened groups of vertebrates worldwide. In the 19 northeastern United States, a legacy of centuries of dramatic landscape alteration has affected 20 freshwater turtle populations, but the relationships between the current landscape and 21 distributions and abundances of freshwater turtles remain poorly understood. We used a stratified 22 random approach to select 88 small, isolated wetlands across a gradient of forest cover 23 throughout Rhode Island, USA, and systematically sampled freshwater turtles in these wetlands. 24 We report estimates of relative abundance and used a canonical correspondence analysis to 25 investigate relationships between species relative abundance and environmental covariates. We also investigated which environmental covariates affect the occurrence and detection 27 probabilities of each species. Eastern painted turtles ( Chrysemys picta picta ) and common 28 snapping turtles ( Chelydra serpentina ) were widespread (occurring in 83% and 63% of wetlands, 29 respectively) and relatively abundant. Spotted turtles ( Clemmys guttata ) were far less common, 30 occurring in 8% of wetlands, and exhibited a positive association with shallow wetlands 31 surrounded by forest. Non-native red-eared sliders ( Trachemys scripta elegans ) occurred in 10% 32 of wetlands and exhibited a positive association with road density, likely reflecting a positive 33 relationship between slider occurrence and human population density. Identifying landscape- 34 scale habitat features that are associated with the occurrence of sensitive species can improve the 35 ability of biologists to identify and protect turtle populations.


Deep learning has shown promising results on change detection (CD) from bi-temporal remote sensing imagery in recent years. However, it still remains challenging to cope with the pseudo-changes caused by seasonal differences and style variations of bi-temporal images. In this paper, an object-level boundary-preserving generative adversarial network (BPGAN) is developed for style transformation-based CD of bi-temporal images. To achieve this purpose, image objects derived in the spectral domain are incorporated into the image translation to generate object-level target-style-like images. In particular, constraints on object boundary consistency and object homogeneity are established in the adversarial learning to maintain the style and content consistency while regularizing the network training. Furthermore, the Superpixel-Based Fast Fuzzy c-Means (SF-FCM) algorithm is utilized for efficient CD from the object-level style-transformed images. Extensive experiments on SPOT5 and GF1 data confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Energy-aware technique to reduce energy consumption in distributed sensor networks has become a prominent topic in sensor network research. Various sensor network applications have taken energy efficiency into consideration, in the case of correlated binary sources, distributed source coding has been literally studied in information theory. However, data sources from real sensor networks are normally non-binary. In this paper, we proposed a spectrum efficient coding scheme for correlated non-binary sources in sensor networks. Our approach constructs the codeword cosets for the interested source, taking advantage of statistical characters of the distinct observations from sensor nodes. The coset leaders are then transmitted via the channel and decoding is performed with the available side information. Simulations are carried out over independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) Gaussian sources and data collected from Xbow wireless sensor network test bed. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme performs at 0.5 - 1.5 dB from the Wyner-Ziv distortion bound


The main diagnosis tool in the evaluation of the hip prosthesis fit in total hip arthroplasty (THA) procedures are the X-ray film images. In order to design a computer aided diagnosis tool, the first step is to digitize the film images. A simple way of doing this is to take pictures of the X-ray film with a digital camera. We propose a method for the enhancement of the often poor-quality and reduced dynamic range digital images of the X-ray film and for the increase of their dynamic range by using a strict ordering relation and a histogram specification technique.


The experiment was conducted with 60 genotypes of bread wheat. These genotypes were grown in RBD using three replications during Rabi 2016-17 at Research Area of Wheat and Barley Section, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS HAU, Hisar. To study the variability, correlation and path analysis, data were recorded for yield and its component traits i.e. days to 50% heading, days to anthesis, grain growth rate at 14, 21, 28 days (mg/g/day), plant height (cm), number of effective tillers/meter, flag leaf length (cm), flag leaf width (cm), flag leaf area (cm 2 ), spike length (cm), number of spikelets per spike, number of grains per spike, 1000 grain weight (g), grain yield per plot (g), biological yield/plot (g) and harvest index (%). ANOVA showed highly significant differences among the genotypes for all the traits indicating adequacy of material and the traits studied for further assessment of genetic variability parameters. High value of GCV and PCV was recorded for grain yield per plot, followed by biological yield, indicating greater amount of variability among the genotypes. Highest heritability was recorded for days to 50% heading, followed by days to anthesis. Highly significant and positive association was perceived between grain yield and tillers per meter, plant height, number of grains per spike, number of spikelets per spike, flag leaf area, Original Research Article Kumar et al.; CJAST, 39(35): 95-105, 2020; Article no.CJAST.62266 96 grain growth rate at 14, 21 and 28 days after anthesis, spike length, 1000 grain weight, biological yield and harvest index. The high direct effects were recorded for biological yield, harvest index, flag leaf breadth, number of effective tillers per meter and 1000 grain weight, in order.


This research examines whether the reduced opportunity costs observed during the Great Recession resulted in changing socioeconomic inequalities in college enrollment. The results of the multilevel logistic regression analyses of American high school graduation cohorts 2003–2013 with data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics indicate that educational decision-making changed during the recession. The association between parental education and college enrollment weakened during the recession for both men and women, but the changes in the association between parental income and enrollment contrasted by gender. While the income differences in college enrollment were reduced among female high school graduates, they increased among male graduates. The opportunity costs at the time of graduation were linked with the decreasing influence of parental income and the increasing influence of parental education during the recession.


A set of hardware in the loop simulation methods based on the UAV model is proposed to create fault data, which is used to judge the parts where faults happen. Actual flight experimental data is utilized to prove the reliability of Simulink models. Then a series of typical faults with various amplitudes are injected into different channels of UAV parts in hardware in the loop simulation platform. Fault data is created this way, and the effect on UAV flight and task/control can be obtained through damage analysis. Typical fault characters are extracted, and those parts that have faults can be analyzed and judged. We can also know the trend that faults will develop and conclude the reasons for faults based on exterior performance, which supports precise attack and performance evaluation techniques.


This study attempts a method based on the information quantity in the source sentence, for detecting missing translations in neural machine translation. It assumes the necessary information quantity for the sentence as a whole, based on the word information quantity in the source sentence and, in the same way, detects missing translations by making a comparison with the presumed target sentence information quantity.


In his seminal book The Psychology of Everyday Things, Donald Norman outlined a world of things around us that are poorly designed because their designers did not apply psychology in the design process [1]. The idea that psychologists can answer questions about design, through a user-centered design process , is a thesis that has guided our field for several decades. However, if we examine what the world's top industrial designers, such asally do, it becomes clear they work quite differently. To them, thinking about function is like thinking about three-dimensional form. While this may equate to designing for Gibsonian affordance [2], arriving at a shape that works is not a scientifically driven process. Many top designers follow a more intuitive process that, at least at the conceptual stage, involves many pencil sketches of potential shapes and materials. Some time ago, interaction designers were guided into what may, in the near future, turn out to be a wrong direction. We were taught that if we followed a well-defined user-centered-design process, this would provide a near-guarantee for a successful product. But the art of user interface design is about to undergo revolutionary changes, with a renewed focus on the material, three-dimensional shape of things. We are at the dawn of a new age: display materials with unprecedented capabilities in terms of three-dimensional form. Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diodes (FOLEDs) and Flexible Electrophoretic Ink (E Ink) present a third revolution in display technologies that will greatly alter the way computer interfaces are designed. Instead of being constrained to the flat (or rather, somewhat rounded) surfaces of the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), or the really flat surfaces of the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Dynabooks and tablet PCs, we will have the ability to shrink-wrap displays around any three-dimensional object, and thus, potentially, every everyday thing. Note that this does not equate to virtual or augmented reality, in that these objects will truly live in the real world: You will order your morning coffee through a display on the skin of your beverage container, your newspaper will be made out of flexible digital E Ink, and your car dashboard will consist of a large curved display that shows an image of the road ahead, as if there were no car body. These interfaces will have a great number of interesting shapes that will be mostly three-dimensional, like organic life forms found in nature. This is …


A novel gedunin and two novel phragmalin-type limonoids, named carapanolides J–L (compounds 1–3) as well as a known gedunin-type limonoid 4 were isolated from the seeds of Carapa guianensis (andiroba). Their structures were determined on the basis of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy and HRFABMS. Compounds 1–4 were evaluated for their effects on the production of NO in LPS-activated mouse peritoneal macrophages.


As a complex system with highly integrated multi-discipline, the large rotary-type cylindrical antenna is favored by more and more researchers in IPS detection and large-area survey observation. Due to its complex structure, huge volume and large motion inertia, high requirements on the drive system are indispensable, and there exist some certain limitations in the traditional system design method. This article proposes a large rotary-type cylindrical antenna driving system modeling method based on the meta-model. The domain-specific modeling language of the antenna driving system is defined by extending SysML, and the domain meta-model of the antenna driving system is constructed on this basis. The functional modeling of the antenna driving system is based on the meta-model to support the analysis of the antenna driving process, improve the modeling efficiency and model reusability, and provide a research foundation for the subsequent system modeling design of large antenna.


