............................................................................................................................. iii Declaration ......................................................................................................................... vi Preface ............................................................................................................................... vii Publications ......................................................................................................................... x Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. xi List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiv List of Tables .................................................................................................................. xvii List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... xix CHAPTER 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Bone modelling and remodelling ......................................................................... 1 1.2 Determinants of bone strength ............................................................................. 3 1.2.1 Bone mass and microarchitecture ................................................................. 3 22.214.171.124 Sex and age-specific effects on bone structure ......................................... 6 1.2.2 Bone material properties ............................................................................... 6 22.214.171.124 Type I collagen ............................................................................................ 6 18.104.22.168 Hydroxyapatite mineral ............................................................................. 7 1.3 Osteoblast differentiation, bone formation and mineralisation ............................ 8 1.3.2 Osteoblast differentiation .............................................................................. 8 220.127.116.11 Osteocytes ............................................................................................... 10 1.3.3 Bone formation and mineralisation ............................................................. 13 1.4 Anabolic parathyroid hormone (PTH) treatment and its effects on bone formation ....................................................................................................................... 15 1.5 Downstream targets of PTH and PTHrP ............................................................ 16 1.5.2 Glycoprotein 130 (gp130) is modified by PTH .......................................... 16 1.5.3 EphrinB2 regulates osteoblast differentiation and bone strength ............... 18 xxv 188.8.131.52 Impaired ephrinB2/EphB4 interaction affects osteoblast differentiation and bone mineralisation ......................................................................................... 20 1.6 Aims and Hypotheses ......................................................................................... 22 CHAPTER 2: Materials and Methods .............................................................................. 24 2.1 Animal models ................................................................................................... 24 2.1.1 Dmp1Cre.gp130 mice ................................................................................. 24 2.1.2 OsxCre.EfnB2 mice .................................................................................... 25 2.1.3 Dmp1Cre.EfnB2 mice ................................................................................. 25 18.104.22.168 Dmp1Cre.DMP1-GFP.EfnB2 mice ......................................................... 26 2.1.4 Genotyping .................................................................................................. 26 22.214.171.124 Isolating tail DNA and genotyping of mouse strain ................................ 26 2.1.5 PTH treatment ............................................................................................. 31 2.1.6 Calcein administration in mice ................................................................... 31 2.1.7 Serum and tissue collection and storage ..................................................... 32 2.2 Micro-Computed tomography (micro-CT) 3D analysis of femora .................... 33 2.2.1 Micro-CT analysis of femoral trabecular secondary spongiosa ................. 34 2.2.2 Micro-CT analysis of femoral cortical bone ............................................... 34 2.2.3 Tissue mineral density (TMD) measurements in the cortical region .......... 38 2.3 Sample preparation for histomorphometry, TUNEL staining and synchrotronbased Fourier Transform Infrared Microscopy (sFTIRM) ............................................ 39 2.3.1 Plastic section preparation .......................................................................... 39 22.214.171.124 Preparation of destabilised methyl methacrylate (dMMA) ..................... 39 188.8.131.52 Dehydration, infiltration and embedding of bone samples ..................... 39 188.8.131.52 Cutting and polishing plastic sections ..................................................... 40 2.3.2 Staining of thin plastic sections .................................................................. 41 184.108.40.206 Toluidine Blue Stain ................................................................................ 41 126.96.36.199 Xylenol Orange Stain ................................................................................. 42 xxvi 2.3.3 Paraffin embedding ..................................................................................... 42 22.214.171.124 Cutting paraffin sections ......................................................................... 43 2.3.4 Staining of paraffin sections ....................................................................... 43 18.104.22.168 TdT-mediated dUTP Nick-End Labelling (TUNEL) stain ..................... 43 2.3.5 Static and dynamic histomorphometry of trabecular and cortical bone ..... 45 22.214.171.124 Static Histomorphometry ........................................................................ 45 220.127.116.11 Dynamic .................................................................................................. 45 2.4 Assessment of bone mRNA by quantitative real-time PCR .............................. 46 2.4.1 RNA isolation from bone samples .............................................................. 46 2.4.2 Removal of genomic DNA ......................................................................... 47 2.4.3 Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) ...................... 47 220.127.116.11 Reverse transcriptase and complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesis ....... 47 184.108.40.206 Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) .................................. 48 2.5 Fluorescence Activated Cell Sort (FACS) of green-fluorescent protein (GFP) positive osteocytes ......................................................................................................... 51 2.5.1 RNA extraction ........................................................................................... 52 2.6 Bone mechanical properties and material strength analysis ............................... 52 2.6.1 Mechanical Testing ..................................................................................... 52 2.6.2 Reference Point Indentation ........................................................................ 55 2.7 Hydroxyproline assay ......................................................................................... 56 2.8 Bone mineralisation analysis by Fourier Transform Infrared Microscopy (FTIRM) ........................................................................................................................ 57 2.8.1 Sample preparation, scanning and spectral analysis ................................... 57 18.104.22.168 Synchrotron-based FTIRM (sFTIRM) transmission scanning protocol . 57 220.127.116.11 Transmission spectral analysis ................................................................ 60 184.108.40.206 Sub-peak analysis .................................................................................... 61 220.127.116.11 FTIR imaging (FTIRI) ............................................................................ 63


In "An unfinished trip through uncertainties", an article published in 2004 in the British Medical Journal, Alessandro Liberati described his own life-threatening illness--multiple myeloma requiring two bone marrow transplantations--and the anguish of not having sound research on which to base decisions on his treatment. He talks to Les Olson on the urgent need for better integration of research and treatment. Q: When you first developed symptoms of multiple myeloma, you were disappointed to find that available research was not very helpful in deciding what to do. One reason you identified for this lack of information was that research is too often driven by academic competition. How can we avoid that? A: We need to move forward on several fronts. We need to increase awareness of the misalignment between the research that is done and what needs to be done. Few people understand how much waste there is in research--research on questions that have already been answered, research on irrelevant questions, and so on. Those who use research--health practitioners and patients--need to be involved in setting priorities and designing research. When I had to decide whether to have a second bone-marrow transplant, I found there were four trials that might have answered my questions, but I was forced to make my decision without knowing the results because, although the trials had been completed some time before, they had not been properly published! This should not happen. I believe that research results must be seen as a public good that belongs to the community--especially patients. Several practical changes are needed: more public funding and so more public control of research, more integration of research into clinical practice, and routine use of all sound research results in everyday practice. Every clinical encounter should be an occasion for contributing, in some way, to new knowledge. Q: Evidence-based medicine--"the routine use of all sound research results in everyday practice"--has become a standard for medical care in many parts of the world. But guiding treatment by research requires patients to expose themselves to the uncertainties inherent in the statistical nature of research results. How can we help people deal with these uncertainties? A: This is a difficult question, and there are no universally valid answers. There are lots of uncertainties--about diagnosis, prognosis, the impact of treatment, the effects of illness on everyday life, and so on. Each of us feels differently about these uncertainties, so not only are the answers different for different people, but also different for the same person confronting a range of uncertainties. A good starting point would be a general appreciation of the central place that uncertainty has in the patient's experience. When I had my first transplant I had to have a long-term catheter placed in a vein. Although this was, objectively, far from the worst thing I experienced, I recall vividly the anguish I felt, simply because of the uncertainty about why and for how long the catheter would be needed. Q: What can we do for patients for whom research results are not relevant because their disease is rare or they fall outside the common age range? A: We simply must invest in more and better research for these groups. That this will take time and money cannot be an excuse for leaving people to suffer. Q: You have also identified commercial pressures as a reason why research does not provide the answers patients need. How can we balance commercial pressures with research goals? A: Commercial research will always leave important questions unanswered, because, for example, people who manufacture drugs will never pay for trials of non-drug treatments. The research agenda is systematically biased by commercial funding. If the research questions you ask are biased, so are the answers. …


Some 2,000 bats have been taken in 1954–55 in connection with an investigation of these animals as possible reservoirs and transmitting agents of rabies virus. Because of the frequency of virus isolations from the Mexican free-tailed bat, Tadarida mexicana (Saussure), most of our interest has centered on this species. Fortuitously, most of the large free-tailed bat retreats in Texas are in the central part of the state within reasonable distances of our Austin headquarters.

While collecting bats rather intensively, locality records have been obtained that appear to represent extensions of the known ranges of two species. A female …


The N-octylquinolinium tribromide has been synthesized and explored as a new efficient brominating agent. It has high active bromine content per molecule and shows a remarkable reactivity towards various substrates. No organic solvent has been used during any stage of the reaction. The N-octylquinolinium tribromide is stable for months and acts as a safe source of bromine for complete bromination of phenols, aromatic amines, alkenes and alkynes.


A dual loop model of the human controller in single axis compensatory tracking tasks is introduced. This model possesses an inner-loop closure which involves feeding back that portion of the controlled element output rate which is due to control activity. The sensory inputs to the human controller are assumed to be system error and control force. The former is assumed to be sensed via visual, aural, or tactile displays while the latter is assumed to be sensed in kinesthetic fashion. A nonlinear form of the model is briefly discussed. This model is then linearized and parameterized. A set of general adaptive characteristics for the parameterized model is hypothesized. These characteristics describe the manner in which the parameters in the linearized model will vary with such things as display quality. It is demonstrated that the parameterized model can produce controller describing functions which closely approximate those measured in laboratory tracking tasks for a wide variety of controlled elements.


