Significance In the face of rising university tuition costs and a longstanding skills gap in the US workforce, a growing number of people access higher and continuing education programs via online platforms. There are serious concerns that online learning disadvantages members of underserved communities, thereby exacerbating social inequalities. However, it is hard to evaluate these concerns at scale partly due to selection effects. Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as nonessential business closures, suddenly changed how people spent their time, which allowed us to estimate effects on demand for online learning and how it varies along socioeconomic dimensions. Unlike most prior studies that find education technology to maintain or amplify inequities, we present causal evidence for its potential democratizing effects. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed peoples' lives in unexpected ways, especially how they allocate their time between work and other activities. Demand for online learning has surged during a period of mass layoffs and transition to remote work and schooling. Can this uptake in online learning help close longstanding skills gaps in the US workforce in a sustainable and equitable manner? We answer this question by analyzing individual engagement data of DataCamp users between October 2019 and September 2020 (n = 277,425). Exploiting the staggered adoption of actions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 across states, we identify the causal effect at the neighborhood level. The adoption of nonessential business closures led to a 38% increase in new users and a 6% increase in engagement among existing users. We find that these increases are proportional across higher- and lower-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods with a high or low share of Black residents. This demonstrates the potential for online platforms to democratize access to knowledge and skills that are in high demand, which supports job security and facilitates social mobility.


The effect of B and microalloying additions of V, V+Ti, V+Nb on austenite grain growth of low alloy steel containing 0.3% C, 1 % Cr and 0.2 % Mo was investigated. As a measure of austenite grain size the mean chord length of austenite grains was assumed. The boron content in investigated steel was in the range of 0 to 0.008 %. The investigations were carried out in austenitising temperature range of 850 to 1100oC. Using the thermodynamic model the contents of undissolved compounds of carbonitride V(C,N) and boron nitride BN were calculated and the effect of undissolved compounds content on austenite grain size was investigated. Obtained results showed, that vanadium content below 0.1 % was ineffective as austenite grain growth inhibitor of boron containing steel and austenite grain size of steel was higher compare to non-alloyed steel. The most effective for decreasing of austenite grains size of boron containing steel was addition of 0.18 % V + 0.03 % Nb


Disabled patients with reduced mobility due to health problems such as disability, injury, paralysis, or other factors will experience difficulty in movement. They need tools that can help them, in which the most widely used is a wheelchair. The main objective of this research is to control wheelchair motion with voice commands. There are five commands for wheelchair control: forward, backward, right, left, and stop. Voice data is obtained from recording several subjects using Sound Recorder Pro and Sox Sound Exchange. The voice commands for wheelchair navigation were identified using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) combination embedded in Raspberry Pi 3. Voice data is first converted to spectrogram images before being fed into CNN using Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients (MFCC). This system can be controlled by simple voice commands given by the user. This method is proven to be useful in speech recognition with an accuracy level using CNN-LSTM above 97.80 %. Preliminary experimental results indicate that voice commands in wheelchairs using the CNN-LSTM can be recognized well.


Many laboratory experiments on crack propagation under uniaxial loading and biaxial loading have been conducted in the past using transparent materials such as resin, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), etc. However, propagation behaviors of three-dimensional (3D) cracks in rock or rock-like materials under tri-axial loading are often considerably different. In this study, a series of true tri-axial loading tests on the rock-like material with two semi-ellipse pre-existing cracks were performed in laboratory to investigate the acoustic emission (AE) characteristics and propagation characteristics of 3D crack groups influenced by intermediate principal stress. Compared with previous experiments under uniaxial loading and biaxial loading, the tests under true tri-axial loading showed that shear cracks, anti-wing cracks and secondary cracks were the main failure mechanisms, and the initiation and propagation of tensile cracks were limited. Shear cracks propagated in the direction parallel to pre-existing crack plane. With the increase of intermediate principal stress, the critical stress of crack initiation increased gradually, and secondary shear cracks may no longer coalesce in the rock bridge. Crack aperture decreased with the increase of intermediate principal stress, and the failure is dominated by shear fracturing. There are two stages of fracture development: stable propagation stage and unstable failure stage. The AE events occurred in a zone parallel to pre-existing crack plane, and the AE zone increased gradually with the increase of intermediate principal stress, eventually forming obvious shear rupture planes. This shows that shear cracks initiated and propagated in the pre-existing crack direction, forming a shear rupture plane inside the specimens. The paths of fracturing inside the specimens were observed using the Computerized Tomography (CT) scanning and reconstruction.


