In order to solve the increasingly prominent energy and environment problems in the world nowadays, exploiting the new type distributed energy system becomes a good solution. Especially for the optimization and adjustment of the energy structure in China, the urgency of the exploiting the distributed energy system is obvious. On account of the influence of the policy system, market constraint, environmental protection constraint and technological constraint when China develops the distributed energy system, this paper deems that utilizing the energy coupling concept to develop the distributed energy system is the new trend of the future development as well as the good way to solving the dilemma in China


Mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilcezk) is also known as green gram, is one of the important pulse crop India. It belongs to the family Leguminoceae having the chromosome number 2n=22, is warm season annual and self-pollinated crop. Currently, the global annual growing and production is about 6 million hectares worldwide and global 3 million tonnes, respectively. India leads the production of mungbean worldwide followed by China and Myanmar Nair et al., (2014). In India, mungbean is grown on an area of about 3 million hectares with the production of about 1 million tonnes. The major mungbean grown states are Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. It is an excellent and inexpensive source of vegetable protein and ranks high among the different pulse crops, grown in India. Mungbean contains about 23.9% protein; rich in lysine which is generally low or deficient in cereals. Mature seeds are rich in proteins, and cooked seeds form a valuable constituent of diet of considerable number of people in country. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 8 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com


Vehicles today are relying more on technologies to bring about fully autonomous features. The conventional wirings within are being simplified into a network of electronic components, and this network is controlled via advanced sensing of the environment to make decisions in real-time. However, with the heavy reliance on the sensor readings, any inaccurate reading from the sensors could result in decisions that may cause life-threatening incidents. As such, this research focuses on the in-depth assessment of potential vulnerabilities of an important and commonly used obstacle sensing device, which is the ultrasonic sensor, in modern as well as autonomous vehicles. This research will help bring awareness to the car manufacturers and AV researchers so as to mitigate such issues.


Abstract K 3 Nb 6 VO 19 , Mr = 1029.67, crystallizes in the hexagonal crystal system, space group P -62 m and Z = 4. The lattice parameters are a = 9.114(1) A and c = 24.044(6) A; V = 1729.6(5) A 3 ; Dx  = 3.954 Mg·m −3 . The crystal structure was refined from 601 independent reflections. The final R index and weighted R w index are 0.0311 and 0.0638, respectively. K 3 Nb 6 VO 19 is constituted by chains of NbO 6 octahedra, parallel to the c axis, linked together by pooling corners with VO 4 tetrahedra and NbO 6 octahedra, to form a three-dimensional framework having interconnected tunnels, parallel to the a axis, where the potassium ions are located. This structure is similar to that of Ba 6 Nb 14 Si 4 O 47 (13).


This article deals with one of the problems of children's rights protection the right of the child to communicate with both parents. The main tool for resolving disputes in this area is the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and the Convention of 19 October 1996 on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children. The article investigates the application of these acts in the Russian Federation; It also highlights the problems implementing these conventions and the prospects for their use. Authors elaborate on the recent changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation in this sphere including the Federal Law of May 5, 2014 № 126-FZ «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in connection with the accession of the Russian Federation to the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Kidnapping children».


The information density in hyperspectral data is not uniform across the spectral and spatial dimensions, and the overall information sparsity is often high. While these non-uniformities underpin the sought-after image contrast, high sparsity generates unnecessarily long acquisition and data processing times. Conventional reduction techniques like those based on principal components analysis (PCA) sacrifice the contributions of minority pixel populations while retaining those representing a greater portion of the overall variability. The effect is that some regions in the reconstructed images achieve a higher degree of recovery than other locations, making it difficult to assess the meaning or relevance of the minority pixels, even when this information would reveal important sample defects or spectral inhomogeneities. In the work presented here, we introduce a novel user-unassisted data reduction and image segmentation method called reduction of spectral images (ROSI). The aim of ROSI is to achieve a threshold information density in the spectral dimension for all image pixels. The result effectively segments the image in a manner that provides rapid image contrast that is comparable to traditionally classified images, but does so without a priori information. In addition, ROSI results are suitable for subsequent data analysis and enable ROSI to be performed alone or as a preprocessing data reduction step. A full description of ROSI is presented along with results from both model and real hyperspectral data, and its performance is compared quantitatively to conventional class of data reduction methods.


Abstract : During WWII, US military operations in China began to evolve from small financial contributions and volunteer fighter pilots in 1937, to formal lend-lease aid and a military mission in 1941, and into an Allied CBI Theater in 1942. As the third priority to the Allies, the CBI Theater lagged behind Europe and the Pacific, receiving resources, attention, and US ground forces in the lowest priority. Consequently, US policy and military strategy in China shifted towards an economy of force effort to provide lend-lease aid to keep China in the war and establish a potential basing area for an invasion of Japan. Subsequently, the US strategic logistics plan contended with a number of obstacles at the political and operational levels. In the twenty-first century, the United States has participated in conflicts involving states fighting civil wars or revolutions, simultaneously battling external sub-state actors, and negotiating with international state actors intervening in their domestic affairs. Similar to US actions in the CBI Theater, the United States intervenes in these conflicts as part of a coalition providing military advisors, air power, weapons, and equipment. The strategic logistics plan of the CBI Theater, therefore, has contemporary significance such as identifying inherent challenges, available solutions, opportunities, and risks that can inform present-day policy, military strategy, and operational planning.


Social media for organizations, such as an academic department or a degree program, consist of a range of web-based applications that allow anyone to disseminate information to online communities. The principle reasons for creating a social media presence for an academic department or program include:
(1) Create an online social community for current students;
(2) Create an extended community of alumni and friends; and
(3) Create an awareness of the department or program among potential students.


Ocean Drilling Program Leg 105 drilled Site 645 (2018 m water depth) in southern Baffin Bay, recovering 1147 m of lowermost Miocene to Quaternary sediments. The drilling results, a regional multichannel seismic net, and industry wells on the Greenland margin and in Davis Strait allow us to reconstruct the late Paleogene-Quaternary tectonic and sedimentary history in southern Baffin Bay. A deep regional seismic reflector (R3) that extends across the central part of Baffin Bay and lies at a depth of about 1540 m below sea floor in the vicinity of Site 645 was not reached, but their results suggest a late Eocene-early Oligocene age for the horizon. That age, depositional sequences in seismic records, and results of a preliminary subsidence model for the site indicate that subsidence, following rifting of the basin, began between 63 and 55 Ma, and that spreading ceased by the Oligocene, in agreement with plate tectonic models for the region. This basin probably was not a major conduit for water-mass exchange between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans prior to the Eocene. Silty and sandy mud and muddy sand (porosities 20-30%), deposited in relatively deep water at rates of 30 to 140 m/m.y., dominate the sedimentary sequencemore » at Site 645. Organic carbon contents average near 1% over much of the sequence, with a maximum of 3%, but the organic matter has low hydrogen indices and is predominantly of terrestrial origin. The paucity of siliceous and calcareous biota, the neritic aspect of diatom and dinocyst floras, and other indicators suggest that cool, subsaline, low-productivity surface waters predominated from at least the Miocene to the present. Regional reflector (R2) marks the onset of vigorous deep-water circulation in the basin in the middle Miocene - perhaps the first major penetration of cold Arctic water masses into the Labrador Sea via Baffin Bay.« less


European Union regulations requiring companies to stop making chlorine via a process that involves mercury came into effect last week. Of the 21 mercury technology plants that were operating at the...


Submitted for the DPP11 Meeting of The American Physical Society Modeling and simulation of arc discharges for nanoparticle synthesis1 MADHUSUDHAN KUNDRAPU, JIAN LI, ALEXEY SHASHURIN, MICHAEL KEIDAR, The George Washington University — Arc discharge can produce nanoparticles with fewer topological defects. In order to improve the controllability of synthesis, a comprehensive understanding of the growth mechanism of nanoparticles is required. Experimental investigation has limitations in measuring the required parameters especially, species density and temperature distribution. Hence, a self-consistent numerical model is developed to simulate arc discharge chamber. Simulations are performed for arc current varying from 10 to 100 A with 4 mm electrode-gap in Helium background at 68 kPa. The sublimation rate and current-voltage characteristics are compared with the experiments. Good agreement is observed between simulation and experiment results. The probable growth region of nanoparticles is identified and Gibbs free energy model is then used to estimate the critical cluster size and further growth of nanoparticles. The catalyst cluster sizes are compared with those obtained from the TEM images of the experiments. Parametric studies are carried to indentify the inputs for which better growth is achieved. 1This work was supported by NSF/DOE Partnership in Plasma Science and Technology (NSF grant CBET-0853777, DOE grant DE-SC0001169, USA) Madhusudhan Kundrapu The George Washington University Date submitted: 14 Jul 2011 Electronic form version 1.4


ClassⅠcaramel color and white granulated sugar were used to studied the rules of the absorption between sucrose and caramel.Orthogonal array design was employed to investigate three factors(oversaturation,the mass of caramel,and the cooling rate) about their effects on the color of brown sugar in Japan Asahi crystallizer.The results showed that BET model can explain the absorption in this work,adjusting the saturation will lead to an critical point that the absorption is the least,higher caramel concentration and lower cooling rate will both benefit the absorption.