Spinel is a common accessory mineral in ultramafic and mafic rocks, and because of its refractory nature, chemical composition of Cr-spinel is frequently used to infer the geotectonic environment of the rock which contains them. The tectonic setting of the largest layered ultramafic to mafic intrusion in the world, the Bushveld Complex, is still debated, with some studies suggest-ing a plume origin, while others arguing for a subduction setting. Few mineralogical studies have been carried out to address the possible tectonic setting. This study presents detailed petrographic and mineral chemical characterization of two types of spinels occurring within the Apiesdooringdraai peridotite, an extensive peridotite body that is spatially associated with the marginal sills and lower chill sequence, considered as parental to earliest magmas to the Bushveld Complex. The peridotite body is composed mainly of olivine and orthopyroxene with minor amphibole, mica, spinel, apatite and sul-phides. The first type of spinel is euhedral to subhedral and Cr-rich with Cr# (=Cr/(Cr+Al)) of 0.58 to 0.78 and Fe# (=Fe/(Fe+Mg)) of 0.60 to 0.75. With respect to the trivalent cations, the Cr-spinel grains do not show any within-sample variations. Mn and Ti are present in trace amounts. The second type of spinel is subhedral to anhedral and Al-rich with Cr# of 0.01 to 0.13 and Fe# of 0.25 to 0.34. Based on their petrographic and mineral chemical characteristics, the Cr-rich spinel is considered to represent the primary or near-primary spinel composition, while the Al-rich spinel is related to later fluid overprint contemporaneous with the formation of amphibole and mica in the rock. The is further supported by the Ni and Zn contents in the Al-rich spinel, more than those in the Cr-spinel. a compilation of Cr-spinel composition tectonic on the possible tectonic setting of the Bushveld Complex of the large


Medication information is an important component of the care process. Medication information is not always available in a correct content and format when and where needed. In various health information systems and electronic patient records medication information has different content and format. In this paper process models of medication information are presented in order to identify all information items and their relations and the sources and use contexts of medication information. The motivation for this study has been to find a harmonized approach for medication information. The resulting process models will be further used to build an information model of medication information. These process models demonstrate the complexity of the medication information management and how medication is related to the phases of care process. Through the modeling processes we are able to acquire an exact picture of medication processes and their interactions with care process.


Aim and Background: One of main concerning problem among industrial organizational research was to study mood and effect in work environments. The aim of the current research was to investigate relation between mood and effect with organizational citizenship behavior and job absenteeism in work context. Methods and Materials: It is correlational kind of studies. Statistical population consist of all personnel of Isfahan Polyacril and Isfahan D,M,T Companies, Isfahan Zob Ahan, and Isfahan Steal Complex of Mobarakeh (14985 persons) that have disadmitted absent from work for one year. The current study was administered at 1387. 35 groups (374 persons) were selected randomly from work groups of these factories that were from intact organizational groups. Instruments were Job Affect Inventory, Positive and Negative Affect Questionnaire and Organizational Citizenship Behavior Inventory and archival data. Within Analysis and Between Analysis, also Hierarchical and OLS regression methods were used for analyzing data. Findings: Findings indicated at individual level, absenteeism related negatively with positive tone affect and positively with negative tone affect. Also OCB conversely related to negative tone affect. At group level of analysis, absenteeism with positive tone affect has reverse relationship, while has direct relation with negative tone affect. Conclusions: In individual level among members of work groups with similar mood reactions there is stronger relation between affect and absenteeism because of group effects. Keywords: Mood at work, organizational citizenship behavior, job absenteeism, positive and negative effect, job effect.


One of the most significant design trends of the decade is the widespread use of ARM® multicore processors in systems-on-chip (SoCs). Designers' ability to easily and cost-effectively employ multiple, high-performance embedded processors as needed to meet the computational requirements of the end application has helped fuel the explosive growth in mobile computing, networking infrastructure, and digital home entertainment systems. But from the design-for-test (DFT) perspective, is there a strategy for easily and cost-effectively testing multicore designs? A key challenge is already emerging: as the number of processor cores increases, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain high test quality without a requisite increase in cost stemming from the need to allocate substantially more pins for digital test.


In this paper, we prove a uniform approximation theorem with interpolation for complete conformal minimal surfaces with finite total curvature in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^n$ $(n\ge 3)$. As application, we obtain a Mittag-Leffler type theorem for complete conformal minimal immersions $M\to\mathbb{R}^n$ on any open Riemann surface $M$.


With the prevalence of Internet of Things, numerous system vulnerabilities can be explored, and the hacker may launch a series of DoS attacks by exploiting the vulnerabilities of the system. In this paper, a simulation experiment is designed to implement DoS attacks on a system that utilizes the IEEE 802.15.6 password association protocol to accomplish the information transmission. During the process, authors introduce the probabilistic model checking technique with the tool of PRISM. This method is used for the analysis of the factors affecting the success rate of DoS attacks. The study is expected to enrich the analysis of the factors influencing the success rate of DoS attacks.


Abstract This study aims to identify effects of welfare-to-work programs that helped welfare recipients promote emotional and social self-sufficiency, focused on social adaptation program for the hardest-to-employ poor with psychological and social work barriers. This study relied on data from mandatory social adaptation program participants among community self-sufficiency organizations in nationwide from December 2010 to January 2011 in South Korea. Hierarchical regression was used to analyze for this study. As a result, among participants, there were slightly than moderate level on emotional and social self-Sufficiency effects. The satisfaction of education program had positive effect both emotional and social self-sufficiency whereas that of health service only had positive effect on social self-sufficiency. Also, these emotional and social self-sufficiency effects differed between the number of needy family in household, type of organization and degree of satisfaction of life. This study suggests that discussion of implications for the development of welfare-to-work program and intervention that target psychological, emotional and social needs for recipients with work barriers.


This paper deals with a PV array fed water pumping system operated by a mechanical sensorless induction motor drive. The recurrence of PV power outage causes the disturbance in water pumping. One possible solution is to use a utility grid as a backup source. The power is delivered by the grid in case the PV array is unable to meet the required power demand. A current multiplier approach is developed for unidirectional power flow control through a power factor improved boost converter. The utilization of reduced number of sensors makes the system cheap. The proposed system enables a consumer to get a rated quantity of water regardless of duration or the climatic condition. Simulated and test results justify the suitability of the system under different operating conditions.


UNLABELLED
The relation of chest pain characteristics and other features of the history of disease to coronary angiograms was assessed in 551 patients with chest pain regarded as definite or probable stable angina pectoris. A standardised questionnaire was used to record demographic details and chest pain characteristics of interviewed patients. The differentiation between typical, atypical or nonanginal pain was based on classification proposed by Diamond. The indications for catheterization in each patient were determined at the discretion of the attending physician. All patients underwent diagnostic coronary angiography (clinically important coronary artery disease was defined as > 50 per cent narrowing of the diameter of at least one major vessel or > or = 50 per cent of the left main coronary artery).

CONCLUSION
Chest pain characteristics remains an effective tool for estimating probability of coronary artery disease.


Nutrition throughout life has a major effect on health .This is true for pregnant women as adequate maternal nutrition is one of the best ways to ensure maternal and fetal wellbeing in developed and developing countries. The aim of the present study was conducted to investigate the nutritional awareness of women represented in their knowledge, attitude, and the dietary practice regarding the meaning, the importance and constituents of a well balanced diet and the necessary nutrients during pregnancy. This study is an observational – cross sectional study. The participants were 124 pregnant females; their ages ranged from 18 to 35 years old, attending the outpatient clinics of obstetrics and gynecology at El-Menshawy General Hospital .Data were collected through: An interviewing questionnaire schedule sheet was designed to collect data related to socio-demographic data, general and obstetrical history, data about the present pregnancy and women Knowledge, Attitude, and practices regarding nutrition during pregnancy. The results of present study revealed that more than half of women (54%) had a poor level of knowledge and practices regarding the intake of essential nutrients and basic food elements meeting the nutritional demands of the mother and the fetus. They found to be failed to meet their high physiological requirements necessary for themselves and their growing fetus. It can be concluded that, most of women had a very poor level of knowledge about nutrition during pregnancy. Where more than half of women in the present study lacked the essential knowledge regarding the basic nutrients and adequate nutrition during pregnancy, also the importance and sources of most of the types of vitamins and minerals and other essential food elements. Unhealthy food practice was also observed among them. The study recommended that it is necessary to encourage pre-pregnancy teaching and counseling for future mothers and during early pregnancy about proper and balanced maternal nutrition, also to enforce good prenatal care nutritional counseling of supplementation of iron and folic acid and other basic nutrients that are crucial for the mother and her growing fetus. [Latifa M. Fouda; Manal H. Ahmed and. Nihal S. Shehab. Nutritional Awareness of Women during Pregnancy. J Am Sci 2012;8(7):494-502]. (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.jofamericanscience.org. 77


The ERF (Ethylene Responsive Factor) genes are a family of transcription factors containing an AP2/ERF domain, which play crucial roles in plant development and response to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, genome wide analysis of ERF genes was carried out in chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and 98 ERF genes (named CarERF1–CarERF98) were identified. Phylogenetic analysis categorized ERF gene family into two different sub-families, DREB and ERF. DREB subfamily was further divided into 5 subgroups (A1, A2, A4, A5 and A6) and ERF subfamily was divided into 6 subgroups (B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6). DREB A3 subgroup genes were not found in chickpea. One representative gene from each subgroup was selected for the expression analysis in two chickpea cultivars, namely, ICC 4958 (drought tolerant) and ICC 1882 (drought susceptible) in response to drought, ABA and ethephon treatments. The expression analysis was carried out using quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR). Interestingly, CarERF29 belonging to group B4 (ERF subfamily) was significantly up-regulated (about 190 fold) under drought stress in both the cultivars (ICC 4958 and ICC 1882). In response to ABA treatment, both the cultivars showed similar pattern where majority of the genes were upregulated after 12 h of the stress treatment. In case of ethephon treatment, ERF genes were up regulated with increasing duration of treatment in both the cultivars as they are ethylene responsive genes. These results strongly suggest that CarERFs are abiotic stress responsive genes that may play important roles in the stress tolerance of chickpea.


