This paper discusses the results of a modelling study of the effect of changes in parameters such as the flow rate and temperature of the deep inflow on the eruption interval of three geysers: Pohutu, the Prince of Wales Feathers and Waikorohihi, located in Rotorua, New Zealand. The mathematical model used here was developed by Steinberg et al. (1981a) and the data used are mainly those presented in the study of the Rotorua geysers by Weir et al. (1992). The present study shows that, using parameters deduced from field data, the model is able to give a good match to the measured performance of the geysers. In addition the model shows that the performance of the geysers is very sensitive to changes in the mass flow rate and the temperature of the hot upflow. The Feathers geyser is the most sensitive to changes in flow rate and both the Feathers and Waikorohihi are very sensitive to changes in the temperature of the deep inflow


SUMMARY Despite the scientific and technological advances in medicine, neither acute nor the chronic pain often receive appropriate treatment for various reasons. Effective treatment of pain is considered a fundamental right of the patient, and an indicator of good clinical practice and quality of care. The gynecological surgeries, especially hysterectomies are performed very frequently, both in public and private hospitals, while the pain generated by this type of intervention is a therapeutic challenge for the multidisciplinary team. 40%-70% of patients report severe pain and this is because the established analgesic schemes fail to achieve adequate plasmatic levels or that these are only limited to NSAIDs. The present work compares the quality of analgesia using a continuous epidural infusion, after abdominal hysterectomy operated under regional anesthesia, in order to propose a useful tool for pain management after surgery in our hospital . Conclusions: the use of fentanyl versus ropivacaine versus nalbuphine with ropivacaine provides satisfactory analgesia conditions. In a closer look nalbuphine present superiority which was statistically significant. The elastomeric infuser ensures continuous administration of medication to avoid "peaks and valleys" in the regular use of of intermittent


The dielectric permeability of an isotropic relativistic plasma is examined by taking into account pair production effects. The effect of recoil in Cherenkov absorption is also taken into account. An analysis is made of the spectra of longitudinal and transverse plasma oscillations at high densities and temperatures, when, besides Cherenkov wave absorption, absorption caused by pair production may also be possible. (auth)


In this paper a computational method for a homogenized peridynamics description of unidirectional fiber-reinforced composites is presented. For these materials, dynamic brittle fracture and damage are simulated with the proposed peridynamic model. Compared with observations from dynamic experiments by Coker et al.(2001), the peridynamic computational model can reproduce various characteristics of dynamic fracture and supersonic or intersonic crack growth in asymmetrically loaded unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite plates. Also we analyze the same model in the symmetric loading condition and figure out that the asymmetric loading leads to a much higher propagation speed. Consistent results have been reported in the experiments.


The Multicultural School Counseling Behavior Scale (MSCBS) is designed to aid in measuring an important and overlooked area of the multicultural counseling competence of school counselors. This article presents the development, a pilot study, and initial psychometric properties of the MSCBS and provides implications for school counselors and future research.


Objective: To observe whether average clinical concentration of moxa smoke can cause systemic anaphylaxis reaction, and to evaluate the safety of moxa smoke. Methods: 8 healthy guinea pigs, 4 male and 4 female, were exposed to 3-4mg/m3 of moxa smoke. For sensitization, the animals were sensitized for 3 times, 20min each time every other day. For challenge, they were exposed to the same concentration of moxa smoke for 40min 14 days after the third sensitization. The symptoms were closely observed and recorded during sensitization period. Another 3 hours were required for observation after challenge. Every animal was weighed respectively on the days of the 1st sensitization, the 3rd sensitization and the challenge. Results: Animals were seen normally and there was no symptom of systemic anaphylaxis reaction during sensitization and challenge with normal body mass gain. Conclusion: The average clinical concentration of moxa smoke can not result in systemic anaphylaxis reaction in guinea pigs.


In the context of increasing resource scarcity and environmental pollution, achieving sustainable development with environmental friendliness at its core is essential for maintaining long-term economic growth. However, the positive environmental externalities associated with sustainable development impose an additional cost burden on enterprises. Internalizing those positive environmental externalities in the form of corporate benefits through tax policies is the key to incentivizing sustainable development. Using the reform of China's tax enforcement agency and tax enforcement system as a quasi-natural experimental context, this paper investigates the impact of tax equity on sustainable development. The empirical findings show that tax equity can promote the sustainable development of enterprises, and this promotion is achieved by enhancing corporate green innovation. Furthermore, tax equity has a stronger effect on the sustainable development of enterprises in a favorable market environment because it is more conducive to the protection of intellectual property and transformation of green innovation into tangible output. The tax equities brought about by different types of tax reforms have different effects on the sustainable development of enterprises in different life cycle stages because the types of tax inequities suffered by enterprises of different ages vary.


abstract:Fifty years after the publication of Kateb Yacine's final novel in his Nedjma cycle, Le Polygone étoilé (1966), his iconic character, Nedjma, still resonates with feminist interventions in the project of Algerian decolonization. In this article, I argue against the traditional reading of Nedjma as a symbol of colonial Algeria, looking at her development over the entire course of Kateb's Nedjma cycle from 1948's "Nedjma ou le poème ou le couteau" to his plays (Le Cadavre encerclé [1954] and Les Ancêtres redoublent de férocité [1959]) to his novels (Nedjma [1956] and Le Polygone étoilé [1966]). Over the course of her many iterations (and rebirths), she develops greater agency, political consciousness, and becomes increasingly unreadable to the male characters around her. Ultimately, she elides symbolization and embodies a kind of Derridean democratic political potential, radically breaking from the projects of the men around her and embracing a kind of revolutionary everydayness.


This paper addresses the problem of precoder design in a MIMO broadcast scenario where the terminals are battery-powered devices provided with energy harvesting capabilities. Models for the power consumption of the RF and decoding stages are discussed and included in the design of the proposed scheme. Sum-rate maximization is taken as optimization policy and energy-related constraints are considered to increase the duration of the batteries and, thus, the network lifetime. Simulation results show that not only the usage of battery is improved when compared with other traditional allocation policies, but also the average data rate is enhanced.


In recent years, a variety of suitability index (SI) models for endangered species have been developed in Japan. These models have been used to assess Satoyama, and to construct a biodiversity potential map that shows the suitable habitat areas for individual endangered species. However, few studies have developed a forest evaluation method that combines multiple SI models. In the present study, we developed a forest evaluation method, by combining integrated SI models for Luciola parvula, Apodemus speciosus, and Accipiter gentilis. We subsequently applied these SI models as a case study in 4 forest sites of the Nagoya University campus, Nagoya City, Japan. The 3 selected species are representative endangered species of insects, small mammals, and raptors respectively because these species play a significant role in the forest ecosystem. We concluded that the final total environmental quality score of the "paddy fields site" was the higher than that of the other 3 sites. Further studies to enhance each SI model, and improve the selection and integration of multiple SI models for development of a forest evaluation method, are required.


In Sanxin Gold and Copper Mine,a new mine shaft has a depth of 1 091mand a net diameter of 4.5m.A hydraulic umbrella drilling frame for rock drilling,a central rotary grab for rock loading, 3.8mheight integrated metal formwork for the shaft liner and other large mechanized matched operation line were applied to the construction of the mine shaft.The new headframe of the mine main shaft is a cast-in-site reinforced concrete frame and a shear wall structure and was constructed with sliding formwork technology.The mine shaft and headframe were constructed in parallel.The total construction period of the mine shaft and headframe could be reduced by seven months as predicted.Obvious economic benefit would be obtained.The technology successfully applied to the construction of the 1 000mdepth mine shaft could promote the technology innovation of the mine construction sector in China,would drive the upgrading of the integrated technology level in China mine industry and would promote the industrial technology progress.


Objectives: Nickel is one of the common trace metal element used in industries. It has been documented that even in small quantities, prolonged exposure to nickel is cytotoxic, genotoxic and carcinogenic. Nickel biomonitoring has been done by various countries to monitor nickel level. However, there is little information on established baseline nickel level in our population which leads to the difficulty for comparison during nickel exposure. This study aims to determine the baseline nickel level in saliva and urine samples for the healthy Malay population. Materials and Methods: Fourteen healthy Malay subjects were recruited in this study. Saliva and urine samples were collected and analysed using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) to measure the nickel level. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Version 27. Results: Results showed that the nickel level in urine was higher compared to saliva. The baseline nickel level exhibited in saliva was 4.80 ppb (95% CI: 2.23, 7.38) and in urine was 5.88 ppb (95% CI: 3.49, 8.27). Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the baseline nickel level in saliva and urine among the Malay population.


This study aims to determine the factors that affect the visibility of a website on a search engine and determine the ranking of visibility based on the variables that influence it. Based on the literature review, it was found that the variables that affect the visibility of the website are 9 criteria. Data collection was carried out on 7 e-learning websites of universities in Indonesia which have the mandate to organize teacher professional programs. The ranking mechanism is done by normalizing the data from several variables that have different units and dimensions, followed by finding the weight of each variable using the CRITIC method, which is one of the objective methods of multicriteria decision analysis. The results of weight processing show that the keyword usage level domain variable is the most important variable, and domain level link authority features are the least significant effect on website visibility, while the ranking of visibility shows that Yogyakarta State University has the best ranking. A fairly efficient methods of CRITIC could be modelled with any number of criteria and alternatives that the problem has, since its procedure is very clear and concise.


