The design aspects of a wireless body sensor network (WBSN) consider a variety of parameters to improve the network and algorithm but the placement choice often remains unjustified by the researcher. A common application of the WBSN is for the motion-capture of a limb or human, but sensor placement differs, making each algorithm very specific to a singular movement. In this paper, we explore the system architecture and design flow of an enhanced human activity classification algorithm using long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network. A WBSN system is designed and implemented to collect information for training the LSTM sequential model. The sensors are placed on waist, ankles and wrists to observe the relevance, pertinence and accuracy improvement on increasing the number of sensor nodes and positioning of the sensors. Result shows that with the presented system and algorithm, we can precisely characterize human positions and behaviors. This WBSN system can be further extended to understand different motions and different sensor positions, and further expanded to include other sensors.


A design methodology for active planar receiver antennas is described, based on the co-optimization of the antenna part, using a full-wave electromagnetic simulator, and of the active receiver circuit, using a circuit simulator. Both local, gradient-based optimizers and global optimization techniques, such as genetic algorithms, can be used in the process. A three-stage design strategy is adopted to limit the total required CPU-time. By way of example, the formalism is applied to the design of an active planar rectangular ring antenna operating from 2.4 to 2.485 GHz.


Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is a new endoscopic treatment for early gastric cancer that enables complete resection of lesions in the lump. ESD has become widespread as a standard treatment because several devices, including high-frequency electro surgical units, injection solutions and endoscope with water jet, have been developed in Japan. Large lesions and lesions with an ulcer scar can be removed en bloc , and ESD has increased accordingly with the ex-panded indications. In addition, an accurate histopathological diagnosis can be made following en bloc resection. In this procedure, the circumferential mucosal incision around the lesion and the submucosa is dissected using an IT knife, hooking knife, electro-surgical snare (a thin type), flex knife or flush knife. In particular, the flush knife can emit a jet of water from the tip of a sheath that allows us to perform ESD efficiently. It is relatively safe for avoiding perforation and bleeding. However, ESD takes longer and requires advanced technical skill, and the incidence of major complications is higher in comparison with the standard EMR method. Therefore, it is desirable to learn all of the techniques and the characteristics of the devices and high-frequency units, as well as cutting, dissection and hemostasis in order to perform ESD safely.


The relation between body mass index (BMI) categories and the occurrence of primary dysmenorrhea has been investigated, but the results of these studies are inconsistent and controversial. The aim of our study was to systematically review the literature and investigate the association between each category of BMI and the occurrence of primary dysmenorrhea.


Purpose – This research presents results concerning the impact of family financial stress on adolescent substance use.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing a sample of 18,614 adolescent males (9,459) and females (9,155) ages 12–17 years from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, this work utilizes stepwise logistic regression and ordinary least squares to determine whether family poverty measures are associated with adolescent high-risk behaviors of smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and using marijuana.

Findings – This study found limited support for adolescent substance use within families who are experiencing economic distress. Adolescents from families who had moved at least once in the prior year were more likely to have used cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Furthermore, males and females who disapprove of peers' substance using behaviors are less likely to use those substances.

Research limitations/implications – This study may not explain adolescent substance using behavior outside of the United States. Further research into socioeconomic factors should be addressed in subsequent work as should the intermediary variables pertaining to the parent–child relationship.

Practical implications – Understanding contributing factors to adolescent substance use will assist in developing social policy that will support families.

Originality/value – This study provides insight into the consequences of family characteristics both socioeconomic and psychosocial which influence adolescent substance using behaviors.


Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is a promising crop from which to obtain oilseeds and lignocellulosic biomass. Acid-catalyzed steam explosion is a thermochemical process that can efficiently pre-treat lignocellulosic biomass. The drawback is the production of a high number of carbohydrate degradation products in the liquid fraction that could inhibit microbial growth. In this work, the lignocellulosic biomass of cardoon, gathered from a dedicated field, were used as the raw material for the production of fermentable monosaccharides by employing acid-catalyzed steam explosion. The raw material was pre-soaked with a dilute 1% (w/w) sulfuric acid solution and then subjected to steam explosion under three different severity conditions. The recovered slurry was separated into solid and liquid fractions, which were individually characterized to determine total carbohydrate and inhibitor concentrations. The slurry and the washed solid fraction underwent enzymatic hydrolysis to release glucose and pentose monosaccharides. By conducting the pre-treatment at 175 °C for 35 min and hydrolyzing the obtained slurry, a yield of 33.17 g of monosaccharides/100 g of cardoon was achieved. At the same conditions, 4.39 g of inhibitors/100 g of cardoon were produced.


CuInSe2 films for photovoltaic applications grown under Cu-excess have been rarely investigated up to now. In general CuInSe2 solar cells use an overall Cu-poor absorber. In this work we argue that it is valuable to investigate Cu-rich solar cells, since all the basic material properties are better in Cu-rich absorbers. With less defects in the bulk and better transport properties it is somehow intriguing why devices with Cu-rich absorber perform less. We demonstrate that this can be attributed to the too high doping of these films. Such a high native doping leads to tunneling enhanced recombination and interface recombination, strongly affecting the devices performances. We demonstrate different attempts to overcome the problem of doping: at first a Cu-poor surface was grown on the Cu-rich absorbers which enables to decrease the doping in the space charge region, then to directly decrease the doping in the bulk, the influence of sodium content was investigated. Finally, here we show that different selenium activity during the absorber growth enables to decrease the doping of these films and to open thus a way to fully exploit the favorable properties of the Curich CuInSe2 films.


Hemp is cooked and bleached in alkali-H2O2 one-bath. The analysis of physical and chemical properties related to acid, alkali, and hydrogen peroxide about various types of components in hemp such as hemicelluloses and pectin, and lignin components makes it ascertained. In this one-bath process, alkali and H2O2 have cooperative effects to remove most proportions of the noncellulosic components efficiently. The additive MgSO4 and a stabilizer of H2O2 as auxiliary agents are introduced to protect cellulose from degradation and, meanwhile, they improve the efficiency of H2O2. The universal rotatable composite experiment design is employed to get the highly precise equation, in which the variables of NaOH and H2O2 concentrations, and the processing time are considered to be the main technological parameters of this alkali-H2O2 one-bath process. The residual gum content and residual lignin content of hemp fiber are the evaluation indexes. Based on regression equations, the figures are plotted to analyze the influences of parameters on the evaluation indexes; the optimization multicriteria mathematical model is simultaneously established to obtain the optimum parameters. Finally, an experiment is carried out to further test the acceptance of the calculated optimum values. It is shown that, for the hemp taken from Anhui Province of China, this alkali-H2O2 one-bath process can substantially remove gum and lignin from raw hemp. NaOH 10.5 g/L, H2O2 9.8 g/L, and the processing time of 127 min with 0.1% MgSO4 + 2.7 g/L stabilizer of H2O2 at 100°C are recommended to be the optimum parameters; then, a compromise is achieved among the lowest lignin content, the residual gum content, and the best strength and whiteness of hemp fiber. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 97: 2279–2285, 2005


Background: Lues maligna (also known as malignant syphilis or ulceronodular syphilis) is a rare dermatologic manifestation of syphilis more commonly seen in patients with HIV infection. The classic lesion of lues maligna is an oval, papulopustular skin lesion with well demarcated borders sometimes covered with a lamellar crust, but myriad clinical presentations of this disease also exist. Goals: To report a presentation of lues maligna in a patient with probable early HIV infection, emphasizing the diagnostic criteria and clinical manifestations of lues maligna. Study Design: Case report of lues maligna in a patient with probable early HIV infection. Conclusions: As syphilis becomes more common in many developed regions, it is important to recognize even atypical presentations of this clinical entity, especially among individuals who have unrecognized or early HIV infection.


Introduction Catalytic reforming and partial oxidation of hydrocarbons over platinum are important topics in industrial research to produce synthesis gas [1, 2] and in the reduction of pollutant emissions [3]. Understanding and optimization of these processes can be facilitated by the use of computational models that incorporate elementary reaction mechanisms [4, 5]. In this work, we will present the development of detailed surface kinetics for oxidation and reforming of light hydrocarbons over platinum catalysts and their coupling with different reactor flow models. The development of such detailed mechanism-based models offers the possibility of predictive kinetics models providing detailed information about the governing chemistry and reactor behavior. The models are especially required for the analysis and optimization of the operating conditions and reactor design.


In this paper, an abrupt scene change detection algorithm is suggested. The algorithm is developed based on the temporal activity distribution that derived from the temporal subband analysis. Computer simulation results show that the proposed scheme is capable of detecting abrupt scene changes in video sequence accurately and efficiently.


Fluorescence quenching reactions, using such quenchers as oxygen and acrylamide, have been used to obtain information about the kinetic exposure of tryptophan residues in proteins. Often, both dynamic and static quenching components can be observed. The transient term of the Smoluchowski equation has been shown by Lakowicz et al (J. Biol. Chem. 10907-10910 (1987)) to be needed to fit acrylamide and oxygen quenching lifetime data with proteins. Here we show that this transient term can also explain the apparent static quenching that can be observed in some cases. By numerical integration of an impulse-response function, which includes a transient solute quenching term, we have simultaneously fitted intensity and phase lifetime Stern-Volmer plots for the oxygen and acrylamide quenching of selected single tryptophan proteins. These fits require a single fitting parameter, the diffusion of the quencher. Using this fitting procedure we have reinvestigated the effect of bulk viscosity on the acrylamide quenching of the fluorescence of the buried tryptophan in ribonuclease T1. We show that for this protein the intensity and lifetime data sets can be better fitted by a two-step diffusion model.