Wise decisions about the handling and disposition of spent fuel from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) must be based upon an understanding of the physical, chemical, and radiological properties of the frozen fuel and flush salts. These {open_quotes}static{close_quotes} properties can be inferred from the extensive documentation of process history maintained during reactor operation and the knowledge gained in laboratory development studies. Just as important as the description of the salt itself is an understanding of the dynamic processes which continue to transform the salt composition and govern its present and potential physicochemical behavior. A complete characterization must include a phenomenological characterization in addition to the typical summary of properties. This paper reports on the current state of characterization of the fuel and flush salts needed to support waste management decisions.


Based on the conceptual defining and discussions,with regards to the scientific viewpoint of development,this paper tries to explore the development trend of discipline construction from the viewpoint of ecology and systematics,the discipline construction in agro-forestry university in particular.Concerning the strategic demands to solve the problems of farmers,countryside and agricultural development,it is suggested that,being people-oriented,concerting the advantages of related disciplines,strengthening discipline intercross and integration and setting up special discipline conglomerate should be the basis for discipline construction in agro-forestry universities.Taking the example of discipline construction in Northwest AF Univeristy,empirical studies is also made to illustrate the author's point of view.


This thesis is based on four different studies, all focusing on co-morbidities in rheumatoid arthritis. Diabetes mellitus is assessed as a risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis, the temporal relationship between ischemic heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis, and the extent of coronary stenosis in rheumatoid arthritis, is studied. The rationale for this is that patients with rheumatoid arthritis suffer an increased risk of ischemic heart disease that cannot be explained by traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease but is hypothesized to be related to rheumatoid arthritis specific factors, that patients with rheumatoid arthritis have been reported to have a more severe atherosclerosis and that autoimmunity seem to aggregate. First, we studied diabetes mellitus and its relationship to rheumatoid arthritis using a populationbased case-control study of rheumatoid arthritis. 1,419 patients with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and 1,674 age-, sex-, and residential areamatched controls were compared with respect to having diabetes mellitus prior to study inclusion. After validating self-reported information, 20 cases and 5 controls were classified as having type 1 diabetes mellitus and 42 cases and 46 controls as having type 2 diabetes mellitus. This study demonstrated that having type 1 diabetes mellitus conferred a seven-fold increased risk of developing a specific subset of rheumatoid arthritis defined by the presence of anti-citrullinated protein antibodies. This association depended to some extent on a genetic variant known to be involved in the pathogenesis of both type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. We then studied the temporal relationship between ischemic heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis in two population-based cohorts of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and age-, sex-, and residential area-matched controls from the general population. The occurrence of ischemic heart disease before first symptom of rheumatoid arthritis (controls were given the same date as their matched case) in two population-based cohorts of rheumatoid arthritis (ncohort 1= 8,454, ncohort2=2,025) was compared to the occurrence of ischemic heart disease among controls (ncohort 1=42,267, ncohort2=2,760) and revealed that having a history of ischemic heart disease before onset of first symptom of rheumatoid arthritis was as common among cases as controls; approximately 6% of cases and 6% of controls in cohort 1 had experienced an ischemic heart disease before first symptom of rheumatoid arthritis. After excluding those who had had any ischemic heart disease at diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, we followed cohort 1 over time and found that there indeed was an increased risk of ischemic heart disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (n=7,469) compared with the general population (n=37,024) and that this increased risk was apparent and manifest already within a few years following rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. Among individuals included in cohort 1 who underwent angiography with indication acute coronary syndrome (nrheumatoid arthritis=168, ncomparators=534) we found that although the development of ischemic heart disease was much more rapid in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the extent of coronary stenosis was not related to rheumatoid arthritis. In summary, these results indicate that type 1 diabetes mellitus increases the risk of developing a specific type of rheumatoid arthritis defined by a specific auto-antibody, that the risk of ischemic heart disease in rheumatoid arthritis goes from not being elevated to 60% increased compared to the general population within a few years following diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, and that the extent of coronary stenosis in rheumatoid arthritis with acute coronary syndromes is very similar to that in controls with the same clinical symptoms of acute coronary syndrome. The rapid increase in risk of ischemic heart disease could be related to factors associated with rheumatoid arthritis. ISBN 978-91-7457-091-5


consider writing a piece on English-Canadian political science, they explained that they were interested in revealing to historians what their' 'semi-literate cousins' in the other discipline were doing. Although wounding, the observation is not without substance. Indeed, an historian innocently leating through the Canadian Journal of Political Science might well wonder at times if political scientists have given up the use of both official languages and have taken instead to communicating in numbers alone. They might also be struck by an apparent assumption that Henry Ford had the last word on the value of history. To many political scientists, it would appear, the historical horizon is limited to the two or three years it has taken to administer their most recent questionnaire. In undertaking to write a survey of political science for the benefit of historians, I have no desire to engage in professional masochism. While there is much that political scientists can learn from historians, and not just with regard to literacy, there is also nmch that historians can learn from political science. It is in such an ecumenical, rather than polemical, mood that I propose to survey briefly the current state of the Canadian political science literature. I shall confine this survey to the study of Canadian politics, even though Canadian political scientists have contributed in many areas to the international literature in political theory, comparative politics, international relations, and public administration.


LS-DYNA software was adopted to conduct numerical simulation analysis of hot stamping for front bumper.The temperature field distribution,stress field distribution,reduction rate distribution and FLD in the course of hot stamping under the two types of friction conditions were calculated,and the formability of parts was predicted.Based on the simulation,the hot stamping mould was developed,and the front bumper components of hot forming were stamped.Compared the test results with the simulation,both the results coincide basically with same variation trend.The results show that the friction state has a great impact on formability of hot stamping technology for parts.


Chinese New poetry school,also known as "nine-leaf school",is the most influencal new poetry school in the anaphase of resisting japan and liberation war,which leans to modernism and follows the tradition of realism,symbolism and metaphysics.Mudan features in new poeotry school and is the most famous new poetry school poet.His peoms have the charicteristics of chinese new poems.This essay analyses Mudan's poems to grasp the esence of chinese new poem school's advocacy of poetry and creative practice.


Critical care providers are faced with resource shortages and must find ways to effectively plan their resource utilization. Neural networks provide a new method for evaluating trauma patient (and other medical patient) level of illness and accurately predicting a patient's length of stay at the critical care facility. Backpropagation, radial-basis-function, and fuzzy ARTMAP neural networks are implemented to determine the applicability of neural networks for predicting either injury severity or length of stay (or both). Neural networks perform well on this medical domain problem. The backpropagation networks achieved the best performance for predicting a patient's length of stay, but the fuzzy ARTMAP produced superior performance in evaluating patient's level of injury (especially for the more severely injured patients). Thus a combination of backpropagation and fuzzy ARTMAP neural networks is recommended to produce the optimal combined (injury severity and length of stay) results.


This study aimed to the examine the fear of COVID-19 and perceived stress levels of tennis players with positive and negative PCR tests during the COVID-19 pandemic.In this study, COVID-19 fear and perceived stress levels of tennis players with positive and negative PCR in Elazig province, who continue to play tennis despite the pandemic period, were compared. The PCR test result was analyzed by taking into account the variables of gender, education level, age and duration of tennis experience. The sample of this study was determined by the accessible sampling method including 34 participants with positive PCR test status and 16 participants who were over the age of 10-49 and 16 participants who were negative questionnaire technique was used in the research. Data were collected between November 2021 and January 2022.COVID-19 fear and perceived stress level of the participants were measured. Since the data did not show a normal distribution, PCR test distributions depending on gender, age groups, education level, tennis playing time were shown in crosstables. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare the fear of COVID-19 and perceived stress levels according to gender and PCR test status. The results of this study showed that the probability of being PCR negative increased due to the increase in the duration of playing tennis in both females and males and the fear of COVID-19 and perceived stress levels did not differ between PCR positive and negative ones.In addition, as the level of education increases, the perception of insufficient self-efficacy subdimension of the perceived stress scale decreases. In conclusion, the probability of being PCR negative increases as the age groups increase. On the other hand, there is a positive correlation between the years of playing tennis in both males and females and the probability of being PCR negative.


This paper describes the development of some geotechnical approaches to the assessment of embankment dams since the introduction of the Reservoirs Act in 1975. The initial developments took place in response to a number of industry-led initiatives instigated with UK government support leading up to and following the implementation of the Act. The approaches primarily relate to seismic and slope stability and internal erosion risks. A timeline mapping the evolution of approaches and best practices is presented.


| In this paper, we examine the performance of a genetic algorithm based on a Pareto neighborhood search for multiobjective optimization. The purpose of the proposed method is to generate a set of non-dominated solutions that is properly distributed in the neighborhood of the trade-o surface. Simulation results show that the GA based on the proposed method has good performances better than the traditional GA approaches for several multiobjective owshop scheduling problems.


