The ability to quantify internal strain levels within a photovoltaic (PV) laminate is essential to aid in the development of reliable and sustainable PV modules. This need is even greater for emerging applications with a high degree of integration such as vehicle and infrastructure integrated PV. Within this work, we demonstrate a scalable optical sensing solution, which allows for the in situ thermo‐mechanical strain and temperature monitoring of photovoltaic modules. Using a combination of two optic fibers with fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) with a different packaging, an absolute in‐laminate temperature accuracy of ± 0.3°C has been achieved along with the ability to detect changes in strain as low as ± 0.248 μϵ. The sensor solution provides the potential to monitor and quantify various failure modes or degradation at various stages in the development process up to in‐field monitoring. Furthermore, it provides a platform for the direct validation of physics‐based simulations.


Purpose
This study aims to perform the experimental work on a laboratory-constructed steel truss bridge model on which hammer blows are applied for excitation. The vibration response signals of the bridge structure are collected using sensors placed at different nodes. The different damaged states such as no damage, single damage, double damage and triple damage are introduced by cutting members of the bridge. The masked noise with recorded vibration responses generates challenge to properly analyze the health of bridge structure.

Design/methodology/approach
The analytical modal properties are obtained from finite element model (FEM) developed using SAP2000 software. The response signals are analyzed in frequency domain by power spectrum and in time-frequency domain using spectrogram and Stockwell transform. Various low pass signal-filtering techniques such as variational filter, lowpass sparse banded (AB) filter and Savitzky–Golay (SG) differentiator filter are also applied to refine vibration signals. The proposed methodology further comprises application of Hilbert transform in combination with MUSIC and ESPRIT techniques.

Findings
The outcomes of SG filter provided the denoised signals using appropriate polynomial degree with proper selected window length. However, certain unwanted frequency peaks still appeared in the outcomes of SG filter. The SG-filtered signals are further analyzed using fused methodology of Hilbert transform-ESPRIT, which shows high accuracy in identifying modal frequencies at different states of the steel truss bridge.

Originality/value
The sequence of proposed methodology for denoising vibration response signals using SG filter with Hilbert transform-ESPRIT is a novel approach. The outcomes of proposed methodology are much refined and take less computational time.


During the 1960' –those years marked by the growth of cultural industry and political radicalization in diverse points of the world–  the cultural field was shaped by the tensions between 'Art' and 'minor culture' or between visual production and political commitment. In this context, the multiple activity of Copi makes him a key case since it fluently traveled trough narrative writing, dramaturgy and graphic humor. Living in Paris since 1962, Copi created for the newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur the character that made this argentine artist famous in France, La Femme Assise (The sitting woman). Conceived for the massive audience of the modernized press of the 1960', his strips questioned –with corrosive nonsense– middle sectors in expansion at both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This paper tackles precisely with this sort of geographic and linguistic swinging mediated by Copi's foreignness. This without eluding nor the graphic humor's specificities, nor larger cultural phenomenon of the 1960's like the internationalization of the urban culture and the fading of the borders of the artistic fields.


One of the central controversies at the time of the enactment of the Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA), and subsequently, has concerned the role of the specialist Employment Court.' The most fundamental question is whether any role remains for a specialist court within the "contract-based" labor law model introduced by the ECA. If employment contracts are no different from any other form of commercial contract, as new-right2 proponents of the Act argue, there is no need for a specialist court and the courts of general jurisdiction are the most appropriate forum for employment disputes. A second debate centers on new-right allegations that many of the Court's decisions have been contrary to Parliament's intentions in enacting the ECA and that the Court has failed to adapt to the principles of "freedom of contract" embodied in the Act. The intensity of both debates can be explained by the new-right's failure in 1991 to achieve the abolition of the Court and the repeal of the personal grievance provisions, and thus the introduction of "at-will" employment.' This setback to its deregulation


We propose and demonstrate an optical-wireless testbed delivering super-broad band wired and wireless services simultaneously in an integrated radio-over-fiber (ROF) and WDM-PON access network The actual applications include transmission of a 270-Mb/s uncompressed SDTV signal and 2.5-Gb/s data channel over 25-km fiber and 10.2-m indoor wireless link exhibiting a power penalty of less than 1.5-dB. Moreover, transmission characteristics over 40-km fiber and 4.0-m air channel at variable data rates and the wireless link power budget are also investigated in the testbed environment. The results show that this hybrid system is a practical solution to deliver super-broadband services serving both stationary and mobile users.


The article analyzed the reassertion of hegemonic masculinity that videogames can favor in their videogamers. The study took Gears of War as a reference and its objective was to determine if gender stereotypes are diffused through the characters of this videogame and how this influenced the vision of hegemonic masculinity perceived by the gamers of this saga. For this purpose, a Likert instrument was used, which allowed access to the perception of gamers on key aspects in the reassertion of hegemonic masculinity included in the game, such as violent behavior, the use of offensive language, the importance of physique, among other. From the analysis it was established that, despite the fact that the protagonists are violent, chauvinists and hegemonic men, most of the participants did not perceive these traits as such in the characters. The conscious non-identification of this type of aspects reflects that there is a normalization of hegemonic discourse that favours its invisibility.


The present invention relates to a waterproof plug of the waterproof plug and the use of lighting. The waterproof plug comprising a body made of an elastically deformable material, the body defines a central through hole for cables to pass through, the cylindrical body, the through hole defines an axial direction of the main body, the through hole a first sealing rib is provided on the pore walls surrounding the through-hole in close contact with the cable, each end face of the body has a second sealing bead surrounding the through hole. The first rib may be in close contact with the sealing surface of the cable, thereby preventing water or other impurities and water along the cable plug into the interior of the slit lamp, to avoid short circuit or other abnormal condition.


Background.  We compared results of genotyping of Helicobacter pylori cagA and vacA virulence genes in DNA from gastric biopsies, both paraffin‐embedded and frozen, and from stool samples, in order to evaluate the comparative sensitivity of the stool assay.


Therefore, to obtain an approximate solution numerically, we have to use a discretization method which approximates differential equations by a system of algebraic equations (discretized equations) [17] where the finite volume method may be used as a powerful tool. For this purpose the differential equations can be transformed to algebraic equations (nonlinear equations) by the finite volume method in which the discretized equations must be set up at each of the nodal points [18]. To solve this nonlinear system, an iterative algorithm may be applied, i.e., they begin with an initial guess of the optimal values of the variables and generate a sequence of improved estimates until they reach a solution [19]. The general procedure due to the numerical solution of transport phenomena problems is shown schematically in Figure1.


Urinothorax is a rare cause of transudative pleural effusion secondary to obstructive uropathy. We present a case of urinothorax after shock wave lithotripsy and review the literature. A total of 53 cases have been described previously, and in a few of them, the biochemical characteristics of the pleural fluid were detailed. In general, patients with urinothorax have low pH and glucose levels, and their lactate dehydrogenase level can be very high, resulting in misclassification of the effusion as an exudate. The average pleural fluid to serum creatinine ratio reported in 12 cases was 9.15 (range 1.09–19.8).


A total of 215 indigenous chickens were found in 10 homesteads visited in Oodi, Kgatleng, Botswana from June to July 1999. The mean (SD) flock size was 21.5 (11.6) with a range of 7–47. The chickens were not housed but instead spent the night on top of trees to escape predation. Vaccinations against poultry diseases such as Newcastle disease were not carried out. Instead, traditional herbal remedies were used to treat sick chickens. Only a few adult birds were infested with scaly leg mites and fleas. Worm eggs were not detected in faecal samples examined but some coccidial oocysts were seen. Antibodies to avian infectious bronchitis, infectious bursal disease, Mycoplasma gallisepticum and egg drop syndrome were demonstrated in some of these chickens, suggesting previous infections or exposure.


Increasing the number of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) providers expands PrEP access to more eligible patients and aids in ending the HIV epidemic. Non-prescribers of PrEP have noted perceived financial barriers as a limitation to prescribing. The purpose of this study is to describe the PrEP medication access process and outcomes in patients seen at a multidisciplinary PrEP clinic.

 We conducted a single-center, retrospective, cohort study of patients prescribed PrEP with emtricitabine-tenofovir disoproxil fumarate from a multidisciplinary clinic with prescriptions filled by Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy between 9/1/2016 and 3/31/2019. Patient data were gathered from the electronic health records and pharmacy claims data. We evaluated three different time periods: patient initial evaluation to PrEP initiation, prescription of PrEP to insurance approval, and PrEP insurance approval to initiation. Treatment initiation was considered a delay of > 7 days from initial evaluation, and reasons for delay were recorded. Continuous variables are presented as median (interquartile range, IQR) and categorical variables are presented as percentages.

 Characteristics of the 63 included patients are in Table 1; most were male (97%), white (84.%), commercially insured (94%) with a median age of 38 years (IQR 29—47). The primary indication for PrEP was men who have sex with men at high risk for acquiring HIV (97%). The median time from initial appointment to treatment initiation was 7 days (IQR 4—8); Figure 1. Treatment delays were observed in 25% of patients and were mostly driven by patient preference (50% of delays). Insurance prior authorization was required in 27% of patients, all of which were approved. Median total out of pocket medication costs for the entire study period were $0 (IQR $0 – $0); Figure 2. Most patients (86%) used a manufacturer copay card.
 Table 1 Patient Characteristics

 Figure 1 Time to Treatment Initiation

 Figure 2 Patient Out of Pocket Cost and Savings

 In our cohort of mostly commercially insured men, the majority were able to access PrEP with low out of pocket costs facilitated by manufacturer assistance. Though generalizability beyond this population is limited, these results contradict perceived financial barriers to PrEP access.

