For several decades, the standard first-line ovulation induction (OI) agent for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) has been clomiphene citrate (CC). In a number of studies, this agent achieved ovulation rates of approximately 85% and pregnancy rates of 35% to 40%. The discrepancy between ovulation and conception rates with CC has been attributed to its peripheral antiestrogenic actions on endometrial development and cervical mucus. Recently, letrozole, a specific aromatase inhibitor, has been considered a potentially better alternative to CC. Unlike CC, letrozole is not associated with antiestrogenic effects on the endometrium. A Cochrane systematic review published in 2014 suggested that letrozole improves both live-birth (LB) and pregnancy rates in anovulatory women with PCOS, compared with CC. However, the quality of evidence was deemed poor because of poor reporting of study methods and possible publication bias; moreover, most of the trials reviewed were neither randomized nor double blinded. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether letrozole is more effective than CC. The primary aim of this double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) was to test the hypothesis that letrozole as a primary OI agent in anovulatory women with PCOS will generate higher pregnancy rates than CC. The study was conducted at a single institution between April 2007 and June 2014. A crossover design was used to determine the efficacy of each drug as a secondary OI agent. A total of 159 subfertile women diagnosed as having PCOS were randomized to receive either CC (n = 79) or letrozole (n = 80). Patients were stratified by bodymass index (BMI) (<30 and 30–35 kg/m). Initial treatment was 1 tablet (CC 50 mg or letrozole 2.5 mg) increasing to 2 in nonresponders. Treatment continued until pregnancy or for up to 6 ovulatory cycles. Women not conceiving with the first drug were offered to cross over to the other one after a 6-week washout period. Cycles were initially monitored using ultrasound follicle tracking; subsequent cycles were monitored with midluteal serum progesterone measurement. Data were analyzed according to intention to treat. Of the 159 women randomized, 4 conceived before treatment and 6 were lost-to-follow-up; the remaining 149 patients completed at least the first treatment: CC, n = 74; letrozole, n = 75. Participants receiving letrozole achieved a significantly higher clinical pregnancy rate per patient, compared with CC (61.2% vs 43.0%; the absolute difference was 18%, with a 95% confidence interval of 3%–33%; P = 0.022). The median number of treatment cycles received until pregnancy with letrozole was significantly smaller compared with CC (4 [3–5] vs 6 [4–7] cycles; log-rank P = 0.038). No statistically significant difference was found in LB rates between the 2 drugs, but there was a trend toward higher rates in the letrozole arm (48.8% vs 35.4%). After the crossover, pregnancy and LB rates were not significantly different between groups (letrozole, n = 45 [28.9% and 24.4%], and CC, n = 31 [22.6% and 19.4%], respectively; all P > 0.5). Excluding women with BMI greater than 35 kg/m could limit the applicability of these results in obese women. However, the majority of fertility centers worldwide, especially in Europe, generally exclude markedly obese women from fertility treatment because of the well-known challenges and risks. The data provide compelling evidence for the superiority of letrozole over CC as a primary OI agent in women with PCOS (with a 40% increase in pregnancy rates and shorter time to pregnancy). The cohort in this RCT is a good representation of PCOS women receiving fertility treatment in most fertility centers. Therefore, these results are globally generalizable for clinical practice. The authors recommend that letrozole should replace CC as the first-line OI agent in PCOS women.


Abstract English like in many countries around the world became the most popular second language in Turkey. Due to its given importance, English is taught at public and private schools, private language centers and intensively at the language preparatory schools at universities. However, it is well known that language education in Turkey is problematic. Turkish citizens' ability to utilize English is far below than world's average.The purpose of this study is to explore the obstacles of English language learners in language preparatory schools at universities as perceived by English instructors. The study used a qualitative design and semi-structured interviews including ten English instructors at five language preparatory schools.The study revealed four themes regarding students' obstacles when they try to utilize English. Themes included (1) structural differences between the Turkish and English languages, (2) lack of opportunity to use English in daily life, (3) students' and instructors' widespread erroneous "attitude" toward teaching and learning methodologies, and (4) lack of self-confidence.


Recently, promising results have been reported on video text detection and recognition. Most of the proposed methods are tested on private datasets with non-uniform evaluation metrics. We report here on the development of a publicly accessible annotated video dataset designed to assess the performance of different artificial Arabic text detection, tracking and recognition systems. The dataset includes 80 videos (more than 850,000 frames) collected from 4 different Arabic news channels. An attempt was made to ensure maximum diversities of the textual content in terms of size, position and background. This data is accompanied by detailed annotations for each textbox. We also present a region-based text detection approach in addition to a set of evaluation protocols on which the performance of different systems can be measured.


A novel fourth order coupled lines filter topology is presented based on two parallel paths containing quarter-wavelength coupled lines. Three identical coupled lines are combined in series in each path to form a ring structure. This configuration leads to the compactness of a highly selective filter. The proposed filter is designed for wideband applications whose center is at 3 GHz with a fractional bandwidth around 41.9%. The filter is designed on a 1.6-mm-thick FR4 substrate with dielectric constant, εr = 4.1. Filter simulations are proposed throughout the paper to validate the idea.


Construction stakeholders always use standard form of contract to regulate their contractual obligations and expectations during contract administration process. They need to refer a vast of contract provisions in the process. It always leads misunderstanding and interpretation errors as most of construction practitioners are without a proper legal background. Hence the research aims to apply data warehouse technology to assist end-users for better and/or right decision making. A conceptual model of data warehouse for contract administration is developed and verified by twelve reputed experts in the construction industry. The results show that the data warehouse modeling is feasible and practical to the construction practitioners. It would render a more effective and proactive approach in contract administration towards dispute resolution or prevention.


Betweenness centrality - measuring how many shortest paths pass through a vertex - is one of the most important network analysis concepts for assessing the relative importance of a vertex. The well-known algorithm of Brandes [2001] computes, on an n-vertex and m-edge graph, the betweenness centrality of all vertices in O(nm) worst-case time. In follow-up work, significant empirical speedups were achieved by preprocessing degree-one vertices and by graph partitioning based on cut vertices. We further contribute an algorithmic treatment of degree-two vertices, which turns out to be much richer in mathematical structure than the case of degree-one vertices. Based on these three algorithmic ingredients, we provide a strengthened worst-case running time analysis for betweenness centrality algorithms. More specifically, we prove an adaptive running time bound O(kn), where k < m is the size of a minimum feedback edge set of the input graph.


(57) Abstract: The present invention relates to a polymer comprising at least one nitrogen atom, at least one nitrogen atom here is bonded to the ester group, and relates to the polymers above ester groups formed by laden active alcohol . The present invention, this compound when contacted with an aqueous medium, the active alcohol delayed release is provided.


In order to better understand the effects of external loads on the high temperature oxidation behavior of alloys,the oxidation behavior of a Fe-20Cr alloy under compressive stress was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis(TGA).Compressive samples were subjected to stresses in the range of 5 to 15MPa and the oxidation behavior was also studied at a temperature of 900℃ in air.This study primarily compared oxidation kinetics and surface morphology of the oxidized samples.The results showed that applying a compressive stress induced an increase in the oxidation rate.Morphological observation showed that the size of the oxide particle formed under the compressive stress was obviously smaller than that without stress.In addition,the failure of oxide scales showed shear failure and slip bands generated under 45° shear cut.The oxidation behavior of the Fe-20Cr alloy under compressive stress was analyzed in terms of the effect of compressive stress on oxide nucleation.It was suggested that the application of compressive stresses promoted oxide nucleation.The oxide particle size was so small that grain boundary diffusion controlled the growth process,thereby increasing the oxidation kinetics of Fe-20Cr.


We introduce a new term into the Dirac equation based on the Lorentz symmetry violation background in order to make a theoretical description of the relativistic quantum dynamics of a spin-half neutral particle, where the wavefunction of the neutral particle acquires a relativistic Abelian quantum phase given by the interaction between a fixed time-like 4-vector background and crossed electric and magnetic fields, which is analogous to the geometric phase obtained by Wei et al (1995 Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 2071) for a spinless neutral particle with an induced electric dipole moment. We also discuss the flux dependence of energy levels of bound states analogous to the Aharonov–Bohm effect for bound states.


The classical assumptions and standard models in finance assume a unit of fixed supply for an asset implying a flat supply curve. This paper empirically examines this claim and demonstrates that the supply curve for stocks slopes upward over the period from 1961 to 2008.


A higher rate of caeserean section in the past few decades has led to an increase in the incidence of caeserean scar pregnancy. It is a serious emergency and presents often with one or more near fatal bouts of uterine hemorrhage. Caeserean scar pregnancy is a rare type of ectopic pregnancy where the embryo implants in the myometrium of lower segment at the site of previous caesarean section scar. The possible mechanism of this condition is the penetration of the blastocyst through a micro tubular tract between the caesarean scar and endometrial canal and thereby implantation into the myometrium. The clinicians are still not aware of the presentation and frequently misdiagnose it as a case of incomplete abortion. In one report as the dilator was put for an attempt to suction and evacuation, patient bled profusely and went into shock and developed obstetric collapse [1].


BACKGROUND/AIMS
To evaluate the safety and practicability of laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) by comparing the short-term and long-term outcomes of LG and open gastrectomy (OG) for gastric cancer.

METHODOLOGY
According to the criterion, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) were searched in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CNKI (in Chinese), WANFANG DATA (in Chinese), and Cochrane Controlled Trials Register from January 2000 to January 2012. The RCTs were prepared in accordance with the quality of reporting of meta-analyses statement. Intraoperative and early postoperative parameters, as well as long-term tumor recurrence were analyzed. Random effect meta-analyses were performed using odds ratios (ORs) and weighted mean differences (WMDs).