The workshop was intended to scope key areas of interest from the industrial and academic community for cross-sector collaboration and to inform targetting of funding calls
for the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge (up to £66M available) of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF). The morning consisted of an introduction from
Dr Robert Quarshie, an overview of the ISCF challenges from Dr Ben Walsh (Lead Technologist in Advanced Materials at Innovate UK) and then short summary presentations
from representatives of the 6 foundation industries, Ceramics, Cements, Chemicals, Glass,
Metals and Paper. The afternoon consisted of break out sessions based around 7 tables of
11 people with a facilitator for each group. The first session was an initial brain storming
focused on the key challenges affecting the foundation industries and opportunities for
cross-sector collaborations, followed by a feedback session. After the feedback, the groups
were asked to prioritise three key challenges. The common themes identified across the
7 tables were, (i) Energy efficiency, (ii) Digitalisation, (iii) Efficient and sustainable use of
materials including reuse of waste and (iv) Skill shortages. Attendees were then asked to
vote on how important each challenge/opportunity was and when these would be expected
to benefit the industries. The outputs from the day will be collated into a report to be
circulated at a later date.


Upon the current degradation situation of grassland in west Jilin Province,I analyzed the effects of natural factors and human activities on the degradation of grassland,and further purposefully put forward countermeasures on the remediation and development of grassland.As a conclusion,scientifically utilizing and protecting the grassland resources could suppress grassland degradation,promoting the sustainable development of regional economy.


Quaternary calcrete, silcrete and gypcrete duricrusts in Karinga Creek drainage system, central Australia, contain abundant late‐stage diagenetic features. These indicate repeated episodes of dissolution, precipitation and mobilization of duricrust components in the landscape, following the initial development of the duricrust mantle. 'Mature' duricrust profiles incorporate assemblages of diagnostic textural features and fabrics that clearly indicate the extent of karstification during the past 27 000 years. Diagenetic features in the duricrusts permit recognition of the stages involved in vadose modifications of compositional, textural and morphological features and, hence, assessment of the impact of karst dissolution, precipitation and mobilization of duricrust components under prevailing environmental conditions. At landscape level, the continued development of secondary porosity‐permeability zones in topographically elevated areas, and maintenance of effective topographic gradients for soil creep are...


The main goal of this work is to provide an advanced visual envi- ronment where users that are not skilled for what concerns the computer sci- ence domain may compose queries related to those geographical phenomena for which the third dimension is a relevant feature. Visual queries are composed in a 3D environment accessible from the web where the users manipulate 3D geographic objects, called 3D geometaphors. The geometaphors represent the operands of an underlying algebra characterized by a set of topological, direc- tional and metrical operators; such operators are expressed in the query envi- ronment in terms of visual relations between the geographic objects. The intro- duction of the third dimension for querying the geographic databases has chal- lenged the authors with a number of important issues related to the area of visualization, navigation and object manipulation. According to the principles of usability engineering, the authors have built different prototypes based on a client-server architecture that have been iteratively evaluated by experts and fi- nal users in order to discover drawbacks and to improve the quality of the pro- posal. The result is a coordinated user-friendly 3D visual metaphor for querying GIS on the web, where all the elements needed for composing a query have a visual, easy to understand, counterpart.


The purpose of this paper is to briefly introduce the structure and features of the developed virtual passive FM radar implemented in Matlab system of numerical computations and to present many alternative ways of its performance. An idea of the proposed solution is based on analytic representation of transmitted direct signals and reflected echo signals. As a spatial filtering subsystem a beamforming network of ULA and UCA dipole configuration dedicated to bistatic radar concept is considered and computationally efficient procedures are presented in details. Finally, exemplary results of the computer simulations of the elaborated virtual simulator are provided and discussed.


This paper deals with extended solutions of a system of nonlinear integro-differential equations. This system is obtained in the process of applying the Galerkin method for some initial-boundary value problems.


Concurrency is a critical part of successful product development. It enables engineering teams to work in different domains simultaneously while facilitating collaboration across disciplines, allowing multiple iterations and improved communication. This leads to reduced rework, shorter product development cycles, and more robust and higher quality manufactured products.


Nitric Oxide synthases produce NO as a signal and as a cytotoxin in immune response. In the tethered shuttle model for NOS reductase kinetics, the FMN domain moves between NADPH dehydrogenase and oxygenase catalytic sites. FMN fluorescence is sensitive to NOS conformation; eNOS and nNOS holoenzymes have states with lifetimes of ~4.3ns, 1 ns, and 90 ps. Two domain oxyFMN constructs (truncated before the FAD binding domain) and holoenzyme share open conformations with lifetimes of ~4.3 ns. The holoenzyme majority state has a lifetime of ~90 ps due to FAD/FMN proximity as in crystal structures (Wang et al, Garcin et al). In oxyFMN ~25% of FMN has a lifetime of 0.9 ns, which we attribute to quenching by heme. Calmodulin activation of NOS releases the FMN binding domain from the 'dehydrogenase' complex, increasing the populations of the long lifetime states. Calmodulin binding shortens the average lifetime of oxyFMN constructs, because CaM promotes association of the FMN binding domain with the oxygenase domain, and favors the 1 ns state over the 4.3 ns state. Similar effects help explain modulation of NOS activity by covalent modification and protein‐protein interactions, e.g., in the HSP90‐eNOS complex.


Background: SLE is a heterogeneous autoimmune connective tissue disease marked by diverse patterns of presentation, auto-antibody production with multi-organ involvement. Aims & Objectives: The study is aimed to evaluate the different patterns of skin manifestations in SLE. Method: 20 patients during a period of 8 months were enrolled for the study. A detailed history and examination findings were noted in a predesigned proforma. Haematological Investigations, urine analysis, antibody profile were done in all cases, HPE & DIF in few as per the requirement. Result: Out of 20 patients, 18 were females and 2 were males. The average age of presentation is 27, with youngest patient 9 yrs and oldest patient 50 yrs. Skin changes noted were as follows: LE specific lesions: malar rash in 12 patients, photosensitive dermatitis in 10 patients, generalized maculopapular rash in 2 patients, discoid rash in 4 patients. The LE non-specific lesions were non-scarring alopecia in 14 patients, scarring alopecia in 3 patients, mucosal ulcers including oral and genital in 11 patients, vasculitic lesions in 7 patients, bullous lesions in 1 patient, erythema multiforme lesions in 1 patient, and nail dystrophy in 3 patients, xerosis in 4 patients, cheilitis in 7 patients, peripheral gangrene in 2 patients. Discussion & conclusion: There is a great diversity in presentation of SLE both systemically and in cutaneous manifestations. Therefore, an open mind is required when diagnosing SLE cases and prompt treatment done to prevent the morbidities.


This study investigates the efficiency of the U.S. market for inflation-indexed government bonds. In particular, a framework is developed were a signal based on inflation forecasts is constructed and the effectiveness of several trading strategies to provide abnormal returns is investigated. The results indicate that the market for U.S. American TIPS offer the possibility to obtain excess returns if information about future inflation is combined with a trading strategy speculating on the movement of break-even inflation. These results are fairly consistent over time for the shorter maturity regardless of market frictions introduced in the return calculation. The results do also suggest that index-linked government bonds can be considered as an asset class with idiosyncratic characteristics as compared to nominal government bonds, which makes them an important part of an investment portfolio. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-43-388-3859; fax +31-43-388-4875. E-mail address: email@example.com .


General relativity explains gravitational radiation from binary black hole or neutron star mergers, from core-collapse supernovae and even from the inflation period in cosmology. These waves exhibit a unique effect called memory or Christodoulou effect, which in a detector like LIGO or LISA shows as a permanent displacement of test masses and in radio telescopes like NANOGrav as a change in the frequency of pulsars' pulses. It was shown that electromagnetic fields and neutrino radiation enlarge the memory. Recently it has been understood that the two types of memory addressed in the literature as `linear' and `nonlinear' are in fact two different phenomena. The former is due to fields that do not and the latter is due to fields that do reach null infinity.


In recent years, model deployment in machine learning is observed to be an interesting area of study. It can be seen as a process similar to the one established for traditional software development. Development and operations (DevOps) incorporating Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) have demonstrated to smooth out software advancement and speed up organizations. Nonetheless, employing CI/CD pipelines in an application that incorporates components of Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) has challenging issues, and pioneers in the field settle them with the utilization of exclusive tooling, frequently presented by cloud suppliers. This study gives a higher perspective on the machine learning lifecycle and the vital differences between DevOps and MLOps. We talk about tools and techniques to execute the CI/CD pipeline of machine learning frameworks in the MLOps approach. Subsequently, we deep dive into push and pull-based deployments in Github Operations (GitOps). Open exploration challenges are additionally distinguished and added that can direct future research.


Through analyzing the problem of product quality supervisory work of Hontan Chemical (group)Co.Ltd,the corresponding measures were proposed.The measures made the work of quality management obtained some effect, the product quality control strengthened and the quality contral level improved.


Let X be a complex Banach space and let T be a bounded linear operator on X. Then T is decomposable if for every finite open cover of σ(T) there are invariant subspaces Yi(i= 1, 2, …, n) such that (An invariant subspace Y is spectral maximal [for T] if it contains every invariant subspace Z for which σ(T|Z) ⊂ σ(T|Y).).