The effect on natural vibration period of the structure with transfer slab is discussed.It is reduced on natural vibration period,because of the influence of the transfer slab with the large mass and stiffness,which supply references on design of tall building structures.


Abstract: Eukaryotic cells internalize extracellular macromolecules by endocytosis and it was shown that Rab5 protein is required for this process. While it is clear that endocytosis consists of vesicle fission from the plasma membrane, the role of Rab5 protein in the plasma membrane surface area changes is still unclear. Here we studied whether Rab5 is required for membrane surface area changes in rat melanotrophs—cells deriving from the pituitary pars intermedia. The presence of this protein in melanotrophs was probed by immunocytochemistry and its putative role in membrane area dynamics was monitored electrophysiologically with membrane capacitance measurements as this parameter directly reflects changes in membrane surface area. We found that Rab5 protein exists in melanotrophs. At [Ca2+]i < 3 μM, endocytosis‐dominated membrane capacitance decrease was found to be blocked by microinjection of specific Rab5 antibody. At high [Ca2+]i, Rab5 antibody did not affect the steady‐state increase in membrane capacitance, while it elevated the rate of membrane capacitance increase, which is consistent with an inhibition of endocytosis.


In autonomous driving systems a strong relation to highly accurate maps is taken to be inevitable, although street scenes change frequently. However, a preferable system would be to equip the automated cars with a sensor system that is able to navigate urban scenarios without an accurate map. We present a novel pipeline using a deep neural network to detect lane semantics and topology given RGB images. On the basis of this classification, the information about the road scene can be extracted just from the sensor setup supporting mapless autonomous driving. In addition to superseding the huge effort of creating and maintaining highly accurate maps, our system reduces the need for precise localization. Using an extended Cityscapes dataset, we show accurate ego lane detection including lane semantics on challenging scenarios for autonomous driving.


In this work we show that the Riemann hypothesis for the Dedekind zeta--function $\zeta_{\mathrm{K}}(s)$ of an algebraic number field $\mathrm{K}$ is equivalent to a problem of the rate of convergence of certain discrete measures defined arithmetically on the multiplicative group of positive real numbers to the measure $\zeta_{\mathrm{K}}(2)^{-1}\kappa q dq $, where $\kappa$ denotes the residue of $\zeta_{\mathrm{K}}(s)$ at $s=1$ and $dq$ the Lebesgue measure.


Multimedia technologies in museum activities are discussed. The concept of multimedia technology is defined. Stages in the history of multimedia technologies in museum activities in Russia are reviewed. The Hermitage and the Russian Museum are described in more detail as they were the first to use multimedia technologies for setting up large-scale exhibitions. The advantages and disadvantages of multimedia technologies in museum activities are highlighted.


With the newly developed information visualization methods, this paper analyzed the literature themed at Webometrics cited by ISI Web of Knowledge. Using the software CitespaceⅡ,this study developed a knowledge map of the representative personage and works on Webometrics. Finally, based on the detection of the subject headings with word frequency of significant fluctuation, the research frontier and the further development trend of Webometrics was determined and the knowledge map of them was developed.


We shall consider the class of systems with transfer functions of the formG(s) = h2(s)/h1(s), whereh2 andh1 are in the ring of functions generated by fractional powers of s and the functionexp(−sr) (for some fixedr with 0 < r < 1). It is convenient to refer to such systems as fractional differential systems . Many important infinite-dimensional systems have transfer functions that can be represented in the above form, that is, as functionsG(s) which involve fractional powers of s, possibly in combination with exponentials of fractional powers. For instance, the following two PDE examples are given by Curtain [4], and some more elaborate examples can be found in [3] and [9]. (i) Heat equation with Neumann boundary control:


The solidarity economy builds generating realities of topics and discussions that guide different projects and actions implemented in the Brazilian context. There are different definitions and meanings that characterize these new practices of generating employment and income, generally named as "solidarity economy". This study aims to understand how the meanings to the notion of "solidarity economy" are built in academic studies and cooperative realities. We mapped the major works of two important conceptual authors on the subject and we did an ethnographic study in two cooperatives which have different bindings to "solidarity economy". Thus, we seek for an approach that allows an empirical problematization for this notion.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge of emergency medical physicians employed in hospital emergency rooms as to their potential role in the treatment for traumatic teeth avulsion injuries (TTAI).

METHODS
A 15-item questionnaire was distributed to the emergency rooms of one university and 10 public hospitals. The questionnaire gathered data on the respondents' professional profiles and self-assessed perceived knowledge and actual knowledge of the emergency management of TTAIs.

RESULTS
The study was implemented with 69 emergency physicians present at their workplaces during the time of data collection. Of these, 55 (79.7%) were employed at public hospitals and 14 (20.3%) at a university hospital. The professional profiles indicated that 47 (68.1%) of the participants were general practitioners and the remaining 22 (31.9%) were distributed among various other medical specialties. Overall, 28 respondents (40.6%) assessed their knowledge regarding medical treatment for TTAI as insufficient, and the majority (78.3%) stated that they would like further education. Importantly, a large majority of practitioners could not provide correct answers to questions related to the emergency management of TTAI.

CONCLUSION
There is a need to improve the knowledge of emergency medical physicians regarding the emergency treatment for TTAI.


The article is devoted to the development and justification of parallel numerical simulation methods. Results can be obtained to calculate the number of points. To increase the order of approximation of the developed methods, the set of points of the reference block (s) is introduced into difference schemes. Generation of difference schemes for any reference and calculated points is considered. For some block sizes, generated differential calculation schemes are obtained, oriented to the number of available processes in a parallel implementation. The absolute stability of the constructed multi-step multipoint methods according to the initial conditions and the right side is proved.


ABSTRACT In this article, two-variable sinusoidal shear deformation theory, nonlocal piezoelasticity relations incorporating with concept of neutral surface are employed for free vibration analysis of a sandwich nano-plate. Due to using the functionally graded materials, the concept of neutral surface must be employed through formulation of the problem. A parametric study is performed to show how natural frequencies of sandwich nano-plate are changed in terms of nonlocal parameter, non-dimensional geometric parameters and in-homogeneous index. Before presentation of full numerical results, a comparison with a valid reference is performed to confirm our formulations and corresponding numerical results.


A surface acoustic wave (SAW)-based gyroscope with an 80 MHz central frequency was fabricated on a 128° YX LiNbO3 piezoelectric substrate. The fabricated gyroscope is composed of a SAW resonator, metallic dots and a SAW reflective delay line. The SAW resonator, which is activated by a voltage-controlled oscillator, generates a stable standing wave with a large amplitude at an 80 MHz resonant frequency, and the metallic dots induce a Coriolis force and generate a secondary SAW in the direction orthogonal to the propagating standing wave. The SAW reflective delay line is employed to measure the Coriolis effect by analyzing the deviations in the resonant frequency of the SAW reflective delay line. A combined finite element method/boundary element method was utilized to extract the optimal device parameters prior to fabrication. The device was fabricated according to the modeling results and then measured on a rate table. When the device was subjected to an angular rotation, a secondary SAW from the vibrating metallic dots was generated owing to the Coriolis force, resulting in a perturbation of the propagating SAW in the SAW reflective delay line. Depending on the angular velocity, the reflection peak of SAW reflective delay line was changed linearly, and this change was measured by the network analyzer. The measured results matched the modeling results well. The obtained sensitivity was approximately 1.23 deg/(deg/s) in an angular rate range of 0–2000 deg s−1. Good thermal and shock stabilities were observed during the evaluation process proving the shock and heat robustness of the fabricated SAW gyroscope.


An imperative requirement of a modern machining system is to detect tool wear while machining to maintain the surface quality of the product. Vibration signatures emanating during machining with a single point cutting tool have proven to be good indicators for the tool's health. The current research undertaken utilizes vibration signatures while turning EN9 and EN24 steel alloy to predict tool life using Artificial Neural Network (ANN). During initial meager experimentation, tool acceleration during machining was recorded, and the width of the flank wear at the end of each run was measured using Tool Makers Microscope. The recorded experimental data is utilized to develop the neural network with the variation of operating parameters and corresponding tool vibration with measured tool flank wear. The endeavor undertaken for the development of ANN flank wear prediction model was effective with a regression coefficient of 0.9964. The proposed methodology of indirect measurement of tool wear is efficient, economical for the machining industry to predict tool life, which in turn avoids catastrophic tool failure.


Techno-economic efficiency of applying the computer simulating system in upgrading the operating conditions of production unit of gasoline catalytic reforming LCh-35-11/1000 has been shown. Software product «Control system of catalyst operation» was used for monitoring catalytic reforming. It was shown that optimal activity operation allows increasing the end product output at process cost level constancy as well as obtaining the assessment of operation condition of Pt-Re catalyst surface.


The present paper highlights the importance of adequate
instrumental parameters of the sensor according to the
operational scenario when analyzing unknown targets. Raman
fingerprints collected from a wide range of high explosives and
associated compounds under different analysis conditions and
operational scenarios have been evaluated in terms of signal
strength, signal-to-noise ratio, analytical sensitivity, and
signal stability.


In this chapter, five studies of language practice in Swedish higher education are compared and discussed with focus on how the policy of English-medium teaching is assumed to relate to practices ' ...