A mass balance model was developed and applied to the Sacramento River in northern California during the July 1991 Sacramento River metam-sodium spill. The transport and reactions of metam-sodium, a soil fumigant, and the volatile and toxic methyl isothiocyanate (MITC) were simulated during the two-and-a-half days of movement along a 68-km stretch of river. Results from modeling were compared with field data for MITC, which is the only product measured downriver after the spill. Agreement between the simulated and measured values of MITC concentrations were found at Doney Creek (65.9 km downstream). Results illuminated the complexities and unique characteristics associated with the multiple kinetic processes of the chemical plume in the river. In particular, the photolysis of metam-sodium followed zero-order kinetics for high concentrations and first-order kinetics for low concentrations, a unique phenomenon consistent with the finding reported in a laboratory study. Concentrations of metam-sodium for transition from zero- to first-order, obtained by calibration and model sensitivity analyses, were in the same range as those in the reported laboratory results.


Mandibular glands from destalked male spider crabs were fixed in glutaraldehyde‐paraformaldehyde, post‐fixed in 1% osmium in phosphate buffer, dehydrated in acetone and embedded in Spurr's low‐viscosity medium ('69). The glands hypertrophy and several changes occur in the subcellular cytoarchitecture following eyestalk ablation. These include loss of most of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum or its appearance as lamallae, appearance of numerous polysomes and a change in mitochondrial structure. Large vesicles with ribosomes spaced at intervals along their membranes are apparently formed by blebbing of the outer nuclear membrane and appear throughout the cytoplasm. Banded structures consisting of alternate granular and flocculent materials are found within the nucleus.


Lipases are enzymes capable of carrying out the hydrolysis of fatty acid, a reaction which is very important in industry and more specifically for the production of biodiesel. Can be produced by animals, plants and microbes, the latter being the most advantageous way. Its production in the laboratory has been much repeated and shows very satisfactory results. A multitude of ways of cultivation of this enzyme is developed, varying the types of micro-organisms producers, types of substrate and fermentation processes. Among the bacteria capable of producing lipase, Bacillus subtilis stands out markedly in published research by developing and producing the enzyme in adverse conditions. Very often, the agricultural industry wastes are used as culture medium of these microbes, or to reduce production costs, it is useful to provide such wastes. In this work, liquid waste processing of cassava, was used as an alternative source of carbon for the production of lipase and its results compared with different fermentation media being proven its efficiency in the production of the enzyme.


With the growing needs of prepreg tapes for the automated fiber placement (AFP), the deviation-rectifying of prepreg in slitting process was investigated on a self-developed 16-tow prepreg slitting and winding machine. The process of slitting and rewinding of prepreg tape was introduced, and the reason of prepreg tape deviation in slitting process was analyzed. In order to ensure the quality of the narrow prepreg slits, the application of the fuzzy PID algorithm in a closed-loop control system was discussed. A fuzzy PID algorithm was designed by combining fuzzy rules and PID controller. By applying it to precise deviation-rectifying control strategy, the automatic control of rectification could be achieved with accuracy of 0.1 mm, which satisfies the requirement of the prepreg tape both in slitting quality and layup quality for AFP.


Background & Aims : Anxiety due to hospitalization and treatment can negatively affect children's recovery. Reducing children's anxiety also makes the experience of hospitalization pleasant for children and their parents, which is one of the important activities of nursing. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of aromatherapy of orange essential oil on anxiety in hospitalized children. Materials & Methods : In this clinical trial, 70 children admitted to Valiasr Hospital in Birjand were selected by convenience sampling method and then randomly assigned to two groups of orange essential oil and routine care. In the intervention group, aromatherapy was performed for 3 days (three times a day). At the beginning and end of the intervention, the Spielberger situational-characteristic anxiety questionnaire for children was completed. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software version 16 and Chi-square, Mann-Whitney, paired t-test, Wilcoxon and t-test were used. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results : The results of paired t-test showed that in the control group, the mean score of overt and covert anxiety before and after the intervention was not significantly different (p> 0.05). However, the results of the Wilcoxon test showed that in the intervention group, the mean score of overt and covert anxiety before and after the intervention was significantly different (p <0.05) and the scores after the intervention were significantly different from the scores before the intervention. Conclusion : The results showed the positive effect of inhaled aromatherapy of orange essential oil on reducing the anxiety of hospitalized children, so aromatherapy is suggested as a new and easy option to reduce the anxiety in hospitalized children.


We consider the problem of efficient scheduling of vehicle-to-grid (V2G), grid-to-vehicle (G2V), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) operations in a smart microgrid equipped with renewable energy resources and multiple types of charging ports to cater the requirements of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and essential loads of households. Our objective is to schedule the operations such that the total price paid to the utility-grid for the electrical energy is minimum. We propose a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) based formulation to obtain an optimal schedule of those operations. We present a heuristic approach to find a reasonable solution quickly.


To the Editor: A 75-year-old man was seen for a routine transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE). He had a past history of anterior myocardial infarction 7 years before, chronic heart failure requiring cardiac resynchronization therapy 12 months earlier, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension. Four years earlier, he had been diagnosed with essential thrombocythemia (platelet count at diagnosis was 617 9 10/L, JAK2 mutation positive) and was started on cytoreductive therapy with hydroxycarbamide in addition to carvedilol, candesartan, bumetanide, eplerenone, metformin, and 75 mg/d of aspirin. He had stopped hydroxycarbamide 3 months before the visit because he had neutropenia (1.5 9 10/L), and his most recent blood count showed a neutrophil count of 3.10 9 10/L, with platelets of 191 9 10/L. The TTE showed severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction (as previously) with a thrombus in the apex of the left ventricle (LV) and multiple mobile structures attached to the right atrial and ventricular pacemaker leads (Figure 1, left). He was admitted to the hospital for further examination. He denied any recent invasive diagnostic procedures and had no fever. His electrocardiogram showed sinus rhythm, and plasma amino-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide was 18,717 ng/L. There was no growth on serial blood cultures. A coagulation screen was normal. He was treated with warfarin with a target international normalized ratio of 2–3 at discharge. Two weeks after discharge, an echocardiogram showed clean pacemaker leads (Figure 1, right). A TTE from before his cardiac resynchronization therapy showed no evidence of left ventricular thrombus.


This article provides a review of the general characteristics of Informal Public Transport (IPT) systems, the reasons behind the increasing use of these systems in developing countries, and the evaluation of Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRTS) as an alternative solution to IPTs. IPTs, whose use has increased significantly in many countries where Formal Public Transport is insufficient, are different in their service, operation, finance, monitoring and labour features. These systems' usage has increased in developing countries for many economic, social and political reasons such as low income, rapid population growth, increase in demand, urban macroform, job opportunities and more flexible routes. However, besides the positive effects of these systems, there are many adverse effects. It is challenging to transfer the public transport schemes made in developed countries directly to these countries, and understanding the reasons of current situation in detail allows to offer the right solution. Nevertheless, BRTS, which are segregated busways, is seen as a solution in many countries, and there are many agreeing and disagreeing arguments for this idea in the literature. Although there are examples where these systems improve public transport systems, there are many examples where they do not contribute to the solution. As a result, it has been reached that the diversity of the reasons for the increase in the use of IPT systems is high, and BRTS can be an alternative, producing spatially, economically, environmentally and politically appropriate solutions according to the local characteristics of the countries can be more beneficial than a single solution.


Radical AtheismThank You for ArguingUnclaimed ExperienceThe Simon & Schuster Handbook for WritersEssentials of SociologyThe Death Penalty, Volume IIHeading HomeManufacturing DepressionThe Structure of ArgumentAmerican Politics TodayMetaethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied EthicsPocket Guide to Public SpeakingTyranny of the NormalElements of Argument 10th Ed + Re:writing PlusCurious ResearcherElements of ArgumentFor the Love of PsychoanalysisReconnecting Reading and WritingThe Autobiography of an Ex-Colored ManEntitledThe Structure of ArgumentThe DepthsElements of Argument with 2009 MLA and 2010 APA UpdatesIntroductory StatisticsMany Sides: A Protagorean Approach to the Theory, Practice and Pedagogy of ArgumentPerspectives on ArgumentA World of IdeasGiorgio AgambenQuick Access BriefIn the Name of Women's RightsGender, Media and VoiceWork That BodyThe Rise of Neoliberal FeminismElements of ArgumentThe KingdomReason and ArgumentEmpoweredThe Structure of ArgumentMaking SenseGems of Cincinnati's West End


The natriuretic effect of an oral salt load has been tested in 6 children before and after resection of coarctation of the aorta. Pre‐ and postoperative determinations of GFR and PAH clearances were also made. Preoperatively the natriuresis following the salt load was depressed, indicating enhanced tubular sodium reabsorption. The GFR was slightly elevated, the PAH clearance was normal and the filtration fraction was elevated. Postoperatively there was an increase in the natriuretic response and a fall in the filtration fraction. There was a significant inverse correlation between the filtration fraction and the urinary excretion of the salt load. The results suggest that coarctation of the aorta is associated with a shift in intrarenal vascular resistance and that this hemodynamic change will, by rise in the oncotic pressure of the peritubular capillaries, result in the enhancement of the tubular sodium reabsorption.


The simulation of complex three-dimensional gas flow through the gaps of the spherical fuel elements (fuel pebbles) of Pebble Bed Modulator Reactor is performed. This will help in understanding the highly three-dimensional, complex flow phenomena in pebble bed caused by flow curvature. The flow of this type has distinctive features, which strongly affect the boundary layer behavior. The transition from a laminar to turbulent flow around this curved flow occurs at different Reynolds (Re) numbers. Noncircular curved flows as in the pebble-bed situation need to be investigated. In this study, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is used in modeling the turbulence to overcome the shortcoming of the Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes approach.