The principle of array lateral sonde and the fast forward calculation simulation of the cylindrical electrode with a point source were first introduced and the characteristics of the responses were analyzed and summarized based on the forward calculation of different models.The nonlinearity between the shallowest mode's response(ρa0) and the mud resistivity(ρm) dropped off with the increasing of borehole diameter and the true resistivity (ρt).The responses of the low-invasion model increased,and that of the high-invasion model disordered,with the changing of invasion radius under different borehole diameters.The responses near the interface sometimes oscillated for the model with shoulder layer and invasion.These characteristics can be used as a priori information to study of the logging interpretation and inversion,and also as a theoretical basis to analyze the logging responses.


The genome of Haemophilus influenzae (1.8 megabases) has been entirely sequenced (Fleischmann et al., 1995). Several genome sequencing projects of other model organisms have been initiated (see also Chapters 36, 38–44). The sequencing of the Bacillus subtilis genome (4.2 megabases) is an attractive choice, since genetic analysis in this organism is highly advanced. The advantages of such a systematic approach have recently been described (Glaser et al., 1993; Sorokin et al., 1993). It allows us to get a complete blueprint of the genetic content of an organism and it contributes key information to the understanding of molecular evolution. Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria diverged more than 2 billion years ago (Woese, 1987), underscoring the importance of sequencing in parallel the genomes of both Escherichia coli and B. subtilis.


Aims: To evaluate the attitude towards people with hearing impairments in pre-service professionals of physical activity and sport how participate in a didactic experience under a competency model. Methods: twenty-five students from the Sports Faculty of the Autonomous University of Baja California participated in a training program to improve attitudes towards people with hearing impairments. Before and after the intervention, a questionnaire to assess university attitudes towards peers with disabilities was used. Results: A t-Student test for independent samples reported significant differences (p < 0.01) in the mean attitude values before 3.95 ± 0.3 than after the intervention 2.38 ± 0.4, with an average percentage change in -39.7 Ä%. Conclusions: In the training of human resources, it is important to have professional competencies that improve the motor skills of people with hearing disabilities, as well as to approach an appropriate attitude in the teachinglearning process in physical education.


Abstract: Methacholine, atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), nitroprusside (nitric oxide), angiotensin II. and bradykinin raised cyclic. GMP (cGMP) levels in cultured bovine adrenal chromaffin cells. The role of cGMP in secretion from chromaffin cells was examined using 8‐bromo‐cGMP. This analogue had no effect on basal secretion or secretion due to angiotensin II, bradykinin, or a high K+ level but potentiated secretion due to low doses of nicotine. At supramaximal doses of nicotine, 8‐bromo‐cGMP inhibited secretion. These effects of 8‐bromo‐cGMP were not due to changes in the nicotine‐induced rise in cytosolic calcium concentration. A potentiation of secretion due to low doses of nicotine was also found following simultaneous addition of ANP or nitroprusside, a result suggesting that ANP and nitric oxide (endothelium‐derived relaxing factor) could be important regulators of secretion from adrenal chromaffin cells.


Positive Psychology Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning and Teaching is one of the first two collections (the other one is Positive Psychology in SLA published in 2016) that introduce the fai...


The Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD) carrier screening includes the evaluation of mutations in DMD gene, and the most widely used analysis is the multiplex ligation‐dependent probe amplification (MLPA) for the DMD deletions/duplications detection. The high frequency of de novo mutations permits to estimate a risk up to 20% of mosaicisms for mothers of sporadic DMD children. The purpose of this study is to evaluate alternative analytical strategy for the detection of mosaics carrier women, in order to improve the recurrence risk estimation.


The work was focused on studying of the effect of the dielectric barrier dis- charge (DBD) operating at atmospheric pressure on bioindicator Aspergillus niger. Plasma was generated in nitrogen and argon. Paper and PET-foil were used as the carrying me- dium. The influence of various working conditions on the efficiency of plasma sterilization was studied. Some partial results are presented.


Princess Alice Hospital at Eastbourne, it also, doubtless, created equal astonishment to many of the townsfolks. Fortunately, a hospital is not like some private houses, and the Prince found everything in as apple-pie -order as if his visit had been announced beforehand, though it is possible that a few of the nurses felt regret "that they had not a chance of putting on their smartest ?cap for the occasion.


Curved steel panels are widely used in structures such as ships, aircrafts and bridges. During the last decades, plates with an out-of-plane curvature in the cross-section of the bridge are being used, partly to increase the aesthetics. The elastic buckling behaviour of curved plates is not covered by standards of codes for bridge design, resulting in rather conservative solutions. In the current research, there is investigated how curved steel panels used as a web panel in a closed box girder interacts with shear and bending stresses. Therefore, a double symmetric box is numerical simulated in a three point bending test. The first mode shape found by a LBA is used as an initial geometric imperfection, in order to trigger buckling of the webs. It is proven that when increasing the curvature while keeping a similar slenderness ratio, the buckling mode of a plate can change from elastic to inelastic and even plastic buckling. This behaviour is found back in the webs of the closed steel sections. Slender curved plates have an equal load-deflection path as their straight variant. Inelastic and plastic buckling of the webs results yield zones in the web, eventually combined with geometric deformations. The girders with curved webs are sensitive to imperfections in such a way that slender curved panels have a large reduction in initial stiffness with increasing amplitude. On the other hand, moderate or thick curved panels remain their initial stiffness but have a reduction in their ultimate load capacity.


Background: Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is caused by a chronically increased cardiac workload, most commonly from hypertension. Coronary artery disease may play a role in the pathogenesis of LVH. However, the relationship between LVH and blood pressure (BP) in patients without coronary artery disease is not clear. Method: We evaluated 248 consecutive patents(118 men and 130 women) with ejection fraction higher than 50%, who underwent coronary angiography. We divided the patients into 2 groups according to LVH. Coronary artery disease defined as a least one vessel with coronary artery stenosis >50%. LVH defined left ventricular mass index (LVMI) > 116 g/m2 in men, > 104 g/m2 in women. LVMI was measured with echocardiography. The brachial BP was measured with a mercury sphygmomanometer. The central BP parameters were measured with a SphygmoCor®device. Results: The baseline characteristics were similar between two groups. There were significantly increased peripheral systolic BP (125±22 vs. 120±15 mmHg, p=0.02), central systolic BP (118±21 vs. 113±14 mmHg, p=0.01) and central pulse pressure (40±15 vs. 36±7mmHg, p=0.018) in LVH patients (Table). The central and brachial systolic pressure were positively correlated with LVMI. (r=0.135, p=0.023, r=0.149, p=0.027). Conclusions: Systolic blood pressure and pulse pressure may be important factors for LVH. Moreover, LVMI may be related to systolic blood pressure than diastolic or pulse pressure. Table. No title available.


Because decision making is complicated, political elites seek advice when making decisions, and the ways in which they use that advice has systematic features. Analyses of decision making among elites, however, often fail to account for advice, focusing instead solely on characteristics of the decision maker. We take advantage of unique information about the advice provided to one set of elites to empirically uncover the effect of advice. In particular, we examine the influence of law clerk recommendations on the decision making of Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. We find that, even after controlling for known determinants of the decision to hear a particular case and considering the sequential decision making process (where a cert pool memo containing a recommendation is generated, then Justice Blackmun's clerk does a mark-up and adds a recommendation, and then the Justice casts his vote), the advice of a trusted advisor matters greatly. Word Count: 9,041


Parasitic nematodes, as all other organisms, are genetically and phenotypically diverse. The genetic diversity of animal parasitic nematodes has begun to be investigated in some detail and this information has been used to explore their population genetics. All of this work has recently been thoroughly reviewed by Anderson et al. (1998). However, the phenotypic diversity of animal parasitic nematodes has been investigated much less thoroughly. This chapter will begin to redress the imbalance and will consider three examples of phenotypic diversity of animal parasitic nematodes. It will then extend this theme by speculating on the existence of diversity in other phenotypes that have yet to be investigated. In doing so it is hoped to show why investigating and understanding this aspect of the biology of parasitic nematodes is important to the proper understanding of this important group of pathogens, but it is also an exciting research challenge for the future.


The basic shift in intergovernmental relationships that has occurred since 1975 has important implications for the achievement of social and environmental goals that guide the management of water resources. These changes, primarily in financial responsibilities, have both positive and negative effects. They will tend to enhance the economic efficiency of water projects, and those projects will be more consistent with the benefit principle of financial equity. On the negative side, the new arrangements provide less opportunity to revitalize economically depressed regions and to extend services to the urban poor. Evidence suggests that economic development tends to dominate environmental quality objectives under the more decentralized relationships. Also, rational-analytic methods are less likely to be used as the basis for decisions, and the declining federal presence has important implications for the funding of water resources research.


This book presents a study of the use of GPS
equipped probe vehicle to collect traffic data on a
motorway network. Two types of GPS equipped probe
vehicles, active and passive, have been studied. A
passive probe vehicle was considered to provide only
link journey time and a minimum number of probe
vehicles is required for reliable estimation. This
research has studied the distribution of individual
journey times and calculated the sample size of
probe vehicles required in different traffic
conditions. The sample size has shown to be
generally stable for the same link, but may decrease
in heavier traffic. An active probe vehicle was
found to be able to determine vehicle position and
speed at 1 Hz frequency over an entire journey. By
analysing the speed profile of probe vehicles,
journey times can be estimated from fewer probe
vehicles than normally required.


Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) based on silicon process provide a hardware security primitive using the complex physical characteristics of integrated circuits (ICs). This paper describes the concept of PUFs using memristors for random number generation and explains how to implement four types of PUFs that use the analog or digital characteristics of the memristor. Among the four types of PUF, the pulsewidth-based memristive-PUF (pm-PUF) uses analog switching devices, while the Selected Bit-line Current PUF (SBC-PUF), the Total Bit-line Current PUF (TBC-PUF) and the Multi-Array PUF (MA-PUF) use digital switching devices. Various memristor-based PUFs are expected to be promising candidates for PUF hardware security devices.


The well-known observation that an electrical stimulus when applied to a nerve can induce an action potential indistinguishable from the naturally occurring signal forms the basis for therapeutic electrical stimulation of the human nervous system. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been clinically applied to diverse neurological disorders. Not least among the candidate organ systems to be thus electrophysiologically manipulated is the neurologically disabled lower urinary tract. It may be expedient to discuss briefly the two techniques of FES that have been tried clinically and found to be of little avail for patients with neurogenic bladder dysfunction. Direct stimulation of the detrusor muscle by electrodes placed on the bladder wall is appealing because of its theoretical applicability to both the upper motor neuron and tower motor neuron varieties of bladder dysfunction. However, systematic attempts to develop such a technique have been unsuccessful. There are major dii^culties of excitation-contraction coupling in the human detrusor muscle which has no focal area assuming a pacemaker role. This, together with disabling pain due probably to the spread of the necessarily large excitatory currents to neighboring visceral structures, has led to the abandonment of direct bladder stimulation as a FES technique.^ The gate theory of pain led to the clinical application of peripheral nerve electrical stimulation for pain.^ The clinical technique was advanced to its logical next step of stimulation of the dorsal


Abstract A highly stereocontrolled syn‐addition of silicon nucleophiles across cyclopropenes with two different geminal substituents at C3 is reported. Diastereomeric ratios are excellent throughout (d.r.≥98:2) and enantiomeric excesses usually higher than 90 %, even reaching 99 %. This copper‐catalyzed C−Si bond formation closes the gap of the direct synthesis of α‐chiral cyclopropylsilanes.


zines, and small organizations with the stigma and fate of political sects. It is one of the paradoxes of the German Revolution of 1918 that Landauer should have been swept into the forefront of the political events which brought about the island of the Munich Soviet Republic surrounded by arch-reactionary peasant country and in direct challenge of the central government in Berlin, headed by Social Democrats. Landauer, supported by Munich's Bohemia, expected to initiate the transformation of society into


A new species of the genus Filenchus Andrassy, 1954 (sensu Raski & Geraert, 1987) is described from mushroom casing material (moss-peat + chalk) in England and observations on F. thornei "England population" and F. ditissimus are given. F. recisus sp. n. is characterised by a lateral field with two incisures and by the narrow body annules ( < 1.5 5 μm). The new species is distinguished from other members of the genus by the position of vulva (V = 61-68.5) and the length of stylet (5-6 μm), oesophagus (60-84 μm), tail (68-102 μm) and body (338-416 μm).


Based on the scattering property of the building target in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, a one-dimensional detector, named `range detector', is proposed for building detection in this paper. This range detector can effectively detect and extract the footprint of the wall of a cuboid building. Then the outline of building can be captured by marching the footprint. Pi-SAR image of Sendai, Japan, was chosen to verify the proposed algorithm. The results show that more than 80% of the buildings can be identified.


DS3070W newly produced by Dallas Inc.is a single-chip 16Mb NV SRAM with clock.It consists of a 16Mb NV SRAM,a NV controller,a year 2000-compliant real-time clock and an internal rechargeable ML battery.The characteristics and operating principle of DS3070W are introduced,the typical application circuit with AT89C51 and software program code are given.


This chapter addresses conceptual relationships between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a set of related phenomena typically labeled as economic nationalism, economic patriotism, economic protectionism, populism, and antiglobalization. The research question addressed is whether this set of related phenomena redefines or at least affects CSR in significant ways that practitioners and scholars should include in the conception of CSR and, if so, how theoretically. Such investigation is affected by two essential circumstances. First, CSR remains a topic of continuing theoretical controversy: specific "responsibility" of any business anywhere is not a resolved matter. Second, economic nationalism and related phenomena—which appear to be rising in importance—are opposed to the economic, political, and social globalization effects following the 1995 founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The chapter seeks to refine CSR for varying conditions as shaped by economic nationalism, economic patriotism, economic protectionism, populism, and antiglobalization.


Hydrocarbon occurrence and commercial production from worldwide Gondwana basins have emboldened its exploration in geologically analogous sedimentary basin of India in order to probe their hydrocarbon prospectivity. Preliminary exploration efforts carried out in these basins viz. South Rewa, Satpura and Jharia basins have yielded valuable exploration leads for pursuing the yet to find hydrocarbon resources. The Gondwana distribution in India falls in three categories.1) the E-W Narmada,Satpura,South Rewa and Damodar valley, the NW-SE trending Son—Mahanadi and Pranita Godavari basin. 2) Extra- Peninsular area of Purea –Malda and partly Upper Assam. 3)East Coast basins of Cauvery ,Palar , Krishna Godavari and Bengal basin. Triggered by discoveries in North sea, China , and Australia, the Gondwana basin received continued attention for hydrocarbon exploration. Huge Natural gas occurrences are envisaged in Gondwana basin. In this context detailed evaluation of major coal bearing strata of these basins have attained priority and emerged as potential source rock for hydrocarbon generation and act as a prime exploration target in view of their closed proximity with global basins. Occurrence of oil and gas in analogous basins in the world has further strengthened the possibility of existence of rich petroleum systems in similar stratigraphic arena within the Indian Gondwana basins. In addition, the contributions of coal as major source for coal bed methane exploration / exploitation is also an aided feather in cap to widen the scope of exploration.


The need for human resources training for specialty medical care in our country has as an initial step the equitable selection of physicians who participate as residents of medical specialties through an examination coordinated by the Inter-Institutional Commission for Training Human Resources For Health (Vazquez, Cuevas and Crocker, 2003).


A novel photonic method for low power radio-frequency (RF) signal detection by a tunable optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) with high gain based on equivalent phase modulation (EPM) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator is utilized to generate the EPM signal with a controllable optical carrier to sideband ratio, by which the gain to the RF signal by the OEO loop can be enhanced. A phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (PS-FBG) with a narrow-band notch in its reflection band implements the phase modulation to intensity modulation conversion by removing one sideband of the EPM signal. The gain and noise performance of the detection system are theoretically analyzed and simulated. In the experiment, the maximum gain of 10.4 dB is obtained at 8 GHz, and the detection sensitivity for RF signals from 2 to 18 GHz are within the range of −87.7 to −84.3 dBm by using the developed detection system. Compared to normal phase modulation based scheme, the EPM-based system offers 9.1 dB higher gain. Utility of the proposed approach for detecting modulated RF signal is also investigated and an optimization scheme is discussed.


The paper compares pre- and post-1997 attitudes to the learning of English in Hong Kong.It is based on surveys conducted in 1980, 1992, 1995 and 1998, and also on newspaper reports. The data confirm the strong instrumental, career-related motives of the learners, which has been previously reported not only for Chinese learners but for Asian learners generally. Although the recent data show a strong movement among both parents and teachers to preserve English-medium education, as an essential means of achieving English proficiency, the realities of economic and demographic integration with China make it likely that English in Hong Kong in the years ahead will increasingly take on the features of a foreign rather than a second language, both in education and in everyday life.


The production of anthropogenic carbon dioxide has greatly increased in the 20 and 21 centuries. This greenhouse gas, which helps to trap heat in the atmosphere to warm the earth, is beginning to cause concern for the future. Scientists believe that a shift in the greenhouse gases equilibrium could be very dangerous. In an attempt to reduce anthropogenic CO2, the National Energy and Technology Laboratory (NETL) has developed a system to absorb CO2 in aqueous ammonia. Their samples are given to us to analyze. This is my research: to analyze their samples using an electrospray time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ESI TOFMS). This machine is one of three in the world right now, and can analyze ions as whole molecules, without breaking them up. After the samples are run through the machine, the data from the spectra is used to determine which molecules are present in the samples and their relative abundances. 2 Isolation and Analysis of Amides form Mammalian Tissue Samantha Sabolick, Korey Coulter, and Mitch Johnson Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Duquesne University


Prey-predator communication of alertness has been reported for Moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) and other species of birds. Because ability to flee is probably related to body condition, healthy potential prey may behave more conspicuously to send predators an unambiguous message. Moorhens have a contrasting rump patch that is flashed by rapid tail-flicking. During two winter months, we observed sex-related differences in the rate of tail-flicking. Females tail-flicked at a faster rate than males, and more vigilant and more symmetrical males tail-flicked faster. The rate of tail-flicking was negatively correlated to the heterophil/lymphocyte ratio in both sexes and positively correlated to hematocrit and albumin/globulin ratio in females. These results suggest that male and female Moorhens in better physical condition tail-flick at a faster rate and support the pursuit deterrent hypothesis, with healthy individuals appearing to inform predators that they would be difficult to capture. SINOPSIS. Relaci´ on entre la tasa de exhibici´ on del escudo anal y la condicifen la


The research work evaluated the impact of public debt on Nigeria economy. The major problem that led to this study was how Nigeria has been borrowing continually without a corresponding increase in the Economic growth and development. Nigeria has been trapped in debt servicing that has taken a greater percentage in our National Budget. The specific objectives of this study are: To evaluate the effect of public debt on Nigeria economy growth. To ascertain the effect of domestic debt on Nigeria economy growth. To examine the effect of external debt on Nigeria economy growth. This research work was anchored on Richardo theory of public debt which suggests that to finance public expenditure appropriately, there must be an external source of fund. Being an ex post facto research design, data was collected from secondary source i.e world bank, ministry of finance, central bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin report. SPSS was used in running the analysis. The findings of this study are: Public debt has positive and significant relationship on Nigeria economy growth, Domestic debt has no significant impact on Nigeria economy growth, External debt does not have significant effect on Nigeria economy growth. The study recommended amongst others, that the government should look more better ways of generating funds apart from borrowing. In the aspect of domestic debt, that the government should make use of our local institutions more than meeting private individuals. In the aspect of external debt, that the government should reduce the way the source money externally because the duties of servicing debt is more tedious than the main loan itself.