Understanding characteristics of soil mixtures lead to increasing the confidence level before applying such materials in the field. The outcomes of this study can provide insight into the index properties and swelling- compressibility behavior of sand- bentonite mixtures, between non-swelling materials and swelling materi-als. Series of laboratory tests were conducted to evaluated index properties, compaction, strength, and swelling behavior of the sand-bentonite mixtures. The result of this study indicated that the existence of ben-tonite in the soil mixtures influence the swelling behavior, which follows hyperbolic curve model. Amount and size of non swelling fraction reduced the swelling and compressibility of expansive soils. Keywords: expansive soil, swelling, sand-bentonite mixtures, index properties, geotechnical properties


In the fifth issue of Volume 35, the Cambridge Review of International Affairs hosts an excellent special issue on 'The Liberal International Order and the Global South: A View from Latin America', guest edited by J. Luis Rodriguez and Christy Thornton. We are particularly proud to host a Special Issue that resonates with CRIA's mission to disseminate stimulating and historically-informed scholarship that rethinks central conceptual and political formations – such as the 'Liberal International Order' – from a global perspective, recovering the agency of actors whose position has often been overlooked and marginalised within disciplinary debates. The historical experiences of Latin America – as the contributors acutely show – offer a key perspective on the role of the Global South not only in challenging, but also in shaping, negotiating and contributing to the production of the Liberal International Order. This Special Issue, therefore, re-writes the relation between liberalism, empire, international law, and democracy in ways that testify to the importance of careful historical enquiry. Lastly, this issue features three book reviews. First, Selman Emre G€ urb€ uz looks into the importance of Ali Mazrui's scholarship to the development of a non-Western constructivist approach to world politics, as explored in Seifudem Adem's Postcolonial Constructivism: Mazrui's Theory of Intercultural Relations. Second, Christian Nikolaus Braun discusses contemporary reflections on just war theory in his review of Daniel Brunstetter's Just and Unjust Uses of Limited Force. Third, Max Paul Friedman reviews Virginia Dominiguez and Jane Desmond's edited collection Global Perspectives on the United States, reviving the importance of thinking politically about discourses of "Pro-" or "Anti"Americanism, which never fail to remain absolutely topical. We conclude by thanking the guest editors and the contributors for choosing CRIA to host their inspiring work. We also thank all the reviewers – whose work is essential to our journal – and our editorial team. We welcome proposals for special issues (directed to the Editors in Chief), and are especially interested in work that offers deep theoretical and historical analyses of global issues, rethinks our understandings of "historical IR", and centres topics, communities and experiences left at the margins of the discipline. We warmly encourage the submission of work by scholars who are marginalised in global structures of knowledge production or underrepresented in disciplinary International Relations. Book reviews should be directed to the Features Editor, Caio Simoneti. Details and submission guidelines may be found at https://www.cria.polis.cam.ac.uk. We look forward to reading your work!


Herein we describe a short and practical synthesis of the exceptional musk odorants (R)-muscone and (R,Z)-5-muscenone from a readily available achiral macrocyclic diketone. The key step of the synthesis is the first sodium N-methylephedrate mediated enantioselective aldol condensation reaction (up to 76% ee). This new type of reaction proceeds via a dynamic kinetic resolution of an aldol intermediate.


The concept and origin of carrying capacity (CC) and ecological carrying capacity (ECC), and its theories and approaches to measure sustainable development were briefly presented and reviewed in this article. The quantitative measurements for ecological carrying capacity, i. e. the net primary productivity of natural vegetation, the dispersion of resource to requirement, the model of sustainable environmental CC, the integrative assessment for ECC and the state space, were discussed respectively. The possibilities and applicabilities of ECC to measure regional sustainable development were also pointed out.


Schools leadership has continued to be scrutinized for accountability and transparency with that aim of enhancing standards in the management of the schools. Despite the scrutiny on the Head teachers, to ensure pupils' academic performance, the trend in pupil's academic performance has continued to be below the average mark of 250 in most public primary schools in Uririsub County for the past five years from 2012-2016. Previous studied on pupil's performance has paid little attention on Head teacher's leadership styles. This study therefore seeks to determine the influence of using situational leadership styleson learners' academic performance in the public primary schools in Uririsub County. The target population consisted of 93 public primary schools with 911 teachers in Uriri SubCounty out of which 28(30%)of the schools were selected using simple random sampling. The sample size was determined using a sampling formula where a sample of 190 made of 162 teachers and the 28 Head teachers was selected. Data was collected using a questionnaire. The data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study established that situational leadership was the most effective style of leadership that resulted into improved academic performance. The hypotheses showing the relationships between situational leadership styles and academic performance were tested using the Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) at a 5 % level of significant; the results revealed that there was a strong association between situational leadership and academic performance of primary school learners in Uriri sub County of Migori County. The study therefore concluded that for primary schools in Uriri Sub County to improve on the academic performance of their pupils they have to adopt the right leadership style that will motivate both the teachers and the students to work hard and there. The study recommends that Head teacher must be very keen in adopting an appropriate leadership style that will enhance the academic performance; this could be achieved through leadership training on how to select a leadership style to suite their situation. The study has contributed to the available knowledge on school leadership and it is expected to provide an appropriate base for future research.


Due to the effect of network's virtuality and other factors,the seller selection problem in C2C environment has been of great concern.In recent years,the C2C sites such as Taobao,have developed rapidly with scale expanded.They all establish the online credit systems which play a great role on the seller's selection but are still insufficient.This paper starts with the analysis of online consumer's decision-making process.Then,considering the timing,product-related degrees,three penalty factors,are exacted out on the base of the domestic C2C platform's online credit records.A new seller selection model is given which concerns consumers' risk attitude,and is finally verified through examples.


When earthquakes frequently take place,the seismic performance of the long-span bridge plays an important role,acting as the transportation lifeline.The method for seismic analysis is based on a uniform excitation assumption which works well for normal buildings but is not quite accurate for long-span bridges,because the spatial variation of seismic wave is affected by many factors within the structural dimension.Incoherence effects,attenuation effects,site effects and the wave propagation effects of seismic waves all affect the spatial variation.In this paper numerical analysis methods of seismic dynamic response of long-span bridges are introduced and compared.


Organic chemists optimizing a reaction, like chefs perfecting a dish, execute a single transformation over and over, each time tweaking a specific aspect, such as temperature or ingredient ratio, while observing the change's effect on the final product. For chemists, whose experimental efforts don't yield tasty treats, this process is usually tedious and can take weeks or months of work at the bench. Now, an automated flow system could streamline the optimization process. Developed by an interdisciplinary team of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology led by Timothy F. Jamison and Klavs F. Jensen, the reconfigurable system lets users find optimal reaction conditions up to an order of magnitude faster than the traditional optimization route, the authors say (Science 2018, DOI: 10.1126/science.aat0650). The team suggests that its system can be used for a myriad of reactions and could help chemists scale up syntheses or construct compound libraries to screen for


Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can differentiate into mature cells of various cell types. Although the differentiation process of MSCs requires lineage‐specific transcription factors, the exact molecular mechanism that determines MSCs differentiation is not clearly addressed. Here, we demonstrate a Smad4‐Taz axis as a new intrinsic regulator for adipo‐osteogenic differentiation of MSCs and show that this function of Smad4 is independent of the transforming growth factor‐β signal. Smad4 directly bound to the Taz protein and facilitated nuclear localization of Taz through its nuclear localization signal. Nuclear retention of Taz by direct binding to Smad4 increased expression of osteogenic genes through enhancing Taz‐runt‐related transcription factor 2 (Runx2) interactions in the C3H10T1/2 MSC cell line and preosteoblastic MC3T3‐E1 cells, whereas it suppressed expression of adipogenic genes through promoting Taz‐peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor‐γ (PPARγ) interaction in C3H10T1/2 and preadipogenic 3T3‐L1 cells. A reciprocal role of the Smad4 in osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation was also observed in human adipose tissue‐derived stem cells (hASCs). Consequently, Smad4 depletion in C3H10T1/2 and hASCs reduced nuclear retention of Taz and thus caused the decreased interaction with Runx2 or PPARγ, resulting in delayed osteogenesis or enhanced adipogenesis of the MSC. Therefore, these findings provide insight into a novel function of Smad4 to regulate the balance of MSC lineage commitment through reciprocal targeting of the Taz protein in osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation pathways. Stem Cells 2019;37:368–381


In natural attenuation processes, biological soil enzyme activities may change with time and the concentration of the contaminant(s) whose transformation were naturally catalyzed. Short-term irrigation in the laboratory was carried out to evaluate the effect of p-chlorophenol irrigation at different concentrations on soil urease activity of yancheng upland soil. Experiments were conducted on the top of 0-20 cm soil, adding different concentrations of p-chlorophenol (2.0, 5.0, 10.0 and 50 mg kg-1). Enzymatic activities and soil respiration were evaluated in soil incubated at 25 plusmn 1degC for 25 days. The results showed that urease activity of p-chlorophenol treated soils varied according to the p-chlorophenol concentration added. Soil respiration was stimulated at the beginning of incubation, but it was come to the background value after 25 days. Higher concentration with stimulation was also found. The activity of soil urease decreased slightly within the first 10 days, and then increased.


In this paper, we introduce MFCCGAN as a novel speech synthesizer based on adversarial learning that adopts MFCCs as input and generates raw speech waveforms. Benefiting the GAN model capabilities, it produces speech with higher intelligibility than a rule-based MFCC-based speech synthesizer WORLD. We evaluated the model based on a popular intrusive objective speech intelligibility measure (STOI) and quality (NISQA score). Experimental results show that our proposed system outperforms Librosa MFCC-inversion (by an increase of about 26% up to 53% in STOI and 16% up to 78% in NISQA score) and a rise of about 10% in intelligibility and about 4% in naturalness in comparison with conventional rule-based vocoder WORLD that used in the CycleGAN-VC family. However, WORLD needs additional data like F0. Finally, using perceptual loss in discriminators based on STOI could improve the quality more. WebMUSHRA-based subjective tests also show the quality of the proposed approach.