Herein, it is intended to show the effect of embedding an inkjet printed poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) track in an insulator polymer, impacting its electronic transition behavior, as a consequence of temperature variation. A transition from semiconductor‐to‐metal‐like behavior is observed, when the temperature is seen to exceed a certain value, which is of a nonchemical origin. Both the presented experimental and simulation results show how this transition really occurs. The proposed physical mechanism for explaining such a behavior is verified with good repeatability. The main conclusion indicates consideration of special precautions, while enclosing inkjet‐printed PEDOT:PSS‐based tracks or sensors operating under ambient conditions, along with fluctuations. This conclusion can potentially be applied to any other inkjet printed conductive organic polymer film embedded in an insulator that fulfills the conditions encountered in the experiments. The impact of this effect may be reduced and mitigated by using inkjet printing, in combination with other additive manufacturing technique. The results presented here are considered very important, as they lay the foundation for the correct compensation of the thermal drift of organic electronics‐based circuits.


.D. Purpose: To evaluate the role of CT in early detection , location , and extent of osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) of the elbow j이nt. Materials and Methods: We reviewed surgically proved 27 cases of 22 patients with osteochondritis dissecans in elbow joint retrospectively. We compared simple x-ray(elbow AP & lateral) with CT on the basis of staging of OCD of talus by simple x-ray. Results: The frequency of location was as follows : fourteen cases of capitell um , 5 cases of olecranon tip , 5 / cases of medial epicondyle , 2 cases of trochlea , and 1 case of olecranon base. Among the 4 cases of normal finding on simple x-ray , CT showed 1 case each of stage 1 , 11 , 川, and IV OCD and among the 8 cases of stage 1 on simple x-ray , CT showed 2 cases of stage 1 , 1 case of stage 11 , and 5 cases of stage 11 1. Among the 3 cases of stage 11 on simple x-ray , CT showed 1 case of stage 11 and 2 cases of stage 川. Among the 5 cases of stage 111 on simple x-ray , CT showed 1 case of stage 11 , 2 cases of stage 111 , and 2 cases of stage IV , but it was difficult t。 detect the presence or absence of attachment between the articular cartilage of mother bone and osteochondral fragmen t. CT was more accurate than simple x-ray in detection of loose body. Conclusion: CT might be an useful imaging modality in early diagnosis of OCD and evaluation of its anatomic location and extent in elbow j이nt


Robust cell‐mediated immunity is required for immune control of tumours and protection from viral infections, with both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells playing a pivotal role. Synthetic long peptides (SLPs) represent an attractive way to induce such combined responses, as they contain both class I and class II epitopes. The ability of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) to cross‐present SLPs has not yet been investigated; yet, pDCs play a critical role in shaping immune responses and have emerged as novel vectors for immunotherapy. Using overlapping 15‐mer peptide pools covering the entire sequence of CMVpp65 and MelA, representing a viral disease (cytomegalovirus, CMV) and a tumour (melanoma), respectively, we showed that human pDCs can effectively process SLPs. Our results demonstrated that pDCs potently cross‐present virus‐ and tumour‐derived SLPs and cross‐prime broad‐ranging, effective and long‐lived CD4+ and CD8+ T‐cell responses, triggering more efficient immune responses than short peptide loaded pDCs. This ability required intracellular processing by the proteasome and was enhanced by co‐exposure to TLR7/9‐L. Combining SLPs with pDCs represents a powerful immunotherapeutic strategy to elicit potent immune responses, which are required for clinical success in cancers and viral infections.


Introduction: Cysticercosis is an infection of both humans and pigs with the larval stages of the Taenia solium. This infection is caused by ingestion of eggs or gravid proglottids shed in the feces of a human tapeworm carrier. The subcutaneous form of the disease is a relatively rare clinical entity. Aim: The aim of this paper is to report a case of Subcutaneous cysticercosis involving the left anterior chest wall mimicking soft tissue neoplasm. Material and Method: This is a case of 35 years old female with complaints of lump in left anterior axillary line associated with itching for the last 5 months. The lump slowly increases in size with mild pain. On clinical examination, the lump was located subcutaneously over left lateral border of pectoralis major and firm to hard in consistency with mild tenderness. No skin change noted. Fine needle aspiration cytology was signed off as suspicious of Histiocytic tumour. Excision of lump was done under local anaesthesia and sent for histopathological examination. Histopathological examination revealed cysticercus cellulose parasite with an extensive mixed inflammatory cell infiltrate in the surrounding tissue. The patient was prescribed oral antihelminthic therapy. Conclusion: Subcutaneous cysticercosis is a relatively rare form of cysticercosis but should always be borne in mind during the evaluation of subcutaneous swellings. In any lumps with a subcutaneous cyst showing central cystic area containing a caseatinglike whitetish fluid with covering wall, histopathological examination should always be done to confirm the diagnosis.


Received: 1 April, 2014 Accepted: 14 May, 2014 Published: 20 May, 2014 The experiment was conducted at the Horticulture farm, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh, during the period from November 2010 to March 2011. It was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications and includes four levels of seedling tuber size, viz. 6-<7, 7-<8, 8-<9 and, 9-≤10 g as represented by S1, S2, S3 and, S4 and three levels of seedling tuber, viz. 1, 2 and 3 hill -1 as represented by H1, H2 and H3, respectively. The highest tubers hill -1 (6.30), tubers weight hill (128.90 g) and gross tuber yield (25.78 t ha) were found from S4 while the lowest from S1. On the other hand, the highest tubers hill (5.66), tubers weight hill (123.95 g) and gross tuber yield (24.79 t ha) were found from H3 while the lowest from H1.The highest tubers hill (6.36), tubers weight hill (138.35 g) and gross tuber yield (27.67 tha) were found in S4H3 and the lowest gross tuber yield (12.83 t ha) from S1H1. The highest benefit cost ratio (1.96) was found from S4H1. Tuber potato seed seedling tuber size of 9≤10 g with 1 seedling tuber hill were found suitable for potato production. © 2014 PSCI Publisher All rights reserved.


In the comment by Shames and Rozenberg, they indicated that using equation (1) from our earlier paper (Liu et al 2007 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 19 196213) to extract g factors leads to a systematic error because the linewidth ΔH of the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrum is comparable with the magnetic field scan ∼0.8 T. According to their suggestions, the values of the g factor were extracted at a local minimum of the second-derivative curves d2P/dH2, and then the data were compared with those obtained by numerical fittings with the above cited equation (1). It is shown that the previous results are still applicable on the basis of these new data. The different g factors reported by several groups suggest that the shifts of line position might be related to sample dependent effects.


We characterize, using the Bergman kernel, Carleson measures of Bergman spaces in strongly pseudoconvex bounded domains in Cn, generalizing to this setting theorems proved by Duren and Weir for the unit ball. We also show that uniformly discrete (with respect to the Kobayashi distance) sequences give examples of Carleson measures, and we compute the speed of escape to the boundary of uniformly discrete sequences in strongly pseudoconvex domains, generalizing results obtained in the unit ball by Jevtić, Massaneda and Thomas, by Duren and Weir, and by MacCluer.


This paper represents the utilization of wastage of heat energy from Refrigeration and air-conditioning, thereby saving energy. Generally in refrigeration system waste heat available at condenser unit, so we have used that available waste heat for heating of water. For making this system multifunctional, flexible and economical Condensing coil is immersed in water to be heated and a part of cooling coil 1st passed through filled water tank in which water is to be cooled and then remaining coil is utilized for cooling of air so that desired space to be cooled. Hence here cooling of air, water and heating of water all the three process is done simultaneously in a single unit . For this an experimental setup is designed and fabricated in the hydraulic machine lab of BIT sindri, Dhanbad and various measuring parameter were recorded through different instruments. The COP of system, Capacity of water heater and cooling capacity of room air cooler here calculated is 4.03, 1.51, 3.0034 TR respectively, which is within permissible range.