This study based on investigation for integration wind power into conventional power system with its impact on fossil fuel generators and their generation management. Wind power as environmental friendly energy source can reduce the operational cost of the system due to considering no cost for energizing the generator in comparing with fossil fuel generators. However due to unpredictable nature of the wind power, it is quite difficult to determine how much wind power should be integrated to ensure both power system security and operational cost reduction. In this study by comparing both economic and security requirements using GA and PSO for smart calculation in wind power generation into the conventional system, a proper economic load dispatch program has been applied. Three different approaches (pessimistic, Optimistic and Linear) has been studied and compared to evaluate the system security and reliability with economic benefits. Due to considering no fuel cost for wind power generators, it is more beneficial to produce electrical power by this type of power resource but with more reliability for the system. At the end by comparing PSO and GA results and numerical analysis on IEEE-30 bus test system with six generator, exactitude and accuracy of the proposed approaches presented.


Many schools do not organize the biological practice with the topic of bacterial inoculation and Gram staining, especially remote schools in the archipelago due to the difficulty of obtaining bacterial growth medium (Nutrient Agar/NA). This study aims to find alternative sources of nutrients used in NA medium that can be used by teachers in remote areas of the archipelago to be able to carry out bacterial and Gram staining breeding practicum. This research consisted of several stages, namely: (1) sample preparation; (2) manufacture of NA control medium; (3) the production of an alternative medium by the treatment of the use of Layang fish extract (Decapterus russelli) with peptone and without peptone; (4) bacterial inoculation with three different sources; and (5) the calculation of bacterial colonies. The data obtained were analyzed by using Descriptive Analysis. The results showed that the medium of "Narik Layang" using the extract of Layang fish (Decapterus russelli) could be used as an alternative to NA medium that using beef extract. Based on these results, the biology teacher can use the extract of Layang fish as a substitute for beef extract in the manufacture NA medium to carry out bacterial inoculation and Gram staining practicum.


In this paper the analogy between a mechanical double pendulum and an oscillating electrical system is presented. Instead of using analytic equations, we used the MultiSim circuit simulation environment in order to reproduce and interpret the response of the electrical oscillator. The electrical double pendulum presents a chaotic regime which is studied quantitatively by means of state space reconstruction. For this purpose the optimal delay time is calculated and the minimum embedding dimension is found with the method of False Nearest Neighbors.


The research focuses on investigation of tourism potential, communities' awareness and engagement towards community based ecotourism development in kehitastse forest and environs. Descriptive research design was employed and 91 samples selected out of 957 households through simple random sampling technique for quantitative data; however purposive sampling technique was used for qualitative data. The data were collected through questionnaire survey, key informant interview, field observation and secondary data sources. Over all thematic data analysis method was used. Data collected through questionnaire was analyzed through using Uni-variate descriptive statistics (range, frequency and percentage ) while qualitative data was mainly used to triangulate the study to reach in to conclusion. The finding shows that the area is rich in natural and cultural tourism resources for community based ecotourism development. Moreover, the community's positive attitude and engagement towards tourism developed in the area are some of prospects for community based ecotourism development although unsustainable exploitation of the forest for grazing, fire wood, housing, charcoal, lumbering household and agricultural materials are some of adverse effects on sustainable development of the forest. It is recommended that environmentally sound, culturally friendly and economically feasible community-based ecotourism should be developed in the destination to bring local sustainable development. Keywords: Tourism Potential, Community Based Ecotourism Development, Sustainable Development, Communities Awareness and Engagement DOI : 10.7176/JTHS/42-02 Publication date :July 31 st 2019


An experimental arrangement for measuring transmission loss of acoustical filters in a tube with active non-reflecting terminal is implemented. A loudspeaker is used as a secondary source to suppress the reflected wave by means of a opposite phase radiation. Primary and secondary sources are fed with pure tones which excite only plane waves. The signals for the primary and secondary sources are generated by a computer, at the same time the computer calculates the current reflection coefficient from the microphone signals. The amplitude and phase of secondary signal are changed by means of an iterative method until a minimal reflection coefficient result. The experimental arrangement is tested by measurements on simple silencers (expansion chambers).


How to manage, guide, and lead such change in schools has been an enduring question. During the eighties, the research clearly indicated that the role principals played was of great importance. However, in the nineties, an emerging literature began to report a more democratic and participatory approach, one that invited all professionals on the school staff into inclusive leadership focused on school change and improvement. School staffs operating in this way came to be known as professional learning communities (PLCs) (Hord, 1997).


Background: Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is associated with a fundamental condition that
causes the release of large amounts of otoconia, due to deficits in the structure of the interotoconial filament matrix
which implants otoconia in the gelatinous matrix. Increased uric acid levels cause an inflammatory response in
the gelatinous matrix so that it can cause BPPV attacks.
Objective: To determine the relationship between uric acid levels with BPPV events
Research Methods: This research uses a case control design. Sampling was conducted at H. Adam Malik General
Hospital Medan and RS. University of Sumatera Utara. The research sample consisted of 36 BPPV cases and 36
non BPPV cases. subject on a consecutive basis. Anamnesis and physical examination are performed to diagnose
BPPV and examination of uric acid levels for hyperuricemia status. Data analysis using chi-square test
Results: The majority of BPPV patient characteristics were found in women (63,9%), age range 41-50 years
(36,1%), high school education level (33,3%), working as a housewife (30,6%), and Batak ethnicity (69,4%). The
distribution of uric acid levels in BPPV patients was 6.59 (± 1.30) mg / dl. The distribution of hyperuricemia of
BPPV patients was 58.3%. There is a significant relationship between uric acid levels with BPPV events. (p =
0.033; OR = 3.18).
Conclusion: there is a significant relationship between uric acid levels with BPPV.


At the end of year 2004, Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business for a total of US$1.75 billion. This news not only surprised most observers, but also became a frequently cited example of how the strategy of diversification is fast disappearing.


Sohal et al (2) have previously reported a successful laser extraction of a 5–year-old Sprint Fidelis® ICD lead (Medtronic) through a PLSVC. The interest of our report lies in the description of the failure to extract a fractured RV-ICD lead, 6 years after the ICD implantation through a PLSVC, the placement of a new ICD RV lead, and postoperative PLSVC thrombosis. We cannot exclude that the venous occlusion might have occurred even if the defective lead was abandoned and a new lead inserted. It is however highly suspicious that the extraction caused the thrombus, because of the long sheath time manipulation and laser utilization. Venous occlusion after lead extraction is rarely described, but not properly looked for when asymptomatic (3). We used a 12-French sheath DOI: 10.5301/jva.5000475


Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, U.K.We investigate to what extent future microwave background experiments might be able to detecta suppression of fluctuation power on large scales in flat and open universe models. Such suppressionwould arise if fluctuations are generated by causal processes, and a measurement of a small suppres-sion scale would be problematic for inflation models, but consistent with many defect models. Morespeculatively, a measurement of a suppression scale of the order of the present Hubble radius couldprovide independent evidence for a fine-tuned inflation model leading to a low-density universe. Wefind that, depending on the primordial power spectrum, a suppression scale modestly larger thanthe visible Horizon can be detected, but that the detectability drops very rapidly with increasingscale. For models with two periods of inflation, there is essentially no possibility of detecting acausal suppression scale.PACS No.: 98.80.Es, 98.70.Vc, 98.80.Cq


The paper presents the CATS expert system used to support the process control of injection moulding of thermoplastics. The knowledge base for the expert system has been developed on the basis of data gathered over a number of years and systematic observation of the work of fault-removal experts. Their knowledge has been used to develop mathematicalheuristic models of inferencing and learning during fault-removal. The expert system makes an integral whole with the mathematical model of process control according to the trend. The ability to learn such process control has contributed to increased efficiency. The initial efficiency, measured by the number of faults removed per number of attempts, was 93 per cent. After one year of industrial application, the expert system reached the level of efficiency of 97 per cent.