Wind - Photovoltaic Hybrid System utilization is becoming popular day by day given to its reliable energy resources, decreasing prices of turbines and PV panels and increase in overall energy cost and reduced emission. Design and scheduling of such a hybrid system can be done using various techniques like genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, etc. One of the major difficulties in these methods is the premature convergence. This paper presents a new improved particle swarm optimization technique to avoid premature convergence while optimizing the overall cost of energy of a hybrid power system. The system under consideration consists of a wind turbine, a Photovoltaic Generator, a diesel generator and a battery bank. The results obtained by the proposed method are compared with an iterative method. It is found that the proposed method can produce superior results.


Private distributed ledgers (DLs) appear to be more successful than public blockchains at supporting innovative business ecosystems in the form of enterprise consortia. In fact, by untying transactions from the native cryptocurrencies of public blockchains, consortium DLs can smoothly interface with the various sectors of the traditional economy with the capability to innovate it. Furthermore, eliminating mining greatly increases the computational efficiency of these technologies compared to public blockchains. So far, consortium DLs have been used primarily for traceability and document management. Now the time is ripe to move forward, impacting business and profitability. We describe here a consortium model based on distributed ledger technology that applies the old principle that "unity is strength" by deploying the economic method of Revenue Sharing as a smart contract. We illustrate the model through a prototype implementation on Hyperledger Fabric, the most widely adopted among the platforms for consortium distributed ledgers.


Camelina ( Camelina sativa L.) is an oilseed with potential for use as a raw material in second-generation biofuels. Camelina has a seed yield of up to 2380 kg·ha −1 and contains around 45% fatty acids. Selection of a suitable site is critical for production optimization. The objective of this study was to determine Chilean agro-climatic suitability for establishing camelina as a productive alternative. Climate and soil requirements and geographical restraints were evaluated for the species, considering the climatological characteristics of its regions of origin, as well as regions where camelina is successfully grown in the rest of the world. The variables considered included factors (maximum temperatures of the warmest month, water deficits, and degree days) and limitations (altitude, geomorphology, and current land use), which permitted the evaluation of the national territory for a certain level of suitability. It was determined that 1.3% of the national territory (960,664 ha) has some degree of suitability for camelina adoption. Between the Biobio and Los Lagos regions, 49.0% of the land (471,203 ha) is in the category of no thermic restrictions, with mild water restrictions, and mild soil restrictions or without information, which can be used for camelina production. The Los Rios region has 21.4% surface area (321,176 ha) with some level of suitability for camelina, the most suitable region to establish this crop in Chile. This research has provided valuable information applicable to new species and geographic areas which facilitate the adaptation of agricultural and forestry production to global changes.


In the paper, the authors present unified generalizations for the Bell numbers and polynomials, establish explicit formulas and inversion formulas for these generalizations in terms of the Stirling numbers of the first and second kinds with the help of the Faà di Bruno formula, properties of the Bell polynomials of the second kind, and the inversion theorem connected with the Stirling numbers of the first and second kinds, construct determinantal and product inequalities for these generalizations with aid of properties of the completely monotonic functions, and derive the logarithmic convexity for the sequence of these generalizations. E-mail addresses: email@example.com, email@example.com, email@example.com, email@example.com, email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 11B83; Secondary 11A25, 11B73, 11C08, 11C20, 15A15, 26A24, 26A48, 26C05, 26D05, 33B10, 34A05.