Farmers' world is not amorphous, not without structure, but it is an organized world with its organization shapes and unique knowledge. Negligence of this fact makes policy makers cannot break through farmers' obstacles, including enhancing farmers' welfare. Ownership of knowledge capital and learning process is a starting point for enhancing farmers' welfare. Studies on knowledge state that knowledge is created, distributed, and transfered more often in the form of interpersonal tacit knowledge (know-how, individual experiences, or soft skill) than in the form of explicit knowledge (systematic knowledge, formal knowledge, hard skill, knowledge written in the textbook, and formal guidance). Explicit knowledge reflects centralization, knowledge standardization, and neglect farmers' background (such as their culture, values, norms, geographic conditions, institution, and behavior changes). That is why explicit knowledge orientation itself for farmers is insufficient because farmers have their own personal previous knowledge about their world. This paper aims to analyze the role of tacit knowledge to empower and enhance farmers' welfare. Research method for this paper is systematic review with qualitative technique to synthesize or conclude from various relevant studies. Sociology of knowledge approach is also used in this paper.


Self‐assembly via coiled‐coil domains (CC) is crucial for the regulation of the dystrophia myotonica kinase (DMPK) ‐related family of kinases. These CC domains are thought to form dimeric arrangements and thus to mediate dimerization in these enzymes. Using size exclusion chromatography combined with multiangle static light scattering, we analyzed the oligomeric state of DMPK as well as that of a truncated variant lacking the CC fraction. Remarkably, both forms were found to assemble into robust dimers. In contrast, the CC domain in isolation yielded trimeric assemblies, indicating that the oligomerization properties of CC domains from this kinase family are more diversified than anticipated. The crystal structure of this CC has been elucidated to 1.6 Å resolution and its properties in solution established using sedimentation equilibrium and thermal denaturation. These data show that, contrary to expectations, the self‐assembly of DMPK is not dictated by the association properties of its CC domain. Instead, it appears to be driven by sequence segments flanking both N and C termini of the catalytic kinase fraction, as suggested by models of head‐to‐head dimers based on small angle X‐ray scattering data. Our findings support a shared pattern of assembly across DMPK, ROCKs, and MRCK members of this family.—Garcia, P., Ucurum, Z., Bucher, R., Svergun, D. I., Huber, T., Lustig, A., Konarev, P. V., Marino, M., Mayans, O. Molecular insights into the self‐assembly mechanism of dystrophia myotonica ki‐nase. FASEB J. 20, 1142–1151 (2006)


Machine intelligence has been greatly developed in the past decades and has been widely used in many fields. Recent years many reports showed its satisfactory effect in drug discovery. In this study, machine intelligence methods were explored to assist the cell activity prediction. Multiple machine intelligence methods including support vector machine, decision tree, random forest, extra trees, gradient boosting machine, convolutional neural network, long short-term memory network, gated recurrent unit network were employed to separate compounds based on their cell activity. Different from some reported classification models, compounds were expressed as string by the SMILES and directly used as input rather than any chemical descriptors, which mimicked natural language processing. Both the single cell strain and whole dataset under the balanced and imbalanced data distribution were discussed, respectively. Different activity cutoffs were set for the single (Zscore = 3) and the whole (Zscore = 5 and Zscore = 6) data set. Nine metrics were used to evaluate the models including accuracy, precision, recall, f1-score, ROC AUC score, Cohen's Kappa, Brier score, Matthew's correlation coefficient and balanced accuracy. The results show that gradient boosting machine is competent at balanced data distribution and convolutional neural network is qualified for the imbalanced. The results demonstrate that both classic machine learning methods and deep learning methods have the potential in classification of compound cell activity.


With the emergence of IoT it becomes important to make extremely small batteryless devices that contain both circuitry for data and power reception. While simultaneous transmission of data and power, making optimal use of the scarce wireless spectrum, has been proposed before, it is also possible to consider dual-purpose hardware to decode data and harvest power from the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) waveform. In this paper we study the trade-off between power and data reception for an integrated receiver. It is shown that the hardware can behave as a rectifier or envelope detector, depending on the excitation's symbol rate and the rectifier's low pass filter's cut-off frequency.


The landscape of educational leadership research has changed in the West over the past half century.The domination of positivism has given way to the emergence and development of multiple paradigms.Among them,qualitative research has gained a strong momentum and provided a new lens to view educational leadership.China,however,is still in the process of the paradigm shift and the new qualitative methodology is not well received.There are still some misunderstandings towards the qualitative research on educational leadership.The paper thus argues for more qualitative research to contribute to the inadequate knowledge base of educational leadership in China.


A newly reported density functional theory method, M11-L, was performed to study the mechanism and chirality transfer for the intramolecular formal hetero-(5 + 2) cycloaddition of vinylaziridines with alkynes. Both (E)- and (Z)-olefinic substrates were considered in the density functional theory calculations. The computational results suggested a metallahydropyridine pathway for the generation of azepines, which involves aziridine cleavage, 2π insertion of the alkyne group into the Rh–C bond, and reductive elimination from a rhodium(III) cation. The chirality transfer process for the (E)-alkene substrate is shown to occur on the re face of the alkene, whereas the (Z)-alkene cycloaddition chirality transfer occurs on the si face. The high enantioselectivity in this type of reaction is attributed to the greater ring strain in the trans allylic rhodium complex.


This paper uses advanced TCAD tools to investigate the scaling effects on noise and linearity performance of analog RF MOS devices, as well as the implications on modeling those effects at the compact level. Impedance field method and hydrodynamic transport model are used to study the thermal noise behavior in aggressively scaled MOS devices. A flicker noise model is implemented; low frequency noise performance of devices based on alternative high-k gate dielectrics is also evaluated. The large signal distortion analysis is conducted based on the harmonic balance technique. The effects of doping profiles and their changes with technology scaling on the distortion performance are examined.


Francis Njubi Nesbitt (firstname.lastname@example.com) is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University. 1. Toyin Falola, Nationalism and African Intellectuals (University of Rochester Press, Rochester, NY, 2004); A. Gueye, Les intellectuals africains en France (L'Harmattan, Paris, 2001); Codesria, The State of Academic Freedom in Africa (Codesria, Dakar, 1996); Mahmood Mamdani (ed.), The Intelligentsia, the State and Social Movements in Africa (Codesria, Dakar, 1993); Mahmood Mamdani, 'Can there be an African renaissance without an African Africafocused intelligentsia?' in W. M. Makgoba (ed.), African Renaissance: The new struggle (Mafube Publishing, Cape Town, 1999); Bahru Zewde, Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: Reformist intellectuals of the early twentieth century (Ohio University Press, Cleveland, OH, 2002); Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Rethinking Africa's Globalization: The intellectual challenges (Africa World Press, Trenton, 2003). 2. Alexie Tcheuyap (ed.), 'Brain drain and national (de) construction in Africa', Mots Pluriels 20 (February 2002). 3. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza and Cassandra Veney, 'The African "brain drain" to the North: pitfalls and possibilities', African Issues 30, 1 (2002). 4. Lawford Imunde (ed.), 'The role of the educated class in Africa – between African renaissance and globalization critique', Locumer Protokolle 12, 3 (2004).


PURPOSE: To obtain a molded article having improved transparency, easily drawn, by extruding an aromatic polyamide solution inaan organic amide solvent into a hightemperature coagulation bath consisting mainly of a polyalkylene glycol. COPYRIGHT: (C)1978,JPO&Japio


of effectiveness oftreatments as an average for a group of patients, yet, inclinical medicine, we usually wish to apply these results toindividuals. Can we simply apply the overall trial result foreach patient, or can the result be tailored to individualpatients in some way?Consider a hypothetical example: a randomised trialcomparing treatments A and B shows that treatment A ismore effective than B among men (


tions and a matter of courtesy with politicians and diplomats to refer to 'historical' relations between two states as the basis of their abiding friendship. History unfolds bare facts which may be interpreted variously depending on one's preferences or prejudices. But certain broad facts are not so interpretable. For instance, relations between states may be continuous, sporadic or non-existent. In cach situation, the analyst's job is not only onerous but very much conditioned by such tools of research as source material, its availability, and proficiency in language. The history of relations between Iran and China is


This study examined the usefulness of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System, a curriculum-based measure, to corroborate the findings of standardized, norm-referenced tests that establish eligibility for IDEA services for young children. Using a sample of children who were developing typically, a Rasch one-parameter dichotomous measurement model was used to determine cutoff scores for 6-month intervals on the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System. These cutoff scores were evaluated for accuracy with a group of children previously found eligible for services. In most cases, the cutoff scores identified eligible children accurately. Implications for the use of curriculum-based measures to establish eligibility for IDEA services are discussed.


This article explores women's experiences of assisted reproduction (AR) and epistemic injustice. Using feminist theory and qualitative data from a social work research project, I argue that the dominant discourse in AR is partial and inadequate and that these epistemological oversights are not accidental; the oversights are actively maintained to preserve power relationships and this constitutes epistemic injustice. Yet women are not completely silenced; elements of resistance and attempts to restore epistemic agency are also presented. The need for an epistemologically inclusive approach to AR and epistemic justice through social work research is reinforced.


The question at which energy the transition from Galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays takes place has been a long-standing conundrum in cosmic ray physics. In the past, the transition energy has been usually associated with one of the evident features of the cosmic ray spectrum: The second knee around E≃5 ×1017 eV or the ankle at E≃3 ×1018 eV. I review anisotropy and composition data and show that they require that the transition from Galacticto extragalactic CRs has to happen early, at few ×1017 eV. As a result, a successful model for the transition should explain the ankle as a feature of the extragalactic CR spectrum. I review briefly such models and their implications.


