The luminescence of ZnO exhibits a band-edge UV emission peak and a broad emission in the blue-green-red regions associated with the deep level defects as well as the oxygen vacancies and zinc interstitials in the discs. The mechanism of the defect is attributed to the electronic transitions from near conduction band-edge to the deep level acceptors and transitions from the deep donor levels to the valence band. In this study, post-growth annealing was conducted to investigate the mechanism involved in the visible luminescence of ZnO nanoparticle discs prepared. Post-growth thermal annealing can be applied as a new technique in controlling the optical properties of ZnO discs.


Background One of the important goals in the treatment of spastic cerebral palsy is to maintain efficient and effective walking in order to be independent in activities and participate in society. Objective To compare the efficacy of foot combination taping of kinesio tape and athletic tape vs ankle foot orthosis in correcting spatiotemporal gait parameters in children with spastic diplegia. Methods Thirty-six children with spastic diplegia were randomly assigned into 3 groups; control, combination taping, and ankle foot orthosis groups. Children in the control group, in addition to those in both experimental groups, continued with conventional physical therapy, 1 h, 3 times per week for 4 weeks. Spatiotemporal gait parameters were assessed with the GAITRite system before and after the application of interventions. Results There were significant increases in walking velocity, step length, stride length, right single support duration, and left single support duration of the ankle foot orthosis and combination taping groups compared with pre-intervention values. Moreover, the post-intervention values of the double support duration of the ankle foot orthosis and combination taping groups were significantly lower than pre-intervention values. There were no significant differences between the post-intervention values of the ankle foot orthosis and combination taping groups for all parameters. Conclusion The results demonstrated that combination taping is an effective alternative technique to ankle foot orthosis to improve spatiotemporal parameters in children with spastic diplegic in combination with conventional physiotherapy. LAY ABSTRACT Children with cerebral palsy have abnormal patterns of walking secondary to spasticity, which can negatively affect their functional abilities and quality of life. Several therapeutic interventions are used, with the aim of improving gait quality in those children so that they become independent in functional activities and can participate in society. This study compared the effectiveness of ankle bracing with the application of a combination taping on gait parameters. The results showed that both interventions are equally effective. Combination taping might be considered a promising alterative to ankle joint bracing, as it is a more functional and less aggressive technique.


Limited supplies of good quality fresh water in certain fields where steam injection is successful has prompted a search for a means to economically utilize the low quality water sources available. The term ''low-quality water'' refers to water that cannot be softened by ion exchange to make acceptable feedwater, which includes waters that have total dissolved salts in excess of 5,000 ppm or excessive hardness. A new process has been developed by Thermosludge Co. to treat low-quality water coming from a water-bearing formation or waste water produced with oil. The generator has molten heat transfer salt circulating through a furnace. The heat transfer salt passes over water tubes arranged to circulate the water and generate steam by thermosiphon action. The thermosludge generator effluent to the formation is essentially 100% quality steam of negligible solids content (as compared to conventional thermal recovery field heater water of 60-90% by weight of steam), and contains carbon dioxide in an amount dependent on the feedwater composition. Generator operation on low-quality water requires a blowdown of 5-20% of the feed weight. The blowdown material contains soluble salts originally present in the supply water plus insoluble sludge solids formed in the unit reaction.


Five different water soluble terpolymers, namely polyvinyl alcohol-g-poly(acrylamidevinylsulfonate), polyvinyl alcohol-g-poly(acrylic acid-vinylsulfonate), polyvinyl alcohol-g-poly(acrylamide-vinyl benzene sulfonate), polyvinyl alcohol-g-poly(acrylic acid-vinyl benzene sulfonate) and polyvinyl alcohol-g-poly(vinylsulfonate-vinyl benzene sulfonate), have been designed, developed and tested for their efficacy to control N-80 steel corrosion in 10 % HCl, 3.5 % NaCl and simulated well water. The terpolymer characterization was carried out by FTIR. The inhibitors were tested by potentiodynamic and impedance techniques. The inhibitors were also tested in static and dynamic conditions at 55±5 °C, for 6 hours immersion period by weight loss method. Acrylamide terpolymers rendered the best inhibition efficiency in all the studied systems. The results provided a preliminary validation of the inhibitor such that they can be optimised and used for corrosion in oil and gas industries.


Learning science in elementary schools encourages students to understand the natural environment more deeply, rationally, and scientifically. However, often the scientific concepts they believe about science topics are not in accordance with the scientific concepts they should be. This misconception is difficult for teachers to diagnose. Special instruments to identify and analyze students' misconceptions are needed. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the misconceptions of elementary school students on the topic of energy using a four-tier diagnostic instrument. The purposed-designed survey method was used in this study. The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The participants in this study were 20 fourth grade students in an elementary school in Ciamis Regency. A total of 6 questions in the form of a four-tier diagnostic instrument were used to determine the level of students' conceptions. The results showed that the students have misconceptions about the concept of energy. This can be seen from the average percentage of students' misconceptions of 66.67%. This research is expected to contribute to alternative ways to identify and analyze students' misconceptions using the four-tier diagnostic instrument. In addition, it can be used as a reference for teachers and researchers related to the problem of misconceptions of science in elementary school students


The purpose of the research is examining the effect of emotional intelligence training on the problem solving and decision-making skills of adolescents. This study is a real experimental model with a pretest-posttest control group. The study was conducted with the participation of 22 students attending secondary school in accordance with this model. In the conducted pretest results, which are firstly used for emotional intelligence, problem-solving and decision-making skills were applied in the experimental and control groups. Emotional intelligence was revealed to be effective in the development of decision-making skills. According to the research findings, there was a significant difference in the emotional intelligence levels of the students in the experimental group. In addition, a significant difference was found in favor of the experimental group in terms of problem-solving and decision-making skills. These findings were discussed and interpreted.


Aim Subjective and objective review of our early experience with scarf osteotomy for correction of Hallux valgus Introduction Scarf joint is a technique used by carpenters to increase the size of entrance by longitudinally joining beams of timbers. Scarf osteotomy of the first metatarsal is a 'Z'-osteotomy with inherent stability. The convalescence is short and complications of avascular necrosis and non-union are rarely reported. The combination of soft tissue procedure with the osteotomy consistently gives good correction of hallux valgus. Methods and Results The records, radiographs were reviewed and the subjective assessment by telephone interview. Forty-one patients had a scarf procedure but only 31 patients (37 scarf procedures) could be contacted by telephone. All patients were females with a mean age of 44.6(16–76) years. Mean follow-up was 14 months(12 to 18 months). The results were reviewed using the guideline recommended by the Research Committee of American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society. Mean preoperative hallux valgus angle (HVA) was 30.4°(20–48°) and the postoperative HVA was 14.6°(9–22°). The mean pre-operative intermetatarsal angle (IMA) was 4.1°(10–22°) and postoperatively was 8.4°(5–12°). There was significant correction of the tibia sesamoid position (p=0.001). There was no avascular necrosis or non-union. Eighty-eight percent of patients were satisfied; two patients had infection and two stiff MTP joints. Conclusion Scarf osteotomy gives very good correction of hallux valgus and tibia sesamoid position. Patient satisfaction was good with a low complication rate, the fixation after the osteotomy was very stable and no post-operative splint was required.


Based on influence factor analysis of maintenance material consumption, the causal relation model and system dynamics model of maintenance material consumption for equipment were built. Aim at different situation of failure rate, material consumption forecasting data generated were analyzed, and compared with field data, through which the applicability of model founded and the feasibility of method motioned are validated, as proved new method for forecasting equipment maintenance material scientifically and doing equipment material support work outstandingly.


The curing process of large quantity of green plates at our factory was briefly introduced and the process data at different curing stages were discussed in detail,and an analysis of the curing mechanism was also made.The practice indicated that a comprehensive judgement on the curing degree could not be formed until an integration of the following factors had been taken into consideration,i.e.the content of free lead,corrosion degree of grid surface and the recrystalization of basic lead sulfate.


Uncertainty exists about the composition of fluids in equilibrium with carbonatite magma. Such fluids will reflect both the identity of components that are responsible for maintaining carbonates in a liquid state at petrologically reasonable temperature and pressure and the composition of metasomatizing fluids that separate from carbonatite magmas to fenitize the surrounding country rocks. In much of the literature on carbonatite HrO has come to be accepted as the most likely principal constituent, a view that derives from studies of synthetic carbonate systems. Further support was offered in a study of a carbonatite specimen from Oka, Quebec, by Treiman and Essene (1984), who calculated the composition of the fluid assumed to have been in equilibrium with the magma from which this rock crystallized and deduced it to be "a water-rich HrO-CO, fluid with X(HrO) + X(COr) > 0.99 and X(CO,) near 0. 1." Central to their argument is the concept that the rock represents a eutectic assemblage. We argue that this interpretation is untenable and that if the rock were a eutectic assemblage with HrO as the principal fluid, it ought to melt with an excess of HrO at an acceptable temperature and over a very small temperature range. We were unable to melt the rock dry or with excess HrO up to 930 "C. In a test of the possible role of other likely constituents of a carbonatite fluid phase, we determined the melting characteristics of the rock in the presence of NarCO, and F, separately and in combination, but without HrO. The rock melts to varying degrees between 750 'C and 915 .C with up to 900/o melting at the higher temperature and is not, therefore, a eutectic mineral assemblage. Consequently, a fluid composition cannot be calculated by assuming that it is. The experiments establish that HrO alone was not the principal fluid phase in equilibrium with the magma from which the dike crystallized. They do not prove that alkalis and F are the dominant constituents of the fluid or that HrO is not present but do offer confirmation of the effect of these components. Furthermore, carbonatite mineral and rock chemistry offer abundant evidence of the importance of alkalis and F in carbonatite magmas. Hence, it is highly likely that both will find their way into a fluid phase that separates from a carbonatite magma and is in equilibrium with it. We caution that the role of HrO in carbonatite magma evolution has probably been exaggerated.