Debugging is critical in the production of reliable software. One of the effective bug localization techniques is Spectrum-based Fault Localization (SBFL). This technique locates a buggy statement by applying an evaluation metric to program spectra and ranking program components on the basis of the score it computes. Most SBFL research to date has had a strong bias toward single bug programs and there are many good evaluation metrics available. The same is true for deterministic bugs (which cause test cases to fail whenever they are executed). However, having multiple bugs has now become a norm in large software systems, and debugging metrics that perform well for such software are consequently in high demand. In this thesis, we propose a parametric class of metrics that adapts itself to single, multiple and deterministic bugs. The parameter values are learnt using optimization methods such as Genetic Programming or Simulated Annealing. We name our proposed class of metric as "Hyperbolic" metric due to the nature of its contours which are like hyperbola. We evaluate the performance of our proposed metric both on real programs and model programs with single bugs, multiple bugs, deterministic bugs and non-deterministic bugs, and find that the proposed class of metrics performs as well or better than the previous best-performing metrics over a broad range of data. SBFL is lightweight but has limited accuracy due to the limited amount of information it uses for localizing faults. It depends solely on the execution information of program components in passed and failed test cases. In this thesis, we propose a debugging approach that is a hybrid of SBFL and Static Analysis to provide extra information to SBFL about programs under test. Program statements are categorized into various types which are given weights based on how likely a category is related to a bug. We evaluate the per-


The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, is an aggressive predator and has been recognized as a serious health hazard [l]. Stings from these ants have become the leading cause of insect venom allergic reactions in the southeastern part of the United States. Four allergenic proteins have been isolated from the venom (Sol i I-IV) with molecular weights between 20,000 and 37,000 daltons [2]. The amino acid sequence of Sol i II has been determined by Hoffman [3] and shows 119 amino acids and a molecular weight of 13,217 daltons. This protein appears to be structurally unrelated to any other protein reported in the PIR and Swiss-Prot databases [3]. This work is the first report of the cDNA sequence of one of the fire ant venom protein allergens, Sol i II.


The problem of forming a trajectory of an object that has got a minimum sum of the root-mean-square error of the coordinates is considered. The desired trajectory is formed from short movements of the object between the nodes of the navigation map. The contribution of each object movement to the total error is determined by the relative location of the nodes, the in-formativeness of navigation field and the rate of increase of the coordinate errors of a map-matching navigation system. It is calculated with the use of the covariance channel of the Kalman filter. The use of numerical methods for solving transportation problems is proposed to find the optimal object trajectory. Among them preference is given to the A-star method. A numerical example of a trajectory formation with minimal errors of coordinates is given for a map-matching navigation system.


Nowadays, social media has an enormous amount of news content with a sarcastic message. It is often expressed in the form of verbal and non-verbal. In this paper, the authors aim to identify sarcasm in news headlines using supervised learning. We address this task with the Bag-of-words features, context-independent features, and context-dependent features. Specifically, the authors employ seven supervised learning models, namely, Naïve Bayes-support vector machine, logistic regression, bidirectional gated recurrent units, Bidirectional encoders representation from Transformers (BERT), DistilBERT, and RoBERTa. Our experimental results indicate that RoBERTa achieves a better performance than others.


Plants of various ages of strawberry cvs. Redcoat and Sparkle were exposed to Aphrodes bicinctus leafhoppers carrying clover phyllody agent (CPA). The susceptibility of Redcoat decreased with age but this effect was less obvious with Sparkle. The ability of A. bicinctus to transmit CPA to Sparkle also decreased as the insects aged after they had acquired the causal agent. No differences were observed between two isolates of CPA in their transmission to four strawberry cultivars. Redchief and Sparkle were the most susceptible cultivars with approximately 67% of the plants becoming infected. Redcoat and Bounty showed infection rates of 39% and 46%, respectively.


The ALEPH collaboration has recently reported a significant excess of four– jet events at the LEP 1.5 and LEP 2 experiments. While not yet confirmed by the other collaborations, it was recently proposed that this excess may be explained by certain R-parity violating operators in supersymmetric models. R–parity violating operators introduce the danger of inducing rapid proton decay. I discuss how the operators required to explain the ALEPH four jet events may arise from superstring derived models without inducing rapid proton decay. ∗ E-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com Particle physics has for long awaited the experimental deviation from the Standard Model predictions that will guide the way to the physics beyond the Standard Model. Such a discovery may be just around the corner. Recently, the ALEPH collaboration has reported an excess in the four–jet event cross section which is several sigmas above the Standard Model prediction [1, 2]. Perhaps even more intriguing is the fact that both at LEP 1.5 and LEP 2 runs ALEPH has observed a sharp peak at 106.1±0.8 GeV, corresponding to 18 events with 3.1 expected from QCD background. The di–jet mass difference distribution of the selected 18 events is consistent with a value around 10 GeV. If interpreted as a particle pair production this together with the information on the di–jet mass sum suggests that the two particle produced have masses of about 58 and 48 GeV and production of same mass particles is disfavoured. By extracting information on the primary parton [3], it is concluded that the pair produced particles have a sizable charge and that neutral particle production is disfavoured [1, 2]. Absence of b–quarks in the final states disfavours the hypothesis of Higgs–boson production. Recently, it was proposed [4] that the ALEPH excess of four jet events can be explained in supersymmetric models with R–parity violation [5]. According to this proposal left–handed and right–handed selectrons ẽLẽR are pair produced at LEP. The selectron pair then decay further by the R–parity violating operator


The copyright to this Article is held by the Econometric Society. It may be downloaded, printed and reproduced only for educational or research purposes, including use in course packs. No downloading or copying may be done for any commercial purpose without the explicit permission of the Econometric Society. For such commercial purposes contact the Office of the Econometric Society (contact information may be found at the website http://www.econometricsociety.org or in the back cover of Econometrica). This statement must be included on all copies of this Article that are made available electronically or in any other format. 1 We study a principal–agent model in which the agent is boundedly rational in his ability to understand the principal's decision rule. The principal wishes to elicit an agent's true profile so as to determine whether or not to grant him a certain request. The principal designs a questionnaire and commits himself to accepting certain responses. In designing such a questionnaire, the principal takes into account the bounded rational-ity of the agent and wishes to reduce the success probability of a dishonest agent who is trying to game the system. It is shown that the principal can construct a sufficiently complex questionnaire that will allow him to respond optimally to agents who tell the truth and at the same time to almost eliminate the probability that a dishonest agent will succeed in cheating.


We have studied stromal cell function in naive or interleukin‐1 (IL‐1)‐stimulated (100 pg/ml) long‐term marrow cultures (LTC) from 12 normal donors and 21 patients with severe aplastic anemia (AA). Conditioned media (CM) from normal LTC contained levels of erythroid burst‐promoting activity (BPA) and granulocyte/macrophage (GM) colony‐stimulating activity (CSA) comparable to those previously described (Migliaccio et al., [1990] Blood, 75:305–312). The addition of IL‐1 to these cultures increased the level of CSA and, specifically, of granulocyte colony‐stimulating factor (G‐CSF) released. Anti‐GM‐CSF antibody neutralized BPA and CSA in normal naive LTC CM but only the CSA in the CM from IL‐1‐stimulated LTC. Since the concentrations of GM‐CSF, as detected with a specific immunoassay, did not increase after IL‐1 treatment, these data suggest that IL‐1‐stimulated cultures contain an unidentified growth factor having BPA. CM from AA stromal cells contained levels of CSA comparable to those observed in normal stromal cell CM but had significantly lower levels of BPA. Neither anti‐GM‐CSF nor anti‐IL‐3 antibodies neutralized the BPA in AA stromal cell CM. This activity may be related to that found in the CM of IL‐1‐treated normal stromal cells. In nearly 50% of stromal cell cultures of AA patients, addition of IL‐1 failed to increase the BPA, CSA, or G‐CSF. The presence of an inhibitor in naive or IL‐1‐treated AA stromal cell CM was excluded by adding the CM to IL‐3‐stimulated cultures. These findings suggest that G‐CSF and GM‐CSF genes are differentially regulated in the marrow microenvironment. Furthermore, a marrow microenvironment, deficient in BPA production and, in some cases, unresponsive to IL‐1 could contribute to marrow failure in some patients with AA. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We revisit the Dirac quantization condition for string-like and string-less (but multi-valued) magnetic monopole potentials. In doing so we allow for an {\it a priori} different coupling ${\tilde e}$ associated with the longitudinal components of the gauge potential. By imposing physical criteria in the choice of the longitudinal--transverse decomposition we show that -in contrast to some recent claims- the `unphysical' coupling $\tilde e$ does not appear in the quantization condition.


ABSTRACT The brains of heterosexual males and heterosexual females are different. Moreover, the brains of gay men are similar to those in heterosexual females, whereas the brains of lesbians are similar to those in heterosexual males. Gender-atypical features in gays and lesbians are not limited to brain structures but extend to other physical features (auditory function, finger print patterns, relative size of index and ring fingers) and interest patterns and behaviors. The research supporting these postulates is reviewed. The gestational processes that might explain the differences in brain structure and function corresponding with sexual orientation are reviewed. A discussion of the physiological bases for the expression of gender-related traits and a discussion of factors contributing to sexual identity are provided. Throughout the article, alternative ways to think about gender are suggested. The importance of integrating the information presented in this article into the curriculum of social work education is explained.


