Extraordinary gains have been made over the past 50 years in meeting the family planning needs of millions of people throughout the world. Currently, 56% of all married women are using a modern method of contraception (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2011), up from less than 10% in 1960 (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2004). This increase is driven by a growing demand for modern methods of contraception but has only been made a reality through the availability of and access to contraceptive supplies and health workers qualified to provide family planning services. Use of nearly all methods of modern contraception requires contact with a health worker—a doctor, nurse, midwife, community health worker, or pharmacist. As a result, access to trained health workers is a principal supply-side determinant of family planning service use. Although 13% of the world's population is located in sub-Saharan Africa (Population Reference Bureau 2011), less than 3% of the world's health workers are located on the subcontinent according to the most recent estimates (World Health Organization 2006). This lack of access to health workers is especially acute in sub-Saharan Africa where only 19% of married women use a modern method of contraception, the lowest regional contraceptive prevalence rate in the world (Population Reference Bureau 2011).


Focus group discussions conducted in Cameroon among participants in community networks known as tontines confirmed the potential of these associations to serve as channels for the dissemination of family planning information. Tontines are voluntary credit and thrift associations with both social and economic functions. Ten Yaounde-based tontines representative of Cameroons ethnic diversity were selected for inclusion and provided with discussion guides covering topics such as gender roles family decision making and contraceptive usage. A total of 94 women (6-12 from each tontine) were interviewed. With the exception of one group that was comprised of Moslems there was a remarkable convergence of opinions and perceptions. The focus groups identified massive layoffs and salary cuts as the most pressing social problem in Cameroon and indicated the economic crisis had forced many women to enter the labor force. Despite womens increased financial responsibilities their role was still perceived as primarily domestic; family decision-making power remained the domain of men. With the exception of Moslem women who felt women should marry at age 16 years and work only in the helping professions participants tended to favor postponement of marriage until completion of a secondary education. As a result of widespread unemployment husbands are reportedly more concerned about family size limitation. In most households women are empowered to make family planning decisions. Although natural family planning method use predominates focus group participants expressed interest in access to modern methods. Finally participants indicated that tontines represent the most effective and efficient channel for the transmission of family planning information.


Chapter 1 Wind-forced strong wave interactions and quasi-local equilibrium between wind and windsea with the friction velocity proportiionality Chapter 2 On the mathematics and approximation of the nonlinear wave-wave interactions. Chapter 3 Relating nonlinear energy cascades to wind input and wave breaking dissipation. Chapter 4 Turbulence of capillary waves - theory and numerical simulation. Chapter 5 The repsonse of waves to a sudden change in wind speed. Chapter 6 Wind wave nonlinear interactions owing to drift current: formation of the angular spectrum, wave groups and Lanmuir circulations. Chapter 7 Direct modeling of one-dimensional nonlinear potential waves.


This paper describes the procedure developed by Cooper-Bessemer for large bore gas engines to calculate the knock rating of gas fuel blends and to predict with accuracy the required engine build to use that fuel with optimum detonation margin. Engine prototype test work has included fuel sensitivity tests mapped as a function of compression ratio, fuel air ratio, ignition advance, combustion air temperature, and engine rating. Success in predicting production engine operation for a given application involving a particular fuel blend has been gratifying. The basic reference method blend selected was normal Butane in Methane. Details are included in the paper to illustrate the problems in making sensitivity correlations between small bore fuels research engines and large bore production engines.


The article deals with the analysis of concepts of natural phenomena which are employed to verbalize the concept of Brexit from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The research is performed using different approaches: from etymological origin to functional dynamics. For this purpose the archetypal symbols of Light and Darkness are chosen. The study is based on the online resources of modern English language media, covering the issues related to politics and economy. Correspondingly, the aspects of the concept of Brexit which are illustrated through the prism of archetypal symbols and are consequentially analyzed scrutinize the consequences of the Brexit transition period. As a matter of fact, the archetypal symbols of Light and Darkness are referred to so as to determine the characteristic features of the emotional, epistemological, ethical, religious and ontological aspects of the withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union. The ensuing issues of this complicated process are also elucidated. Their etymological specificity and semantic functions are analyzed along with the description of their distinguishing characteristics. It has been established that the archetypal symbols under consideration are not mutually exclusive, but on the contrary are closely intertwined and complementary, thus giving a more vivid, complete and understandable description of multiple aspects of Brexit.


The concept for the combination of a high resolution scanner with the software Fibreshape for measuring industrial fibre width is presented. Due to the easy and fast sample preparation a high amount of fibre can be scanned and measured which results in a high statistical accuracy. Futhermore, the system gives information about the distribution of fibre width. The results of measured polyamide fibre samples with very different width values highly correlate with dtex values. Fibreshape is a cost efficient, easily applicable and reliable solution for measuring fibre width.


Background and Objectives:Hyperacusis, defined as increased sound sensitivity or decreased sound tolerence, has been reported to be related to tinnitus. The purposes of this study are to investigate the audiometrical characterization of hyperacusis and to evaluate the possible effect of hyperacusis on clinical presentation in tinnitus patients. Materials and Method:A total of 128 tinnitus patients, who visited the Tinnitus Clinic, Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital from May, 1999 to September, 2000, were included in this study. Their audiometrical study results were analyzed, and their hearing impairment was compared with those of normal controls. Results:The prevalence of hyperacusis in the patients with tinnitus were as high as 37.8% according to the questionnare. Uncomfortable loudness levels to pure tone stimuli was significantly low in hyperacusis patients. In the tinnitus patients with normal hearing, the tinnitus handicap scores between hyperacusis and non-hyperacusis patients were significantly different, though the results of tinnitogram showed no difference. Conclusion:The hyperacusis test using pure tone stimuli may screen hyperacusic patients. It is necessary to consider the presence of hyperacusis in tinnitus patients so as to understand patient discomfort and to seek appropriate treatment modality


rows, quail, lizards, fish, and fruit flies. These two issues reflect a major objective of the JBR, and the organization that edits and selects papers for this journal, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms: to serve as a vehicle for integrating the findings from basic research on plants and animals with studies on human biological rhythms. The fact that one issue was devoted to human rhythms, while the other to nonhuman rhythms, should not be interpreted to indicate that the study of human and nonhuman rhythms represents two nonoverlapping fields. Indeed, I hope the readers of this issue will go back to the last one and consider how the study of the effects of light on nonhuman rhythms underlies the entire field of the effects of light on the human sleepwake cycle, as well as other human biological rhythms. Similarly, when examining the articles in this issue, the reader is encouraged to reflect on how these


Objectives: In a recent safety study we analyzed the effect of inhaled interferon-g (IFN-g) on pulmonary function and local lung environment before and after therapy.  One patient was followed for seven years while receiving inhaled therapy. Methods: Ten patients with IPF received inhaled IFN-g µg 3x/week for 80-130 weeks.  Deposition of radiolabeled IFN-g in the lungs was determined using a gamma camera.  Full PFTs were measured 20-50 weeks before and monthly during treatment. One patient was maintained on therapy and had serial PFT and lung imaging for seven years. Bronchoalveolar lavage was performed before and during therapy. Results: All patients tolerated at least 80 weeks of inhaled IFN-g  well, with no systemic side effects.  Deposition in the lungs averaged 65.4±4.8µg.  FVC and DLCO steadily declined in the months before inhaled IFN-g  therapy.  After initiation of inhaled IFN-g , there was a significant improvement in slope of the DLCO. (p =0.03).  Changes in TLC, FRC, RV and FVC were not significant. BAL IFN-g  increased 60-fold and profibrotic cytokines (FGP-2, Flt-3 ligand, IL-5) were significantly decreased; IFN-g  plasma levels were unchanged. Long-term therapy was associated with stability in lung physiology and radiographic imaging Conclusions: Inhaled targeted anti-fibrotic therapy with IFN-g  is safe with no systemic side effects in IPF over many months to years of therapy. High drug levels in the lung achieved by directed therapy are associated with immunomodulation and local anti-fibrotic effects.


Fracture healing is a complex process in which mechanical forces are essential for the regeneration of bone tissue. Mechanical loading can induce osteogenesis through the process of mechanotransduction. Current data on how mechanical loading stimulates fracture healing in weight-bearing long bones are presented. Biomechanical concepts of fracture healing are discussed from a clinical perspective.


The hypoglycemic effects of Irvingia grandifolia is documented. While medicinal plant may have recognizable therapeutic effect, it may also have few toxic side-effects. The use of Irvingia grandifolia has been found to be effective in the management of diabetes mellitus but the effect of this herb on plasma urea, creatinine concentrations and white blood cell count has not been studied so far. The effect was investigated and found out that there is no damaging effect of the herb on plasma creatinine concentration based on student distribution (t-test) on the treated animals. Also, there is no significant effect of the herb extract on plasma urea concentration, white blood cell count (total and differential) also found from student distribution (t-test) after comparing treated animals with control animals.


In this short paper, I address the question of how propositional revelation was understood by thinkers involved in the Deist controversy in Early Modern Britain and Ireland. I argue that, characteristically for the time, they relied on ideational theory of meaning and, accordingly, explained the content of propositional revelation in terms of subjective mental entities.


The chaos theory and artificial neural networks(ANNs) are combined to establish a chaotic ANNs model for runoff forecast.The chaos theory′s phase space reconstruction is used to calculate saturated embedding dimensions which are served as the number of input layer neurons of ANNs.Then the number of output layer neurons is determined according to prediction step size of the model.The daily discharge time series of Sanmenxia station in the main stream of Yellow River is simulated and forecasted,from which the satisfactory results are obtained.The research provides a new way for rivers runoff forecast.