This paper presents the design and application of a feed cascade control system for use with the Nordberg HP series crusher.A supervisory control and data acquisition(SCADA) system based on PROFIBUS and PLC is used to control the full chamber feed rate of the crusher.The system dynamic performance is also improved.This design has been applied to a practical system successfully.


The vectoring of wind and slope effects on a flame front is considered. Mathematical methods for vectoring are presented and compared to results of laboratory experiments. The concept of multiple standard fire spread directions is presented. The experimental laboratory study, included effects of variable wind velocity and direction on point source flame fronts on a 30° inclined fuel bed.


The paper tests empirically the role of knowledge stocks to explain the regional distribution of Germany's biotechnology founders. We present an unique approach to highlight the role of knowledge spillovers as we differentiate according the local embeddedness and research affinity of founders. As expected, the results of our multivariate analysis indicate a high start-up activity in knowledge intensive regions. Group differentiation shows that knowledge stock variables matter only for academic founders inside as well as outside the region. In contrast, the start-up activity of non-academic founders coming from inside or outside the region cannot be explained with knowledge intensity of the region. Our empirical results suggest that knowledge spillovers matter, but these spillovers only attract founders with high affinity to research.


In recent years, deep-learning models have resulted in significant progress in insect recognition. However, training deep neural networks requires a large amount of data, and data collection and labeling are time consuming and labor intensive. This study proposes a method for establishing a synthetic image dataset of stored-product insects to provide well-labelled image data for insect detection tasks. Proxy virtual worlds are leveraged to obtain synthetic data with annotations. A dynamic generation approach was presented to generate synthetic images with diverse insect targets, various backgrounds, and changing lighting conditions by using a camera module in the constructed virtual scene. The coordinates of the bounding boxes and the category labels of insect targets in each synthetic image were obtained by calculating the geometrical relationships between the insect targets and the camera module. A texture translation network was developed to conduct image-to-image translation and launch to enhance the verisimilitude of the synthetic images. A synthetic image dataset was established for three insect species, Cyptolestes ferrugineus (Stephens), Sitophilus oryzae (Linnaeus), and Tribolium castaneum (Herbst).A set of assessments was introduced to evaluate the synthetic image dataset, including the statistical characteristics and experimental verification. The experimental results demonstrated that the use of synthetic data reduces the demand for real data. The proposed method may provide a novel solution for providing training data with correct annotations for insect detection, without tedious image collection and manual labeling.


This study aims to determine the effect of motivation and work environment on leadership style and its impact on employee performance at the Pariaman City DPRD Secretariat. This research is motivated by the low work motivation of employees and the conditions of the work environment that do not support employees in carrying out work and leadership style that does not support employees in carrying out work, thus affecting the decline in employee performance at the Pariaman City DPRD Secretariat. The research method with a quantitative approach with the path analysis method. Data collection techniques with questionnaires, observation and interviews. The respondents of this study were 50 employees of the Pariaman City DPRD Secretariat. The sampling method uses the total sampling method in which the entire population in this study is the research sample. Hypothesis testing is calculated by the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) program version 20.0. The results of this study found that motivation does not significantly influence leadership style, work environment does not significantly influence leadership style, motivation has significant effect on performance, work environment has a significant effect on performance, and leadership style has a significant effect on employee performance at the Pariaman City DPRD Secretariat. Whereas directly motivation through leadership style has a significant influence on performance and indirectly the work environment through leadership style has a significant influence on the performance of the Pariaman City DPRD Secretariat staff.
Keywords: Motivation, Work Environment, Leadership Style, Employee Performance


Previously, a characteristic equation for the vibration of a viscous gravitational globe had been obtained by Chandrasekhar. The same equation has been found to apply for a viscous liquid drop under the restoring force of surface tension and is proved here to apply to all combinations of gravitational attraction surface tension and Coulomb repulsion with surface or volume charge distribution. Complex solutions to this Chandrasekhar equation corresponding to the periodic motion with damping which have not been found up to now but are called for in a large class of physical problems, are calculated. In addition, some solutions for higher aperiodic modes of decay are also evaluated.


In this paper, a new approach for synthesizing nonlinear electric/electronic circuits is presented. The advantage of this approach is that is possible directly synthesize nonlinear circuits from some ordinary differential equations. Presented circuit is able to generate the chaotic attractors. This system can be used e.g. for secure communication, modulation etc. The financial application is also presented. The designed systems were simulated and also constructed.


Abstract. Objectives. The present study was undertaken to confirm or reject recent findings indicating a high prevalence of iron deficiency in Swedish male adolescents; a second aim was to study the prevalence of genetic iron overload.


approved: Sayfe Kiaei The application of information theory and digital signal processing techniques to digital communication has resulted in robust methods for reliable high speed data transmission over noisy channels environments. Among these methods, multicarrier systems have become a viable solution for exploiting maximum spectral efficiency over both wideband highly dispersive static and time-varying dynamic channels. However, there remains many problems in this field to maximize performance and efficiency of such systems. Among these problems, equalization and synchronization are the major focus of this thesis. The contibution of this thesis on equalization is to optimize performance of equalizer from two different aspects: computational complexity and system capacity. A new fast equalization algorithm is developed to obtain near optimum setting of the equalizer under minimum mean square error criterion. Furthermore, a mathematical framework for analysis of maximum capacity equalization is developed. It is shown that the optimum equalization of multi-carrier system can be viewed as a constrained optimization problem where the constraint set exhibits identifiable geometric characteristic. Using these properties, a descent gradient search method for optimum equalization of multi-carrier systems is proposed. In synchronization domain, the contribution of this thesis is the development and statistical analysis of a new class of cyclic based estimators: maximum likelihood and minimum variance unbiased and moment estimator for both symbol timing error and carrier frequency offset estimation of multicarrier systems. Redacted for Privacy


Conversations between mothers and children from three different cultural groups were analyzed to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns. The three groups included Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in Japan, Japanese-speaking, mother-child pairs living in the United States, and English-speaking Canadian mother-child pairs. Comparisons of mothers from these groups found that: (1) both Japanese-speaking groups provided less evaluation of their children's discourse than the English-speaking group; (2) both Japanese-speaking groups gave more verbal acknowledgement than did the English-speaking group; and (3) Japanese mothers in the United States requested more description from their children than Japanese mothers living in Japan. At 5 years of age, Japanese-speaking children, whether living in the United States or Japan, produced about 1.2 utterances per turn, whereas English-speaking children p,:oduced about 2.1 utterances per turn. Thus, whereas English-speaking mothers allow their children to take long monological turns, and even encourage this behavior, Japanese mothers simultaneously pay considerable attention to their children's narratives and facilitate frequent exchanges. Implications of these findings are further considered in the light of improving cross-cultural understanding. (MDM) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY \<<=3 TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 0 Long Conversational Turns or Frequent Turn Exchanges 1 Long Conversational Turns or Frequent Turn Exchanges: Cross-cultural Comparison of Parental Narrative Elicitation Masahiko Minami Harvard Graduate School of Education U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educafional Research and improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) OtarsScument has been reprOduCed as received from the person or organization originating d C Minor changes have been made to improve relaroducfion quatay Potnts of view or oramons stateo v thm document do not necessarily represent officmt OE RI pusdron or policy Running Head: LONG CONVERSATIONAL TURNS OR FREQUENT TURN EXCHANGES Author's Address: Harvard Graduate School of Education Larsen Hall Appian Way Cambridge, MA 02138 * An earlier version of this paper was presented by the author at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, January 8, 1994. The research described in this paper was made possible through an American Psychological Association's Dissertation Research Award and through a travel and research grant from the Harvard University Office of International Education/Harvard Institute for International Development. The author would also like to thank Carole Peterson, Memorial University of Newfoundland, for providing the data that were collected as part of a research project supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant 0GP0000513. 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Long Conversational Turns or Frequent Turn Exchanges Abstract Children from different cultures develop differently according to the models that the adults around them endorse. In divergent cultural settings, we can observe dissimilarities in parental expectations and their resultant differing communicative styles (Heath, 1983). Conversations between mothers and children from three different groups are being analyzed to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns: (1) Japanesespeaking mother-child pairs living in Japan, (2) Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in the United States, and (3) English-speaking Canadian mother-child pairs. Comparisons of mothers from these three groups yield the following salient contrasts: (1) In comparison to English-speaking mothers, mothers of both Japanese groups give proportionately less evaluation. (2) Both in terms of frequency and proportion, mothers of both Japanese groups give more verbal acknowledgment than do English-speaking mothers. (3) However, Japanese mothers in the U.S. request proportionately more description from their children than do Japanese mothers in Japan. In addition, at five years, Japanese-speaking children, whether living in Japan or the U.S., produce roughly 1.2 utterances per turn on average, whereas English-speaking children produce about 2.1 utterances per turn, a significant difference. Thus, whereas English-speaking mothers allow their children to take long monologic turns, and even encourage this by asking their children many descriptive questions, Japanese mothers simultaneously pay considerable attention to their children's narratives and facilitate frequent turn exchanges. This comparison demonstrates how, as primary agents of their culture, Japanese mothers, while slightly influenced by Western culture, induct their children into a communicative style that is reflective of their native culture. Implications of these findings are further considered in the light of improving cross-cultural understanding.Children from different cultures develop differently according to the models that the adults around them endorse. In divergent cultural settings, we can observe dissimilarities in parental expectations and their resultant differing communicative styles (Heath, 1983). Conversations between mothers and children from three different groups are being analyzed to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns: (1) Japanesespeaking mother-child pairs living in Japan, (2) Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in the United States, and (3) English-speaking Canadian mother-child pairs. Comparisons of mothers from these three groups yield the following salient contrasts: (1) In comparison to English-speaking mothers, mothers of both Japanese groups give proportionately less evaluation. (2) Both in terms of frequency and proportion, mothers of both Japanese groups give more verbal acknowledgment than do English-speaking mothers. (3) However, Japanese mothers in the U.S. request proportionately more description from their children than do Japanese mothers in Japan. In addition, at five years, Japanese-speaking children, whether living in Japan or the U.S., produce roughly 1.2 utterances per turn on average, whereas English-speaking children produce about 2.1 utterances per turn, a significant difference. Thus, whereas English-speaking mothers allow their children to take long monologic turns, and even encourage this by asking their children many descriptive questions, Japanese mothers simultaneously pay considerable attention to their children's narratives and facilitate frequent turn exchanges. This comparison demonstrates how, as primary agents of their culture, Japanese mothers, while slightly influenced by Western culture, induct their children into a communicative style that is reflective of their native culture. Implications of these findings are further considered in the light of improving cross-cultural understanding.