 All Authors: No reported disclosures


Objective To explore two drugs combined application curative effects of HFMD.Methods Total of 100 patients with HFMD were randomly divided into two groups: one group were treated with Tangreqing and Pudilan,another group were treated with Tangreqing,and all the cases were given fluid infusion,such as fever general treatment.Thermal annealing time,skin rash subsided time,stomatitis healing time and total duration of symptoms were compared.Results Symptoms and signs subsided time and total duration of observation group were less than the control group.Conclusion Tanreqing and Pudilan combined application can be effective in treating pediatric HFMD.


The invention discloses a system and method for monitoring damaged on-off quantity of a surge protection device and ground resistance online in the real time. A measuring system comprises a server, one or a plurality of remote monitoring terminals and one or a plurality of data collecting systems. The server is respectively connected with various remote monitoring terminals and all data collecting systems. Each data collecting system comprises a damaged on-off quantity data collecting module and a ground resistance collecting module. Each damaged on-off quantity data collecting module comprises m row-connecting lines and n line-connecting lines. Each ground resistance collecting module comprises a micro-processor module, a constant current source injection module, a sampling voltage reading module and a ground resistance measuring software module. The micro-processor modules are connected with the constant current injection modules, the sampling voltage reading modules and the ground resistance measuring software modules respectively. The system and method can guarantee effective judgment of damaged on-off quantity of all surge protection devices and simultaneously can measure the ground resistance in the real time precisely. The system and method is especially suitable for railway signal lightning protection.


In this article, to illustrate my evolution as a teacher, I have organized my experiences chronologically, beginning with my first year of teaching. From each year I focus on the most relevant student activities. Instead of just presenting a showcase of student work, I explain the underlying discovery process for students and myself.The liberatory teaching practices I include are: students writing petitions and gathering signatures to improve their school; supporting striking Los Angeles janitors; publishing their own immigration stories; resisting textbook bias by creating their own "peoples' encyclopedia"; and rallying together to replace a classmate's stolen watch. By doing these types of activities, a new teacher slowly gains the confidence and experience to transform the classroom into a community of learners practicing "teamwork" and "people power." My hope is that by understanding how I have struggled - and continue to struggle - others will be able to take their own steps toward liberatory teaching.


BEING A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF DOCTOR OF PHILIOSOPHY (PhD) IN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE AND PERFORMING ARTS, FACULTY OF ARTS
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZAR


The Matthean Model Reader has encountered significant evidence that the Gospel intends the evocation of the figure of Isaac. Prior to the Lord's Supper, the Model Reader has perceived much that indicates Jesus is a new Isaac: Jesus is the obedient beloved Son who will readily endure the sacrificial death ordained for him by his Father. Thus, the Model Reader finds it significant that Jesus' death will occur at the Passover festival and that Jesus interprets his death using sacrificial language at the Passover meal. This chapter examines (1) the general phenomenon of Jesus' unyielding obedience and actual control of events in the Matthean Passion Narrative; (2) the association of Jesus' sacrificial death with Passover; and (3) the significant allusions to Genesis 22 and thematic coherence with the Akedah in the Matthean Gethsemane and arrest sequence.Keywords: Akedah; beloved Son; Genesis; Gethsemane; Gospel; Isaac; Jesus; Matthean passion; Passover; sacrificial death


A number of domain adaptation techniques have been developed in classical supervised machine learning to solve the problem of learning under domain shift. Unfortunately, almost no attempt has been made to exploit their potential use for causal inference. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework which leverages on one of these successes by adopting Domain Adversarial of Neural Network (DANN) [1] and make it work within the context of causal inference. More specifically, we attempt to modify an existing counterfactual prediction framework based on domain adaptation (DA) [2] with a deep neural network and discrepancy distance measure to enable us instead to perform causal inference in an adversarial way. We achieved this by jointly minimizing the risk in the feature reconstruction and the counterfactual prediction while maximizing the error in discriminating between the distribution of subjects that received intervention and those that received no intervention. This way, a domain invariant yet discriminative model that will generalize well on the counterfactual target distribution is produced.


In this paper, we present a deep learning based approach to sentiment analysis on Indonesian digital wallet review. We collected the reviews of the following digital wallets: DANA, OVO, Link Aja, and Sakuku by obtaining the data from Google Play Store. Sentiment analysis from comments on Google Play Store is used to extract user opinions on various aspects: accessibility, transaction, account, service, and performance. We applied the CNN LSTM architecture on performing the sentiment analysis. The experimental results show that the training accuracy is 87% and the validation accuracy is 83%. Based on the data and analysis results of the four digital wallet applications, namely DANA, OVO, LinkAja, and Sakuku, the sentiments tend to be negative towards the categories we have created, including transactions and access, services, accounts, and performance.


The authors "review the major dimensions and implications for nonmetropolitan areas of recent population trends in the United States and...consider in some detail the known characteristics of recent migrants from metropolitan to nonmetropolitan areas." The relationship between nonmetropolitan growth and structural factors such as institutions of higher education interstate highway systems economic incentives and quality of life is studied. Nonmetropolitan migrant characteristics are investigated using data from a 1977 study of the Upper Great Lakes Region. Public policy problems caused by residential commercial and industrial growth patterns are examined. The roles of local state and federal governments in growth management and land use regulation are discussed (EXCERPT)


Investigates the organization of clans ‐ which have, as their basic community, ideals and clanship (ideology going beyond profit). Posits that clan organizations acknowledge their two‐way responsibilities between individuals and communities. Describes DHL International as a key player in upholding the clan characteristics of an organizational structure and discusses the company in depth, with its Far East background and management structure held as a guiding light for communication, consensus and commitment.


The present invention provides a method for exchanging business card information by combining character recognition and image matching, the method, the web server, the first, is applied to a network system constructed from a second client, at least, the first client upload the obtained characteristics of the second client text information and images in the user's business card images to a web server, the web server retrieves all previously conserved business card consistent with the character information from the business card database performs image feature matching, subsequently, if the selected candidate business card based on the similarity of the features of the image, the candidate business card determines whether belonging to the user of the second client, belongs to the second client after the response, the web server sends the user's business card information of the second client to the first client Rutotomoni, business card information of the first client transmits to the second client, if not belonging By completing Step, while securing the accuracy and recognition speed business card information exchange, further protect the privacy of the card information to.


Part 1 - Status and the Quest for Exclusiveness: the Foundations of Noble Identity Part 2 - The Changing Landscape of Noble Society Part 3 - Education, Religion and Civility Part 4 - The Court: Prison or Showcase of Noble Life? Part 5 - Resistance and Rebellion Part 6 - Noble Power and State Formation: Towards a New Symbiosis?


A process for preparing jet fuel and/or diesel oil and tail oil includes adding raw materials and hydrogen into hydrogenating reactor, mixing its resultant with resultant from hydrocracking reactor, gas-liquid separation, fractionating the liquid resultant to obtain light naphtha, heavy naphtha, jet fuel and/or diesel oil, cyclic oil and tail oil, returning the cyclic oil and part of jet fuel back to hydrocracking reactor and hydrogenating reactor, and cyclic use of recovered hydrogen.


Drawing on participant observation of a high-end restaurant, I examine how work group culture and discourse are formulated through the organization of space and time. To date, scholars have typically divided the study of space and time into two separate fields of inquiry, but the two constructs are intimately integrated. I use a natural ethnographic experiment, observing two different kitchen regimes while keeping the space and occupational pressures constant, to illustrate that groups can arrange time and space according to local cultures. My findings reveal that internally created pressures (i.e., chefs creating constraints via their managerial style) combined with external demands influence both how restaurant workers use the kitchen space during particular moments and what forms of speech they deem acceptable in those spaces and times. My study demonstrates the social organization of time and space, particularly in the context of a restaurant kitchen.


The recognition of revenue is one of the areas which is often used by management to manipulate the financial performance of a business entity. It often happens that revenue is recognised before its recognition date to inflate profit or revenue.


Definitive detection of hemoglobin (Hb) variants requires DNA sequencing. High‐resolution melting (HRM) analysis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicons was applied to detect and discriminate among uncommon α‐Hb variants found in Thailand.


The present paper deals with the extension of a cap model in order to describe the material behavior of partially saturated soils, in particular, of partially saturated sands and silts. The soil model is formulated in terms of two stress state variables, using net stress and matric suction and, alternatively, the average soil skeleton stress and suction, the latter playing the role of a stress‐like plastic internal variable. The yield surface, consisting of a shear failure surface and a hardening cap surface, the plastic potentials for the non‐associated flow rule and the hardening law for the cap are extended by taking into account the effects of matric suction on the material behavior. Furthermore, the third invariant of the deviatoric stress tensor is taken into account in the formulation of the yield surfaces. The developed model is validated by the numerical simulation of an extensive series of suction controlled tests for a silty sand, which were conducted at different constant values of suction. Although both versions of the soil model yield identical results for stress paths at constant values of matric suction, differences are encountered for stress paths involving wetting. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Leaving home (dispersal) like a double-edged sword can promote survival whereas the act itself is risky. The social spider we studied, disperses in 2 stages. Sub-adult individuals with lower body condition dispersed in groups to form smaller satellite colonies and improve their feeding chances. After mating, females that dispersed singly suffered heavy mortality, but survivors gained body condition compared with females that stayed behind. Thus, dispersal in this inbred society improves individual fitness.