RESULTS
Up to 8 RCTs with 782 patients were enrolled in the present meta-analysis (402 patients underwent LG (LG group) and 380 underwent OG (OG group)). The LG group had shorter wound lengths, less blood loss, more rapid bowel function recovery: first flatus and first food intake, lower overall complication rate and shorter hospital stay, whereas the LG group had longer operation times and less harvested lymph nodes. The tumor recurrence between the two groups had no significant difference.

CONCLUSIONS
Considering its lower morbidity and enhanced postoperative recovery, LG is a safe technical alternative to OG for distal gastric cancer.


Postmenopausal women who are infected with HIV are at risk for experiencing dementia and Parkinson's‐like symptoms associated with low levels of estrogen. Neurotoxic damage leading to these symptoms may involve HIV‐associated proteins gp120 and/or tat1–72 (tat). Our hypothesis is that 17β‐Estradiol (E2) is an effective agent for protection against gp120/tat‐induced damage associated with increased oxidative stress, with particular focus on peroxynitrite‐induced oxidative stress. We used SK‐N‐SH cells and striatal synaptosomes from Sprague‐Dawley rats as model systems to assess neuroprotection by E2. Cells coincubated with SIN‐1(3‐morpholinosydnonimine) or tat and gp120, together or separately, significantly increased oxidative stress on the SK‐N‐SH cells, as indicated by the increase in the levels of dichlorofluorescein (DCFH) fluorescence. These data suggest that a component of tat and gp120 neurotoxicity may be due to increased oxidative stress. Coincubation with E2 attenuated tat‐ and gp120‐induced increase in fluorescence. Coincubation with progesterone had no effect on tat‐induced fluorescence, whereas coincubation with the E2 antagonist ICI 182,780 and E2 completely prevented the effects observed with E2 alone. Both gp120 and tat decreased [3H] dopamine uptake into striatal synaptosomes by decreasing the Vmax of the dopamine transporter (DAT). Pretreatment of synaptosomes with E2 (100 nM) partially reversed this reduction. In conclusion, E2 appears to be effective for preventing the oxidative stress and loss of DAT function associated with gp120/tat neurotoxicity. Synapse 59:51–60, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The main stages of creation of the multiphysical mathematical model of heat exchange in receiver system of the solar thermodynamic system with concentrator are presented in this study. The statistic approach for modeling of the heat fluxes in system «concentrator – heat receiver» is used in first stage. Obtained distribution of concentrated solar flow at outer heat receiver surface is applied as boundary condition for numerical modeling of the convective heat exchange in the heat transfer fluid. The average heat transfer fluid temperature is found in the second stage research. This temperature is determined type of the thermal storage material for the thermal storage module with phase change «solid - liquid». Geometry of the thermal storage module, temperature fields in the thermal storage material, heat transfer flow rate, which ensures given input temperature in energy conversion system were determined.


To the Editor: Initial reports of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic described a novel respiratory illness resembling severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) clustered around a market in Wuhan, China. Since then, there has been a surge of scientific inquiry into the spectrum of disease presentation; however, current case definitions still emphasize fever and respiratory symptoms as the primary presenting symptoms. A case we recently saw at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada, illustrates why this definition may be overly restrictive, particularly in older adults, and why clinicians should have a low threshold to consider COVID-19 when assessing older patients.


A method for the production of 2,4,6-tri(3,5-ditertiary butyl-4-hydroxybenzyl)mesitylene which resides in treating a mesitylene solution in chloroalkane simultaneously with sulfuric acid used as a catalyst and a solution of 2,6-ditertiary butyl-4-methoxymethylphenol or bis-3,5-ditertiary butyl-4-hydroxybenzyl ether in chloroalkane at a temperature of -20 DEG to +20 DEG C. This results in a reaction mixture consisting of an acid phase and an organic phase including the target product. The phases are separated. The organic phase is subjected to neutralization by the treatment thereof with gaseous ammonia used as an alkaline agent. The precipitate of ammonium sulfate is separated and chloroalkane is removed from the remaining solution. The proposed method makes it possible to obtain the target product with a yield of 88 to 90% and a melting temperature of 239 DEG to 239.5 DEG C. The method prevents the formation of effluents, and the amount of phenol wastes is considerably reduced.


Normal standards are required in order to evaluate minimal morphological changes in CNS disorders in childhood. We therefore investigated several morphometric parameters (white matter evaluation, ventricular and periencephalic liquoral spaces, septocaudate distance, Evans index, morphological evaluation of corpus callosum, Chamberlain line) in 52 non-neurological subjects by cerebral MRI.


Codification is the highest contribution of jurisprudence. There are many reasons to initiate a codification. During the past 100 years the BGB changed almost continuously with the different changes in the perception of values and of the social order. The changes can be seen in many areas of the BGB. The amendments and the changes in the area of civil law are accomplished by the courts as well as by the legislator, so that the BGB is adaptable.


INTRODUCTION: TALE OF TWO INDIAS Urban India India is currently a U.S. $1 trillion economy (The Economist, 2008a). It is one of the few countries experiencing economic growth despite the current global economic downturn. From 2003 to 2008, India's GDP has registered a 9% average annual growth (The Economist, 2008b). While the growth rate is expected to diminish to 6% - 7% during 2008-2009, many analysts predict that India's growth is likely to continue into the future with an average annual rate of 6.3% from 2008 to 2030. Much of India's growth has been led by the service and manufacturing sectors, which is expected to grow at 10.7% and 9.4% growth, respectively in 2008-2009 according to India's Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, as stated in his 2008-2009 union budget address (Chidambaram, 2008). The contribution of various sectors to the GDP is as follows: services 60%, manufacturing about 22% and agriculture about 18%. The services sector is dominated by IT and IT-enabled services industries. India's IT sector has contributed heavily to the India Growth Story. The IT industry employs nearly 2 million people, according to Nasscom, India's software industry trade association (Nasscom, 2008). According to a Nasscom-McKinsey Report (McKinsey, 2005), the IT-ITeS sector is estimated to have helped create an additional 3 million job opportunities through indirect and induced employment in telecommunications, power, construction, facility management, transportation, catering and other services. Nasscom's "Indian IT industry fact sheet" predicts that the Indian IT-BPO industry will grow by 33% and reach U.S. $ 64 billion in FY 2008 (Nasscom, 2008). Of this, IT exports are expected to cross U.S. $ 40.8 billion in FY 2008, an increase of 28 percent over FY 2007. In fact, every sub-sector of India's IT industry has experienced accelerated growth rates since 2004, as attested by the graph in Figure 1. The variety and share of IT service offerings are provided in Figure 2. Analysts and researchers have attributed India's IT-sector growth to factors such as the availability of a vast, well educated, English-speaking IT workforce, cost advantage, globalization and opening-up of the Indian economy starting from 1984 onwards. The economic liberalization policies set in motion in 1984 have enabled the gradual increase in foreign direct investments (FDIs), brought new technology, and have facilitated IT services at lower costs to Indian consumers. Entry of the private sector in key areas such as telecommunications, coupled with private and public sector investments have enabled development of critical IT infrastructure. Today, the results of more than ten years of sustained growth are becoming visible. Indian cities are bustling with commerce, and middleclass Indians are experiencing rise in wages in all sectors. The wage increases have generally occurred in urban areas, especially in the IT and services industries. With rapid income growth, the vast Indian middle class (numbering approximately 400 million) is becoming one of the fastest, and largest growing consumer societies and marketplaces coveted by much of the developed world's marketers. Indian cities are experiencing a construction boom with new western-style skyscrapers, shopping malls, entertainment complexes and upscale restaurants--all thronging with eager shoppers and patrons. The mobile telephone is ubiquitous even among the lowest of wage earners. In fact, as Edward Luce points out, there is an air of optimism and confidence in today's India which did not exist even a decade ago (Luce, 2007). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Figure 2: Spread of ITeS service offerings (adapted from Nasscom, 2008). Series 1 Other unaccounted (0.2%) Software testing (1.7%) Application management (15.4%) Other outsourcing (10.4%) IS outsourcing (14.3%) Software deployment & support (6. …


PURPOSE: An optical pickup compatible with optical recording media is provided to generate a spherical aberration in a CD, and to form the size of an optical detector not to detect a light of a major axis area having a big numerical aperture of an objective lens, so as to be compatible with the CD and a DVD not-needing another variable iris. CONSTITUTION: Laser diodes(31,40) emit lights having shorter wavelengths. A laser unit(44) emits lights having long wavelengths, and separated from a reference distance where an aberration is not generated, to generate a spherical aberration. The laser unit(44) detects a light only corresponding to a radical axis area of an objective lens(38), among long wavelength of lights reflected from optical recording media. The first optical splitters(32) make lights incident from the laser diodes(31,40) and the laser unit(44) toward the objective lens(38), and make the lights reflected from the optical recording media toward optical detectors(34,41). The second optical splitter(35) is located between the first optical splitters(32) and the objective lens(38), and entirely transmits short wavelength of lights, then entirely reflects long wavelength of lights. The objective lens(38) located between the second optical splitter(35) and the optical recording media has a curve, and has a ring-shaped shield area between a minor axis area and a major axis area. The optical detectors(34,41) detect short wavelength of lights.


Intermediary metabolism in the first third of the twentieth century Boyhood in Hildesheim Outward movement Clinical years The research apprentice Initiative and dependence Moves toward autonomy Freiburg: The foundation of a career The ornithine effect The formation of urea The rewards of success The brief life of a Freiburg school of metabolism Reflections on the formation of a scientific life.