Although there is disagreement as to the nature of creativity, investigators have succeeded in analyzing many of its components. One of these is idea fluency (see Getzels & Jackson, 1962) . In terms of personality, a closely associated variable is conformity. Apparently, creative individuals are less conforming than are other persons. This raises the question concerning a third variable, anxiety. it possible that highly creative individuals possess a lower anxiety level than of low creativity? If so, many new hypotheses might be generated. A total of 114 University of Hawaii undergraduate volunteers participated in a scudy investigate this question. They were administered the Otis Mental Abilities Test, the Word Uses and Word Association Tests of Getzels and Jackson (1962) , which determine idea fluency, and the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS). Taylor (1956) reported that the MAS had been used successfully as a measure of anxiety, although its primary use was in assessing drive level. From the upper, middle, and lower thirds on the creativity measure, three groups of 20 Ss were selected. Ss in each group were matched as closely as possible for 1Q ( M I Q = 11 7 ) . The High Creativity (HC) group had a mean creativity score of 100.9 (range 95117) , Middle Creativity group (MC) 79.6 (range 67-89), and Low Creativity group (LC) 62.6 (range 49-67). MAS scores were 18.3 for HC, 20.6 for MC, and 22.7 for LC. (Ranges were 7-31, 7-39, and 12-39.) The HC-LC mean difference was significant ( p < .05, two-tailed t test). Using the scores of 114 Ss, Pearsonian correlations between pairs of measures were obtained. Between I Q and Creativity, r = .35 ( p < .001); between I Q and MAS, r = -.21 ( p < .05); between Creativity and MAS, 7 = -.I6


This paper presents an advanced life cycle cost (LCC) analysis of a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system and suggests a smart operation mode with a thermal performance test (TPT) and an energy pile system constructed on the site of the Incheon International Airport (IIA). First, an economic analysis of the GSHP system was conducted for the second passenger terminal of the IIA considering actual influencing factors such as government support and the residual value of the equipment. The analysis results showed that the economic efficiency of the GSHP system could be increased owing to several influential factors. Second, a multiple regression analysis was conducted using different independent variables in order to analyze the influence indices with regard to the LCC results. Every independent index, in this case the initial construction cost, lifespan of the equipment, discount rate and the amount of price inflation can affect the LCC results. Third, a GSHP system using an energy pile was installed on the site of the construction laboratory institute of the IIA. TPTs of W-shape and spiral-coil-type GHEs were conducted in continuous and intermittent operation modes, respectively, prior to system operation of the energy pile. A cooling GSHP system in the energy pile was operated in both the continuous and intermittent modes, and the LCC was calculated. Furthermore, the smart operation mode and LCC were analyzed considering the application of a thermal storage tank.


A 70-year-old woman presented with pain in and around the left knee. There was no significant medical, drug, or trauma history. Plain radiograph results showed osteoporosis with patchy sclerosis in the proximal left tibia. Bone scan results showed marked focal uptake in the sclerotic lesion and additional lesions in the lower limbs. Approximately half the lesions were gallium-avid. Although the findings favored bone infarcts, none were considered diagnostic to exclude malignancy. Results of a bone biopsy of the proximal left tibia confirmed bone infarct. No cause was found and her symptoms resolved. Bone infarcts should be considered in the differential diagnosis of focal hot spots, especially if they are periarticular, even if no predisposition is present.


Different stellar phenomena affect radial velocities (RVs), causing variations large enough to make it difficult to identify planet signals from the stellar variability. RV variations caused by stellar oscillations and granulation can be reduced through some methods, but the impact of rotationally modulated magnetic activity on RV, due to stellar active regions, is harder to correct. New instrumentation promises an improvement in precision of one order of magnitude, from about 1 m s−1 to about 10 cm s−1. In this context, we report our first results from 24 spectroscopic Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO)/Very-Large Telescope observations of the solar twin star HIP 11915, spread over 60 nights. We used a Gaussian Process approach and found for HIP 11915 a RV residual rms scatter of about 20 cm s−1, representing an upper limit for the performance of ESPRESSO.


Purpose

This study draws upon the cultural values model, institutional theory and comparative capitalism to investigate differences in organizations' approach to stakeholder management across country boundaries.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors developed a multi-dimensional scale, following the stakeholder culture framework (Jones et al., 2007) to identify differences in the prevalent stakeholder cultures in the USA, Italy and Japan. Data were collected in form of a questionnaire from managers of 530 companies in the USA, Italy and Japan.

Findings

Results show that there are important differences in the extent to which different stakeholder cultures exist in each of these three countries, and that the prevalence of stakeholder culture types in each country is influenced by the country's cultural values and institutional arrangements.

Originality/value

Understanding stakeholder management beyond the conventional firm level to a wider institutional setting has important implications for the dissemination of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices across cultures. Developing an understanding of how organizations' stakeholder management approaches are embedded in the context of the institutional arrangements that exist in a particular country will lead to CSR practices that are better suited to the specific national context. It may also help in a more widespread acceptance of these concepts and practices.


This study was conducted to investigate the permanent settlement of a shallow square foundation in improving the cyclic load-settlement characteristics of reinforced sand. Also, The ultimate bearing capacity (UBC) for unreinforced sand and reinforced sand has been compared. The foundation was initially subjected to an allowable static load and the cyclic load was superimposed on it. Based on the model test results, the ultimate permanent settles is markedly reduced due to geogrid reinforcement.


High-power and high-brightness lasers such as disk and fiber lasers are recently developed to produce deep penetration welds. This study was therefore performed to produce deep-penetration weld beads by using high power disk lasers of 10 kW and 16 kW respectively or combined lasers, and a newly developed vacuum chamber with rotary pumps. It was consequently revealed that deeply-penetrated sound weld beads of 50 and 70 mm depth could be produced in Type 304 stainless steel under the conditions of 16 and 26 kW, 0.3 m/min and 0.1 kPa, respectively. Moreover, sound full-penetration weld beads without hot cracks and underfills could be made in HT980 high tensile strength steel plate of 23 mm in thickness.High-power and high-brightness lasers such as disk and fiber lasers are recently developed to produce deep penetration welds. This study was therefore performed to produce deep-penetration weld beads by using high power disk lasers of 10 kW and 16 kW respectively or combined lasers, and a newly developed vacuum chamber with rotary pumps. It was consequently revealed that deeply-penetrated sound weld beads of 50 and 70 mm depth could be produced in Type 304 stainless steel under the conditions of 16 and 26 kW, 0.3 m/min and 0.1 kPa, respectively. Moreover, sound full-penetration weld beads without hot cracks and underfills could be made in HT980 high tensile strength steel plate of 23 mm in thickness.


In Sweden, timing of brittle deformation of many important faults remains poorly constrained, as only very few studies providing absolute geochronological constraints exist. Here, we new although preliminary results aiming to better define the age of brittle deformation accommodated by the Söderström Fault (Stockholm area) by dating authigenic and synkinematic illite separated from the fault rocks using K-Ar dating. The fault transects Svecokarelian (2.0-1.8 Ga) migmatites of sedimentary and granitoid origin previously deformed in the ductile regime. The Söderström Fault is recognized as a key brittle deformation zone that strikes east-west through Söderström, a water body that separates the capital suburbs Gamla Stan and Södermalm in central Stockholm. Relatively little is known about this fault, but there are indications for still active dextral strike-slip motion along the fault. Reverse S-side-up movement of up to several hundreds of meters has been reported. Samples from this fault were obtained from a drill core that cross-cut the fault and preserve clay-rich gouge. Sample preparation allowed separation of clay minerals in five different size fractions (<0.1 μm, 0.1-0.4 μm, 0.4-2 μm, 2-6 μm and 6-10 μm). Dating of two samples (SGL18-0001A and SGL18-0003A) shows a range of ages from ca 360 to 660 Ma and ca 450 to 760 Ma, whereby the younger ages are from the finerand the older ages from the coarser size fractions. The younger sample (SGL18-0001A) yields distinct ages in the two finest grain size fractions, <0.1 and 0.1-0.4 μm, at ca 360 Ma and ca 390 Ma, respectively. SGL18-0001A also exhibits similar ages in the coarsest grain size fractions, 2-6 and 6-10 μm, with ca 650 Ma to ca 660 Ma, respectively. Similarly, sample SGL18-0003A yields consistent ages in the two coarsest grain size fractions, with ages of ca 790 Ma and ca 760 Ma, whereas the three smaller grain size fractions yield gradually younger ages, from ca 670 Ma to ca 550 Ma and ca 450 Ma. A detailed study of the identification of the clay mineral fractions is still ongoing, and it will help constrain the actual amount of authigenic illite in the finest fraction as well as the polytypism of the clay crystallites. These preliminary dates indicate a protracted brittle deformation history of the Söderström Fault. Gouge formation postdates the Sveconorwegian orogeny (1.1 -0.9 Ga), and is more likely related to extensional events during the opening of the Iapetus Ocean. The youngest ages coincide broadly with the age of the Caledonian orogeny and may represent the influence of the far-field orogenic stress. A similar timing of brittle deformation has also been observed by Alm et al. (2004) and Drake et al. (2009) in eastern and northern Sweden, and in southeastern Sweden, respectively, by dating specific mineral growth events.


