Samples ETTM-05, ETTM-12, ETTM-18, ETTM-19, ETTM-20, ETTM-21, and ETTM-22 were tested for mutagenicity in Salmonella strains TA1535, TA1537, TA1538, TA98 and TA100. None of the samples tested were mutagenic when Aroclor 1254-induced S9 was not incorporated into the test system. Samples ETTM-05 and ETTM-12 (powdered coal) have been found to be marginally mutagenic. Organic solvent fractions prepared from these have also been shown to be slightly mutagenic. ETTM-18 was found to be mutagenic for strains TA1537, TA1538, TA98 and TA100 when assayed with Aroclor-induced S9. A highly active methylene chloride component was noted upon fractionation of ETTM-18. ETTM-19, ETTM-20, and ETTM-22 were all marginally mutagenic. ETTM-21 was apparently not mutagenic. The greatest difficulty in the evaluation of data from in vitro assays is in the extrapolation to the human situation. Although in two studies, approximately 90% of known carcinogens were mutagenic for Salmonella, sufficient correlative data do not exist to suggest that a positive response in this assay predicts carcinogenicity or a potential mutagenic hazard for humans. This, however, does not detract from its applicability as a screen for identifying agents for further study. As a screen this assay offers several advantages: it has been used in more comparative studiesmore » than other microbial tests; it is less expensive and easier to undertake than the mammalian cell transformation assays which offer a high degree of positive response/known carcinogen correlation; results are obtained in 24 to 48 hours; and results are more simple and less time consuming to score than with chromosome aberration or sister chromatid exchange.« less


The ES-LoA project, funded by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) under its e-Infrastructure Security Programme, investigates current and future needs among UK research and education community for a more fine-grained access control, which allows service providers to take into account of the levels of confidence in identifying a remote entity requesting for service access. Such a fine-grained access control scheme can be attractive to service providers offering resources with varying levels of sensitivity or wishing to tailor their security protections based upon risk levels. Service providers may wish to restrict access to more sensitive resources only to those who have gone through a more stringent authentication process, or given the same remote entity, require the use of a stronger authentication token should the access request come from a more risky environment. In this way, the quality of an authentication instance, expressed as an authentication Level of Assurance (LoA), becomes one of the parameters used in access control decision making. The project has investigated existing LoA definitions at both national and international levels, and examined the suitability of these definitions when being applied for use in UK education and research communities, and identified gaps in existing authentication and authorization policies, procedures and infrastructure structure and processes in the use of LoA in long term in the UK education and research community. Our research has revealed that the most notable and widely used LoA regime is the one produced by the US government (the OMB Memorandum M-04-04 and NIST SP 800-63 E-Authentication Guideline), which proposes a 4-level LoA model (with Levels 1 to 4). The OMB/NIST 4-level LoA model is being used, or being referenced, by several initiatives, including the US e-government, e-commerce and a number of international federations and research initiatives. A critical mass of institutions adopting and implementing this regime seems to have been established. Through our community consultation with the UK education and research community in terms of LoA definitions and applications, taking into account issues such as interoperability with other international federations and communities, we are able to recommend the community to use the OMB/NIST LoA regime, while addressing the gaps identified when applying this model to federated access management environments based on the Shibboleth technology. This document gives recommendations with regard to concrete steps for the UK education and research community to take in order to implement the OMB/NIST LoA regime, and highlight further work …


The aurora is a microcosm of astrophysical plasmas where intense electron and ion beams are responsible for the generation of strong wave activity including powerful radio frequency emission known as Auroral kilometric radiation (AKR). In the aurora, turbulent wave fields close to the lower-hybrid fiequency exist, giving rise to one of the most important processes in turbulent plasmas — namely wave collapse and caviton formation. The special role lower-hybrid waves play in space physics is connected with the fact that these waves can be in simultaneous phase resonance with both electrons and ions transferring energy from one plasma component to another. A number of processes have been considered for the generation of this turbulent wave activity including electron beams and ion horseshoe distributions. The precipitating electrons responsible for the aurora can easily excite these wave modes and ion horseshoe distributions are another free energy source for the wave activity which is the most intense observed in the region. The lower-hybrid wave amplitude in the auroral zone is large enough to initiate modulational type interactions through the ponderomotive force exerted by the waves on the plasma particles and responsible for the creation of density cavitons through the evolution of strong turbulence. This is an important topic in plasma physics combining nonlinearity with complexity and exists in many types of plasma from laser fusion, tokomaks, space plasmas and astrophysical plasmas such as gamma ray bursts, relativistic jets and pulsars. The aurora therefore provides a unique and accessible environment to study strong turbulence effects. In this talk I will describe the modulational instability and wave collapse of lower-hybrid waves and the role they play in energizing particles.


Objective: To explore the difference of parenting style between Uygur Minority and Han Nationality.Methods: The revised EMBU was employed and delivered to 509 senior high school students(256 Han students and 253 Uygur students).The data were analyzed with SPSS13.0.Results: The scores of punishment,reject and denying of Uygur parents were lower than those of Han parents,while the scores of favoritism and excessive protection of Uygur parents were higher than of Han parents.And the scores of over making in of Han fathers were higher than those of Uygur fathers,while it was reverse for mothers of Han and Uygur.Conclusion: Han parents seem to provide more restricted situation than Uygur parents with more punishment,firm control,rejection and ignorance.


ISO (International Standart Organization) serial 9002 is one of the quality standard confessed globally. This quality standard is used for the confession agenda above quality product resulted by company, so that it can be accepted by society. There are two reason which need to be considered in applying ISO 9002 namely benefit level will be obtained by company and cost released from certificate registration result. Benefit level is difficult calculated with economic method. Therefore the calculation the benefit level conducted by using Method AHP approach (Analitycal Hierarchy Process). Benefit level and cost calculated with AHP approach one then they are compiled base on calculated Method of AHP approach. Which the data was obtained from admission filling of questionaire by expert people in company, so herice will be got benefit weight and cost to apply or do not apply ISO 9002. The data processing result at PT. Isimu Utama Raya (PT. IUR) obtained that benefit weight would apply 0,842 and would not apply equal 0,158. while equal cost weight result would apply equal 0,753 and would apply equal 0,247. Therefore the benefit cost ratio (BCR) weight would apply ISO 9002 equal 1,12 and would not apply ISO 9002 equal 0,639. Based on this, weight resultclear that BCR had been applying ISO 9002 > 1. In this case of the chosen alternative will be applying ISO 9002.


The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effect of applying different concentrations of propolis extract on the sanitary and physiological quality of rice and soybean seeds. The experiment was conducted at the Microbiology and Health Laboratory of the State University of the Tocantina Maranhão Region (UEMASUL), from January to May 2019. The experimental design was completely randomized, with six treatments and four replications of 20 seed lots. The treatments tested were: control (distilled water), concentrations of 2.5%; 5%; 7.5% and 10% propolis extract and the Maxim fungicide (positive control). The seeds with the propolis dosages were homogenized in plastic bags and dried at room temperature under absorbent paper. Subsequently, they were plated in Petri dishes containing three previously moistened germitest sheets of paper and incubated in photoperiod BOD at an average temperature of 26 ± 1 oC for seven days. The following parameters were evaluated: fungal incidence on treated seeds, seed germination, root length and seedling height. All concentrations of propolis extract showed efficiency in reducing fungal incidence in rice and soybean seeds, and the genera Aspergillus sp., Fusarium sp., Penicillium sp., Cercospora sp., Phomopsis sp. and Rhizopus sp. The physiological quality of seeds, regarding germination parameters, soybean seedling root length and rice seedling height were not influenced by propolis extract concentrations.


There are two main technique problems in direct methanol fuel cell.One is anode catalysts with low activity for methanol oxidation,the other is the"methanol crossover".The research progress in various types of oxygen reduction cathodic electrocatalysts of DMFC was reviewed.


Abstract : LIMDEP (Version Phelps) is a Fortran IV (System 370) program for performing regressions using the limited dependent variable technique. The program is wholly double precision, although each observation is read in as a single precision vector, thus permitting the use of F and E formats. Provision is made in the program for performing regressions with the observations weighted. Weights are automatically normalized. Data may be supplied either on cards or on tape or disk input.


The following methods of disposal and treatment of phenolic liquors from coke oven plants are studied:

direct use on froth flotation media in coal washing plant. The coal absorbs 60% of the phenols present, but only half the normal output can be used in this way.

chemical oxidation of the phenols by ozone. This is satisfactory for dilute liquors (100 p.p.m. of phenols) but is too costly for spent ammoniacal liquors.

biological oxidation. The activated sludge process is satisfactory but somewhat expensive. An enclosed percolating filter containing coke activated with soil organisms gave promising results.

extraction of phenols. The use of light creosote oil in a rotating disc extractor gave promising results.

For liquors rich in phenols, the procedure recommended is method (4) followed by methods (3) or (1) and then method (2) if desirable. Final effluents with 10–50 p.p.m. of phenols can be obtained.


Established was the role of selenium deficiency as a factor in development of disorders of immunological reactivity based on the results of a comprehensive study of its content in blood serum and daily urine of 120 children aged 3 to 17 years with various forms of chronic pyelonephritis. Revealed was a marked reduction of selenium content in blood serum (by 4,8 times), and in daily urine (by 5,7 times) compared with control. The growth of selenium deficiency in obstructive forms of chronic pyelonephritis is a co-factor of inhibition of cellular immunity.