This paper reports the findings of a perception study of reflection yielded from a cohort of engineering students before and after taking a technical English course. The course required that students take part in out-of-class learning in the form of self-access and reflection to improve and refine the skills taught, practised and assessed in class. Two online questionnaire surveys were administered to all the course participants (n = 446), the first one before the course began and the other after the course ended, with a view to tracing changes in the learners' perceptions of reflection as a way of determining the success of integrating reflection into the course. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with nine course participants to probe for reasons behind changes in perceptions (if any). The results showed that, in general, the course heightened course participants' awareness of (1) the relevance and usefulness of reflection to language enhancement, (2) the invaluable presence of 'others' in reflection as opposed to seeing it as a solitary act, and (3) the various ways of initiating reflection.


Agricultural co-operatives belonged among the most significant employers in the agricultural sector of Slovakia in the period before 1989. In addition to their production function, they played a very important social and demographic function, especially in rural areas, helping to stop or, at least, to slow the trend of the depopulation of these areas, as well as delivering significant support to employment policy. The number of agricultural co-operatives has been continuously decreasing, but they still provide, in comparison to other businesses in the agricultural sector, most of the job opportunities. The aim of this article is to assess the extent to which a particular co-operative employs the inhabitants of a region and whether there is a link between the development of employment in that region and the co-operative that operates there. For practical research, the particular region of Nitra county has been chosen, as it is a significant agricultural area and since the decrease of the workforce in agriculture has a negative impact on the economic and social situation of the wider region.


In this paper two successive long-duration experiments for the observation of deuteron-deuteron (d-d) fusion neutrons emanating from a massive palladium slab are described. The experimental effects observed are discussed through the use of a simple plasmalike model for the time dependence of fusion reactions in condensed matter, which is modified for a plane geometry. This results in a plasma fusion rate of {lambda}{sup Pl}{sub d-d} = (1.0 {+-} 0.15) {times} 10{sup {minus}44}s{sup {minus}1}. While plasmalike behavior leading to observable d-d fusion reaction intensities occurs temporarily, under nonequilibrium conditions of electrolytic charging only, for permanently occurring d-d molecular fusion in the fully loaded palladium slab from the experiments, only an upper limit can be set, which is given by {Lambda}{sup d-d} {lt} 10{sup {minus}26}s{sup {minus}1}.


Contents Preface Medical Pluralism in the Twentieth Century Self-Care as Primary Health Care: Use by Holistic Health Advocates Reacting to the Medical Bureaucracy: Lay Midwifery as a Birthing Alternative A Life Perspective on Hospice and the Family Traditional Medicine in American Families: Reliance on the Wisdom of Elders Mutual Support Groups for Families of the Mentally Ill Amniocentesis and the Social Construction of Pregnancy The Treatment Act: A Model With Focal, Behavioral and Symbolic Dimensions The Aesclepian: An Ancient Model for Health Maintenance Glossary


In the title compound, C21H16N2O2, the five-membered heterocyclic ring makes a dihedral angle of 47.06 (6)° with the attached benzene ring, whereas the indan-1,3-dione ring system and the benzene ring are oriented at a dihedral angle of 21.92 (7)°. In the crystal, inversion dimers linked by pairs of C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds generate R 2 2(22) loops. Aromatic π–π stacking interactions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.8325 (12)–3.8600 (12) Å] also occur.


Applying a new decomposition method to U.S. PSID and Danish Longitudinal Sample data, the authors compare how U.S. and Danish gender wage gaps developed between 1983 and 1995. In Denmark, they find, the wage gap widened, because the worsening in women's relative returns to observable human capital attributes, as well as in their ranking relative to men in unobservable productive attributes, more than offset their wage gains from improved observable qualifications relative to men's. In the United States, in contrast, the gender convergence in qualifications offset adverse influences, including increasing wage dispersion throughout the labor market, to result in a narrowing of the gap. The largest increase in the gap in Denmark was experienced by women in the top earnings decile, and the largest decline in the gap in the United States affected those at the top and in the middle of the distribution.


The paper discusses the academic entrepreneurship and its public (institutions) and private (personal) forms. We argue that academic entrepreneurship should involve activities and organizational structures, which are not targeting profit. Then - about the unsuitability of Decree N 61 of May 2, 200 on the terms and conditions for the creation of commercial companies by public higher education institutions for the purposes of the economic realization.


A systematic study of dominant program-disturb mechanisms in advanced embedded split-gate SuperFlash memory across ambient temperature ranging from -45°C to 175°C is presented. At low temperatures program disturb is initiated by trap-assisted band-to-band tunneling in the split-gate channel area and/or trap-assisted tunneling via thin select gate oxide and at high temperatures - by surface generation in select-gate channel. Effects of single traps on program disturb in split-gate memory have been analyzed. Good quality of thin select gate oxide and its interface with channel is important to meet stringent requirements of the wide-temperature embedded memory applications.


To cause disease, the important human enteropathogen Clostridioides difficile must colonize the gastro-intestinal tract but little is known on how this organism senses and responds to the harsh host environment to adapt and multiply. Nucleotide second messengers are signaling molecules used by bacteria to respond to changing environmental conditions. In this study, we showed for the first time that c-di-AMP is produced by C. difficile and controls the uptake of potassium, making it essential for growth. We found that c-di-AMP is involved in biofilm formation, cell wall homeostasis, osmotolerance as well as detergent and bile salt resistance in C. difficile. In a colonization mouse model, a strain lacking GdpP, a c-di-AMP degrading enzyme, failed to persist in the gut in contrast to the parental strain. We identified OpuR as a new regulator that binds c-di-AMP and represses the expression of the compatible solute transporter OpuC. Interestingly, an opuR mutant is highly resistant to a hyperosmotic or bile salt stress compared to the parental strain while an opuCA mutant is more susceptible A short exposure of C. difficile cells to bile salts resulted in a decrease of the c-di-AMP concentrations reinforcing the hypothesis that changes in membrane characteristics due to variations of the cellular turgor or membrane damages constitute a signal for the adjustment of the intracellular c-di-AMP concentration. Thus, c-di-AMP is a signaling molecule with pleiotropic effects that controls osmolyte uptake to confer osmotolerance and bile salt resistance in C. difficile and that is important for colonization of the host. One Sentence Summary c-di-AMP is an essential regulatory molecule conferring resistance to osmotic and bile salt stresses by controlling osmolyte uptake and contributing to gut persistence in the human enteropathogen Clostridioides difficile.


A fully parallel algorithm for updating and downdating the singular value decompositions (SVD's) of an m-by-n(m≥n) matrix A is described. The algorithm uses similar chasing techniques for modifying the SVD's described in [3], but requires fewer plane rotations, and can be implemented almost identically for both updating and downdating. Both cyclic and consecutive storage schemes are considered in parallel implementation. We show that the latter scheme outperforms the former on a distributed memory MIMD multiprocessor. We present the experimental results on the 32-node Connection Machine (CM-5).


In this supplementary document, we provide more implementation details of our method, names of the sequences used in the experiments on the Oxford RobotCar dataset, more analysis and visualization of the experimental results presented in the main paper, and the detailed derivation of pose-graph optimization (PGO) in MapNet+PGO. Please also refer to the supplementary video for more visualizations of the camera localization results.


This study aims to find the values of moral education (ahklaq) and describe the characteristics of the characters who appear in the Hafalan Shalat Delisa novel and its relevance in the current era of globalization. It is a library research, whereas the data collection uses documentary method, data analysis uses content analysis. The results obtained from this study are: (1) moral values education contained in the novel include the educational value towards: a) God (prayer, dhikr, and pray to Allah, upright accept acts of God, fear of God's torture, and fear of losing the God's grace), b) family (mutual respect, devotion, love and care for his family), c) self or ahklaq Mahmudah namely: (impatient, upright, gratitude, optimism, mutual help, hard work, and discipline) and ahklaq madzmumah (ignorant, stubborn, lying and jealousy) d) family (conjugal affection rights, the rights of the husband and wife together, birul walidain) e) environment (nurture and care all created by Allah SWT well). (2) Characteristics of the existing characters in the novel such as Delisa, the errant six years old girl who has different characteristics with children in her age in the case of curiosity, the character Ummi Salamah is a wife as well as good mother (shalihah) who possess high discipline in educating her children. (3) The relevance of educational values in globalization era is the importance of moral education. Through the character education curriculum as well as moral education as early as possible either at home, school, environment, and society to overcome moral decadence.


The central role of lymphoid cells in tumor immunity and allograft rejection has been well documented." the mechanism of how in these systems


This paper investigates a relationship between central bank interest rate (PRIBOR3M) and housing (mortgage) cycles in the Czech economy. The aim is to determine whether central bank's interest rate is leading indicator for monitoring housing cycles. To assess the crucial role of interest rate in the set of mortgage interest rates is used methodology of leading indicator applied by OECD. Moreover, the crosscorrelation approach identifies the relationship between quarterly interest rate and the following individual variables: house price index, average mortgage interest rate, average fixed 1, 3 and 5 year mortgage interest rates, number of new mortgages, volume of new mortgages, average mortgage amount and mortgage installment. The data set covers a period between 2006:Q1 and 2016:Q3. The results of the paper will be used for later research and modelling of the housing sector in the Czech economy.


Muslim rulers and law enforcers used coercion as an evidentiary method for criminal cases during the Abbasid period. These coercive procedures consisted of imprisonment, threats of beatings, and lashings. Coercive interrogations were shaped by the practices of the shurṭa (criminal magistrates and police chiefs), based on military methods, administrative precedents, and discretion, not on fiqh (Islamic substantive law). In the Abbasid era (300–500 A.H./900–1100 C.E.), government officials, such as Ibn Wahb (d. after 335/946), and even some jurists, particularly the chief judge al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058), legitimized these coercive practices by framing their use as a matter determined by authority and jurisdiction. By tracing the military-administrative genealogy of coercion, I seek to examine the methods and reasoning that constituted the criminal justice system that came to be known as siyāsa. Drawing on various administrative and literary sources, I examine a history of coercion in Islamic law beyond fiqh.