Objective To investigate the therapeutic effect of different methods with electro-acupuncturing,injecting compounded Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae injection and injecting water in Neiguan point.Methods 60 rats were divided into fake operation,model,electro-acupuncturing in Neiguan,medicine injecting in Neiguan,water injecting in Neiguan and electro-acupuncturing in Hegu groups.The myocardial ischemia reperfusion lesion model was induced by ligating left anterior descending branch root of the coronary artery.And the changes of STⅡ in ECG and myocardial morphologic were observed with ECG and microscope.Results Compared with the fake operation group 20 min and 40 min after ligating and 60 min after untied ligating,the D-values of STⅡ in all other groups were increased(P0.05 or P0.01) in different degree,in order of following model,electro-acupuncturing in Hegu,injecting water in Neiguan,electro-acupuncturing in Neiguan and injecting medicine in Neiguan groups.Conclusion The STⅡ in experimental myocardial ischemia can be decreased and the level of myocardial ischemia be improved with injecting medicine,electro-acupuncturing and injecting water in Neiguan,in which the effect is in orders of injecting medicine,electro-acupuncturing and injecting water.But electro~acupuncturing in Hegu is not effective to decrease STⅡ and improve the injured myocardium.


Background: To study extent of cognitive impairment by epilepsy & antiepileptic treatment and evaluate the role of piracetam on it. Methods: 48 animals were divided into 6 groups: I-Control, II- Topiramate, III-Topiramate+Piracetam, IV-Valproate, V-Valproate+Piracetam, VI-Piracetam. Baseline cognitive functions were measured using Cook's pole climbing apparatus (CPCA) and Elevated plus maze (EPM). In CPCA, on completion of training, number of avoidances (NOA) out of 10 trials were noted while in EPM, transfer latency (TL) was measured. Kindling was induced by 30mg/kg Pentylenetetrazol (PTZ), i.p. to all groups (except Group I) on alternate days till seizures developed. Groups were treated with respective drugs orally for 21 days and cognitive functions measured again. Results: Significant decrease in NOA & increase in TL was observed after PTZ kindling. Topiramate further significantly impaired NOA and TL whereas Valproate significantly reduced NOA in CPCA but increase in TL was not significant. Treatment with Piracetam significantly increased Topiramate, Valproate and PTZ kindling induced decrease in NOA as also significantly reduced Topiramate and PTZ kindling induced increase in TL. Conclusion: Seizures are associated with cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment caused by Sodium valproate differs from Topiramate. Piracetam, a known nootropic can be used in alleviating cognitive impairment associated with epilepsy & chronic antiepileptic therapy.


Recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is still a worrying issue despite the advent and advancement of treatment strategies. Presentation of recurrent NPC is different from primary NPC and indicates poor prognosis. Frontal sinus metastasis without any involvement of other sinuses is very rare and could be mistaken as sinusitis or mucocele. Owing to its rare occurrence, it presents a great challenge for clinicians to make a prompt diagnosis. The background chronic rhinosinusitis symptoms as a result of irradiation for NPC may masquerade the underlying paranasal sinus recurrence.


Oil contact reactor of a hydrocarbon oil catalytic modification method, the petroleum hydrocarbon feedstock is injected into a conventional catalytic cracking concepts disposed outside the reaction zone, their contact with the catalyst in the reaction, the resulting oil mixture was lift, send a catalytic cracking reactor to a settling vessel, complete oil separation and product separation. With this method may be more excellent than the conventional method of modification of the modified results.


In August, 1948, at the age of 1 year, this baby girl was admitted to the surgical wards of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, with a red, hot and painful swelling of the left leg of 10 days' duration. The temperature was 1010 F. and the white blood count 8,000. A diagnosis of haematogenous osteitis was made, the limb was immobilized, and, after removing venous blood for culture, penicillin therapy was started. Radiography the following day revealed an area of decalcification in the upper tibial metaphysis (Fig. 1), and the bacteriologist reported a pure growth of coagulase-positive Staphylococcus aureus from the blood culture. Within three days the temperature was normal and the leg painless. Aspiration of soft tissue and bone marrow revealed neither pus cells nor organisms. FIG. 1.-On the day following admisRadiography three sion an antero-posterior radiograph weeks after admission shows an area of decalcification in the upper tibial metaphysis (August, 1948). revealed separation of the upper tibia and fibula, more suggestive of tumour than of infection(Fig. 2). Abiopsy was performedthe following


The National Drug Strategic Framework has identified the reduction of drug related crime as one of its goals . The Recommendations of the Australian National Council on Drugs report on Supply, Demand and Harm Reduction Strategies in Australian Prisons emphasises the risks of drug use by offenders to both health and correctional outcomes and conclude that it is "therefore appropriate that this issue is addressed by the most effective strategies available."


Literature in new China has participated in the process of modern national imagination on new China's legitimacy demonstration and new national spirit construction. The visual angle of the national imagination helps us to explore the rationality in the course of participating in setting up a modern nation of literature in new China so that we can touch its modernity character more practically, and offer important inspiration for today's literature development.


Maureen Knott is the Vice President of Product Advertising at Henry Schein Inc., the world's largest provider of health care products and services to dentists, physicians and veterinarians. Her position is a role she worked very hard to achieve since she started as an administrative assistant in 1986. She attributes her success to many different factors of her life, one being her excellent communication skills, especially with Henry Schein's supplier partners.


Background - Hypokinetic dysarthria in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) has been traditionally attributed to classic signs of the disease, namely muscle rigidity and bradykinesia. To date, research recognizes a broader alternative view in which hypokinetic dysarthria is considered to be more than a pure production deficit. This study aimed to examine a possible relationship between hypokinetic speech production and speech intensity perception in PD.
Methods - Subjects included 14 patients with idiopathic PD and 14 one-to-one matched healthy control speakers (HC) with normal hearing and cognition. First, speech production was objectified through a standardized and norm-referenced speech intelligibility assessment at sentence level (DIA-S) and through acoustic analysis (F0 variability, amplitude variability, F2 transition, VSA, spectral centroid, speech diadochokinetic rate, jitter, shimmer, and MPT). Correlations between acoustic analysis and speech intelligibility were computed. Speech intensity was examined based on different tasks (spontaneous speech, reading and sustained phonation). Second, overall speech perception was determined by an overall estimation task, performed in two different conditions (immediate versus playback perception) based on two different tasks (spontaneous speech and reading). An intensity estimation task was addressed to evaluate speech intensity perception. Finally, the interaction between speech production and speech intensity perception was investigated by an intensity imitation task.
Results - Concerning speech production, F0 variability and MPT were significantly decreased in patients with PD. Significant positive correlations were found between F0 variability, F2 transition, spectral centroid, and speech intelligibility. Speech intensity seemed to be task dependent. Concerning speech perception, significant differences between the different conditions and tasks in the overall estimation task were only found in the PD group. These results emphasize the discrepancy between spontaneous speech and cued regulation (e.g. non-propositional speech, auditory feedback) in patients with PD and point at the role of attention and feedback processes in the auditory perception of speech in PD. Despite the low cognitive load of the intensity estimation and imitation task, a different pattern in the auditory perception of speech intensity could be demonstrated in the PD group.
Conclusions - Auditory perceptual deficits may influence speech production in patients with PD. The present results suggest a disturbed auditory perception related to an automatic monitoring deficit in PD.


Aims Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are common in women with Type 1 diabetes and can be associated with adverse fetal outcomes, but little is known about hypertension in pregnancy in women with Type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to compare the incidence and outcomes of, and risk factors for, hypertension in pregnancy in women with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.


Post‐transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD) are a potentially fatal group of neoplasms arising in an immunodeficient environment. Although the cornerstone of treatment is reduced immunosuppression (RI), advanced cases often warrant treatment with chemoimmunotherapy. The chemoimmunotherapy regimen of dose‐adjusted (DA)‐EPOCH‐R is superior to R‐CHOP in HIV associated aggressive lymphomas, suggesting that it might also be favorable in the setting of PTLD.


This paper presents a microstrip phased array using High Impedance Surface - Electromagnetic Band Gap (HIS-EBG) in order to minimize the effects of mutual coupling among the antenna elements. Each element of the array is fed by a coaxial cable allowing the beam steering by controlling the signal of the input port of each element. This phased array operates at X Band as well as the band-gap of the HIS-EBG structure. Its main applications are satellite communication and broadcasting systems. Results show reductions in the mutual coupling up to 12 dB, and improvements in the return loss and gain.


The utility model relates to a packaging device for a jar with a small mouth. The packaging device comprises a jar body. A ceramic jar cap is arranged at the mouth of the jar body and matched with the same. A groove in circle is formed in the bottom of the ceramic jar cap and corresponding to the end surface of the upper edge of the mouth. A seal ring is arranged in the groove. An anti-theft metal cap covers the periphery of the ceramic jar cap. After the anti-theft metal cap is fastened, the lower portion of the anti-theft metal cap is clamped with a neck portion under the mouth, and the upper portion of the anti-theft metal cap integrally covers the ceramic jar cap and the mouth. A screw hole is formed in the center at the top of the anti-theft metal cap. A decorative cap covers the anti-theft metal cap. A sealing screw is arranged in the center at the inner top of the decorative cap and further matched with the screw hole. A sealing method that the ceramic jar cap is matched with the ceramic jar is adopted, thus the packaging device is stable in ceramic chemical property, ageless, free of precipitation of hazardous substance when contacting with wine, and suitable to storage for a long time to lead to better quality of the wine.


The mode-mode coupling theory of Kadanoff and Swift is used to describe the rise in the ultrasonic attenuation as a material approaches its magnetic transition. Near the transition, dynamic fluctuations in the magnetic order cause increased absorption of the sound. Predictions are made of the increased attenuation in various models of magnetic systems. A comparison with experiment is carried out.