This research aims to develop an electronic module (e-module) based on problem-based learning (PBL) integrated into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) assisted by social media to improve students' critical thinking skills in a dynamic fluid material. The development of this research used a mixed-method consisting of qualitative and quantitative data. This study involved 308 students and 17 physics teachers in Lampung province. The results of the preliminary research conducted by only 12.5% of teachers used STEM integrated PBL-based e-modules to improve students' critical thinking skills and 46.6% of students stated that they only used printed books when physics learning. 100% of teachers and 88.2% of students stated that they need e-modules to make learning easier. 50% of teachers stated that they use social media as a learning tool. Based on the results of the preliminary study, the use of e-modules is needed by teachers and students. A need analysis needs to be done for the development of E-Module integrates STEM-assisted PBL-based social media to enhance students' critical thinking skills.


The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), subsequent to the implementation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Health and Human Services, conducts a program of independent occupational and environmental research studies with funding from DOE. This document on the DOE Mound site represents the second background site document prepared for the development of the NIOSH project entitled: Exposure Assessment of Hazardous Waste (HW), Decontamination (De), Dismantlement (Di), and Clean Up Workers (CW). The purpose of this document is to assemble information relevant to Remediation Workers performing HW, De, Di, and CW task activities at the DOE Mound site addressing four primary objectives. The objectives are: identification of Remediation Workers performing HW, De, Di, and CW task activities anticipated or in progress from the recent past through the next five to 10 years; demographic definition of the workforce performing these activities; identification of the technologies in use or proposed to be used (including considerations regarding health and safety impact upon the workforce); and assembly of summary information for potential chemical, mixed, and radiological contaminant exposure that may be encountered during these processes.


Objective To explore the perioperative nursing strategy of pancreaticoduodenectomy.Methods Clinic data of 30 cases of pancreaticoduodenectomy were analyzed retrospectively.Results Postoperative pancreatic fistula and biliary fistula in 5 cases,3 cases of intra-abdominal infections,wound infections in 1 case,delayed healing in 3 cases,2 cases of delayed gastric emptying,abdominal bleeding in 1 case,1 case of gastrointestinal bleeding were complicated in total 30 cases of pancreaticoduodenectomy.Conclusion Adequate preoperative preparation and meticulous postoperative nursing can prevent postoperative complications,improve surgical success rate of pancreaticoduodenectomy.


Thymomas are rare tumors involving the anterior mediastinum. Localized thymomas can be surgically resected and have an excellent prognosis, whereas advanced thymomas are treated with induction chemotherapy followed by surgery. We report here the successful use of chemotherapy in a woman with stage IV thymoma with pericardial infiltration and effusion. Our experience suggests that aggressive chemotherapy with a cisplatinand adriamycin-based regimen can lead to rapid regression of thymoma and significant improvement in symptoms.


In this study, as a result of the determination of the Least limiting water range (LLWR) contents of alluvial lands with different soils, which are distributed in the Bafra Plain where intensive agricultural activities are carried out, the compression and aeration problems in the area are revealed with distribution maps. In addition, the predictability of LLWR was evaluated with the random forest (RF) algorithm, which is one of the machine learning algorithms, and the usability of the prediction values distribution maps was revealed. The LLWR contents of the soils varied in the range of 0.049- 0.273 cm3 cm-3 for surface soils. While there were aeration problems in 6.72%, compaction problems in 20.16%, both aeration and compaction problems in 0.8% of the surface soils examined in the study area, 72.32% were determined under optimal conditions. For the 20-40 cm depth, an aeration problem in the 5.88%, a compaction problem in the 28.57%, and both an aeration and a compaction problem in the 2.52% of the points were detected. In the estimation of LLWR with the random forest algorithm, the RMSE value obtained for 0-20 cm depth was determined as 0.0218 cm3 cm-3, and for 20-40 cm it was determined as 0.0247 cm3 cm-3 . In the distribution maps of the observed and predicted values obtained, the lowest RMSE value was determined by Simple Kriging interpolation methods for 0-20 cm depth and Ordinary Kriging interpolation methods for 20-40 cm. While the distribution of obtained and predicted values in surface soils was similar, variations were found in the distribution of areas with low LLWR below the surface. As a result of the study, it has been revealed that LLWR can be obtained with a low error rate with the RF algorithm, and distribution maps can be created with lower error in surface soils.


excel2latex converts Excel table to Latex table. The basic idea is to import the an Excel table to Stata as a data set, and then write the data into an ASCII file in the format of a Latex table. Altough the main purpose is to covert Excel table to Latex table, it also supports tables in .txt, .csv or .dta format. Actually, any data in the memory can export into a Latex table. Thus, one can just import the data/table into Stata, make some modification and the export them into Latex table using excel2latex. Note that excel2latex may not be able to create the table exactly as what you want, but it can help do the most tedious work in making table in Latex. After the conversion, you may still need to add \cline(#-#), customize the fonts or do something else to beautify your table in Latex.


With the population increasing and regional development speeding up, soil erosion in Nanan distract of Chongqing city is deteriorating. This paper analyzes the present state and the causes of soil erosion and offers the countermeasures.


Objective To establish an HPLC method for the determination of Triprolidine Hydrochloride Z-Isomer and other impurities in Triprolidine Hydrochloride.Methods The separation was performed on Inertsil ODS-3(4.6 mm×250 mm,5 μm) column;The mobile phase was composed of methanol and ammonium acetate solution(concentration of 0.4% ammonium acetate solution 300 mL,add 1 mL three ethylamine and adjust pH value to 5.5 with glacial acetic acid)(65∶35);The detection wavelength was 254 nm.Results The linearity of Triprolidine Hydrochloride Z-Isomer was 0.000 1~0.039 0 mg/mL(r=0.999 9),and its quantization and detection limits were 4 ng and 0.8 ng,respectively,the recovery was 99.5%(n=9);The results showed good repeatability,the RSD(n=6) of Hydrochloride Z-Isomer,the other impuritie and total impurities were 1.95%,3.60%,1.92%,respectively.Conclusion The method is sensitive,accurate,specificity,and it can be used for determination of Triprolidine Hydrochloride Z-Isomer and other impurities in Triprolidine Hydrochloride.


The article presents the results of simulation of pulse DC-DC step-down converter with different types of diodes. Simulations have shown that the use of a silicon carbide diode instead of convenient silicon diode gives the best performance. It also shown, the parasitic inductances in the circuit significantly increase the power losses when the diode is switched-off and reduce the losses when the transistor is switched-on.


This paper highlights the role of green supply management in the development of a sustainable supply chain. It examines if supply risks, supplier relationship management capability, and end-customer orientation of supply management function are connected to the green supply management practices of a firm. These connections are studied using a survey data of 165 firms collected in Finland. The results of regression analysis show that the protection of a firm's reputation is highly related to the level of green supply management; consumer awareness of green requirements puts strong pressure on a firm's supply management to meet the end-customers' expectations, and the high the level of supplier relationship management capability in firms increases the adoption of green supply management. Furthermore, it finds that larger firms exploit green supply management practices more than the smaller ones, and green purchasing activities are not applied in high-volume-buying Finnish companies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment


Digital information generates the possibility of a high degree of redundancy in the data available for fitting predictive models used for Digital Soil Mapping (DSM). Among these models, the Decision Tree (DT) technique has been increasingly applied due to its capacity of dealing with large datasets. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the data volume used to generate the DT models on the quality of soil maps. An area of 889.33 km² was chosen in the Northern region of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The soil-landscape relationship was obtained from reambulation of the studied area and the alignment of the units in the 1:50,000 scale topographic mapping. Six predictive covariates linked to the factors soil formation, relief and organisms, together with data sets of 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 % of the total data volume, were used to generate the predictive DT models in the data mining program Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA). In this study, sample densities below 5 % resulted in models with lower power of capturing the complexity of the spatial distribution of the soil in the study area. The relation between the data volume to be handled and the predictive capacity of the models was best for samples between 5 and 15 %. For the models based on these sample densities, the collected field data indicated an accuracy of predictive mapping close to 70 %.


The pyroelectric nonlinear response of nominally undoped lithium niobate crystal is exploited to form within it as single waveguide channels as more complicated waveguide structures suitable for the photonic applications. The light wavelength of 532 nm with optical powers lower than 1 mW allowed their formation in experiments.


Community colleges are challenged to retain more students through graduation. Research has shown that service learning engages students, and engaged students persist through graduation. This descriptive case study sought to determine how institutionalized service learning was structured, supported, and operated on one community college campus. Findings indicated that curricular and co-curricular service learning existed throughout the campus and that students were engaged in their service learning experiences and built connections with campus personnel and those in their communities. These results seem to indicate that a campus-wide approach to service learning might retain students, thus increasing graduation rates.


Post-operative chyle leak is a rare but recognised complication after abdominal surgeries particularly those involving dissection adjacent to the retroperitoneal lymph nodes and/or lymphatic systems. There are limited cases of post-operative chyle leak associated with adrenal surgery reported in the literature with no consensus on its management. Lymphatics of the adrenal gland drain into the thoracic duct via regional lymph nodes or directly into the cisterna chyli, posterior to the aorta. If not adequately managed, chyle leak can be associated with hypovolemia, electrolyte imbalances, malnutrition and immunosuppression. These consequences can be attributed to the loss of fluid, electrolytes, lipids, proteins, and immunoglobulins. We hereby report a case of post-operative chyle leak in a 79-year-old male who underwent an open left adrenalectomy, left nephrectomy, splenectomy and distal pancreatectomy for a large, 20.8cm left adrenal cavernous haemangioma. Chyle leak was confirmed on post-operative day 7 based on high levels of triglycerides in the abdominal drain output. Intra-operatively there was no evidence of lymphatic damage. However, the major abdominal surgery involving retroperitoneal viscera close to the lymphatic trunk predisposed the patient to this complication. The patient was managed conservatively with the aim of decreasing chyle production by dietary manipulation and use of somatostatin. Enteral nutrition was continued with a strict low-fat diet and regular dietician input. These strategies contributed to the gradual resolution of chyle leak and the patient's recovery.