Electrical characterization results of fine pitch flip chip interconnections, called microjoins, using a silicon carrier are reported. Microjoins with 50 /spl mu/m diameter, 100 /spl mu/m pitch are assembled onto a silicon carrier and characterized up to 40 GHz using transmission line test macros. Time and frequency domain measurements of a single 50 /spl mu/m diameter microjoin give 6 ps delay and less than -0.5 dB transmission losses up to 40 GHz.


Sea water must be undersaturated for chemical solution of calcium carbonate to occur. A practical criterion for undersaturation is shown to be (Ca2+) (CO32-) < K'SP, where K'SP is the apparent (stoichiometric) solubility product. The calculations used in conjunction with this rule are outlined. The factors which affect K'SP are examined. These factors are temperature, salinity, pressure, crystal structure, mineral composition, particle size, adsorption of ions such as magnesium, chelation, and formation of ion pairs. The ion concentration product is affected by temperature, pressure, salinity, solution and precipitation of carbonates, and changes in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide. Oceanic data that reflect the effects of many of these factors are presented. Possible effects of the degree of saturation and of turbulence on the rate of solution of calcium carbonate are examined.


The practice of media literacy education have indicated that upgrading teenagers' positive motivation is the first requirement to boost the educational effect in China.In this paper,the purpose is based on ARCS inspirit strategy to analyse how to improve media literacy into teenagers' spontaneous demand and the consciousness of societal responsibility,probing into actualize the various inspirit strategies in phases of teenagers' media education.


The paper studies the Huzhou writing brush culture from four aspects: the development history of the Huzhou writing brush,brush-making crafts and calligraphers,painters and brush-making workers,and the inheritance of the Huzhou writing brush culture and its popularization,analyzes the tourism value of the Huzhou writing brush culture from tour resources,i.e.tourism market,city image and tourism souvenirs and finally propose the strategies of tourism development: developing tourism resources and increasing new scenic spots,employing the Huzhou writing brush culture tourism resources with other tourism resources,raising the effect of the international Huzhou writing brush culture festival,enhancing the innovation and protection of the Huzhou writing brush culture.


Home-based counseling is increasingly an alternative mode of providing counseling services for children and families, reduces barriers to accessing traditional counseling services, and has also been shown to be effective. As such, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and describe the competencies needed to provide such counseling services. This study yielded five categories of competencies—necessary knowledge sets, case conceptualization, counseling behaviors, flexibility in session, and professional dispositions and behaviors. We also outline implications for counseling practice, counselor education, and public policy.


✔ A 67 year-old woman presented with pronounced headache and vomiting that had progressed over one week. One year ago, she had been diagnosed as having multiple myeloma and had been treated with first-line chemotherapy. Her physical examination revealed marked left-sided hemi-paresis. On magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, a right-sided mass lesion that appeared to originate from the meninges was associated with intense oedema that resulted in shift of midline structures. The presumptive diagnosis of a convexity meningioma was made. The patient under-went an emergency craniotomy with resection of the mass lesion and was diagnosed as having an intracranial plasmacytoma. The decision was made to proceed with radiation therapy. In the inte-rim, the patient was diagnosed as having relapsed multiple myeloma and was treated with second-line chemotherapy accordingly. She was alive at the follow-up visit one year following surgery.


It is important to check the calculation accuracy of the simulation model when calculating sound propagation loss in the ocean. Conventionally, simulation of propagation loss has often been calculated for ranges shorter than several hundred km. In such cases, the result has been compared with a benchmark or standard result, for example those obtained by the normal mode method. However, a benchmark result is not available for long-range propagations exceeding 1000 km. Furthermore, it is difficult to make the range interval of calculation into a wavelength using the normal mode method. The parabolic equation (PE) method must have the calculation interval set shorter than the wavelength. Therefore, it is difficult to compare the results of the normal mode method and the PE method in the same calculation environment. On the other hand, with the PE method it is known that the error of division decreases when the calculation step size is set to small. However, the calculation time increases according to the reduction of calculation step size. Thus, we propose a calculation step size that is most suitable for megarange propagation simulation using the PE method.