The High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is a 30 MWth, graphite-moderated, helium-cooled reactor that was constructed with the objectives to establish and upgrade the technological basis for advanced high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) as well as to conduct various irradiation tests for innovative high-temperature research. The core size of the HTTR represents about one-half of that of future HTGRs, and the high excess reactivity of the HTTR, necessary for compensation of temperature, xenon, and burnup effects during power operations, is similar to that of future HTGRs. During the start-up core physics tests of the HTTR, various annular cores were formed to provide experimental data for verification of design codes for future HTGRs. The experimental benchmark performed and currently evaluated in this report pertains to the data available for two zero-power, warm-critical measurements with the fully-loaded HTTR core. Six isothermal temperature coefficients for the fully-loaded core from approximately 340 to 740 K have also been evaluated. These experiments were performed as part of the power-up tests (References 1 and 2). Evaluation of the start-up core physics tests specific to the fully-loaded core (HTTR-GCR-RESR-001) and annular start-up core loadings (HTTR-GCR-RESR-002) have been previously evaluated.


We observed enhanced tau spreading in the aging mouse brain and tau misfolding in brain regions vulnerable in Alzheimer's disease. The incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is characterized by progressive cognitive decline that correlates with the spread of tau protein aggregation in the cortical mantle, is strongly age-related. It could be that age predisposes the brain for tau misfolding and supports the propagation of tau pathology. We tested this hypothesis using an experimental setup that allowed for exploration of age-related factors of tau spread and regional vulnerability. We virally expressed human tau locally in entorhinal cortex (EC) neurons of young or old mice and monitored the cell-to-cell tau protein spread by immunolabeling. Old animals showed more tau spreading in the hippocampus and adjacent cortical areas and accumulated more misfolded tau in EC neurons. No misfolding, at any age, was observed in the striatum, a brain region mostly unaffected by tangles. Age and brain region dependent tau spreading and misfolding likely contribute to the profound age-related risk for sporadic AD.


A board-on-chip package and a manufacturing method thereof are provided to prevent the generation of delamination between contact pads of IC chip and an insulating layer by preventing the stress from being applied to the IC chip using an interposer between the IC chip and a board. A board-on-chip package includes an IC chip(211) with a plurality of contact pads, an interposer, a board, and bonding wires. The interposer(221) are attached on a front surface of the IC chip. The interposer includes at least one holes capable of exposing the contact pads of the IC chip to the outside. The board(231) includes a plurality of metal lines formed on one surface. The board is attached to the interposer through the other surface. The board has an opening portion capable of exposing the contact pads to the outside. The bonding wires are connected with the contact pads and the metal lines through the opening portion of the board.


Chemistry and inclusion control are two of the main keys to the production of quality steel products. The refractory materials have a direct influence on the quality of elaborate grades at different levels: (i) The control of solute elements such as carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen. (ii) The prevention of non-metallic inclusions. A good knowledge of the metal-slag-refractory products interactions is consequently necessary in order to have a better control of elaboration procedures. Among all the points brought up, we could mention all the developments that will limit the contribution of refractory products in clogging phenomena, carbon pick up and atmospheric re-oxidation, in conjunction with efforts of the metallurgists to produce clean steels.


THE DISTRIBUTION OF ERROR IN MOUSE INSULIN ASSAYS BY PETER A. YOUNG The Wellcome Research Laboratories, Beckenham, Kent and G. A. STEWART The Biological Control Laboratory, The Wellcome Chemical Works, Dartford, Kent Received November 28, 1951 To specify the accuracy of a bio-assay technique some knowledge of the nature of the distribution of errors between tests of the same type is required, since it is the uniformity of variance from test to test as much as the mean variance which will determine the usefulness of the method. To investigate the distribution of errors in an assay involving a probit response, the mouse insulin test was chosen as being a well established technique on which many results were available for analysis. That the distribution of standard errors of log-potency in this test is not normal will be seen from the histogram shown in Figure 1. While some of the


A field experiment was conducted during rabi seasons of 2015 to 2016 at Junagadh (Gujarat, India) to study the integrated weed management through manual weeding, herbicides and herbicides mix in mustard [Brassica juncea (L.) Czernj. and Cosson]. The results revealed that among the treatments, pre-emergence application of tank mix oxyfluorfen 0.12 kg ha -1 + pendimethalin 0.45 kg ha -1 fb HW and IC at 40 DAS, oxyfluorfen 0.18 kg ha -1 as pre-emergence fb HW and IC at 40 DAS, and pendimethalin 0.6 kg ha -1 as pre-emergence fb HW and IC at 40 DAS were found effective in reducing number and dry weight of weeds, thus increased growth, yield attributes and yield of mustard along with higher net returns and B:C. Keywords: Indian mustard, Brassica juncea, herbicide mix, hand weeding, interculturing Cite this Article R.K. Mathukia, S.P. Gohel, N.M. Dadhania et al . Enhancing Weed Control Efficiency Using Herbicide Mix in Indian Mustard (Brassica juncea). Research & Reviews: Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology . 2017; 6(3): 8–11p.


The responses of human observers while tracking 75% correct thresholds using a block up‐and‐down adaptive procedure for different signals (wide‐band noise, narrow‐band noise, and a sinusoid) in a continuous or a gated wide‐band masking noise with a two time interval or a YES‐NO paradigm has been examined. There was a tendency for performance at the most frequently revisited level to depend on the signal level of the previous block. The extreme case was the narrow‐band noise signal where the percentages correct were: 78% if the previous block was higher, 75% if the same, and 72% if lower. Each error and the preceding response was analyzed. A strong bias in favor of the "2" response in the two‐interval paradigm and the "NO" response in the YES‐NO paradigm was observed. This bias was reflected in higher percentage correct values for the second interval than for the first: as much as 55% for the first and 80% for the second or 44% hit rate and 93% correct rejection rates for a 2000‐Hz signal. These and other ...


The article explores the identity of indigenous peoples in a multinational urbanized society, where mixed marriages prevail, the languages of national minorities are lost, and the way of life is not associated with traditional nature management. What does it mean to be indigenous in these conditions? Is ethnicity still linked to blood and land? The institute of ancestral lands of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug — Ugra is considered as a variant of (re)rooting of titular peoples who were earlier deprived of their rights to land and resources by the Soviet government. The author traces how the introduction of support programs for indigenous minorities provoked an instrumental approach to identity in the 1990s. The correction of genealogy was widespread and led to an unnatural jump in the number of indigenous peoples. The status of the subject of the law of the territories of traditional nature use (the user of ancestral lands) turned out to be equally problematic in the Konda river region. Against the background of ambiguous federal and regional projects to support indigenous peoples, the article examines the concept of indigeneity, which seems adequate for the territories of strong mixing of cultures, to which the Konda river region belongs. The right to determine membership in indigenous communities belongs to the members of these communities, as well as the choice of criteria by which this selection will be carried out. Global experience shows that heredity and consanguinity are not exceptional qualities for inclusion in the "indigenous slot", but their core is formed by ethnic communities, as the most consolidated groups.


Currently, most approaches to speech recognition are frame-based in that they represent speech as a temporal sequence of feature vectors. Although these approaches have been successful, they cannot easily incorporate complex modeling strategies that may further improve speech recognition performance. In contrast, segment-based approaches represent speech as a temporal graph of feature vectors and facilitate the incorporation of a wide range of modeling strategies. However, difficulties in segmentbased recognition have impeded the realization of potential advantages in modeling. This thesis describes an approach called near-miss modeling that addresses the major difficulties in segment-based recognition. Probabilistically, each path should account for the entire graph including the segments that are off the path as well as the segments that are on the path. Near-miss modeling is based on the idea that an off-path segment can be modeled as a "near-miss" of an on-path segment. Each segment is associated with a near-miss subset of segments that contains the on-path segment as well as zero or more off-path segments such that the near-miss subsets that are associated with any path account for the entire graph. Computationally, the graph should contain only a small number of segments without introducing a large number of segmentation errors. Near-miss modeling runs a recognizer and produces a graph that contains only the segments on paths that score within a threshold of the best scoring path. A near-miss recognizer using context-independent segment-based acoustic models, diphone context-dependent frame-based models, and a phone bigram language model achieves a 25.5% error rate on the TIMIT core test set over 39 classes. This is a 16% reduction in error rate from our best previously reported result and, to our knowledge, is the lowest error rate that has been reported under comparable conditions. Additional experiments using the ATIS corpus verify that these improvements generalize to word recognition. Thesis Supervisor: James R. Glass Title: Principal Research Scientist


Inhibitors of the DNA damage signaling kinase ATR increase tumor cell killing by chemotherapies that target DNA replication forks but also kill rapidly proliferating immune cells including activated T cells. Nevertheless, ATR inhibitor (ATRi) and radiotherapy (RT) can be combined to generate CD8+ T cell–dependent antitumor responses in mouse models. To determine the optimal schedule of ATRi and RT, we determined the impact of short-course versus prolonged daily treatment with AZD6738 (ATRi) on responses to RT (days 1–2). Short-course ATRi (days 1–3) plus RT caused expansion of tumor antigen–specific, effector CD8+ T cells in the tumor-draining lymph node (DLN) at 1 week after RT. This was preceded by acute decreases in proliferating tumor-infiltrating and peripheral T cells and a rapid proliferative rebound after ATRi cessation, increased inflammatory signaling (IFN-β, chemokines, particularly CXCL10) in tumors, and an accumulation of inflammatory cells in the DLN. In contrast, prolonged ATRi (days 1–9) prevented the expansion of tumor antigen–specific, effector CD8+ T cells in the DLN, and entirely abolished the therapeutic benefit of short-course ATRi with RT and anti–PD-L1. Our data argue that ATRi cessation is essential to allow CD8+ T cell responses to both RT and immune checkpoint inhibitors.