In an otherwise excellent contribution to the literature, Zinberg, Shaffer, Kauffman, and Trainor (1992) made a statement that, if taken out of context, could be destructively misleading. They stated "there is not a shred of evidence to link AIDS to any other form of drug use " (Zinberg et al., 1992, p. 18). The only form of drug use that they believe is linked to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is intravenous drug use. There are two other forms of drug use that are highly associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. One is crack cocaine use, and the other is nitrite use. The use of crack has been found to predict HIV seroconversion. The most important association has been with women who trade sex for crack, drastically increasing their number of sex partners (Schilling, El-Bassel, Serrano, & Wallace, 1992; Sorensen et al., 1991). Men who are the trading partners of these women have been found to have high rates of HIV infection (Sorensen et al., 1991, p. 132). There have been reports of extreme cases in which women become permanent residents of crack houses so that they can continuously trade sex for crack (Turner, Miller, & Moses, 1989, p. 144). A study in San Francisco is following female HIV positive prostitutes who have no history of needle use, who exchange sex either for crack or for money to buy crack (Darrow & Centers for Disease Control, 1990). The association between crack use and syphilis has been well established (Rolfs, Goldberg, & Sharrar, 1990). Syphilis is but one type of genital ulcerative disease (GUD). GUD greatly increases the efficiency of sexual transmission of HIV, so that each sexual encounter is significantly more


OR many years there has been a traditions in this country that the United States is China's best friendChina's defender against the encroachments of Western nations. One never quite knows how such traditions originate or what keeps them alive, but that they affect Government policy is indubitable, since governments hesitate to fly in the face of public sentiment. In the case of China this tradition may have been started and certainly has been fostered by the missionaries, but it has persisted even more, in all probability, because of instinctive American sympathy for the under dog. When anything happens in the Orient, China generally pays. At times we have even been inclined


A method for reducing lost events in LOR rebinning using axially extended sinograms was evaluated in phantom and awake rat studies. The results suggest that a relatively small number of additional virtual detector rings leads to a sizeable reduction in lost events, reducing noise levels, and less affected by the blurring associated with the more simplistic SSRB approach. Although use of additional virtual rings increases computation load by requiring larger sinograms, we postulate that this may still provide a suitable `middle ground' approach between SSRB and a full list mode reconstruction.


The problematics of the Judicial Power in the majority of the countries is very similar, especially in the countries that are in routes of development, since there is had the perception of corruption and of judicial slow processes that are very costly and with discriminatory access for economic reasons. This represents a serious affront towards the humanity because it creates scenes of injustice due to the procedure and not to the bottom of the matters. On the other hand, the TIC have allowed the incorporation of new procedures in many institutions and companies with great success, tangible advantages being obtained as rapidity in the processes and decrease of costs. Meanwhile the judiciary of Peru yet does not reach the levels of services that the technology provides. This work does a review of the world advance of the adoption of the TIC in the judiciary, the good practices and your perspective of development. Also there is proposed an Electronic Experimental Court - JUEEX, by means of which there would be allowed an intensive evolution of the application of the TIC in a court model.


ETHIC AND UNIVERSITY
The crisis that affects the Venezuelan university is
the ethical character. It is not by chance that in the
Symposium for the University Change, hold in the
University of the Andes (2001), was incorporated
into the discussion problems about ethic, teaching
and research in the university. This meeting bets for
an ethical reflection of structural character. In order
to rethink the relation ethic-University we confronted
of the hand of the phenomenological method, two
thematic points from the epistomologic point of view
in the tradition of critical pedagogic: 1. Ethic, University
and Curriculum; 2. The Values, the University,
and the management. It is not only a theoretical
treatise to reveal the spidewebs that induce sleep
the critical conscience, the endowed position and
the demystifying Reason, that must accompany the
university teachers. At moments when the university
is being threatened and displaced from the
classroom to the event prevails to sincere its
desideratum, and bet by a University change with
sense


The paper reviews technology developments and market trends surrounding Additive Manufacturing (AM, also known as 3D Printing), which has received much interest and attention in the past year from variety of audiences both industrial users and non-industrial users. The paper will also explain the development history and characteristics of RaFaEl, an original Japanese powder bed fusion system developed by Aspect, Inc. Major focus of development was to improve productivity from Aspect's previous powder bed fusion systems by two times.


The purpose of this study was to examine the effects the meeting culture in traditional projects has on the participants' motivation. The meeting culture in traditional projects can differ in effectiveness since it is dependant on the project manager to arrange, hold and follow up the meeting. The empiric study was conducted in the form of qualitative interviews at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI, and the motivation experienced by participants' was analysed by Self Determination Theory. The results from the interviews showed a demotivating experience in several situations, both regarding the meeting culture and how the meeting content was handled. The authors found that the motivation was affected by the agenda and purpose of the meeting, the attendence, time and form of the meeting and feedback. The results revealed that the examined meeting culture was unstructured which led to an emerging sub-meeting culture of an increasing number of smaller informal meetings. This in turn led to an experience of the work flow being disturbed and the interviewees feeling more stressed and less productive. Since agile project methodology is often regarded as motivating from several aspects, the authors conducted a discussion on how the implementation of agile meetings can be conducive to motivation in traditional project environments.


In the last decade, there has been significant progress on Robotics. This development has widened the intervention fields of robots, particularly the assistance and interaction with humans. Improving the quality of this interaction requires robots to be endowed with representation and/or reasoning system for spatial knowledge. Our goal is to develop a planner allowing us to use human robot interaction to solve space sharing problems. This work is original, in that the representation of the same space for humans (symbolic, fuzzy) and robots (numeric) is not the same. Our objective is to combine human and robots representations of space in order to develop a mixed reasoning. We propose here an ontology called \textit{Space Ontology} as a spatial knowledge representation and reasoning system. In this paper, we focus on this ontology, and show how this type of knowledge can be profitably used for task planning. Our objective is to incorporate this ontology into a planner by extending the planning language PDDL.


Objective To explore the effect of clinical pathway in surgical treatment for patients with mandibular fracture.Methods 80 patients with mandibular fracture were randomly divided into the conventional therapy group(the control group) (n =40) and the clinical pathway therapy group (CP group) (n =40).The hospitalization time,medical expenses,satisfaction for the treatment,health awareness,and incidence of complications were compared between two groups.Results The results of hospitalization time,medical expenses,satisfaction for the treatment,and health awareness of the CP group were (11.86 ± 3.05) d,(9 115.43 ± 1 689.84) yuan,(91.19 ± 1.02) %,(95.18 ±4.11)points,respectively,which were significantly better than those of the control group [(17.53 ± 2.98)d,(12 066.75 ±2 513.22)yuan,(89.39 ±1.35)%,(82.83 ± 6.56) points] (t =8.41,6.16,6.73,10.01,all P <0.05).The complication rate of the two groups was 2.5%,7.5%,respectively,which had no significant differences (χ2 =0.26,P > 0.05).Concltsion The clinical pathway for mandibular fracture surgery is worthy of promotion.

Key words:
Clinical pathways ;  Mandibule;  Fractures, bone


This paper proposed a novel Region of Interest (ROI) based rate control algorithm for video communication systems, in which the subjective quality of ROI can be adjusted according to users' requirements. In the proposed scheme, in order to analyze the relationship between subjective quality and encoding parameters, a Structural Similarity Index Map — quantization parameter (SSIM-QP) model is established. Through this relation, the possible visual quality range of ROI is defined according to the range of ROI QP, which is predicted by rate control algorithm. Then, with interest levels being identified within the visual quality range, resources allocated to ROI is determined. Finally, considering both the quality of ROI and the entire frame, resource allocation is slightly adjusted. Experimental results demonstrate that the subjective visual quality of ROI in our proposed scheme can be adjustable improved compared to the existing rate control algorithms.


This article describes the role of transnational policy entrepreneurs in producing and maintaining the global discourse of river basin organizations--a key element of global water governance. It takes an agency approach and draws on three streams of literature--discourse analysis, political ecology, and political economy--to derive strategies that transnational actors may use to advance discourse. To illustrate agency and strategies, it draws from a wide variety in types of RBOs across the globe. It finds that global knowledge networks exhibit the most expansive reach, serving as the oil in the machine of the global RBO discourse. This finding raises important questions around networks in the broader global water governance discourse as well as compelling questions related to governance. KEYWORDS: river basin organizations, discourse, scale, politics, agency, transnational policy entrepreneurs, political ecology, political economy, networks. REFLECTING BROADER TRENDS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AWAY FROM A SYSTEM of decisionmaking and collective action dominated by a few key intergovernmental institutions, global water governance may be seen as increasingly diffuse, heterogeneous, fragmented, and unpredictable. (1) Representing more of a multilevel arrangement that includes local, national, and basin levels, global water governance entails not only governments but also international nongovernmental organizations (ING0s), global knowledge networks, and private sector actors who formulate and implement policy and frame discourse at multiple and interrelated levels. (2) Through the development of knowledge, development assistance projects, global water meetings, and publications, these transnational actors shape global water discourse and governance. Central to global water governance are river basin organizations (RBOs) that are organized at the basin level to serve as forums to link various governance levels, including the local, national, and global. RBOs are on the rise globally today, increasingly promoted by transnational policy actors supporting good governance concepts in developing countries. (3) In the past two decades, both domestic and international RBOs have been established in virtually every region of the world. (4) As primary mechanisms for water governance, RBOs provide forums for critical water management issues, including conflicts around water quantity and quality as well as the use of water for human and environmental needs. (5) Despite the rise of RBOs and their importance to governance, the trajectory that this concept has traveled to reach its position of global prominence and the role of transnational policy actors in advancing and maintaining RBOs is relatively unknown. (6) We address this gap by examining transnational policy entrepreneurs and their strategies in the rise of the modern discourse around RBOs. We see discourse as "an ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is reproduced through an identifiable set of practices." (7) Unraveling the working of a discourse helps us to explore the debate, uncover which and whose agendas are being served, and ultimately offer pathways for strategic positioning of actors in the debates on water governance. Although there is rich literature on discourse theory and its application to the environment, no unified analytical framework exists for examination of the path through which discourses become dominant. (8) An agency approach, representing the ability to exercise authority and influence policy change, (9) suggests explicit attention to policy actors as change agents and their strategies as the means to instigate or block the RBO discourse. Through an integration of several literatures, we identify particular strategies of transnational actors in water governance and apply this typology to illustrate how different actors make use of these strategies. …


A numerical study of a single fracture embedded in a porous matrix was performed to investigate the role of fracture coatings and fills on water movement in permeable, fractured porous media. The variables considered were conductivity and continuity of fracture coatings; location, length, and conductivity of fracture fills; combinations of fills and coatings; initial matrix saturation; and inflow boundary conditions. Results from the simulations indicate that in low‐saturation, high‐capillarity tuff systems, the conditions under which fractures act as rapid flow paths are limited. These conditions include a continuous coating with conductivity several orders of magnitude lower than that of the neighboring matrix, and large inflow rates. However, as initial matrix saturation increases, the amount of fracture flow also increases. Discontinuities in coatings substantially reduce their effectiveness in preventing matrix imbibition. The presence of any coating, however, does produce increased infiltration depths. Fills appear to be effective barriers to fracture flow.