Here we present an analysis of spectro-polarimetric observations of type 1.5 AGN Mrk 6, performed with 6m telescope SAO RAN in 12 epochs (2010 -- 2013). Additionally, the inter-stellar mater (ISM) polarization has been observed and its contribution to the AGN spectral polarization is taken into account.
We measured Stokes parameters and determined the polarization parameters in 12 spectra with and without correction for the ISM polarization. We estimated the time lag between the unpolarized and polarized continuum flux variation of about ~2 days, that indicates a compact scattering region which contributes to the polarized continuum variability. The polarization in H{\alpha} is complex, showing three prominent components in the BLR, one redshifted around +3000 km/s that corresponds to the red shoulder in H{\alpha}, and two blue-shifted around -2000 km/s and -6000 km/s.
We found that the ISM polarization has a very significant influence on the measured AGN polarization parameters. After correcting the observations for the ISM polarization we were able to detect the Keplerian motion in the BLR.
We give a new method for the black hole mass estimation using spectro-polarimetric observation in the line profile, finding the black hole mass in Mrk 6 of $M_{BH} \sim 1.53 \cdot 10^8 M_{\odot}$, that is in a good agreement with reverberation estimates.


Several studies highlight the risks related to the growing water crisis, worsened by the effects of pollution, which increasingly make water sources non-potable. The current water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) approach improves resource efficiency and implements urban livability by combining natural water flows with all the scales of the urban landscape. The logistic and operational management of water disposal/treatment and distribution requires performing service design according to cities' physical and morphological features, starting from their architectural and landscape characteristics. This paper aims to prove that different landscapes can offer different inspirations and possibilities to imagine a WSUD-coherent system, fulfilling the integration requirements with the urban system. For this purpose, three case studies, differing by dimension, morphology, and urban typology, are analyzed, experimenting with circular water usage with no resource waste. This research proposes concrete actions such as conservation, restoration or addition of permeable surfaces, the installation of new accumulation and treatment systems, and the use of water-saving devices. Starting from redesigning the water system, they can also include punctual redevelopment interventions on the urban built environments and opportunities for network development with public administrations, private businesses, third-sector organizations, and end users. This experimentation has led to water savings of up to 80% of the current consumption scenario.


Our task is to love God more than our parents, or our children, or even ourselves. If we truly love God, then we will keep His commandments. We will want to follow His wonderful plan for human life and human love. We will want to receive His word into our hearts, and receive the messengers He sends to us. Let us pray for the grace and strength we need to repent of our sins, and return to God's wonderful design for love, life, marriage and family.


A multiwavelength fibre laser with wavelength-switchable operation has been demonstrated, utilizing the combined effects of polarization hole burning and intensity-dependent transmission. Polarization-maintaining erbium fibre (PM-EDF) with an anisotropic gain is used as the gain medium to suppress the mode competition. Simultaneously, the PM-EDF and the polarizer in the cavity form an equivalent periodic filter. Four lasing wavelengths simultaneously oscillating are obtained, which are stable over an hour at room temperatures. Furthermore, by adjusting the polarization controllers the laser can also produce triple-, dual- and single-wavelength lasing oscillations, which can be switched among the four simultaneously oscillating wavelengths.


The invention discloses a middle cross beam structure of a mining dump truck. A left middle cross beam casting and a right middle cross beam casting are fixedly connected with left and right sides of a traction base respectively; lifting bases are connected with outer parts of the left middle cross beam casting and the right middle cross beam casting; a left longitudinal beam is connected onto the left middle cross beam casting; a right longitudinal beam is connected onto the right middle cross beam casting; the left and right longitudinal beams are connected to a truck frame; the lifting bases are connected with lifting cylinders through hinge pins and knuckle bearings. With the adoption of the middle cross beam structure, the lifting bases are in a two-hole type, the hinge pins are inserted during mounting of the lifting cylinders, the dismounting is convenient, and meanwhile, the hinge pins are stressed in a simply supported beam manner, so that diameters of the hinge pins can be reduced; the knuckle bearings and the hinge pins are convenient to replace, and the lifting cylinders are not required to be dismounted; the left and right middle cross beam castings are in arc connection with the longitudinal beams, and the connection arcs are different in size, so that the stress concentration is reduced, the connection strength between a middle cross beam and the longitudinal beams is guaranteed, and the service life of the truck frame is prolonged.


: The education for sustainable development (ESD) in the curricula claims to foster students'ability to take part in promoting sustainable development. A number of studies show that the implementation of sustainable development is highly demanding for teachers and requires specific knowledge and abilities. Hence, it is important to determine what competencies teachers need in order to develop and implement education for sustainable development and to attain specific educational goals with their students. ESD requires a specific and more constructive focus on teaching, which raises the question of building corresponding competencies in teachers' education. Teachers have to gain the insight through constructivism, that acquiring competencies is a self-steered and active process, which can be fostered but not created. In this paper we present results from a research carried out in primary schools in the Republic of Macedonia aiming to assess the level of teachers' competencies with respect to ESD. The objective of the study is to explore the perceptions and views on teachers' competencies in relation to education for sustainable development. For this purpose as research instrument we have designed and applied an online questionnaire on separate samples of teachers and students. The gained results from the empirical analysis are used to promote the awareness amongst teachers about the development of ESD competencies in order to become more alive and integrated within the existing education curriculum.


This study utilizes machine learning algorithms in conjunction with Doppler Radar, proposing to identify the optimal machine learning algorithms and input modes for different sea conditions, and analyzes the impact of wind on observations. An X-Band microwave Pulse Doppler Radar system is used to measure backscattering microwaves at sea surfaces in two irradiation directions. Machine learning models are built to use radar signals which includes Mean Backscattering Power, Mean Doppler Velocity and the Root Mean Square (RMS) of Doppler Velocity to obtain Sea Conditions which are Sea Level, Wind Conditions, Current Conditions and Wave Conditions. This paper proposes the optimal input patterns and machine learning algorithms that can generate the most optimal results concerning sea surface conditions. Furthermore, the study also investigates the impact of wind on radar observations of sea surfaces. Regarding the observing of sea level, Linear Regression is supposed to be the optimal machine learning algorithm. Concerning wind conditions, both Neural Network and Random Forest can be utilized for analysis. However, direct inference of currents through machine learning presents difficulties. Random Forests are the preferred method for wave observation, yielding better results.


AbstractExtensive pharmacological and toxicological studies of snake venoms have revealed that the venoms of most snakes belonging to the family of Elapidae and Hydrophiidae produce flaccid paralysis and respiratory failure in animals. We compared the effects of neuro-toxic polypeptides utilizing isolated phrenic nerve-diaphragm preparation of rats. Both erabutoxin and cobrotoxin produce reversible neuromuscular blockade in the prenic nerve-diaphragm. α-Bungarotoxin and toxins A and B produce irreversible neuromuscular blockade in the preparation. From these results, neurotoxins can be classified into the following types: (i) short-chain neurotoxins; the neuro-muscular blockade is easily reversible, (ii) long-chain neurotoxins; the neuromuscular blockade is almost irreversible.The tertiary structures of both groups of neurotoxins have been studied in solution and in crystals, respectively. The target of neurotoxins, nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR) from Narke japonica electroplax, exhibits a trypto...


This thesis is intended to cover research questions related to the agglomeration economies and firm profitability at different levels of analysis. In the first part of the dissertation we questioned the ability of agglomeration economies to stimulate profitability and healthy financial performance in firms. We devise a cross-sectional sample of approximately 410,000 firms that were active in all subsectors of the manufacturing industry and that were located across 191 NUTS 2 regions of 15 European Union member states in 2005. For each firm, we calculate two profitability indicators and a labour efficiency indicator. We find that the part of the variance of the profitability and labour efficiency indicators that is attributed to regions is very small. Furthermore, fitted multilevel models show that the quantitative effect of regional specialisation, despite being statistically significant, is very small. The results are robust across more refined geographical scales and subsectors. However, the NUTS 2 level remains the major spatial scale of the design and implementation of European Union regional policy. Our results benefit from the power and safety of a large sample and challenge conventional approaches to agglomeration research and cluster policy. In the second part we raise the question of why some firms perform better than others. One approach to addressing this question empirically is to decompose the variance in firm-level profitability into firm, industry, location, and year components. Although it is well established that data sparseness in variance decomposition studies can lead to overestimating particular variance components, little attention has been paid to sample size requirements in strategic management studies that have examined the nature of differences in firm profitability. We conduct a meta-regression and variance decomposition study and conclude that the variation in the results from previous studies is driven—to a considerable extent—by the number of observations per group within a component. Based on these findings, we draw conclusions regarding the validity and reliability of previous variance decomposition studies and provide implications for current debates in the strategic management literature. Finally we analyze the concept of related variety which has attracted increasing attention in the discussion on the nature of localized knowledge spillover and regional growth. We question the hypothesis that Jacobs'externalitites per se knowledge spillover and argue that "knowledge will spillover effectively only when complementarities exist among sectors in terms of shared competences". The economic rationale behind this argument lies in the notion of sufficient cognitive proximity (Nooteboom 2000). Findings within this context show that large differences in existing and new knowledge prevent effective communications, whilst interactive learning works best when cognitive distance between partners is not too large. Consequently, this line of thought focuses on the specific regional composition with industrial sectors and splits up the Jacobs externalities argument into the effects of related and unrelated variety