Fashion illustration was needed in the presentation of fashion trends not only as aesthetic considerations but also to showcase fashion designs based on the principles of fashion design appropriately. Professional fashion illustrator was introduced to the college to give the students an overview of the roles and competencies required of the demands of the profession in the fashion world. This study discusses the analysis of the quality of Fashion Illustration For Casual Menswear by students of D3 SRD (Art and Design) class of 2010. The methods used are descriptive methods and techniques of data collections, using the documentation tasks of Fashion Illustration For Casual Menswear, with a sample as many as 26 documentations of Fashion Illustration For Casual Menswear by students of D3 SRD (Art and Design) class of 2010. Based on the results of this study concluded that in terms of the quality concept of casual menswear theme, showed that more than half of the respondents can applied a color display in accordance with the casual menswear theme as well. In terms of display quality on fashion moodboard, showed that more than half of the students can displayed inspiration in the form of images of fashion moodboard. In terms of display quality on design elements of casual menswear, showed that a small proportion of students very well in applied the design elements of color selection with masculine male character. In terms of display quality on design principles casual menswear, showed that more than half of the students can applied the principles of fashion design seen from the balance between the center of attention with a design of casual menswear. In terms of drawing quality on designing of casual menswear, showed that a big proportion of students have the capability to display images of fashion parts.


We study the N/Z dependence of balance energy throughout the mass range for colliding geometry varying from central to peripheral ones. Our results indicate that balance energy decreases linearly with increase in N/Z ratio for all the masses throughout the colliding geometry range. Also, the N/Z dependence of balance energy is sensitive to symmetry energy.


Qualitative interviews explore the meanings increased female participation in basketball have for a sample of basketball players from three high schools. To what extent are post–Title IX female inroads into sport challenging and/or reproducing the gender order? How do girls and boys give meaning to the successes and failures of girls' and boys' basketball teams and athletics? The social processes reproducing a two-tiered basketball institution at the high school level are illustrated (i.e., emphasis on playing differences, undervaluing of girls' contributions, policing of normative gender expectations). This research suggests that both girls and boys are complicit in supporting the gender order. It illustrates how challenges to the gender order signified by females' increased participation in "male-identified" sports are appropriated. Modifiable social processes for gender equity education in sport are identified as important to support Title IX legal access.


Despite differences between Computer Science (CS) education and Computer Engineering (CE) education, certain basic principles exist in both. We present a spreadsheet model of an elementary hardware Sorter, and show its efficiency in allowing students to gain deep understanding into the complicated inner workings of Checkers and in expressing some basic principles shared by both CS and CE. We describe the usage of Sorters in designing Checkers and describe a potential constructive teaching method for advanced hardware topics.


Based on the content and evaluation standard of high-quality cadre,it is proposed that the basic requirements of high quality shall be determined,being realistic and pragmatic should be explored,incorruptness should be put emphasized for constructing high-quality cadre team meeting with scientific development.The key is the construction of cadre team.The practice on the construction of high-quality cadre team meeting with scientific development is introduced at last.


lead to difficulties if the cognitive structure of the learner is not also taken into consideration. Shulman (1970) states, "If the two structures [mathematical and cognitive] are consonant the new principle or concept can be taught; if they are dissonant, they cannot" (p. 42). The research being reported here was conducted to assess the amount of compatability between a mathematically based organization of Euclidean transformation concepts and the existing cognitive structures of children ages 4 to 8.


In his long and multifaceted career as soldier, teacher, foundation president, and diplomat, Dean Rusk has served at the vortex of history. From Rhodes scholar to World War II soldier, from Rockefeller Foundation president to Secretary of State under John Kennedy, Rusk has been at the forefront of "the search for durable peace"--in is own terms--in the most tumultuous of times. Photographs.


This paper presents the design of ±1.2V single bit second order continuous time (CT) SDM for audio application. The architecture uses low power latched comparator which consist of three stages i.e. preamplifier, kick back removal and latch circuit. Preamplifier dissipates less power and enhances the performance of SDM even at low voltage supply. Latch works as comparator and operates on two non overlapping phases which decides the sampling frequency and subsequently oversampling ratio (OSR) of the SDM modulator. Moreover preamplifier based latched comparator removes the need of D flip-flop which is previously used in conventional architecture resulting in less chip area. The proposed work also uses composite cascode operational amplifier (CCOA) for the design of active RC loop filter. In proposed work the comparator dissipates 80 μW power, which is designed using 180nm CMOS technology at ±1.2V power supply. The design achieves an OSR of 64 which corresponds to signal to noise ratio (SNR) improvement of 21 dB over the Nyquist converters. The proposed modulator achieves 80.75 dB SNDR with 25 kHz input signal.


Concerned about the surge in young people's use of electronic cigarettes in general and the new and widely popular JUUL brand (JUUL Labs) in particular, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Scott Gottlieb announced on 12 September 2018 a 3-part action plan coupled with a warning to product manufacturers. The plan focuses on reducing youth access, curbing marketing to youths, and educating adolescents about the dangers of using any tobacco products (1). The FDA sent letters to the 5 e-cigarette manufacturers that together represent more than 97% of the current marketJUUL, Nuse, MarkTen, blu, and Logicrequesting that they come back to the FDA in 60 days with robust plans on how they'll convincingly address the widespread use of their products by minors (1). The explicit FDA threat is accelerating regulation originally deferred to 2022, which includes removal of flavored products from the market. The reason for the FDA's concern is that many youths have started vaping, especially with the new brand JUUL that has captured almost 75% of the market with its sleek design and ability to deliver potent nicotine concentrations. Introduced in 2015, JUUL pods offer various flavors: mango, mint, cucumber, crme, menthol, and fruit medley. The FDA has the authority to act under the 2016 rule that deemed e-cigarettes subject to regulation. Over the past year, the FDA has come under mounting pressure from child health advocates and tobacco control activists to intervene in what is perceived as a serious epidemic of youth vaping. At first glance, the issue seems like a no-brainer. Of course young persons should not be exposed to nicotine or any other potentially toxic ingredients in vaping solutions. Exposure to these substances might harm the developing brain, addict users to nicotine, cause pulmonary disease, and serve as a gateway to smoking combustible tobacco products, especially cigarettes (2). The reality, however, is more nuanced. Predictions that e-cigarette use would deter adult smokers from quitting and serve as a gateway to combustible tobacco products for young persons seem to be unrealized. Indeed, since e-cigarettes entered the market around 2007, the downward trend in smoking prevalence for both age groups has continued, such that U.S. smoking levels are now at modern lows (3). For high school students, smoking prevalence decreased from 15.8% in 2011 to 7.6% in 2017, whereas e-cigarette use increased from 1.5% to 11.7%. It is rumored that use of e-cigarettes among youth in 2018 has spiked, although the data have yet to be released. For adults, smoking declined from 19% to 13.9% and e-cigarette use increased from 0.8% to 3.2% in 2016 (most recent available data) (46). Similar trends were seen in the United Kingdom. Although e-cigarette use probably promoted initiation or continuation of combustible tobacco use in some instances, the effect on balance may be in the opposite direction. The literature on the relationship between vaping and smoking combustible tobacco is complicated by the distinction between association and causality; many articles show that adults and youths who vape are also more likely to smoke. That association is likely mediated by some adult smokers who use e-cigarettes to help them cut down or quit and by young persons who experiment with many risky behaviors. If e-cigarette use had powerful consequences in favor of combustible tobacco, such effects should have manifested in increased smoking prevalence. In fact, many of the recent spate of newspaper articles on youth vaping quote students as being contemptuous of combustible tobacco products while savoring use of e-cigarettes. For some adult smokers, the flavors in e-cigarettes seem to promote their use over the standard nicotine replacement therapy approved by the FDA for smoking cessation (7). In his announcement, Commissioner Gottlieb acknowledged the potential tradeoff resulting from banning flavors, which might deter youth use of e-cigarettes but also discourage adult smoking cessation. In contemplating this tradeoff, he needs to consider that 500000 adults will die this year from continued smoking, whereas the long-term adverse consequences of vaping on youths are unknown. Another set of nuances flows from the 3 strategies the FDA proposes to execute. Given the failure to limit youth access to other banned substances, such as alcohol and cannabis, manufacturers' assertions that they do not sell to youths may not make much difference. Indeed, JUUL has been explicit about claiming that it bars youth access to its product. Although restricting access is a laudable goaland one that the 5 manufacturers will probably supportit is unlikely to have much effect. Curbing marketing to youths is also commendable, and it brings back memories of cartoon figures like Joe Camel that were used to sell cigarettes. JUUL's advertisements on social media have been criticized for using attractive models who might seem seductive to youths (8). It is not clear how the FDA would determine what apart from cartoon characters constitutes youth-oriented marketing. Barring any gold standard definitions, enforcement of this strategy seems like an invitation for lawsuits. Finally, education about the consequences of exposure and potential addiction to nicotine and other ingredients in vapor is another admirable goal. However, the long-term consequences of e-cigarette use will take some time to sort out, which hampers education. Expert groups in the United States and the United Kingdom have estimated that the risk of e-cigarettes is much lower than that of combustible tobacco but is not negligible (9, 10). In the United States, however, public perceptions of the toxicity of nicotine are much higher than warranted, possibly inspired by sensationalized reporting about e-cigarette use. In summary, the FDA is executing its proper role as protector of public health by trying to prevent e-cigarette use by young persons. Limiting access, restricting marketing to youths, and educating the public about product hazards are worthy goals; nonetheless, they present formidable implementation challenges. Concern about youths needs to be balanced against the very real harm that will befall their adult family members who smoke. If these adults continue smoking, they will have a 50% chance of premature death and will expose others to secondhand smoke. Flavored e-cigarettes will likely help some smokers quit, and banning them could result in unnecessary deaths. These are the kinds of difficult equations facing the FDA as it tries to protect the health of the public.