This study investigates different samurais' choices and their fates in the anime series "Rurouni Kenshin." In this study, by analyzing different samurai figures in the anime as they go through the changes from the Edo to the Meiji era, the samurai show different ways of reflecting on their own perceptions and traditional bushido: Himura Kenshin reflects on the situation brought to the people by the times and his own samurai identity, and finally chooses to pursue benevolence and not to kill anymore; Saito Hajime keeps the traditional spirit of bushido but blends it with the new era; Shishio Makoto rejects most of the traditional concepts of bushido and is willing to change from being a samurai to being an emperor through his ability and ambition. Most of the previous studies of Bushido focused on the characteristics, the history and trajectory of the formation of Bushido spirit. When studying Bushido in animation, previous studies tended to look for the embodiment of Bushido culture in animation, but fewer focused on the changes of Bushido culture in animation. This study provides a new perspective on examining the impact of changing time using Japanese anime.


The present work describes the type B uncertainty analysis for the environmental quantities monitored by a solar station. Type B in our case represents the random effects of sensor and data logger on the measuring system by rounding resolution and noise, and should be as low as possible. It is performed in order to comply with ISO technical recommendations and also academic purposes. Special care should be taken if this report is used as an example for uncertainty analysis of similar stations because it depends on configuration, calibration certificates, data loggers specs, acquisition setup and so on. By the end of work it will be possible to include the determined system uncertainty to the overall measured repeated data.


Objective To assess the diagnostic value of IGRA for latent tuberculosis infection in HIV patients.Methods We searched PubMed,EMBASE,Cochrane Library,CNKI,CSJD,and WANFANG(2010.3)to find all diagnostic tests about IGRAs in latent tuberculosis infection in HIV patients.Meta-Disc software 1.4 was used to handle data from included studies.Results Nine studies met the eligibility criteria and were included.Compared with TST,the summary values of sensitivity,specificity,positive likelihood ratio,negative likelihood ratio,OR,and SROC curve of QFT-G were 44%,91%,4.83,0.59,10.85,0.857 4 and T-SPOT.TB were 82%,75%,2.01,0.41,6.50,0.773 9 respectively.Conclusion IGRAs could be regarded as a differential diagnosis for latent tuberculosis infection in HIV groups,which need to be studied further in future because of the limitation of included studies in small sample and quality.


Objective To discussion the clinical characteristics and etiology of external ophthalmoplegia. Methods Collected and retrospectively analyzed the etiology and clinical characteristic of 257 external ophthalmoplegia patients. Records of the patient history, clinical manifestations and corresponding neurological department of internal medicine, Ophthalmology, Endocrinology and Radiographic examination. Results Simple ptosis in 80 cases, 131 cases of simple binocular diplopia, ptosis and diplopia in 39 cases, 7 cases of eyeball fixation. 223 cases of unilateral paralysis of extraocular muscle, 32 cases of bilateral extraocular muscle paralysis. The levator paralysis in 119 cases, unilateral put on 98 cases of eyelid muscle paralysis, bilateral put on 21 cases of eyelid muscle paralysis. 84 cases of lateral rectus muscle palsy, 56 cases of unilateral lateral rectus muscle palsy, 6 cases of bilateral lateral rectus paralysis.178 cases of extraocular ophthalmoplegia of oculomotor control, 40 cases with complete paralysis, 117 cases with incomplete paralysis, combined with other extraocular ophthalmoplegia in 21 cases. Superior oblique palsy in 24 cases, alone of superior oblique palsy in 17 cases, combined with other extraocular ophthalmoplegia in 7 cases. 82 cases with orbital local pain, 12 cases with mydriasis. In 163 cases of ocular motor neuropathy patients, single oculomotor nerve palsy in 148 cases, accounting for 90.8%, 15 cases of multiple oculomotor nerve paralysis, 9.2%. Eye movement nerve injury in 110 cases, accounting for 67.5%, 16 cases, nuclear damage was 9.8%, between nuclear damage in 13 cases, accounting for 8%, nuclear damage 24 cases accounted for 14.7%.There are 14 kinds of external ophthalmoplegia etiology in this group. including myasthenia gravis, diabetic oculomotor nerve injury, atherosclerosis and ischemic ocular motor nerve injury, local nonspecific inflammatory, traumatic, local space-occupying lesions, thyroid disease, Increased intracranial pressure, intracranial posterior communicating artery aneurysm, Mitochondrial myopathy, carotid cavernous fistula, distant parts of the tumor, multiple sclerosis, local injection of botulinum toxin, progressive muscular dystrophy. In 86 cases with hypertension, 72 cases with diabetes, 22 cases of diabetes is found for the first time, 15 cases had paralysis of external ophthalmoplegia. Conclusions The main symptoms of ocular muscle paralysis is binocular diplopia and ptosis, The incidence of unilateral external ophthalmoplegia was higher than bilateral extraocular muscle paralysis, Oculomotor nerve innervation of extraocular ophthalmoplegia was the highest, followed by lateral rectus paralysis, paralysis of the superior oblique lower. Orbital pain and pupil change is paralysis of extraocular muscle common accompanied symptoms. Oculomotor nerve paralysis was the highest. Oculomotor nerve palsy with peripheral lesion was the highest. Patients with oculomotor nerve ophthalmoplegia in patients with a higher proportion of hypertension and Diabetes,. Extraocular muscle paralysis patients need regular inspections of fasting and postprandial 2 hour blood glucose, Underwent thyroid function, orbital CT, head CT and /or MRI examination, neostigmine test for external ophthalmoplegia patients in routine. For the extraocular ophthalmoplegia patients with dilated pupil, suggest underwent the DSA to exclusion the intracranial aneurysm.


Summary: To encourage each other to do better science, my lab has put together a checklist of goals and guidelines for scientific papers. Our focus is on encouraging best practices for open science and statistical rigor.


This letter presents a low-power current-reuse and device-reuse low noise amplifier (LNA) for sub-GHz wideband applications. Based on the shunt-feedback common-gate (SFBCG) hybrid topology and the proposed current/device-reuse shunt-feedback (SFB) technique, $g_{m}$ restriction is alleviated. Moreover, the degree of design freedom is added by coupling the output to the gate of the in-phase current source transistor to activate positive feedback without extra power burden, thereby achieving a higher gain and lower noise design. Implemented in 90-nm CMOS technology, this LNA prototype has an active area of 0.075 mm2. The measurement results show a peak gain of 21.3 dB with 3-dB bandwidth of 50–800 MHz, noise figure of 4.5 dB, third-order intercept point (IIP3) of −7.1 dBm, and power dissipation of 1.2 mW.


This article presents an adaptive control strategy to stabilize a micro quadrotor in all three axes using only an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for the attitude control and a monocular camera for canceling position drift. The proposed control scheme automatically determines the appropriate optical flow control gains. This is achieved by extending the stability-based approach to distance estimation developed in [1] to allow for the control of all three axes of a quadrotor. An analysis is done in simulation to present a proof of concept of the stabilization method and to determine the effects of scaling. Furthermore we verify the effects of varying effective camera frame rates and investigate how this control approach generalizes to smaller drone sizes. Actual flight tests are then performed on a Parrot ARDrone 2.0 and on a Parrot Bebop to show that both quadrotors achieve stable hover without position drift using only their IMU and bottom camera.


FIELD: process engineering. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to methods of glass-making sands processing for production of quartz concentrate. Proposed method comprises discharging glass-making sands from blending stack into bin with vibration grate of the screening Ist stage for removal of lumps exceeding 150 mm to be directed to fine and coarse crushing, feeding sand with humidity of 10% and 0.042 wt% of iron oxide from receiving bin by vibration feeder and belt conveyor to screening IInd stage for sizing to 50 mm on vibration screen. Plus thereof is directed to coarse and fine crushing while undersize is directed for drying in drum dryer. Quartz dust of -0.1-to-0mm-size containing 1.05 wt% of iron oxide is caught by dust arrester. Sands with moisture content of 0.5 wt% are fed after drying via directed chute onto vibration screen for I stage of sizing to 4 mm to produce plus directed by belt conveyor to fine and coarse crushing assembly for sizing to -4.0+0.0 mm fraction to be combined with undersize on classification I stage and fed into receiving device of continuous bucket elevator that feeds the product to belt conveyor and into working bin. Therefrom, material is fed via two distributors to classification II and III stages. Plus sized to -4.0+0.8 mm containing 0.035 wt% and plus of the -0.8+0.63 wt%-fraction containing 0.05 wt% of iron oxide is directed to appropriate finished product bin. Undersize of -0.63+0.1 mm is fed via directed chute to 1st stage of magnetic separation at magnetic induction of 0.4 Tl for removal of strong magnetic inclusions. Thereafter nonmagnetic sand fraction is fed to II stage of magnetic separation to remove submagnetic inclusions at induction of up to 1.7 Tl. Nonmagnetic fraction thereof is fed to IV vacuum classification stage to catch fractions of -0.16+0.1 mm containing 0.99 wt% of iron oxide that make finished product, that is, molding sand. After said vacuum classification, the -0.63+0.16 mm-sand fraction is isolated that contains 0.028 wt% of iron oxide making enriched quartz concentrate. EFFECT: higher quality and yield, reduced labour input.