This article discusses the increasing importance of information to so called information factories. As information management is their core competence, development of information quality should be the key focus of quality management. Good quality information is error free and fulfills the user's needs. Technology managers define their needs as having recent, relevant, reliable and analyzed information on competitive environment and development of technologies. Several methods used with full text search engines to improve different aspects of information quality, are demonstrated and described based on our constructive work, implementing Business Technology portals. Relevancy of information was improved with several used methods and reliability by structured searches with meta‐information and by reduced information space. Recentness of information was improved with push technology. As conclusion, full‐text search engines increase the information quality by filtering information, however recentness of information and analyzed information are more difficult aspects to improve than relevancy and reliability.


Objective To study the prevention and treatment of lapsus and complications after immediate breast reconstruction using extended latissimus dorsi (ELD) flap after skin-sparing or nipple-sparing modified radical mastectomy. Methods The modified radical mastectomy was carried out in 41 patients,and then immediate breast reconstruction was performed with ELD flap in all patients. Lapsus and complications were analyzed. Results All the 41 patients obtained successful breast reconstruction. As for the cosmetic effect of the reconstructed breasts,7 cases had poor result,doral seromas was in 18 cases,skin flap necrosis or mild skin exfoliate in 7 cases,dry skin necrosis in 3 cases,winged shoulders in 2 cases,nipple necrosis in 2 cases and infection in 1 case. Conclusion Immediate breast reconstruction with extended latissimus dorsi flap after modified radical mastectomy can obtain fine breast shape. The lapsus and complications can be controlled and decreased. This technique fits Chinese women,and is a effective method in breast cancer treatment.


Many academic libraries are migrating to Web‐based online catalogs from traditional text‐based versions. These Web OPACs function as gateways to resources held not only locally, but beyond the library's physical boundaries, using a Web browser as a common user interface. As library planners prepare to shift to a Web‐based online catalog, they face a range of complicated challenges. The coordinated efforts of staff throughout the library organization are required to implement the new paradigm. This article presents the issues that will be confronted in implementing a Web OPAC by systems, reference and cataloguing staffs.


Rheological and small-angle scattering techniques were used to investigate the evolution of the colloidal structure of the Safaniya vacuum residue during the age hardening process. Rheological measurements revealed an increase in the molecular weight of the vacuum residue and maltene fraction after the RTFO aging test. Even the molecular-weight distribution became slightly wider, the amount of this variation being greater for aged maltenes than for the whole aged vacuum residue. Small-angle scattering results confirmed the importance of maltene aging on the whole sample viscoelastic properties; the macrostructure of asphaltenes both in solution and in a vacuum residue did not appear to be representative of the age hardening process, in contrast to previous findings.


LXRs has been found as the new molecular target to cure the atherosclerosis.The authors designed a series of LXRs agonist, and the methyl 3β hydroxy 5α,6α diepoxycholanate and 3β hydroxy 5β,6β diepoxycholanate were synthesized stereoselectively by hyodeoxycholic acid in three and four steps in total yield of 76% and 43%.


This work deals with giving a foundation for the timely admittance into the legal structure of consciencious objection applied to Jury service, based on the normative data offering by the Spanish Juridical system. It begins with a juridical approximation of the Jury Trial, expounding the basic content of the Organic Law 5/1995 on trial by jury and the firm stand taken that the citizens should participate in this institution as a right and a duty, this clashes with the optional character with the Spanish Constitution gives to the intervention of citizens in the administration of justice. The article continues with a series of general observations on conscientious objection, its concept and the duties to which it may be applied. Finally, it considers conscientious objection in relation to Jury service and analyses how to articulate such an objection without appearing to compromise the effectiveness of the Jury system. At the same time indicating possible guidelines in order to avoid conscientious objection being used to defraud the law, or simply as a means to avoid Jury duty


We report temporal phase retrieval from a three-dimensional interferometer, which measures the noncollinear first-order cross-correlation. This diagnostic can directly retrieve the temporal phase when transform-limited reference pulses are available.


There Are 7 Benefits of Going Global:
1. New Revenue Potential
2. The Ability to Help More People
3. Greater Access to Talent
4. Learning a New Culture
5. Exposure to Foreign Investment Opportunities
7. Diversifying Company Markets


The ways of communication and social interactions are changing drastically. Web users are becoming increasingly engaged with Online Social Networks (OSN), which has a significant impact on the relationship mechanisms between individuals and communities. Most OSN platforms have strict policies regarding data access, harming its usage in psychological and social phenomena studies; It is also impacting the development of computational methods to evaluate and improve social and individual well-being via the web. Aiming to fill this gap, we propose in this paper a platform that brings together social networks dynamics with forum features, altogether with gamification elements, targeting researchers interested in obtaining access to user's data their investigations.


To accommodate increasing I/O and maintain die sizes at as small as practicable levels, the use of area array solder bump flip chip is increasingly being used to bond large ASIC and microprocessor devices to a BGA substrate. In conjunction with thermal cycling, an orthogonal array design with different combinations of assembly choices and underfill materials has proven useful in screening material and assembly parameter choices for these high I/O flip chip applications. Preliminary failure mode analysis (FMA) of assemblies subjected to thermal stress was carried out using metallurgical cross sections and CSAM examinations of the failed devices. Underfill delamination from the chip surface is the primary cause of failure, even though several other failure modes were also seen. The highest characteristic lives were found using the thin film applicator (TFA) technique in combination with underfill A. Reducing flux residues below the level found using the TFA technique did not significantly improve performance.


Hu Juewen is one of the founders and leaders of China Democratic National Construction Association. He had been cooperating with Chinese Communist Party for a long time, making great contributions to the victory of Chinese new democratic revolution and the cause of socialist revolution and socialist construction. This article probes into his relation with Chinese Communist Party which assumes its importance and reality in further developing patriot united front and perfecting milti-parties' cooperation under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party.


growth at the aggregate economic level and the continued importance of agriculture as the backbone of the economy. In recent years agricultural growth has been more rapid than growth in the non-agricultural sectors, expanding by an average annual rate of 5.5%, compared to 5.2% for the economy as a whole. In terms of subsectors, crop production between 1995 and 2006 has expanded steadily. With the exception of sorghum, millet and cassava, in the period 2000–2006, output of most crops has increased at a faster rate than population growth. In terms of industrial crops, the production of tobacco has all but ceased and that of cotton and coffee has declined very signifi cantly over the years while the production of sheanuts continues to increase. Cocoa has experienced strong growth between 2003 and 2005 while oil palm has also been growing steadily. Growth rates for livestock have generally been low and in particular very poor in the case of cattle. Poultry production in urban and peri-urban areas has grown significantly partly as a result of the growing demand by a rapidly increasing urban population. Fish production, did not change signifi cantly between 2000 and 2006.


The atomic-scale structure of a surface is fundamental to understanding its various properties, be they electronic, magnetic, optical, chemical, or tribological. This chapter surveys the current state of knowl-edge of surface structure, and includes a discussion of the main methods employed to determine surface structure. holographic inversion, a more standard fitting is performed to fine-tune atomic positions.


SummaryA procedure for micropropagation of pitaya using thidiazuron (TDZ) and naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) is described. Explants were excised from young joints of mature plants and cultured on Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) containing 0.5 μM NAA and 0.5 μM TDZ. Shoots produced from these first explants were cut up to produce secondary explants, either by decapitation or by longitudinal division into three parts. The decapitated and longitudinal explants were cultured on MS supplemented with 0.5 μM NAA and either 0.01, 0.09, 0.5, or 0.9 μM TDZ. Decapitated explants produced more shoots at higher frequency that the longitudinal explants. For both types of secondary explants, most shoots were developed from the distal parts. Shoots produced from secondary explants were rooted in MS and then transferred to soil where they produced normal plants.