This paper exploits the variation in union membership among states to analyze the impact of right-to-work (RTW) laws on union density. The study is unique in its use of controls for employer opposition to unions, political affiliation, and social capital. These variables capture different dimensions of attitudes toward unions which can underlie both union density and the passage of RTW laws. Employer opposition and RTW laws have a significant, negative impact on union density, while voting for the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2000 election is insignificant. The social capital index also is insignificant, a result we explain and empirically demonstrate in terms of its contradictory impact on unionization. We then show that one of the components of social capital is a significant predictor of union density. The other focus variables remain significant. This equation explains over three-quarters of the variation in union density, a very high degree of explanatory power for a cross-sectional model. States with RTW legislation exhibit lower union density by 8.8 percentage points, ceteris paribus. We conclude that RTW laws have a strong, negative effect on union density that is independent of underlying attitudes toward unions.


Summary

Primary obstructive megaureter usually presents in the adult as an incidental finding during unrinary tract investivagation, or with vaque abdomial pain.

The condition is usually statie, but if required, reconstruction and reimplantation gives satisfactory results.

Haematuria should be regarded with suspicion as malignant change may occur in the middle third of the ureter.


Objective To study the reticulocyte(RET) counts and subpopulation in the healthy children under 18 years old and their relation with sex and age,and to establish their reference value ranges.Methods Reticulocytes were counted by fully automated hematology analyzer(Sysmex XE-2100) in 649 healthy children below 18 years old and the outlying observations was handled afterward.The reference values were described as the 2.5th and 97.5 th percentiles.Results(1)After grouping according to sex,the test showed that there were significant differences(P0.05) between the boys and girls for reticulocyte percentage(RET%),boys 1.18%±0.31%,girls 1.24%±0.34%.But there was no significant differences(P0.05) between boys and girls for reticulocyte absolute number(RET#),immature reticulocytes fraction(IRF%),low fluorescence reticulocytes(LFR%),middle fluorescence reticulocytes(MFR%) and high fluorescence reticulocytes(HFR%).(2) By one-way analysis of variance,there were significant differences(P0.05) between the infant′s group and puberty′s group for IRF% and MFR%.(3)The reference value of RET% of boys and girls were 0.64%-1.84% and 0.63%-1.96%.Conclusion The reference ranges of 6 reticulocyte parameters were not correlated with sex except RET% in the healthy children under 18 years old.There were significant differences(P0.05) between the infant′s group and puberty′s group for IRF% and MFR%.The reference values of RET% of boys and girls were 0.64%-1.84% and 0.63%-1.96%.So the laboratory should establish age and sex related reference value.It could be useful for clinical disease diagnosis,differential diagnosis,treatment and curative effect screening.


Vernonia anthelmintica (L.) Willd. (Asteraceae) seeds are used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine as an anthelmintic, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory agent, as well as to treat skin diseases such as psoriasis (Kirtikar et al 1935). One of the key pathological features of this common, chronic, skin disorder is inflammation. This study focuses on the use of V. anthelmintica seeds (VA) as a potential antipsoriatic agent, employing mixed rat peritoneal leucocytes as an in-vitro antiinflammatory model. These cells were chosen as they express inflammatory pathways for both cyclooxygenase (COX) and 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) (Moroney et al 1988). The ability of VA to inhibit either of these pathways in this physiologically relevant cell system was determined using radioimmunoassay to measure the generation of two pro-inflammatory mediators, thromboxane B2 (TXB2) and leukotriene B4 (LTB4). Different VA extracts were prepared using Soxhlet extraction (6 h), with solvents of different polarity. Sequential extraction with light petroleum (LP), chloroform and methanol (MeOH) gave extracts A3 (LP), A3EX (LP extract exposed to direct sunlight) and A7 (MeOH). Direct MeOH and ethanol extraction gave MET and ETVA respectively and extraction of LP-defatted seeds with dichloromethane, resulted in extract DCM. All extracts were tested at three different concentrations (5, 15 and 50 mgmL) for their ability to inhibit the generation of TXB2 and LTB4. The results revealed the oil extracts A3 and A3EX to display differences between each other (A3EX was less active). This indicated that the potential anti-inflammatory compounds may be light sensitive. As the DCM extract was also found to display good activity against the generation of both TXB2 and LTB4, this indicated the antiinflammatory compound(s) were not solely present in the oil extracts. This suggestion, in part, correlated with the results for the relatively polar A7, a sequential (defatted) methanolic extract that was only found to inhibit LTB4 generation. This was interesting, as in comparison with the direct methanol extract MET, which was active against both TXB2 and LTB4, A7 had a selective inhibitory effect on LTB4 suggesting that methanol soluble components other than lipids were responsible for the effect. Consequently, A7 could be said to selectively inhibit 5lipoxygenase and exert its effect only on the 5-LOX pathway whereas extracts containing less polar compounds affected both 5-LOX and COX. The direct ethanol extract ETVA was not found to be as effective as MET in inhibiting the generation of TXB2 and LTB4. These results clearly demonstrate the anti-inflammatory effect of VA substantiating its traditional use in the treatment of psoriasis.


Patients who have experienced adverse drug reactions (ADRs) can show some psychological problems both pre-existing than consequently the reactions. Anxiety, depression, somatization, as well as a minor capability of expressing emotions, have been demonstrated in some of these subjects. Nevertheless, a negative expectation toward a new drug administration related to some nocebo reactions can complicate the evaluation of these patients. This study aims to investigate the link between the nocebo effect and emotional functioning in ADRs patients to better understanding the psychological mechanisms involved in this phenomenon. Therefore, patients who have manifested or not (non responders) a nocebo reaction following the administration of an inert substance (placebo) have been compared. One hundred twenty patients (N = 30 with nocebo reactions; N = 90 non responders) completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale , Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 . ADRs patients with nocebo reactions showed: 1) higher level of Cognitive Reappraisal than non responders; 2) associations between higher level of emotion dysregulation and not immediate drug reactions; 3) associations between higher level of alexithymia, Expressive Suppression and more frequent access to healthcare services; 4) alexithymia and Expressive Suppression as predictors of more frequent access to healthcare services, evident in 35% of the sample. The clarification of some psychological mechanisms involved in the nocebo effect is a basic prerequisite to better understand and manage these patients.


Teacher-centered traditional education depends on restrictive control and classroom discipline for developing the knowledge and skill levels of students. Communication classroom management is not efficient for contemporary student-centered education which requires active contribution of students, hands-on activities and students being responsible for their own learning. Effective communication skills, increasing motivation, developing self-efficacy and self-control are some of the basic components of effective classroom management. It is necessary for the teachers who will teach the youngsters of the 21st century to gain skills for excellent classroom management. In this article the importance of classroom management skills for developing the efficiency of instruction and its relation with communication skills will be discussed and some suggestions for educators will be made.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges faced by the cold supply chain industry in Indonesia, especially for frozen food products. The challenges faced are temperature control in storage and distribution and the food distribution speed. This is due to inadequate infrastructure conditions in Indonesia. It is suggested that the government should build and improve infrastructure and provide incentives such as tax incentives, given that the cold supply chain industry is very expensive.


High power consumption will not only shorten the battery life of handheld devices, but also cause thermal and reliability problems. To lower power consumption, one way is to reduce the supply voltage as in multisupply voltage (MSV) designs. In region-based MSV, a circuit will be partitioned into "voltage islands" where each island occupies a contiguous physical space and operates at one supply voltage. In the work of Wu et al. [2005], this voltage supply problem is addressed, and the input placement is partitioned into a set of rectangular voltage islands by a slicing structure. However, the constraint of using a slicing structure prohibits better solutions in their approach. In the work of Ching et al. [2006], the constraint of obtaining rectangular shapes is relaxed; their method forms islands of very irregular shapes. In this article, we propose a method that focuses on forming rectangular voltage islands to minimize the power consumption, while at the same time favoring the power routing step. It is found that, even with this reduced flexibility on island shapes, we can still perform as well as, or in some cases, even better than the previous work of Ching et al. [2006] that does not control the shapes of the islands, in terms of power saving and island number.


Precision asteroseismology requires a detailed modelling of stellar structure and pulsations. It means that even if some effects are small they must be taken into account for an accurate confrontation of theory and observations. Studies of the last decade have shown that magnetic field is quite ubiquitous among stellar objects. Thus, by studying pulsators with measurable magnetic filed one can derive seismic inferences about a distortion caused by the magnetic field inaccessible in other manner. Here we discuss the latest achievements of synergies between asteroseismic inferences and magnetic field measurements.


Due to the lack of proper act and legislation on the Halal enforcement, the Halal logo is often being exploited by some manufacturers who simply put the Halal label on their products without using the genuine one. This unlawful action creates confusion to consumers and causing them to question the validity of some of the products that are claimed to be halal. To overcome the problem, this paper presents a conceptual design of Halal logo detector that can be used to validate the Halal logo status printed on products. Two approaches are proposed in this conceptual design; the two-dimensional (2D) barcode and the ultraviolet (UV) hidden image of hologram approach. Two kind of 2D barcode such as PDF 417 and QR code are chosen based on their capability in data storage, high security, cost effective and applicability of the designed system. The physical layout of the detector is also designed so that it can be conveniently installed and used by consumer in the supermarket.