In this paper, time-dependent results obtained from a simplified but nonlinear analytic similarity solution and a detailed numerical simulation are used to study the relations between the fundamental processes occurring in the very early stages of flame ignition in homogeneous premixed gases. The parameters which may be varied are the composition of the mixture, the initial radius of energy deposition R sub 0, the duration of the heating TAN SUB 0, and the total energy deposited in the system E sub 0. The similarity solution plus the ignition delay times Tau sub c for the fuel-oxidizer mixture as a function of temperature can be used to calculate whether or not a given energy source is adequate to ignite the system. This simple procedure may then be calibrated using the time-dependent NRL detailed reactive flow models. The models include the thermophysical properties of the mixture, a full chemical kinetics scheme, the nonlinear convection of self-consistent fluid dynamics and the matrix molecular diffusion coefficients for the individual species. Results are presented for a selected mixture of H2-O2-N2 for two values of R sub 0 which show that a model must be constructed for a quench volume in order to complete the similaritymore » solution calibration.« less


This chapter aligns scientific and pre-philosophical angles on history with various reflective and methodological considerations. The past, a philosophical puzzle at the best of times, presents itself to us in many ways and at many different scales. If we abandon ideas of providence or progress for more naturalism we are left with numerous often incommensurable stories. And our inescapable performative interest we have in such accounts impacts our understanding of the present age and our arguably dark future. We draw here on phenomenological, hermeneutic, and deconstructive critique to articulate a provisional temporal phronesis by which to address the challenges of Deep Time. This brings to the fore such notions as irreversibility, fatal delay, structural inertia, uneven development, tipping points, time unimaginable, multiple strands, and aporetic time. Every age raises deep philosophical questions in its own way. War, freedom, justice, sexual difference have all had their day, but today the spectacle of anthropogenic climate change presses philosophy to the limit. Agency, responsibility, time, history, nature, earth, life, science, even truth—are not only live issues, they are becoming perspicuously mortal concerns. How to deal with the passions aroused by our situation, which both drive and block an adequate response to it?


We propose a simple accurate method for generating autocorrelated Nakagami-m envelope sequences. The method allows for arbitrary values of fading parameter and nonisotropic fading scenarios. In essence, Nakagami-m samples are first drawn and then rearranged to match the Nakagami-m autocorrelation. The rearrangement is made in accordance with the rank statistics of an underlying Rayleigh reference sequence with the desired autocorrelation. Examples illustrate the excellent performance of the new method


The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a near-infrared absorbent, which is capable of stably producing a near-infrared absorbent that exhibits excellent transparency in cases where the near-infrared absorbent is used together with a resin. A method for producing a near-infrared absorbent according to the present invention comprises: a step A wherein a phosphonic acid compound represented by general formula (1), a phosphoric acid ester compound dispersant and a copper salt are mixed in a solvent, thereby obtaining a reaction mixture that contains a near-infrared absorbent; a step B wherein the solvent is recovered from the reaction mixture; and a step C wherein the solvent recovered in the step B is used as a solvent for the step A. The solvent used in the step A is an organic solvent having a moisture content of 0-8.0% by mass. In the formula, R 1 represents a monovalent group represented by -CH 2 CH 2 -R 11 ; and R 11 represents a hydrogen atom, an alkyl group having 1-20 carbon atoms or a fluorinated alkyl group having 1-20 carbon atoms.


Pacific Bell's Access Provisioning Expert (APEX) is an embedded, knowledge-based system for automating trunk servicing decisions typically made by interexchange carriers for the access trunks they order from local exchange carriers. In addition to streamlining the access trunk provisioning process by automating or eliminating much of the inter- and intra-company communication associated with service order negotiation, APEX uses knowledge-based systems technology in a way that allows the local exchange company to assume responsibilities for network capacity administration that have traditionally been borne by the interexchange carrier. After a one-year trial, APEX has enabled a shorter provisioning interval, reduced labor costs, and increased network utilization for trunk groups managed by the system.<<ETX>>


Purpose: The axiom that obesity epidemic was driven by steady increases in energy intake has been challenged by empirical evidence, including the failure to make meaningful progress either treating or preventing obesity. Adopting new paradigm were urgently needed. We aimed to collect ecological evidences to support an alternative hypotheses that increased usage of air-conditioners (AC) may contribute to obesity epidemic in the U.S. Method: U.S. national survey data were retrieved from public domains, including the % of homes with AC units (AC ownership), dietary energy intake, and obesity prevalence. Correlation efficient were estimated, and Joint point regressions were ran to describe time segments and estimate annual percentage change (APC). Results: Nationally, Obesity prevalence significantly associated with the increasing trend of AC ownership (partial r=0.046, and p < 0.05) not dietary energy intake (r < 0.0001, and p = 0.58). When stratified by region, the rank of obesity prevalence across regions was consistent with that of AC ownership throughout the study period; the South led the increasing trends for both AC ownership and obesity prevalence. The climbing national trend of obesity slowed down around 2002 (before 2002 APC=4.38, and APC=2.22 after) following the saturation of AC penetration in the South (before 1994, APC=1.04, p < 0.05, and APC=0.05 after 1994, p > 0.05. Conclusions: Spatiotemporal correlations support the hypothesis that penetration of AC may contribute to the obesity epidemic. Further investigation may lead to novel therapies and a new avenue to explore the strategies addressing twin clusters of pandemics, obesity, and climate change.


Most interference experiments demand careful adjustment of the apparatus and special conditions of illumination for the phenomena to be at all observable. By contrast, the interference effects discussed here not only require no such precautions but are, in fact, almost unavoidable in any optical system that contains reflecting surfaces. For all their ubiquity, however, the phenomena are nonetheless elusive to the point that they seem to have become virtually unknown. Modern design of optical instruments may have eliminated much of this interference. In any case, the effects no longer appear to have practical interest and are relegated to obscurity. It was not always thus. Few subjects have attracted such a long line of luminaries in the literature of optics. This paper attempts to recapture some of the by-gone luster. It presents a review of the history and of the theory of the effect, illustrated by some measurements and photographs.


Recent technological advances in sensors, low-power integrated circuits, and wireless communications have enabled the design of low-cost, miniature, lightweight, and intelligent physiological sensor nodes. These nodes, capable of sensing, processing, and communicating one or more vital signs. Implementing a system designed with PIC microcontroller to collect the raw analog data from the multi channel. It digitalizes the data and compresses the data according to the desired sample rate and bit resolution. The realization of a multichannel data compression system by using all digital method has the characteristics of high reliability, strong anti-disturbance, good flexibility and convenient for application. Results of the analysis show that a digital implementation is significantly more energyefficient for the wireless sensor space where signals require high gain and medium to high resolutions.


Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) is a program implemented at Southern Adventist University to lower drop, withdrawal, and fail rates. In these sessions, a student leader, who has excelled in previous sections of a particular class, help reinforce difficult concepts in hour-long meetings with currently enrolled students. Activities during PASS include worksheets, pretests and quizzes, games, and videos. In this paper, we discuss the methods used during PASS sessions within anatomy and physiology classes and present an analysis of the effect of PASS on academic performance in entry-level anatomy and physiology classes over two semesters (winter and fall of 2015) at Southern Adventist University. Our analysis showed that greater student attendance at PASS sessions predicted higher final grades while controlling for two other potentially confounding predictors of students success: high school GPA and ACT score.


Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) proved their effectiveness in solving various complex problems in numerous fields of knowledge, including nuclear reactor design and analysis. One of the most popular ways to use ANN in nuclear field is to replace numerically accurate reactor design computer codes with surrogate models that are capable of predicting target output parameters at a much faster speed. The trade-off of using ANN in this case is the uncertainty in the trained model that introduces an error in the final result. However, in some cases the accuracy requirement is not as strict as the requirement to obtain a result quickly. For example, a new reactor design requires many hundreds of human hours in order to find an optimal or nearly optimal fuel design and fuel loading pattern (LP) configuration. An optimal LP search involves numerous trials of possible LP configurations using computationally intensive and time-consuming reactor design codes. Some of those LPs could have been filtered out using ANN prior to running a more accurate computer code. In our previous writings [1], we discussed the applicability of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to prediction of various core design parameters. Though this approach is quite efficient for predicting various safety and design-related parameters, the trained ANN model is not versatile, i.e. it cannot be used for a different reactor type with a different number of fuel assemblies (FA) or different fuel configuration. To solve this problem, we can use a hybrid approach, which is based on the idea of finding the most computationally demanding parts and replacing them with an ANN model. In this study, we are working with our in-house nodal diffusion code RAST-K [2]. As explained in the reference, this code is part of a two-step computation system. The first step is to generate macroscopic crosssections (XS) using some lattice physics code. The second step is to solve a nodal diffusion equation implemented in RAST-K using those XS. The most computationally intensive component in this system is the first – XS generation – part of the process. In addition to that, the core geometry is being specified in the RAST-K part of the two-step code system, which means that we can replace the lattice code with a surrogate ANN model and predict the XS set required for solving a nodal diffusion equation regardless of the target core geometry. 2. Model description


The methods worked out for the study of Dragon fuel samples in the EIR hot laboratory are briefly described. Burn-up determinations and diffusion of fission products are discussed. The radiochemical and counting methods and techniques are reviewed. (J.S.R.)


The competitiveness of a company is through the control of information on the environment in all areas with a view to ascertain the trends and maintain a worldview in which evolves thereof and also to help the decision-maker in his process of decision making. This role is provided by the competitive intelligence. However, competitive intelligence is still a new concept for Moroccan companies in general and exporters in particular. He then seemed interesting to explore the behavior of Moroccan exporters in the field of business intelligence and how the process of business intelligence can help with decision making.


Face recognition task has been used worldwide due to its effectiveness in different disciplines, but because of the complexity of the procedures it is a very difficult task to accurately recognize variations in face images. Large set of feature extraction of face is difficult to handle since the storage and the computation of such dense feature makes the process of recognition more complicated. The encoding scheme used in this work reduces large set of features into a less compact representation by using the concept of intra user correlation. By reducing the facial features, storage and computation will be cheaper. A sparse classifier is used for the matching of the face recognition technique. The sparse classifier reduces the time consumption for the recognition process.