This essay explores how divergent interpretations of John Brown's alleged "madness" in the aftermath of the Harper's Ferry Raid defined the meaning and import of his actions for the Republic's increasingly unstable social and political order. It argues that popular characterizations of Brown illustrate that "madness" can serve a number of rhetorical functions in the civic sphere. The essay first explores the popular etiology of insanity in antebellum America. It then argues that prevailing views of insanity in the mid-nineteenth century invited three metonymic interpretations of the origins of Brown's "madness"—and hence of the larger significance of his actions: Brown as pariah, Brown as pawn, and Brown as prophet. A concluding section discloses how these competing views may enrich our understanding of "madness" as a recurrent trope in American political and social controversy.


The forming reasons of blowhole and cinder inclusion in cast steel wheel were analyzed, and the correspounding precaution measures were proposed which have been verified in producing practice. The reject rate has been reduced markedly.


The solid reactions and structures of Ti+Fe and Ti+Fe+TiH2 during mechanical alloying were studied by using XRD, DSC etc. The results show that hydrogen can induce amorphization of TiFe in MA. The characteristic temperatures of amorphous TiFe(H) phase, such as structure relaxation and crystallization temperatures, are lower than that of the amorphousTiFe phase synthesized by mechanical alloying.


Security-related events are continuously emerging around the world, such as social unrest, armed conflicts and natural disasters. Although event knowledge graphs provide a concise and intuitive way to organize event information, they often suffer from the incompleteness problem. To solve this problem, the knowledge graph reasoning technique is usually adopted to infer new facts based on existing relations of entities. However, existing reasoning methods often concentrate on the entity relations, without considering the attributes of nodes for event knowledge graphs, such as event descriptions and event time, which contain rich information of events and are vital for event relation reasoning. Existing methods are also deficient in interpretability, which significantly benefits security-related decision-making scenarios. In this paper, we propose a Neuro-Logic Learning (NLL) method for relation reasoning over event knowledge graph. Our method first adopts different event attributes to learn the semantic representations of events, and ranks candidate event relation triples according to their similarity scores. The proposed method then develops the neural logic rule leaner to obtain interpretable reasoning rules. We construct a new large-scale event relation dataset EventKG-R based on EventKG to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed method. Experimental results show that our proposed method achieves superior performances compared to the state-of-the-art baselines.


Powders of yttria–alumina materials YAlO3 (YAP) and Y3Al5O12 (YAG) have been prepared from commercially-available preformed sols, and the products were compared with those from preformed sol-nitrate, nitrate-citric acid and alkoxide methods. The preformed sol route offers an alternative cheap and rapid method, and different sizes of the nanometre-scale precursors are available. Characterization was carried out by SEM, XRD, TG-DTG-DTA and FTIR-DRIFTS. On doping with Er3+, the maximum intensity of green emission was found for a dopant ion concentration of 1.0–1.2 mol%, with cross-relaxation to depopulate 2H11/2/4S3/2 becoming more important at higher dopant ion concentrations. A memory effect of the precursor sol upon the luminescence intensity of the product was able to distinguish precursors from two different suppliers. Demonstrations are given of the use of site-selective luminescence spectra in monitoring the purity of the yttria–alumina products. (© 2003 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


Background. Various critical states of the body are often associated with the development of hypoxia, as a result of which the mechanisms of glycolysis are activated, under the influence of stress hormone release, hyperglycemia develops. It is shown that under the conditions of anaerobic glycolysis against a background of hyperglycemia, toxic compounds are produced in the cells, which cause the glycosylation of proteins and nucleic acids. Together with the violation of the cellular protein function, mitochondrial dysfunction develops, which leads to an energy deficiency and organ dysfunction. The aim of investigation was to identify the main mechanisms of dicarbonyl stress, their importance for the formation of critical states of the organism and determine the most promising methods of correction for specialists in the field of intensive care. Materials and methods. Detailed study of the results of modern scientific researches on the processes of carbohydrate metabolism in pathological conditions based on information provided on the Internet. Results. The leading role in the damage to the cellular structures of the body under dicarbonyl stress belongs to glyoxal and methylglyoxal. These substances are formed as by-products of anaerobic glycolysis. Increase in their synthesis is promoted by activation of anaerobic glycolysis and hyperglycemia. Dicarbonyl compounds enter into chemical reactions with amino groups of proteins, nucleic acids and other biologically active compounds, disrupting their functioning. Natural detoxification is carried out by the glyoxalase system with the participation of reduced glutathione, which is the main component of the antioxidant system. The increase in oxidative stress and the appearance of antioxidant deficiency cause an increase in the severity of lesions associated with increased production of glyoxal and methylglyoxal. Prevention of dicarbonyl stress is achieved by increasing the power of the antioxidant system, primarily by increasing the production of reduced glutathione. To neutralize toxic dicarbonyl metabolites, drugs that perform the function of "traps" can be used. The use of therapy aimed at eliminating mitochondrial dysfunction is promising. Conclusions. The emerging problem of damage to the body in conditions of dicarbonyl stress dictates the need for the analysis and reassessment of a variety of intensive care interventions. A detailed study of the characteristics of carbohydrate metabolism in various critical states, including determination of glyoxal and methylglyoxal concentration, monitoring the level of glycemia and clearance of lactate, together with a return to assessing the state of compensation of the prooxidant/antioxidant system of the body, is one of the promising directions for upcoming scientific research in the clinic. Specialists in intensive care face daily situations where dicarbonyl stress can act as one of the real mechanisms for the formation of organ, multi-organ dysfunction and predetermine the development of decompensation of vital functions. Learning to resist him is the actual immediate task.


* Introduction* Preliminaries* Definition of ${\mathcal C}_g$ $C^\ast$-algebras in ${\mathcal C}_g$* Regularity of $C^\ast$-algebras in ${\mathcal C}_1$* Traces* The unitary group ${\mathcal Z}$-stability* General existence theorems* The uniqueness statement and the existence theorem for Bott map* The basic homotopy lemma* The proof of the uniqueness theorem 10.4* The reduction* Appendix* Bibliography


ABSTRACT
            The purpose of this study is to measure the extent to which the implementation of SAK EMKM has been achieved by MSME entrepreneurs in Bogor Regency. to find out whether the preparation of financial reports in accordance with SAK EMKM can increase MSME banking access to capital, to find out what the obstacles and challenges faced by MSME entrepreneurs in implementing SAK EMKM at MSMEs in Bogor Regency.
The results showed that the implementation of SAK EMKM that had been achieved in the Cibinong Raya area of Bogor Regency was still low, namely 16.7%. Preparation of financial reports in accordance with SAK EMKM is very influential for MSME players in increasing access to MSME banking capital, it is proven that MSME actors who have prepared Financial Statements with SAK EMKM standards who apply for Bank loan access pass 100%, meanwhile, MSME players who had financial reports not yet standardized SAK EMKM who applied for access to loans from banks and other institutions passed only 23%. The obstacles and challenges faced by MSME entrepreneurs in implementing SAK EMKM are, many MSME players have received socialization about the preparation of SAK-EMKM-based financial reports, education level of MSME actors, the absence of on going training and mentoring in SAK-EMKM-based financial reporting training.


Upper ocean stratification is known to play an important role in the seasonal evolution of the ocean mixed layer depth. This study examines biases in climatological upper ocean stratification in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 5 historical simulations in the North Pacific. To quantify the potential impact of these stratification differences on the depth of winter mixing in two regions (the eastern subarctic and subtropical gyres), regionally averaged August stratification profiles were advanced to March using common atmospheric forcing fields and a single‐column mixed layer model. This approach is supported by correlation between the climate models' March mixed layer depth fields and those predicted by the one‐dimensional model. Substantial observation/model and model/model differences in predicted winter mixed layer depth have broad implications for how the climate models regulate the ocean‐atmosphere interactions that set thermocline water properties and impact nutrient supply to the upper ocean.


The authors present the results of an investigation of some physicochemical properties of Na/sub x/InSe and Na/sub x/GaSe (chemical potential, diffusion of the intercalant) and they give an interpretation of the results based on the thermodynamic model of intercalants, constructed for dye chalcogenides of transition metals. Electrochemical and theoretical investigations indicate that first-stage structures form in the concentration ranges x = 0.15-1 for Na/sub x/GaSe. Calculations based on the use of the lattice-gas theory agree well with the experimental data and make it possible to determine the energy of interaction of intercalated ions in the van der Waals gap.


Hydroponics experiments were performed with an Xoo-susceptible rice cultivar(Oryza sativa L.cv.Nipponbare) to study the effects of silicon(Si) on disease development,concentrations of malondialdehyde(MDA) and hydrogen peroxide(H2O2),activities of superoxide dismutase(SOD),catalase(CAT),lipoxygenase(LOX),peroxidase(POD) and ascorbate peroxidase(APX) in leaves inoculated with Xoo strain.Si addition could significantly decrease the rice severity index of bacterial blight,with the relative immunization efficiency of 62.86%.The concentrations of MDA and H2O2 in Si-amended rice plants were increased significantly during a 48-h-period of time after inoculation with Xoo strain.Activities of SOD and LOX were significantly higher but those of CAT,POD and APX were lower in Si-amended plants than in Si-deprived plants,resulting in accumulation of H2O2 in plants and intensification of membrane lipid peroxidation.It is concluded that Si can enchance rice resistance to bacterial blight through regulating the antioxidant defense system and trigering hypersensitive reaction(HR) and Si is involved in physiological and biochemical metabolisms in plants.