This paper briefly describes the principles of the recording and read-out of optical video discs, and presents a method to inspect pit geometries. The pit structure on the disc containing the video information is considered to act as a biaxial grating. It is shown that when continuous grooves are recorded on a disc, diffraction experiments give the dimensions of these grooves by comparing them to results of rigorous theory of diffraction by a finitely conducting uniaxial periodic structure with polygonal height profile. This measuring technique yields a precision of 3 nm in depth, 25 nm in width and 3° in slope.


Structural changes in the metallurgical industry have led to the widespread use of induction heating of metals. In particular, strips and slabs induction heating for rolling can significantly improve the usable metal quality and the rolled products yield. The article describes the inductors design with different direction of the main magnetic field. There are analyzed electromagnetic and thermal processes in the induction heating systems with different designs inductors. Most promising ones for the strip induction heating the induction systems with transverse field were specified, since their construction is relatively simple and allows one to improve the temperature field characteristics by means of changing the inductor position relative to the strip.


Sorsby syndrome is a dominantly inherited combination of bilateral macular colobomas and apical dystrophy of the hands and feet (brachydactyly type B). We report on a further three affected members of the family originally described by Sorsby. Two of these have a single kidney, two have hearing loss, and one has a uterine anomaly.


A crystalline 14-metal Zn–Nd cluster [Zn6Nd8L2(OAc)20(O)2(NO3)4(OC2H5)4] (1) was constructed using a flexible Schiff base ligand with long-chain (CH2)2O(CH2)2O(CH2)2 backbone. 1 exhibits a nanoscale rectangular structure (10 × 14 × 18 Å). Besides the visible ligand-centered emission, 1 displays typical NIR luminescence of Nd3+. Interestingly, 1 shows both a ligand-centered and lanthanide fluorescence response towards metal ions, especially to K+ and Co2+ at the ppm level.


Introduction:
 COVID-19 infection and vaccines are associated with acute myocarditis. However, the relative risk of myocarditis is not fully characterized. The aim of this study is to compare the risk ratio (RR) of myocarditis in COVID-19 vaccines and SARS-CoV-2 infection groups and to delineate the effect modifiers.

 Hypothesis:
 Risk ratio of myocarditis is higher in the infection group than in the vaccinated group, and this risk is modified by age and sex.

 Methods:
 Multiple electronic databases and trial registries were searched to April 2022, for randomized controlled trials and observational cohort studies reporting the risk of myocarditis associated with the COVID-19 vaccines and the risk associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. We estimated the effect of COVID-19 infection and vaccines on rates of myocarditis by random-effects meta-analyses using the generic inverse variance method. Meta-regression analyses were conducted to assess the effect of sex and age on the incidence of myocarditis.

 Results:
 22 eligible studies consisting of 55.5 million in the vaccinated cohort and 2.5 million in the infection cohort were included. Median age was 49 years (interquartile range (IQR): 38-56), and 49% (IQR: 43% to 52%) were male. Of patients diagnosed with myocarditis, 3.48% were hospitalized and 0.05% died. The RR for myocarditis in the infection group was15 (95% CI: 11.09 - 19.81) and 2.0 (95% CI: 1.44-2.65) in the vaccine group. Of patients who developed myocarditis after receiving the vaccine or having the infection, 61% (IQR: 39% -87%) were male. Meta-regression analysis indicated that male sex and young age were associated with myocarditis. Risk of bias assessment was moderate.

 Conclusions:
 In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we found that the risk of incident myocarditis is about 7 times higher in persons who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus than in those who received the vaccine.


High performance, highly efficient DC-DC converters play a key role in improving the penetration of renewable energy sources in the context of smart grids in applications such as solid-state transformers, built-in power drives in electric vehicles and interfacing photovoltaic and wind-power systems. Advanced medium-frequency transformers (MFTs) are fundamental to enhance DC-DC converters and determining its behavior, therefore MFT design procedures have become increasingly important in this context. This paper investigates which type of core material, between nanocrystalline and silicon steel, has the best properties for designing MFTs for distinct applications. Unlike to other proposals, in this work, two 1 kVA-120 V/240 V-1 kHz lab MFT prototypes, with a different type of core material, are developed for the purpose of comparing its physical characteristics, behavior, and performance under real-life conditions. A final section, the experimental results show that the nanocrystalline MFT has greater power density and efficiency. The results of this work introduce nanocrystalline MFTs as an option in a wider range of applications in niches in which other materials are currently used.


Significance In many animals, early embryonic development relies on maternally deposited gene products. Smaug protein is a key regulator of posterior patterning and crucial for the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT) of gene expression of the early Drosophila embryo. However, molecular insight into how Smaug binds to its protein interaction partners was lacking. Here, we present the crystal structure of a previously uncharacterized protein domain and provide the structural basis for binding of Smaug to the Hedgehog signaling transducer Smoothened and to the germline inducer Oskar. Molecular insight into these complexes should facilitate future mechanistic studies of Smaug and its partners for a better understanding of their functions during early development.


This paper proposes an image encryption scheme based on chaotic system with changeable parameters depending on plain-image. A generalized Arnold map, whose control parameters are changeable and image-dependent during the iteration procedure, is utilized to generate chaotic orbits applied to permute the pixel positions. A diffusion function is also designed to realize the diffusion effect by piece-wise linear chaotic map. In both the permutation process and the diffusion process, the keystreams generated by chaotic maps are all strongly dependent on plain-image, and thereby can improve the encryption security efficiently. The major merits of the proposed image encryption scheme include a huge key space, good statistical nature resisting statistical analysis attack, differential attack, and good resistance against known-plaintext attack and chosen- plaintext attack, etc. Experimental results have been carried out with detailed analysis to show that the proposed scheme can be a potential candidate for practical image encryption.


The utility model relates to a mobile power supply. The mobile power supply comprises a housing (1), a charging module, a control circuit board (2), a chargeable battery (3), a wireless discharging module, a wired discharging module and a function expansion module, wherein the a charging module, the control circuit board (2), the chargeable battery (3), the wired discharging module and the function expansion module are disposed inside the housing (1). The charging module comprises an input interface (13) and a charging circuit. The wireless discharging module comprises a wireless power transmission circuit and an induction coil (6). The wired discharging module comprises a wired power transmission circuit and a wired power transmission interface (15). The mobile power supply is suitable for wireless or wired charging of mobile phones and other external devices, and achieves some expanded functions such as an electric torch and an LED electric quantity indication. The mobile power supply is wide in application range, high in applicability, and greatly improves practicality.


In this paper, a new approach to a numeric definition of reliability for archaeological reconstruction models is proposed, based on fuzzy logic. This approach allows to introduce for this important concept a numerical value based on verifiable elements, making a scientific evaluations of such reconstructions possible. After characterizing the process of building a reconstruction model from archaeological data and discussing the principal features of this reliability definition, the paper examines in detail the evaluation of reliability in a simple example. Suggestions for further research, including hints for a graphical representation of reliability in computer models and desirable options in user interface, conclude the paper.


Instead of typical flat beam, some synchrotron light users prefer round beam, i.e., with equal horizontal and vertical emittance, for various reasons (e.g., simplified optics, smaller fraction of photons getting discarded, better phase space match between photon and e-beam). Several future upgrade storage rings such as APS-U, ALS-U, and SLS-2 currently plan to operate in round beam mode. We report our beam study results on round beam operating at NSLS-II by driving linear difference coupling resonance.


The Defend Trade Secrets Act became law two years ago, bringing a new federal cause of action for companies seeking to protect their trade secrets. Since then, there have been more than 800 DTSA cases filed in federal district courts. News of cybersecurity breaches, a more mobile workforce and improved visibility associated with DTSA cases in federal courts highlight the importance and value of trade secrets. In this article, we provide a brief update on DTSA cases and discuss two recent cases trade secrets litigators need to be aware of relating to damages.


Biogas is a renewable energy sources that could replace the role of fossil fuel. Biogas could be produced from biomass or agro-industrial wastewater. Sugarcane vinasse has potential of biogas production due to its high BOD concentration (10–65 g BOD/l). However, the biogas production from sugarcane vinasse has several drawbacks that hinders the maximum biogas yield, such as: acidic pH (pH 3.5 – 5.0), high temperature (80–90°C) and high concentration of sulfuric acid (> 150 mg/L). Theoretically, the methane potential per gram COD is 0.35 L/gr COD, containing of 60% methane. However, up to date, the maximum biogas production from vinasse was less then its theoretical value. To get the full potential of biogas production from vinasse wastewater as well as to reduce the capital cost for full scale application, combination of suitable pre-treatment, selected microorganisms and bioreactor design-configuration are the most important parameters to be considered. This paper aims to explore the potential of sugarcane vinasse to produce biogas, by elaborating the aforementioned key parameters. In this review the basic characteristic and the potency of sugarcane vinasse wastewater will be elaborated.  Furthermore, the effect of key parameters such as pH, temperature, and organic load to biogas production will also be discussed. The biogas technology will also be explored. Lastly, conclusion will be determined


Due to the globalization,the society has paid their attention to university education in order to train diversity qualified people.Few suggestions such as:(1)according to the society need,create their own specialist;(2)developing diversity human resource training program;(3)build up second skill for lecturers;(4)set up knowledge-sharing platform have been recommended for university reformation.This is believed that this could create win-win strategy for universities and improve their educating quality.