Artificial, neurobiological, and social networks are three distinct complex adaptive systems CASs, each containing discrete processing units nodes, neurons, and humans, respectively. Despite the apparent differences, these three networks are bound by common underlying principles which describe the behavior of the system in terms of the connections of its components, and its emergent properties. The longevity long-term retention and functionality of the components of each of these systems is also defined by common principles. Here, I will examine some properties of the longevity and function of the components of artificial and neurobiological systems, and generalize these to the longevity and function of the components of social CAS. In other words, I will show that principles governing the long-term functionality of computer nodes and of neurons, may be extrapolated to the study of the long-term functionality of humans or more precisely, of the noemes, an abstract combination of "existence" and "digital fame". The study of these phenomena can provide useful insights regarding practical ways that can be used to maximize human longevity. The basic law governing these behaviors is the "Law of Requisite Usefulness," which states that the length of retention of an agent within a CAS is proportional to the agent's contribution to the overall adaptability of the system. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 20: 15-24, 2015


During dinner, a 74-year-old man ate food only from the left side of the dish, leaving the right side untouched (Picture 1). The Goldmann visual field record revealed right homonymous hemianopsia (HH) (Picture 2), and diffusionweighted magnetic resonance imaging showed acute cerebral infarction in the left thalamus and occipital lobe (Picture 3). Most cases of HH are induced by ischemic stroke (1), and approximately half of these cases are not self-detected by such patients in daily life (2). Early intervention using intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) and


The purpose of this paper is to introduce an accurate performance model for the TCP Reno version in the presence of a bottlenecked router which uses the Random Early Detection (RED) active queue The paper makes two contributions:• It introduces an accurate model of a target source operating according to the TCP Reno mechanism in the presence of background traffic. The background traffic is represented by a general discrete batch Markov arrival process (D-BMAP), which is modified in order to make the phase transitions dependent on packet losses. It can therefore be used to model a collection of UDP and/or TCP sources. Under this model, packets are dropped only when the router is congested, or when the RED protocol is invoked, i.e., the buffer occupancy is taken into account.• The paper also introduces an accurate model of the RED mechanism, which tracks the evolution of the difference between the instantaneous and average queue sizes. This representation is chosen since the average queue size tends to follow the instantaneous queue size, and therefore the difference between them is usually limited.This model is different from the models presented in the literature for TCP in a number of ways. Unlike [1, 2] where packet losses are random, and independent of the actual buffer occupancy, our model captures the buffer occupancy, and the actual packet losses due to buffer overflow. This paper also models the cross traffic using a general process. Reference [3] considered the effect of cross traffic only by modeling the service times using a random process.


Purpose
This study aims to track and integrate past research concerning how tourism might improve natural disaster management, detect thematic research areas and develop an agenda for future research.

Design/methodology/approach
Using a systematic literature review methodology, this research synthesises academic papers indexed in the Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost (Hospitality & Tourism Complete) databases. A total of 34 articles published in peer-reviewed English journals were systematically selected for review and analysed using a thematic approach.

Findings
This review highlights a growing interest in the potential and value of tourism for disaster management. Eight key themes emerged in the review, including education and information communication about disasters; tourism facilities for disaster preparation; tourism resources in emergency conditions; livelihoods and economic recovery; disaster-related tourism attractions for recovery; destination re-branding and re-framing; community reinvigoration in tourism-driven disaster recovery; and special-interest tourism for recovery. A natural disaster management schematic empowered by tourism highlights tourism industry opportunities to positively impact the entire disaster management process.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work offers the first systematic review of the research on how tourism might support multiple stages of natural disaster management. This study thus complements and enriches extant literature reviews on the nexus between tourism and disaster management. The framework presents timely guidelines for planners, developers and other key stakeholders to leverage tourism initiatives to improve disaster management outcomes.


Detecting and removing raindrops from an image while keeping the high quality of image details has attracted tremendous studies, but remains a challenging task due to the inhomogeneity of the degraded region and the complexity of the degraded intensity. In this paper, we get rid of the dependence of deep learning on image‐to‐image translation and propose a separation‐restoration‐fusion network for raindrops removal. Our key idea is to recover regions of different damage levels individually, so that each region achieves the optimal recovery result, and finally fuse the recovered areas. In the region restoration module, to complete the restoration of a specific area, we propose a multi‐scale feature fusion global information aggregation attention network to achieve global to local information aggregation. Besides, we also design an inside and outside dense connection dilated network, to ensure the fusion of the separated regions and the fine restoration of the image. The qualitatively and quantitatively evaluations are conducted to evaluate our method with the latest existing methods. The result demonstrates that our method outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods by a large margin on the benchmark datasets in extensive experiments.


SUBTITLE: AIRLINES AND INTEGRATORS ARE SPENDING MILLIONS ON NEW EUROPEAN CARGO FACILITIES, YET EUROPE IS CONSIDERED A SLOW-GROW AREA FOR AIRFREIGHT: WHAT GIVES?


In the title compound, C16H11NO4S, the nine-membered fused ring is nearly planar, with maximum deviations from the mean plane of −0.022 (1) Å for the N atom and 0.011 (1) Å for the S atom, and makes a dihedral angle of 53.56 (7)° with the phenyl ring. The crystal structure is stabilized by O—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen-bonding interactions.


In his extensive introduction Professor Sofos details the various sources of contamination, either direct or cross-, leading to a contamination cycle which is a natural, unavoidable phenomenon and states that it is impossible to produce food, whether raw meat or indeed of plant origin, which is free of contamination. The scene having been set, the authors have been given the task of describing the procedures and strategies which will give the consumer products that should be safe for consumption after adequate cooking. The main body of the book comprises two parts. In Part I, 'Identifying and controlling hazards on the farm and feedlot', topics covered in the 10 chapters include: Detection of pathogens in cattle and meat; environmental contaminants in feed and meat; pathogen control using probiotics and vaccines. Part II, 'Identifying and controlling hazards during and after slaughter' has 20 chapters covering topics such as animal welfare; physical and chemical decontamination strategies for meat; irradiation; meat spoilage; refrigerated storage and transport; HACCP. Much information is given in the form of Tables and there are comparisons of regulations and practices prevailing in various countries and, frequently, critical assessment of analytical methods which may be used by regulatory authorities. I particularly appreciated the comments on pp. 71—72 that the ease with which an assay can be carried out is a critical issue for a method which is to be used for regulatory purposes and that methods need to be robust and 'user friendly' if they are to be used for regulatory purposes. Each chapter is accompanied by a bibliography, with references up to 2004. Most authors have provided sources of further information and advice. Though I found the use of both English and American spellings of some words (for example faecal, fecal) a minor irritation, the Editor and authors are to be commended for producing an easy-to-read text which should present no problems for those readers whose first language is not English. Overall, I concur with the view that this could become a standard reference and so I would suggest that the book is worthy of consideration for purchase both by those working in the meat production industry and by the appropriate regulatory authorities.


Summary. The duration of fertilizing capacity of mouse spermatozoa in the female tract was investigated by insemination of mice following the injection of pmsg and hcg or post partum. It was found that the fertilizing life of mouse spermatozoa in the female tract is about 12 hr rather than 6 hr as previously reported. The duration of fertilizing capacity of mouse spermatozoa in the female reproductive tract was reported to be 6 hr by Merton (1939), and this figure has been quoted by many authors (Parkes, 1960; Bishop, Hartman, Chang, Since Merton's estimate for the fertilizing life of mouse spermatozoa was much shorter than the times determined for other rodents [14 hr in the rat 22 hr in the guinea-pig Soderwall Young, and non-rodent species [30 hr in the rabbit & Asdell 1926), 126 hr in the ferret 144 hr in the horse 1942; Burkhardt, and because of the lack of detailed data in Merton's report (1939), the following experiments were performed to reassess the duration of the fertilizing life of mouse spermatozoa in the female tract.