The article considers the Russian printing in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region (China, Japan, Korea, USA, etc.). The author offers the review of literature published in Russian in these countries, basing on the materials of the Russian North-East Asian collection of Hamilton Library of the University of Hawaii (Honolulu, USA), which is one of the best collections in the world on this subject. The article reports on the history of the Russian collection and its creators. The author discusses the terms "Russian book Diaspora" (publishing emigrant activities within the same country — China, Japan, USA, etc.) and "Russian book community" (publishing activities of people from Russia within the same city, such as Harbin, Shanghai, Tokyo; organizations or groups of individuals, etc.). Special attention is paid to the bibliographic description of this collection, which was first published in 2002 in the publishing house of the Russian State Library "Pashkov Dom" ("Russian print in China, Japan and Korea: Catalogue of the collection of Hamilton Library of the University of Hawaii") and reprinted in the expanded version in 2016 under the title "Russian print in the Asia-Pacific region" (in 4 parts). The article also reports on other foreign collections that contain emigrant publications, including those printed in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region (the libraries of the University of California in Berkeley, the Hoover Institute for war, revolution and peace, and the Museum of Russian culture in San Francisco). The author presents the data on the work of scientific centre of the University of Hawaii for the study of the USSR / Russia "Soviet Union in Pacific Asia Rim". The article analyses international cooperation of the University of Hawaii library with Russian libraries, in particular, its relations with the libraries of the Russian Far East. The author describes the project of the University of Hawaii Library to create the electronic library catalogue with complete bibliographic and historical information about each edition of the collection and to expand the exchange of literature and information.


To obtain and maintain user models are very important for personalized service offering. The quality of personalized services directly relies on the quality of the user models. Not surprisingly, many web sites have adopted different ways to construct user models so that they can recommend goods or services to individuals according to user's preference. Obviously, to integrate separate user models coming from different sources for one user can provide more comprehensive and accurate user information. Thus there exist the requirements to obtain integrated user models by sharing their user models. After discussing the requirements of sharing user models, an open user model service platform is presented. It's architecture, key technologies and an implemented prototype are introduced.


When performing LIBS measurement there is crucial role of so-called matrix effect. Matrix effect is a phenomenon where the chemical and physical properties of the material under study (its composition, type of molecules and the structure of their arrangement, types of bonds, etc.) have a significant effect on the ablation processes and consequent laser-induced plasma formation and evolution. This effect is most often perceived negatively, because it represents a major limitation of quantification. In this contribution varying of measurement conditions is studied in relation to its impact on the classification of materials. Utilization of advanced statistical methods enables classification and identification of materials on the basis of their spectra without the knowledge of absolute amounts of particular elements. However, for good results it is necessary to optimize the measurement conditions properly. This study was done using standardized materials of ores with different matrices. They were measured using LIBS system under various conditions (pulse energy, delay time) and the ideal conditions were chosen from signal to noise ratio (SNR). These spectra were then processed along with the spectra measured using 'non-ideal' conditions, thus more significantly suffering from matrix effect. Comparison was illustrated on the results of classification of samples according to their matrices.


* Foreword (James W. Ellor) * Preface * Human Despair and Comic Transcendence (Melvin A. Kimble) * The Paradoxes of Humor and the Burdens of Despair (Susan H. McFadden) * Lift up Your Hearts: Humour and Despair in Later Life (Heather Thompson) * Humour: A Way to Transcendence in Later Life (Elizabeth MacKinlay) * Dementia, Identity, and Spirituality (John Killick) * Ways of Studying Religion, Spirituality, and Aging: The Social Scientific Approach (Elizabeth MacKinlay and Susan H. McFadden) * Spiritual and Pastoral Care Approaches for Helping Older Adults with Depression (John White) * 'Just Because I Can't Remember...' Religiousness in Older People with Dementia (Corinne Trevitt and Elizabeth MacKinlay) * Hope Rising Out of Despair: The Spiritual Journey of Patients Admitted to a Hospice (Ann Harrington) * Non-Speech Based Pastoral Care: A Pastoral Care Program for Aged Care Residents with Little or No Ability to Speak (Elizabeth Vreugdenhil) * Index * Reference Notes Included


This document announces changes to the payment adjustment for low-volume hospitals under the hospital inpatient prospective payment systems
(IPPS) for acute care hospitals for fiscal years (FYs) 2011 through 2017 in accordance with section 429 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018.


XML documents represent a middle range between unstructured data such as textual documents and fully structured data encoded in databases. Typically, information retrieval techniques are used to support search on the "unstructured" end of this scale, while database techniques are used for the structured part. To date, most of the works on XML query and search have stemmed from the structured side and are strongly inspired by database techniques. In a previous work we described a new query approach via pieces of XML data called "XML Fragments" which are of the same nature as the queried XML documents and are specifically targeted to support the information needs of end-users in an intuitive way. In addition to its simplicity, XML Fragments represent a natural extension to traditional free text information retrieval queries where both documents and queries are represented as vectors of words and as such it enables a natural extension of IR ranking models to rank XML documents by context and structure. In this paper, we extend XML Fragments with database operators thus allowing both IR style approach together with database "structured" query capabilities.


Social media is one of the important media for entrepreneurs in marketing their products, one of the popular is Instagram. Account activity on Instagram greatly influences marketing and sales levels, such as network, number of follower, following or posting. This study applies the Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs) to analyze how the network structure, follower, following, and total posts were affect to the online shop network accounts on Instagram. The data analyzed were 28 samples Instagram accounts which domiciled in DIY and Central Java Province. The predictor variables are non-directed network structure (edges, 2-star) and individual activeness (number of followers, number of following, and total post). The network structure graph constructed a directed network with 41 nodes and 104 edges. Based on ERGMs and significance test with α=5%, the network structure and characteristic of account have a significant influence on the networks between the online shop. The parameter estimation results can be interpreted as follows, an online shop does not take the initiative to make friends or network with another account, because focused on making network with the consumers. If there are more followers, then there is a high probability to get a connection between accounts. This result can be used as a marketing strategy through social media.


High vibrations due to auto-oscillation effects can occur at power units with Kaplan type runner during load rejection. These vibrations may be present in the turbine braking mode when the wicket gates are almost closed, and the rotating runner pushes the water towards the draft tube resulting in higher pressure below the runner blades. The upward leakage flow between runner blades and discharge ring is suspected to cause the vibration phenomenon. Within this contribution, a fluid-structure-interaction (FSI) technique is applied to identify the mechanism of self-excitation. The investigation is carried out on a disk that represents the simplified geometry of a Kaplan runner. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are used in order to obtain parameters in terms of stiffness, damping and inertia of the fluid to be applied in the following shaft line analysis. Damped modal analyses of the shaft line allow for evaluation of the stability of natural frequencies and corresponding mode shapes of the shaft line. A resulting negative damping indicates the occurrence of auto-oscillation behavior of the shaft line. For the operating condition under investigation, mode shapes with negative damping are obtained with this approach and a dynamic bending moment on the runner due to lateral movement in combination with a tilting at the runner in these mode shapes is identified as source of instability. Based on these findings, an analytical approach for modeling the relevant effect is derived and compared to CFD result as well as results from acoustic finite element modelling. Finally, conclusions for avoidance of self-excited vibrations at Kaplan runners are proposed.


We present the design, fabrication and characterization of a multi-purpose capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) for air coupled ultrasound (~300-500 kHz), with a focus on improved bandwidth. The focus of this work is to investigate whether and how wafer-bonded CMUTs can be improved in terms of bandwidth for airborne ultrasound by intentionally varying the cell radii across the entire device. Further, we consider the differences in terms of static d.c. operation point for improved frequency response and predictability by using a sensitivity-weighted distribution of cell radii groups. The pitch-catch results from one of our designs, compared to a reference device (all cell radii identical), show that the -6 db fractional bandwidth (FBW) can be improved from 1% up to 2.5%. For many applications, in which the -14 db duration signal (ASTM E1065) plays a role, the improvement goes from 1% to 18.9%. The observed improvements support the argument that such CMUTs will be beneficial for ultrasonic transit-time detection based applications.


Department of Horticulture, Biotechnology & Landscape Architecture, Seoul Women's UniversityABSTRACT : The purpose of this study is to analyze the landscape preference and landscape images of the Agricultural Aqueduct Bridges(AAB) by several different criteria. Semantic Differential Scale(SD scale) with landscape adjectives and landscape preference are used to estimate the alternatives of the AAB. The statistic methods such as descriptive analysis, t-test, factor analysis and regression, cluster analysis, are operated. The landscape preference of the alternatives is generally positive, 3.977 out of 7.000. The gate type is the most preferred, but the road-along type is the worst, by the location types. The simple repair type is the worst preferred, but total remodeling is the most, by the repair types. The characteristics of the AAB are analyzed and 4 factors of visual landscape are contracted; interest, orderliness, naturality and spatiality. Cumulative factor loading of these factors is about 65%, which is quite high. The higher and bigger AAB's are preferred, and the advanced finishing materials are also preferred, such as aluminum or wood panels. The long span is also preferred and the high repair cost would be preferred. But in this study, the cost-benefit analysis is not included, so it is recommended to research further, considering the cost variable with the visual factors. Key words : Landscape Adjectives, Location Type, Finishing Materials, Repair Type, Long Span


This paper describes a novel approach to solving systems of algebraic equations and inequalities that is based on subdefinite calculations. The use of these methods makes it possible to solve overdetermined and underdetermined systems, as well as systems with imprecise and incomplete data. The approach was implemented with the help of the methods of interval mathematics. The UniCalc solver, also described in this paper, was developed on the basis of this approach. To illustrate the capabilities of UniCalc, we give examples of problems solved with its help.


We report concomitant stoichiomorphs [(4,4′-BPY-2H)2+(SA-SY-H)−2·4H2O] 1 and [(4,4′-BPY-H)+(SA-SY-H)−·4H2O] 2 formed in the same reaction vessel, with formation of 2 following 1. The expeditious fo...