Simple Summary Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is associated with a generally poor breast cancer outcome, intensifying the need for novel therapeutic strategies beyond chemotherapy for this challenging subtype of breast cancer. Evidence shows that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and their derivatives exert antineoplastic effects within the breast tumor microenvironment, highlighting their potential as anticancer agents. Here, we demonstrated that docosahexaenoic acid conjugated with ethanolamine (DHEA) is able to attenuate the malignant phenotype of TNBC cells, reducing cell migration and invasion and affecting their metabolic profile through a shift from an energetic to a quiescent state. In a co-culture system, TNBC cells exposed to DHEA suppressed macrophage recruitment and cell viability along with the expression of genes related to tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) phenotype. Intriguingly, we unraveled that DHEA effects were mediated by CCL5 secretion from TNBC cells, highlighting this molecule as a promising treatment option against TNBC. Abstract Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive breast cancer subtype lacking effective targeted therapies, is considered to feature a unique cellular microenvironment with high infiltration of tumor-associated macrophages (TAM), which contribute to worsening breast cancer patient outcomes. Previous studies have shown the antitumoral actions of the dietary omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in both tumor epithelial and stromal components of the breast cancer microenvironment. Particularly in breast cancer cells, DHA can be converted into its conjugate with ethanolamine, DHEA, leading to a more effective anti-oncogenic activity of the parent compound in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells. Here, we investigated the ability of DHEA to attenuate the malignant phenotype of MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-436 TNBC cell lines, which in turn influenced TAM behaviors. Our findings revealed that DHEA reduced the viability of TNBC cells in a concentration-dependent manner and compromised cell migration and invasion. Interestingly, DHEA inhibited oxygen consumption and extracellular acidification rates, reducing respiration and the glycolytic reserve in both cell lines. In a co-culture system, TNBC cells exposed to DHEA suppressed recruitment of human THP-1 cells, reduced their viability, and the expression of genes associated with TAM phenotype. Interestingly, we unraveled that the effects of DHEA in TNCB cells were mediated by reduced C-C motif chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) expression and secretion affecting macrophage recruitment. Overall, our data, shedding new light on the antitumoral effects of DHA ethanolamine-conjugated, address this compound as a promising option in the treatment of TNBC patients.


This thesis is submitted in order to qualify holds a Bachelor of Sociology. With the title "social relationship beetween the collector with crafters bricks in RW 27 sail village tenayan raya district pekanbaru". The issue discussed in the thesis this is social relationship between crafters bricks with a foraging tenayan raya Pekanbaru. respondents from this research is 60 crafters bricks and 3 of the collector, each a collector has about 14 crafters bricks. The samples used in this study is a proportional random sampling. This technique a sampling of each, the population by taking into account the size of sub-sub the population. The method used is the method of research quantitative descriptive because this method more emphasis on aspects of the objective of social phenomena. Instruments screening data used is an observation, a questionnaire, and documents. The use of exchange, the analysis of social relations that occurs according to its cost and reward this is one of the hallmark of the theory of exchange. The results in general, the writer can say that the high level of dependence between crafters bricks with a collector because it is based both have interest. Conflict is intended that artisans brick up in terms of marketing products if over the production of and assintance in meeting the necessities of life be review in terms of lending money to a collector. As a collector benefit from artisans of the production of bricks only in selling him even though the price of the collective agreement but sometimes there is also the price of overidden by a collector, in addiction there are of the loan in given by a compiler to artisans and traders the benefit of lending in giving it to artisans. Keyword : artisans, social realtionship, dependency


Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation (HSCT) for malignancy requires toxic pre‐conditioning to maximize anti‐tumor effects and donor‐HSC engraftment. While this induces bone marrow (BM)‐localized inflammation, how this BM environmental change affects transplanted HSCs in vivo remains largely unknown. We here report that, depending on interval between irradiation and HSCT, residence within lethally irradiated recipient BM compromises donor‐HSC reconstitution ability. Both in vivo and in vitro we demonstrate that, among inflammatory cytokines, TNF‐α plays a role in HSC damage: TNF‐α stimulation leads to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in highly purified hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSCs/HSPCs). Transplantation of flow‐cytometry—sorted murine HSCs reveals damaging effects of accumulated ROS on HSCs. Short‐term incubation either with an specific inhibitor of tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 signaling or an antioxidant N‐acetyl‐L‐cysteine (NAC) prevents TNF‐α‐mediated ROS accumulation in HSCs. Importantly, pre‐transplantation exposure to NAC successfully demonstrats protective effects in inflammatory BM on graft‐HSCs, exhibiting better reconstitution capability than that of nonprotected control grafts. We thus suggest that in vivo protection of graft‐HSCs from BM inflammation is a feasible and attractive approach, which may lead to improved hematopoietic reconstitution kinetics in transplantation with myeloablative conditioning that inevitably causes inflammation in recipient BM. Stem Cells 2017;35:989–1002


2-D-to-3-D conversion is one way to make full use of 2-D contents to produce 3-D contents. Real-time 2-D-to-3-D conversion is required for 3-D consumer electronic devices, which demands fast processing speed especially for high-definition videos. In this paper, we propose a reconfigurable VLSI architecture for real-time 2-D-to-3-D conversion. Two different depth-retrieval methods are implemented in this architecture in order to support the choice of a best method or combination of different methods. The proposed architecture can also support different resolutions (4K, 1080p, and 720p) and the original view can be configured as either left view or right view. In order to overcome the problem of "Memory Wall", we propose a data reuse method to reduce memory traffic for the proposed architecture so that the overall performance is improved to realize real-time conversion. The experiment result shows that the implemented 2-D-to-3-D architecture can achieve state-of-the-art throughput (4K@30f/s).


Two analog circuit design approaches are introduced and compared. They are used for partial designs with certain given design criteria. The first approach, which is called direct analytical, works through the circuit conductance matrix, and it needs linearity to perform. The second approach uses fixator-norator pairs (FNPs), changing an analysis into a design problem. The two methods are shown to be theoretically identical, except that they use different tools to get the results. The advantage of using FNP over the direct analytical method is that it can simply handle nonlinearities, as it is done in a circuit analysis or simulation. The drawback, however, is the lack of fixator and norator components in a typical simulator; although, the closest components replacing them can be the controlled sources with very high gains.


The goal of this work is to train models that can identify a spoken language just by interpreting the speaker's lip movements. Our contributions are the following: (i) we show that models can learn to discriminate among 14 different languages using only visual speech information; (ii) we compare different designs in sequence modelling and utterance-level aggregation in order to determine the best architecture for this task; (iii) we investigate the factors that contribute discriminative cues and show that our model indeed solves the problem by finding temporal patterns in mouth movements and not by exploiting spurious correlations. We demonstrate this further by evaluating our models on challenging examples from bilingual speakers.


The present invention relates to a polyclonal antiserum against a universal tumor antigen obtainable by (i) eliciting an in vivo humoral response against embryonic tissue in a non-human vertebrate, whereby said embryonic tissue is of the same genetic line as the non-human vertebrate; (ii) recovering from the immunized non-human animal spleen and isolating from said spleen individual spleen cells/lymphocytes; (iii) eliciting a second in vivo humoral response to the isolated spleen cells/lymphocytes suspension obtained in step (ii) in a further non-human animal of the same genetic line as the non-human animal of step (i); and (iv) isolating the desired polyclonal antiserum from said animal. Furthermore, the invention provides for the use of the polyclonal antiserum for the preparation of a pharmaceutical composition for the amelioration, prevention and/or treatment of cancer, in particular cancer of the breast, lung, prostate, uterus, colon, stomach or bladder. Additionally the invention relates to the use of the polyclonal serum of the invention for the preparation of a pharmaceutical composition, wherein said pharmaceutical composition is to be administered to a subject in need of treatment in combination with a further anti-proliferative drug or medicament.


Protein Kinase C (PKC), a member of isozyme family plays an important role in cell growth regulation and differentiation and is being considered as a novel target of many anti-cancer drugs. In this study we have explored the affinity and interaction of some natural plant derived compounds against PKCI± to find out some important active site amino acid residues that play an important role in the binding of inhibitors with the active site.


A hospital should face to the market, participate in the competition, create the environment of existence and develop oneself. The managers of the Third People' s Hospital emancipate their mind, renovate their ideas, make a all scale reformation in the mechanism of performing, the direction of development, and the model of management . It acclimatizes the hospital to the economic system of socialist market gradually, and remains himself invincible in the competition.


A large research effort worldwide is directed at reproducing 3D tissue and one recent development in the production of tissue engineering scaffolds is the use of biodegradable materials. This research investigates the possibility of producing biodegradable knitted scaffolds from poly lactic acid yarns. Degradation in the following biodegradable yarns is studied and the effect on their mechanical properties determined: a commercial polylactide (PLA) yarn Lactron (Kanebo Gohsen Ltd) and four yarns extruded in the Biomedical Textiles Research Centre (BTRC) from a medical grade Poly (L-lactide) (PLLA) polymer (purac biochem). To determine the degradation effects the mechanical properties were evaluated on a Nene tensile testing rig and samples observed under the scanning electron microscope; before and after the yarns were immersed in phosphate buffer solution (pH=7.4) for various lengths of time at 37°C. The yarns extruded in-house showed a gradual decline in tenacity over the degradation period, unlike the commercial yarn where the tenacity was maintained. This work shows that the degradation process is affected by factors such as extrusion speed and twist. With further knowledge, it may be possible to produce polylactic acid yarns with known degradation and cell attachment characteristics for textile tissue engineering scaffolds. In conclusion, polylactic acid yarns have good potential and biodegradable textile tissue engineering scaffolds look promising for the future.


Introduces a supply chain "health check" procedure successfully applied in the European automotive sector and presents the results for the analysis of 20 trans-European value streams covering a wide range of first and second tier suppliers. The health check procedure is activated via a quick scan methodology (QSM) requiring execution by a multi-disciplinary team working on-site. The degree of integration within the value chain is estimated by the QS team, using the uncertainty circle concept which apportions observed uncertainties in the product delivery process (PDP) according to source. In our experience the four major contributors are: the demand side; supply side; value added process side; and systems controls. The results clearly demonstrate a well-trodden and hence proven route for value stream performance improvement. They also identify value chain exemplars and many areas of best practice, but most importantly they provide a list of actions focused on improving the performance of individual value streams. Properly applied, re-engineering programmes based on these trigger points will speed up the progress curve towards effective supply chain management.