Greece suffered one of the worst debt crises in its history in 2009 and was forced to sign a Financial Adjustment Program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) in 2010 in order to borrow funds. The financing or rescue program required a series of budgetary measures. The aim of the measures was to reduce public expenditure through structural reforms in the public sector. This research was intended to investigate the contraction in health spending in Greece during the crisis period by focusing on the case of the University General Hospital "Attikon". A primary quantitative survey was conducted on 86 persons holding a position of responsibility in the Hospital's Nursing Service. The selection of this sample was made in order to combine the reduction of the budget with the effectiveness of the hospital and to highlight the importance of research. The data were processed through the SPSS programme. According to the results of the survey, women, aged 56 to 67, who have been working in a position of responsibility in PGN Attikon for over 16 years and who have not served in a position of responsibility at another hospital argue to a higher extent that the government should
proceed immediately to the recruitment of permanent staff in order to improve the efficiency of the hospital. In addition, postgraduate or doctoral degree holders are more in agreement with the reduction in the budget and note that there have been cases where they did not have the necessary materials due to their lack. It was also observed that secondary or higher education graduates and those who have not served in a position of responsibility in another hospital are more satisfied with the efficiency of
the health services provided by the hospital PGN Attikon. Finally, it became clear that the more the respondents agree with the reduction in hospital budgets, the more they accept the fact that there have been cases where the patient has been asked to buy materials due to lack of any, resulting in patient complaints regarding this matter.


An adequate theory of knowledge attribution sentences must face the Cartesian Skeptical Challenge. Epistemic Contextualism offers an attractive solution to the problem. This is considered to be one of its principal virtues. However, as soon as we ask for more clarity and precision we face some difficulties. I briefly recall some non-promising versions of Contextualism, already exposed by DeRose, and I introduce his own improved account, designed to avoid them. I argue that DeRose improved account fails to solve the problems that threatened earlier versions of Contextualism. The advocate of Contextualism must explain us how we are supposed to implement his anti-skeptical strategy.


Terrestrial lidar is commonly used for detailed documentation in the field of forest inventory investigation. Recent improvements of point cloud processing techniques enabled efficient and precise computation of an individual tree shape parameters, such as breast-height diameter, height, and volume. However, tree species are manually specified by skilled workers to date. Previous works for automatic tree species classification mainly focused on aerial or satellite images, and few works have been reported for classification techniques using ground-based sensor data. Several candidate sensors can be considered for classification, such as RGB or multi/hyper spectral cameras. Above all candidates, we use terrestrial lidar because it can obtain high resolution point cloud in the dark forest. We selected bark texture for the classification criteria, since they clearly represent unique characteristics of each tree and do not change their appearance under seasonable variation and aged deterioration. In this paper, we propose a new method for automatic individual tree species classification based on terrestrial lidar using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The key component is the creation step of a depth image which well describe the characteristics of each species from a point cloud. We focus on Japanese cedar and cypress which cover the large part of domestic forest. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.


Full duplex is the future of all kind of wireless devices. It can be considered the next big thing in wireless physical layer after MIMO enhancements. Major issue in full duplex is to cancel self-interference. With different bottlenecks of saturation in RF front end of the receiver, active analog cancellation has to be performed before digital cancellation. The aim of this paper is to present a compressive review of the recent literature on various aspects of full duplex wireless radios.


The aim of the study: to evaluate the natriuretic and hypotensive effects of diuver in sodium-retaining and sodium-nonretaining patients with arterial hypertension (AH). Fifty patients with hypertension of 2nd and 3rd degree without signs of congestive heart failure and chronic renal failure were examined. General clinical examination was performed to rule out the abnormal kidney function. To identify sodium-retaining patients with hypertension, the daily excretion of sodium in the urine was determined and the test with the salt load was carried out. Test with the diuver was performed to study the effectiveness of the diuretics in patients with AH. According to the examination results, all patients were divided into the groups of sodium-retaining and sodium-non-retaining patients. Data showed that individuals who always added salt to cooked food dominated among the sodium-retaining patients. In this group of patients, we observed statically smaller increase of diuresis and natriuresis upon administration of test with loop diuretic compared to the group of sodium-non-retaining patients. Significant decrease in arterial blood pressure (ABP) was registered among the sodium-non-retaining patients when they received diuver. According to our data, only sodium-non-retaining patients had statistically significant decrease in both systolic and diastolic ABP during the diuretic test. Among sodium-retaining patients dominated those who always added slat to already cooked food.


Upshot: Adam Toon's book is a development in the fictionalist view of scientific modelling. Although his fictionalist account is realistic and representational, Toon's input to the theory can …


Effects of different kinds of anion exchange membrane (AEM) on soil P extracted by AEM (AEM P) were investigated in three soils (Cumulic Andosol, Yellow soil, and Gray Lowland soil). There was no significant difference in AEM P among the AEMs tested (BDH-Prolabo 551642S, AGC Engineering Selemion AMT, and AGC Engineering Selemion AMV). The AEM P was greater than water-soluble P in all soils. Although AEM P was greater than Truog-extractable P in Cumulic Andosol, the reverse was true in the Yellow soil and Gray Lowland soil.


In this paper we are elaborating the concept of disease detection in the human body using the nail image of human fingers and analyzing the data from the image on the basis of nail color and texture. Fingernail has to be detected from the entire hand region using distribution density of the nail color pixels on the surface of nail. The methodology for creating a finger nail detection system involves removing the skin area from shiny/glossy nail portion; this is known as image segmentation concept that separates the specific object. Image segmentation is the method of dividing the image pixels into homogenous region.


Information on the development of teeth in seals is rare. In this study, histological details are presented from fetuses and several postnatal stages of the common seal (Phoca vitulina), showing that the deciduous teeth undergo a very rapid, short-term, and somewhat incomplete development. This means that the permanent dentition can and also has to 'out-pace' the deciduous dentition, because Phoca vitulina, contrary to fur seals, has a very short suckling period after which there is an abrupt change to normal feeding (crabs, fishes).


The problem of evil is the logical problem posed by the reality of evil against Christian theism or against theism more generally. A person who poses the problem of evil (and other such challenges) against Christian theism is sometimes called an "atheologian," one who engages in discourse concerning God in order to demonstrate God's nonexistence. A response to the problem of evil can be a "defense," an argument for the logical compatibility of belief in God and acknowledgment of the presence of evil, or a "theodicy," a "justification of God," that provides possible reasons for why God allows evil. The term "theodicy" was coined by the philosopher G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716), one of the most significant figures in the field. One of the many ways in which the problem can be posed is to speak of the tension, if not contradiction, that exists among the following propositions: God is omnipotent; God is omnibenevolent; evil exists. Sometimes a statement of God's omniscience is added to this list. The argument of the atheologian takes up these three propositions, each arguably intrinsic to Christian theism, and makes the following type of argument: if God (as omnipotent) is fully able to eradicate evil, and if God (as omnibenevolent) is fully willing to eradicate evil, then evil ought to be eradicated, that is, ought not be present in our world — yet the world that we know seems full of evil. Therefore, God is either not omnipotent (somehow limited in power) or not omnibenevolent (less than fully willing of the good). The Christian seems faced with four unpalatable alternatives: (1) if God is willing to eliminate evil but cannot, then God is not omnipotent; (2) if God is able to eliminate evil but unwilling, then God is not omnibenevolent; (3) if God is both able and willing to eliminate evil, then evil ought to be eliminated — yet evil is still present in the world as we know it; and (4) if God is neither able nor willing to eliminate evil, then God seems neither omnipotent nor omnibenevolent — thus not really "God" at all. The Christian theist seems pressed to abandon God's omnipotence and/or omnibenevolence. The argument concerning the problem of evil in this basic form may go back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (c.342–270 bc) or one of his followers, such as the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (c.100–55 bc). The argument from evil is commonly regarded as the strongest of all the arguments that can be made against Christian faith and enjoys a prominent place in debates concerning Christian theology. The argument can be presented as a full, logical disproof of the Christian doctrine of God, or it can be presented (more modestly) as providing strong evidence against belief in the Christian God.

Keywords:

evil, problem of;
reality of evil against christian theism;
evil, divided into "moral evil" and "natural evil";
biblical book of job;
mackie's "evil and omnipotence"


The natural progression from a clonal selection algorithm, is to employ that algorithm in a loose architectural model of the acquired immune system. A series of multiple discrete repertoire models were previously proposed to do just that. These models are briefly reviewed in this work, and elaborated to a multiple repertoire system. This system is defined in the context of a series of principle effects, design principles and behavioural expectations. It is demonstrated that the path to realizing this broader system is to employ a bottom-up approach using a number of low-level algorithms. This work completes with a summary of a number of experimental investigations and studies that provide a framework for further extensions of this


In this paper,we discussed some new developments on pursuing excellent quality management based on ZD quality culture and system optimization in Lanzhou division of Petrochina for about three years practices.We have got a lot of great progresses in total quality management,we have established a highly effective management system and brilliant quality culture thoughts,which have been acting as catalysts to promote the company to stride forward towards the new glorious developments.