Due to several changes within healthcare, continuous learning becomes more important for nurses. One way to continue one's development, is the use of informal feedback. However, literature showed to be ambiguous regarding aspects that can influence the feedback process between nurses. To add, whether such experiences regarding the feedback environment could be dependent of a person's mindset was still unknown. An online questionnaire gathered qualitative and quantitative data among nurses to answer these questions. The qualitative results showed several obstructing and stimulating aspects that influence the feedback process, such as openness, safe environment, relationship, and personal situation. Furthermore, whether feedback is favourable or unfavourable has a high impact as well. More research is needed to determine the order of influence these aspects have. Moreover, the quantitative results showed some significant relationships between the mindsets of the nurses and scales of the feedback environment. The mindset seems to influence whether the nurses find the feedback valuable and whether they trust their colleagues who provide feedback. This study did not show other significant relationships. It is expected that other relationships did not occur, as many other aspects showed to have an influence as well.


The author describes a downlink acquisition procedure designed for a frequency-hopped, man-portable, EHF satellite communications terminal. The acquisition procedure uses a very low energy threshold to allow synchronization to occur on signals received in sidelobes. The probability of a false alarm due to noise above threshold is reduced by using an algorithm to identify the signal pattern from among the threshold crossings. After the initial synchronization, the spatial search continues in order to align the mainlobe with the satellite. This procedure leads to a reduction in acquisition time when compared to a traditional acquisition scheme that acquires only through the mainlobe.<<ETX>>


Objective To investigate the relationship between the levels of brain natriuretic peptide(BNP) and high sensitive C-reactive protein(hs-CRP) in the elderly patients with refractory heart failure.Methods The plasma levels of BNP and hs-CRP were tested in 33 elderly patients with refractory heart failure(heart failure group)and 15 healthy volunteers(control group).The left ventriculardiastolic diameter(LVDD) and ejection fraction(EF) were detected by colorDopplerultrasound.Results The levels of hs-CRP,BNP and LVDD of heart failure group were obviously higher than those of control group,while the level of LVEF of patients was obviously lower than that of control group.The levels of hsCRP,BNP and LVDD of cardiac function NYHA class Ⅳ group were obviously higher than those of NYHA class Ⅲ group,while the level of LVEF of patients was obviously lower than that of NYHA class Ⅲ group.The plasma level of BNP had positive correlations with the severity of NYHA class(r=0.769,P0.05),LVEF(r=-0.876,P0.05),and LVDD(r=0.725,P0.05).While,the level of hs-CRP had positive correlation with the severity of NYHA class(r=0.357,P=0.02).Conclusions The levels of hs-CRP and BNP are increased with severity of NYHA class.The level of BNP is related more closely to heart function,which has diagnostic and prognostic value in the elderly patients with refractory heart failure.


Today's military platforms are equipped with variety of sensors and effectors. However, these components are rarely interconnected or are only linked via manufacturer-specific, proprietary interfaces. This hinders changes to and extensions of platform components. Often platform modifications are only possible with the help of the original integrator, which complicates a seamless integration of new components. In order to unify the interfaces of sub-systems and enhance platform interoperability, several open architecture initiatives have been launched on national and multi-national levels. Some as the NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture (NGVA) have already recognised that new approaches for system verification and acceptance need to be considered. Nevertheless, these considerations are still on the conceptual level and no tools for rigorous interface conformity testing are yet in place. This paper describes a concept supporting the testing of interface specifications in early standardisation phases as well as the verification of platform architecture implementations in actual systems later on. On the example of the NGVA, a test framework is presented focussing on the reuse of test artefacts from early specification checking for later conformance and final acceptance testing. The approach is validated by means of a case study supporting the NGVA standardisation.


A relationship between contact level in sport and aggression has been found in previous literature (Bredemeier, Weiss, Shields, & Copper, 1986; Silva, 1983; Tucker & Parks, 2001). Presently, a study has yet to compare adult aggression scores for both men and women in the same contact sport types. This study was intended to compare both female and male collision, contact, and non-contact sport athletes across sport hostile aggression, sport instrumental aggression, life aggression, and life assertion. Results indicated that life aggression, life assertion, sport hostile aggression, and sport instrumental aggression did not vary among different contact sport levels. Significant gender differences were found in life assertion and two subscales of life aggression. Relationships between aggression and assertion variables were explored.


After big disasters, a damaged area can be out of contact because of severe damage of existing network infrastructures. Meanwhile, high demands for network connections to the disaster area will arise to collect damage information and disseminate rescue instructions. In this paper, we propose to construct a network for disaster management using mobile stations equipped with sensors and network interfaces. They are controlled by a disaster management center via wide area network technology, and conduct various disaster management tasks, such as damage sensing, information collection and message dissemination. To address the challenges of unpredictable tasks and limited number of mobile stations with working capability constraints, we propose an online algorithm that schedules mobile stations for disaster management tasks with weights in each time slot, without any knowledge of future task arrivals. Our objective is to maximize the total weight of finished tasks under constraints of maximum working capability of mobile stations. We prove that the performance of proposed online algorithm is no worse than $\frac{e-1}{e}$ of optimal solutions. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate our proposed algorithm.


The spontaneous motion of a nitrobenzene droplet on an Au electrode during an Sn electrodeposition has been reported in a previous paper ( Chemphyschem , 9 , 2302 (2008)). It also mentions that the velocity of the motion increases with a negative shift in the electrode potential. This present work has studied the motive force inducing the droplet motion, which is the imbalance between interfacial tension acting on the opposite side of a nitrobenzene droplet. As explained in the previous study, a high interfacial tension on the front side of the droplet is caused by an occurrence of electrodeposition. From this study, a low interfacial tension on the rear side has been found to attribute to an occurrence of hydrogen evolution reaction on the electrode surface. The rate of hydrogen evolution reaction increases as the electrode potential decreases, and thus the increase in the droplet velocity with a decreasing potential can be ascribed to the increase in the rate of hydrogen evolution reaction. The present work also reports that the velocity also increases by the addition of a salt such as K 2 SO 4 to the solutions. the


The present invention relates to an improved apparatus 30 and method for delivering a coating substance such as a powder, liquid, or suspension coating. The article to be coated is preferably a snack food such as potato crisps or corn chips which are usually coated with flavouring. It is generally desirable to be able to achieve a uniform and controllable coating over the entire surface of a product. The apparatus comprises two enclosed coating stations 33, 34 connected by a conveyor 39 and a flipping or inverting device between the two enclosures. The flipping device may be a drop between conveyors, a cascade system (figure 3a) or a plough share like flipper or curvilinear plate (figure 3b). The inversion of the article between the two coating enclosures ensures even coating on both sides of the article.


The analysis of data using recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs), is an indispensable tool for decision making in different sectors of society. Sport is one of the leading industries in its use. Currently, professional sports teams present Departments of Analysis aimed at the study of the opposite, self-analysis, scouting and other functions offering scientific support to decision-making. Baseball is a highly complex collective sport. This complexity favors the extraction of a large amount of data of various kinds related to the game, which makes baseball one of the most complete sports in terms of statistics. These characteristics have made baseball the protagonist of the application of data analysis and ICTs as ways to obtain competitive advantages. The teams that participate in the National Baseball Series, the most demanding competition in Cuban baseball, do not have the necessary support in terms of analyzing their own information and those of their rivals. This undermines the results and does not allow the overcoming of the directors and players as far as tactical thinking is concerned. To meet the needs mentioned above, this paper describes the implementation of the principles and methods of Sports Intelligence in Cuban baseball, supported by ICTs and sabermetrics. In this sense, the document objective is to improve the decision-making processes in Cuban baseball based on sports intelligence, for which the document will outline the first indispensable theoretical steps.


Morphometric studies on amastigotes of eigtheen populations from four isolates of two species of Venezuelan Leishmania (L. braziliensis and L. garnhami) indicate that the position of the kinetoplast is not significantly modified when parasites are submitted to pasages into hamsters, and culture in NNN medium or infection in a vector (Lu. townsendi). The location of the kinetoplast measured as the distance from the posterior end of the amastigote to the kinetoplast divided by the distance of the same organoid to the anterior end of the amastigote allows to differenciate L. braziliensis from L. mexicana and L. garnhami. Other morphometric parameters are not so confiable.


Dear Editor, Alopecia totalis (AT) is a severe form of alopecia areata (AA) that affects the entire scalp. AA treatment depends on patient age, disease phase, and disease severity, and AT usually requires aggressive systemic treatment.1 For treatment of AT, immunomodulating agents, such as steroids and cyclosporine, have been used as off-label treatments. Recently, the oral selective JAK 1/2 inhibitor baricitinib has received Food and Drug Administration approval for AA, but in two previous randomized controlled trials, 19.3%−19.4% of participants had Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) scores of ≤20 after 16 weeks of treatment with 4 mg of baricitinib, followed by 35.9%−38.8% achieving the threshold after 36 weeks, reflecting suboptimal outcomes.2 A 26-year-old man presented with AT that had persisted for 15 years (Figure 1). There was a history of atopic dermatitis, asthma, and allergic rhinitis. He had received herbal medicine, oral methotrexate, intralesional corticosteroid injections, and diphenylcyclopropenone contact therapy, but the waxing and waning persisted. Improvement was seen when he took oral tofacitinib for 1 year, but tofacitinib was discontinued due to cardiovascular risk.3 For rapid improvement, baricitinib (4 mg) with methylprednisolone pulse and tapering therapy were prescribed for 16 weeks, and a good response, equivalent to SALT 0, was achieved. Low-dose oral cyclosporine (50−25 mg/day) maintenance was added to minimize the rebound caused by steroid discontinuation. Hair regrowth was maintained after 12 weeks of cyclosporine replacement (Figure 2). For this patient, we aimed to treat AT more effectively by using a combination of drugs that have immunomodulating effects through different mechanisms.