Objective To understand Influenza Epidemic,virus variance,and sero-epidemiology of people in different age groups,so as to prevent and control influenza in Sichuan. Methods By analyzing and evaluating the surveillance information during 2001 to 2004. Results The percentage of Influenza-Like Illness(ILI) in out-patient department was at the peak in winter (2001) and summer (2002), the predominant influenza virus strain changed in every year, B for 2001,H1N1 for 2002,B for 2003 and H3N2 for 2004.Conclusion There were more influenza cases in every spring,H3N2 strain caused more cases than other strains.Most outbreaks happened in primary and middle schools,there fore, more attention should be paid to schools.The forecast of the epidemic strain for the coming year could be made through the sero-epidemiological analysis.


Wood is a very versatile material due to the variations of your intrinsic characteristics. Several use forms can be attributed to the wood that depending on your quality. Quality is a term that should be always associated to the use of the wood and it depends on your properties. In the studies of evaluation of the wood quality, they are usually certain the most important characteristics to have given use. This study aimed to evaluate the wood quality of Eucalyptus sp. clones to your bioenergy use. For this research four clones of Eucalyptus sp. were used. The clones were selected in a commercial planting with spacing 3.5 m x 2.5 m and 78 month years old, located in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Wood characteristics as the basic density, elementary chemical analysis (CHN-O), extractive, Klason lignin (soluble, insoluble and total), ash content and calorific value (gross, inferior and net) were measurement. The used sampling was in obtained disks in five relative longitudinal positions (2%, 10%, 30%, 50% and 70%) of the commercial height of the tree, considered until a diameter of 5 cm. All the disks had about 2.5 cm of thickness. The chemical analyses and to gross calorific value was accomplished with a composed sample considering all the longitudinal positions. The results indicate that differentiates significant among the available genetic materials. All the clones present potential for bioenergy production. The clone 3281 presented higher ash content, lower basic density, lignin content and volumetric caloric value. The gross calorific value didn't differ significantly among the genetic materials. (Resume d'auteur)


Human rights — Inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment — Death penalty — Whether constituting inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment — European Convention on Human Rights, 1950, Articles 2(1) and 3 — Protocol VI to the Convention — Circumstances in which penalty imposed — Delay in execution — "Death row" phenomenon — Whether constituting a violation of Article 3 Human rights — Scope of human rights treaty — European Convention on Human Rights, 1950 — Extradition proceedings — Whether State responsible under Convention if it extradites fugitive for treatment in requesting State — Threat of death sentence in requesting State — Right to fair trial 271Extradition — Capital offences — Offence carrying death penalty in requesting State but not in requested State — United Kingdom-United States Extradition Treaty, 1972 — Right of requested State to seek assurance that death penalty will not be imposed


The ELT Dome has been conceived for protecting the 39m ELT telescope, with its 86m base diameter and its almost 80m height. The rotating Dome is spherical to enhance the aerodynamic behavior; it weights about 6000 tons and it is provided with a 42m wide slit, to allow the telescope observation. The bearing structure of the Dome is a truss structure made of steel, having a base ring and a series of arch girders as its main elements. The Dome Rotation is performed by 36 trolleys, which are fixed to the top of the reinforced concrete Dome Base. Safety against seismic events is guaranteed by a dedicated Isolation and Damping System at the Dome Pier. The Dome is covered by a custom Cladding System, that has been tailored in order to provide the required thermal insulation and withstand the harsh Environmental Conditions of the ELT Site. With the aim of controlling the airflow around the Telescope, the ELT Dome is provided with a series of 89 Louvers, which are distributed among the rotating and the fixed structures. Besides, a Windscreen made of four permeable aluminum panels protects the Telescope; each panel spans over the 42m slit and is 10m high. The Windscreen is able to track with the Telescope on a 20 to 70deg range of the altitude angle. The Auxiliary Building is a ring surrounding the Dome Pier and houses the Dome Technical Rooms, thus guaranteeing a radial distribution of all the Services. Among the Dome Supplies, a custom HVAC System is able to control the Telescope Chamber temperature with a ±2°C precision. The ELT Dome is provided with specific Plants so to supply Power to all the relevant loads and to the Electrical Equipment, as well as with a custom Global Control System and a series of Safety Systems.


SUMMARY By inverting the azimuthal dependence of Rayleigh and Love dispersions (including the azimuthally averaged term) it is possible to separate the effect of anisotropy from other effects creating lateral heterogeneities (mainly thermal). The different steps of the tomographic method are described. In the first step, we retrieve the geographical distributions of the different azimuthal dispersion terms of Rayleigh and Love waves. For a complete slightly anisotropic medium, these distributions are dependent upon 13 combinations of elastic moduli. This number of parameters is too large and in order to interpret these distributions as simply as possible in terms of elastic properties of the medium, some realistic assumptions about the material can be made. The simplest way to explain the azimuthal distributions is to assume that the medium possesses a symmetry axis but contrarily to previous investigations, it is assumed that the orientation of this axis is not necessarily vertical. In that case, one shows how to retrieve simultaneously the 3-dimensional distributions of seismic velocities and of anisotropy characterized as a vector by an amplitude and the two angles of the symmetry axis. This complete process has been named 'vectorial tomography' and can provide valuable information about convection and also mineralogical composition.


RAINBOW (Reduced And Internally Biased Oxide Wafer)piezoelectric ceramics are a new type of stress-biased,unreduced-reduced composite ceramics,which have a special arc structure. They can output ultra-high axial displacement under applied electric field and have enhanced load-bearing capability,which means that they are excellent actuating materials.In this article their mechanics analysis,reduction mechanism,microstructures and the actuating properties were discussed in detail.And their directions for further study were also offered.


Forty setsofparents and24sibsofpatients with tuberous sclerosis wereinvestigated byanextensive protocol, including clinical examination ofskin, hair, andoral cavity, direct andindirect ophthalmoscopy, cranial CT scan,renalultrasound, anda radiological skeletal survey. Noneoftheclinical examinations provided evidence thatanyofthe subjects wasaffected. Similarly, thecranial CT scan, renal ultrasound, andskeletal survey failed to identify anyoccult genecarriers. Allofthese investigations showedabnormalities in some parents butnonewasdiagnostic. Thisstudy shows thedifficulties ininterpretation thatthese investigations mayproduce withconsequent problems for genetic counselling. Thestudy doesnotsupport the routine useofthesetests. Therearepublished reports wherethediagnosis oftuberous sclerosis hasbeenmadeinadults exclusively onaCT scan andanargument canbemadeforincluding this investigation. Thereisnoindication forperforming renal ultrasound norskeletal xraysinparents who havenormalclinical examinations.


Natural materials may be used to advantage in the evaluation of the long-term performance of nuclear waste forms. Three case studies are presented: (I) radiation effects in ceramic waste forms; (II) corrosion products of U02 under oxic conditions; (III) corrosion rate of nuclear waste glasses. For each case, a natural phase which is structurally and chemically analogous to the waste form is identified and used to evaluate the long-term behavior of a nuclear waste form. Short-term experimental results are compared to the observations made of analogous natural phases. The three case studies illustrate that results may range between providing fundamental data needed for the long-term evaluation of a waste form to only providing qualitative data of limited use. Although in the most rigorous view the long-term behaviour of a phase cannot be predicted, the correspondence between short-term experimental results and observations made of natural phases provides confidence in the "predicted" behavior of the waste form. The strength of this approach rests with the degree to which a mechanistic understanding of the phenomenon is attained.


An essential problem dealing with three-dimensional optoacoustic imaging is the long data acquisition times associated with recording signals from multiple spatial projections, where signal averaging for each projection is applied to obtain satisfying signal-to-noise-ratio. This approach complicates acquisition and makes imaging challenging for most applications, especially for in vivo imaging and multispectral imaging. Instead we employ a herein introduced continuous data acquisition methodology that greatly shortens recording times over multiple projection angles and acquires high quality tomographic data without averaging. By this means a two dimensional image acquisition having 270 angular projections only takes about 9 seconds, while a full multispectral three dimensional image can normally take about 15 minutes to acquire with a single ultrasonic detector. The system performance is verified on tissue-mimicking phantoms containing known concentrations of fluorescent molecular agent as well as small animals.