Flood operation decision-making can be considered as multi-objectives problems.Fuzziness exists in the objectives and process of decision-making.Therefore fuzzy multi-objective optimization model should be used.This paper introduces fuzzy multi-objective optimization model in detail and allied this model in Chaersen Reservoir flood operation decision-making.This application shows that the fuzzy optimization model can be applied in other reservoirs.


Hui is the Muslim people of Islam from the Tang Dynasty, because the guidance of people's daily entertainment is more barren. With the body cultural characteristics of the "foot" project experienced flourishing and development, now has tended to disappear. Inheritance is imminent, rescue without delay. Choose the form of dance as a carrier of inheritance, to dance ecology theory and anthropological observation method as the support, the use of college classroom teaching attributes will be "foot" of the Hui's body culture phenomenon to the most primitive of the most essential ecological in. To make up for the lack of traditional preservation, protection and inheritance in the process of urbanization, so as to make the folk dance teaching of the Hui ethnic group become the theoretical basis of the important applied scientific research achievements.


In this paper, our hypothesis is that the SMS register of the written language shares certain features with the spoken language. One of them – the way it is being acquired – will be at the center of this study. In contrast to traditional writing, the SMS register is not the result of explicit academic instruction. It is acquired through daily life activities and interactions, just as spoken language is, although at a later stage in time. To examine this question, we collected a longitudinal corpus of natural SMS data (2009-2010), with the collaboration of a junior high school in the region of Poitou-Charentes (France). Data collection took place over the course of one school year (each month) among youngsters between the ages of 11 and 13 years who had no previous experience using a cell phone (a total of 4,524 SMS messages has been collected). These text messages were analyzed using two kinds of indices: a) orthographic indices (categories of spelling errors) and b) dialogic indices (presence/absence of openings or closings). The data are discussed in terms of the specificities of the SMS register as compared to other large registers (traditional spoken, traditional written language).


We derive theoretical limits of estimation on the position and orientation of vehicles equipped with lens based arrays in cooperative Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) scenario. Then, we analyze and compare its performance with conventional linear array. We determine a received signal of a lens-embedded antenna array and V2V geometric model, with which we next derive the Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) on position and orientation estimation. We verify that a lens-based multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) outperforms a conventional uniform linear array (ULA) in a certain constraint of a lens's structure.


During the last ten years, data mining, also known as knowledge discovery in databases, has established its position as a prominent and important research area. Mining association rules is one of the important research problems in data mining. Many algorithms have been proposed to find association rules in databases with binary attributes. In this paper, we deal with the problem of mining association rules in databases containing both quantitative and categorical attributes. An example of such an association might be ``10% of married people between age 50 and 70 have at least 2 cars''''. We introduce a new definition of quantitative association rules based on fuzzy set theory. Using the fuzzy set concept, the discovered rules are more understandable to a human. Moreover, fuzzy sets handle numerical values better than existing methods because fuzzy sets soften the effect of sharp boundaries. The above example could be rephrased eg. 10% of married old people have several cars. In this paper we present a new algorithm for mining fuzzy quantitative association rules. The algorithm uses new definitions for interesting mea- sures. Experimental results show the efficiency of the algorithm for large databases.


Radiation curing of structural adhesives offers a number of potentially attractive features as compared to currently used thermal curing techniques. Probably the most significant feature is the capability of this technique to effect cures at ambient temperatures in remarkably short periods of time using only contact pressure. An investigation is conducted of two dissimilar types of structural adhesives. This investigation provides additional information on the utilization of the electron beam radiation curing technique for bonding assemblies. Data are presented on the lap-shear strength properties of aluminum alloy test specimens utilizing four different commercially available modified thermosetting acrylic adhesives whose cure was effected by exposure to high energy electron beam radiation.


The invention discloses an audio mixing method applied to a multi-point mobile audio communication system. Audio data stream is acquired by means of network acquisition and server local acquisition, the acquired audio data stream is subjected to linear superposition, and audio data are attenuated by dynamically modifying variation factors. Using the method can guarantee integral sound intensity not to be attenuated too fast and guarantee low distortion, noise is avoided within a multi-channel audio mixing range, and audio effects can meet the requirements. The method is widely applicable to multi-point mobile audio communication command systems or multimedia online video conference systems.


Abstract  This paper deals with seven species of the genus Promalactis Meyrick from China. Among them, five species, i. e. P. infulata sp. nov., P. baotianmanensis sp. nov., P. densimacularis sp. nov., P. brevivalvaris sp. nov. and P. colacephala sp. nov., are described as new to science. Two species, P. bitaenia Park et Park and P. autoclina Meyrick, are recorded for the first time from this country. The genital structures of both sexes are illustrated.


The invention relates to a driverless transport vehicle (1) and a method of operating a driverless transport vehicle (1). If at a target point (33) arrived, then the driverless transport vehicle (1) on the basis of a comparison of detected by means of at least one sensor (6) area (35) associated with the signals or data signals or data corresponding to a target position or target is position of the driverless transport vehicle (1) are assigned at the target point (33) moves, so that the actual position of the actual position equals the desired position or target position at least within a specified tolerance or not.


We study trigonal Gorenstein curves of arithmetic genus g ≥ 5 such that g⅓ has a base point, through realizing them as canonical curves lying over a cone. Using an explicit description of such curves we compute the dimension of their moduli spaces. We also investigate non-classical trigonal Gorenstein curves; in fact, we give a complete classification of such curves for arithmetic genus g = 5. More generally, we classify the non-classical curves when the characteristic of the constant field is g - 1, g - 2, or 2g - 3. In characteristic 2 we also solve the case g = 2n + 1.


Cuban Blue (or Symbolic) Lodge masons constitute one of the oldest, largest and geographically most widely spread organizations of Cuban civil society. We examine the evolution of such masons, using annual membership data from the confederation of all Blue Lodges (or Grand Lodge). Defining the equivalent of population at risk, a new Masonic indicator is derived. Using such indicator and Immigration and Naturalization Service data, we estimate the number of Cuban Blue Lodge masons that left Cuba in the wake of Castro's revolution. Using United Nations rates, we estimate deceased masons. Using annual membership trends at different epochs, we estimate the number of Communist Party and administration officers that may have joined the Cuban Blue Lodge masons. We thus describe the evolution of the members of the Grand Lodge, through the second half of the XX Century, and through the seven epochs of Cuban sociopolitical developments, that we have identified.


Here, we defined fkα = 〈ĉkαĉkα〉 and neglected expectation values with momentum 2Qn. Combining Eq. (7) and Eq. (6a), we obtain a linear equation. Imaginary eigenvalues correspond to an exponentially growing mode of phonons hybridized with electron-hole excitations. An approximate solution can be obtained if we assume [εα′(k + Qn) − εα(k)] = ∆ε, and α = α′ = +. Then one can sum both sides of Eq. (7) over k, leading to and eigenvalue equation


Bufo debilis, Bufo retiformis, and Bufo kelloggi are three closely related species with a composite range that includes much of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Bogert (1962) described the distribution, morphology, and mating calls of these species and presented evidence for their specific rather than subspecific status, as had been advocated for some or all of the forms by earlier authors (Sanders and Smith, 1951; Savage, 1954; Riemer, 1955). Only two authors have described tadpoles thought to be those of Bufo debilis, and the tadpoles of the other two species have been completely unknown. Smith (1934) described larvae from Comanche County, Kansas, and suggested that those were of debilis. The identity of the tadpoles was inferred from the known existence of debilis in the region and, evidently, also from the fact that the larvae were not readily assignable to another species. Bragg (1955) associated tadpoles and recently transformed Bufo debilis at the same pool in Oklahoma, and found that the tadpoles differed in some important respects from those attributed to debilis by Smith. In the course of laboratory experiments on the temperature tolerances of embryos (Zweifel, 1968), I made a number of intraspecific crosses of Bufo debilis, B. retiformis and B. kelloggi. Relatively few tadpoles were obtained and these proved unusually difficult to raise. Consequently, it


The article discusses the main technologies of the 4th industrial revolution: the Internet of things, robotics, 3D printing, big data, etc. These technologies play an important and growing role in modern professional activity. In the context of technologies of the 4-industrial revolution, a key role is given to information and cognitive technologies as a necessary condition for the development and use of "smart technologies". The general educational aspects of these technologies must necessarily be included in the content of general educational subjects. The main subjects in this case are the subjects of computer science and technology.


Remotely pumped post- and preamplifiers have been employed in a 423 km, 2.488 Gbit/s repeaterless transmission experiment with a total transmission loss of 85.1 dB. The remotely pumped postamplifier provides a power budget improvement of 2.95 dB. The budget improvement added by the remotely pumped preamplifier is 15.1 dB. The effective sensitivity of the receiver, which includes a 96.5 km fibre span, is -57.7 dBm. >


Many works demonstrate that deep learning system is vulnerable to adversarial attack. A deep learning system consists of two parts: the deep learning task and the deep model. Nowadays, most existing works investigate the impact of the deep model on robustness of deep learning systems, ignoring the impact of the learning task. In this paper, we adopt the binary and interval label encoding strategy to redefine the classification task and design corresponding loss to improve robustness of the deep learning system. Our method can be viewed as improving the robustness of deep learning systems from both the learning task and deep model. Experimental results demonstrate that our learning task-aware method is much more robust than traditional classification while retaining the accuracy.