In order to detect and identify fire accidents accurately and efficiently, an intelligent fire identification system based on neural network algorithm is designed, which can overcome the shortcomings of single information, complex wiring, poor adaptability, etc. The characteristic extraction of sensors is adopted in the information layer to solve the problems in multi-sensor fusion. The fire data are transmitted to the main controller through LoRa wireless module and fused by back propagation neural network, which is self-learning and adaptive. The output of neural network and fuzzy inference with other factors are used for decision criteria to improve the identification accuracy. The common combustibles and various interference sources are selected for fire tests. The result shows that the detection accuracy is up to 100% and the false alarm rate is lower than 0.1%, meanwhile, the system has the advantages of fast response and high detection efficiency.


Chinese foxglove (Rehmannia glutinosa) is receiving much attention as one of the principal medicinal crops and the demand for crude drug expands rapidly. This study was conducted to obtain the basic agronomic characteristics and cultivation information of Chinese foxglove. Morphological traits of several Chinese foxglove and their plant growth and yield were investigated under different environmental conditions. The tested lines exhibited clear morphological differences in leaves and roots representing their origins. Rapid root growth and weight increasement occurred in the middle of July. Optimum daylength and temperature conditions were investigated for the adequate plant growth of Chinese foxglove. Root growth was enhanced at (day/night) with 13 hours daylength condition. Appropriate soil moisture and soil texture were and loam soil, respectively.


The special means of transportation introduced to improve the mobility of the transportation vulnerable met the number of legal standards in 2016, but lack of development in terms of quality, such as the existence of long waiting times. In order to streamline the operation of special means of transportation, long-term standby traffic, which is the top 25% of the wait time, was extracted from the Daegu Metropolitan Government's special transportation history data, and spatial autocorrelation analysis and social network analysis were conducted. As a result of the analysis, the correlation between the average waiting time of special transportation users and the space was high. As a result of the analysis of internal degree centrality, the peak time zone is mainly visited by general hospitals, while the off-peak time zone shows high long-term waiting demand for visits by lawmakers. The analysis of external degree centrality showed that residential-based traffic demand was high in both peak and off-peak hours. The results of this study are considered to contribute to the improvement of the quality of the operation of special transportation means, and the academic implications and limitations of the study are also presented.


Pseudotumor trochanteric region after hip replacement is rarely described in the literature. The cause of the tumor is not clear. Metalosis that occurred in this case was established as a result of increased abrasion artificial elements on the border of metal-polyethylene articulation. Authors depict stages of proceedings and they give possible reasons for the treatment of patients after total different joints.


General characteristics of shale oil, distribution of oil-bearing shale in the world, technologies of oil extraction from oil-bearing shale, ecological problems which are connected with shale oil miming, are discussed in this article.


This paper presents a monocular camera and inertial measurement unit (IMU) fusion technique using Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) with delay in landmark initialization to address the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem for single smartphone. The dynamic model of the EKF is chosen to be constant acceleration while the velocity of the system is constantly monitored in order to have enough overlap between consecutive camera frames. Moreover inconsistency in SLAM algorithm due to heading error is removed by utilizing magnetometer measurement model. The use of data association technique ensures that the final map solution is robust and consistent even in complex environment. For fast and robust features matching, the Speed-Up Robust Features (SURF) extraction algorithm followed by random sample consensus (RANSAC) method is applied on camera frames. The extracted features from SURF algorithm are related to ground plane, since the system moves parallel to the ground. The experimental results illustrate the performance of the monocular-IMU SLAM over long walked trajectories in indoor environment.


Indigenous people are defined as social groups with a social and cultural identity distinct from the dominant society which makes them vulnerable to being disadvantaged in the development process. The health issue of these people has been neglected for a long time; however international attention seems to be rising. This paper reviews the principles programs and activities of the UN and its allies concerning the health of indigenous people around the world. At the international level commitments from the International Labor Organization the WHO the Earth Summit the Vienna Conference on Human Rights the International Conference on Population and Development the Beijing Conference the World Summit for Social Development and the Geneva Declaration are noted. In Nepal policies and plans have been adopted in its overall development plan for indigenous people; however they were not translated into the program effectively. In addition there is a lack of institutional as well as financial provisions to substantiate the policies and plans into programs. In view of such policy-makers and concerned bodies are called to give proper attention to the health of indigenous people while formulating national policies in the context of Nepal.


We consider a multiple pendulum of equal segments in the plane under homogeneous gravity whose support is horizontally driven by a high frequency and low umplitade harmonie evcitation. With the help of the averaging method we are able to describe the motion in an effective potential landscape. Above some threshold of the exciting frequency one observes a migration effect. Then new artificial stable equilibrium positions occur coincidently for all segments. Moreover, stable folded configurations are possible whose observation needs some preparation of the initial state. The stable states can be classified according to their energies.


Ellen Gleditsch (1879–1968) became Norway's first authority on radioactivity and the country's second female full professor. From her many years abroad—in Marie Curie's laboratory in Paris and at Yale University in New Haven with Bertram Boltram—she became internationally acknowledged and developed an extensive personal and scientific network. In the Norwegian scientific community she was, however, less appreciated, and her appointment as a professor in 1929 caused controversy. Despite the recommendation of the expert committee, her predecessor and his allies spread the view that Gleditsch was a diligent but outdated researcher with little scientific promise—a view that apparently persists in the Norwegian chemical community today. In addition to her scientific work, Gleditsch acquired political influence by joining the International Federation of University Women in 1920; she later became the president of both the Norwegian section and the worldwide organization. She worked in particular to establish scholarships enabling women to go abroad. I once worked with a learned man who was reputed to hate women. On one occasion he stated that the new collaborator was a rare exception. When he was asked why he said, "She does not scream." I heard this several months later and have kept it as a great compliment; yes—the biggest in my scientific career. —Ellen Gleditsch I once worked with a learned man who was reputed to hate women. On one occasion he stated that the new collaborator was a rare exception. When he was asked why he said, "She does not scream." I heard this several months later and have kept it as a great compliment; yes—the biggest in my scientific career. —Ellen Gleditsch


This paper describes a method for multi-document update summarization that relies on a double maximization criterion. A Maximal Marginal Relevance like criterion, modified and so called Smmr, is used to select sentences that are close to the topic and at the same time, distant from sentences used in already read documents. Summaries are then generated by assembling the high ranked material and applying some ruled-based linguistic post-processing in order to obtain length reduction and maintain coherency. Through a participation to the Text Analysis Conference (TAC) 2008 evaluation campaign, we have shown that our method achieves promising results.


This paper is a study of the oscillatory and asymptotic behavior of solutions of the second order, nonhomogeneous linear differential equation $( {r( x )y'} )^\prime + q( x )y = f( x )$, and the associated homogeneous equation $( {r( x )u'} )^\prime + q( x )u = 0$. Conditions are determined, under which the nonhomogeneous equation is oscillatory if and only if the homogeneous equation is oscillatory. Separation theorems for these two equations are also established.


BACKGROUND Follicular lymphoma (FL) is more common in lymph nodes, while primary extranodal lymphomas are rare. Urinary tract lymphoid neoplasms are extremely rare, accounting for less than 5% of all extranodal lymphomas. Only one case of FL from the renal pelvis has previously been reported. CASE SUMMARY A 70-year-old male patient with a history of esophageal cancer visited our hospital for follow-up examination. Abdominal computed tomography revealed a malignant mass in the right renal pelvis. The whole-body positron emission tomography/computed tomography showed a significant increase in fluorodeoxyglucose uptake of this soft tissue mass and no abnormal fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in the esophageal wall. The patient underwent radical resection of a malignant tumor in the right kidney, which was confirmed by postoperative pathology to be FL. The patient received no radiation or chemotherapy after surgery, and no recurrence of lymphoma or other malignant tumors was found at the 1-year follow-up. CONCLUSION Extranodal FL is more common in the skin and gastrointestinal tract but rarely occurs in the urinary tract. This is the second report of primary renal FL. Localized extranodal FL is expected to have a favorable prognosis and can be cured by local resection.


COMMUNIST dogma, which is the state credo of the U. S. S. R., calls for a society based on large-scale industry. From the standpoint of practical politics also the Soviet Government requires a dominating urban proletariat as the basis of its power. Again, the leaders of the first Socialist commonwealth wish to make the U. S. S. R. as independent of surrounding capitalist countries as possible, and finally, there is the question of national defense. The Soviet Government lives in the fear of capitalistic attack. The headlong speed of industrialization has been as much due to the desire for a strong national defense as to all other factors. Of course the idea of industrializing Russia is not new, nor a Soviet invention. Men of the old Russia, like the great chemist, Mendeleeff, and the statesman, Witte, preached that the backward Russian Empire could not advance—nor even provide for its multiplying population— as a purely agrarian ...


Three areas of technology required for automated deburring, chamfering, and blending of machined edges are discussed. They are the automatic programming of robot trajectories and deburring processes using information derived from a CAD database, the use of machine vision for locating the workpiece coupled with force control to ensure proper tool contact, and in-process automated inspection of the formed edge. A description is given of the laboratory at which the work was performed and of results from edge finishing experiments


Biological motion recognition refers to our ability to recognize a scene (motion or movement) based on the evolution of a limited number of points acquired for instance with a motion capture tool. Much work has been done in this direction showing how it is possible to recognize actions based on these points. Following the reference work of Giese and Poggio (2003), we propose an alternative approach to extract such points from a video based on spiking neural networks with rank order coding. We use some recent results of Thorpe et al. (2001), who claim that the neural information is coded by the relative order in which these neurons fire. This allows selecting a limited set of relevant points to be used in the motion classification. Several experiments and comparisons with previous work are proposed. The result of these simulations is that information from early visual processes appears to be sufficient to classify biological motion.