Co-planar strip (CPS) transmission lines, aimed at operating up to sub-millimetre wavelengths, were periodically loaded by lumped capacitances and inductances in series and shunt configuration, respectively. Under this condition, propagation on the line is backward with group and phase velocities of opposite signs. The transmission lines were fabricated onto a quartz substrate by e-beam patterning and thin film deposition, silicon nitride and gold layers, on a deep sub-micron scale (~200 nm). A direct evidence of left-handedness between 160 and 380 GHz was achieved via the tracking of phase advance in a differential phase experiment using electro-optic sampling. The comparison between modelling results by electromagnetic full wave circuit analysis and experiment was performed in the time and frequency domains. It shows a good agreement in the dispersion characteristics and ultra-fast variations in the transmitted signals. At last, we took benefit of a lumped element fitting approach in order to discuss of the frequency capability of this non-resonant approach


With high temperature climate data from 76 meteorological stations in Guangdong province during 1962~2004, the spatial-temporal variation characteristics of high temperature weather have been analyzed by Empirical Orthogonal Function and Wavelet Analysis.Results show that the high temperature throughout the province mainly assumed the spatial distribution patterns of"whole consistency"as well as"north-south difference".Fluctuation of high temperature was strongest in the end of 1990's,next in 1980's,weakest between 1968~1972 and a climate abrupt change happened in 1998.Wavelet analysis shows that temporal coefficient of the first two eigenvectors had significant characteristics of low frequency oscillation and the period scales changed with the time.


We consider the family of graphs whose vertex set is Z n where two vertices are connected by an edge when their '1-distance is 1. Towards an edge isoperimetric inequality for this graph, we calculate the edge boundary of any nite set S Z n . This boundary calculation leads to a desire to show that a set with optimal edge boundary has no \gaps" in any direction 2f 1; 0; 1g n ; 6 0. We show that one can nd a set with optimal edge boundary that does not have gaps in any direction ei (or ei) where ei is the standard basis vector.


Abstract : In this work, we apply time-implicit discontinuous Galerkin methods to the problem of thermal ablation, where we solve for the dynamics of flow of pyrolysis gas in a charring ablating media. We have benchmarked our results with the published data. The protective coating of thermal protection system over the space vehicle is of the order of a few centimeters, and high flow speed of gas and dominant source terms in the problem put very restrictive CFL limit necessitating the use of implicit time integration methods. Good convergence of these methods is ensured by use of Newton method, where the required jacobians are calculated numerically for accurate evaluations. Analytical approach to evaluate the jacobians, especially for thermal ablation problems, is very cumbersome, and causes serious convergence issues. We have also tested our development of DG capability for 2-D double Mach reflection problem for extending the code to 2-D thermal ablation in future.


In recent years, ethnobotanical and traditional application of natural compounds, principally of plant origin established much attention as they are well tested for their effectiveness and generally believed to be non-toxic for human use. Canna indica L. is a tropical herb belonging to the family Cannaceae. It has been extensively used in a traditional remedy for the treatment of many complaints. The phytochemical analysis of C. indica exhibited that it contained various phytochemicals including alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, anthocyanin pigments, flavonoids, steroids, terpenoids, tannins, phlobatannins, saponins, carbohydrates, proteins, oils, and many other chemical compounds. The pharmacological studies showed that this plant exerted anthelmintic, antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiviral, antidiabetic, antidiarrheal, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, immunomodulatory, antioxidant, cytotoxic, hemostatic, hepatoprotective, molluscicidal, and other effects. This review attempts to illuminate the available literature on C. indica (L.) with respect to ethnobotany, chemical constituents, and summary of numerous pharmacological activities. Every part of C. indica has valuable properties that can serve humanity so the whole plant can be broadly studied for further research aspects.


In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that certain types of evidence commonly used in serious criminal cases, including microscopic hair comparison, bitemark comparison, and jailhouse informants, are deeply unreliable. For those close to the system, this is not likely all that surprising. Few with even a passing understanding of forensic practice would be have been shocked to learn that bite-mark evidence, for instance, is untrustworthy. The thesis of this paper is that use of formally admissible but facially unreliable evidence is an indicator that something might be amiss in the case. This study explores the hypothesis that use of certain types of unreliable evidence – such as jailhouse informants – acts as evidentiary "canaries in the coalmine," indicating overly aggressive and potentially improper police and prosecutorial conduct.
To test this hypothesis, the study uses data drawn from the National Registry of Exonerations database and from published cases available in online databases to examine correlations between various factors associated with wrongful convictions and indications of official misconduct. The results demonstrated a strong inverse correlation between the reliability of evidence used to obtain a conviction and the likelihood of official misconduct. Misconduct claims were far more likely to occur where prosecutors relied at trial on evidence that they knew or had reason to suspect was unreliable. In contrast, in cases where the inculpatory evidence had a relatively high degree of apparent reliability, misconduct claims or findings occurred with correspondingly less frequency. Specifically, the study identifies three types of suspect evidence: jailhouse informants, microscopic hair comparison, and bitemark comparison as strong potential indicators of official misconduct.
The results of this study should provide researchers searching for clues regarding the causes of wrongful convictions, and innocence lawyers seeking to identify plausible wrongful conviction cases, with an important new tool to help allocate scarce investigatory resources.
First published by Georgetown University in the American Criminal Law Review.


SINCE THE INTRODUCTION OF THE implantable pacemaker in 1958 and the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in 1980, implantable devices for rhythm control are now commonly used for treating bradycardia and certain types of ventricular arrhythmias. The first pacemakers and ICDs were large devices (40-200 cm) that required a prolonged hospitalization for implantation and postoperative recovery, and had few programmable features. In contrast, the current devices are significantly smaller (9-45 cm), can be implanted on an outpatient basis, and provide a myriad of programming options to optimize therapy. During the last several years, the actual and potential indications for pacemaker and ICD implantation have expanded significantly as results from several large clinical trials have become available. These advances have led to increased patient and physician acceptance and a steady increase in implantation rates. In 1997, 153000 new pacemakers and 29000 ICDs were implanted in the United States. We summarize the function of and current indications for pacemakers and ICDs. More comprehensive discussions can be found elsewhere.


With the spread of Internet of Things (IoT), a lot of devices have been connected to networks. We believe that Open IoT, where devices are shared by multiple services, will be common in the future. However, constructing cyber-physical systems (CPS) by using shared devices has challenges. Since there are many combinations of devices and software in the network, designing and testing systems cannot be done manually as with current CPS. The system model and technologies suitable for Open IoT are necessary. In this article, we propose a new concept of CPS. It is "Ephemeral-Cyber-Physical System (E-CPS)," which is temporarily constructed by combining devices in the network similar to an instance of cloud computing. Also, we propose a method of actuator control optimization for automatically constructing E-CPS by using nonconfigured devices connected to the network. This method will significantly contribute to not only E-CPS but also quick and inexpensive provision of conventional CPS. Experiments with a simulator, and with lighting devices and cameras confirmed that the method can automatically optimize the actuator control value and it enables satisfying the service requirements at a low cost.


A charge-controlled, force rebalanced accelerometer loop is described, along with its advantages over prior voltage-controlled forcing methods. First generation silicon accelerometers incorporating charge-controlled electronics are performing well in current production systems. A new all silicon accelerometer chip is being developed for higher accuracy applications.


We determine which ordinary irreducible representations of the alternating group An remain irreducible in characteristic 3, verifying the author's conjecture from [F3]. Given the preparatory work done in [op. cit.], our task is to determine which Specht modules for the symmetric group Sn in characteristic 3 labelled by self-conjugate partitions have exactly two composition factors. This is accomplished through the use of the Robinson–Brundan– Kleshchev 'i-restriction' functors, together with known results on decomposition numbers for Sn and an additional result on homomorphisms between Specht modules.


Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of lycopene on human prostatic cancer cell line DU145.Methods Time and dose effects of lycopene were examined by using trypan blue exclusion staining;The influence on the cell cycle and the apoptosis were observed with flow cytometry.The effect of oral intake of lycopen on the growth of DU145 tumors in nude mice was observed.Results Lycopene could inhibit the growth of DU145 cell line with a dose\|effect and time\|effect relationship.The rate of cell growth inhibition was 10\^76%,92\^9% and 99\^11%( P 0\^01) in those cells treated with lycopene for 7 days.In vivo the significantly inhibitied growth( P 0\^05)was observed on the male BALB/C nude mice having DU145 tumors.The rate of inhibition was up to 75\^76% ( 300 mg/kg ).The lycopene\|treated cancer cells failed to form tumors in nude mice.Lycopene can influence the cell cycle of DU145 and induce apoptosis.Conclusion Lycopene inhibits DU145 cell line independent of androgen in \%vitro\% and in \%vivo\%,and the mechanisms may be related to its influence on the cell cycle and inducing of apoptosis.


Cudlin, Pavel et. al.- 16 paginas.- Ilustraciones.- Se acompana suplemento de 3 paginas.- © The autors 2017. Open Access under Creative Commons by Attribution Licence. Use, distribution and reproduction are unrestricted. Authors and original publication must be credited.