Based on the review of past research papers, this article analyzes the functioning mechanism of accumulated points which are tightly connected with the choices of individual effort by two dimensions of "self-consciousness" (private self-consciousness, public self-consciousness). We advance related hypotheses and validate those hypotheses by survey samples. We draw the conclusion that medium maximization of previous researches needs to be rectified in groups of people with different levels of two dimensions of "self-consciousness" personalities. The "medium maximization" effect could be moderated by "private self-consciousness" and "public self-consciousness". Medium Maximization will be likely to befall those with lower level of private self-consciousness and those with higher level of public self-consciousness. Management significance and future research prospects have also been put forward.


This study was carried out to determine the effectiveness ofsulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) in using bran as a source of food and energy, and to see the effectiveness of the bran media and bacteria inoculums treatments for pH and sulfur-total of acid sulfate reduction insoils. This study used two factors in group random designs with four treatments for bacteria inoculum of B1 (1%), B2 (5%), B3 (10%), B4 (15%) and two treatments for organic media (bran) of D1 (1:1) and D2 (1:19). Based on three replications, the combination resulted in a total of 24 treatments. Soil pH was measured using the Duddridge and Wainright method and determination of sulfate content in soil was conducted by the spectrophotometry method. The data obtained was analyzed for significance by Analysis of Variance and the Least Significant Difference Test. The pH of the initial acid sulfate soils ranged from 3 to 4 and the soil sulfur-total ranged from 1.4% to 10%. After mixing sulfate reducing bacteria with the bran mediaand incubated f...


The present PhD thesis is focused on the study of new approaches able to improve the performance of microarrays. Aspects such as the nature of the surfaces and the probes, functionalization of the substrates, probe printing, immobilization and target detection were considered in the fabrication process. Within all these features, modulation of the surface behavior and probe anchoring were the most challenging aspects, as the interface is key for the immobilization of the receptors and the later detection, which will determine the performance of the final device. In this work, two microarray types have been developed, one for oligonucleotides and another one for antibodies. Then, a characterization of the reached achievements is done. All the routes have in common the use of light to catalyze the attachment of bioreceptors on the surface substrates, employing click-chemistry reactions. In the first chapter, the state of the art of microarray technology is overviewed, with special focus in the main aspects of microarray design. In the second chapter, the goals for this PhD thesis are settled. These general objectives are addressed in the following experimental chapters. In the third chapter, the effect of hydrophobicity and probe multi-point attachment on the microarray performance are studied. Thus, modulation of glass slide surfaces with alkenyl and alkynyl motifs for the anchoring of mono and multithiolated oligonucleotide probes by thiol-ene and thiol-yne photocoupling reactions, respectively, was accomplished. Surfaces modified with the most hydrophobic silane (alkynyl), or anchoring polythiolated probes, revealed better performances. These microarray systems were applied to the discrimination of SNPs and to detect bacterial genome PCR products. In the fourth chapter, a rational design for the preparation of microarrays of antibodies, is done. The immobilization approach displays the oriented anchoring of thiol-bearing antibody fragments to alkenylated glass slides by thiol-ene photocoupling reaction. Multiplexed detection of cardiac biomarkers is demonstrated. The designed microarray shows higher recognition capacity in comparison to whole antibody microarrays. In the fifth chapter, improvement of a novel methodology for the anchoring of thiolated oligonucleotides has been developed. Due to the interest on modifying highly hydrophobic surfaces, a new photoinduced reaction is set up. Thanks to the features of the named "fluor-thiol photocoupling reaction", immobilization of thiolated probes to surfaces containing C-F bonds in a fast, easy and biocompatible with aqueous media way, was achieved. Hydrophobicity of the surfaces was controlled to get successful hybridizations. Because of the high hydrophobicity of the surfaces, a huge confinement of the probes is accomplished, which allows the approximation of the analytes only where the probe is linked, keeping a high repulsion in the remaining surface. The perfluorinated glass slides improved the immobilization densities and detection capacity, regarding to the alkenylated and alkynylated surfaces, and allowed the discrimination of SNPs and detection of bacterial PCR products, as well. In the sixth chapter, other surfaces different than glass are explored. Thus, polyvinylidene fluoride membranes were employed as substrates for the development of oligonucleotide microarrays. Therefore, a fast, easy and mild functionalization process by UV irradiation and organosilane chemistry, was developed. Then, alkenyl functionalized and non-functionalized membranes were applied to microarray technology by covalent anchoring through thiol-ene and fluor-thiol photocoupling reactions, respectively. Promising results were obtained with both surfaces.


The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether or not capitalism, viewed here as the system that is currently the dominant economic system in the Western world, can be seen as a modern myth o ...


In a series of books and articles, Robert Putnam outlined his famous "bowling alone" theses of declining civic participation, which he attributed in considerable part to television and other alternative leisure time pursuits. Putnam also acknowledged the possibility of other possible factors. This presentation will identify two such possibilities that coincide with the decline Putnam noted, as well as more recent and more ambiguous, technology-related factors.


Office automation as it is being introduced today aims "to automate office procedures", as I.B.M. points out, not "merely to mechanize tasks". It refers to the use of computer technology to process and transmit information, combining word and data processing. Automation also involves linking together today's many modern devices into "integrated office systems". Because new technology is being developed to computerize the very flow of work in the office, its potential impact is qualitatively different from previous office equipment which "mechanized" or "automated" routine tasks.


By using a cation-modified and corrosion-resistant compound of (Pr/sub y/Gd/sub 0.6-y/)Ca/sub 0.4/Ba/sub 1.6/La/sub 0.4/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7/ (y=0.4, 0.5, and 0.6) as normal-metal barrier materials, high-temperature superconducting Josephson junctions have been fabricated in a ramp-edge superconductor/normal-metal/superconductor (SNS) configuration. We have tuned the Pr substitution level in order to achieve the optimal electrical resistivity of the barrier layer for high-performance SNS junctions. The junctions fabricated with these normal-metal barriers show well-defined RSJ-like current vs voltage characteristics at liquid-nitrogen temperature. The junction performance is mainly controlled by the N-layer instead of the interface. We have also fabricated dc superconducting quantum interference devices based on ramp-edge SNS technology with these normal-metal barriers. The ratio of peak-to-peak voltage modulation of the superconducting quantum interference devices to the I/sub c/R/sub n/ product is more than 30%.


More than fifty years have passed since the first observation of graphitic cones in the pyrolysis of carbon. However, until to date there is no report in the literature on the synthesis of such carbon allotropes. Here we present the first synthesis of a carbon nanocone, that comprises a pentagon encircled by 30 hexagons, by means of palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction. In this synthetic approach, 15 C-C bonds were constructed from a bowl-shaped aromatic scaffold, corannulene, and five naphthalene dicarboximide moieties through a cascade of [3+3] and [4+2] annulation. The conical geometry of the first synthetic carbon nanocone was confirmed by X-ray crystallography. The optical and electronic properties of this graphitic cone were elucidated by UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry.


Herein, we demonstrate the synthesis and application of water-soluble, biomolecule conjugated PPP copolymers bearing poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) side chains as fluorescent probes for the in vitro imaging of cancer cells. The targeting of fluorescent polymers to breast cancer cells allows effective visualization and discrimination of MCF7 cells from human mammary epithelial cells. Furthermore, these materials are also suitable for efficient radiolabeling via125I which enables dual-modality holding the possibility of both radioactive and fluorescence imaging in cancer diagnosis applications.


The American Jewish Story through Cinema Eric A. Goldman, Texas: The University of Texas Press, 2013. $55 hardcover, $25 paperback, 264 pages.In his new book, The American Jewish Story through Cinema, Eric A. Goldman attempts to explore the American Jewish story by looking at film. Note the word story: not history, not experience, but story. This is of central importance for the work since it is this point that makes an assessment of it so difficult. The scholarship on American Jews and film is and has been rather strong at least since the 1980s. At first glance, Goldman's book seems to be another addition to this scholarship of which Patricia Erens' The Jew in American Cinema (Indiana, 1985) is perhaps the most noteworthy. Goldman has, however, carved out a niche for himself, looking at the collective Jewish story not on film but through film, essentially making movies the building blocks for his narrative. It is an intriguing and engaging narrative. In some ways Goldman's book reads like a lecture - in a good sense, as he is able to write engagingly and has a talent for weaving a narrative.The main problem with Goldman's book is his explicit goal to use "the medium of cinema to provide an understanding of the changing situation of the American Jew over the last century" (ix). Goldman makes it clear that he is not looking to tell the story of how Jews are presented on the silver screen over the 20th century, nor is he seemingly interested in writing the history of the Jewish community in America in the 20th century while incorporating cinema in his analysis. Rather, he goes to great lengths to separate his work from these alternatives by arguing that he is telling the story of the collective Jewish experience in 20th century America with the help of film representations, in a way making the movies themselves nothing more than illustrations of the themes and attitudes he is trying to portray. As he puts it, cinema is "a way of telling the story, a Haggadah of what has transpired for Jews in America" (xii). As Goldman earlier defines Haggadah as the "traditional 'telling' of the story" (ix) one is left with the sense that he is not writing an academic history but rather a story. In fact, the reason the book reads like a lecture is that the analysis is informal: Goldman seems more interested in presenting a point with movie clips than in actually exploring a scholarly question in an open and methodologically sound way. Nevertheless, it is clear that Goldman possesses a deep understanding of the subject matter and the book is inarguably well written.Goldman chooses nine films for his analysis, each either individually or in pairs representing a certain decade, or period. While his selections are intriguing, he offers little insight into his criteria of selection, stating only that "I have chosen select films that I consider representative of specific historical periods" (xii). As a result, the nine films are a motley crew, including some of the most important films of Jews in America and some more obscure, though not unknown, films. Among the former are The Jazz Singer (1927), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), The Young Lions (1958), The Way We Were (1973) and arguably The Prince of Tides (1991) while Crossfire (1947), Avalon (1990), Liberty Heights (1999) and Everything is Illuminated (2005) fall into the latter category. …