We use hand-coded rules and graph-aligned logical dependencies to reorder English text towards Chinese word order. We obtain a 1.5% higher F-score for Giza++ compared to running with unprocessed text. We describe this research and its implications for SMT.


This internship was held in Nasional Sago Prima company, Selat Panjang, Riau from February to June 2011. The method are direct for getting primary data and indirect for secondary data. Secondary data takes from interviewing and discussing with the company staff and literacy study. The primary data takes from technique activity in the field and the research. The experiment was conducted to get more information on the effect sucker weight and time after nursery to sucker growth in plantation area. The treatment will be tested sucker growth with the different weight and age of sucker in raft nursery system. The first treatment on sucker 2-4 kg (B1) and 4-8 kg (B2), the second treatment on sucker is 2 weeks after nursery (P1), 4 weeks (P2), 8 weeks (P3) and 12 weeks (P4). The result shown treatment on 2-4 kg (B1) is better than treatment 4-8 kg (B2) but didn't show any significantly difference. Treatment on 4 weeks after nursery was significant different in presentation survival rate but in vegetative growth haven't significantly difference. The sucker 12 weeks after nursery was the best sucker age to the vegetative growth of suckers.


Four new eremophilane-type sesquiterpenoid alcohols were isolated from Cremanthodium helianthus collected in China and their structures established on the basis of spectroscopic analyses. All of them had 9-en-8-one partial structures with one more double bond either Δ11, Δ11(13), or Δ7(11). Two of them had a hydroxy group at C-1 position.


Title Application of X-ray CT to the study of microstructure and diffusivity in cementitious materials [an abstract of dissertation and a summary of dissertation review] Author(s) Darma, Ivan Sandi Citation 北海道大学. 博士(工学) 甲第11452号 Issue Date 2014-03-25 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/55522 Rights(URL) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.1/jp/ Type theses (doctoral abstract and summary of review) Additional Information There are other files related to this item in HUSCAP. Check the above URL. File Information Ivan_Sandi_Darma_abstract.pdf (論文内容の要旨)


In this paper, we propose a personalized contents recommendation service using big data. We presented a user similarity-based contents recommendation service using NFC. This service used a small sample because it used only information of the users who had watched a museum. So it had some drawback that it is difficult to accurately predict the user's preference. To solve this problem, the proposed service predicts the user's taste using big data such as Twitter and blogs. It recommends a personalized content to the corresponding user based on the predicted taste. It is possible to predict the exact user's preference and might recommend more suitable contents to the user's taste because it predicts the user using big data with a variety of user's information.


The present invention is installed the water treatment facilities and gray water relates to a filtering device used to remove the treatment of solid contaminants included sunae etc. facilities, the suction pipe is installed rod plurality of suction to the interior of the cylindrical filtering net, the outer peripheral surface, such as a constant, and a sewage treatment plant and, to this one by a suction pipe connected to the drive motor and the discharge pipe, so, can be self-cleaning of the filtering net in the filtering device operation without the need for back wash process by making it be a contaminant attached to the filtering net inlet and outlet. Through the present invention, even during operation of the filtering device, as well as the process water washable became of blocking or filtering net without bypass, the inner peripheral surface of the cylindrical filtering net and simultaneous washing of the outer surface and to obtain an effect to enhance the cleaning efficiency through the ultrasonic transducer have.


Background: Skin  metastases occur  in  1-5%  of  solid  tumors  and  are  rarely the presenting sign of internal malignancies. Certain features in skin lesions raise suspicion of metastasis from solid tumors.Case Presentation: In this article a 61-year-old woman is presented with erythematous skin nodules  in  upper  abdomen  and  chest. Histopathological evaluation  of  lesions suggested  metastatic  carcinoma  and  a  thorough  search found  stomach  signet  cell adenocarcinoma and breast lobular carcinoma. Immunohistochemical staining confirmed diagnosis of lobular carcinoma with metastasis developed in skin and stomach.Conclusions: Clinicians  must  be  aware  that  malignancies  can  present  by skin metastases. Since   breast   and   stomach   cancer   can both metastasize to skin, immunohistochemistry evaluation is of great importance to diagnose the primary tumor.


Software metrics encapsulates many software quality factors such as fault proneness, reusability, and maintenance time of the software code. Software metrics are important implements to audit software quality throughout the project lifecycle. Software metrics are numbers accumulated from software code to assess and evaluate where problems are more probable to occur. In this work it is proposed to use a clustering and metrics thresholds based software fault prediction approach and explore it on the dataset, accumulated from Promise Data Repository. Grey relational technique is taken into account as the source for normalized values. The results of the grey relational analysis are then used to conduct fault-proneness classification based on the accuracy (F-measure) of one dataset and compared against the results of another datasets. The result obtain in this work demonstrate the effectiveness of metrics thresholds. This work is validated when the fault labels are unavailable and there is a need to check the accuracy of the software.


The Third Annual Ultrafast X-ray Summer School (UXSS 2009) was held from June 15–19, 2009, at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) and sponsored by the PULSE Institute for Ultrafast Energy Science. The summer school was a weeklong residential event that brought together about 100 students, post-doctoral researchers, and other young and established scientists from diverse backgrounds. Particular emphasis was given to new scientific opportunities enabled by the world's first hard X-ray free electron laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), which underwent a spectacular start-up only months before.


The interdependence of corporate governance and organizational culture has always existed. Corporate governance is present in large organizations, which we call joint stock companies in BiH. The organization's workflow, dividend payments, and day-to-day operations are monitored by people in charge of corporate governance. On the other hand, within each organization, and so on the corporations, a certain organizational culture is introduced, which is specific, and it is essentially known only by employees of a certain company. How much the real impact of organizational culture on corporate governance in BiH companies will be seen in the paper that follows. Corporative management is a form of governance that is characteristical for corporations, or for joint stock companies. Corporate governance, as a set of mechanisms by one corporation, grows and develops on the market, is of fundamental importance to developed countries of the world (United States - US, United Kingdom - UK, Germany, Canada, France and Japan). In the case of lower organizational forms of companies, capital owners often also make their management-management structure. The corporation represents such an organizational form of companies where there is a large number of capital owners whose ability to manage such an entity is insufficient, so they are required to engage professionally competent experts outside the business community (managers) to which they delegate the right to manage and manage. Organizational culture is a special form of culture that includes certain customs, attitudes, values, traditions and rituals. Organizational culture encompasses a system of ideas and concepts, customs, traditions, procedures and habits for acting in special macroeconomics. Organizational culture is a set of values, norms and beliefs.


• Page 1 of 6 • Citation: Dayer MR, Vahideh-Sadat N, Dayer MS, Alavi SMR (2018) Sex-Related Risk of Myocardial Infarction: Insights from Path Analysis. Int Arch Cardiovasc Dis 2:011 Accepted: November 17, 2018; Published: November 19, 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Dayer MR, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


In this paper methods for calculation of multi-center integrals of squared Coulomb potentials and Slater-type orbitals (STO) are derived. These integrals are necessary for accurate lower bounds to energy levels of molecular systems. All multi-center integrals are reduced to fundamental integrals using the Gaunt coefficients and translation of STO. When the potential is the usual Coulomb potential, using the Poisson expansion or the Neumann expansion of the potential the integrals can be calculated. However, for the squared Coulomb potentials such expansions are not known. For the fundamental onecenter and two-center integrals with squared Coulomb potentials, by methods free from such expansions exact analytic expressions and expressions by onedimensional integrals of analytic functions are derived. The methods mainly rely on the integration in ellipsoidal coordinates, the Fourier transform, Hobson's theorem and expansion of differential operators by simple ones suitable for the calculation. Numerical results by these expressions are given and compared.


To investigate the effect of polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid(PolyI:C)on immune response of Newcastle disease(ND) vaccine in chickens,PolyI:C was injected at different time before and after NDV vaccination at seven days age,and antibody titers were tested.The results showed that antibody titers of the groups administrated with PolyI:C at the time of 48 h,24 h and 12 h before vaccinating were higher than that of control only at 10-day-old.The antibody titers of the groups injected with PolyI:C at the same time or at the time of 12 h,24 h after NDV vaccination were higher than that of control from 9-day-old to 12-day-old.It could be concluded that the antibody level stimulated with NDV could be elevated by PolyI:C via its immunological modulation.


A case of fatal arterial disease characterized by intimal proliferation with occlusion of small and medium sized arteries is reported. The pathological picture corresponded to that seen in Kohlmeier-Degos' cutaneo-systemic disease. Clinically the patient showed a multisymp-tomatic disease, ending fatally due to intestinal gangrene. The typical skin lesion described in Ko hlmeier-Degos' disease was, however, not observed. Although differing in some respects from the classical features of this disease, the reported case is believed to be of a similar nature.


The fundamentals and implementation method of blade profile automatic treatment based upon AutoCAD、UG with Visual LISP and UG/Open have been studied.The method can be the base of parametric solid model of blade,CMM meas- ure and analysis and digital control machining.The method presented in this paper has reference value to developing para- metric design system of complex products.


ABSTRACT The non-oncogene-bearing retrovirus SL3-3 murine leukemia virus induces strictly T-cell lymphomas with a mean latency of 2 to 4 months in mice of the NMRI-inbred (NMRI-i) strain. By high-throughput sequencing of retroviral tags, we have identified the genomic region carrying the transcriptional repressor and oncogene growth factor independence 1 (Gfi1) as a frequent target for SL3-3 in the NMRI-i mouse genome. Twenty-four SL3-3 insertions were identified within a 1-kb window of the 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of the Gfi1 gene, a clustering pattern unique for this lymphoma model. Expression analysis determined that the Gfi1 gene was transcriptionally activated by SL3-3 insertions, and an upregulation of Gfi1 protein expression was detected for tumors harboring insertions in the Gfi1 3′UTR. Here we provide data in support of a mechanism by which retroviral insertions in the Gfi1 3′UTR decouple microRNA-mediated posttranscriptional regulation.