Computational evacuation modelling as a part of approval procedures or design processes is sometimes concerned with vulnerable people requiring special attention. This vulnerability can be based on external circumstances or on individual characteristics. Microscopic methods are well suited to deal with such specific determinants by their ability to model individual movement and certain behavioural aspects. By reference to case studies the possibilities of up-to-date individual evacuation models to cover egress scenarios including vulnerable people are discussed. The selected examples demonstrate that the evacuation of vulnerable people often depends more on the modelling of individual behaviour rather than on a very detailed description of individual characteristics. Group formation and the guidance or assistance of other people will have a strong impact on the evacuation process and thus require special modelling techniques and respective calibration and validation efforts guided by empirical studies.


CONCRETE PAINTS FAIL PRINCIPALLY BY SCALING DUE TO LOSS OF ADHESION BETWEEN THE POINT FILM AND THE CONCRETE IN THE PRESENCE OF WATER. THE WATER COMES UP FROM THE MOIST SOIL BENEATH THE PAVEMENT, CARRYING SOLUBLE SALTS WITH IT, WHICH ARE DEPOSITED UPON EVAPORATION OF THE WATER AT THE CONCRETE SURFACE. THE PAINT FILM OFFERS RESISTANCE TO THE PASSAGE OF THE WATER VAPOR AND TO THE GROWTH OF THE SALT CRYSTALS, AND THE RESULTING FORCES MAY BREAK THE BOND BETWEEN POINT AND CONCRETE, PERHAPS DISINTEGRATING THE SURFACE OF THE CONCRETE ITSELF. THERMOSETTING AND THERMOPLASTIC SYNTHETIC RESIN PAINTS HAVE FAR BETTER WATER, ALKALI, AND ABRASION RESISTANCE THAN STANDARD PAINTS. /AUTHOR/


Software transactional memory is a new technology for simplifying the design of parallel programs.To reduce the frequency of collisions in software transactional memory and improve system performance,a dynamic contention management strategy based on queue schedule is presented.The definition of contention intension is given,based on which the dynamic contention intension adjustment method is established by means of feedback information from runtime environment design method and implementation details are also given,which can avoid the happening of the same collision by serializing the transactions that have highest probability of collision.The correctness and practicability of algorithm is proved by experimental results.


HE editor has requested "retrospection and evaluation" from historians "who entered our profession during the first half of the century." My position in that company is somewhat anomalous. Though I have been teaching since I 94I, at every rung of the ladder from ninth grade through postdoctoral (including high school, prep school, ag school, teachers college, art school, liberal arts college, university, and research center), I did not settle down to specialization in history until shortly before i965. Unlike most of my colleagues, at forty-five years of age I was a "senior scholar" in one sense when I began. Until that time, and for several years beyond, my miscellaneous classroom authority embraced English composition, sociology, political thought, and logic, as well as some ephemera that have mercifully faded out of memory. And history, of course-any history that required a warm body to fulfill the catalog's promise. This sort of background is enlightening, but it does not prepare one for comparison of historical scholarship, past and present. What is learned from so knockabout an alternative to the standard academic progression is likely to be an alternative to the standard wisdom. A colleague recently compared it to riding with the Indians outside the ring of covered wagons. Experience outside the hallowed halls skewed the alternative further. I came of age during the Depression of the thirties and heard much of prosperity being just around the corner, which for my family was a distance away. Supported beyond reason by my family, I won partial scholarships and worked and borrowed through college without showing conspicuous scholarly merit, spent three educational years as a noncom in World War II, and helped my mate to rear three children part way before going to graduate school, courtesy of the GI Bill and the mate. Deeply smitten by Marxism in my youth, I was battered out of it before entering graduate studies, but not before experiencing newspaper accounts of events in which I had participated, of which the publishers did not approve. The discrepancy between the accounts and my personal observations enhanced a natural tendency toward skepticism. This tendency was later strengthened by the realization of how powerfully the Marxist ideology had obscured facts that stood contradictory to it, just as the free enterprise ideology had put nonexistent chickens in imaginary pots. It began to seem that all information, from whatever source, was unreliable. That feeling did not lessen when came the cold war, scientific and governmental assurance that atomic fallout was as healthy as corn flakes, the rise of Richard Nixon, the refulgence of Joseph McCarthy, and the