Objective: The present paper aims at producing a brief account and analysis of some of the general vulnerabilities of the State of Law as an actor of the International System in the context of the Globalization phenomenon. Prior Work: The subject is being researched extensively, especially after the emergence of new phenomenon and threats to national security. Approach: The paper was put together using a synthesis and analytical approach, taking in account different sources, from theorists of International Relations and Security Studies to other relevant fields. Results: The result of this study is a complex view on the challenges and some of the vulnerabilities of the modern state, as a component of the International System in the context of Globalization. Implications: The present study does its part in the security studies research area, offering a better view on the dynamics of the challenges raised by the III-rd Millennium. Value: Taking in account all the relevant sources, the present paper offers another piece of the puzzle in trying to better understand the threats on the public order of the democratic state and the policies or optimal mix of policies needed to counteract those threats.


Visual Dialog is a challenging vision-language task since the visual dialog agent needs to answer a series of questions after reasoning over both the image content and dialog history. Though existing methods try to deal with the cross-modal understanding in visual dialog, they are still not enough in ranking candidate answers based on their understanding of visual and textual contexts. In this paper, we analyze the cross-modal understanding in visual dialog based on the vision-language pre-training model VD-BERT and propose a novel approach to improve the cross-modal understanding for visual dialog, named ICMU. ICMU enhances cross-modal understanding by distinguishing different pulled inputs (i.e. pulled images, questions or answers) based on four-way contrastive learning. In addition, ICMU exploits the single-turn visual question answering to enhance the visual dialog model's cross-modal understanding to handle a multi-turn visually-grounded conversation. Experiments show that the proposed approach improves the visual dialog model's cross-modal understanding and brings satisfactory gain to the Vis-Dial dataset.


AbstractOur study examines the impact of adult mentoring on Black, under-resourced, urban, middle grade students. First, we explore impact of mentoring on grades earned in the context of a comprehensive program which included one-on-one mentoring and an array of out-of-school enrichment activities. We also examine the nature of mentor-mentee engagement during mentoring interactions. Descriptive statistics were used to compare mean differences in grade point averages (GPAs) of students in the comprehensive program with those in the non-comprehensive (one-on-one mentoring only) program. Comprehensive Program mentees earned higher GPAs than non-comprehensive mentees overall in mathematics, reading, and science. Further, when reading GPAs of the groups were compared, the mean difference was statistically significant at the .05 level. An independent samples t-test for equality of means was also used to explore the impact of mentor-mentee engagement. Results from this examination highlighted the importance of the intensity and content of engagement during mentor-mentee interactions.IntroductionA great deal of attention has been paid to the academic performance of urban Black American students. Much of this attention has been focused on disparity issues as reflected in standardized test performance (e.g., Berliner, 2009; Gordon, Iwamoto, Ward, Potts & Boyd, 2009; Hermstein & Murray, 1994; Neal, 2005; Robelen, 2013). Since the early 1970s the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been testing the progress of students in the United States in the school subjects of mathematics and reading. The stated purpose of the nation-wide testing was to keep policy makers, educators, and the general public informed regarding the trends in student performance. In addition to test results performance, NAEP officials have also provided guidance about how to interpret the test (Vanneman, Hamilton, Baldwin Anderson & Rahman, 2009).Data analysis shared by NAEP revealed a persistent test score gap between under- and adequately resourced groups. The gap garnered increasing attention. Specifically, the attention highlightedin the popular press tended to focus on descriptions of presumed deficits of Black and Latino Americanstudents (who were over-represented in the under-resourced group) often without taking into account thecautions in interpreting scores and trends urged by NAEP analysts. Some education professionals and others acknowledged the trends as well as the context in which they took place (Barton & Coley, 2010; Berliner, 2009; Gee, 2011; Grissmer, Kirby, Berends, & Williamson, 1994). Others argued that the focus on economic factors as a possible cause for the disparities drew needed attention away from the more complex and difficult-to-discuss issues; one of which is variation of human intelligence across groups of people (Hermstein & Murray, 1994; Jencks & Phillips, 1998). Hemstein and Murray contended that the failure to take into account "the role of intelligence is to... grope with symptoms instead of causes, [and] to stumble into supposed remedies that have no chance of working (pp. xxii-xxiii)." In fact, Jencks and Phillips strongly suggested that the case for economic factors was overstated; they posited that cultural and psychological factors more likely played an even more important role in academic achievement outcomes than economics.Still, what in many instances may be less well known by the general public was the fact that when resources were made available to families and were directed to address both in- and out-of school needs, student groups who had previously been expected to struggle academically began to make steady gains (Barton & Coley, 2010; Gee, 2011; Vanneman, et al., 2009). Further, researchers noted that when political and educational policies shifted and led to significantly reduced funding for ameliorative efforts, progress in reducing the disparities stopped. …


The culture is the soul of nationality and nation.The development of culture is the important power to impact the national development.China must increase culture construction and establish culture strategy in accordance with Chinese national condition so as to foster nationality soul,change people's life style,develop culture industry and enhance ability to resist external decayed culture on 21st.


In the article on the basis of the poetic works of symbolists K. D. Balmont, V. Y. Bryusov and Z. N. Gippius it is defined status of the lexical repetition from the position of the theory of regulativity.


Contents: J. King, Foreword. Part I:The Macrolevel: Issues. J.R. Searle, The Problem of Consciousness. B.J. MacLennan, The Investigation of Consciousness Through Phenomenology and Neuroscience. Part II:The Mesolevel: Neural Systems and Consciousness. L. Weiskrantz, Blindsight: Conscious vs. Unconscious Aspects. C.L. Colby, J.-R. Duhamel, Heterogeneity of Extrastriate Visual Areas and Multiple Parietal Areas in the Macaque Monkey. M. Mishkin, Cerebral Memory Circuits. E.K. Miller, Neocortical Mechanisms for Visual Memory. M.S.A. Graziano, C.G. Gross, From Eye to Hand. Part III:Microprocessing and the Nanolevel in the Neurodynamics of Consciousness. J.K. Chapin, M.A.L. Nicolelis, Beyond Single Unit Recording: Characterizing Neural Information in Networks of Simultaneously Recorded Neurons. M. SantaMaria, J. King, M. Xie, B. Zheng, K. Pribram, D. Doherty, Responses of Somatosensory Cortical Neurons to Spatial Frequency and Orientation: A Progress Report. J. Sutherland, Application Toolset for Holographic Neural Technology: An Overview. H.H. Szu, Attempts to Unify Chaos, Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks. S. Hameroff, R. Penrose, Orchestrated Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: A Model for Consciousness. Part IV:Quantum Physics, Quantum Neurodynamics and Consciousness. H.P. Stapp, Why Classical Mechanics Cannot Naturally Accommodate Consciousness But Quantum Mechanics Can. B.J. Hiley, Nonlocality in Microsystems. L.I. Gould, Quantum Dynamics and Neural Dynamics: Analogies Between the Formalisms of Bohm and Pribram. R.L. Amoroso, B.E. Martin, Modeling the Heisenberg Matrix: Quantum Coherence and Thought at the Holoscape Manifold and Deeper Complementarity. G. Vitiello, Dissipation and Brain. F. Frohlich, G.J. Hyland, Frohlich Coherence at the Mind-Brain Interface. K.H. Pribram, Afterword.


The reactions of mercuric carboxylates with bivalent sulfur compounds, such as aralkyl sulfides and mercaptoles, were investigated. When mercuric acetate and aralkyl sulfides were refluxed in benzene, mercury mercaptides and aralkyl acetates were obtained. It was made clear that the reactivity of the sulfides depends on the stability of carbonium ions given by elimination of the mercapto group. Next, it was found that acetic anhydride, benzophenone and mercury phenylmercaptide were obtained in high yields by the equimolar reaction of benzophenone diphenylmercaptole with mercuric acetate. Further, the reaction was extended to the preparative method of carboxylic acid anhydrides from free acids by treating the carboxylic acids with diphenylmercury and the mercaptole. On the other hand, S-phenyl thioacetate, benzophenone and mercury mercaptide were produced in good yields when benzophenone diphenylmercaptole (2 mol) was treated with mercuric acetate (1 mol). Further, it was established that thiolesters were ...