By means of documentation and theoretical analysis,the paper focuses on the nature of leisure,the values of leisure sport in personality development (in the philosophical sense),and thereafter investigates the social conditions for achieving them.The result of the research shows that leisure belongs to the category of time as well as activities; that leisure sport are valuable to personality development in that they are compensatory,voluntary,various and interactive; that society ought to provide individuals with the utmost time,space and data available to fully achieve the values of leisure sports in personality development.


Objective: To observe the effects of GKKFY in treating primary osteoporosis. Methods: Cases of primary osteoporosis were treated with GKKFY for 6 months, and the control group consisted with 120 patients treated with XLGB for 6 months. Results: The bone mineral density of lumber vertebra, inter, trouch and hip were increased and the bone pain was alleviated. The increase of the serum Ca2+ was statistically significant and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of the serum P and the serum ALP. And the blood, urine routine and biochemical quota had no obvious change in both two groups. Conclusion: GKKFY has a constant effect on the patients of primary osteoporosis in this clinical practice: it can relieve the symptoms and improve physical signs and the related indexes of patients. It is a kind of safe medicine which can educe the preponderance of traditional chinese medicine and be worth applying to clinical use.


This article satisfies obstacle avoidance based on modified path-planning for an articulated robot under limited knowledge environment. The knowledge from the environment can be obtained using local range sensors mounted on the robot. The modification of the A-star algorithm is presented as the basis approach for a new smooth path-planning. A three-circle zone concept is proposed to generate a free collision path with minimum length. The corresponding kinematic model is being specified to produce lateral and longitudinal as a control signals under the limitations of the robot dynamic constraints. The kinematic model of the articulated robot is calculated and derived to use it in the motion planning. Motion behavior between the initial and the destination points under unavailable map of environment with low computation cost are presented. A method for nonholonomic smooth motion planning for articulated robot is established by using MATLAB. Simulate results showed the smoothness and shortest way to drive the robot over such path.


Call me smug, but we get a lot of birds in our garden. We watch them from the kitchen window, which makes washing up almost a joy. Every day the bird-feeder is swamped. Well, almost every day.


This study aimed to design a program of rehabilitation exercises and identify its effect on improving the efficiency of working muscles around the spinal column, to reduce lower back pain associated with the rupture of posterior ligaments of lumbar area, by using the one-group experimental approach. Participants were selected from women (age 44.78 ± 1.98 yr, height 159.11 ± 3.29 m and weight 90.78 ± 4.27 kg) volunteers to participate in this study. The sample was 6 of those who suffer from chronic low back pain associated with the rupture of posterior ligaments of vertebrae of the spinal column (lumbar area). The program consisted of 36 training units for 12 weeks. The results showed statistically significant differences between pre- and post- measurements in all study variables in favor of the post-measurement. The proposed program has a positive effect on the reduction of lower back pain associated with the rupture of posterior ligaments of the lumbar area and improvement of the skeleton case, particularly, the lumbar area in the spinal column.


Objectives The benefit-risk balance of 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and leucovorin versus gemcitabine assessed using generalized pairwise comparison was strongly positive. We sought to assess the benefit-risk balance of nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine using the data of the MPACT trial, as it is an alternative to 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and leucovorin. Methods This statistical method allows for the simultaneous analysis of several prioritized outcomes. The first priority outcome was survival time (overall survival). The second priority outcome was toxicity. The overall treatment effect was quantified using the overall net benefit. Multiple sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the consistency of the results according to possible patients' preferences. Results In this trial, 861 patients received nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine or gemcitabine alone. The overall net benefit favored strongly and significantly the combination group. When only large survival differences were considered clinically relevant, the net benefit was not in favor of the combination group. Conclusions The overall net benefit is a clinically intuitive way of comparing patients with respect to all important efficacy and toxicity outcomes. The nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine combination has a positive benefit-risk balance, but it might not be suitable for patients who would consider losing several months of survival to avoid a significant toxic event.


Composite material with a polymerisable organic binder, characterized in that it contains a filler with a 78 to 100 wt .-%, obtained by spray drying of sols filler having the form of a torus and an average external diameter in the range of 0.5 - having 100 .mu.m ,


FIELD: food-processing industry, in particular, preparing of fish-and-vegetable canned foods. SUBSTANCE: method involves forming fish balls from farce including bulb onion and sweet pepper blanched in vegetable oil, vegetable oil, frozen fresh cabbage, quince, skinned fish fillet, parsley greens, salt, semolina, dried milk, powdered egg, chick-pea flour, black bitter pepper, sweet pepper, red hot pepper, nutmeg, and clove; frying formed fish balls in vegetable oil; packing fish balls together with marinade including blanched bulb onion and carrot, acetic acid, sugar, salt, tomato paste, black bitter pepper, sweet pepper, clove, and fish bouillon; pressurizing and sterilizing ready product. EFFECT: increased digestibility of base product.


Anopheles Barberi, new species.—Near Walkeri, but only about half as large, the upright forked scales of the occiput chiefly yellowishwhite, body devoid of scales, etc. Black, the base of the antennæ, clypeus, stems of halteres, coxæ and trochanters yellow, thorax and scutellum yellowish-brown, front portion of the former and the pleura more yellowish, occiput devoid of appressed scales; thorax somewhat polished, thinly bluish-gray pruinose, the hairs and bristles chiefly black, those of the abdoment mostly yellowish, of the coxæ yellow; femora with a distinct bluish tinge, tarsal claws simple; wings hyaline, the scales brown, the lateral ones lanceolate, petiole of first submarginal cell about one-third as long as that cell, base of the latter much nearer the base of the wing than that of the second posterior cell, hind crossvein less than its length from the small crossvein; length, 3 mm.


Many governments have established, for various reasons, local confent purchasing rules for companies that wish to operate in their country. These requirements force firms to purchase a certain amount of components from suppliers located in that country. This paper describes local content rules and develops models to select suppliers while satisfying local content provisions. The single plant model can be transformed into a knapsack problem that is solved by a ranking procedure, and the solution provides insight as to the manner in which local content rules impact more generalized models. Furthermore, we illustrate possible negative effects to local industry that may result when governments set the local content percentage too high, and we discuss methods for companies to circumvent local content rules. Finally, we address the issue of local content rules in the context of multi-plant global sourcing decisions, and we provide an efficient solution procedure for the classical plant location model extended to include local content rules at each site


This technical note summarizes the results of an epoxy layer shear stress analysis. The subject epoxy layer attaches the GLAST silicon detector segments to the detector tray assemblies. The stresses are generated by an assumed –50° C temperature change that could be expected while the instrument is in storage prior to launch. Stresses are computed as a function of total adhesive contact area and as a function of epoxy shear stiffness. In general, the stresses are reduced with larger contact area and with reduced epoxy shear stress.


This work concerns how two competing mechanisms—eddy backscatter and counter-rotating gyre anomalies—influence the midlatitude ocean dynamics, as described by the eddy-resolving quasi-geostrophic (QG) model of wind-driven gyres. We analyzed dynamical balances and effects of different eddy forcing components, as well as their dependencies on increasing vertical resolution and decreasing eddy viscosity and found that the eastward jet and its adjacent recirculation zones are maintained mostly by the eddy forcing via the eddy backscatter mechanism, whereas the time-mean eddy-forcing component plays not only direct jet-supporting but also indirect jet-inhibiting role. The latter is achieved by inducing zonally elongated anticyclonic/cyclonic Counter-rotating Gyre Anomaly (CGA) in the subpolar/subtropical gyre. The indirect effect of CGAs on the eastward jet is found to be moderate relative to the dominant eddy backscatter mechanism. We also found that the higher the vertical baroclinic mode, the weaker its backscatter role and the stronger its CGA-driving role. Although the barotropic and first baroclinic modes are the most efficient ones in maintaining the backscatter, the higher, up to the fifth baroclinic modes also have significant but reverse impact that reduces the backscatter.


The bursa duct of newly hatchedchick was ligated in order to arrest theentering of antigens into the bursallumen.The lymphocytes in the fol-licular medulla did not proliferate anddifferentiate,no lymphocytes passingthrough the basement membrane toform the follicular cortex.After twoweeks the ligature was loosed,antigens entered into the bursal lumenand stimulated the proliferation oflymphocytes which passed through thebasement membrane,then the follicularcortex was again formed.But thenumber of lymphocytes in the cortex wascomparatively Jess then that of thecontrol.Injection of Bacillus subtilisand Micrococcus tetragenus after li-gation into the bursal lumen,the lym-phoid follicles were observable to bewell developed,even better than thenormal follicles one month later.Inthe cortex matured and immaturedplasma cells were found.By treatingthe newly hatched chicks with TP,anincompleted follicular cortex could beseen,although the cells within thecortex were not the normal type ofcortical lymphocytes. The experimental results indicatethat the formation of follicular cortex isrelated with the environmental antigens.The bursa of Fabricius in birds,as the embryonic follicular medulla isconsidered to be a central lymphoidorgan for humoral immunity,whilethe cortical portion may be equivalentto the peripheral lymphoid organ because it is formed depending upon thestimulation by environmental antigens.


Different services have different demand of QoS performances,so this paper designs a mobile routing choosing method based on PSO and congestion control.The simulation results show that this method can choose the best path of mobile routing.At the same time,it can decrease the congestion probability and keep the QoS.


A modified rat skin test based on dermatitic properties of trichothecenes is described which is quick, convenient, and sensitive to 0.05 μg of T-2 toxin.