During the past decade environmental challenges have been intensified and given increased attention. This implies that businesses in all sectors strategically need to manage these challenges. The service sector is often considered as a sector with a low environmental impact if the direct environmental aspects are assessed. Still, it has been argued that the environmental impact that the sector gives rise to can create severe indirect environmental
impacts. The products and services that are produced by this sector have a relatively limited use of physical resources which may make the environmental impact challenging to visualize.

Banks belong to the service sector and it is partly banks that make the development of societies possible. They have possibilities to steer this development towards directions that may decrease the environmental impact.

The aim of this thesis is to describe how a service organization strategically manages its resources with regards to the environmental aspects. This thesis is based on a context bound case study conducted on commission of Swedbank. It is the largest bank in Sweden and it has
a leading position in the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian markets (Swedbank, 2012).

Different strategies that were used to manage environmental aspects within the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Swedish markets were identified and studied further. Primary
empirical data was gathered through information sources such as interviews with employees and secondary empirical material was mainly accessed in sustainability reports.
A holistic theoretical framework that involves theories concerning strategic environmental management is used in this research project. It is assumed that strategic environmental management partly exists because of the perceived responsibilities, stakeholder pressures and
the legitimacy of businesses. These pressures and responsibilities make it necessary to form strategical approaches and strategies which can be done through different management tools.

The results show that Swedbank has chosen to manage environmental challenges through strategies communicated in terms of initiatives, activities, actions and toolsets. These strategies manage both direct and indirect environmental aspects. Some of the identified strategies are related to; an environmental policy, measurements of some of the direct aspects that generate greenhouse gas emissions, emissions reduction goal, an ISO 14001 certification, environmental training for employees, international commitments, certain demands on
customers and suppliers, products and services with a specific environmental profile. Many of the strategies have been initiated on the Swedish market. Several of these strategies are shared on the four key markets but there are also several of these strategies that currently are not used
in the Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian markets. A major difference is that it is only the Swedish market that has an ISO 14001 certification. Another difference in the strategical approach is that no products or services with environmental profiles could be identified in any
other market than in the Swedish market.


Actually, chicken feathers are considered as waste from the poultry industry; however, 90% of feather structure is constituted by a protein called keratin. In this research, the properties of feather keratin and polyurethane are combined in order to synthesize hybrid synthetic-natural membranes. Both polymers are linked by urethane bonds which are sim- ilar to peptide bonds found in proteins. Keratin is incor- porated onto the polyurethane matrix by dissolving protein in a salt solution (urea and 2-mercaptoethanol) at different concentrations: 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21% (w/w). In or- der to know the effect of urea on membranes, keratin is incorporated to polyurethane in two ways; as keratin salt solution and after dialyzing. Both membrane types were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to observe their morphologic changes. Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Termogravimetric Analysis (TGA), and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) were used to study membrane structures. Results show that ker- atin is grafted in polyurethane and, therefore, there is an


Dry dipterocarp forest is one of the ecosystems that features variety of rare plants and animals. The forest in Ia Pa district, Gia Lai province is declining owing to illegal logging and encroachment of forest land for cultivation. Forest degradation can reduce CO2 sequestration, contributing to increasing greenhouse gas emission and global warming. The study was carried out in the 4 quadrats (each 2,500 m2 = 50 × 50 m) in dry dipterocarp forest of Ia Pa district. In each quadrat, 5 sub-quadrats (each 25 m2 = 5 × 5 m) were set up, one at a central point and four at four corners of the quadrat, respectively. Based on the relationship between carbon stock and above-ground biomass, we found that CO2 accumulation in dry dipterocarp forest was 105.6 tons/ha corresponding to the economic value of 12,299,760 VND/ha. Thus, it is necessary to improve forest quality towards sustainable management of dry dipterocarp forest ecosystem and increase the economic value of the forest with respect to environmental services.


Researchers have described the advantages of complex, realistic, and challenging science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning environments that engage students in the practices of STEM disciplines. Benefits include increasing students' likelihood to transfer skills learned during school activities to practice, value of the task, and motivation.1,2,3 Research teams from four universities are currently studying productive disciplinary engagement in these types of learning environments. Productive disciplinary engagement occurs when learners use the discourses and practices of the discipline in authentic tasks in order to "get somewhere" (develop a product, improve a process, gain better understanding of a phenomenon) over time. Productive engagement in meaningful, authentic activity is essential for motivation and progress toward flexible, adaptive expertise in STEM, but learning systems that support it are complex and difficult to scale. Such systems are usually studied and designed in single contexts (e.g., high school environmental science classrooms, engineering design projects), so the knowledge gained, though rich, is difficult to transfer to new settings. Through collaboration among researchers from the United States (Washington and Oregon), Finland, and Australia who study these systems in different curricular, institutional and cultural contexts, we aim to identify unifying themes and develop generalizable understandings about supporting engagement and learning in STEM. We focus on group settings in authentic contexts, where students must integrate and flexibly apply concepts and practices.


Abstract Older individuals with sexual/gender minority and minority racial/ethnic identities typically face unique challenges, along with opportunities to overcome these obstacles. Published studies on the difficulties faced by sexual and gender minorities are available; however, research on older adults with both racial/ethnic minority and sexual and gender minority identities is rarer. These individuals must confront various forms of discrimination related to ageism, homophobia and racism. Resilience likely plays a role in the ability to manage and survive multiple challenges and discriminatory experiences, yet targeted research on these populations is lacking. This paper offers a preliminary model that incorporates prevalent threats to these populations' well-being and their deleterious psychosocial correlates, especially, whenever available, the unique challenges that older individuals must face when age, sexual orientation and race/ethnicity intersect. Recommendations are made to optimise the expansion and empirical testing of this preliminary model.


PURPOSE: A terminal having a hinge stylus and an auxiliary input device is provided to use a stylus as a hinge by inserting the stylus in a housing and to offer convenience by mounting the auxiliary input device. CONSTITUTION: The first housing(10) includes the first edge unit(101) and the first receiving unit formed in the first edge unit(101). A hinge stylus(30) is mounted at the first receiving unit of the first edge unit(101). The second housing(20) includes the second edge unit(201) and the second receiving unit which is formed in the second edge unit(201). The second housing(20) attaches and detaches the hinge stylus(30). One of a dual hinge is received in the first receiving unit and the other is connected to the second housing(20). Thus, the dual hinge connects the first housing(10) to the second housing(20). The hinge stylus(30) comprises a stylus main body including at least one opening formed symmetrically along a length direction, a mounting/dismounting device mounted in the opening, and a cone portion formed at one end of the stylus main body.


In this paper, we obtain the weighted endpoint estimates for the commutators of the singular integral operators with the BMO functions and the associated maximal operators on Orlicz-Morrey Spaces. We also get the similar results for the commutators of the fractional integral operators with the BMO functions and the associated maximal operators.


The unique properties carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have shown potential for use in electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) technology. The conductivity, thermal and optical properties of CNTs can be exploited to cater to various needs in the many layers of a EWOD device. CNTs have been used as conductive layers, thermal management elements, transparent conductive layers, chemical and biological sensors. This mini review explores the various attempts of exploiting the excellent electrical and physical properties CNTs in EWOD and similar applications. The review thus identifies the overlap in these two fields that indicates a strong future opportunity to use CNTs in EWOD systems.


The activation energy for atom diffusion across steps and facets is a key factor in the surface structure formation during thin films deposition processes. In this work, we calculate facet–facet barriers for atom diffusion of small Cu clusters (up to eight atoms) from {1 1 1} facets to {1 1 1} (or {1 0 0}) facets. In each case we focus only on the atom-by-atom diffusion process because this mechanism was previously found as being energetically the most favourable. Our results show that, for all clusters considered, the diffusion barriers become independent of the facet size for three or more atomic layers. In addition, clusters bigger than trimers present similar lowest facet–facet barriers, except for heptamers which present the highest activation energy. In general, for single steps, diffusion from {1 1 1} to {1 1 1} presents smaller lowest and highest energy barriers than diffusion from {1 1 1} to {1 0 0}. But for multiple steps (facets), both cases show similar behaviours. Finally, it is worth noting that all these barriers are significantly greater than the corresponding concerted cluster diffusion over a plane.


SUMMARY We compared vascular and hormonal responses to teprotide (SQ 20,881) and captopril (SQ 14,225) in patients with normal renin essential hypertension given a 10 mEq sodium diet. In 10 patients receiving SQ 20,881, significant changes occurred in diastollc blood pressure (DBP, −1 3 ± 2.5 mm Hg), angiotensin II (-7.1 ± 2.1 pg/ml), and plasma renin activity (PRA, +6.6 ± 1.9 ng/ml/hr) (p < 0.01 in all cases). Twenty-one patients receiving SQ 14,225 had significant changes in mean DBP (-18 ± 1.5 mm Hg), angiotensin II (-6.6 ± 1.5 pg/ml), and PRA (+7.8 ± 2.4 ng/ml/hr) (all p values < 0.01). In spite of a significantly greater hypotensive response (p < 0.02), patients receiving SQ 14,225 showed increments in PRA and decrements in angiotensin II that did not differ significantly from those seen after SQ 20,881. Moreover, there was a significant change in plasma kinins in patients receiving SQ 20,881 (+2.0 ± 0.9 ng/ml. p < 0.01) but no change in kinins in patients receiving SQ 14,225 (0.0 ± 0.1, ns). We conclude that there are important differences in the mechanism mediating the hypotensire response to SQ 20,881 and SQ 14,225 in normal renin essential hypertension.