The prevalence of diabetes is rising worldwide. The number of persons living with diabetes increased from an estimated 171 million (corresponding to a prevalence of 2.8%) in the year 2000 to 285 million in the year 2010 ( prevalence of 6.4%) [1,2]. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), which is characterized by hyperglycemia due to insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency, accounts for 90–95% of all diabetes cases. Among T2DM patients, hyperglycemia develops gradually, and typical symptoms such as polyuria, polydipsia and weightloss (sometimes with polyphagia and blurred vision) are usually not severe enough to be recognized by patients in early stages of disease. In fact, many cases are diagnosed at late stages only because of the occurrence of diabetes-related macrovascular and microvascular complications, including heart disease, retinopathy, nephropathy or peripheral neuropathy [3]. The rising prevalence of T2DM is in sharp contrast to the fact that several modifiable risk factors have been identified [4], including being overweight and obesity (particularly abdominal obesity), physical inactivity, poor nutrition, smoking and excessive alcohol use. Estimates indicate that 80–90% of T2DM cases could be prevented by lifestyle changes, such as reducing weight to a normal range, exercising regularly or choosing 'healthy' food [5]. Furthermore, intervention studies have demonstrated that lifestyle interventions are effective to prevent the onset of T2DM in high-risk groups [6,7]. Strategies for the primary prevention of T2DM include population-based prevention and also prevention in high-risk individuals. The identification of individuals at high risk of developing diabetes is particularly appealing, given the high prevalence and the gradual onset of disease, the large proportion of un diagnosed cases and the sound knowledge about established risk factors. The use of risk factors or scores in prediction models of diabetes has been investigated in a number of studies (often referred to as 'risk prediction') [8]. For example, in the German EPIC-Potsdam cohort, a score to estimate 5-year risk of T2DM was developed based on noninvasive measurements of major risk modifying factors, including age, waist circumference, height, history of hypertension, physical activity, smoking, and consumption of red meat, whole-grain bread, coffee and alcohol [9]. However, although that risk score showed good calibration, discrimination and external validity, there was still room for improvement in precision and accuracy. The use of biomarkers may be an alternative or complementary approach to predict risk of T2DM. A biomarker can be defined as 'a cellular, biochemical or molecular indicator of exposure; of biological, subclinical or clinical effects; or of possible susceptibility' [10]. Biomarkers may help clarify the relationship between exposure and disease (reflecting a mechanistic level), identify individuals at risk of disease and help quantify the effect of interventions that aim to reduce the risk The potential use of biomarkers in the prevention of Type 2 diabetes


In this paper, we propose a new approach to spacecraft fault analysis based on an appropriate combination of data mining techniques. More precisely, we first transform the time series data representing the spacecraft parameters into points in a 9-dimension feature space, then we apply the K-means clustering algorithm so as to identify the typical parameter patterns. Finally, we adopt the Apriori algorithm to derive interesting association rules between typical patterns and the occurrence of spacecraft anomalies. We show the successful application of the found association rules to a benchmarking set of housekeeping telemetries (HKTMs).


The framework with regard to wastewater management in Rwanda is not yet defined. The current sewerage system does not allow the connection of domestic wastewater from buildings to the public storm drainage network. Any wastewater discharge other than rainwater, in the public sewers is prohibited. The chapter shows how the town of Butare recommends that all the domestic wastewater be collected and discharged into septic tanks and soakaways and then joined into the natural environment through groundwater infiltration. In order to accomplish this, existing infrastructure needs to be modernized to meet acceptable technical standards. Upgrading of water and sanitation infrastructure has therefore become one of the priorities for Butare Town because the existing infrastructure is old and no longer sufficient. This chapter looks at the sustainability of the current drainage system infrastructure and the chapter also looks at the maintenance of infrastructure. A field survey was conducted in February and May of 2008. The results showed that the water infrastructure suffered from the problems of corrosion, old age, cracks, breakages, and that the water supplied is generally not adequate for the town. The open drainage system had problems of siltation, poor maintenance and inadequate design capacity. The drainage infrastructure had problems related to poor coverage, no institutional support for maintenance and control, no public sanitation facilitation and no regulations. Due to these findings, the chapter concluded that the drainage network in Butare is critical and not sustainable. It was therefore recommended that the authorities should make a condition inventory and set up a rehabilitation program.


The aim of the study is to identify the attitude towards geography of high scool students to find whether certain variables have impact on their attitudes. The data were collected by the use of survey questionnaire and the geography attitude scale. For the variables, the arithmetical mean and Standard deviation were calculated. One way of variance analise and t-test were employed to identify any difference amoung variables. The data indicate that the xx and the variables analysed do not have any significant effects on the attitudes levels. There is a significant difference between high scool students\' toward geography attitude with respect to school, school departman, sex, the large of family and education level of parents.


Book review of: Diversity and Morality: Crossing Borders with Engineering Approach by Yuichi Tei / Ung- il Chung M.D. PhD, in collaboration with ShunjiMitsuyoshi PhD. Book Lab., Tokyo. 2017. 192 pp. ISBN: 979-11-5987-771-11


Dependence of the sensitivity of the QCM sensor on the position of the object relative to the centre of the sensor is considered. Comparison of calculating mass increment and measured values in cases of various fillings and displacement of nanoobjects was carried out.


Real estate is today integrated into the sustainability discourse. Increasingly the sustainability of buildings and land are evaluated along environmental-ecologic, social-cultural and economic-financial dimensions. In this paper data on house prices and sales volumes from Budapest, Hungary, for the period 2000-09 are analyzed using time-windows generated by self-organizing map (SOM) algorithms. Subsequently, upper-market cases and their micro-locations are related to sustainability innovations insofar as such exist, which is examined using interviews and site visits. The results suggest that such features are largely absent in the period of data collection, although future markets are likely to be different in this respect.


A program of testing aimed at the evaluation of systems that have the potential to provide the level of performance required for use in space-based instruments was undertaken and their usefulness appraised for astronomy. The results of the first phase of the program to characterize selected pixels of a HgCdTe photovoltaic array detector were reported.


This report outlines the findings of a research project that was co-funded by the Resolution Institute as part of Victoria University's 2018/19 Summer Scholarship programme. It forms part of the New Zealand Commercial Mediation Study (NZCMS).

This report aims to provide insight into the practice of commercial mediation in New Zealand and builds on the previous studies: the first examining the nature of private commercial mediation in New Zealand (as this does also), the second examining the perspectives of commercial lawyers, the 'gatekeepers' of mediation, and the third examining the perspectives of 'users' of commercial mediation, (more specifically in the insurance sector).

The longitudinal nature of this research allows readers to see the differences in the private mediation market from early 2015 to early 2019. Investigation into the private mediation market is necessary for its growth and development as a form of alternative dispute resolution.


Astronomical numbers! The station has orbited Earth over 100,000 times, performed over 1,900 experiments and hosted 222 crew members and visitors.


When innovations compete for adoption, chance historical events can allow an inferior strategy to spread at the expense of superior alternatives. However, advantage is not always due to chance, and networks have emerged as an important determinant of organizational behavior. To understand what factors can impact the likelihood that the best alternative will be adopted, this paper asks: how does network structure shape the emergence of social and technological conventions? Prior research has found that highly influential people, or "central" nodes, can be beneficial from the perspective of a single innovation because promotion by central nodes can increase the speed of adoption. In contrast, when considering the competition of multiple strategies, the presence of central nodes may pose a risk, and the resulting "centralized" networks are not guaranteed to favor the optimal strategy. This paper uses agent-based simulation to investigate the effect of network structure on a standard model of convention formation, finding that network centralization increases the speed of convention formation but also decreases the likelihood that the best strategy will become widely adopted. Surprisingly, this finding does not indicate a speed/optimality trade-off: dense networks are both fast and optimal.


Anti‐carcinoembryonic antigen monoclonal antibody (MAb) CEA102 was produced by immunization with purified CEA and the specific accumulation of radiolabeled CEA102 in colorectal cancers was investigated by autoradiography of surgical specimens using Fuji Computed Radiography (FCR). Five patients with colorectal cancer were injected intravenously with 131I‐labeled intact CEA102 or its F(ab′)2. Primary tumor and liver metastases were successfully detected by external scanning with a gamma camera in 4 cases. Autoradiographic study of the surgical specimens using FCR showed predominant localization of 131I‐labeled CEA102 in primary tumors and liver metastases in all cases. Even a small liver metastasis (0.5 cm) was clearly visualized in the autoradiogram by FCR. The pixel distribution curves of the density of the respective tissues in the autoradiograms by FCR showed the heterogeneity of the distribution of administered radiolabeled MAb in individual tumors, but the density of the tumors was higher than that of the normal tissues. In the quantitative distribution analysis of CEA102, the uptake of the primary tumor (mean 1.10%ID/kg) was ten‐fold greater than that of the normal colon mucosa (mean G.10%ID/kg). These results revealed that the application of MAb has great potential in radioimmunodetection as well as in antibody‐directed therapy.


The Computer Linograph ( C L O G 6,SM,©,2~) is a softwa_e 7 package 2 in Ada ®,1 for 20 machines such as PDP-11/708, VAX-11/7809, IBM 3701°, and Honeywell 6180 ~1, whose primary purpose is automatic generation 5 of footnotes in documents. It is compatible with UNIX T M ' 3 DECSystem_2012, VMS13 Multics14, TENEX~5, and similar operating systems 17. It has been used successfully TM for the past three years at the CARIS Institute


This paper discusses the losses analysis of low power high-frequency Wireless Power Transfer Systems (WPTSs). The global influence of semiconductor devices parameters on the overall WPTS performances is numerically determined, by solving the non linear equations of the system discussed herein. Experimental measurements on a email@example.com WPTS for wearable applications demonstrate the validity of the analysis.