The purpose of the current study was to investigate the feasibility of the application of defect‐size femoral implants in a rabbit model of established cartilage defects and compare this treatment to microfracturing. In 31 New Zealand White rabbits, a medial femoral condyle defect was created in each knee. After 4 weeks, 3 animals were killed for defect baseline values. In the other 28 rabbits, knees were sham‐operated, treated with microfracturing, or treated by placing an oxidized zirconium (OxZr) or cobalt‐chromium (CoCr) implant (∅ articulating surface 3.5 mm; fixating pin of 9.1 mm length). These animals were sacrificed 4 weeks after treatment. Joints were evaluated macroscopically. Implant osseointegration was measured by automated histomorphometry, and cartilage repair was scored microscopically. Cartilage quality was analyzed macroscopically and microscopically. Bone–implant contact was 63.2% ± 3.2% for CoCr and 62.5% ± 3.2% for OxZr. Cartilage defects did not show complete healing, nor during subsequent sham‐surgery or microfracturing. For all treatments, considerable cartilage damage in the articulating medial tibia, and degeneration of lateral tibial and femoral cartilage was observed (p < 0.05). Both CoCr and OxZr implant‐treated defects showed an increase of cartilage degeneration compared to microfracturing and sham‐operated defects (p < 0.05). Although only a single short‐term follow‐up period was investigated in this study, caution is warranted using small metal implants as a treatment for established localized cartilage defects because, even after 4 weeks in this model, the metal implants caused considerable degeneration of the articulating surface. © 2008 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 27:84–90, 2009


In response to the updated American Academy of Neurology (AAN) guidelines on mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Drs. Wang and Cui ask whether different subtypes of MCI show differences in clinical presentation that could allow for earlier prognosis. They also inquire whether more detailed recommendations on nonpharmacologic treatments in MCI, such as Tai Chi Chuan, were available.


The mechanisms for the formation of the systems 〈Au/InP(100)〉 and 〈Au/InSb/InP(100)〉 are connected with their electrical properties. By using quantitative AES, a precise knowledge of the atomic mechanisms allows us to perform the desired component such as a Schottky diode. The best results are obtained for the 〈Au/heated InSb/InP〉 system with a barrier height of 0.7 eV.


Five years ago, British chemicals giant ICI reorganized its commodity and polymers business into one cohesive unit. Encouraged by results from that move, the company has just done the same with its various specialty interests. The new unit will be called ICI Specialties and will bring together a staff of 12,000 around the world, 3000 of whom are in the U.S. Yearly sales are about $2.7 billion. ICI's new operations are as diverse as colors and fine chemicals, surfactants and other specialties that have been part of the commodities and polymers group, resins, and biological products, which include the company's DNA profiling technology and biodegradable plastics. "We think these businesses will flower under entrepreneurial management," says Ronnie C. Hampel, ICI executive director responsible for specialties. Rodney Brown, who will head the new group, adds that the new focus will accelerate growth and enable the company to put more research and technical work ...


The Paper discusses LAO Zi ' s View on economic management through morality."To govern through in-action"is the core of his thoughts system,while"Small Country and lesspeople"is its ideal blueprint,which emphasizes the view that we should pursue econom ic activities in accordance with the objective laws and that people' s happiness is the ultimate goal of economic develo pment.Up till now,the view is still meaningful and widely accepted.[


Introduction:
 Impella devices are used as a temporary mechanical support for cardiogenic shock. Acute Mitral Regurgitation is a very rare complication after Impella placement. We present a case of sub-acute mitral regurgitation 2 days after removal of the Impala in a patient with cardiogenic shock after an acute anterior myocardial infarction.

 Case History:
 37-year-old male with no significant past medical history was brought to the Emergency Room because of cardiac arrest at home. Patient had prolonged resuscitation time of about 45 minutes. After return of spontaneous circulation 12-lead electrocardiogram EKG showed typical anterior ST segment elevation MI. Right heart cath confirmed reflecting cardiogenic shock. Coronary angiogram revealed near ostial thrombotic occlusion of the LAD which was successfully treated with a drug-eluting stent. For severely reduced LV systolic function and severe cardiogenic shock Impella CP was inserted. Patient had an episode of cardiac arrest post procedure which was successfully resuscitated. On CCU day one we had a concern about positioning of Impella as it was considered to be under papillary muscle and under fluoroscopy and Echocardiogram guidance we attempted to reposition his Impella. Impella was removed on day 3. However all along we had difficulty adequately oxygenating him. His FiO2 was never below 50%. Eventually 2 days after Impella was removed (day 5 of admission) he had severe flash pulmonary edema. We could not oxygenate him on the ventilator on FiO2 of 100%. There was a concern of acute mitral regurgitation. This was confirmed by transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiogram showed flail anterior mitral leaflet P2 A3 likely chordae rupture. The patient was emergently taken to the operating room by cardiothoracic surgeon to undergo successful mitral valve replacement with a mechanical Saint Jude valve. From there patient slowly recovered. Patient was discharged home directly.

 Discussion:
 From the beginning it was felt that patient's event is secondary to chordae rupture from the Impella device as the patient has otherwise demonstrated very good recovery post revascularization and therefore mechanical complication of MI would not be expected, also provided this was LAD territory along with the fact that the flail leaflet was not mediated by a papillary muscle rupture.

 Conclusion:
 It is pertinent to be very careful while repositioning Impella and one should always aim for a fluoroscopic guidance to reposition the device to avoid any damage to the surrounding structure.


a. The term "records" refers to identifiable records not normally prepared for distribution to the public, in existence and in the possession or control of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and made or received by the Agency in pursuance of the Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved by the Agency as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, programs, or other activities. Records include any handwritten, typed or printed documents (such as memoranda, letters, drafts, reports, brochures, books, transcripts, and minutes) and documentary material in other forms (such as electronic records, punch cards; magnetic tapes, cards or discs; paper tapes; audio or video recordings; maps; photographs; slides; microfilm; and motion pictures). It does not include objects or articles such as models or equipment, nor does it include books, magazines, or other reference material in formally organized and officially designated DHHS libraries, where such materials are available under the rules of the particular library.


Decision-makers in GIS need to combine a series of spatial algorithms and operations to solve geospatial tasks. For example, in the task of facility siting, the Buffer tool is usually first used to locate areas close or away from some specific entities; then, the Intersect or Erase tool is used to select candidate areas satisfied multiple requirements. Though professionals can easily understand and solve these geospatial tasks by sequentially utilizing relevant tools, it is difficult for non-professionals to handle these problems. Recently, Generative Pre-trained Transformer (e.g., ChatGPT) presents strong performance in semantic understanding and reasoning. Especially, AutoGPT can further extend the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) by automatically reasoning and calling externally defined tools. Inspired by these studies, we attempt to lower the threshold of non-professional users to solve geospatial tasks by integrating the semantic understanding ability inherent in LLMs with mature tools within the GIS community. Specifically, we develop a new framework called GeoGPT that can conduct geospatial data collection, processing, and analysis in an autonomous manner with the instruction of only natural language. In other words, GeoGPT is used to understand the demands of non-professional users merely based on input natural language descriptions, and then think, plan, and execute defined GIS tools to output final effective results. Several cases including geospatial data crawling, spatial query, facility siting, and mapping validate the effectiveness of our framework. Though limited cases are presented in this paper, GeoGPT can be further extended to various tasks by equipping with more GIS tools, and we think the paradigm of"foundational plus professional"implied in GeoGPT provides an effective way to develop next-generation GIS in this era of large foundation models.


We show that the existence of the Newtonian limit cannot work as a selection rule for choosing the correct gravity theory fromm the set of all L=f(R) ones. To this end we prove that stability of the ground state solution in arbitrary purely metric f(R) gravity implies the existence of the Newtonian limit of the theory. And the stability is assumed to be the fundamental viability criterion of any gravity theory. The Newtonian limit is either strict in the mathematical sense if the ground state is flat spacetime or approximate and valid on length scales smaller than the cosmological one if the ground state is de Sitter or AdS space. Hence regarding the Newtonian limit a metric f(R) gravity does not differ from GR with arbitrary Lambda. This is exceptional to Lagrangians solely depending on R and/or Ricci tensor. An independent selection rule is necessary.


Two viscometric methods in the investigation of interpolymer complexes are presented. It has been shown that a presentation of the reduced viscosity ratio (experimental to ideal value) of a mixture of a polyacid with a nonionic polymer at constant total concentration as a function of the polymer mixture composition gives a better insight into the interpolymer association than a presentation of the specific viscosity at constant polyacid concentration as a function of the unit molar ratio. The formation of an expanded structure interpolymer complex is more easily revealed by the former procedure. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


WANG, RONG Intrusion Tolerant Systems Characterization and Acceptance Monitor Design (Under the direction of Dr. Gregory T. Byrd ) Intrusion detection research has been so far mostly concentrated on techniques that effectively identify the malicious behaviors. No assurance can be assumed once a system is compromised. Intrusion tolerance, on the other hand, focuses on providing the desired services even when some components have been compromised. A DARPA-funded research project named SITAR (A Scalable Intrusion-Tolerant Architecture for Distributed Services) investigates the intrusion tolerance further in distributed systems to provide reliable services. Two specific challenges are addressed in this project: the first is how to take advantage of fault tolerant techniques in intrusion tolerant systems; the second is how to deal with possible attacks and compromised components so as to continue providing the service. This thesis represents part of the on-going development of the SITAR project. First, a state transition model is developed to describe the dynamic behavior of an intrusion tolerant system. Second, the Acceptance Monitor is designed to detect the system compromises from the request-response stream. Third, various kinds of vulnerabilities on Web-based COTS services are investigated and one specific design of the Acceptance Monitor is proposed and implemented for a Web-based COTS service to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. We hope by utilizing the fault tolerance methodologies on the intrusion tolerance system we can solve the problem of providing reliable distributed services that are invulnerable to both known and unknown intrusions.