Objective Headaches are common in acute cerebral vascular disease,symptoms,and its incidence reported in each group is different,and the incidence in elderly patients with ischemic stroke pathogenesis is different.This article aims to study the elderly patients with ischemic stroke the clinical characteristics of headache and associated factors.Methods The collection and hospital outpatient and emergency department unconscious barriers to acute ischemic stroke patients and 300 cases,including patients with cerebral infarction 200,TIA 100 cases of headache patients,75 cases of headache patients in a retrospective analysis.Results 300 cases of unintentional disorder patients with acute ischemic stroke,75 cases,accounting for 25%.Through clinical analysis,we found the initial ischemic stroke patients at onset of headache with age,past history of migraine headaches,blood pressure of people's homes,involvement of the circulatory system and the location of the lesion,but not with vascular risk factors,acute ischemic stroke(AIS),severity of unrelated.Conclusion In clinical practice,for older migraine patients,such as the nature of headache,location,duration,different from the previous,without focal neurological dysfunction should be further detailed examination,to avoid misdiagnosis of migraine as a complex,triggering adverse consequences.


Humans are exposed to various industrial, occupational and environmental pollutions. Continuous exposure to pollutants such as xenobiotics, pesticides, organic pollutants and consumer products could cause cancers, wounds, inflammation and organ damages[1]. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), a widely used fat soluble industrial solvent, is reported to cause free radicals induced damage to vital tissues such as lungs, kidneys, brain, blood and testis[2-4]. A few studies unequivocally reported CCl4induced liver injury in rats[5]. Since the pathological lesions developed in CCl4 treated animals closely resemble the symptoms of cirrhosis and severe viral hepatitis in humans, it serves as an excellent model to assess the efficacy of hepatoprotection[6]. CCl4 initially binds with metabolic intermediates and cellular proteins that will alter the cascade of events culminating in cellular necrosis due to membrane lipid peroxidation[5]. Hepatic markers such as alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), bilirubin and reactive oxygen species (ROS) stand implicated in CCl4 induced hepatic damage[7]. Considering the adverse effects caused by prolonged PEER REVIEW ABSTRACT


Approximately 670 000 nurses and midwives in the UK are professionally accountable to the regulatory body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). We also have a contractual accountability to our employers and we are answerable to the law for our actions. The NMC sets out very clearly the role and responsibilities for employers and our code of conduct makes clear our duty of care to our patients and their families. As you will all be aware, there is a public expectation that individual nurses are up to date and are fit to practise. Over the last few years, there has been strong support from patients and the public about including patient feedback as a part of revalidation to enhance public protection. The Professional Standards Authority (PSA formally CHRE) felt that an effective continuing fitness-to-practise measurement such as revalidation is necessary for health professionals. Reports such as the Francis and Berwick reports support the necessity of revalidation for all health professionals, stressing that any revalidation system needs to be proportionate, accountable, consistent, transparent and targeted. However, all this is very ambitious. The NMC is only committed to delivering a proportionate and effective revalidation system by December 2015 and they have prioritised this work in their corporate plan for 2013–2016 (NMC, 2013). As most of you will know, the NMC Council met in September 2013 to consider various revalidation models for nurses and midwives across the UK. The NMC Council agreed to go forward with what was originally described as option 3, which means nursing revalidation would require a third party (such as an employer or manager) to confirm that we as nurses who are revalidating are complying with the revised Code. However, it must take account of feedback from patients, service users, carers and colleagues and revalidation will take place at the point of renewal. This option appears to suggest a 3-yearly enhanced form of appraisal. Most organisations have an annual appraisal and Personal Development Plan system, so to begin with we should ask ourselves whether we are using this for our development and demonstrating with evidence that we are safe and effective practitioners. The NMC describes the aim of revalidation as 'primarily to provide checks and assurances that staff on the NMC register remain capable of safe and effective conduct and practice'. The NMC has commenced engaging with employers and us as registrants. This will be followed by a formal consultation running from January to March 2014. It is crucial that we engage in this consultation and remember that together, we have a powerful voice. I have no doubt that the NMC will want to access Rory Farrelly NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Director of Nursing Acute Services Division as many organisations, universities, trade unions, royal colleges and professional groups where nursing contribution is pivotal. Principles of a revalidation model should include: ■ We as nurses continuing to meet NMC standards ■ Putting patients and their families first and always ■ Nurses being accountable for demonstrating our continuing fitness to practise ■ Nurses promoting a culture of professionalism and accountability through ongoing reflection and learning on the revised code and standards ■ Ensuring all organisations that employ nurses put nursing revalidation as core business for nurses to continue to demonstrate fitness to practise ■ Must be fully resourced and funded ■ Information technology (IT) systems are developed at national and local level to make nursing revalidation seamless and easy to use/implement ■ Must be creative and innovative ■ Strike a balance between protecting the public and developing the practitioner ■ Be flexible and adaptable. It is worth noting that midwives already have an annual assessment of their competence through statutory supervision. In order for its implementation in midwifery, it required funding and proper resources. You will all be aware of the launch of medical revalidation and it too has been funded and resourced. Let's make sure we influence the new model so that it works for us; it must be fully resourced, properly funded and we as registrants must be adequately supported if it is to work (dare I mention for those that remember—PREP (Post Registrant Education and Practice)). It is crucial that we as registrants ask ourselves whether we support the principles of revalidation and if the answer is yes, any method of validation must be proportionate and cost-effective, but resourced and fully funded at national and local level. This is the start of a process and journey for us all and we recognise that there is a lot of preparation and planning ahead to be ready to implement a new system at the end of 2015. We have huge experience of learning and implementing new ways of working. We are big influencers so let's not forget that. I encourage you all to engage with the new revalidation—one of the most important things that will happen to us as nurses. BJN


Filipino cannery workforce as it was in the early to midtwentieth century: it was made up predominantly of migrant noncitizens, subjects of "imported colonialism," exploited at work, discriminated against in their broader communities, and excluded from the promises of full and equal belonging (pp. 74, 370). This condition, in turn, can only be fully explained by pointing to the complex intersection of multiple historical institutions and forces. First, there is the long US imperial project in the Philippines, which institutionalized racial hierarchy on the islands, created landownership patterns that forced many Filipinos to migrate to the US metropole, and established the status Filipinos would experience when they did so—not as citizens but as "nationals," as "colonial subjects bound by loyalty to American sovereign authority but allowed to travel within and among the territorial borders of the United States" (p. 78). (This is one example of a broader pattern: a US political and legal order historically shaped by racially distinct and unequal citizenship categories.) Then there is the growth of racism among white citizens and workers, which McCann and Lovell understand in part as a response to their declining status in a changing economy (p. 44). Finally, there is the hierarchical and oppressive order of the workplace itself, which the authors argue constitutes an exception to the supposedly ubiquitous free liberal American order (pp. 17, 132, 370). Running through their complex historical explanation of these phenomena is their understanding of law as contradictory and contested. On the one hand, the legal structures that supported empire, oppressive workplaces, and racialized citizenship show that the optimistic, liberal view of law—law viewed as correcting exceptional, private discriminatory practices—is profoundly partial. Nevertheless, on the other hand, the contrasting view that law can be nothing but a tool of white capitalists is belied by another running theme of McCann and Lovell's book: the legal mobilization and rights consciousness of immigrant cannery workers. The authors make the case that this consciousness, too, can only be understood historically, as developing over time. It had been shaped by a succession of experiences: legal struggles in the early twentieth century to overcome or bypass alien land laws that prevented many immigrants from owning and leasing farm plots (pp. 102–7); a wave of labor organizing in the canneries in the 1930s (pp. 119–59); and antiwar, antiimperialist student organizing in the 1960s and 1970s (p. 231). Although the Court put an untimely end to the cannery workers' claims in the Wards Cove case, and thus at least temporarily hampered efforts to make creative use of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, McCann and Lovell insist that a crucial lesson of the episode is the ability of oppressed working people to develop and organize around innovative legal arguments and strategies. The potential of such mobilization to reshape the social order is still another reason to heed the lesson of both these books about the need for political inquiry to keep labor in focus.


The author reviews his work on altruism, offering a time continuum for understanding levels of explanation in social behavior, showing that individual differences in both prosocial and antisocial behavior are about 50% heritable, and outlining how epigenetic rules guide development in one direction over alternatives. He also presents "genetic similarity theory," showing that humans are able to detect degrees of genetic simiarity in others and to prefer those most similar for friendship and marriage, a process which provides a basis for ethnic favoritism and group selection.


SUMMARYTafethion (ethion), an organophosphate insecticide was examined for its ability to induce chromosomal aberration and micronuclei (MN) in somatic (bone marrow) cells and sperm-shape abnormality in germ cells of mice tested in vivo. Mutagenicity of commercial preparation of ethion (tafethion 50 EC) was tested employing three doses (15, 22.5 and 30 mg/kg b.w.), three routes of administration (ip, po and sc), three hours of exposure acutely (6, 24 and 48) as well as chronic (6 mg/kg/day; 5 days) for chromosomal aberration. All three doses were also tested for MN (30 hrs) and sperm-shape abnormality (35 days). The negative control was on glass double distilled (g.d.d.) water. The results in general, differed significantly from controls and indicated the mutagenic property of the chemical.


1020 Background: Physician recommendation is key to colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. The aim of this study is to assess the effects of "academic detailing," a novel, brief, office-based intervention designed to change primary care physicians' (PCP's) CRC screening practices, relative to a service-as-usual control. The end point is the percentage of asymptomatic patients age > 50 years screened for CRC.

METHODS
In-person interviews were conducted at baseline, and 12-months with urban PCP's (N=164) who were stratified by the income and ethnic/racial characteristics of their practice communities, and whose offices were assigned at random to one of two study arms. Eight percent of PCP's in the New York City area participated in the trial at baseline.