Despite the increasing proportion of female medical and nursing students, there is still a significant under-representation of women working as healthcare providers in interventional cardiology, with very few of them reaching senior leadership, academic positions, or acting principal investigators, as well as actively involved in company advisory boards. In this position paper, we will describe the current status of women working in interventional cardiology across Europe. We will also provide an overview of the most relevant determinants of the under-representation of women at each stage of the interventional cardiology career path and offer practical suggestions for overcoming these challenges.


Hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be transmitted by blood transfusion. The aim of this meta‐analysis is to estimate the anti‐HCV reactive rate and to define the demographic characteristics of blood donors who have potential threats to blood safety in mainland China for nearly 30 years, in order to provide a safe reference for blood transfusion and corresponding guidance for policymakers to increase blood safety.


The operation efficiency, effect and energy consumption of a township sewage treatment plant are the main basis for evaluating its operation and management level. Statistics on the operation and management data of 22 township sewage treatment plants show that: the facility operation rate is high and the treatment effect is good, but the average hydraulic load rate and the main pollutant load rate are low, the unit energy consumption of pollutants is high, the sludge treatment and disposal, and the process insufficient operating stability, the main incentives and design inlet water quality and design scale are too large, the DMBR process aeration intensity is too high, the staff's operation control ability and management level have not adapted to this water quality and water volume change and the requirements for process operation related.


The perforation characteristics of fiber reinforced laminates is crucial for the design of protective civil and military structures. This paper investigates the perforation characteristics (ballistic limit velocity, residual velocity, perforation energy) of cross ply and quasi-isotropic (QI) carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates under the impact of a rigid conical steel bullet. The influence of thickness and ply orientation on these characteristics is also studied for a wide range of velocities. The perforation characteristics of these laminates were determined, numerically as well as experimentally. A numerical model is developed by using Hashin damage model to understand the behavior of laminates under high velocity impact. The accuracy of the model is assessed by comparing its prediction with experimental results of cross ply laminates. Then, impact perforation study of different possible configurations made of quasi-isotropic (QI) CFRP laminates, oriented at 0°, 90°, 45° and −45° directions are carried out with the help of validated numerical model. The perforation characteristics predicted with the help of numerical model is in good agreement with the experimental results. Optimal configuration is achieved in terms of energy absorption and damage resistance for better performance under impact loading.


This study investigates the relationship between blockchain technology and the financial market. The US and China are used as case studies for the 2008–2016 period using fully modified least square and Toda-Yamamoto causality technique. The estimates show that blockchain technology has positive and significant relationship with the financial market in the US and China. In other words, the higher the levels of blockchain innovation in these countries, the more developed the financial markets. This suggests that the presence of blockchain innovation in financial markets spurs financial development. Blockchain innovation is therefore a positive significant factor for well-developed financial markets. The findings also indicate that macroeconomic factors such as lagged financial development, GDP per capita, the growth rate of GDP, FDI and trade openness have significant and positive relationship with financial development in the two countries. Among the institutional variables, government effectiveness has significant and positive effects only in the US.


Aims The objectives of this study were to investigate burnout in a sample of Irish Hospital Consultants and its association with psychopathology (symptoms of depression and anxiety). We examined the effect of personality factors on the development of psychopathology in response to burnout and in relation to work-related stress among the participants. Method This is a cross-sectional survey, utilising validated psychometric measures. Self-reported online questionnaires were distributed to all hospital consultants registered with the Irish Hospital Consultants Association distribution list and were completed between September to December 2016. Questionnaires sought to determine demographic information; work-related characteristics; burnout related phenomena: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal effectiveness (Maslach Burnout Inventory [MBI-GS]); symptoms of depression and anxiety (Depressive Anxiety Stress Scale [DASS]; and personality characteristics (Big Five Inventory [BFI-10]). Result A total of 477 hospital consultants (Male = 56.6%) from hospitals in Ireland took part in the study. Of those studied, 42% reported high levels of burnout. The Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale revealed that Consultants were experiencing high levels of stress symptoms but comparatively low levels of anxiety symptoms. The study population scored highest on the conscientiousness and agreeableness subscales and lowest on the neuroticism subscale. Those who scored higher in the neuroticism subtype appeared to be at an increased risk of burnout. Conclusion The prevalence of work-related burnout in consultants is of concern. The psychological burden of burnout is reflected in reported symptoms of stress and depression. Personality, particularly conscientiousness and agreeableness appears to impact the development of physician burnout. Strategies that modulate the relationship between personality and burnout may be beneficial for optimal health care delivery. Further research is needed to identify appropriate short and long-term strategies to ensure physician wellbeing and optimal delivery of patient care.


Background Preoperative identification and visualization of tumor infiltration of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) in patients with thyroid cancer is important. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the reliability and feasibility of preoperative assessment by ultrasound and to identify ultrasound imaging features potentially associated with tumor infiltration of the RLN. Methods In this prospective study, patients undergoing thyroid cancer surgery at our institution between August 2020 and January 2021 were included, and preoperative ultrasound visualization of the RLN and thyroid lesions was performed. RLN infiltration was also confirmed surgically in all cases. Five patients with enlarged lymph nodes were selected to undergo injection of carbon nanoparticles to confirm the correctness of RLN identification by preoperative ultrasound. The repeatability of RLN assessment by ultrasound was evaluated by comparing the correlation between pre- and intraoperative, intra- and inter-group assessments. Parameters of normal RLNs according to age, sex, and body mass index were established. Finally, ultrasound imaging features of patients with RLN tumor infiltration were analyzed to identify potential risk predictors. Results According to the ultrasonic assessment, RLNs of 70 patients appeared normal, while 14 of those patients appeared to be infiltrated by tumors. During surgery, the 70 cases of normal RLNs were confirmed, but only 8 of the 14 suspected cases of infiltration were confirmed. In all five patients injected with carbon nanoparticles, the location of RLNs adjacent to the marked lymph nodes observed by surgeons corresponded to the RLN location identified by preoperative ultrasound. The repeatability of RLN estimation varied from moderate to excellent. There were no significant differences in cross-sectional area, width, or thickness of normal RLNs according to age, sex, or body mass index. Indistinct margin with tumor, incontinuous shape as ultrasound features by the analysis of patients with surgically confirmed RLN infiltration were associated with tumor invasion. Conclusion We show that preoperative ultrasound can be applied to visualize the RLN and may help predict tumor infiltration of the RLN.


Introduction: Use of public transport can be important for independence of older adults to avoid social isolation. In the Dutch Standard of Care all COPD patients receive an exercise advice. The pathway incorporates an activity monitor to objectively evaluate physical activity in daily life [1]. In this study we develop an algorithm based on ambulatory PA monitoring to detect their use of transportation. Additionally, this method can also be used to improve the estimation of energy expenditure. Methods: PA of 11 adults was measured with the DynaPort MoveMonitor+ worn on the lower-back in 4 kinds of transportation. In total 515 min of in-transportation and 5318 min of not-in-transportation of data were recorded. 153 spectral features were extracted from them and Principal Component Analysis was performed to reduce the dimensionality. Among them randomly chosen 1012 min of data were used to train Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and the rest is used for evaluation. The model training & evaluation process were repeated 30 times. Results: The GMM can detect the use of transportation with precision of 89.50 +- 0.75 [%] and sensitivity of 100.00 +- 0.00 [%]. The F1 score is 94.46 +- 0.42 [%]. Conclusions: Our result has proven that transportation detection using an activity monitor worn on the lower-back is feasible. Possible improvement for future includes adding former and following PA information for the classification and analyzing the difference between the means of transportation. [1] van den Akker et al. Development of an integral assessment approach of health status in patients with obstructive airway diseases : the CORONA study. Dovepress. 2015; 10((1)):2413–22.


As an educational worker,political instructors are responsible for students' ideological and political education.But this function is neglected in fact.After a discussion about the current situation,some constructive suggestions are made to regain the function.


Online first: October 31, 2017 SUMMARY Intoroduction/Objective The objectives of our study were to determine the impact of smoking on clinical characteristics, the scope of radiological severity, and treatment outcome of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). Method This prospective study included patients suffering from PTB treated at the Pulmonology Department of the Clinical Hospital Center in Kosovska Mitrovica in the period between 2010 and 2016. Results Among smokers suffering from PTB there were significantly more males (p = 0.05) between 30 and 49 years of age (p < 0.001). There was significantly more alcohol consumption present in smokers (p < 0.001), whose social factor for developing PTB (p = 0.002) was more expressed. A more severe form of PTB with cavitation was more common in smokers (38.8%), while a milder, parenchymatous, unilateral PTB was present in non-smokers (31.8%). Extensive X-ray changes were more common in smokers (p = 0.002). Relapse of the disease was more prevalent in smokers (p = 0.05). In multivariate logistic regression, the risks of being a smoker included years of age: 30–39 [odds ratio (OD) = 18.11], 40–49 (OR = 19.66), and 50–59 (OR = 9.06), and alcohol consumption habits (OR = 9.32). Conclusion Smokers were more often afflicted with sputum-positive PTB, had extensive radiological changes, and the relapse of the disease was more common. Smokers were mostly middle-aged, with alcohol consumption habits, and constructed a group of patients whose habits were a critical factor for the eradication of tuberculosis.


It is increasingly recognized that changes in weight and body composition with age are strongly connected with health status and physical function. Aging is typically associated with reductions in total and lean mass, so that in the last few years of life, older people frequently report having lost weight and strength (1–3). We know only a few important facts about this process. On average, muscle mass declines with age, and even in older persons with stable weight, muscle is replaced by fat over time (4,5). Increasing fatty infiltration of muscle tissue is associated with decreasing muscle strength (6). The general pattern of weight change over the lifetime is that weight increases through approximately age 60 years and decreases thereafter (7). Weight gain from early adulthood through midlife is related to increases in both fat and muscle mass, but weight loss at older ages is associated with higher risk for a disproportionate decline in muscle mass (1,8).