The aim of this research is to determine and evaluate teacher views of headmasters regarding to fulfilling management functions of human resources. A conceptional frame is provided regarding to importance of human resources at educational institutions and for the definition of human resources primarily. In the research, sufficiency of headmasters regarding teacher views on fulfilling functions of human resources were discussed as: a) Management problems b) socio-economic problems c) what kind of management is indigenised by headmasters. In the research, a qualitative research was conducted which views of teachers are taken, semi-structured data collection model was used which is based on open-ended questions and views of experts were included. The environment of the research is the teachers who are on duty at a private school in the T.R.N.C. In the frame of the research, three questions which were prepared before was used and a way of research which is conducted as interview method was used. Presentment method was used at analyse of the data.


In his attempt to clarify the meaning of Horace's hemistich nil scribens ipse docebo ( Ars , 306), the author of this paper considers this line as a particular form of the recusatio motif, which appeared very frequently in Augustan poetry. The peculiarity of this motif derives from the fact that the above mentioned Horatian phrase has an apparently paradoxical character, not to speak of some self-ironical connotations that are suggested by the present participle form scribens . The author proposes to identify the essential meanings contained in the analysed line from a more general point of view, that is, in the context and the perspective provided by the entire Horatian corpus. This corpus can be described, through an investigation both chronological and thematic, as a space of plurality and multiplicity of poetic choices, a space of subtle refusal and subsequently of acceptance (implicit or explicit) of various poetic forms, fashionable or not, from the point of view of an ideal model of poetry, supreme and therefore classic. The present research would have, in this case, the right to be considered as a legitimate reconstruction of Horace's poetic itinerary, certainly representative for Augustan literature, for its classicism, and for Latin spirituality in general.


The present work is a cross-sectional study whose objective is to evaluate the prevalence of the use of possible teratogenic agents by pregnant women at the Federal University Hospital of Rio Grande during the period April to June 2009. In order to achieve this, a group of medicine students was trained, and a standard questionnaire was developed, which included socio-demographic variables and questions related to life styles. The results, which were digitized and analyzed by the statistic program Epi info 6.0, showed that from the 295 interviewed women, 97,28% of them affirmed to have had pre-natal assistance, 83% had used medicines and around 27% had smoked during pregnancy. Eighteen per cent of the sample consumed alcohol and 60% confirmed that they had had health problems during pregnancy.


There were several motivations for organizing the SIMS Conference reported in this monograph. Risk assessment and its methods have been subjects of several SIMS Conferences in the recent past, and focusing these newer, more powerful methods on the largest human experience of exposure to ionizing radiation seemed an appropriate sequel. There was also the conviction that the data resources of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), generated through the mortality and medical follow-up of large samples of the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were being under utilized, and that a conference and its proceedings would create interest in exploiting this resource. The time seemed ripe for gathering a small group of current RERF scientists, veteran US statisticians and epidemiologists, and others with more recent entry into the field of radiation biology to consider long range plans for maximizing the output of information not only on the long term effects of ionizing radiation on man but on new knowledge of the determinants of health and disease that can be learned by study of the records of this cohort. This seemed particularly appropriate at this time while intensive joint Japanese-US efforts are underway to provide a new,more » more accurate dosimetry for use in these studies. Finally, there was a hope that an ad hoc forum of this type would provide not only a summary of current statistical and epidemiologic activities at RERF, but a useful critique of their scope and quality.« less


Table of contents 1. Presentations Maggie Swan : Creative Women on the WWW: Visual Analysis of Representation, Symbolism and Ideology Elijah Wright -Credibility in Weblog War Coverage Anis Pervez -Film, Cognition and Information Yueyu Fu -Protein Association Discovery in Biomedical Literature Ketan Mane -Content Coverage of PNAS in 1982-2001 Aaron Loehrlein -Systems for the Representation of Bio-Medical Knowledge (MedInfer) Andrew Kurtz -Using a Multilevel Interest Profile for Personalizing Dynamic Online News John Fieber -Feedback Interfaces for Information Filtering Eric Meyer -Communication Regimes and Digital Images: Understanding Communication Regimes, Digital Photography and the Internet Yung-Rang (Laura) Cheng -Qualitative Preparation for Quantitative Analysis of College Students' Information Seeking 2. Posters Dan Albertson -Video Searching and Browsing Using ViewFinder Bi-Yun (Ruby) Huang -Portraying Falun Gong: A Content Analysis of World News Media Coverage (March 1999-March 2003) Dan Kutz -24 Hours of News: Micro -Longitudinal Content Analysis of CNN and BBC Kazuhiro Seki -A Hybrid Approach to Named-Entity Recognition in Biomedical Texts Ning Yu -Email Visualization Abstract


During the post—World War II era, Columbia University undertook a bold and comprehensive expansion and redevelopment initiative to remake their immediate surroundings. Drawing upon the language of Cold War anticommunism, the university—in partnership with such redevelopment groups as Morningside Heights Inc.—undertook such a self-proclaimed ''war on blight'' in an attempt to ''liberate'' the surrounding community from the horrors of urban decay. This essay positions the 1968 student—community campaign against a proposed gymnasium in Morningside Park within this longer narrative of university-sponsored urban renewal. In light of such a history, those that campaigned against the university's expansion efforts also adopted a language clearly influenced by the imagery of warfare in the mid-twentieth century: the language of anticolonialism.


This study is to examine the relative effects of in-store environment cues on store quality across the three types of restaurants in Korea. For this purpose, required data are collected from 333 respondents in the four types of hotel restaurants: western(107 respondents), Chinese(78 respondents), Korean(70 respondents), and Japanese(78 respondents) restaurants, and are analyzed with SPSS/PC + 12.0. The results can be summarized as follows: First, in-store promotions in the Western and Japanese restaurants were the most important. Second, product characteristics in Chinese restaurants were the most important. Finally, employee service in Korean restaurants was the most important. Thus, these findings indicate that restaurant marketers should notice the weighted importance of in-store environment cues and then, effectively allocate their limited resources into in-store environments. Also, it is suggested that the restaurant marketers can properly segment their target market according to their perceived levels of in-store environment cues.


The six‐transmembrane protein GDE2 induces the differentiation of postmitotic motor neurons by downregulating Notch in adjacent motor neuron progenitors. GDE2 function depends upon the integrity of its extracellular enzymatic domain that is homologous to bacterial glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterases (GDPD). GDPDs metabolize glycerophosphodiesters into glycerol‐3‐phosphate and their corresponding alcohols, but it is unclear if and how GDE2 utilizes this mechanism to inhibit Notch activation. In this talk, I will discuss our recent observations that GDE2 regulates Notch signaling non cell autonomously, and that it does so through novel enzymatic mechanisms that control the surface availability of the Notch ligand Dll1.


This talk presents an observer-based neural adaptive dynamic surface control for MIMO uncertain nonlinear systems based on a nonlinear feedback technique, which tries to combine the merits of high gain feedback and low gain feedback in an easily manner. The core idea of such technique is that the feedback gain holds nonlinear mapping relationship with system states, which is achieved by a continuous differentiable nonlinear gain function. Caused by the compound property of nonlinear gain feedback, a non-quadratic Lyapunov function is designed to prove the closed-loop stability. Comparative results are shown to verify the effectiveness.


A portable radio telephone comprising a radio unit (2), correction means (3) and capable of receiving analog signals and providing digital data in two ways, including the flow rate adapter (8) and a facsimile adapter (9) Data processing (100), input means (14) and a control unit (7) unit. The data processing unit (100) further comprises a facsimile data memory (11, 16), said control unit (7) configured to two radio functions, i.e. controls at least one function to transmit and receive facsimile data.


Some worrying problems appear along with the convenience and high efficiency of the network.. Only when these problem are solved properly, can our society develop in a healthy and harmonious way.


India is the second largest producer of fruits (44 million tonnes) and vegetables (87.5 million tonnes) with a unique position in fruits like mango, litchi, banana, pineapple, sapota and grapes. India's share in the world production is about 10.1 per cent in fruits and 14.4 per cent in vegetables. The future of the Indian farmers depends on the success of the agriculture sector as India's prosperity is predominantly linked to the growth in income in the agrarian sector of the economy. India has been bestowed with wide range of climate and physio geographical conditions and as such is most suitable for growing various kinds of horticultural crops. Pineapple is the most important American fruit, and the third most important tropical fruit, after banana and mango citrus fruits being produced mainly in subtropical areas. It is cultivated in all tropical and subtropical countries.

The common name for one member of and for the Bromeliaceae, a family of chiefly epiphytic herbs and small shrubs. The spiny leaves of various species of the genus Ananas yield a hard fiber called gravata in South America and pina, or pineapple cloth, in the Philippines. The fruit, whose spiny skin is yellowish brown when ripe, is sweet and juicy; it is topped by a distinctive rosette of green leaves. It is grown throughout warmer regions. The economics of pineapple production is indispensable since there is no proper farm business data on its cost of production. The accurate figure on establishment cost, operating cost and input requirement of pineapple orchard would be greatly helpful to the pineapple producers in general. This information will be of immense use to farm financing institutions. Area under pineapple is gradually expanding in the study area district. The present study is an attempt to analyse the feasibility of investment in pineapple gardens and to find out the profitability of pineapple crop.