Emphasis on 'context' and 'practice' has been the tradition of Cultural Studies. Now Cultural Studies in Mainland China are facing the following difficulties: lack of attention to local issues and ...


The invention discloses a five-pointed star, belonging to the technical field of army gate marking equipment. The five-pointed star is formed by a five-pointed star, an extension fixing rod, a supporting rod, a vertical rod, a base and a hole and is characterized in that the extension fixing rod is reserved at a center point in the back of the five-pointed star, the vertical rod is connected to the extension fixing rod, the supporting rod is arranged between the extension fixing rod and the vertical rod, the base is arranged below the vertical rod, and the hole is arranged in the hole. When the five-pointed star is installed, a bolt is placed in the hole on the base and connected with a pre-embedding fixing member on a gate beam. The five-pointed star has the advantages of simple design, low cost, firmness, durability, convenience for installation and stronger practicability.


This work presents an asymmetric quadratic approximation model and an $\epsilon$-archiving algorithm. The model allows to construct, under local convexity assumptions, descriptors for local optima points in continuous functions. A descriptor can be used to extract confidence radius information. The $\epsilon$-archiving algorithm is designed to maintain and update a set of such asymmetric descriptors, spaced at some given threshold distance. An in-depth analysis is conducted on the stability and performance of the asymmetric model, comparing the results with the ones obtained by a quadratic polynomial approximation. A series of different applications are possible in areas such as dynamic and robust optimization.


Alcohol is a social lubricant widely used among most cultures in the UK, and young people grow up surrounded by alcohol advertising and for most, a norm of social drinking in their families and neighbourhoods. While small quantities can be metabolised by the liver with no ill-effects, larger amounts carry significant short and long-term health risks. Among the general population, alcohol misuse is the third-greatest overall contributor to ill health, after smoking and raised blood pressure.


Maritime clusters have been the subject of a variety of research studies, such as cost savings and supply chain network effects. Most of the attempts at estimating cost savings and network effects rely on customer service questionnaires, benchmarking analysis, and more esoteric approaches such as data envelopment analysis. Some studies focus on only one industry. Others provide case studies, which are of limited applicability to other ports. In this paper, the advantages of maritime clusters will be developed through an analysis of possible economies of agglomeration and supply chain network effects that may be present in maritime clusters. The literature on both economies of agglomeration and supply chain network effects is very rich, but the applicability to maritime clusters is in the early stages of development. Based on this literature and its application to maritime clusters, a framework for estimating these effects will be developed. This framework utilizes a gravity model formulation to estimate these effects. Alternatively, a production function formulation is developed to estimate these effects. The paper will develop measures of these effects and recommend a methodology for collecting data to be utilized in the models, using the Panama Canal as an example.


In one embodiment, the controller, an identification packet generated by the remote authentication provider, received via the near field communication link, associated an electronic signature to identify the packet, and sends the identification packet to the remote authentication provider, the remote authentication provider receiving permission from, and receives the login information associated with the identification packet includes logic to initiate a login procedure using the login information. Other embodiments may be described. .FIELD 1


Abstract Disclosure: W.W. Parksook: None. J.M. Brown: Consulting Fee; Self; Bayer, Inc. J. Milks: None. A. Moore: None. Y. Niebuhr: None. B. Honzel: None. A. Vaidya: Consulting Fee; Self; HRA Pharmaceuticals, Mineralys. Background: Calcium ion signaling is a critical factor required for the physiologic production of aldosterone. Emerging evidence has revealed that the majority of cases of primary aldosteronism involve pathogenic somatic mutations that ultimately increase calcium signaling and autonomous aldosterone production. Therefore, testing for primary aldosteronism that modulates calcium homeostasis may influence the diagnostic interpretation of the results. Method: Overweight to obese participants with metabolic risk factors and pre-hypertension or stage 1 hypertension (n=56) underwent a standard seated saline suppression test (SSST). Measurement of blood pressure, plasma aldosterone, serum calcium, as well as other factors, was performed at times 0, 120, and 240 minutes during SSST. Linear regression models were used to analyze the association between changes in calcium and each parameter. Results: Following 2 liters of saline infusion during SSST, all 56 participants (100%) had a significant decrease in serum calcium levels from baseline, with 26 (47%) developing new-onset frank hypocalcemia (calcium <8.6 mg/dL). The mean baseline serum calcium was 9.2 ± 0.3 mg/dL, which declined to 8.9 ± 0.4 mg/dL at 120 mins (P<0.001), and to 8.6 ± 0.4 mg/dl (P<0.001) at 240 mins when the SSST concluded. Consistent with the known vasopressor effect of calcium, greater drops in serum calcium levels were associated with lower blood pressure at 240 minutes (β;= 13.5, P<0.01 for DBP; β;= 10.7, P= 0.06 for SBP). Among those with post-SSST aldosterone levels <10 ng/dl (a categorical threshold used to exclude primary aldosteronism), greater reductions in serum calcium levels were associated with larger drops in aldosterone levels (β;= 9.9, P<0.05). Conclusion: The standard SSST induced a substantial decline in serum calcium levels in 100% of participants, with nearly half of all participants developing frank hypocalcemia at the end of saline infusion. Since calcium is known to play a critical role in physiologic and pathophysiologic production of aldosterone, these findings raise the question whether hypocalcemia induced by the acute loading of 2 liters of saline may confound the interpretation of aldosterone changes. Further research should focus on better understanding the diagnostic implications of these results and potential limitations of the SSST to exclude primary aldosteronism. Presentation: Friday, June 16, 2023


The way that animals balance foraging needs with predation is a very interesting and widely studied subject in ecology. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) and snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) have a response to the increased danger that a specialized predator, the fisher (Martes pennanti), poses over a general predator, the coyote (Canis latrans). Sticks soaked in brine were put out in different environments with three treatments of no scent, coyote urine, or fisher scent. The porcupine showed an overall reaction of preferring sticks with no scent (p=0.016) although they did not show a differential response to either predator (p=0.72). The hare showed no preference for sticks without scent (p=0.074) as well as no different reaction whether the scent was fisher or coyote (p=0.69). Environment also played no role in foraging choice (p=0.16). There was an issue with sample size that if solved could lead to the expected result that fisher scent has more of an effect than coyote urine. Introduction Natural selection predicts that all animals behave in a way that will maximize their potential fitness. Many experiments have shown that, in the presence of predators, prey balance their safety with the perceived benefits of other necessary functions to increase fitness, such as foraging for food and reproduction (Peckarsky et al 2008, Milinski and Heller 1978). The behavioral response of prey species to potential predators is a widely studied and important topic in ecology. In the presence of a wolf (Canis lupus) population, elk (Cervus canadensis) drastically changed their foraging behavior, affecting the trophic cascade of their home forest (Fortin et al. 2005). Experiments have tested the feeding


High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and digital filtering (by Bragg filters) are used to study the atomic structure of the damage arising in the isolated displacement cascades of Zn+ implanted GaAs. Data concerning the clustering of point defects (vacancies and self-interstitials) in small dislocation loops, at concentration of the order of 1013 cm−2, are reported. Effects of low-power pulsed laser annealing (LPPLA) and some analogies in the behaviour of point defects in GaAs and f.c.c. metals like Cu and Ni are discussed.

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Community," by Kathleen R. Martin and William A. Martin González offers an alternative model for tourism in Yucatán. The authors' look at some of the "troubling potential consequences" generated from the rise of resort tourism and increased interest in famous archaeological sites like Chichén Itzá and Uxmal (p. 165). Although tourism continues to generate about eight billion U.S. dollars per year in revenues for Mexico, the industry itself benefits few Yucatecans, generating "low wages, few benefits, and little opportunity for socioeconomic mobility" (p. 179). Nonetheless, ending on a cautiously optimistic note, the authors cite improvements made to transportation and upgraded visitor centers at archaeological parks.


Local method was used to extract oil from beniseed (Sesanum indicum). Laboratory experiments were carried out to characterize the oil. Transesterification of beniseed to produced methyl ester which had fuel properties similar to common biofuels, hence beniseed could be utilized as an alternative renewable energy resource.


Theories of blame suggest that contracting out public service delivery reduces citizens' blame of politicians for service failure. The authors use an online experiment with 1,000 citizen participants to estimate the effects of information cues summarizing service delivery arrangements on citizens' blame of English local government politicians for poor street maintenance. Participants were randomized to one of four cues: no information about service delivery arrangements, politicians' involvement in managing delivery, delegation to a unit inside government managing delivery, and delegation through a contract with a private firm managing delivery. The politicians managing delivery cue raises blame compared to citizens having no information. However, the contract with a private firm cue does not reduce blame compared to either no information or the politicians managing delivery cue. Instead, the delegation to a unit inside government cue reduces blame compared to politicians managing delivery, suggesting that delegation to public managers, not contracting, reduces blame in this context.


The integration of economics and ecology is becoming a global trend, and the values of industrial civilization no longer meet the modern requirements of safe and sustainable development. Awareness of the unity and balance of socio-ecological-economic interests, which are the basis of the life of mankind, led to a fundamental idea about the transition of world-management thought to a new way of making safe environmental and economic strategic decisions, and the rejection of the old, extensive path that has not justified itself. In light of the goals and objectives of integrated environmental and economic education, it is necessary to revise generally accepted ideas about the causes of the degradation of the planet's ecosystem and the slowdown in global economic growth, which are not so much technological progress as the person himself, his personal qualities, and personality orientation, the formation of which depends on the field of education. The developed principles of integrated environmental and economic education are considered by us as an effective tool for the training of highly qualified specialists who possess the entire set of professional knowledge and value orientations that correspond to the realities of the current unstable environmental and economic state of social development.