Anxiety is a feeling of fear or anxiety from negative thoughts, excessive negative emotions that play a role in causing illness. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Slow Stroke Back Massage on patient anxiety with various literatures obtained.The method used is Literature Review with database searches such as Google Scholar, Sage, Science Direct, and Pubmed. The journals used were 15 consisting of 6 national and 9 international journals. The results of the discussion of the Literature Review Analysis that 15 of the journals said there was a significant effect between Slow Stroke Back Massage in reducing anxiety. There is an effect of Slow Stroke Back Massage on reducing patient anxiety


Background: There is a need to better understand the relationship between functional impairment and muscle mass in cancer cachexia. This study aimed to establish the relationship between computed tomography (CT)-derived muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), radiodensity, and skeletal muscle index (SMI) and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) parameters with functional performance in cancer patients. Materials and Methods: Handgrip strength, stair climb power (SCP), one-repetition maximum (1RM) strength, and body composition (CT and DXA) were compared across cancer patients with cachexia (CAC; N = 28), without cachexia (CNC; N = 28), and non-cancer patients (CON; N = 19). Multivariate regression was performed to find predictors of function. Results: CAC had lower CT muscle CSA and SMI and lower DXA appendicular lean mass (ALM) than CNC or CON (p ≤ 0.011). Muscle radiodensity was not different across groups despite larger proportion of low CT SMI in CAC, and CAC performed worse in SCP than CON (p = 0.018). In cancer patients, DXA ALM and CT muscle CSA each predicted physical function (p ≤ 0.05); muscle radiodensity did not, and DXA ALM explained more variability in SCP and 1RM than CT muscle CSA. Conclusions: Stair climb power was reduced in cancer cachexia; muscle radiodensity was not. Muscle mass by CT or DXA, but not radiodensity, predicted functional performance in cancer patients.


Preferred domain orientation of a piezoelectric ceramic develops through domain switching under electric poling. In previous investigations the critical free energy required for domain switching has been assumed as a constant. This assumption leads to overestimation of the poling-induced texture and provides no explanation for the switching reversal in ferroelectric ceramics after the poling field is removed. In this paper, the contribution of intergranular stress to critical energy for 90° domain switching is investigated. A criterion including intrinsic threshold energy and an interaction energy, which is related to the intergranular stress and the intergranular depolarization field, is proposed. The texture evolution during poling process is simulated using a computational model starting from an initial random domain orientation distribution. The resulted domain orientation distributions under and after poling are predicted. The remanent domain switching after poling is the result of the balance between the interaction energy and intrinsic threshold energy. The final texture is much weaker than that under the electric field. Pole figures of poled Navy VI lead zirconate titanate measured by x-ray diffraction are consistent with the predicted textures.


CO 7. The reviewer wishes to gratefully acknowledge the expert bibliographic assistance of Rosanna Brown and Susan KoskinenCoburn. 8. Paul C. Barr. CAD, Principles and Applications. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985. 9. Mikell P. Groover, CAD/CAM; Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984. 10. Avery Index. Stanford, CA: Research Libraries Group, RLIN Special Data Bases, Avery Analytic and Reference File. 11. Architecture Database. Palo Alto, CA: Dialog Information Services, Inc., file 179. Architectural Periodicals Index. London, British Architectural Library, 1972/73. 12. Arthibliographies Modern. Palo Alto, CA: Dialog Information Services, Inc., file 56. 13. Magazine Index. Palo Alto, CA: Dialog Information Services, Inc., file 47. 14. Walter McQuade. Architecture in the Real World: The Work ofHOK. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1984. 15. Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory. New York: R.R. Bowker, 25th ed., 1986-87. 16. GEOREF. Palo Alto, CA: Dialog Information Services, Inc., file 89. 17. Bibliography and Index of Geology. Alexandria, VA: American Geological Institute, 1969—. 18. Books In Print. New York: R.R. Bowker, annual. 19. Architectural


Norwegian Bishops and Western Political Ideas in the 12th century. This article deals with the picture Norwegian bishops had of their power in the society of the twelfth century and with its evolutions as the Norwegian Church, which was from the beginning linked to England, was turning towards Southern Europe. During the first half of the century, through their contacts with the Danish archbishops of Lund, they became acquainted with theocratic theories stemming from the Gregorian Reform. After the foundation of the province of Nidaros, they had frequent contact with the popes and affirmed their attachment to these theories. Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson (1161-1188), probably inspired by the ideas of the Parisian master Hugues of Saint-Victor, was in favour of a moderate theocracy. Through his acts, his follower Eric Ivarsson (1188-1205) developed a more radical idea of theocracy, under the influence of popes Celestin III and Innocent III.


Objective:To investigate the clinic psychiatry drugs for 80 inpatients with schizophrenia combined hepatitis B in our hospital.Methods:The clinic psychiatry drug situations of the patients with schizophrenia combined hepatitis B were investigated with a self-designed questionnaire and statistically analyzed.Results:The results showed that the number of the single drug was 56,which was the largest proportion among the 80 inpatients(the frequency was 70%).The most common used drugs were clozapine and quetiapine(44.6% and 16.1%),followed by risperidone(12.5%),olanzapine(10.7%),sulpiride(7.1%),aripiprazole(3.6%),perphenazine(3.6%),and palipefidone(1.78%).The number of the drug combination was 24(30%).Two-drug was used without three-drug.The clozapine combined with aripiprazole accounted for the most(41.67%),clozapine combined with risperidone was 12.5%,olanzapine combined with risperidone was 8.33%,and risperidone combined with quetiapine was 8.33%.Conclusions:Non-classical antipsychotics is replacing the classical antipsychotics in the treatment of schizophrenia.Clozapine and olanzapine are not usually used as the first choices for treating schizophrenia combined hepatitis B.


A ruby laser with a pulsed argon ion laser as a pump was constructed and operated at 77° and 300°K. Threshold for oscillation was ∼13 mJ. A unique type of Q‐switched operation was observed that produced pulses of ∼15 nsec at 300°K and ∼6 nsec at 77°K.


A spore germination inhibitor was isolated from the liquid-cultured material of Streptomyces sp. B-9-1, the causal organism of root tumors in melon, and identified as anthranilic acid, which reversibly inhibited spore germination, showed no effect on hyphal growth, and was effective for other Streptomyces spp. However, anthranilic acid showed an IC50 at ca. 50 μg/ml, and its content in spores was 0.16 μg/9×108 spores, indicating that its contribution to the inhibition of spore germination was small.


Tetragonal Zirconia Polycrystals (TZP) stabilized with 2mol% Y2O3(2Y-TZP) with superfine grains and high perfomances were obtained by adding certain glassy additives into 2Y-TZP powders and sintered at lower temperatures. The sintering character, microstructure and mechanical properties of the materials with various content of additives were investigated. It could not only lower sintering temperatures, but also improve flexural strength and fracture toughness of the materials by the common effect of cryptomere strengthening and phase transformation toughening. The influence of stabilizer content on mechanical properties of low temperature sintered Y-TZP was discussed. The results showed that for 2Y-TZP materials, because of low stabilizer content and small critical transformation size, more tetragonal zirconia could change into mono-clinal, and had better effect of transformation toughening, hence higher fracture toughness was obtained.


As it is known that the breakdown electric characteristics of deionized water in the pulsed forming line (PFL) depends on the charging time of voltage. In the constructing of the high-current repetitively pulsed accelerator, the PFL usually is charged by the capacitors through the pulse transformer, in order to realize the repetition operation, the semiconductor switches such as thyristors generally be used in the primary circuit of the pulse transformer, the charging time of voltage is prolonged to tens of microsecond because of the application of thyristors, if the deionized water is used as the medium of PFL, how about the breakdown characteristic of deionized water in the PFL in the region of tens microsecond? How about the breakdown characteristic of deionized water under the repetitive operation? A testing device has been set up to investigate the electric characteristics in tens of microsecond regime, the experimental results shown that the time dependent relation of the breakdown electric of the deionized water is weakened, the exponential relation with the effective time of the charging time of voltage is near to −1/6. A high-current repetitively pulsed accelerator is built using the deionized water filled PFL and the semiconductor switches, the experimental results shown that the electric characteristic of deionized water does not to be deteriorated obviously under the 20Hz repetitive operation. The conclusions can be made that the deionized water and its mixture with the ethylene glycol is suitable to construct the compact repetitive high-current accelerator controlled by the semiconductors.


The present invention discloses a PTC heating element and the rare earth intelligent method for preparing thick film circuit, characterized in that it comprises a metal thick film circuit substrate and a PTC thermistor and a rare thick film resistors provided on the circuit, PTC thick film circuit thermistor thick film circuit and a rare form of a thick film resistor circuit or superimposed in the same plane, to control the temperature of the thick film circuit of the heating element, so that the control accuracy and sensitivity can be greatly improved; turn individually to Houmodianlu made in the form of a controllable heating element. The present invention is the high and low voltage AC and DC can start, small size, large surface of the thermal load, high thermal efficiency, the heat start fast, uniform temperature field grading can be controlled, high thermal conductivity, thermal shock ability, having a far infrared, ease of processing, green, low-carbon environment, safe and reliable, widely adapted to solar, wind, lithium-ion batteries and other new energy requirements of the new smart electric heating element products.