WITH THE SUPPORT AND INPUT OF : Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPiH) • Association for Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) • Australian Society for Simulation in Healthcare (ASSH) • Brasilian Association for Simulation in Health (Abrassim) • Canadian Network for Simulation in Healthcare (CNSH) • Dutch Society for Simulation in Healthcare (DSSH) • International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation in Learning (INACSL) • International Pediatric Simulation Society (IPSS) • Japan Society for Instructional Systems in Healthcare (JSISH) • Korean Society for Simulation in Healthcare (KoSSH) • Latin American Association for Clinical Simulation (ALASIC) • New Zealand Association for Simulation in Healthcare (NZASH) • Pan Asia Society for Simulation in Healthcare (PASSH) • Polish Society of Medical Simulation (PSMS) • Portuguese Society for Simulation (SPSim) • Russian Society for Simulation Education in Medicine (ROSOMED) • Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine (SESAM) • Spanish Society of Clinical Simulation and Patient Safety (SESSEP) A project of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare


The article discloses cultural establishments resources provisioning and specific contribution of the Chelyabinsk region administration to support cultural innovations from the places


For the die mould enterprise introducing robot cell to implement requirements of intelligent manufacture,a networking communication scheme of robot cell based on industrial Ethernet was proposed.The communication mechanisms between cell PC and robot,cell PC and machine tool,robot and machine tool were as the main emphases.Adopting bus topology structure to construct the communication network,the communication scheme was implemented based on industrial Ethernet of TCP/IP protocol in the communication and control,and it was applied in a die mould enterprise.


In order to increase the nonlinear fitting performance of functional link neural network (FLNN), a novel chebyshev functional link spline neural filter (CFLSNF) to apply in system identification is proposed. Compared with the weak nonlinearity and boundedness of the fixed activation function (e.g., <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$sigmoid$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$tanh$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), CFLSNF has stronger nonlinear approximation ability than FLNN due to the flexible interpolation ability of spline activation function. At the same time, the proposed CFLSNF eliminates the hidden layers by using Chebyshev polynomial to extend the input space into high dimensions, which shows certain computational advantages compared with the artificial neural network (ANN) structures. Moreover, to update the weights of the CFLSNF, the CFLSNF-LMS is also developed. The stability conditions and computational complexity are studied. Besides, in order to make CFLSNF structure suitable for impulsive noise interference environment, a robust algorithm based on maximum versoria criterion is also proposed. Finally, the validity of the proposed architecture and algorithm are verified by experiments.


To the problem of the poor anti-jamming performance and low accuracy of the traditional least square method to shape pattern recognition,and poor results of neural network methods in practical application,according to the requirements of the actual production of strip shape control,a model of soft measurement method is presented based on Legendre orthogonal polynomials as the basic defect shape model,using fuzzy classification theory combined with Chaotic optimization algorithms.The method is simple,practical with high accuracy, and the results are stable.Experiments show that the method can meet the high precise of the shape control pattern recognition accuracy and speed requirements.


Abstract— Intravenous infusion of the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor NG‐nitro‐l‐arginine methyl ester, l‐NAME (10 μg kg−1 min−1), to anaesthetized rats produced a diuresis and natriuresis. By contrast, infusion of the same dose of NG‐nitro‐d‐arginine methyl ester had no effect on either urine output or sodium excretion. The effects of l‐NAME were first evident 120 min after the start of infusion and by 170 min a fivefold increase in urine volume and sodium excretion was recorded. l‐NAME also produced a transient fall in inulin clearance and a persistent decline in renal blood flow. These renal effects of l‐NAME were associated with a gradual elevation of mean arterial blood pressure, although this only attained statistical significance, in comparison with saline‐infused animals, 170 min after the start of infusion. The findings indicate the diuresis and natriuresis evoked by l‐NAME in the rat is a result of a direct tubular action together with a pressure diuresis.


This paper centers around two basic problems of topological coin- cidence theory. First, try to measure (with the help of Nielsen and minimum numbers) how far a given pair of maps is from being loose, i.e. from being ho- motopic to a pair of coincidence free maps. Secondly, describe the set of loose pairs of homotopy classes. We give a brief (and necessarily very incomplete) survey of some old and new advances concerning the first problem. Then we attack the second problem mainly in the setting of homotopy groups. This leads also to a very natural filtration of all homotopy sets. Explicit calcula- tions are carried out for maps into spheres and projective spaces.


Remote sensing of the earth by satellites, piloted spaceships, and orbiting research stations has revealed new potential for flexible and worldwide surveying of the globe. Remote sensing means observations and measurements made with the use of space technology, facilitating the description of the conditions of formation and stratification of natural resources and distinctive features of phenomena of the environment surrounding the earth. (1) The information on land, ocean, and atmospheric targets collected by remote sensing may be of specific value to agriculture, geology, hydrology, oceanography, geography, cartography, etc.


The Jing-shi emergency water supply project of middle line of South-to-north Water Transfers Project is such a project,which adopts 2 rows of PCCP of 4m in diameter firstly in cur country.This project's pipe diameter is large,the line is long and the soil covered on the pipe is thick.The project scale is maximum,compared with other similar project in our country.The article states the quality control in key working procedure to manufacture PCCP of 4m in diameter.


Popular Universities are among institutions with over a century of existence are rooted in the ideals of the French Revolution. In many European and Latin American countries have been one of the props of popular education or continuing education, yet their appearance in history was at different times. Nor was driven in the same way in each place, but I was raised with similar objectives. Using a historical and comparative methodology study the origin of the Popular Universities in different European regions; genesis models studied are: the Danish origin, French origin and of British origin. Will conduct a descriptive study of the genesis models, and later make a comparison. To establish the similarities and differences between them. The analysis of the results leads us to make conclusions.


Introduced hardware and software of a automatic meter reading system based on GPRS;Using uC/0S-II operating system + uip protocol to achieve GPRS communication.Using SQL data to achieve the PC management software of meter reading,thus achieving the purpose of automatic meter reading.


In this work, the band alignments of GxZ1‐xOy/a‐IGZO heterojunctions with different Ga contents (x) are investigated by X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It is found that for increasing Ga content, the valence‐band offset is monotonically reduced, whereas the conduction‐band offset is continuously increased. Moreover, the band alignment changes from type I to II. The variation of band alignment is mainly attributed to the band bending at the interface of the heterojunction, which can be traced back to oxygen vacancies for higher Ga content, rather than enlarged bandgap. As a result, G0.47Z0.53O1.14/a‐IGZO heterojunction exhibites a more ideal band alignment structure, which can favor the formation of two‐dimensional electron gas. In summary, it is found that the band alignment of GxZ1‐xOy/a‐IGZO heterojunction can be effectively tailored by its Ga content, thus providing a method to achieve high‐performance a‐IGZO‐based modulation‐doped transistors.


Engle'sA RCH algorithm isa generatorofstochastic tim eseriesfor(cid:12)nancialreturns(and sim ilar quantities) characterized by a tim e-dependent variance. It involves a m em ory param eter b ( b = 0 corresponds to no m em ory ),and the noise is currently chosen to be G aussian. W e assum e here a generalized noise,nam ely q n -G aussian,characterized by an index q n 2 R ( q n = 1 recovers the G aussian case,and q n > 1 corresponds to tailed distributions). W e then m atch the second and fourth m om enta ofthe A RCH return distribution with those associated with the q -G aussian distribution obtained through optim ization oftheentropy S q = 1 (cid:0) P i p iq q (cid:0) 1 ,basisofnonextensivestatistical m echanics. The outcom e is an analytic distribution for the returns,where an unique q (cid:21) q n corresponds to each pair ( b;q n )( q = q n if b = 0). This distribution is com pared with num ericalresults and appearsto berem arkably precise.Thissystem constitutesa sim ple,low-dim ensional,dynam ical m echanism which accom m odates wellwithin the currentnonextensive fram ework.


Model checking is a well known formal technique for systems verification and its main challenge is state explosion. Assume-guarantee is a promising way to deal with this challenge, but in the compositional reasoning process we should provide assumption for the model to be verified. Traditionally the assumption is given manually, which constrains its practice application. There are some automatic assumption generation ways based learning algorithm which are time consuming and inefficient. In this paper, we will introduce reachability assume-guarantee reasoning for property equal to some target states' reachability. We will generate assumption automatically in liner time. The key idea of our approach is getting all the conditions what the property verification needs and which are contained in an automaton. And then we condense the automaton to a complete and non-redundant assumption. Finally we verify the assumption automaton on environment model. In our approach, we will improve the efficiency of assume-guarantee reasoning.


Case Description- Olecranon fractures are frequently encountered in horses especially in foals. External trauma due to kicks or falls is the most common cause of the fracture. Treatment modalities of olecranon fractures including prolonged stall rest and surgical reconstruction of the different types of fractures have been proposed with different outcomes. Clinical findings-The horse displayed a 75-day duration of right forelimb lameness while galloping. According to the owner the horse had stumbled on his right forelimb and found 2 days in a non-weight bearing stance with a painful swelling felt on the right elbow on palpation.Treatment and Outcome-This article described nonsurgical management of an olecranon fracture in an adult horse subjected to 2 months complete stall rest. The horse regained soundness and performed his job normally. Clinical relevance- Information regarding the history, clinical signs, diagnosis, management and long-term prognosis were discussed and compared with the current literature. Uncomplicated olecranon fractures with late referral to the clinic may go unnoticed because of no lameness in physical examinations.


A novel approach to realization of slot-coupled-line directional couplers providing greater design flexibility, especially for higher frequency ranges, has been proposed. It has been shown that isolation and coupling level of the directional coupler can be improved by insertion of two uncoupled transmission lines of appropriate electrical lengths and impedance in-between two slot-coupled-line sections. The presented approach has been verified by EM simulations and measurements of 3-dB coupler operating at the center frequency f0 = 24 GHz.