It is worth mentioning that in the video sequence modeling, the best recognition architecture is transformer. The current popular transformer based video classification methods focus on the importance of current features in time sequence. The degree of characterization of simultaneous order is insufficient, and simple data augmentation has unstable classification effect. In this paper we proposed a method of non-parametric attention combined with self-supervised feature construction to further improve video classification. In this method, the non-parametric attention mechanism is constructed in the simultaneous order feature to fit the multi-local extreme value distribution. At the same time, in the process of model learning, the input video is randomly masked in temporal domain and spatial domain, and self-supervised information is added to effectively learn the details and classification information of video content. Experiments using kinetics400, kinetics600 and something V2 datasets show that the algorithm in this paper has better improvement in accuracy than the current optimal method.


Transportation projects that affect property access tend to be controversial. This is true whether the impacts are temporary, such as access impacts during construction, or permanent, such as the construction of a raised median. With median projects, typical public concerns relate to economic impacts on businesses, access for delivery vehicles, safety of U-turns, circuity of access, and neighborhood accessibility. Such concerns can escalate into active opposition where citizens are not kept adequately informed of project design decisions, or feel they have been excluded from the decision-making process. Agencies experienced with median projects find that techniques such as one on one briefings and open house meetings are more effective for addressing public concerns and less contentious than public hearings. This paper reviews the experiences of the Florida Department of Transportation in carrying out its statewide median program and provides strategies that other agencies may consider for involving the public in median projects.


In this paper, a novel experimental method is proposed in order to verify the availability and reliability in separate system. To measure the position-change caused by the fault-mode machine-separate of the electric isolator plug and to know the real switch process of the important component, the ground separate experiment is required to simulate the real object separate process and to obtain the relative position of isolate component under different separate parameter. In the experiment, a position measurement system based on high speed photograph principle is introduced which has hardware, software and gauging method of photograph measure system. A in-situ measurement system is set up by two high speed camera in order to synchronized image collection of separate process. After extracting, matching, coordinate and position calculating to the image, a relative position of the isolator component at the time of separate process can be deduced. The relative separate speed at this time can be calculated by the position parameter. The measurement system can be tested by the three-axis standard revolving stage. The results of the measurement experiment show that camera response frequency is 1000Hz, the relative error of position measurement is less than 5%, the relative error of speed measurement is less than 5% which can meet demands of experiment.


The forecasting of heteroscedastic models has been a popular subject of research in recent years. The objective of this study is to model and forecast the volatility of the Russell 3000 index during 2000¨C2015, using various models from the ARCH family. The analysis covers from October 2, 2000 to April 29, 2015 as an in-sample set, and from April 30, 2015 to September 16, 2015 as an out-of-sample set. The measure of the difference between the predicted volatility and the stocki¯s squared continuously compounded rate of return were estimated by using MAE, MAPE and RMSE. Based on out-of-sample statistical performance, the results reveal that the best estimated model is EGARCH(1,1), and the best model to make dynamic forecasts of volatility is TARCH(1, 1). with prior findings, which reveal more pronounced momentum on independent firms.


The invention relates to eight-weft single side plain cloth pattern double layer covering cloth and manufacturing method. It includes the following steps: boiling-off; dying; starching; drying; beaming; bonding starching; weaving; softening; drying; sewing; collating; storing. The product of the invention has the advantages of soft feel, strong stereo sensation, standard formaldehyde content and pH value etc.


http://dx.doi.org/10.4046/trd.2012.72.2.173 ISSN: 1738-3536(Print)/2005-6184(Online) Tuberc Respir Dis 2012;72:173-176 CopyrightC2012. The Korean Academy of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases. All rights reserved. Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Lung Disease Caused by Mycobacterium terrae in a Patient with Bronchiectasis Won-Jung Koh, M.D., Ph.D.*, Go-Eun Choi, Ph.D.*, Nam Yong Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Sung Jae Shin, Ph.D. Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Department of Microbiology and Research Institute for Medical Sciences, Infection Signaling Network Research Center, Chungnam National University College of Medicine, Daejeon, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea


Composites of polyaniline in its emeraldine base form (PANI-EB) and photo-acid generators (PAG) show an increase in conductivity upon photo-irradiation due to the protonation of PANI-EB. Such materials may be utilized to fabricate conducting patterns by photo-irradiation. However, the conductivity obtained by direct irradiation of PANI-EB/PAG composites was normally quite low (<10−3 S/cm) due to aggregation of highly loaded PAG. In this work, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), which is a proton transfer polymer, was added to PANI-EB/PAG. Results showed that addition of low Mw (550) PEG significantly enhance the photo-induced conductivity. Conductivities as high as 10−1–100 S/cm were observed after photo-irradiation. This conductivity is comparable to that of PANI-salt synthesized by oxidizing aniline in the presence of an acid. High Mw (8000) PEG is much less effective than PEG 550, which is attributed to its lower compatibility with PANI. PEG-grafted PANI (N-PEG-PANI) was also studied as an additive. Composites of PANI-EB and N-PEG-PANI showed conductivity as high as 102 S/cm after treatment with HCl vapor. The photo-induced conductivity of the N-PEG-PANI/PANI-EB/PAG composite reached 10−2–10−1 S/cm. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013


The core families of Myrtales (69 species investigated) contain S-type sieve-element plastids. In these, the presence of several medium-sized spherular starch grains is probably a common trend in the order. Among those families usually closely associated or more or less distantly related, the great majority also have S-type plastids, some with the same characteristics. However, Rhizophoraceae, in contrast to the close allies and Connaraceae, Gunneraceae, and Rhabdodendraceae of the distantly related families, have developed P-type plastids. That subtype PV-plastids, which exclude all starch, are found in all tribes of Rhizophoraceae except Anisophylleae supports family recognition of the latter. Sieve-element characters investigated with the transmission electron microscope have repeatedly contributed to the circumscription and classification of higher taxa, e.g., Leguminosae (Behnke & Pop, 1981), Monocotyledoneae (Behnke, 198 lb). Of these, the most intensively studied feature is the ultrastructure of sieve-element plastids. The great number of investigated angiosperms (some 2,000 species from nearly 400 families-as of 1983-12-31) allow a subdivision of the plastids into Pand S-type, a number of subtypes, and a great many of characteristic forms by using both chemical and morphological composition at the ultrastructural level (see Behnke, 198 la, for more detail). The successful delimitation of the order Caryophyllales to the PIll plastid families (Behnke, 1976; Mabry, 1977) and the use of sieve-element plastid data in separating Vitidales from Rhamnales (Behnke, 1974; Dahlgren, 1980) and Buxaceae from Simmondsiaceae and Euphorbiaceae (Behnke, 1982a) stimulated, among others, the screening of all the core families of Myrtales and of those closely or more distantly related to the order, with the results to be included in this symposium report. MATERIALS AND METHODS Preferentially young stem pieces of the plant species listed in Table 1 were cut into longitudinal sections fixed in a formaldehyde-glutaraldehyde mixture followed by 1% buffered OsO4 and dehydrated in acetone. Small pieces containing phloem tissue were embedded and polymerized in epoxy resins, cut with an ultramicrotome, and the final ultrathin sections viewed and photographed with a transmission electron microscope (for exact procedures see Behnke, 1 982a). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Sieve-elements of many of the myrtalean families are extremely difficult to fixate in a closeto-natural condition. There is less plasmatic content which is more labile and, during preparation, sieve-element plastids burst more often than in the average dicotyledon family. Nevertheless, all of the 69 investigated species of the core families of Myrtales (cf. Dahlgren & Thorne, 1984) could be shown to contain S-type plastids (cf. Table 1). Number, size, and shape of the starch grains in these plastids certainly vary (Figs. 1-14), but some common trends may be recognized. There are always several starch grains in one plastid-often six or more (Figs. 1-4, 6, 81 1), their size being variable (sometimes all of the same size) but never very large and their shape almost exclusively is a spherule. Considerably smaller starch grains are present in adI For permitting collection of living material used in this study the author wishes to thank the directors and curators of the Botanical Gardens in Berlin-Dahlem, Bogor, Bonn, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Heidelberg, Kew, Leiden, Mainz, and Utrecht. I am particularly indebted to A. Assi (Abidjan), P. Berry (Caracas), D. Clark (Kirstenbosch), I. Dorr (Kiel), D. M. C. Fourie (Pretoria), I. S. Gottsberger (Botucatu), A. Irvine (Atherton, Qld), A. Juncosa (Petersham), K. Kubitzki (Hamburg), Lee Ying Fah (Sandakan, Sabah), G. Merz (Heidelberg), H. B. Nicholson (St. Michaels-on-Sea, RSA), H. T&h6 (ORSTROM), R. Tracey (Indooropilly) for collecting and shipping living plant material, A. P. Bennell (Edinburgh) and L. B. Jorgensen (Copenhagen) for helping with fixations, and A. R. A. Noel (Pietermaritzburg) and P. H. Raven (St. Louis) for making contact to collectors. I gratefully acknowledge the expert technical help of Mrs. L. Pop and Mrs. D. Laupp (both Heidelberg). This work was supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. 2 Zellenlehre, Universitat Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 230, D-6900 Heidelberg, Federal Republic of Germany. ANN. MISSOURI BOT. GARD. 71: 824-831, 1984. This content downloaded from 22.214.171.124 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 05:46:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1984] BEHNKE-SIEVE-ELEMENT PLASTIDS 825


The purpose of this study was to test the effect of Pseudomonas psychrophila, isolated from the roots of metallophyte Pityrogramma calomelanos (L.) Link collected from the Song Tho abandon Pb mine, Thailand, on Pb accumulation of Acacia mangium Willd. and Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. grown in lead (Pb) solution. These plants were inoculated by pruned-root dip method. Further, inoculated plant and un-inoculated plants were treated in 30 mg/L of Pb as Pb(CH3COO)2‧3H2O and without Pb served as control for 15 days. Pb concentrations in the roots were determined by a flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) after acid digestion. The results showed that the background Pb concentration in the roots grown in the 25% modified Hoagland's nutrient solution without Pb showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) ranging from 10-89 mg/kg. In the presence of 30 mg/L Pb, there were no significant changes in Pb contents in roots caused by inoculations. However, A. mangium inoculation showed increase trend in Pb concentration in the roots (6,829±697 mg/kg) compared to non-inoculation (6,242±272 mg/kg). While, E. camaldulensis inoculation showed decreased trend in Pb content (3,763±592 mg/kg) compared to non-inoculation (4,233±264 mg/kg). These results suggest that P. psychrophila seemed to be effective in promoting the phytoremediation potential of A. mangium, however, it was not useful for Pb phytoremediation of E. camaldulensis.