RESULTS
The results of a repeated measures ANOVA at 12-month followup showed statistically significant intervention effects for increased colonoscopy screening recommendations. At pretest, the intervention group PCP's recommended 68% of their eligible patients for colonoscopy screening; at post-test, they recommended 83% of similar patients (p=.03). By contrast, due to increased general awareness of CRC, similar control PCP's only increased their rates of recommendation to 7% at posttest. The findings from a hierarchical model of colonoscopy screening, accounting for stratification by community, also found statistically significant intervention effects (F=5.20; p=.03). There was also a significant pretest effect (F=14.91, p<.00001). There were no statistically signficant effects of the intervention on other CRC screening approaches.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings from the trial suggest promise for academic detailing in increasing CRC screening, particularly among PCP's in underserved areas.(Funded by ACS TIOG CPC-99783.) No significant financial relationships to disclose.


Abstract This research project uses a case study to deconstruct public relations campaigns conducted by disaster relief organizations following the presidentially declared disaster for flooding in Kentucky in the spring of 2003. It is an attempt to show how public relations campaigns are a part of the social construction of disaster. It explores the resulting cultural product of public relations texts and how older populations are directly impacted by institutional values regarding trauma and disasters. It indicates that the origin of trauma for elderly people after disasters does not seem to come from the flood, but from an inability to change the vulnerabilities that come with advanced age, or the sense of social isolation felt from lack of communication on the part of a social support network and disaster relief agencies.


In the recording of the results of experimentalOlostridium welchii infections designed to test therapeutic substances, the strains used should be fully described. The need for knowledge of morphology, cultural characteristics et cetera hOB been stressed in a previous publication.lSI The work recordedin the presentpapersuggeststhat it is also necessarl to use freshly isolatedstrains in such experiments. That this is not generally recognizedis apparentfrom the many recent articlesdealingwith the treatmentof experimentalgasgangrene with the sulphonamidedrugs. In these articles it is unusual to find any statementthat the s.trains us.ed were.recently isolatedfrom COBesof gasgangrenem man; m many instances the experimentswere carriedout with stock laboratorystrains. In Sanduskyand Meleney's review1121 of the recent ャ ゥ エ ・ イ 。 エ セ ・ on experimentalgas gangrene,an attemptwas madeto explain the different results of various workers; but no mention was madeof the possibleimportanceof the period ・ ャ 。 ー ウ ゥ ョ セ 「 ・ エ セ ・ ・ ョ the isolationof the strainand its usein experimentalinfections.


The earthquake
number was correlated (R2 = 0.8781) with the volcano number in the East
Pacific and Central American countries. The year of volcanic eruptions in the Galapagos
Hot Spot (GHS) was proportional to the year of El Niño events (R2 = 0.9939)
as well as to the year of earthquake events (R2 = 0.9943) in Ecuador,
Colombia, and Peru from 1977 to 2016. Therefore, there can be El Niño and earthquake
events in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru if there are strong volcanic eruptions either
from aboveground volcanoes or undersea seamounts in the GHS during the maximal sunspot
number's period.
Global volcanic eruptions were occurred during the maximal temperature departure,
the latter being reversely proportional (R2 = 0.4512) to the sunspot
number from 1980 to 2019. Forest fires occurred in middle latitude countries (South
Korea, California, western Russia, Australia) around 35 degree from Pacific Equator during La Niña events at the time of the minimal sunspot number.
Since there were intense forest fires in South Korea, Australia and California in
2019, more are expected
in 2030 due to the 11 year cyclical variation in the sunspot number. The sequence
of forest fires can be schematically summarized as below. 1) La Niña event in Equator causes the low vapor pressure of water due
to the low sea surface temperature (SST); 2) There is the pumping of freshwater
from the warm Pacific Ocean to cold Equator with simultaneous transfer of heat (warm Pacific Ocean to cold Equator) and mass
(water enriched Pacific Ocean to water lean Equator); 3) Strong winds from
dry zone pass Mountains to cause the forest fires in the residential land with bushes and trees.
4) According to the Bernoulli's principle, the pressure gradient between
the high Mountains and the low Ocean, induces the decrease of static velocity gradient
for vigorously upwards flares in the Mountains and the residential land during the
forest fires, which may be why it is difficult to extinguish the forest fires until
burnt up bushes and trees in the Mountains and residential land with serious damages. Most effective
solution to forest fires is to change the events from La Niña to El Niño for reductions of temperature and pressure gradients
by Gay-Lussac's law. Such a transition may be induced by artificial
submarine volcanic eruptions among volcanoes of Fernandina, Sierra Negra and
Wolf in the GHS for Korea and California. As for Australia, artificial volcanic
eruptions can be caused in huge underwater volcano chain in Tasmania. The
strong damages of forest fires in South Korea, Australia and California were
observed in the period of the minimal sunspot number, as were in October of
2019 to February of 2020. Simultaneous transfers of momentum (velocity), heat
(temperature) and mass (freshwater) were occurred from the dry zone or the hot
Deserts via the Mountains and the residential land with bushes and trees to the
cold Sea or Ocean. It is
expected the lowest SST during the year of the minimal sunspot number to induce
the strong damages of forest fires, as was in South Korea, Australia and
California during the years from 2019 to 2020. CO2 emissions in
Australia showed 34.5% increase, 70% coal power and no nuclear power to induce
bushfires because of increases of ozone hole area and UV radiation for the hot
land in the period of La Niña. Fossil fuel operation should be cut down to
decrease the ozone hole area and UV radiation for weak bushfires in Australia.
A few coming years may still have bushfires in Australia although their damages
may not be as terrible as was in 2020. A simple remedy can be the reduction of
CO2 emissions as low as possible. It was proposed that the
maximal sunspot number induced El Niño event, GHS volcanic eruption and Ecuadorian
earthquakes, while the minimal sunspot number induced La Niña events in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and intense forest fires in middle latitude countries of South Korea (forest
fires), Australia (bushfires)
and California
(wildfires).


Abstract: The advent of cellular network technology has increased the use of photography in the clinical setting. This article reviews several areas regarding protected health information (PHI) and the use of video: the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); The Joint Commission requirements for the use of images; areas of concern for exchanging PHI with law enforcement at the bedside, and the need for the development of formal guidelines regarding the use of video in the clinical setting. This article reviews several areas regarding protected health information (PHI), as well as the use of video, areas of concern for exchanging PHI with law enforcement at the bedside, and the need for the development of formal guidelines regarding the use of video in the clinical setting.


1. General LeMay's statement is unequivocal in recognising the importance of doctrine to military endeavours. More contemporary wisdom also recognises doctrine as an essential ingredient of military capability. The Australian Defence Organisation (ADO), for example, recognises eight fundamental inputs to capability (FIC), all of which must interact to generate military capability. Command and management is one of these FIC elements, and encompasses doctrine. An alternative view of military capability suggests that it is derived from three main asset groups: structural capital, intellectual capital and social capital. Structural capital includes the tangible and highly visible assets, such as weapons systems. Social capital is less tangible and includes the notions of leadership, values and morale. Intellectual capital— the organisation's thinking power—encompasses doctrine and doctrine development. The constructs may therefore differ, but the conclusion is the same: military doctrine has a pervasive influence on the organisation and structure of military forces, on the training requirements for these forces, and on the military plans for their potential or actual employment. Doctrine is, without doubt, an important enabler of military capability.


The present invention comprises the steps of (a) culturing the Aspergillus genus microorganisms in the medium; (b) filtering the medium to remove microorganisms in the Aspergillus and obtaining a crude medium solution; And (c) reacting the crude medium with ginsenosides to produce compound K. According to the method of the present invention, compound K can be obtained more simply with high yield from ginsenosides of ginseng or red ginseng.


Background. The social reproduction of indigenous migrants is adjusted to the receiving territory based on the work for the management of biocultural diversity. This study corresponds to the territorial unit "La Joya", in Ayala, Morelos, configured by indigenous people from the state of Guerrero. Objective. Explain the sustainability traits of family production systems (FPS) established by immigrants to Morelos in the last 20 years. Methodology. The sampling was 12.5% of the FPS, the difficulties of the languages and disposition of the informants were dissipated with ethnobiological techniques such as guided tours and semi-structured interviews, because they allowed to investigate the management of plants and animals, costs of labor work, use value and exchange value, the structure of the plants used, the number of eggs and laying cycle per year for the birds, and the destination of production, with this information an annual availability calendar of goods. The structure and ecological composition were obtained by sampling the total surface of 10 FPS. The attributes calculated were: species richness and abundances. The coverage of the plants, the house and the animal pens were located in Cartesian plans. With items from both approaches, the annual economic valuation of the management and of the production of each FPS was obtained, both integrated the environmental economic valuation. Results. Include eight management activities; the values of use of biocultural diversity were 11, the food with 47 species stands out. The composition is 96 plant species and 13 animals that provide goods for self-supply and sale throughout the year. Its economic valuation, including the family work that allows the conservation of FPS the reaches between one and 30 times the minimum salary. Implications. The social group studied comes from an área whit vegetation and a climate similar to the one that they immigrated to, which facilitates its biocultural reproduction in small lands, whose structure and composition of plants and animals is similar to that reported for communities originating from Morelos, both with sustainability indicators. Conclusion. The sustainability of the FPS is the result of social work aimed at the traditional management of biological diversity, which allows the sustained production of goods with use values for self-supply and exchange values that enter monetary resources, whose sum It shows the environmental economic efficiency, the environmental economic efficiency, the contribution to the survival and social reproduction of indigenous migrants.