Novel techniques for conversion from RNS (residue number system) to binary numbers are presented which do not need look up tables, thus enabling the design of programmable RNS to binary converters. Techniques for binary to RNS conversion as well as analog to RNS conversion based on the proposed approach are also considered. The results are extended to the case of the three moduli set 2/sup n-1/, 2/sup n/, and 2/sup n+1/ as well.<<ETX>>


Interconnect planning has been widely regarded as one of the most critical factors in determining the system performance and total power consumption as technology scales. Because of shrinking dimension, on-chip wires are getting more resistive, and the wire delay is becoming larger comparing to gate delay. On the other hand, the self capacitance of wires does not scale with feature size, and as wiring density grows, the total coupling capacitance increases, which results in substantial increment of interconnect power consumption. Two challenges have been posed for on-chip interconnect planning: (1) to quantitatively determine the interconnect impacts upon system performance and power consumption in early design stage, (2) to find novel interconnect strategies that can bridge the gap between gates and wires as technology scales. To meet these challenges, both analysis and design methods need to be developed. Off-chip interconnect is also becoming a limiting factor for system performance since the growth of chip's I/O bandwidth has been outpaced by the growth of communication requirement. To meet the performance challenge, the per-pin interconnect bandwidth must be further improved. How to manage the power consumption of very high bandwidth interconnects can be really challenging. In this statement, I outline the contributions of my thesis to address these challenges and discuss the possible directions of my future research.


Abstract The interaction human-vehicle, as well as driver's behavior are subject long debated in the automotive engineering domain. Driving simulators have an extraordinary important role allowing research that would not be possible to study in real world scenarios. A driver uses his sensory inputs to obtain the required input to base his decision on. The bandwidth of the required input signal should be in accordance to the driver's task. For simple tasks, like turning on the screen wipers or direction indicator, low frequency information is sufficient. High frequency information is required when cornering on a busy road or when driving in relatively limit situations. The optimal configuration of each sub-system remains a significant cause for debate and still poses a major challenge when considering the ability of simulators to extract realistic driver behavior. If a difference is observed between real and virtual conditions, the factors specifically cause these differences are very difficult to be explained.


The article considers one the most promising innovation technology in education – the theory of inventory problem solving (TRIZ) applied to teaching English for special purposes (ESP). The study includes a brief review of TRIZ methodology in educational practices with the focus on non-technical university programs. The work reveals didactic potential of TRIZ-based ESP courses which enable students to gain skills to solve open type problems related to the professional linguo-conceptual sphere. The article contains some examples of TRIZbased assignments aimed at the acquirement of professional vocabulary within an ESP course for fashion designers.


OBJECTIVE To investigate the risk factors,characteristics,measures of prevention and treatment of hospital fungal infection among maintenance hemodialysis patients.METHODS Clinical data of 128 maintenance hemodialysis patients between Jan 2002 and Dec 2006 were enrolled in this retrospective study of hospitalized infection cases.RESULTS During above period,36 infection episodes of 27 cases were occurred.The major infection site was lungs(69.4%).the Candida albicans was the main pathogen species(61.1%).The underlying and complicating diseases such as diabetes,chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and tumor,long antibiotics using,long hospitalization,poor nutrition status,inadequate hemodialysis,and venous indwelling catheter were the risk factors which led to fungal infection among maintenance hemodialysis patients.CONCLUSIONS The maintenance hemodialysis patients are easy to induce fungal infection.The C.albicans is the main pathogen species.The incidence of underlying diseases is rather high.Treatment of original diseases and complicating diseases,the standard using of antibiotics,adequate hemodialysis,the nutrition status and the reduction of the indwelling time of venous catheter are all the keys to decrease the fungal infection.


The pulse width of a KrF excimer laser was elongated from 40 to 60 ns by coupling dually split laser beams with different optical paths. By the irradiation of such elongated laser pulses up to 103 times, strontium bismuth tantalate thin films can be crystallized efficiently to perovskite at a substrate temperature of 650 °C, while the irradiation of nonelongated pulses fails to crystallize the films. The crystallized films have high remanent polarization and coercive field values. The presence of the energy threshold and the critical thickness for crystallization to perovskite is suggested.


Eccrine angiokeratomatous hamartom a is a newly recognised vascular lesion of the skin, with the first case being reported only in 2006.  It has a distinctive histology with features derived from two well established vascular lesions affecting the skin: solitary angiokeratoma and eccrine angiomatous hamartoma.  A 26 year old woman presented with a long standing painless warty lesion on her right ankle. Histological examination of the excised lesion showed a combination of two vascular lesions: superficial angiokeratoma and a deeper eccrine angiomatous hamartoma. Such a histological picture is consistent with the diagnosis of recently described eccrine angiokeratomatous hamartoma. Our case represents only second such case to be reported. Immunohistochemical analysis with CD34, smooth muscle actin and cytokeratin was done.


Ixoreal Biomed's ashwagandha root extract was found to produce a significant increase in telomerase activity, which may help ameliorate the effects of aging.


The rise and fall of a state are events that produce specific legal consequences. These effects, especially in the field of succession, are regulated – to a greater or lesser extent – by international law1. An equally important issue is to determine whether the very rise and fall of the state is regulated by international law. International law deals with the state from outside, as an existing phenomenon. This statement remains valid as far as the creation of the state is concerned. As for the fall of the state, international law has never really been a mere witness of this event. If in earlier times, annexation was one of the reasons for the state's collapse (if not the main reason), it was international law that determined the conditions of its legality. To a much greater extent, the fall of the state is regulated by modern international law. This is connected not only with the prohibition on the use of force and the resulting prohibition on annexation, but also with the right of nations to self-determination. Annexation is nowadays an illegal act and therefore does not cause the state to fall, not only because it is a consequence of the use of force, but also because it is incompatible with the right of peoples and nations to self-determination. A nation can not be deprived of its own state against its will. The right of nations to self-determination is in this respect complementary to the basic law of the state – the right to exist. According to contemporary international law, the loss of statehood (and thus the loss of subjectivity of international law) can only take place on a voluntary basis. However, there are also reasons for the fall of a state, for which international law was and still is really only a witness (e.g. when the existing state is divided into several parts: In any case, it can be initially established that at least some cases of state collapse are regulated by international law. The situation is different


This thesis deals with the synthesis of single source precursors as organometallic chalcogenides, which are used for preparation of amorphous chalcogenide thin films.
In the experimental part, the preparation of thin films by spin coating method from solutions of organotin chalcogenides is described. The films prepared in this way are subsequently described and characterized.


The focus of this paper are experimental and numerical strength tests of domestic hot water storage tanks. The tests involved the verification of the minimum wall thickness for the assumed operating parameters while meeting all safety standards. The authors presented numerical and experimental analyses for the verification of strength parameters of axial cylindrical tanks due to the lack of methodological guidelines for this type of equipment. In order to verify the conducted theoretical considerations and calculations, experimental tests of samples of front welds produced with austenitic steel as well as a pressure test for the whole tank were conducted using a research test stand.


The following deficiency relation is shown:Let f be a transendental meromorphic function,and D[f] be a k th-order linear differential polynomial of f.If any ω,meromorphic solution of the differential equation (D[ω])'=0, is a small function of (D[f])', then for all a∈C,there existsa≠∞δ(a,D[f])1+12k+1.


Using beam propagation method, we investigated the switching behavior of a nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer (NMZI). The focus of the present investigation was exponentially saturable type nonlinearity of the NMZI. The results were compared with the results of NMZIs with saturable type nonlinearity. NMZIs with both types of nonlinearity offer stable on and off states; however, exponentially saturable nonlinearity proves to be much better, as NMZIs with this type of nonlinearity offer a stable on state with higher transmission coefficient (i.e., with lower device loss) compared to those with saturable nonlinearity. Moreover, the stable on state could be achieved at much lower power levels. © 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). (DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.51 .7.074604)


The concept of mutual direct linear state controllability (MDC) is introduced for underactuated mechanical and aerospace systems. The MDC analysis identifies the sets of state variables of a control system that are simultaneously and independently controllable by direct action of the available control authority. The analysis utilizes the controls coefficient vectors that correspond to virtual constraint state dynamics (VCD) that are imposed on the linear system dynamics. It is shown that the largest (non unique) set of mutually-directly controllable state variables of a control system has the same number of elements as the number of independent control variables of the system. The MDC assessment leads to a systematic multivariable control system design that results from successive generalized inversion of the individual VCDs of the mutually directly controllable states of the system by using the Generalized Dynamic Inversion (GDI) control law. The produced control system design is in the nested GDI control loops configuration.


Since the dawn of time, humankind's singular ability to make decisions has allowed human beings to face innumerable environmental challenges and complex evolutionary dynamics. Environmental pressures are not so urgent anymore, comparing to our ancestors. Nonetheless, the number of decisions that contemporary humans are called to make is very high. During the last three centuries, the change from normative to descriptive theories, from formal to natural logic, from substantive to limited rationality has allowed us to explain how many of the decisional strategies are coherent with the functioning of the cognitive economy of our species, even if they are limited and fallible.


The intention of this thesis is to develop, evaluate new concepts and look over the current design for a container sized barge module. By request of Group Ocean, a cost and weight reduction is the ...


Reservoir rock material collected during drilling is one of the main sources used to derive reservoir fluid transport and rock mechanics properties. Carbonate reservoirs may have heterogeneities that create multi porosity/permeability systems that are very difficult to describe, and to determine their flow properties. Conventional methods use laboratory procedures to perform experiments that directly or indirectly yield required rock properties. Some of these procedures, such as the determination of relative permeabilities, may take several months to perform. Also, in some cases, it is very difficult, or impractical to perform the experiments in the first place. Yet, as reservoir characterization is becoming ever more important for oil and gas production, a much larger portion of reservoir rocks, from cuttings to full cores, will need to be analyzed than what are currently evaluated. This study offers an example of the use of digital rock physics to determine porosity, permeability, and relative permeabilities for a carbonate sample using multi-scale imaging. Digital rock physics using the Lattice Boltzmann (LBM) for fluid dynamic calculations is at a point where for a proper digital pore space the resulting calculated flow properties are reasonably correct. The main issue facing digital rock physics is the need to up scale the computed properties to the scale of the core.