During Anti-Japanese War time,many changes took place to the population in Hubei Rear-area controlled by Kuo Ming Tang. Lots of people were either killed or forced to flee out of the area in the war, which caused the severe decrease of the population. Regarding the composition, due to the effect of war and the "planned education" program sponsored by General Chen Cheng, the cultural and sexual structure changed a lot. However, little changes happened to the age and profession structure. This article hereby tries to make some investigation on the phenomenon of population changes in wartime Hubei Area controlled by Kuo Ming Tang and then analyses the cause of such changes.


A common requirement for personalization in social networks is to estimate relationship strength for existing ties of a given user. In this work, we provide a framework to compute relationship strength for ties based on directed interactions between users. The proposed framework, called RealGraph, produces a directed and weighted graph where the nodes are Twitter users, and the edges are labeled with interactions between a directed pair of users. Further, each directed edge also has a weight that is the probability of any interaction going from the edge source to the edge destination in the future. The framework learns a logistic regression based model using historical data and then scores the edge features using the model to produce the weight. We provide several applications of RealGraph at Twitter: it is used to compute better user recommendations, improve the relevance of user search results, and provide enhanced performance on any task that can benefit from separating strong ties from weak ones. Finally, we also provide an evaluation of the RealGraph based on both the effectiveness of the learning methodology and its performance from an application standpoint.


An interpretation of the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) curves that were obtained for aqueous solutions of three nonionic surfactants, n-C8DPO, -C9DPO, and -C10DPO, was recently reported (Kresheck, G. C. Langmuir 2000, 16, 3067) and reanalyzed. These investigations have now been extended to include three cationic, DTAB, TTAB, and DPB, and one anionic, SDecS, surfactants. The curves obtained for the ionic surfactants exhibited the same pattern as for the nonionic surfactants. Below the critical micelle concentration, cmc, the heat capacity of the solutions gradually decreased and did not exhibit any systematic variation within the limits of experimental error (± 0.2 mcal/deg). Solutions which were 2−3 times more concentrated than the cmc exhibited curvature that resembled the temperature dependence of the cmc. However, studies with solutions of intermediate concentrations produced curves with either distinct maxima, minima, or both. These slope changes all occurred at temperatures where the cmc be...


: To further improve the performance of personalized tag recommendation, this paper argued that traditional methods ignore the potential and informative tags hidden in the context of users and items. Aimed at this, this paper proposed a novel personalized tag recommendation method BPR-PITF-P based on potential tag mining and fine-grained preference. Firstly, BPR-PITF-P leverages the context information of both users and items to mine potential and useful tags, and gets three kinds of tags: positive tags, potential tags


Recently, many government organizations started to implement Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems for increasing efficiency and effectiveness of supply tasks and activities as well as improving performance. For this reason, this study investigates factors that effect success of SCM implementation in government organizations in Saudi Arabia. This study focuses on the relationship between these factors and customer satisfaction as one of the essential success indicator of SCM implementation. A questionnaire was designed and distributed to collect data from targeted organizations. After conducting a suitable statistical analysis, the result of this study indicates to a positive relationship between user satisfaction and the following variables; top management commitment, having corporate strategy, system selection, and user participation as the most important factors that affect the success of SCM implementation. This study ended up with the following recommendations: importance of preparation for implementing SCM in government organizations before launching such projects, developing a suitable and determent strategy for SCM implementation, involving SCM users to participate on implementing these projects, and exchanging experience with other government bodies that have similar projects.


This paper deals with the processes of self-regulation of learning, feedback and the transfer of academic knowledge in students majoring in education at the Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto, Argentina. With the aim of impacting the acquisition of knowledge, the transfer of concepts in the field of teaching and the development of self-regulated learning, we applied, by means of design-based research methodology, two sequences of tasks that allowed us to analyze the answers that the students developed to complex problems similar to those they might face in their future professional practice. The theoretical framework of the study was structured based on current developments of the social constructivist approach of educational psychology. The joint analysis of the results shows the importance of giving university students assignments that employ the processes of interpretation and the transfer of problematic situations, group elaborations, and instances of feedback that permit the revision and improvement of answers.


Component-based software development (CBSD) is an approach in which large software systems are built by assembling a set of previously developed software components that can be independently deployed, configured, adapted and connected together within appropriate software architecture. The benefits of this technology include, a shorter development time at a reduced cost with an increased degree of interoperability, portability and maintainability which gives a good prospect for this type of development. This paper presents an overview of CBSD; major activities involved in this process with an overview of most commonly used component technologies that are applied for component-based software development, along with their pros and cons. An attempt has been made to compare these technologies based on their functionality and mechanism, thus providing a roadmap to a developer in selecting the appropriate technology as per the requirements. Keywords— Software component, Software Component Model, Component-Based Software Development, EJB, CORBA, .NET.


A sparsely documented tsunami in 1454 may subdivide the recurrence interval between the 869 and 2011 tsunamis near Sendai, as judged from geomorphic, stratigraphic, and archival evidence. Pond‐filled breaches cut across beach ridges on century‐old topographic maps. The basal pond deposit in one of these breaches postdates 1454. Stratigraphy on Sendai Plain includes a sand sheet that contains marine and brackish diatoms. Radiocarbon ages suggest that the sheet dates to 1406–1615 (2σ), and written records for this interval in Tohoku mention a tsunami in 1454. The inferred inundation extended 1.0–2.5 km inland from an approximate medieval shoreline. Simulated tsunamis that best account for the sand sheet require a thrust earthquake of moment magnitude 8.4 or larger. If the sand sheet represents the 1454 tsunami, the two most recent intervals between great thrust earthquakes in Sendai region spanned 585 and 557 years.


In this paper an advanced implementation of a Pavement Management System (PMS) on large parts of the Nigerian Federal Road Network will be described. This PMS was a component of the World Bank DBOMT (Design, Build, Operate, and Maintain) project for Nigeria. In this PMS, the road network being dealt with had an extent of 6,883 km. This road network was divided into 12 separate packages, which are to be maintained by various contractors in Nigeria. In this respect, the World Bank had a requirement for this project, not commonly used – insuring that the budgetary ceilings are compatible with the package administrators who are expected to implement them. These administrators were assigned budgets ranging from 50 to 170 million US dollars, for a 10-year period. These budgets included both periodic maintenance, occurring at varying intervals, and routine maintenance. An additional factor which came into play was insuring that the road network to be maintained by the administrators would be as geographically compact as possible. The major advantage in this approach was in minimizing the user delay of driving on a significant length of road under maintenance. This factor was dealt with using GIS techniques. This PMS is novel in several respects – the optimization of the packages was obtained using multi-criteria analysis (economic, engineering, and institutional constraints); Costs were evaluated using advanced regression techniques; GIS methodology was used to insure a geographically homogeneous network; multi-year budgeting techniques were used using an advanced implementation of the IBC algorithm.


Abstract The seriousness of trimming samples, and considering the trimmed samples as if they are complete samples of the retained size, from a normal distribution is explored for the parameters of the simple linear regression model. The exact efficiencies of the O-BLUE estimators of the parameters under these conditions are investigated relative to the O-BLUE estimators based upon the trimmed samples from the actual distribution G. Five symmetric distributions are considered. It is found that the overall loss in relative efficiency is quite substantial especially when the true distribution has heavier tails than the normal distribution, and in particular for larger amounts of trimming.


The study of single pion electroproduction can provide valuable information on the structure of the nucleon and its excited states. Although these reactions have been studied for decades, never has the n pi{sup +} channel been measured over the complete phase space of the reaction. The CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) located in Hall B of Jefferson Lab is well-suited for conducting these measurements. The CLAS data were taken using a 1.515 GeV electron beam incident on a liquid H{sub 2} target. The cross sections have been extracted, and their phi-dependence has been fit to obtain the sigma{sub TT}, sigma{sub TL} and the sigma{sub T} + epsilon sigma{sub L} linear combination of the structure functions. An analysis program based on the Mainz unitary isobar model was used to analyze the experimental data from the pi{sup +} channel only. The resonant amplitudes for P{sub 33}(1232), S{sub 11}(1535) and D{sub 13}(1520) were obtained from the fit.


This article introduces the IEEE802.11 MAC layer function briefly. Then the division of hardware and software of our design is discussed. The author went deeply into the softMAC principle, specific units and verification process.


The relevance of this article is determined by the fact, that much attention is paid to the ecological aspects of construction in the modern world. The cost efficiency of the project is not enough to justify its efficiency and to choose if for the realization. Investors, future owners and users of the object are interested in its environmental friendliness. The authors allocate three main elements, forming the system of "green" construction, including human, environment and construction object. These elements are connected with financial and non-financial criteria. This research proves, that financial criteria, such as cutting of construction cost, reducing costs for the object maintenance, exception of the liquidation expenses, for the environmental impacts, are most interesting for the stakeholders. The authors revealed other factors of the "green" construction development and conclude, that most of stakeholders usually underestimate them. Most of stakeholders needs additional stimulation to introduce "green" construction. The principles of the "green" construction development are formulated. Some measures for the stimulation of "green" construction for various stakeholder groups are proposed in article. The conclusions and proposals made by the authors can be useful for the implementation and development of "green construction".


The present invention provides a driving method of a display panel and a display, the display driving device, a display device. Sub-pixel array into the display panel for displaying a view of a pixel group of four four views, it is possible to reduce the dead zone 25% of the viewing area, significantly improve the quality of the naked eye 3D display in the display.


Knowing the socio-environmental conflicts existing in Mexico, the heavy stakes the Mexi- can government has placed on industrializa- tion, specifically under...