A method is given to obtain the exact mean hourly values of the BETA - radioactive daughter products of atmospheric radon and thoron, continuously accumulated on a filter. The results are presented in a form which permits a straightforward computation. (auth)


Research has long shown that organizations shape members' identities. However, the possibility that these identities might also be desired and that members might benefit from this process has only recently been explored. In a qualitative study of a French aeronautic plant, I demonstrate how an implicitly negotiated leniency between management and workers around the use of company materials and tools, on company time, to produce artifacts for personal use, enhances workers' identities. This leniency applies to a select subset of workers and enhances their desired occupational identity. This practice produces an engaging form of control that relies on management's selective allocation of identity incentives. These findings document a previously overlooked type of control---one reliant on desired identities that engage rather than constrain. Desired identities, specifically previously enacted ones, constitute potent incentives for inducing efforts or actions.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Objectives: A deep learning-based early warning system is proposed to predict sepsis prior to its onset. Design: A novel algorithm was devised to detect sepsis 6 hours prior to its onset based on electronic medical records. Setting: Retrospective cohorts from three separate hospitals are used in this study. Sepsis onset was defined based on Sepsis-3. Algorithms are evaluated based on the score function used in the Physionet Challenge 2019.Patients: Over 60,000 ICU patients with 40 clinical variables (vital signs, laboratory results) for each hour of a patient's ICU stay were used. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: The proposed algorithm predicted the onset of sepsis in the preceding n hours (where n = 4, 6, 8, or 12). Furthermore, the proposed method compared how many sepsis patients can be predicted in a short time with other methods. To interpret a given result in a clinical perspective, the relationship between input variables and the probability of the proposed method were presented. The proposed method achieved superior results (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, area under the precision-recall curve, and score) and predicted more sepsis patients in advance. In official phase, the proposed method showed the utility score of –0.101, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.782, area under the precision-recall curve 0.041, accuracy 0.786, and F-measure 0.046. Conclusions: Using Physionet Challenge 2019, the proposed method can accurately and early predict the onset of sepsis. The proposed method can be a practical early warning system in the environment of real hospitals.


Green economists are clear in their support for localisation, but there is little definitional clarity around the concept of a local economy: how large it would be, or what principles might be used to divide the world into provisioning units. This paper proposes that the 'bioregion' might be a useful concept in designing more local systems of resource supply. The paper is a scoping exercise which starts to explore how the concept of a 'bioregion' might be useful within theoretical economics, outlines key aspects of a bioregional economy, and sketches ideas for a future research agenda.


Two unprecedented events took place at a conference on Hebrew in America which recently took place at the University of Maryland. First is the matter of rationale. Usually, when the university teaching of Hebrew is discussed, the issues center on pedagogy, classroom strategies, audiovisual techniques, measuring competence, attracting students, and so forth. Yet here the cultural and ideological questions that underlie the teaching of Hebrew were articulated: What is the purpose of teaching Hebrew? What justifies our immense investment in the attempt to transmit a knowledge of Hebrew? Second is the matter of context. The context for the conference deliberations was not Israeli spoken Hebrew or Israeli literature or even Jewish Studies in general; rather it was the cultural history of American and Canadian Jewry. The focus was on the role played by Hebrew in American Jewish life in the past and the role it might yet play in the future. When an enterprise is going well and set upon a secure foundation, it does not always make sense to ask fundamental questions about first principles. But the situation in our profession, in my view, does not permit this kind of complacency. The current rationale, or if you will, the raison d'etre for the teaching of Hebrew in the university I shall shortly try to describe its features does not rest upon a secure foundation but is rather in a fragile and vulnerable state. It is admittedly not an easy task to get at these underlying principles, analyze their meaning, and assess their utility.


The quality of a medical ultrasonic image is highly dependent on the axial resolution of the transducer. In many cases of low damped ultrasonic transducer the duration of an ultrasonic pulse is too long to ensure the high axial resolution of the transducer. The duration of the ultrasonic pulse can be reduced if the transducer is excited with a signal, preshaped using inverse filter. However, in many cases, with this method an excitation signal becomes very sophisticated. A method to preshape the excitation signal with sequences of delayed pulses is proposed. The results of theoretical calculations using an excitation of ultrasonic transducer with unit pulse, the inverse WLS filter as well as the delayed pulses are presented.


A novel series of 4-arylsulfonyl-1,3-oxazoles have been synthesized and characterized by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and chromato-mass-spectrometry. The anticancer activities of all the newly synthesized compounds were evaluated via a single high dose (10 µM) against 59 cancer cell lines (without Melanoma SK-MEL-5) by the National Cancer Institute according to its screening protocol. Among these compounds, 2-[4-(4-chlorophenyl)sulfonyl-2-phenyl-oxazol-5-yl]sulfanyl-N-(2,4-dimethoxyphenyl)acetamide exhibited the highest activity against lines SNB75 and SF-539 of the CNS Cancer subpanel present in Glioblastoma and Gliosarcoma, respectively, exerting a cytostatic effect. 2-[4-(4-Bromophenyl)sulfonyl-2-phenyl-oxazol-5-yl]sulfanylacetamide has the highest antiproliferative activity against the HOP-92 (carcinoma) of the Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer subpanel, while N-(4-ethoxyphenyl)-2-[2-phenyl-4-(p-tolylsulfonyl)oxazol-5-yl]sulfanyl-acetamide exhibits cytotoxic activity against NCI-H226 (pleural mesothelioma) the Lung subpanel. The COMPARE analysis showed that the average graphs of the tested compounds have a weak or slightly moderate positive correlation with compounds with a known mechanism of antitumor activity, suggesting its specificity. These compounds demonstrated the anticancer activity against different individual cancer cell lines. This makes it possible to consider it a leading compound for further in-depth studies and synthesis of new 4-arylsulfonyl-1,3-derivatives oxazole with antitumor activity.


To overcome the poor accuracy in determination of target weights,the incommensurability and contradiction between multiple targets due to the ambiguity and uncertainty in the comprehensive evaluation of water resources allocation schemes,a feasible and effective evaluation method of water resources allocation schemes based on the optimization projection pursuit model with modified artificial bee colony algorithm is proposed. Application of the proposed method in the evaluation of water resources allocation schemes in Tianjin city shows that this method can avoid the subjective arbitrariness when choosing the weight of evaluation indicators,and the result is consistent with the actuality.


A hybrid model to predict and judge seepage piping occurring was presented by combining the mechanism model and the neural network model. A set of factors, corresponding with the reliable data which had significant effects on the judgment of seepage piping occurring and were easy to observe and measure, were filtrated based on the mechanism model from a great number of complex and disorderly observed engineering data. This data as the effective parameters were applied into a modified BP neural network scheme to analyze the characteristics of the seepage piping occurring. The modified BP neural network model combined with a database system was designed as an artificial intelligent method to predict and judge the seepage piping occurring in embankments. The developed neural network model was applied to some practical embankments for judging and forecasting of the possibility of seepage piping failure using the collected data from a number of reservoirs and embankments. The results show that the proposed method is effective.


Research has shown that Neural Networks (NNs) are capable of accurate and quick low voltage (LV) grid analysis. Therefore, NNs could be a viable method for the middle long-term scenario tool (MLT), a tool created and used by Enexis, one of the major distribution system operator (DSO) in the Netherlands, to analyze future scenarios of LV grids. However, the tool analyzes a substantial amount of LV grids, and each would require a NN. This amount of NNs necessitates a single network architecture and training method for all NNs, which can be achieved by knowing hyperparameters beforehand, since determining hyperparameters is computationally costly. This paper estimates how long it would take to train a substantial amount of NNs, determines if hyperparameters are shareable between NNs of similar-sized LV grids and if hyperparameters are predictable based on LV grid sizes. The results of hyper-parameter sharing show comparable performance between NNs, however, differences start to occur for larger LV grids. Predicting hyperparameters based on LV grid size gives an unsatisfactory performance.


National hockey player M. Jivan's childhood dream was to become a police officer. And this could become a reality for the Penang-born player, who obtained a degree in the Human Resource Development during the convocation of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Serdang yesterday.