The process presented in this study includes sample preparation, imaging, image processing, property computations, and property integration to the core scale. The sample is subjected to a descending scale of X-ray CT imaging, along with physical sub-sampling of the core. The descending size of scanning leads to increased resolution of the three-dimensional digital core, keeping the sample volumes registered in place. The resulting digital rocks are segmented and the pore structure is determined on the X-ray CT grid system. The resulting three-dimensional pore structure, that is the same as the actual pore structure subjected to resolution limits, is used as the input grid system for direct fluid dynamic computations that are second-order accurate representation of the Navier-Stokes fluid flow equations. These computations yield porosity, absolute permeability, relative permeabilities, and capillary pressure. In this study we focus only on porosity and permeabilities. Multiple scale imaging permits the estimation of permeability at the core scale.


Totally chlorine-free bleaching sequence(OQP/OQP 1 P 2) of low kappa number wheat straw pulp and the operating conditions for various brightness(from 78.0%ISO to 85.7%ISO) of bleached pulp were investigated. The results show that chelated oxygen-delignification of wheat straw pulp has a kappa number of 3.9, a viscosity of pulp 965 ml/ g. The process conditions to the highest ISO brightness of 85.7% are as follow: O stage, oxygen pressure 0.7MPa, reaction temperature 100℃, reaction time 60 min, NaOH charge 4.0%, MgSO4 charge 0.5%, reaction temperature 80℃, total H2 O2 dosage 8.0%, but the consumption of H2 O2 is low, because the kappa number and content of transition metal are low. The kappa number is 3.9, the content of Fe is 29 mg/kg, the content of Cu is 19 mg/kg, and the content of Mn is 3 mg/kg, respectively.


The combined agent ontology mappings assure that more and more people will start using ontology. The expectations are also high when one thinks about the potential use of these applications. Ontology mapping plays a vital role in achieving heterogeneous data integration on the Semantic Web. This enables a large number of ontology present on the web need to be aligned before one can make use of them. But this ontology can differ in representation, quality, and size that pose different challenges to ontology mapping. The main purpose of implementing this multi agent ontology mapping framework was that operate effectively in the Semantic Webenvironment. The aim is to build a framework that solves the difficulty of evaluating ontologies with a large number of concepts. Here a number of domain experts are necessary to evaluate similar concepts in different ontologies. The experts combine their knowledge and experience to create a solution rather than relying on a single person perspective. In this the classes are represented as RDF individuals where the individual properties are defined as OWL data properties. Here both ontologies are valid separately, and no logical reasoned would find inconsistency in them individually. It is easy to see that, once we compare the two ontologies, a considerable amount of uncertainty arises over the classes and its properties and in a way they can be compared. This uncertainty can be contributed to the fact that, owing to the different representations, certain elements will be missing for the comparison.


Canadian food inspection system, compared to Colombian food inspection system, 327–344 Cancer, prevention and treatment by Ganoderma mushroom, 275–325 Capacity building, in agricultural biotechnology in Turkey, 437–445 Chenopodium breeding for tolerance to abiotic stress, 129–137 consumption in Peru, 221–227 cultivation on the Peruvian altiplano, 31–41 current production and potential in Peru, 149–154 current use in Chile, 155–165 diseases of, 43–59 ecophysiological analysis of drought and salinity stress of, 111–119 genetic resources, ethnobotany, and geographic distribution of, 1–7 germplasm, multivariate analysis of genetic diversity in Bolivia, 9–23 horizontal technical cooperation in research on, 25–29 market challenges of, 203–219 nutritional value and use of, 179–189 and other Andean crops, global potential for, 139–148 parasitic nematodes in the Andean region of Bolivia, 77–85 pests, advances in the knowledge of, 61–75 postharvest and commercialization of, 191–201 resistance to adverse abiotic factors, 99–109 response of developmental processes to temperature and photoperiod in, 87–97 variation of proline content in high beds, 121–127 worldwide potential for, 167–177 Chile, current use of quinoa in, 155–165 FOOD REVIEWS INTERNATIONAL Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 449–451, 2003


In peer to peer systems the problem of free riders and lack of motivation to share files result in dwindling life time of p2p systems This also results in lack of interested files in the system .Here in this paper we present a number of novel ideas like building sub systems in p2p systems with separate incentive for these sub system , peer to peer lending ,shared sharing , p2p incentive Banks , to motivate people to share files and form a co-operative society. As the life time of the system directly depends on the number of files and the quality of files , This motivation helps in extending the life time of the system.


People have been busy creating decision aids to help involve patients in treatment choices. But rheumatologists prove lukewarm to the whole idea so far.


The cultivation of university students' personality and the cultivation of University's ideological and political work is an important content in the new period.it is the important goal of talent training mode reform.College Counselors' Ideological and political education of university students in the most important strength,its own personality charm of College Students' thought quality,moral quality and moral behavior habit has a unique and magical education value and function.Enhancing counselor personality shaping and training,to improve the focalization of Ideological and political education,effectiveness,attraction,infectivity,training Dezhitimei all-round development of qualified socialist builders and reliable successors have important practical significance.


Copyright: © 2014 Brar SK, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Preventing pollution is an important issue in the current world than cleaning up the environment. By tradition, chemists have designed products that are effective and economical. They have not considered the waste generated during processing of the new chemicals and products and its toxicity. Inventing any new products that are of concern to us or ecosystems ultimately goes into the environment at the end of the life of these substances, leading to accumulation, degradation and toxicity. Hence, it is always better to choose the process protocols that generate minimum waste and finished products with few chemicals usage and synthesis steps. Our science builds on great achievements by chemicals and chemists. It's been more than 150 years that we have been finding a way to invent new molecules. And the modern chemistry with its inventions has improved a lot our lives providing an incredible array of products in every field (consumer products, cloths and electronics) and mainly save lives on this earth with new medicines.


Hydraulic bearing having a controllable damping for mounting drives for motor vehicles, for adapting to different operating conditions, comprising a support body, fastening elements for connection to the parts to be stored, two fluid chambers which are separated from one another by an intermediate plate and having two different rigidities, characterized in that the intermediate plate (7) is formed rigidly and at least two overflow passages (10, 11) is provided, each by a mechanism (12, 13) are closed and each of the mechanisms (12, 13) into a recess provided in the intermediate plate (7) housed and there by a connecting plate (24) is fixed, that it automatically alternately its associated transfer channel (10, 11) at different pressure conditions of the fluid chamber (8, 9) of higher pressure to the fluid chamber (9, 8) of lower pressure closes, and the fluid chamber (9, 8) of low pressure to the fluid chamber (8, 9) of higher pressure opens, and the mechanism (12, 13) is fixable both in the two end positions as well as in any intermediate position or its movability is braked and everybody of the two mechanisms (12, 13) from a rotational axis (18) with a closure flap (19) and the rotation axis (18) of a bearing shell (15) is received, whereby a sliding bearing is formed, and the bearing shell (15) to a magnetic circular part, whose electromagnet (14) protrudes laterally out of the upper housing part (1), the gap (16) between the axis of rotation (18) and the bearing shell (15) having a magnetorheological fluid (17) is filled, the magnetic circuit on the side of the electromagnet (14) with a disc (23) is provided, which consists of a material of low permeability, between the rotation axis (18) and a fixed point of the mechanism (12, 13) a spring (20) is arranged so that with the closure flap (19) the opening of the overflow channel (10, 11) is closed in the normal state and the mechanisms (12, 13) inserted into appropriate recesses in the intermediate plate (7) and thence through a releasably connected to the intermediate plate connecting plate (23) fixed become.


The invention relates to a method of welding a plurality of wire pairs of segments (1a, 1b), each of said wire pairs of segments (1a, 1b) are each two adjacent wire segments (1aa, 1ab, 1ba, 1bb), wherein each adjacent wire segments of each wire pair of segments (1a , 1b) each have a contact region (9aa, 9ab, 9ba, 9bb) have, in which they are to be welded to the respective other wire segment, the wire segment pairs (1a, 1b) between two consecutive elements (4a, 4b) (a pressing unit 4 be passed), the pressing unit (4) respectively at a time of welding, to the at least one of the wire pairs of segments (1a, 1b) (between the two elements 4a, 4b) of the pressing unit (4), a pressing force (5) on this wire segment pair exerts, so that the wire segments of this wire segment pair (1a, 1b) are pressed with their contact areas against each other, and wherein the respective time of welding Laserstra Dis (8a, 8b) to that of the wire segment pairs (1a, 1b) is irradiated, to which the pressing unit applies a pressing force (5) on this time of welding, whereby the laser radiation (8a, 8b) is irradiated into a region in which the contact areas the wire segments of the respective wire pairs of segments (1a, 1b) are pressed against each other.


Copula is a function which can link two or more marginal distributions together to form a joint distribution. This paper aims to analyze the dependence between Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets using copula theory based on GARCH. We use the synchronous 100 times daily returns data and copula based GARCH to model the joint distribution of stock index returns because copula based GARCH can fit the properties of stock market returns: dynamic and non-normal. Univariate AR(1)-GARCH(1, 1) model is used to study the marginal distribution of each index return, while copula is used to analyze the dependence between the two marginal distributions. Copula families offer various alternatives to the common assumption of normal dependence, including constant and time-varying. After fitting the marginal distributions into the constant and time-varying copula, we find constant t-copula and time-varying normal copula can explain the dependence between Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets better. We also find evidence that there is obvious conditional dependence between the two stock markets.