Three plasmids have been used, all containing pUC18, the first "pNeo" carrying the neomycin gene in addition to the pUC sequences (without expression vector), the second "pSEAP" containing an expression vector with SEAP (secreted alkaline phosphatase) and the third "pSEAPNTS" containing the SEAP vector and NTS, a short sequence enabling the plasmid to integrate, or proliferate independent of cell replication (Wegner et al. 1991). The plasmid DNA was entrapped in liposomes using the detergent method, incubated with 10 rabbit spermatozoa for 30 min at 37°C and inseminated artificially (Rottmann et al. 1992). The offspring were screened for the transgene and for expression at 3 months of age. In order to prove the gene incorporation into spermatozoa and the transfer into embryos (offspring), PCR and Southern analysis were applied using blood cells and in some cases muscle tissue as DNA source. The gene expression was measured by using the SEAP assay (Berger et al. 1988) and demonstrated qualitatively by gel electrophoresis100 tA serum were separated on a 1.5% agarose gel and the serum phosphatase was allowed to react w ith X-phosphate and NBT whereby staining occurs


The purpose of the article is to compare some visual frames, produced by narrative ideas about the Ukrainian national character in the XIX-XX centuries, with visual representations of these ideas in popular Ukrainian social media and networks in the first quarter of the XXI cent. The research methodology combines quantitative (content analysis, statistical calculations) and qualitative (structural semiotic-semantic analysis) methods with culturological interpretation of the results. The scientific novelty lies in the establishment of external and internal changes in the visual representations of the Ukrainian national character in the socio-cultural context of «secondary» modernization. Conclusions. The frame of the «picturesque Ukrainian village» as a visual representation of the leading features of the Ukrainian national character — «emotionalism and sentimentalism, sensitivity and lyricism» and partly «individualism» (D. Chizhevsky), has been created in the fine arts of the late ХІХ cent. In Ukraine at the beginning of the XXI century in the popular social media and networks, this frame has changed only insignificant internally (changing the perspective of the image, increasing the scale of the image, expanding the landscape component). Instead, its external transformation into a global media product was taking place. This transformation indicates the incompleteness of the modernization processes in Ukraine, the conservation of a significant pre-modern component in its culture.
Key words: "picturesque Ukrainian village", national character, narratives, visual representations, fine arts, socialmedia


Reliable code coverage tools are critically important as it is heavily used to facilitate many quality assurance activities, such as software testing, fuzzing, and debugging. However, little attention has been devoted to assessing the reliability of code coverage tools. In this study, we propose a randomized differential testing approach to hunting for bugs in the most widely used C code coverage tools. Specifically, by generating random input programs, our approach seeks for inconsistencies in code coverage reports produced by different code coverage tools, and then identifies inconsistencies as potential code coverage bugs. To effectively report code coverage bugs, we addressed three specific challenges: (1) How to filter out duplicate test programs as many of them triggering the same bugs in code coverage tools; (2) how to automatically reduce large test programs to much smaller ones that have the same properties; and (3) how to determine which code coverage tools have bugs? The extensive evaluations validate the effectiveness of our approach, resulting in 42 and 28 confirmed/fixed bugs for gcov and llvm-cov, respectively. This case study indicates that code coverage tools are not as reliable as it might have been envisaged. It not only demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach, but also highlights the need to continue improving the reliability of code coverage tools. This work opens up a new direction in code coverage validation which calls for more attention in this area.


The aging process is a process which is followed by some physical decline. It is usually followed by the emergence of a variety of psychological, cognitive, affective, and psychosocial disorders. One of the cognitive interferences experienced by the elderly is the dimensia. Dimensia is the effects that occur from psychological changes in the form of cognitive decline. The aims of this research are to know the relationship between the status of the dimensia with functional disabilitas of the elderly in Gonilan Kartasura. The type of the research is observational analytic research using Cross Sectional approach. This research was conducted in Gonilan Kartasura with the number of the elderly sample of research are 75 who meets the criteria of inclusion. Dimensia was measured with the use of Mini Mental State
Examination (MMSE), and functional disabilitas using Groningen Activity Retriction Scale (GARS). Statistical test is using Rank Spearman. The result showed that the
value of p=0,001, it means that there is a relationship between the status of the dimensia with functional disabilitas on the elderly and the value of r=-0,413, it
means the higher of MMSE the lower of GARS score, so the reverse.


MINERνA (Main INjector Experiment for ν-A) is a neutrino scattering experiment in the NuMI high-intensity neutrino beam at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. MINERvA was designed to make precision measurements of low energy neutrino and antineutrino cross sections on a variety of different materials (plastic scintillator, C, Fe, Pb, He and H2O). We present the current status of the charged current quasi-elastic scattering in plastic scintillator.


Agency Insurance companies should operate successfully forward to satisfy their goals and meeting their strategies as another companies do. Appraisal and rating indices of agency insurances companies may serve as fundamental information for major insurance companies and economists. At present, number of fifteen agencies for Iran insurance company (insurance service company) are operating in Isfahan province. In the present paper, first, we identified key indices to appraisal and rating agency companies using balanced scorecard and weighted every index using AHP questionnaire and interviewing to companies authorities and finally we rated abovementioned companies according to two SAW and TOPSIS models to improve their empowerment limit by Iraninsurance company.


The reactions of [AuCl(SMe
 2
)] or
[AuBr(C
 4
H
 8
S)] with 1 equivalent of
diphenylmethanimine led to the formation of the complexes
[AuCl(Ph
 2
CNH)] 1a,
[Au(Ph
 2
CNH)
 2
][AuCl
 2
] 1b
and [Au(Ph
 2
CNH)
 2
][AuBr
 2
]
2, respectively. Treatment of 1a, 1b with KI in
the two-phase system dichloromethane–water induced a redox process to
give Au
 0
 and
[Au(Ph
 2
CNH)
 2
][I
 3
] 3. The
same result was obtained when AuI and Ph
 2
CNH were
allowed to react under anhydrous and oxygen-free conditions.
Copper(I) iodide reacted with an excess of
Ph
 2
CNH with formation of the complex
[CuI(Ph
 2
CNH)] 4. Bis(diphenylmethanimine)
complexes of gold,
[Au(Ph
 2
CNH)
 2
]BF
 4
 5, and
silver, [Ag(Ph
 2
CNH)
 2
]BF
 4

6, were prepared by the reaction of 2 equivalents of the ketimine
and [Au(PhCN)
 2
]BF
 4
 or AgBF
 4
 in
dichloromethane or tetrahydrofuran solutions, respectively. The crystal
structures of the complexes 1a, 1b, 2,
3, 5 and 6 have been determined. The
(Ph
 2
CNH)AuCl units of compound 1a form infinite
zigzag chains via weak
Au · · · Au contacts
[3.3633(5) A]. In 1b two AuCl
 2

 -

anions and two (Ph
 2
CNH)
 2
Au
 +

cations form a tetranuclear Z-type unit with
Au · · · Au contacts of
3.1944(5)
[Au(1) · · · Au(2)],
3.604(1)
[Au(1) · · · Au(2′)]
and 3.392(1)A
[Au(1) · · · Au(1
′)]. The
N–H · · · Cl
geometry suggests hydrogen bonding between the hydrogen and chlorine atoms
of neighbouring ions. The bromine compound 2 is isostructural to
the chloride 1b with slightly longer
Au · · · Au distances.
Compound 3 shows bis(diphenylmethanimine)gold(I)
cations and triiodide anions with no anomalies in the packing and in bond
distances and angles. The geometry of the silver(I) and
gold(I) complexes 5 and 6 are quite similar
except for the observation that the Au–N bond is 0.11 A
shorter than the Ag–N bond, which suggests that two-co-ordinate
gold(I) is indeed smaller than two-co-ordinate
silver(I) in systems with nitrogen-containing ligands, as
previously observed for phosphine complexes.


A panel part aging stress relaxation forming tool solves the problem about positioning of integral panel part aging stress relaxation formed parts of large wings. A forming curved surface for the panel parts is arranged on the body of the forming tool, a positioning pin for the panel parts is arranged at one end of the forming curved surface, and positioning baffles are arranged on the two sides of the forming curved surface.


This paper outlines the long-term strategy that the UK Distribution Network Operator (DNO) SP Energy Networks (SPEN) has developed in its SP Manweb licence area, to prepare its network to facilitate a low carbon future. The strategy aims to enhance the embedded benefits of interconnection; to transition the interconnected network at the fringes where the benefits are less; and to reduce the cost of interconnected network extensions. This paper predominantly focuses on a blueprint design for transitioning the fringes of the SP Manweb interconnected network to a new lower cost design making use of, and driving new technologies. Certain areas of network have been selected to trial this design over the next few years. INTRODUCTION SP Energy Networks (SPEN) owns and operates the SP Manweb (SPM) distribution network. This network serves 1.5 million customers in the North West of England and North Wales, with a maximum demand of 3GW and around 1.5GW of renewable generation. The network serves densely populated areas such as Liverpool and rural areas throughout Wales. The SP Manweb network is meshed with interconnection at all voltage levels. This is fundamentally different from other DNOs in the UK, which are generally organised as radial systems. The design philosophy is based on high transformer utilisation, where smaller single transformer substations supply power into an interconnected mesh where standard cable sizes are used throughout. Each voltage layer provides support to the voltage layer immediately above (LV, HV, EHV and 132 kV) offering a fully integrated and interconnected network. Figure 1 shows a typical industry network and consists of two 33/11kV transformers typically rated at 12/24 MVA feeding a single busbar with radial circuits operating to split points. In the event of a fault, the source circuit breaker will open and the circuit is de-energised until the fault is manually isolated and the supplies are restored. The SP Manweb network consists of a greater number of smaller 33/11kV transformers with more switchgear and protection. 33/11kV transformers are typically rated at 7.5MVA feeding a single busbar with interconnected circuits. The HV/LV substations are configured in unit protected zones avoiding the loss of supplies during fault conditions. For example protection would isolate an 11kV cable section and HV/LV transformer, yet the LV supplies would not be interrupted because of the level of LV interconnection. The size of mains cable and transformer sizes have been standardised. The network is built around the principle that the load a network can serve can be increased by adding additional supply infeeds near demand centres within the mesh. Figure 1 – Industry Typical Network vs SP Manweb BENEFITS OF INTERCONNECTION The interconnected design philosophy brings significant benefits, such as higher reliability, increased asset utilisation and increased flexibility to accommodate new connections, however the costs are greater due to additional plant and protection equipment. In the majority of the network the benefits of interconnection outweigh the additional cost. The main benefits of the existing design philosophy in the SPM network are: • Higher network reliability The SPM network offers the best network performance in the UK with the highest level of network reliability in the UK outside of the London interconnected cable network. Within SPM, the unit protected network offers the best reliability, which is two 24th International Conference on Electricity Distribution Glasgow, 12-15 June 2017