This paper measures the departures from perfect constancy with changes in luminance and contrast surrounds. This paper describes an extensive series of experiments studying the appearance of three different contrast targets in different levels of illumination. It significantly extends previous experimental data because of the wide range of contrasts and luminances used. Seven observers matched the same 8 luminance patches in each of three surrounds at five different illumination levels. All matches were made to the same standard. When the illumination was reduced uniformly the results showed a small decrease in matching value with large decreases in illumination level (low-slope behavior). Within a single contrast target the results showed a rapid decrease in matching value with decreasing luminance. The slopes of these data were highest for a white surround, and progressively lower for gray and black surrounds.


Objective To explore the clinical effects of combination of infiltration anaesthesia with lidocaine and laughing gas for the painless induced abortion.Methods Ninety-seven healthy cases of 6 to 10 weeks of pregnancy requiring administration of the painless abortion were randomly divided into two groups: the observation group(49 cases) were administered with infiltration anesthesia with lidocaine and laughing gas;the control group(48 cases) were performed with the painless induced abortion under the administration of combined anesthesia with propofol and fentanyl.Analgesic effectiveness,uterine contraction,dilation of cervix and blood loss during the operation and the days of postoperative vaginal bleeding were observed in the two groups.Results Analgesic effectiveness,uterine contraction,dilation of cervix in observation group were better than those in the control group(P0.05).Blood loss during the operation and the days of postoperative vaginal bleeding in the observation group were lower than those in the control group(P0.05).Conclusion Combination of laughing gas and lidocain local anesthesia is effective for the treatment of painless induced abortion.The procedure is simple and blood loss during the operation is few,the days of postoperative vaginal bleeding is short and is deserved to apply to clinic.


A voltage of several volts was achieved on chip by integration of photodiodes in polycristalline silicon layers in SOI-technique. For increased quantum efficiency suitable layers were deposited at the Si - poly-Si boundary. These layers caused no restrictions for successing process steps and temperature treatments. A comparison of measured quantum efficiencies with theoretical values has been made.


Conventional impact testing of thermoplastics gives a single numeric criterion of impact behavior in terms of total breaking energy. It is shown that impact behavior is characterized by an elastic phase and, after yielding, a plastic phase may occur. An autographic impact tester was built by modification of a standard pendulum hammer Izod impact unit. Force-time impulse curves show three characteristic categories in breaking; catastrophic, plastic drawing with tearing, and tearing. Photographs of impulse curves on five commercial thermoplastics clearly depict the three breaking categories. The impulse as measured by the area under the force-time curve shows a linear correlation with impact strength. The peak force at yielding exhibits over a 2 to 1 variation among the five commercial plastics. The three materials with highest impact strengths absorb approximately 70% of the total impulse after yielding. These results indicate that impact strength is not a good single measure of the mechanical behavior of the impact properties of thermoplastics.


Distance determination: The use of pulsed electron-electron double resonance (PELDOR/DEER) spectroscopy to determine the distances among the end units of a paramagnetic cucurbit[6]uril-based rotaxane is demonstrated.


The objective of this research is to find whether the use of English dramatization role-play approach is effective or not to improve students' pronunciation on the eleventh grade students of State Vocational High School 1 Karanganyar study program of accountancy in academic year 2012/2013. Role-play is a popular pedagogical activity in communicative language-teaching classes while drama is a powerful language teaching tool that interactively all of the class period. Dramatization role-play approach is a kind of role-play which is inserted values of drama so it can also provide the mean for connecting students' emotions and cognition as it enables students to take risk with language and experience the connection between thought and action. Considering the result of t-test showed that t-value is higher than t-table (2.19 > 2.03). It means that Ha is accepted; thus, it can be concluded that the use of English dramatization role-play approach is effective to improve the 11 th grade students' pronunciation of State Vocational High School1 Karanganyar study program of accountancy. Keywords: English, effectiveness, dramatization role-play approach, pronunciation.


As social interest about unusual load like impact, blast etc is increasing, the analysis of structural behavior and assurance of safety under those unusual load are required. Becuase blast load is mostly estimated based on trinitrotoluene(TNT), the calculation of TNT equivalent mass of explosives is needed. Also, the blast load passes rapidly in a very short period of time and result in significant deformation of structures. So, it is difficult to analyze the behavior of structures using such a static analysis method. In this study, TNT equivalent mass of gas is calculated with reaction heat of gas, and behavior of structure is analyzed with explicit code.


The present paper outlines the results of full-scale tests of climatic stability of rubbers based on BNKS-18 (butadiene-nitrile rubber) and Hydrin T6000 epichlorohydrin rubber containing low-volatile and non-toxic phenolic antioxidants. Samples are exposed in an open ground under natural conditions of exposure to climatic external factors of Yakutsk in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), as well as in deformed state (by 30%). Such indexes of the samples as conditional tensile strength, elongation at break are measured to determine the resistance of rubbers to aging after the first, third, sixth, ninth, twelfth and eighteenth months of exposing. The results of the study reveal the contribution of CO3 stabilizer in maintaining the stability of the physical and mechanical properties of BNKS-18: rubber containing CO3 has less property changes in the open air. Stafen stabilizer occurred more effective for the rubber based on Hydrin T6000: Over the entire period of full-scale exposure, rubber samples containing it demonstrated the smallest changes in the indicators of elastic-strength properties as compared to the industrial stabilizer 6РРD and other experimental stabilizers.


This paper addresses Gdel's critique of Turing's mechanism that a configuration of the Turing machine corresponds to each state of human mind. The first part gives a quick overview of Turing's analysis of cognition as computation and its variants. In the following part, we describe the concept of Turing machines, and the third part explains the computational limitations of Turing machines as a cognitive system. The fourth part demonstrates that Godel did not agree with Turing's argument, sometimes referred to as mechanism. Finally, we discuss an oracle Turing machine and its implications.


In spite of the fact that pampering with proper care and management are better than ever before, woody plants are accumulating no more fat today than they did centuries ago. If anything, the rise in the number of certified arborists, master gardeners, and professional landscape managers applying their skills along with enforcement of clean air standards have resulted in healthier plants in our urban environments. Nevertheless, the credit for keeping the "weight off" of trees and shrubs is not due to better care by trained professionals and plant health experts, but instead is inherent in important differences between plants and animals. Fats do occur in woody plants and some parts of their anatomical structures even accumulate fat at high concentrations. Still no woody plants are considered overweight and unfit.


While developing a subcutaneous island interpolation flap, "serpentine layering" of an extended subcutaneous pedicle was noted to give more adequate filling of a deep nasal defect, thus enhancing the final cosmetic result.


Policy, interventions and research concerning southern African children remain dominated by a focus on AIDS-related orphanhood, although the association between orphanhood and disadvantage is highly questionable. I argue that the trope of the AIDS orphan serves a range of agendas, including for academic research. In particular, orphans represent the quintessential child-agent, celebrated in fairytales and fiction. Finally, I examine how this has led to a policy response – education bursaries – that cannot adequately address childhood poverty in the region.


In this paper, a programmable cellular automata (PCA) based reconfigurable architecture is proposed for both symmetric-key and public-key cryptosystems. Through simple configurations, the PCA-based architecture can be reconfigured to different applications. It increases the user's flexibility of security schemes and reduces the user's cost. The proposed reconfigurable architecture has a regular structure and is very suitable for high speed VLSI implementation.


Matter-wave interferometers with spin quantum states are attractive in quantum manipulation and precision measurements. Here, five spatial interference patterns corresponding to the full spin states are observed in each run of the experiment, by the combination of the Majorana transition according to the exponential modulation of the magnetic field pulse decline curve and radio frequency coupling among multiple magnetic sub-states. Compared to the realization of two Majorana transitions, the interference fringe for the magnetic field insensitive state also has a higher contrast. After spatially overlapping the full magnetic sub-state interference patterns dozens of times in consecutive experimental measurements, clear fringes are still observed, indicating the great stability of the relative phases of different components. This indicates the potential to achieve an interferometer with multiple spin clocks.


Gallium nitride (GaN) nanowires grown using catalyst-free metal organic vapor phase epitaxy were used as scanning tunneling microscope (STM) probes. The probes were prepared by placing a GaN nanowire on a tungsten STM probe using a nanomanipulator in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and welding them together using an electron beam induced platinum deposition. STM imaging was performed on indium arsenide (InAs) (111)B samples and atomic steps were observed. Furthermore, (I-V) scanning tunneling spectroscopy was performed which consistently showed combined band gaps of both GaN and InAs semiconductors.


How would it sound like, if there was an electroacoustic sound in the room where you are, being 3.5 meters above your head behind you to the left, sounding like the knocking on a metal beam, a wooden object or the sound of a glass broken. Or, even better, something in-between them, something artificial. Carbon-fiber, liquid ether, a sound of a material not yet invented, maybe objects that seemed vivid. Were we able to imagine how this object would feel like, if we touched it? Could we guess by the sound if it was hard or soft, transparent or solid, smooth or as rough as a rock? Would we be able to sense its temperature or have an impression of colour? If it was totally dark in the room, would we imagine an object? Would we be able to guess its size? Maybe even its approximate shape? Would we associate a spherical object if the sound was like that? Or, if it had irregular shape, would we hear this? Could we tell if it was hard edged and defined, or blurring into the space? How would a transparent, gas-like material sound like, how a swarm of little grainy objects in space? If we had several of these objects, moving independently through the speakers, how would they relate to each other? Would they modify the space you are in? Would it be possible to imagine the shape of the space created by the voids in-between the sounding objects? Would the space change as the sounding objects change? Would this result in an architecture enriched by the quality of movement and constant change?