【Objective】 The effects of no-tillage(NT) on soil properties,crop yields,and soil and water conservations were studied in the north cool area of Northeast China.【Method】 Two long-term filed experiments were established to compare the performance of two systems NT and conventional rotary tillage(CRT) in a flat field and a slope land,respectively.Soil properties and crop yield were measured and soil runoff was monitored continuously.【Result】 Compared to CRT,soil water content under NT in the plowed layer was increased by 3 to 5 percentage points,which led to increasing soil water storage in the 110 cm layer.At the depth of 10 cm,soil temperature under NT was 2.1℃ lower than that under CRT.In the 0-15 cm soil layer,soil organic matter content under NT was 11% higher than that under CRT,which resulted in the increase of the diversity of soil animal community.With the adoption of NT,soil surface runoff and soil loss were decreased by 90% and 98%,respectively.Finally,compared to the CRT system,corn yield under NT was decreased by more than 20%,while soybean yield under NT was increased by approximately 10%.In addition,these benefits of NT were more significant in the slope land than those in the flat field.【Conclusion】 NT displayed a significant role in soil and water conservation in the degraded land.On the other hand,NT decreased corn yield but increased soybean yield.It was concluded that NT is a useful practice for soybean and sloping farmland in the north cool region of Northeast China.


In an interview conducted in his home in 1999 with Robert Carl, Christian Wolff discusses the evolution of his compositional practice in the 1980s and 1990s, as it turned from experimentalism and indeterminacy toward the use of traditional tunes as source material, and toward more conventional forms of performance practice and notation. The interview touches on specific processes Wolff uses to transform pre-existent material, and their relation to particular social and political concerns. It also touches on the composer's double life as composer and classical scholar, and the unusual connections between the two.


The unique problems that the professional woman brings to therapy are presented here. It is the author's contention that the career woman's difficulties are not adequately realized or understood by many male therapists. Many of these patients are disappointed with or highly critical of their therapy with male psychiatrists. Two sub-groups of professional women are described: the married professional woman and the unattached professional woman. There are critical sex-role related issues and countertransference problems which arise with the male therapist: professional woman patient dyad. Other implications for male psychiatrists are outlined and suggestions offered toward therapist enlightenment.


A highly efficient synthetic method to prepare 1,2-dihydroquinolines that relies on trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TfOH)-catalysed allylic amination of 1-(2-aminoaryl)prop-2-en-1-ols is described. Achieved at a catalyst loading of 0.01 mol-% under mild conditions at room temperature, the reaction was found to be robust, with a wide range of substitution patterns tolerated. The corresponding N-heterocyclic adducts were obtained in good to excellent yields of 45–93 %.


The development and implementation of Cochlear Implant devices have lead to a useful alternative for partial re-establishment of profoundly deaf people. The ...


The present study describes the relationship between gonadal agenesis and fertility in male and female mice exposed in utero to the diazo dye Congo red (CR). Maternal CR treatment inhibited testicular and ovarian function in the offspring after oral administration of 1 or 0.5 g/kg/day on Gestational Days 8-12. The testes of male offspring from CR-exposed dams were small in size and contained hypospermatogenic seminiferous tubules. However, despite the fact that testis weight was reduced by more than 70% in some males, they displayed normal levels of fertility when mated to untreated females for over 10 months. In contrast, female offspring from CR-exposed dams produced only about half as many litters and pups as the control pairs did under long-term mating conditions. Histological examination of the ovaries revealed that subfertility was correlated with ovarian atrophy. Females lacking maturing follicles were considerably less productive (1.3 litters and 11.5 pups) than treated females with histologically normal ovaries (7.1 litters and 78.1 pups). In summary, prenatal exposure to the dye CR affects the gonads of both male and female offspring, but only the female offspring display reduced fertility.


We studied 45 patients (new‐born to 12 year olds) who received 50–100 mg/kg/day chloramphenicol sodium succinate i.v. over 2–49 days for the treatment of central nervous system infections. Multiple blood samples were obtained to measure serum concentrations of chloramphenicol and its succinate ester by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Haemato‐logical parameters (haemoglobin, white cell, neutrophil, eosinophil and platelet counts) were also determined. Chloramphenicol therapy was effective in all patients. Anaemia was present in 10, leukopenia in four, neutropenia in four, and eosinophilia in 16 patients. These adverse effects occurred between 3 and 34 days after the initiation of therapy. Chloramphenicol therapy had to be discontinued only in three patients, who had absolute neutrophil counts <800/mm3. All adverse effects were reversible. Demographic factors, daily dose, duration of therapy, steady‐state peak and trough serum concentrations, area under the serum concentration‐time curve normalized for dose, and the elimination half‐life were not correlated with the occurrence of adverse effects of chloramphenicol. The mean cumulative dose of chloramphenicol succinate was the only factor always higher but not statistically different in patients with adverse effects compared to those without. The mean cumulative dose of chloramphenicol succinate ranged from 1·2 to 1·8 g/kg in patients with adverse effects and 0·9‐1·1 g/kg in those without. These data suggest that the adverse effects of chloramphenicol may not be predictable in paediatric patients. However, a high cumulative dose may possibly be an important factor in predisposing some patients to certain chloramphenicol toxicity.


The hardware drive circuit for train model operating and controlling system was established in the Proteus software environment,and the PC monitoring interface was programmed by LabVIEW.With this monitoring system,the initial simulation on velocity display and control of train model operating system was achieved.


After postgraduation when a surgeon settles down in practice, just the theoretical knowledge does not help him. He has to imbibe certain qualities such as good manners, hard work, good convincing power in explaining the operative procedure and expected results. Besides he has to be very tactful in dealing with a situation when some unfortunate complication occurs. This presentation comprises some important tips a surgeon should know to keep his patients satisfied and avoid litigations.


Phonons, i.e., quanta of lattice vibrations, manifest themselves practically in all electrical, thermal, optical, and noise phenomena in semiconductors and other material systems. Reduction of the size of electronic devices below the acoustic phonon mean free path creates a new situation for the phonons propagation and interaction. From one side, it may complicate heat removal from the downscaled devices. From the other side, it opens up an opportunity for engineering phonon spectrum in nanostructured materials, and achieving enhanced operation of nanoscale devices. This chapter reviews the development of the nanoscale phonon engineering concept and discusses possible device applications. The focus of this review is on tuning the phonon spectrum in the acoustically mismatched nanoand heterostructures in order to change the ability of semiconductors to conduct heat or electric current. New approaches for the electron–phonon scattering rates suppression and improvement of the carrier mobility as well as for formation of the phonon stop-bands are discussed. The phonon engineering concept can be potentially as powerful as the band gap engineering, which led to some ground-breaking developments in the electronics.


This paper proposes a methodology for learned compression for satellite imagery. The proposed method utilizes an image patching and stitching approach to address the high resolution of satellite images. We present rate-distortion metrics showing that this methodology outperforms JPEG2000, currently used on satellites. In addition, we demonstrate that using satellite images to train the compression model leads to superior performance compared to using non-domain-specific data. Furthermore, a detailed evaluation of the compression algorithm in a downstream classification task is conducted. The results demonstrate that 77.83% classification accuracy is still achievable for highly compressed images with a bitrate of 0.02 BPPs when the classification model is trained on images from the same compression model. The downstream classification task evaluation highlights that the performance of the classification model is highly dependent on the type of compression applied to the training data. When trained with learned compression images, the model can only classify images with an acceptable level of accuracy (>77%) if they had also undergone learned compression. Likewise, a model trained with JPEG images can only classify JPEG images with acceptable accuracy (>89%).


Purpose of review The aim of this review is to present for gynaecologists new information on human papillomavirus infections, their spontaneous evolution, and their consequences on the transformation of target tissues. It emphasizes the need for vaccination, both as a preventive tool and therapeutic agent, and reports the progress made so far. Recent findings Human papillomavirus infection is often transient and spontaneously reversible. High-risk human papillomavirus persistence is the major cause of cancerous transformation in several tissues. Preventive vaccination has already demonstrated remarkable efficacy against the development of some human papillomavirus type related anogenital lesions. Therapeutic vaccination has now also been developed to cure pre-existing lesions. Some new screening protocols can be derived from these experiments. Summary Both preventive and therapeutic human papillomavirus vaccinations will probably change our approach to the screening and therapy of human papillomavirus-related diseases in the next few years. The mass vaccination of adolescent patients should lower the frequency of these very frequently lethal infections. Abbreviations CIN: cervical intraepithelial neoplasia; HPV: human papillomavirus; HSIL: high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion; VLP: virus-like particle.


The frame shown in the accompanying illustrations was developed in Dr. David Silver's clinic at the Allegheny General Hospital, for the treatment of fractures of the upper and middle thirds of the shaft of the femur in children under 6 years of age. This all metal frame was designed to get a more consistent ventral suspension of the affected limb and to avoid the rotation of the fractured femur on its axis. It is adjustable to the size of the patient and is free from pulleys or ropes. The frame is constructed from three-eighths inch gas pipe, drilled to one-half inch, and one-half inch bar. The horizontal bars and the perpendicular bar slip into the pipes and are made fast at desired dimensions by cotter pins, which pass through holes at measured spaces. All parts are coated with tin to avoid rust. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the frame before


This paper proposes a Management Algorithm (MA) for a hybrid PV/battery stand-alone system. The main purpose is to ensure the ongoing availability of energy for supplying the load. Meanwhile, guarantee a maximum of stability during perturbations of production and Partial Shading (PS) conditions. The interfaced power electronic converters for the Photovoltaic Generator (PVG) and battery are controlled separately. To harvest the maximum power from the PVG and control the boost converter, a Hill Climbing-Particle Swarm optimization (HC-PSO) is used. A double PI control loop is designed to manage the bidirectional buck-boost converter interfacing the battery storage to the load side. The aim of this latter is to maintain the delivered power to the load under varying weather conditions. Simulations are performed using MATLAB/Simulink. Then, three cases are considered to be analyzed for assessing the consistency of the MA: (1) under standard conditions when the rated power is sufficient to charge the battery and supply the load; (2) under fast varying irradiance conditions and (3) under PS. The results confirm the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed MA in controlling stand-alone PV systems.