The paper is devoted to deepening the academic basics using forecasting modeling methods to determine the predictors of enterprises' success. A startup as a form of entrepreneurship is important today due to the ability to maintain the sustainability of the economic system through a flexible response to challenges. The startup's potential for receiving external, direct venture financing from other economic counterparties is important forits sustainable development and success. The empirical study puts forward two hypotheses. The first one is that successful startups have common features, which are the factors in obtaining venture financing, i.e. predictors of success. The second hypothesis is a continuation of the first one and requires testing the importance of information representation and clarity of future startup results among venture investors, in particular through the information available about the startup's activity over the Internet. The empirical study is based on data sets about startups in Ukraine over the last decade. The simulation is performed with logit models developed by the authors. The calculation allows us to confirm the identification of factors of direct influence on the startup's success according to the built models. The ability to obtain venture capital is one of the startup's characteristics. The logit model is used as the research tool to determine the relevant factors for defining the positive decision of venture investors to provide startup funding. Predictors of obtaining external funding are identified and considered as the prerequisites for the startup's success in general. According to the research results,the presence of previous investors, the startup's profit orientation, the startup's website, and availability of information about its activity in the social network are the important factors for receiving external financing by a startup. Thepaper argues that the startup's focus on the public good without profit orientation does not stimulate venture investors. Two periods of the startup founding are singled out among the influence signs in deciding whether a startup will receive external financing: before 2014 and after it. The recognizability of a startup became the determining factor for venture financing after 2014 due to the information provided through the Internet. Until 2014, the relationship with large corporations' clients had been the most important feature for a startup with external venture financing.


Several years ago, then President of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), Ronald Pulliam, appointed Vice President Judy Meyer to chair a committee to evaluate whether ESA should publish a series of "white papers" designed to better communicate scientific findings on environmental issues to elected officials and the public. The committee recommended that such a series be initiated, and the recommendation was approved by the membership. The concept ultimately evolved into Issues in Ecology, a new series of publications jointly sponsored by ESA and the Pew Foundation, and edited by David Tilman. Each Issues in Ecology report will present the findings of a Review and Synthesis Panel composed of scientists with expertise on a particular environmental issue. Each report will undergo full peer and editorial review. Typically, two forms of each report will be produced. The first will be the official technical report of the Review and Synthesis Panel, and the second will be a report rewritten by a science writer to make it more accessible to nonscientists. The nontechnical report' will be published as a 12-20 page pamphlet that can be distributed to interested audiences, including elected officials, federal and state agency personnel, other decision-makers, and educators of high school and college students. In addition, it seems desirable that the official technical reports also be made available to the scientific community through publication in a scientific journal. Given the applied nature of the topics to be addressed in Issues in Ecology, and the fact that these will be reports of the Ecological Society of America, it is appropriate that the technical reports be considered for publication in Ecological Applications. We now present the first Issues in Ecology report to be published in Ecological Applications. This timely report on "Human alteration of the global nitrogen cycle: sources and consequences" was produced by a panel chaired by Peter Vitousek. This report describes the extent and magnitude of human impacts on the nitrogen cycle, pointing out the diverse consequences that human activities can have. The report is an ideal one with which to initiate the series, given the extent to which nitrogen-related problems are at the forefront of environmental issues worldwide and the degree to which ecological science has contributed to an improved understanding of the nitrogen cycle and human effects on it. Other panels of ecologists currently are working on additional reports for the Issues in Ecology series. We anticipate the publication of additional reports in future issues of Ecological Applications and hope that readers find these reports to be timely and informative.


The article presents research data on the development of animal farming in Kazakhstan. This article describes the results of a study on the meat content of animals of different genotypes under the raising conditions of "Agrofirm Dinara-Ranch". The use of bulls LLP(limited liability partnership) "Agrofirm Dinara-Ranch" to obtain main indicators of meat productivity makes it possible to improve later the productive quality of cattle of the Kazakh white breed after a genetic improvement breeding program. Analysis of the results of the slaughter control and the study of the morphological composition of carcasses give reason to conclude that the bulls Aberdeen–Angus breed and crossbred bulls have high slaughter qualities. The results of this study can be used both under the conditions of the Republic of Kazakhstan thanabroad.


Amyloid β-protein (Aβ) is known as a key molecule related to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Over time, the amyloid cascade disrupts essential function of mitochondria including Ca2+ homeostasis and reactive oxygen species (ROS) regulation, and eventually leads to neuronal cell death. However, there have been no methods that analyze and measure neuronal dysfuction in pathologic conditions quantitatively. Here, we suggest a cell-based optical assay to investigate neuronal function in AD using femtosecond-pulsed laser stimulation. We observed that laser stimulation on primary rat hippocampal neurons for a few microseconds induced intracellular Ca2+ level increases or produced intracellular ROS which was a primary cause of neuronal cell death depending on delivered energy. Although Aβ treatment alone had little effect on the neuronal morphologies and networks in a few hours, Aβ-treated neurons showed delayed Ca2+ increasing pattern and were more vulnerable to laser-induced cell death compared to normal neurons. Our results collectively indicate that femtosecond laser stimulation can be a useful tool to study neuronal dysfuction related to AD pathologies. We anticipate this optical method to enable studies in the early progression of neuronal impairments and the quantitative evaluation of drug effects on neurons in neurodegenerative diseases, including AD and Parkinson's disease in a preclinical study.


In a recent Letter, we used ''two-body Dirac equations'' to make the naive quark model fully relativistic. In this paper, we apply Dirac's constraint mechanics and supersymmetry not to a string but instead to a system of two spinning particles to derive the two coupled Dirac equations that govern the quantum mechanics of two spin-1/2 particles interacting through world scalar and vector potentials. Along the way, we demonstrate that our equations are compatible, that the scalar and vector interaction structures contribute separately to compatibility when both are present, and that compatibility persists even in the presence of relative-momentum-dependent interactions. We show that extrapolation of supersymmetries associated with the ordinary single-particle Dirac equation to the interacting two-body system eliminates spin complications and reduces the compatibility problem to that of the corresponding spinless system. In addition, supersymmetry introduces physically important nonperturbative recoil effects that contribute to the correct perturbative spectrum while rendering nonsingular certain singular terms of standard semirelativistic approximations. This eliminates the need for singularity-softening parameters or finite particle sizes in phenomenological applications. In order to make clear the underlying structure of our equations, we also derive the corresponding coupled Dirac or Klein-Gordon equations that govern a system of two particles,more » one or neither of which has spin.« less


In most companies, enterprise applications, such as office products or databases, are heavily used by employees during work hours. Impairments and performance issues not only slow down business processes, but might also increase the frustration of the workforce. While Quality of Experience (QoE) has been widely studied for personal multimedia applications, such as video streaming, its application to the business usage domain is still in its infancy. Due to several reasons, e.g., the high complexity of IT infrastructure, classical QoE studies can hardly be transferred to business applications. These studies are often independent from the context of usage and actively poll ratings from their participants. This work contrasts the commonly used "pull" method for collecting user ratings with a self-motivated "push" approach. This approach is inspired by complaint systems, in which users can directly report problems with a technical system as soon as they notice them. Therefore, performance assessments of a business application from employees of a cooperating company are collected with both rating systems during a time span of 1.5 years. Besides the analysis of the interaction of users with the "push" system, differences between the two methods are discussed. Further, QoE models for the monitored business application are derived based on the self-motivated "push" ratings.