Electric cables, such as screened, sheathed or armoured single-core cables have the structure of concentric conductors covered with dielectric materials. This paper presents a moment-method-based procedure to determine the capacitance matrix of finite-long cables with such a structure. In this procedure, the cables are represented by a number of charged cylindrical surfaces, and divided into a set of cylindrical elements along the cable axis. Average potential and electric field equations are then established respectively to build a matrix equation. Close-form expressions are derived for both potential and electric field coefficients. The numerical results for the capacitance matrix of typical cable installations are presented. The numerical validation of this procedure is presented as well.


The identification, purification and characterization of a new postlarval specific hemolymph protein from Manduca sexta is described. Incorporation of [35S]methionine into Manduca sexta hemolymph proteins in vivo was investigated as a function of development. A major protein band of Mr ≈ 50,000 was highly labeled during the prepupal and adult stage but not in feeding larvae. This postlarval protein (PLP) was isolated from adult male hemolymph and its chemical and immunological properties determined. PLP is a basic protein (pI ∼8.6). Electrophoresis under denaturing conditions reveals a subunit Mr ≈ 50,000 while the native protein has an apparent Mr ∼ 85,000 by gel permeation chromatography. Anti-PLP serum recognized PLP but not other hemolymph proteins on immunoblots. In vitro translation of fat body mRNA followed by immunoprecipitation revealed that fat body is the site of PLP synthesis. Quantitation of PLP levels in hemolymph throughout development was performed and suggests PLP may play a role in adult development of M. sexta.


When children start school, they know they will be taught to read and write, and that it is the school's duty to teach that. However, the idea of learning to read leads, traditionally, to the first years of elementary school, that is, to literacy teaching and learning. Nevertheless, the act of reading is not restricted to the acquisition of a code, it is more than that; reading is meaning-making. Therefore, this study aims to turn reading into an object of teaching and learning, with the support of the Theory of Argumentation within Language (AWL) in its current phase, the Theory of the Semantic Blocks (TSB), since it allows to show the process of meaning-making through language. In order to do that, it is necessary to translate those theories into the school environment. This process of didactic transposition based in Yves Chevallard – which is illustrated along the study and completed through the design of reading tasks for two fables and one fairy tale – consists of taking some concepts of the chosen theory (value, relation, argumentative entanglements, external and internal argumentation, semantic interdependence, and semantic block) and turning them into something to be taught, in order to improve the reading performance of fifth grade elementary school students.


According to the induction motor operating characteristics, application of improved artificial fish swarm algorithm based on the simplex method to solve the equivalent circuit model parameters identification problem. Gives a detailed calculation steps and the curve of function expressions. Finally, the identification results and identification using genetic algorithm result is compared to prove that the accuracy of the identification results of the improved artificial fish swarm algorithm having higher precision.


Objective To observe the effects of misoprostol for prevention of postpartum hemorrhage(PPH) in vaginal delivery.Methods Two hundreds pregnant women,who have high risk factors for PPH,were randomized into two groups:misoprostol group(n=100),given 200ug sublingual misoprostol immediately after fetal disengagement,control group(n=100),given 10 IU intravenous oxytocin immediately after delivery of the neonate.To observe duration of the third stage labour,the amount of bleeding within two hours after delivery and bleeding rate between the two groups.At the same time to measure and record changes in blood pressure before and after sublingual misoprostol and adverse effects.Results Duration of the third stage labour,the amount of bleeding within two hours after delivery and bleeding rate was significantly lower in the misoprostol group than in the oxytocin group(p0.01).There was no significant difference on blood pressure before and after sublingual misoprostol and side effect between the two groups(p0.05).Conclusion Misoprostol appears to be more effective in reduction of PPH than that of oxytocin.Sublingual administration is more convenient and suitable for primary hospital.


In 1989 a factory-assembled 70 MWe boiler was transported 750 miles to its final location at a plant site in Ohio. The boiler, its gas clean-up system, and top- support steel were contained within a pressure vessel and shipped as one unit by barge. Components of that assembly originated at various places throughout the eastern United States. In this paper, the relationship between the logistics of moving those various components and their design and fabrication is described.


Background Pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) is critical regulator contributing to Warburg effect. However, the expression pattern and prognostic value of PKM2 remain unknown in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). The aim of this study is to clarify the prognostic value of PKM2 via intergrated bioinformatics analysis. Methods Firstly, mRNA expression levels of PKM2 in LUAD were systematically analyzed using the ONCOMINE and TCGA databases. Then, the association between PKM2 expression and clinical parameters was investigated by UALCAN. The Kaplan–Meier Plotter was used to assess the prognostic significance of PKM2. Finally, the relationship between PKM2 expression and its genetic and epigenetic changes was evaluated with MEXPRESS and MethHC database. Results Pooled analysis showed that PKM2 is frequently upregulated expression in LUAD. Subsequently, PKM2 expression was identified to be positively associated with tumor stage and lymph node metastasis and also strongly correlated with worse OS (P = 2.80e−14), PPS (P = 0.022), FP (P = 1.30e−6) and RFS (P = 3.41e−8). Importantly, our results demonstrated that over-expressed PKM2 is associated with PKM2 hypomethylation and copy number variations (CNVs). Conclusion This study confirms that over-expressed PKM2 in LUAD is associated with poor prognosis, suggesting that PKM2 might act as a promising prognostic biomarker and novel therapeutic target for LUAD.


The well-known technique of the deposition of ions and charged particulates in a cylindrical capacitor is analyzed. Current-voltage characteristics of the measured polydisperse aerosol form a basis for the calculation of the total concentration and size distribution of Aitken nuclei down to the particle radii of 0.005 ..mu..m. The technique was applied in combination with a General Electric counter for the reevaluation of Aitken nuclei measurements in the lower stratosphere over the middle and subtropical latitudes of North America.


These lines form a brown synthesis of the so-called phenomenon of codification of Roman law, aimed primarily at students of law novel. It will attempt to clarify certain concepts and discern their classifications, thereby facilitating the study of a subject that prove, at least in principle, aparencial unappealing. An ordered addressing the phenomenon of Codification will, from its earliest history emerging private attempts until the realization of one of the most perfect legal works of the ancient world: the code of Justinian.


Police officers in a special unit designed to aid troubled children and adolescents requested mental health consultation after a series of frustrations in their attempts to refer cases to psychiatric agencies. The officers initially sought guidelines to help them determine which clients needed further care and select appropriate agencies for referral. As the meetings progressed it became apparent that what they needed most was help with their interviewing techniques. The authors describe the consultation sessions, some of the cases dealt with, and the major areas on which consultation focused. They emphasize the importance of flexibility in the consultative process so the needs of consultees will not be overlooked.


PLANTINGA, Alvin. Knowledge and Christian Belief. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015. 124 pp.--This small book is a shortened version of Plantinga's more extensive Warranted Christian Belief (2000), one of the classic texts of what has come to be known as Reformed epistemology. As was the case in the longer (more than 400 pages) book, this smaller volume asks how, in the light of the challenges offered by the likes of Immanuel Kant and Walter Kaufmann, the beliefs of Christians may be considered rational, justified, and warranted. The understanding of warrant as a cognitive function, developed by Plantinga in an earlier work, Warrant and Proper Function (1993), is reiterated here as "cognitive faculties functioning properly in a congenial epistemic environment according to a divine plan successfully aimed at truth." The argument proceeds with Plantinga's characteristic care and wit. Its accessibility, even elegance, makes it an ideal introductory text for even beginning students in philosophy of religion or apologetics. Consistent with its more popular audience, its starting point is not with the challenges of Kant and Hume, though they make appearances, but with the more popular New Atheists--Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. In Plantinga's mind these writers display naked contempt more often than cogent argument, but some of their questions call for response. These questions are forms of what Plantinga describes as de jure challenges to belief--conditions that render beliefs defective, irrational, or unjustified. Here Marx and Freud offer better examples of such challenges than the New Atheists. Marx claims religious beliefs arise from a dysfunctional society that impairs believers' cognitive faculties; Freud believes faith is simply a useful illusion enabling one to survive in a bleak world. For both, the Christian faith lacks warrant: the Christian faith is irrational in that it represents cognitive malfunction (Marx) or is not aimed at truth (Freud). In response Plantinga develops his famous Aquinas-Calvin (A/C) model. On this model the capacity to know God is implanted in humans by nature (Aquinas), resulting in a cognitive mechanism that produces beliefs about God (Calvin's sensus divnitatis). As a result, one does not choose to believe in God, one simply finds oneself believing, just as one finds oneself with perceptual and memory beliefs. This means that, in Plantinga's description of the process, belief in God is ordinarily basic (like memory or perception), that is, not accepted on the evidential basis of other propositions. …


In order to protect water resources from contamination, it is necessary to assess the waterborne spreading of contaminants, both from all existing sources of pollution and from potential new source ...


VACTERL association is a set of congenital anomalies occurring in 1in 10,000 to 1 in 40,000 infants. Other defects in conjugation with VACTERL are known to occur rarely. Lung hypoplasia in infants with VACTERL poses a unique challenge, as these patients have reduced pulmonary reserve and high susceptibility to chest infection owing to cardiac defects and tracheoesophageal fistula. These infants have poor quality of life and delay in diagnosis further adds to morbidity. Here we are presenting a case of VACTERL with lung hypoplasia, diagnosed owing to high suspicion by treating team.


It usually presents as a vulval polyp and is diagnosed on histopathology. Estrogen and progesterone receptors are commonly found in AA. It is thus likely to grow during pregnancy and respond to hormonal manipulation. It mainly involves the pelvis, vulva, perineum, vagina and urinary bladder in adult women in the reproductive age. Considering its locally aggressive nature, appropriate management and long-term follow-up is necessary. Many options for the treatment of recurrences have been tried with varying success, but no single modality is clearly beneficial over others.