It has been known for many years past that in the islands of St. Helena and Ascension observations of the three magnetic elements made at different stations gave remarkably divergent results, caused by some undefined local magnetic attraction. Thus in the observations at St. Helena, carried out under the auspices of the British Government in 1840-46, it was found that the observed inclination and intensity differed considerably at the two stations of Longwood and Sister's Walk, 2½ miles apart, and these again differed from those made on board ships in the anchorage.


The use of molecular simulation to quantify gas adsorption and diffusion is needed to study the CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) efficiency. Favoring CO2-Oil interaction over CO2-Rock interaction depends on the strength of the interaction bond between CO2 and nanopores surface. In this study, we explored the effect of pore size and reservoir temperature on CO2 adsorption and diffusion behavior in Bakken. This comprehensive study covers the characterization of Bakken CO2-EOR using grand canonical Monte Carlo and molecular dynamic simulations. The results indicated that increasing reservoir temperature would reduce the amount of adsorbed CO2 and the adsorption kinetics of CO2 into Bakken nanopores follows a first-order Langmuir model. CO2 adsorption in Bakken nanopores was strong at low temperatures and large pore sizes. Also, high CO2 injection pressures (e.g., 55MPa) led to strong diffusion of CO2 into the nanopores. This is undesirable as high CO2 adsorption and diffusion into the walls of the nanopores would cause molecular loss of the injected CO2, consequently lower EOR efficiency. The insights gained from this work might help improve theoretical understanding of the micro behaviors of CO2 in Bakken reservoir nanopores and give valuable recommendations in CO2-EOR.


The purpose of my contribution is to explain the need for dynamic testing in terms of defining the design problems where testing is required to assist or substantiate decisions made in the light of mainly theoretical evidence in the initial stages of design before hardware becomes available for testing. I have interpreted the title in the broadest sense of the word vibration so as not to restrict the presentation only to testing associated with assessing or minimising the vibration of helicopters, but to include problem areas which result in dynamic testing requirements.


The present invention relates to a semiconductor structure and semiconductor processing compositions. The composite structure comprises a semiconductor substrate, at least one conductor, a first wall portion and a chip. The substrate has at least one electrical connection. The electrical conductor is located on the connection. The wall portion configured to abut against the conductor. The first chip having at least one bump. The first chip is substantially perpendicular to the substrate, and the bumps contacting the conductor. Accordingly, the engagement between the conductor bumps and the reliability can be improved, first to ensure that the chip is electrically connected between the substrates.


Abstract : The threat of chemical and biological weapons is clearly increasing in range and frequency in the world today. There are over twenty countries with known or suspected chemical and biological weapons programs, and these weapons constitute one of the greatest threats to the United States and to our military forces. Because the countries which are of greatest concern to the United States are also in regions in which we have well defined national security interests, we must demonstrate our resolve to protect our forces with the best available individual equipment to protect our military forces from chemical and biological attacks. However, despite this critical force protection requirement, the business of protecting our forces from chemical and biological attacks is expensive and vulnerable to fraud, waste, and mismanagement.


The present invention relates to a holder (12) for connecting a mirror surface (10) comprising a support structure (14) of heliostats, the holder (12) comprising, - a base (18) which is fixed to the back of the mirror surface (10), wherein the base has a recess (20) and a radially extending recess (21), which penetrates the recess (20) wherein the recess is for receiving a connecting element (26), - an insertable into the recess (20) of the base (18) mounting pin (22), wherein the fixing pin (22) has a groove (24) which cooperates with the connecting element (26). Moreover, the invention relates to a supporting structure (14) of a heliostat and a mounting method for the heliostat.


We report the plasma radiation loss power and impurity line emissions in the toroidal pinch experiment RX, TPE-RX under various plasma current (Ip) conditions. The emissivity at the off-axis chords is stronger than that at the central chord, and the plasma radiation profile is hollow. These trends are clearer at higher Ip. Although the plasma density increases with Ip, the radiation fraction remains constant at approximately 15% in the range of Ip studied. The input power increases with Ip. However, the increment cannot be explained entirely by the increment of the radiation loss power, which increases in proportion to the input power. At higher Ip, the emissions from impurities of both high and low atomic number (Z) increase. The increase of the line emission of these impurities reflects the increase of the plasma wall interaction.


We propose a resource-efficient list scheduling heuristic for the problem of task scheduling in an optical Grid with the objectives of maximizing the network utilization efficiency and minimizing the task completion time.


Diapause is a quiescence state where growth and development of an organism have been postponed. During diapause the food intake halts or decreases and the tolerance against harsh environmental conditions like low temperatures and drought improves. Reproductive diapause is a form of diapause which occurs at the adult state of insect life cycle. During reproductive diapause functions related to reproduction either slow down or stop. Several candidate genes have been connected to reproductive diapause in Drosophila melanogaster. One of these is couch potato (cpo) gene which have been recently linked also to reproductive diapause of a northern malt fly species D. montana. In this study I examined the appearance of the 19 base pair long deletion mutation in cpo gene in D. montana flies collected in years 2003 and 2008 from wild population in Oulanka, Finland. The appearance of the deletion was also examined in the laboratory population. The other study aim was to investigate with quantitative PCR (qPCR) if there are differences in the expression levels of cpo gene between diapausing and mature females and whether the deletion has any effects on the expression level (RNA production) of the gene. The possible effect of the deletion on female reproductive diapause was studied by maintaining female flies both with and without the deletion in light periods which normally either induce (L:D 16:8) or do not induce (22:2) diapause. Two individuals collected in year 2003 (n=28) had the deletion in the cpo gene while none of those collected in year 2008 (n=75) did. However, the frequency of the deletion seems to be increasing in the laboratory culture, which consists of the offspring of the other heterozygote female collected in year 2003. Individuals with deletion showed lower levels of cpo gene expression than individuals without deletion, both in diapausing and reproductive females. Nevertheless, deletion did not seem to have an effect on diapause incidence so its location area may not be crucial for the diapause determination in D. montana flies. It is also possible that this region in cpo gene is involved in diapause regulation but regardless of the deletion sufficient amount of gene product is formed for normal gene function.


Sepsis is a frequent complication in patients in intensive care units (ICU). Diaphragm weakness,one of the most common symptoms observed, can lead to weaning problemsduring mechanical ventilation. Over the last couple of years, members of thetransforming growth factor (TGF) β family,such as myostatin, activin A and TGF-β1,have beenreported to strongly trigger the activation of protein breakdown involved in muscle wasting. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of TGF-βinhibitorLY364947on the diaphragm during chronic sepsis.Rats were separated into four groups exposed to different experimental conditions: (i) Control group, (ii) Septic group, (iii) Septic group with inhibitor from day 0 (LY D0), and (iv) Septic group with inhibitor from day 1 (LY D1). Sepsis was induced in ratsby cecal ligation and puncture, and carried out for seven days.Chronic sepsis was responsible for a decrease inbody weight, food intake anddiaphragm's mass. The inhibitor was able to abolish diaphragm wasting only in the LY D1 group. Similarly, LY364947 had a beneficial effect on the diaphragm contraction only for the LY D1 group. SMAD3 was over-expressed and phosphorylated within rats in the Septic group;however this effect was reversed by LY364947. Calpain-1 and -2 as well as MAFbx were over-expressedwithin individuals in theSeptic group. Yet, calpain-1 and MAFbx expressions were decreased by LY364947With this work, we demonstrate for the first time that the inhibition of TGF-β pathway during chronic sepsisprotects the diaphragm from wasting and weaknessas early asone day post infection. This could lead to more efficient treatment and care for septic patients in ICU.


ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensory quality differences between microbe-inoculated and noninoculated tea infusions. Fifteen strains isolate from samples of the 15-year Ta-Huang-In and 25-year Ta-Hon-In of Pu-erh tea were inoculated into the tea leaves and then an improved pile-fermentation process under 60–70% relative humidity at 37C for 42 days was commenced. The results showed that there were significant effects on tea infusion mustiness, floral aroma, caramelness, sweetness, grassiness, fullness and sweet aftertaste. The sensory evaluation of odor, flavor and aftertaste of tea infusions inoculated with strains R8, R9, R15, Y11 and Y21 achieved higher scores than that of the blank. Thus, these strains governed the better performance in the overall acceptability of tea infusion. This was also demonstrated in the principal component analysis score plot. Furthermore, the tea infusion color of inoculated samples was similar to the commercial Pu-erh tea product. By this indicated way of using isolated microbe with shortened fermentation time (6 weeks), the sensory quality of tea infusions may be the same as that of old commercial Pu-erh tea.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
In this report, we studied the effects of isolated microbes on the sensory quality (i.e., mustiness, floral aroma, caramelness, sweetness, grassiness, fullness and sweet aftertaste) differences between microbe inoculated and non-inoculated tea infusions for Pu-erh tea in an improved pile-fermentation process. By using the results from this study, the tea infusion color of inoculating sample was also similar to the commercial Pu-erh tea product. By this indicated way of using isolated microbe with shortened the fermentation time (6 weeks), the sensory quality of tea infusion may be the same as that of old commercial Pu-erh tea. What is crucial in this study is isolation of useful strains that governed a remarkable action in improving tea-leaf quality in a pile-fermentation process. The results of the research developed herein could effectively reduce fermentation time and could be suitably applied to the field of tea technology for large-scale commercial purposes.