The fiscal equalisation principle used by the Australian Commonwealth Grants Commission (CGC) is comprehensive by international standards in equalising the fiscal capacity of states. This system is most often justified on the grounds of equity. However, if labour is mobile then interstate migration and selection of state of settlement by arriving migrants can achieve horizontal equity, while the redistribution policies of the Federal Government can achieve vertical equity. This means that the role of fiscal equalisation is to achieve an efficient distribution of different types of labour between state locations. A theoretical model is presented that synthesises Boadway and Flatters (1982) and Albouy (2012) and is extended to give more attention to government expenditure and to include a consumption tax. It implies that full equalisation should be applied for the fixed costs of state government and for source-based taxes on natural resources, land and capital (e.g. mining royalties, land taxes, conveyancing duty). However, equalisation should be applied in a more limited way for the variable costs of state government, residence-based taxes on labour (e.g. payroll tax) and consumption taxes (e.g. GST). Limited equalisation covers differences in fiscal capacity arising from differences between states in their demographic mixes, but not from other differences such as in productivity or amenity. Some simplifying assumptions of the model are discussed including that there are fixed supplies of factors of production at the national level, labour is fully mobile between states, state governments take their equalisation grants as given, the services states provide are private, and the location distortions currently caused by central government budgets are better addressed within those budgets rather than as part of fiscal equalisation. Using the recent CGC assessment for 2017/18, the gain in consumer welfare from moving from the current Australian system to fully-efficient equalisation is estimated. Some recent proposals to move away from fiscal equalisation are also simulated and are found to involve welfare losses as they all involve moving away from full equalisation in areas where full equalisation is optimal. *Visiting Fellow, Australian National University, Acton ACT 2601, Australia. email@example.com. I would like to thank participants at a seminar at the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, ANU, for helpful comments.


In this talk we discuss an E 6 inspired supersymmetric (SUSY) model with an extra U(1) N gauge symmetry under which right-handed neutrinos have zero charge. In this exceptional supersymmetric standard model (E 6 SSM) the µ–term is generated dynamically after the elec-troweak symmetry breaking. We specify the particle content of the model and argue that the presence of a Z ′ and exotic particles predicted by E 6 SSM allows the lightest Higgs boson to be significantly heavier than in the MSSM and NMSSM. Other possible manifestations of E 6 SSM at the LHC are also discussed.


Perpendicularly magnetized nanowires exhibit distinct domain wall types depending on the geometry. Wide wires contain Bloch walls, and narrow wires N\'eel walls. Here, the transition region is investigated by direct imaging of the wall structure using high-resolution spin-polarized scanning electron microscopy. An achiral intermediate wall type is discovered that is unpredicted by established theoretical models. With the help of micromagnetic simulations, the formation of this wall type is explained.


We invest in order to obtain excess returns on the investment. The excess return is calculated with respect to the risk free rate and implies taking on risk. It is necessary to quantify both return and risk on the portfolio level. Asset returns are correlated, and for this reason the correlation matrix is estimated to quantify precisely the correlation among the returns on portfolio assets. These coefficients will then enable us to describe the combined returns on the portfolio's assets, and the risk of the portfolio. The basis of all quantitative portfolio management and theory today are given by the well-known Modern Portfolio Theory. We analyze in this paper ten American stocks from completely different industry sectors, part of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The period is from December 2010 to December 2015, monthly observations. Since the end of 1999, the S&P's 500 stock index has lost an average of 3.3% a year on an inflation adjusted basis, compared with a 1.8% average annual gain during the 1930s when deflation afflicted the economy. In nearly 200 years of recorded stock-market history, no calendar decade has seen such a bad performance as the 2000s. The computer programs used in this work are MATLAB and Microsoft Excel. For optimization problems we mainly use the Excel Solver.


The objective of this research was to develop the functional material of water and 60% ethanol extracts from nine kinds of mulberry fruits (Morus alba L.) that influence the inhibitory activity on angiotensin-converting enzyme, xanthine oxidase, α-amylase, and α-glucosidase. The total phenolic contents in the water extracts were over 2 mg/g in two species (Cheongilppong and Kangwon Ⅲ) and five species (Daeyoupchosaeng, Cheongilppong, Kangwon Ⅲ, Hihak, and Cataneo) of 60% ethanol extracts. The inhibitory activity against the angiotensin-converting enzyme was determined with them. Baekwoon Ⅲ was 90.9±4.5% in the water extracts, and Hihak was 81.8±4.5% in the 60% ethanol extracts. The inhibitory activity of Kuksang 20 against xanthin oxidase was about 10% in the water extracts, and Cataneo was 21.4±2.3% in the 60% ethanol extracts. Six of the species (Daeyoupchosaeng, Suwonppong, Cheongilppong, Kangwon Ⅲ, Hihak, and Kuksang 20) in the water extracts showed inhibitory activities against α-amylase, as 100%, respectively. The inhibitory activity of α-glucosidase was determined for these nine species. Four species (Baekwoon Ⅲ, Daeyoupchosaeng, Cheongilppong, Kangwon Ⅲ, Hihak, and Kuksang 20) in the water extracts and three species (Daechoukmyeun, Kangwon Ⅲ, and Kuksang 20) in the 60% ethanol extracts showed inhibition of over 20%. The results revealed strong biological activity in spite of little total phenolic contents. These water and 60% ethanol extracts with high-quality biological activity from various mulberry fruits (Morus alba L.) are expected to represent good candidates for the development of antihypertentive and antidiabetes sources.


1.1 Some principal questions It is necessary to reduce CO2 emissions against global warming, and the activities are expanding all over the world. As the world continues its reliance on fossil fuels to meet its growing energy demand, the associated environmental and climate change challenges must be adequately addressed. The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history and this process is mainly a domain of developing countries. In Europe over 70 percent of population is urban. In many developed countries this concentration is also creating its counterforce: decentralization, urban sprawl, dispersal and splintering of urban space. According to the United Nations reports, the growth in human population is largest in the developing world, with Africa's and Asia's urban population projected to double between 2000 and 2030. With approximately 3.4 billion people (in 2009), more than 50 percent of the world population living in cities and both human activities and the use of energy also concentrated in cities, the urban areas have become the root cause of orientating societies toward mass production, mass consumption and mass dumping of waste. In the world-wide urbanization process a particular significance have mega-cities (i.e. metropolises with more than 5 million people). According to the UN reports (Kraas, 2007), in the year 2015 more than 600 million people will be living in about 60 mega-cities worldwide, see Fig.1. While megacities have captured much public attention, most of the new growth will occur in smaller towns and cities, which have fewer resources to respond to the magnitude of the change. Urban areas sprawl deeply into regions surrounding cities and towns. Increased income and wealth has enabled extensive new construction of infrastructures and transportation within functional urban regions. 9


Techniques to evaluate the nutritional state of the crop include techniques for determination of nutrient parameters in the soil solution. A nondestructive method that allows taking of samples along the crop and obtaining the real soil solution without dilution is the suction cup, although some problems exist, including the limited sample size and possible contamination. In this work the porous cup was characterized from the chemical point of view, identifying the crystalline structures that constitute it, with x-ray fluorescence, dispersion of the wavelengths, use of certified reference patterns that guarantee the traceability of the measurements, and (from the physical point of view) determination of the total porosity and the pore-size distribution by means of the mercury intrusion technique. The design of the suction cups were also studied to obtain a robust sampler that is easy to handle, affordably priced, and able to obtain an adequate size of sample for use in commercial horticultural greenhouses. This method of measuring water and salt content of the root environment has potential applications in the greenhouse production of potted plants. Measurements obtained with this method may lead to new information on nutrient uptake by plants and the development of new strategies for managing fertility and irrigation of horticultural crops.


Significance Disentangling the effects of rainfall timing and magnitude on animal and plant populations is essential to reveal the biological consequence of diverse climate change scenarios around the world. We conducted a 10-y, large-scale, manipulative experiment to examine the bottom-up effects of changes in rainfall regime on the population dynamics of Brandt's voles in the steppe grassland of Inner Mongolia, China. We found that a moderate rainfall increase during the early growing season could produce marked increases in vole population size by increasing the biomass of preferred plant species, whereas large increases in rainfall produced no additional increase in vole population growth. Our study highlights the importance of rainfall magnitude and timing on the nonlinear population dynamics of herbivores. Climate change–induced shifts in species phenology differ widely across trophic levels, which may lead to consumer–resource mismatches with cascading population and ecosystem consequences. Here, we examined the effects of different rainfall patterns (i.e., timing and amount) on the phenological asynchrony of population of a generalist herbivore and their food sources in semiarid steppe grassland in Inner Mongolia. We conducted a 10-y (2010 to 2019) rainfall manipulation experiment in 12 0.48-ha field enclosures and found that moderate rainfall increases during the early rather than late growing season advanced the timing of peak reproduction and drove marked increases in population size through increasing the biomass of preferred plant species. By contrast, greatly increased rainfall produced no further increases in vole population growth due to the potential negative effect of the flooding of burrows. The increases in vole population size were more coupled with increased reproduction of overwintered voles and increased body mass of young-of-year than with better survival. Our results provide experimental evidence for the fitness consequences of phenological mismatches at the population level and highlight the importance of rainfall timing on the population dynamics of small herbivores in the steppe grassland environment.


The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world including Indonesia, in a period of approximately 2 years, pandemic had negative impact. One of the businesses that was greatly affected was the tourism sector in Indonesian provinces, some were still able to survive, but some were not, due to sluggish demand for the tourism sector, the implementation of the PPKM (Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions) policy, prohibiting crowds, and even being prohibited from leaving the house if it's not an emergency, of course all of that has impact on the wheels of the economy temporarily, but the cost of living must still run. This study analyzes secondary data from news, books, scientific journals and data published by government. The point of the finding is that pandemic has had major impact on tourism sector. Because during the pandemic, many activities were online, thus reducing the number of tourist visits and that had impact on incoming income. Because changes in the way of transactions can reduce customer interest, inflation reduces people's purchasing power, and number of unemployed increases because many businesses are not operational, this causes economy to decline. The government must have best strategy to stabilize the wheels of the economy, indeed, it is not easy, there must be a big struggle and hard effort to rise, it can be through the policies & regulations that are enforced, the spirit of fighting, supporting each other according to each other's roles & responsibilities, so that the economy recovered.