: Objective; To determine the frequency of raised Interleukin-6 level in cases presenting with angina pectoris. Methodology; This cross sectional study was conducted at Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore during January to August 2017. In this study the cases with age range of 30 years or more of both genders were included. Angina pectoris was labelled as yes when there was typical central chest pain lasting for less than 30 minutes with or without ST-T changes on ECG and normal cardiac enzymes. The cases end stage liver or renal diseases were excluded. Then the blood of these cases was sent for IL-6 level. The value > 5 ng/ml was labelled as raised. Results ; In this study 200 cases of angina pectoris were included having, 112 (56%) males and 88 (44%) females. The mean age of the cases was 52.78±6.82years and mean IL-6 levels were 25.58±8.18. Raised IL-6 levels were observed in 120 (60%) cases. There was no significant difference regarding age groups with p= 0.71. Raised IL-6 levels were seen in 32 (80%) of cases with p= 0.001 and similarly in cases with DM affecting 36 (66.67%) cases with p= 0.04. Conclusion; Raised Interleukin-6 level are not uncommon in angina pectoris and it is significantly high in cases of DM, HTN.


Laboratory Procedures in Blood Grouping It must be emphasized at the outset that blood-grouping procedures are at present in an imperfect state of development. The tests are still dependent in all ...


The study analyzes the tendencies in research of public in strategic communication, that have been published in books and articles of scientific journals, understanding that, they are an integral part of the companies, that want to add value and promote, their development and achievement of objectives investigating in depth the profile of the target audience according to their needs, interests, expectations, that are articulated with those of the companies. However, this stage of determining the profile of the public to allocate strategic communication, has been one of the requirements, that often are not developed as a resource to strengthen the strategic planning of the organization; while the Communication departments have focused more its efforts in managing the diffusion of contents, products or services, that concern the institution, without prior study of the profile of the public, that allows its identification and hierarchization. And although, it has not been consolidated as a professional practice within the competence that concerns the discipline of Public Relations and Organizational Communication, there are several academics who have strived to propose new models, that facilitate the analysis of the current situation of the public with respect to organizations from the Situational Theory of Publics proposed by Grunig (1984); where the present work aims to demonstrate the validity of the public methodology as a resource, that can maximize the efforts to build a good image among its publics. The conclusions we reached allow us to postulate the need to demonstrate how public research is carried out to carry out a strategic communication program, which in practice translates into the need for the intangible value it gives to companies as a resource that favors the success of the management of the strategic communication of the organizations.


We propose a noble stacked soft magnetic underlayer (SUL) with the so-called top-type pinning structure, which consists of a soft magnetic layer (SM layer) fabricated by plating and an antiferromagnetic layer (AFM layer) deposited by sputtering, on an Al/NiP disk. Through investigation of the structure and magnetic properties of this stacked SUL, we clarified the following points: (1) the thermal stability of NiFeP plated on an Al/NiP disk is 280°C, which is the crystallization temperature of the amorphous NiP layer; (2) to induce large unidirectial magnetic anisotropy in the SUL, it is necessary to introduce a soft magnetic buffer layer and apply dry etching to the NiFeP surface; (3) a unidirectional magnetic anisotropy field can be induced in an SM layer fabricated by plating as well as in one fabricated by sputtering, which results in the whole disk having a single-domain structure.


Objective: Currently, thoracoscopic procedures have been used frequently in diagnosis and treatment of pleural effusions. It was reported, high diagnosis and treatment success with thoracoscopy in pleural effusion, which was not, diagnosed using cytology and blinding pleural biopsy procedures. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate of the patient was performed video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) due to pleural effusion. Methods: Between 2011 and 2014 years, it was evaluated 52 patients was performed VATS because of pleural effusion. The procedure was performed under general anesthesia and single lung ventilation in 50 patients, and local anesthesia in 2 patients. Results: Histopathological results were reported as carcinoma infiltration in 29 patients, benign disease in 23 patients. Cytological examination of liquid was executed before thoracoscopy in all of the patients with malignity positive. In addition, in eight patients pleura biopsy, on which blinding was executed, evaluated as malignity negative. The diagnostic value of our procedure has 100% in malign group and 98% in benign group. In patients with malignant disease, pleurodesis was performed peroperatively. Mean hospital stay was 5 days (3-15). Mean duration of terminating chest tube was 3 days (3-15). There were no morbidity and mortality due to procedure.


High-quality soil cultivation for potato planting increases its productivity and allows to reduce damageability of tubers when harvesting. At its growing intensive complete or strip soil pulverizationl, formation of ridges or seedbeds for planting and growing are required. For performance of each method machines of different type, including various tillers, tilling ridge or seedbed formers, are used. The authors offered a multipurpose tiller with the horizontal rotor aggregated with tractors of classes 1.4 and 2. At readjustment the tiller operatest the main methods of soil cultivation necessary at potato growing: complete prelanding tilling, ridges or seedbeds formation for planting, cultivation of them at care of seedlings, loosening of an underlying layer in strips of the formed ridges or seedbeds under planting rows. This tiller has some constructional features: the tiller rotor with removable sections of flat L-shaped teeths allowing to operate complete and strip soil cultivation at a depth of 12 cm; the disk furrow shaperы regulated on depth and operating width; removable hoes for loosening of the lower layer of soil at depth of 22 cm under planting rows; a replaceable deflector with a direct back edge and (or) with a removable furrow shapers; basic wheels movable from a forward girder onto sidewalls behind - when seedbeds forming. The authorsreport the main agrotechnical requirements to the methods of complete prelanding tilling, ridges and seedbeds forming which are carried out by a tiller and cultivation of them when planting. The tiller has different complete set options for performance of these methods. Use of the offered tiller provides high-quality performance of methods of soil cultivation and potato growing and by 2-3 times reduces a range of necessary machines and costs of acquisition of them.


The knowledge of solar deposit is very necessary in sizing and proper operation of any system powered by solar energy. Solar radiation data are used in the design development, construction, as well as in the solar energy systems performance evaluation, but also for the construction of buildings with a view to better thermal insulation adapted to the geographical location. According to the summer solstice 2022 occasion, in this work the measure of the earth radius is proposed using ''Eratosthenes method''. For this, three fundamental conditions have been taken for the correct application in our calculations. Which cities to choose? When to make the measurements? And what precautions to take? This document may be beneficial for students and the public


The Arab Gulf States have been identified as a market of significant potential for the recruitment of international students to Australian universities. However, recent experiences of enrolling Gulf students have not proven as successful as those of other international students. Academic underperformance and unrealistic expectations on the part of Gulf students have been cited as the main reasons why a number of Australian universities are hesitant to commit to ongoing market development in the region. This thesis focuses on students from the Sultanate of Oman in order to test a hypothesis as to why students from the Gulf States experience Australian tertiary education so differently from other international students. Preliminary scoping undertaken for this study using academic and support staff recollections of the experiences of an early cohort of sponsored students from Kuwait indicates staff in Australian universities have tended to refer to established paradigms for international student transition. They have explained Gulf students' problems in terms of: difficulties learning in English; gaps in academic background; adjustment to new modes of teaching and learning; and unrealistic expectations of their own academic performance and of the institution's capacity to support them through the transition. The fieldwork, comprising intensive interviews with a cohort of sponsored undergraduate students from Oman, attests that these students carry similar assumptions about their own academic abilities, and efficacy of personal relationships with staff in overcoming difficulties in transition to the Australian educational setting. In this thesis it is argued that far from revealing the reasons why Omani students exhibit behaviour and attitudes outside the norm, these explanations simply disguise the very particular causes as common to international students in general and consequently do not help staff working in Australian universities to understand the failure of academic and pastoral care programs to address the apparent underperformance, low motivation and dissatisfaction of students from the Gulf States. This study draws together research on international students, literature on Middle Eastern culture, and studies on Gulf economies to provide an explanation for the unique academic expectations of students from Oman. In particular, the educational and employment priorities set by the Omani Government are highlighted as problematic in the context of traditional family values that have proven resilient in promoting tribal interests over broader societal needs. These notions are based on traditional means of utilising family connections to overcome difficulties in Gulf societies, known as wasta. Data elicited through the fieldwork confirm that Omani students' over-reliance on personal assistance available from academic and support staff is representative of their assumption that personal relationships provide the key to overcoming academic difficulties. The students (and their sponsors) are therefore likely


(Received for publication, November 16, 1951) In 1938 Ochoa and Peters1) reported a method for the determination of carboxylase and free vitamin B, in animal tissues by means of decarbo xylation of pyruvate by alkaline washed yeast. Tauber,2) however, stated that there was no direct proportionality between cocarboxylase con centration and CO, formation from pyruvate, and further that the carbo xylase content of various yeasts .differed greatly. For these reasons he wrote that it was difficult to make an exact comparison of the cocarboxylate activity by the enzymatic test according to Ochoa and Peters,1) method. Recently, in March 1940, Greenberg and Rinehart3) stated that sulf hydryl and other reducing compounds had a stimulating effect on the decarboxylation activity of cocarboxylase and that therefore the assay of tissues and biological fluids for cocarboxylase by the method of Ochoa and Peters2) might be open to question, since most tissues were rich in SH-compound.