Sleep and circadian problems are known to be common along the Alzheimer's disease (AD) spectrum. Previous research correlated an increase in CSF Aβ with poor sleep quality through self‐reported questionnaires in cognitively unimpaired (CU) individuals. Research on AD patients however showed an increase in tau‐PET. Today, there is increasing evidence that sleep disturbances are an early marker for AD pathology and marker of future risk of cognitive impairment. Our main objective was to study the relationship between sleep efficiency as assessed with polysomnography and amyloid, tau and neuroinflammation.


The nuclear Drell Yan ratios are predicted higher with most EMC models including the parton evolution model. For the reason, we study an additional effect from energy transfer of the incident proton in nuclear Drell Yan process. With consideration of EMC effect and the energy transfer effect, we predict the Drell Yan ratios on the parton evolution model again. A good result is obtained.


. The far IR colors of circumstellar shells are delimited by those with masers; few other objects share the same colors. The resulting (25-12) um color range is primarily due to secular increases in the mass-loss rate, up to a progenitor-mass dependent maximum. Only the most massive progenitors can sustain the mass-loss rate required by the reddest shells.


chain altered distribution in a much higher proportion of patients with X-linked AS [5]. It is our experience that skin biopsy, examined with conventional, and if needed, with confocal microscopy, is able to virtually detect (almost) all cases of X-linked AS [5], thus allowing to avoid or to postpone more invasive and/or expensive diagnostic procedure like renal biopsy and genetic investigations, which, in addition, are not diagnostic in all cases.


The aim of the article is to define the concept of economic freedom, using the ideas of the most important representatives of this doctrine. The article refers to the chronology and development of the concept of economic freedom, as well as the evolution of the policy of economic freedom along with the specification of the legal foundations determining the status of economic freedom over the centuries. The author refers only to the most important concepts for the issue in question, focusing on: (1) issues related to economic law and economic freedom or (2) aspects relevant to it in a given period. The initial thesis of the research is that economic freedom policy is a dynamic area, as evidenced by the multitude of legal acts implemented or amended every few years. Where specific legal phenomena are studied and need to be qualified at the same time, reference has been made primarily to the existing stock of well-known institutions. Economic freedom is a topic that has been the subject of lively discussion for many years. At its core, at various times, there were difficulties in determining (defining) economic freedom and its position in a given state. The political transformations lasting hundreds of years have caused economic changes in the state, accompanied by legal problems. The issue of economic freedom is related to the formation of relations between various entities operating on the territory of the state, and especially to how the state as an institution relates to entrepreneurs. Economic freedom has a significant impact on modern states, often leading to a change in their organizational model. For this reason, questions arise: What is economic freedom? What was its evolution? What is the attitude of the state to economic freedom? To what extent is economic freedom de facto "freedom" and what does it mean?


Mental processes, as part of the ideational function in the metafunction of discourse, referto the search for concepts of thinking, knowledge, feelings, and desires of the speaker. Thisstudy aims to understand and explore the use and trend of using mental processes byDonald Trump in his 2016–2018 speeches. The data and data sources of this research areclauses containing mental processes in Trump's victory speech (2016), critical speeches inPhoenix (2017), and campaign speeches in Evansville Rally (2018). Data were collectedemploying a transcription study of speech texts and analyzed using the theory of FunctionalGrammar M.A.K Halliday and Systemic Functional Linguistics Suzzane Eggins and TriWiratno, which were concretized through tables and percentages. The findings show thedominance of the affective mental process, namely the most frequent mental process or thehighest frequency used by Donald Trump to show his love for the people (listeners), flag,and country.


ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the feasibility of cellulose microfibers extraction from a wetland plant (Typha australis) and to assess its suitability as a source of bio-micro fibers for green composites. The method was based on an alkali sodium hydroxide pretreatment and subsequently an environmentally friendly hydrogen peroxide bleaching process for extracting microfiber. Alkali treatments resulted in fiber separation from leaves by partially removing the hemicellulose and lignin and an oxidative treatment significantly enhanced the effective defibrillation. The effectiveness of this method was confirmed by using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). FTIR analysis showed the removal of non-cellulosic materials from the fibers in sequential alkali-bleaching treatments and changes in the absorption of cellulose functional groups. The cellulose content in the fiber increased from 43% to 75% after chemical treatment. XRD analysis showed the increase in the crystallinity of chemically treated fibers from 28% to 63% due to the removal of amorphous components as hemicellulose and lignin. The SEM images confirmed the defibrillation of the Typha fibers with a rigid structure and without degradation after the sequential alkali-bleaching treatments.


A number of investigators have proposed various domestic automatic dependent surveillance (ADS) concepts based on line-of-sight (LOS) radio link networks. Each of these proposals has been based on assumptions and constraints as perceived by the individual designer or design group. This article compares the network capacity of several illustrative design alternatives on a normalized basis and parametrically examines expected capabilities. To focus on this objective, we assume the signal and message levels of the design are independent of the network protocol, and the distribution of units and link design features result in N units within reception range. Each of these N units has connectivity to other units, contends for channel access, and is a potential source of mutual interference. Results of the analysis are expressed in terms of the probability that these N units can be accommodated at some tolerable level of mutual interference by the available bandwidth and the net protocol. The alternatives consid...


Abstract: Two immunologically mediated reactions, the graft‐versus‐host (GvH) and host‐versus‐graft (HvG) responses, form primary and opposing barriers to successful transplantation of allogeneic hematopoietic stem‐cells (HSC). The HvG barrier is set by the strength of the allogeneic immune response, which is determined by antigenic stimulation provided by donor cells, owing to differences in histocompatibility antigens, and the capacity of host immune cells to generate a response. Risk of graft failure must be viewed as the interplay of multiple factors, including degree of human leukocyte antigen and minor histocompatibility antigen disparity, capacity of host immune response, and the capacity of donor hematopoietic and immunologic cells for overcoming residual host immunity.


JUDGING books by their prefaces and acknowledgements might lead one to approach Jules Coleman's work with a deep sense of foreboding. The picture of the author provided by the preface to this book and the acknowledgements contained in his earlier collection, Markets, Morals and the Law, are of the original American wild and crazy guy—a self-confessed obsessive who would like better retirement and dental plans, whose wife married him to achieve insecurity and who relied upon some of the worst and best popular music of his generation for help on his journey from Berkeley in the sixties to Yale in the nineties. Fortunately, the books are completely unlike this possibly exaggerated picture of the author. The book under review provides an excellent, composed and thorough analysis of the problems of the dominant form of American Law and Economics scholarship. Coleman also provides a picture of what he regards as a superior version of economic analysis of law (hereinafter "EAL"). The problems of the dominant form of EAL, and the outline of a superior version, are discussed at both the general level of assumptions underpinning each approach and at the specific level of their fruitfulness in relation to particular segments of legal doctrine. (In this book the segments of doctrine with which Coleman is exclusively concerned are Contract and Tort.) The book has three parts. In the first, chapters 1 to 4 provide an outline and critique of what Coleman takes to be the conventional form of EAL. He holds that conventional EAL is committed to an underlying normative theory called the "market paradigm". It entails an explanation of the possibility of cooperation between rational agents, a conception of the role of the market and an account of the nature of efficiency which cannot be defended. Thus the relationship conventional EAL postulates between markets, efficiency and legal doctrine is dubious. Coleman offers at least three apparently powerful reasons to demonstrate the implausibility of the market paradigm. First, he notes, en passant, arguments he and others have already made to the effect that efficiency "is not the sort of 'principle' that is reflectively acceptable on its own terms" (p. 10; see also pp. 100-102). Second, he argues that the market paradigm should be rejected because it mistakenly assumes competitive markets are conceptually possible prior to cooperation (pp. 5965). This is a mistake because "[i]t is just not possible to disentangle competition from cooperation in a way that enables us to conceive of competition as logically or normatively prior to cooperation" (p. 61). Hence, if cooperation is conceptually necessary in order for competitive markets to be possible, then we cannot justify the form and content of regimes of cooperation (such as law and morality) as "solutionfs] to failed competition" (p. 65). In this regard conventional EAL puts the cart before the horse. Third, Coleman rejects the conception of market failure the market paradigm entails. That conception, which according to the paradigm is "the foundation of legitimate political or moral authority" (p. 89), has "virtually no practical use" (ibid). Hence, justifying regimes of cooperation on the grounds that they mimic the market when the market has for some reason failed is pointless if one has no plausible account of why markets fail. And, within EAL, says Coleman, "no good account of market failure exists" (p. 87).


Services for the Aurora Public School District since 1998, she has helped to make this district's school health program a premier program in Colorado as well as one that is a nationally recognized model. A graduate from the University of Northern Colorado with a bachelor of science degree in nursing, Sue was named Outstanding Alumna from this university in 1999. She holds a master's degree in counseling and human services and has done graduate work in Administrator Licensure. In addition, she is a nationally certified school nurse practitioner. From 1996 to 2000, Sue served a 4-year term as the Colorado representative for the NASN Board of Directors. She was also a charter member and served a 3-year term as president and a I -year term as treasurer for the Colorado Association of School Nurses from 1992 to 1996. In addition to her many responsibilities, she has delivered numerous presentations vital to school nursing practice. Chief of these seminal works was the presentation, &dquo;New School Nurse Orientation,&dquo; delivered at NASN's 34th annual conference in Orlando, Florida. Ms. McCarroll is recognized by her peers as &dquo;one of the most respected professionals in both the fields of school nursing and education.&dquo; She is also described


The "witch broom disease" caused by the fungus called Moniliophthora perniciosa is one of the most important cocoa diseases in Latin America, causing around 70% production reduction in the southern Bahia. In attempt to solve the problem, many cultivars resistant to the disease have been recommended to farmers. On the other hand, the chocolate flavour is composed by many compounds whose formation depends on the genetic background, environment where cocoa is grown and processing operations. Therefore, this work aimed at determining the monomeric phenolic compounds, methylxanthines and antioxidant activity of cocoa mass and dark chocolate from cocoa cultivars resistant to "witch broom disease" and non resistant to the disease. The total phenolic compounds in cocoa mass did not vary among cultivars with values ranging from 23.95mg g-1 to 25.03mg g-1. Chocolates made from non resistant cultivars showed higher total phenolic compounds (19.11mg g-1) than SR162 and PH16 with 16.08mg g-1 and 15.46mg g-1, respectively. Epicatechin had higher content than catechin and the levels of these two compounds were higher in SR162. There were significant differences among samples of cocoa mass analyzed for caffeine. Chocolate made from SR162 had the highest amount of monomeric compounds due to its high concentration of catechin and epicatechin. The chocolate sample with the highest antioxidant activity was the SR162, followed by non resistant blend and PH16, showing relationship between the antioxidant activity and monomeric phenolics content.