The invention relates to a series of new heterocyclic ketones of formula (I) and addition salts pharmaceutically acceptable-BASE, IN WHICH THE SECURITIES R4, L, A, XYQ HAVE THE MEANING GIVEN IN THE FOLLOWING SPECIFICATION. Compounds of formula (I) are inhibitors of human leukocyte elastase. The invention also provides pharmaceutical compositions comprising a compound of formula (I) or an acid addition salt-BASE AND PROCESSES pharmaceutically acceptable and intermediates for the manufacture of compounds of formula (I).


The free mesh method (FMM) is simple, accurate and suitable for parallel computing. In this method, the total stiffness matrix is obtained by assembling the temporary local element matrices, so the method does not require connectivity between nodes and elements as input information. This paper describes FMM using Delaunay tesselation at the stage of creating a set of temporary local elements around each node during application to a 3-dimensional problem. In the analysis of a steady thermal conduction problem, the result of the present method was virtually the same as that of the usual FEM using global Delaunay tesselation. The CPU times with FMM and FEM were compared for problems of varing sizes. Results showed that the present method was highly efficient for dealing with larger problems.


A method for manufacturing a dental prosthesis is provided to have desirable workability and low corrosion rate, and to minimize breaking tendency while obtaining hardness achieving finish without any problem. A method for manufacturing a dental prosthesis comprises the step of laser-melting and/or laser-sintering a cobalt-chromium alloy. The cobalt-chromium alloy comprises cobalt of 43 - 68 weight %, chromium of 12 - 30 weight %, tungsten of 8 - 25 weight %, iron of 0 - 13 weight %, manganese of 0 - 30 weight %, molybdenum of 0 - 10 weight %, at least one of elements of aluminum, tantalum, rhenium, and titanium of 0 - 5 weight %, and carbon of less than 0.1 weight %.


This paper presents preliminary results of our work with a major financial company, where we try to use methods of plan recognition in order to investigate the interactions of a costumer with the company's online interface. In this paper, we present the first steps of integrating a plan recognition algorithm in a real-world application for detecting and analyzing the interactions of a costumer. It uses a novel approach for plan recognition from bare-bone UI data, which reasons about the plan library at the lowest recognition level in order to define the relevancy of actions in our domain, and then uses it to perform plan recognition.
We present preliminary results of inference on three different use-cases modeled by domain experts from the company, and show that this approach manages to decrease the overload of information required from an analyst to evaluate a costumer's session - whether this is a malicious or benign session, whether the intended tasks were completed, and if not - what actions are expected next.


Introduction:
Stress is a state of physical and psychological strain which imposes demands for adjustments upon the individual. It has been reported that student nurses are affected with the stressors in academic, clinical, financial, due to parental expectations, competition for grades, and career choices.
OBJECTIVES
1. To assess the level of stress among 1st year B.Sc nursing students.
2. To fine out association with the level of stress with their socio demographic variables of 1st year B.Sc nursing students.
Methodology: A quantitative research approach, descriptive research design was adopted for the study. A sample of 60 students 1st year B.Sc nursing were selected by purposive sampling technique. Modified student stress scale was used to assess the level of stress. The data was analyzed by using the descriptive and inferential statistics i.e. frequency and percentage, mean, standard deviation,and chi-square.
Major findings of the study: 14(23%) students had mild stress, 40(67%) students had moderate stress, 6 (10%) students had severe stress. Association between the level of stress and socio demographic variables, there is a statistically significant association with gender and no significant association with other socio demographic variables such as such type of family, father's education, mother's education, father's occupation, mother's occupation, family income per month, type of residence, distance from residence.
Conclusion : The findings of study suggest that 1st year B.Sc nursing students have moderate level of stress which has no significant association with majority of socio demographic variables.


Page 1/19 11/2/2019 https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/their-imperfect-best-isaianic-authorship-from-an-lds-perspective/ Abstract: For Latter-day Saints, the critical scholarly consensus that most of the book of Isaiah was not authored by Isaiah often presents a problem, particularly since many Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon are assigned post-exilic dating by critical scholars. The critical position is based on an entirely different set of assumptions than most believers are accustomed to bring to scripture. This article surveys some of the reasons for the critical scholarly position, also providing an alternative set of assumptions that Latter-day Saints can use to understand the features of the text.


Diffusion and reaction of chemically reacting passive scalars in turbulent shear flows are investigated. A binary irreversible reaction with no heat release is considered. The binary and triple correlations such as the scalar fIux, the scalar variance, and the squared-scalar flux are calculated by applying a two-scale direct-interaction formalism. The results are simplified by the use of the inertial-range theory to construct two models for the passive scalars: an ensemble-averaged model of k - e type, and a LES model.


Objective To analyse the histological components of the transition zone in both normal human prostate and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and to determine the volumetric density (Vv) of the different elements (connective tissue, smooth muscle cells, acini and total stroma).


Abstract The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of a 40 Gbps Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing system with 32 channels, spaced at 50 GHz. The design has been optimized for a long haul optical link for Modified Duobinary Return-to-Zero modulation format to establish its superiority over the conventional Duobinary Return-to-Zero format using OptiSystem simulator. The proposed system is designed and tested under perfect dispersion compensation for dispersion management and also with some residual dispersion in the link to mitigate the existing non-linearities. This paper also outlines the superiority of duobinary coding over the conventional non-return to zero modulation with the integration of unequal channel spacing to minimize the Four-Wave Mixing effect. The proposed system has been optimized for a maximum propagation length using different dispersion compensation methods by evaluating the link performance using Q value.


The purpose of our research is the interrelation estimation between a self-appraisal questioned oral cavity conditions, the stomatologic status and motivation at the reference behind the stomatologic help. The index estimation of a condition of fabrics periodontial and questioning by the questionnaire developed by us was spent. The data obtained by us testifies to a biassed estimation respondents of a condition of an oral cavity and importance of carrying out of routine inspections for the purpose of timely revealing of a stomatologic pathology and motivation of patients to treatment


School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China National Engineering Research Center of Electromagnetic Radiation Control Materials, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China The Collaborative Innovation Center of Integrated Computation and Chip Security, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu 610225, China Xinyun Electronic Company, China Zhenhua Electronics Group Company, Guiyang 551018, China YunKe Branch Company, China Zhenhua Electronics Group Company, Guiyang 551018, China


Evidence from several qualitative studies has suggested that the transition to motherhood has strong inhibitory effects on the delinquency and drug use trajectories of poor women. Quantitative studies, however, typically have failed to find significant parenthood or motherhood effects. We argue that the latter research typically has not examined motherhood in disadvantaged settings or applied the appropriate statistical method. Focusing on within-individual change, we test the motherhood hypothesis using data from a 10-year longitudinal study of more than 500 women living in disadvantaged Denver communities. We find that the transition to motherhood is associated significantly with reductions in delinquency, marijuana, and alcohol behaviors. Moreover, we find that the effect of motherhood is larger than that of marriage for all outcomes. These results support the qualitative findings and suggest that the transition to motherhood—and not marriage—is the primary turning point for disadvantaged women to exit delinquent and drug-using trajectories.


Background: Bevacizumab has been increasingly used in combination chemotherapy with paclitaxel for treatment of metastatic or recurrent breast cancer. The aim of this report is to underline possible risks associated with the new combination chemotherapy. Case Presentation: A 39-year-old woman with recurrent breast cancer was treated with bevacizumab and paclitaxel. Positron emission tomography revealed breast cancer metastasis to the left supraclavicular lymph nodes and right axillary lymph nodes, with no distant metastasis. Results: After the third cycle of bevacizumab and paclitaxel, the patient developed a bloody bowel discharge. Emergent colonoscopy demonstrated diverticular bleeding on one of the multiple diverticula in the ascending colon. The bleeding point was successfully clipped colonoscopically. Conclusion: The factors for diverticular bleeding are believed to be non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, constipation, and bevacizumab. We recommend reviewing anamneses for diverticulitis, multiple prior abdominal surgeries, peritoneal carcinomatosis, and regular use of certain drugs.


With the large-scale operation of highways in China, the daily maintenance and management of highways has restricted the road operation. If the pavement cracks can be repaired in time before being deteriorated into pits, the maintenance cost can be greatly saved. This work proposed a new fast recognition algorithm for pavement cracks based on unsupervised clustering. First, the normalized image of pavement cracks was sliced into two-scale image blocks using the sliding window algorithm. Then a deep convolutional self-encoder was constructed to extract and reconstruct the image data. Finally, the identification model with the encoder and the cluster layer detected the pavement cracks. The results showed that compared with the current mainstream algorithms, the proposed method has better recognition with faster speed.


Since many diseases and infections are dependent on the count and type of Red Blood Cells (RBCs) and White Blood Cells (WBCs) present in the blood stream, detection and classification pertaining to them is necessary and relevant. Based from existing related literature, ordinary Neural Networks are usually employed. Also, in existing researches, RBC types are the main focus. Hence, after observing research gaps, a Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (Faster R-CNN) was utilized for this study, focusing not only on RBCs but also on the variants of WBCs. The aim is to have a fast and reliable system in order to achieve the goal of aiding the medical field in the classification of RBCs and WBCs.