In view of the concrete condition of German and the developing tendency of the world history,Mark puts forward the idea that German under the feudal dictatorship may directly enter into the communism revolution without the stage of capitalism,when he expounds the futrue of the German revolution in the middle 19th century in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. This shows that Marx at that time has already had a preliminary realization of the diversity of social form and the possibility of overleaping social development stages.This realization is ,in fact,the prelude of Marx's idea on overleaping the Caftin gorge of capitalist System,which Marx in his later years put forward in his oriental social theory.This shows that the theoretical value of the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Righthould be reassessed.


In the UK, Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women are more likely to die during pregnancy and after childbirth compared with white women. A recent spotlight on ethnic disparities in maternal deaths has rendered a much-needed discussion on maternal health outcomes and experiences of maternity care for BAME women. The increased risk of death is unexplained by researchers, healthcare professionals and public health officials. This article, the first in the new series 'Racism matters' seeks to unpack these issues to challenge, educate, and to drive improvements in maternity care. Here, Anna Horn, a Black American woman, UK maternity service user and equity advocate offers insight into a deeper, systematic and historical precedent of racism and injustice as underlying contributor to health inequalities.


The latest edition of the Guide for Design of Pavement Structures was published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in 1986. This edition of the Guide introduced a requirement for the direct use of several new design parameters. Among these factors, the most prominent are the drainage coefficient, the reliability coefficient, and the standard deviation factor. The incorporation of these parameters in the design procedure would improve the final design only if they are properly evaluated and if their assigned values would represent the site conditions as precisely as possible. The use of an expert system to assist design engineers in utilizing the current AASHTO Design Guidelines as well as determining the most proper value for each of the new design parameters is proposed. The development of such a system is described in this paper.


OBJECTIVE:To prepare the inclusion compound of albendazole β CD and investigate its properties METHODS:Using test of counter mixture stirring to prepare albendazole β CD The solubility and dissolution rate of inclusion compound and albendazole were measured by UV spectrophotometry RESULTS:The inclusion compound of albendazole β CD was confirmed by blank contrast test, X ray diffraction and differential scanning Its solubility was ten times as high as that of albendazole, and its dissolution rate higher than that of albendazole obviously CONCLUSION:The solubility and dissolution rate of albendazole were increased when the drug was included by β CD


Financial support for the initial research was provided by Durham University's
Research Studentship, aided by a Monbusho Scholarship from
the Japanese Government and research grants from the Research Council
of Iceland (#010010001 and #050678031). The research was made
possible by financial assistance from the National Research Council of
Iceland and the School of Social Sciences of the University of Aberdeen.
A contribution from the Visiting Scholar Scheme at the University of Aberdeen greatly facilitated the writing up of our research. Financial
support was provided by the University of Iceland Research Fund and
assistant research grants from the School of Social Sciences of the University
of Iceland. We are grateful for all of this financial support.


The purpose of the research was to study and compare the effect of jumping rope upon heart rate, body weight, blood pressure and cholesterol in the blood. The subjects for this study were 30 the first students of Education Faculty of Naresuan University by purposive sampling. The instruments used for collecting data was 12 minute jumping rope method. The data were analyzed through the was for SPSS program for Windows. The training period was 8 weeks, 3 days in each week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5:00 – 6:00 pm. The findings were : the heart rate, body weight, blood pressure and cholesterol in the blood of the subjects after the jumping rope. Decreased statistically significantly at .05 every item.


Significance Heart pumping is triggered and coordinated by action potentials (APs) originating in and spreading among electrically excitable heart muscle cells (myocytes) via electrotonic coupling. Cardiac nonmyocytes are thought not to participate in AP conduction in situ, although heterocellular electrotonic coupling is common in cell culture. We used optogenetic tools involving cell-specific expression of a voltage-reporting fluorescent protein to monitor electrical activity in myocytes or nonmyocytes of mouse hearts. We confirm the suitability of this technique for measuring cell type-specific voltage signals and show that, when expressed in nonmyocytes, myocyte AP-like signals can be recorded in cryoinjured scar border tissue. This direct evidence of heterocellular electrotonic coupling in the whole heart necessitates a review of current concepts on cardiac electrical connectivity. Electrophysiological studies of excitable organs usually focus on action potential (AP)-generating cells, whereas nonexcitable cells are generally considered as barriers to electrical conduction. Whether nonexcitable cells may modulate excitable cell function or even contribute to AP conduction via direct electrotonic coupling to AP-generating cells is unresolved in the heart: such coupling is present in vitro, but conclusive evidence in situ is lacking. We used genetically encoded voltage-sensitive fluorescent protein 2.3 (VSFP2.3) to monitor transmembrane potential in either myocytes or nonmyocytes of murine hearts. We confirm that VSFP2.3 allows measurement of cell type-specific electrical activity. We show that VSFP2.3, expressed solely in nonmyocytes, can report cardiomyocyte AP-like signals at the border of healed cryoinjuries. Using EM-based tomographic reconstruction, we further discovered tunneling nanotube connections between myocytes and nonmyocytes in cardiac scar border tissue. Our results provide direct electrophysiological evidence of heterocellular electrotonic coupling in native myocardium and identify tunneling nanotubes as a possible substrate for electrical cell coupling that may be in addition to previously discovered connexins at sites of myocyte–nonmyocyte contact in the heart. These findings call for reevaluation of cardiac nonmyocyte roles in electrical connectivity of the heterocellular heart.


Violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) implies quantum phenomena. In this light we establish that Moreva et al.'s (Phys. Rev. A, 89 (2014) 052122) experiment demonstrating Page-Wootters' mechanism (Page D. N. and Wootters W. K., Phys. Rev. D, 27 (1983) 2885; Wootters W. K., Int. J. Theor. Phys., 23 (1984) 701). falls in the quantum domain. An observer outside a 2-photons world does not detect any change in the 2-photons state, i.e., there is no time parameter for the outside observer. But an observer attached to one of the photons sees the other photon evolving and this means that there is an "internal" time. The LGI is violated for the clock photon whose state evolves with the internal time as measured by the system photon. Conditional probabilities in this 2-photons system are computed for both sharp and unsharp measurements. The conditional probability increases for entangled states as obtained by Page and Wootters for both ideal and also unsharp measurements.


The assessment and grading of writing in Unit Curriculum English plays a major role in the determination of a student's summative, and hence, public, letter grade. Through teachers' adherence to the assessment and grading procedures for writing in Unit Curriculum English, the Ministry of Education lay claims on comparability and statewide standards. The claim warranted the investigation of the guidelines and procedures used. A review of literature on the evaluation of writing was conducted. In order that local application and relevance be possible, the holistic mode of evaluating writing was focused on. Problems were identified in the research concerning score reliability. The pre-requisites for obtaining statistically reliable scores were outlined. The pre-requisites include training and monitoring scorers to apply the established evaluative criteria to pieces of writing. The research highlighted that, in spite of extensive training and monitoring, problems of reliability remained. This was attributed to the fact that scorers cannot always adhere to the evaluative criteria specified in holistic grading procedures. It was pointed out that scorers' conceptualisations of writing proficiency differ. The face validity of the evaluative criteria were therefore subject to


The invention relates to a data selection method for reducing the Dekodierrechenaufwands a vehicle-to-X-communication system (401), wherein received by a communication unit (402) vehicle-to-X messages (31) and sent, with the vehicle-to-X -messages (31) each include at least a user data portion (34) and at least a header portion (32), wherein the at least one header portion (32) is transmitted uncoded and is transmitted encodes said at least a user data portion (34). The method is characterized in that a weighting of the received vehicle-to-X messages (31) is made in at least two category based on the at least one header portion (32) with each other, wherein a decoding of the at least one Nutzdatenanteils (34 met) weighting dependent.


The second edition of this innovative administrative law casebook retains and enhances its unique features: Focus on five representative agencies to provide students with a more holistic understanding of agencies and provide context. Use of a consistent unit design that maximizes student learning and facilitates the use of the book with a wide variety of teaching styles, including traditional methods and the "flipped" classroom. Incorporation of cutting-edge cases and problems that focus on the practical application of administrative law doctrines. By focusing on five important and representative agencies (the EPA, NLRB, SSA, IRS, and FCC), the book addresses two key problems for teaching and learning administrative law: (1) students' lack of familiarity with agencies and what they do; and (2) the difficulty of understanding new and different agencies and their organic statutes for each new administrative law case. Extended treatment of these five agencies, including one chapter for each agency that focuses on the use of a particular kind of agency action (rulemaking, policymaking adjudication, mass adjudication, informal action, and enforcement) provides students with a more complete picture of what agencies do and how they do it. Because the principal cases and problems involve the same five agencies throughout the book, the need to learn about new agencies and understand new organic statutes is greatly reduced, enabling students and teachers to focus on the administrative law issues in the cases. The book uses a consistent "unit" format throughout. Each unit covers a particular topic and includes (1) a clear and comprehensive discussion of the basic doctrine governing the topic; (2) a principal case or cases to illustrate the application of the doctrine and highlight key issues; (3) a discussion of related matters to explore additional issues and connections between topics; and (4) a detailed administrative law problem requiring the application of the doctrine in context. This unique structure and design facilitates the use of the book with a variety of teaching methods, including the Socratic method, lecture and discussion, and the problem method. Because it combines clear exposition, illustrative principal cases, and comprehensive problems, the book is also an ideal tool for teachers who want to flip their classrooms. This unit structure also enhances the flexibility of the book, allowing teachers to select topics for coverage and determine the depth of coverage they wish to provide. The second edition has been thoroughly updated to include the most recent Supreme Court decisions and cutting-edge court of appeals decisions, streamlined to reduce length and improve focus, and revised to enhance its effectiveness as a teaching and learning tool.