The study utilized Landsat imageries of 1987 (Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)), 2000 (Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+)) and 2014 (Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI)) to examine land transformation in the Gashaka-Gumti National Park. The analysis indicated that dense forest which occupied 367,500 hectares at 62.2% of the total area of the park in 1987 has been converted into farmland and built-up area. Thus, the dense forest has reduced to 343, 300 hectares by the year 2000 and 107, 600 hectares in 2014 respectively. The result shows that the riparian forest decreased from 21,300 hectares in 1987 at 3.6% to16, 000 hectares in 2000 at 2.7% and further to11, 000 hectares (1.8%) by 2014. Savannah vegetation found to be concentrated in the northern part of the study area and occupied a total area of 81,260 hectares at 13% in 1987, reduced to 62,100 hectares at 10.5% in 2000 and increased to 183,800 hectares at 31.1% of the total area in 2014. The built-up area occupied a total area of 4,476 hectares at 7.5% in 1987. The built-up increased to 11,070 hectares at 1.81% in 2000 but decreased to10.930 hectares at1.85% in 2014 as a result of the news that the insurgents were shifting their base towards the park to hide from security forces and some of the people living within the area became afraid and deserted their houses and resettled in the nearby towns and villages that are outside the park.


We study the class of homogenous ΣΠΣΠ(r) circuits, which are depth 4 homogenous circuits with top fanin bounded by r. We show that any homogenous ΣΠΣΠ(r) circuit computing the permanent of an n× n matrix must have size at least exp ( n ) . In a recent result, Gupta, Kamath, Kayal and Saptharishi [6] showed that any homogenous depth 4 circuit with bottom fanin bounded by t which computes the permanent of an n×n matrix must have size at least exp (Ω(n/t)). Our work builds upon the results of [6], and explores the limits of computation of depth four homogenous circuits when the restriction for the bottom fanin is removed. For any sequence D = D1, D2, . . . , Dk of nonnegative integers such that ∑ Di = n, we also study the class of homogenous ΣΠDΣΠ circuits, which are homogenous circuits where each Π gate at the second layer (from the the top) is restricted to having its inputs be polynomials whose sequence of degrees is precisely D. We show that for every degree sequence D, any ΣΠDΣΠ circuit computing the permanent of an n× n matrix must have size at least exp (n ), for some fixed absolute constant independent of D. ∗Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com. †Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics, Rutgers University. Email: email@example.com.


Objective: To explore the distribution regularity of essential elements of TCM clinical syndrome of Diffuse Interstitial Lung Disease (DILD) through the investigation of cases hospitalized, and to guide TCM differentiation. Methods: Based on the requirements of TCM epidemiological investigation of DILD clinical research, Diffuse Interstitial Lung Disease Clinical Survey Questionnaire was set up, and also the database of TCM essential elements and syndromes. SPSS 13.0 for windows software was adopted for statistical description. Results: In the 12 disease-character factors, phlegm (fluid) had the highest frequency (80.76%), and qi-deficiency, heat, blood stasis, yin deficiency and wet (moisture) followed with their frequency 50.95%, 41.44%, 33.62%, 21.56% and 19.24%. The main syndrome located the lung with the frequency 93.23%, then the kidney and the spleen, with their frequencies 36.79% and 7.61%. In the combinations of the factors, syndrome of single essential elements was syndrome of blood stasis (13.18%). In the combination of a character elements and target points, qi-deficiency calculated 84.44%, and yin-deficiency 49.44%, yang-deficiency 3.89%, located on the lung, the kidney and the spleen, showed syndrome of lung qi deficiency, syndrome of kidney qi deficiency, syndrome of spleen qi deficiency, syndrome of lung yin deficiency, and others. In the combination of two character elements, there were syndrome of deficiency of both qi and yin (37.57%), syndrome of deficiency of both yin and yang (1.66%) and syndrome of qi deficiency and blood stasis (0.55%). In the combination of three elements, they showed the unions of phlegm-heat (29.07%), phlegm-stasis (24.42%) and phlegm-wet (moisture) (14.12%) located in lung, and the main patterns were syndrome of phlegm-heat obstructing lung, syndrome of phlegm-stasis blocking lung, syndrome of phlegm-wet (moisture) locking lung and so on. In the combination of four elements, there were syndrome of phlegm-heat-stasis obstructing lung (1.94%), and syndrome of external cold and internal fluid (0.48%). And there were other combinations, such as syndrome of stagnant heat in Shaoyang (0.36%), syndrome of wind-phlegm interring the interior (0.24%). Conclusion: The main pathological factors of DILD were phlegm, qi deficiency, heat, stasis, yin deficiency, wet/moisture, and etc, located in the lungs, the kidney and the spleen.


"Pruritus ani et vulvae" is a phrase which designates the subjective symptom of a disease of the skin. This paper does not include the fleeting, nonrepeating pruritus ani et vulvae which may be experienced by any person. There is probably no other subject which commands greater interest among such a varied and large group of physicians. Many of the patients become mental and physical wrecks and acquire advanced changes in the skin before they present themselves for help. A review of the literature reveals a number of classifications of etiologic factors and a wide divergence of opinions as to prognosis, treatment and end results. Roentgen ray treatment was unjustly condemned in several articles by physicians probably not familiar with its application. The following citations principally cover the subject of pruritus ani. Bacon 1 wrote, "The value of surgery in the treatment of pruritus ani is indeed problematical." Hirschmann 2 stated,


Discourse about gender and education is dominated by policy relating to girls' education globally that seeks to improve the situation of girls in low-income countries, increase educational opportunities, and positively influence international development. This perspective, while well intended, continues to rely on several shortcomings - namely, a conflation of the notions of sex and gender, prioritizing educational access over quality of the educational experience, and relying on under-theorized concepts such as empowerment. In general, scholarship has insufficiently addressed the relationship of sociocultural, political and economic contextual dynamics as they relate to the educational experience. This special issue includes a range of contextualized case studies of gender and education with the goal of breaking through these shortcomings, to reveal the story under and beyond the statistics and deepen our theoretical understanding. This introductory article presents an overview of the articles included herein, and discusses the notion of empowerment, and a number of other issues that could help us move forward to a richer knowledge base relating to gender and education internationally.


In the application of distributed generation technologies, different building have its own heat-to-power ratio, therefore equipment selection is a key point to determine the energy saving ratio. This study analyzes some devices of four different types, from two basic managements, heat-tracking and electricity-tracking. Result shows the optimal heat-to-power ratio of some certain devices and the changing trends were also given out. The energy saving ratio were also calculated.


The ocular adnexal lymphomas represent the malignant end of the spectrum of lymphopro- liferative lesions which occur in the conjunctiva, eyelids, lacrimal gland and orbit. The new "W.H.O.Classification of Tumours of Haemopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues"is the most suit- able for subdividing the ocular adnexal lymphomas, whereby the extranodal marginal zone B-cell lymphoma (EMZL) represents the most common lymphoma subtype.Management of patients with ocular adnexal lymphomas includes a systemic medical examination to establish the clinical stage of the disease.Most patients have stage IE disease and current recommend- ed therapy for this is radiotherapy, while disseminated disease is treated with chemotherapy. Despite usually demonstrating an indolent course, EMZLs are renowned for recurrence in extranodal sites,including other ocular adnexal sites.Furthermore,blastic transformation of EMZL with a corresponding aggressive clinical course has been described.Long-term follow- up with half-yearly examinations are therefore recommended. Major prognostic criteria for the ocular adnexal lymphomas include the age of the patient, anatomical location of the tu- mour, stage of disease at first presentation, serum lactate dehydrogenase level at the time of diagnosis, lymphoma subtype as determined using the W.H.O. lymphoma classification and the tumour cell growth rate. The clinical symptoms and the histopathological findings of the differential diagnoses of lymphoproliferative lesions of the ocular adnexa are discussed.


Accurate measurement of the critical buckling stress is crucial in the entire field of structural engineering. In this paper, the critical buckling load of Y-shaped cross-section steel columns was predicted by the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The results of 57 buckling tests were used to generate the training and testing datasets. Seven input variables were considered, including the column length, column width, steel equal angles thickness, the width and thickness of the welded steel plate, and the total deviations following the Ox and Oy directions. The output was the critical buckling load of the columns. The accuracy assessment criteria used to evaluate the model were the correlation coefficient (R), root mean square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE). The selection of an appropriate structure of ANN was first addressed, followed by two investigations on the highest accuracy models. The first one consisted of the ANN model that gave the lowest values of MAE = 40.0835 and RMSE = 30.6669, whereas the second one gave the highest value of R = 0.98488. The results revealed that taking MAE and RMSE for model assessment was more accurate and reasonable than taking the R criterion. The RMSE and MAE criteria should be used in priority, compared with the correlation coefficient.