Objectives: To evaluate if different types of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sacroiliac joint (SIJ) lesions can differentiate axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) from conditions with buttock/pelvic pain of other reasons, including post-partum women and healthy persons. Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study included 204 participants: axSpA(n=41), lumbar disc herniation(n=25), women with(n=46) and without(n=14) postpartum (birth within last 16 months) buttock/pelvic pain, cleaning assistants(n=26), long-distance runners(n=23) and healthy men(n=29) without pain. Participants underwent clinical examination and MRI, which were evaluated blindly (two readers) according to the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) SIJ inflammation and structural scores. Score "cut-offs" were defined as scores above a certain threshold. Primary analyses were based on reader agreement on presence of pathology ("concordant reads"). Sensitivity, specificity, positive/ negative predictive value were calculated. Results: MRI SIJ ankylosis and backfill were only seen in axSpA patients(32%/37%), while bone marrow edema(BME 3-39%) and fat lesions(4-14%) in all non-axSpA groups. Erosion was only present in axSpA(score cut-off>1:61%/score cut-off>4: 34%) and women with postpartum pain(9%/2%). SPARCC BME ≥5 was only present in axSpA(56%) and women with postpartum pain(24%), while fat lesions were present at high cut-off levels, albeit rarely, in nearly all groups. In 38 women from control groups, who had given birth (mean 9.7 years ago), 2(5%) had BME, none erosion or fat lesions, and none


This title covers six themes: offshore geotechnical engineering including deep water problems, laboratory, in-situ and field testing and behaviour of soil, model testing applied to various geotechnical problems, soil structure interaction and foundation design, nearshore geotechnical engineering, and marine environmental geotechnics and soil improvement.


Abstract : This report describes work performed in support of a research study on the applicability of using associative processing to meet the real-time high data rate processing requirements of the USAF. A GAC STARAN S-1000 associative processor was the object of this study. The work tasks described in the appendices of this document are a subset of those required to complete the RADC research study plan. The parallel implementations of both the AWACS active tracking and passive tracking functions on the RADC STARAN testbed should be completed. The performance of each of these programs should be measured and compared with the performance of their respective serial programs. The tasks required to complete this work are discussed.


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Prenatal stress (PS) in the rat is a well-documented model of early stress which induces long-lasting neurobiological and behavioural alterations. These are disturbances in a variety of circadian rhythms (locomotor activity, corticosterone secretion, sleep–wake rhythm), high levels of anxiety, greater vulnerability to drugs as well as impaired serotoninergic transmission and reduced hippocampal neurogenesis. These altered parameters result from permanent modifications of the functioning of the brain, particularly in the feedback mechanisms of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis: the secretion of corticosterone is prolonged after stress and the number of the central glucocorticoid receptors is reduced. These abnormalities are also associated with modifications in the synthesis and/or release of some neurotransmitters. Dysfunction of the HPA axis is due, in part, to stress-induced maternal increase of glucocorticoids, which influences fetal brain development. Some biological abnormalities in depression can be related to those found in prenatally stressed animals. Chronic treatments with different classes of antidepressants, such as tricyclics, SSRI and melatonin agonist, and 5-HT2C antagonist, have shown that this model has high predictive validity as an animal model of depression. In fact, immobility behaviour in the forced swim test and anxiety behaviour in the elevated plus-maze are markedly reduced, the 5-HT1A as well as the glucorticoid system are normalized and hippocampal cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus is increased. Therefore PS rats represent an interesting animal model for the evaluation of the efficacy of pharmacotherapeutic intervention in psychiatric disorders that has often been addressed using control animals.


An analysis and experimental verification of a hybridge current-driven zero-current-switching rectifier are given. In the hybridge rectifier, the diodes turn on at zero di/dt, low dv/dt, and turn off at low di/dt. Therefore, the hybridge rectifier is suitable for high-frequency high-efficiency applications. The current source driving the rectifier can be constituted by a class D or a class E inverter. Since these inverters operate with nearly zero switching losses, high power-density DC-DC converters can be assembled by using resonant inverters and hybridge rectifiers. A DC-DC converter based on a class D series resonant inverter and a hybridge rectifier was designed and tested for a constant output voltage Y/sub O/=12 V and an output current I/sub O/ from no-load to 12 A. The converter was operated at a DC input voltage ranging from 200 to 380 V and a minimum frequency of f=600 kHz. The theoretical results and measured performances were in good agreement. A maximum converter efficiency as high as 90% has been achieved for the DC-DC converter operated at full load.


Hydrazone Schiff bases derived from an amino and carbonyl compound are an important class of ligands due to their fascinating chemical and biological behavior [1]. Coordination versatility is a structural important aspect for these kinds of compounds, which is the result of the tautomeric equilibrium between keto and enol forms like in hydrazones and semicarbazones, coordinating for many complexes the iminic-N to the metal. Carbohydrazide Schiff derivates has not been studied as much as others homologous hydrazones (thiosemicarbazones and semicarbazones); however the interest for these ligands is increasingly due to the use for the targeted construction of extended metal−organic architectures, and also as an important class of components for the self-assembly of supramolecular structures [2]. In this work, the experimental and theoretical studies of new carbohydrazide are reported. The new carbohydrazide was synthesized and characterized by FT-IR, and NMR, the crystal structure was determined by X-ray single-crystal diffraction. The molecular conformation in the molecular crystals is determined by the interactions and weak interactions present in the packing, such as hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, or Van der Waals interactions between layers. These interactions play an important role in a wide range of chemical and biological fields, and also in the stability of the crystals, providing an important tool for crystal engineering. Computational studies have been performed in order to achieve a better description of the interactions established between these molecules in the crystal packing. The molecular geometry was optimized with a WB97XD functional level of theory, using as input the previously conformation obtained from single crystal X ray diffraction studies. The computed, natural bond orbital analysis, global and local reactivity descriptors have been done in gas phase. Dimer interactions energies, noncovalent interaction study (NCI approach) complemented with Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM) have been performed [3].


The subduction of water via lithospheric-mantle hydrous phases have major implications for the generation of arc and back-arc volcanism, as well as for the global water cycle. Most of the current numerical models use Perple_X [Connolly et al., 2009] to quantify water release from the slab and subsequent fluid migration in the mantle wedge. At UHP conditions, the phase diagrams generated with this thermodynamic code suggest that the breakdown of serpentine and chlorite leads to the near complete dehydration of the lithospheric mantle before reaching a 200-km depth. Laboratory experiments, however, have observed the stability of the 10-Å phase and the phase E in natural bulk compositions, which may hold moderate amounts of water, beyond the stability field of serpentine and chlorite [Fumagalli and Poli, 2005; Maurice et al., 2018]. Here, using 2D thermo-mechanical models, we explore to what extent the presence of these hydrous phases may favor a deeper subduction of water than those predicted by Perple_X.

We perform end-member models in terms of slab temperature and thickness of hydrated lithospheric mantle entering at trench. The computed geotherms within the uppermost subducted mantle show that the stability field of mantle hydrous phases around 600-800°C and 6-8 GPa is crucial for predictions of water fluxes. We point out that the lack of systematic experiments at these P-T conditions, as well as the absence of 10-Å and E phases in current thermodynamic databases, prevent accurate estimates of deep water transfers. We nonetheless build a phase diagram based on current experimental constraints that includes approximations of their stability field and qualitatively discuss the potential implications for fluid migration in the back-arc mantle wedge and water fluxes.


Nanostructured carbons are widely used in electrochemical energy storage and conversion devices, e.g. as electrode material for fuel cells, batteries, or still EDLCs (Electric Double Layer Capacitor). The carbon structure and surface chemistry are crucial parameters and consequently need to be adjusted to the specific application's requirements. This PhD thesis has aimed at developing a new family of nanostructured carbons: aerogels from renewable organic sol-gel precursors, i.e. pyrolyzed cellulose-acetate-based aerogels. Sol-gel synthesis parameters and drying conditions of the organic gel, as well as pyrolysis parameters (particularly the influence of the sol composition, the type of catalyst used in the sol-gel synthesis step, pyrolysis temperature, and atmosphere) have been varied systematically in order to generate a broad range of structurally different cellulose-acetate-based carbonaceous aerogels. Further, cellulose-acetate-based carbon aerogels have been exposed to different post-treatments (e.g. introduction of oxygen and nitrogen-containing surface functional groups) to create cellulose-acetate-based carbon aerogels with different surface chemistries. Finally, the performance of these cellulose-acetate-based carbon aerogels has been analyzed as EDLC electrode material.


B-type natriuretic peptide is a kind of endogenetic peptide which is diuretic.It can be utilized to detect heart failure in early stages,to classify heart failure,and to differentiate heart failure from other diseases in patients with dyspnea.It helps to monitor the therapy and make prognosis to the patients with heart failure.It is also applied to identify left ventricular dysfunction and evaluate the risk of acute coronary artery syndromes.The assay and clinical application of B-type natriuretic peptide has been reviewed in this article.


PURPOSE: Current diagnosis of rejection in vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) relies on correlation of clinical examination with skin histopathology. However, these methods remain both subjective and semi-quantitative, and frequent biopsies carry the risk of infection, scarring, and/or inciting rejection through immune activation. There remains a need for novel, noninvasive methods of diagnos-ing rejection in VCA. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) refers to circulating fragments of DNA in the blood originating from cells undergoing cell injury and death. Currently, cfDNA is an established biomarker in both prenatal testing and onco-logic screening/prognostics. Based on promising results in solid organ transplantation, here we evaluated whether circulating donor-derived cfDNA (dd-cfDNA) could be used as a noninvasive biomarker to detect rejection in VCA recipients. METHOD: One combined face/upper extremity transplant recipient was followed longitudinally, and plasma samples were collected prospectively in combination with clinical photography and allograft biopsies at all routine follow-up appointments as well as for any suspected rejection episodes. Peripheral blood samples were collected and plasma levels of dd-cfDNA measured via targeted amplification and sequencing of a validated panel of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The percentage of dd-cfDNA to total-cfDNA (dd-cfDNA%) was calculated for each sample and correlated with rejection status, which was indepen-dently PURPOSE: Radiation-induced fibrosis (RIF) is a com-plex tissue response characterized by massive deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) and excessive fibroblast prolif-eration resulting in loss of tissue function and quality of life.


Recent process development work indicates that the atmosphere (cover gas) in which /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ granules are sintered is a critical parameter in the production of General-Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) fuel forms. An acceptable feed material for the direct fabrication of /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ fuel was produced in the SRP HB-Line using a Pu(III) oxalate direct-strike precipitation technique that was developed at SRL.