In this paper we present a new industry-level database to analyze sources of growth in four major European countries: France, Germany, Netherlands and the United Kingdom (EU-4), in comparison with the United States for the period 1979-2000. Aggregate labor productivity growth is decomposed into industry-level contributions of labor quality, ICT and non-ICT capital deepening and TFP. A small set of service industries is mainly responsible for the acceleration in ICT capital deepening in both regions, but their contribution to growth is lower in the EU-4 than in the U.S. TFP in these ICT-intensive services accelerated in the U.S. in the 1990s, but not in Europe. In addition, widespread deceleration in non-ICT capital deepening in the EU-4 has led to a European labor productivity slowdown.


ABSTRACT Examination of the policy implications of the Development chapter of the Canadian government's 2005 International Policy Statement through a specific focus on Canadian development assistance to Latin America. An analysis of the IPS through the regional lens of the Americas raises important questions about broader aspects of Canadian aid, including the Canadian International Development Agency's failure to explicitly address economic inequality within developing countries, the extent to which aid allocation remains closely linked to foreign policy interests, and the ways in which CIDA conceptualizes both development assistance and developing countries.


For entrepreneurs in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe, franchising presents an opportunity to develop a start-up business with the assistance of an international firm. However, emerging markets are demanding environments for establishing and operating a business. These environments challenge the ability of franchisors to transfer their franchise concept from their home market to the emerging market. This case focuses on the evolution of "American Restaurant Format" (ARF), one of the few franchise restaurant operators in Central and Eastern Europe. Notwithstanding the challenges of the Polish market, the case shows that most of ARF's problems were self-inflicted, the result of poor judgment and an inflexible franchise organization.


Objective To study preliminarily in vitro induced differentiation of embryonic stem cells into neurons for further investigation of an alternative for the treatment of glaumatous neuropathy. Methods Supernatant of cultured Buffalo rat liver cells(buffalo rat liver cell\|conditioned medium,BRL\|CM) was used for culturing embryonic stem cells(ES\|D3 cell line).Morphological features of undifferentiated ES cells were studied by HE staining and electron microscopy.Based on the methods used by Bain et al,we modified the methods and used retinoic acid(RA) as an inducer to differentiate ES\|D3 cells and cytosine arabinoside(Ara C) as inhibitor of proliferative cells.The growth of the cells was observed under phase contrast microscope. Results ES\|D3 cells cultured by BRL\|CM grew in aggregates and remained undifferentiated.Electron microscopy showed large nucleus and large amount of mitochondria in undifferentiated ES cells and many processes on the surfaces.On the first day after the adding of retinoic acid,some neuron\|like cells with one,two or more processes were present.On the second day after adding RA and the first day after the plus of 10μmol/L Ara C,large amount of neuron\|like cells appeared,with the formation of neuron\|like networks. Conclusions Our present preliminary study might provide insights into an alternative for the treatment of glaucomatous neuropathy by the transplantation of embryonic stem cells if combined with our former in vivo study of differentiation of embryonic stem cells into neuron\|like cells in nude mice.


Modelling languages are intensively used in paradigms like model-driven engineering to automate all tasks of the development process. These languages may have variants, in which case the need arises to deal with language families rather than with individual languages. However, specifying the syntax and semantics of each language variant separately is costly, hinders reuse across variants, and may yield inconsistent semantics between variants. To attack this problem, we propose a novel, modular way to describe product lines of modelling languages. Our approach is compositional, enabling the incremental definition of language families by means of modules comprising meta-model fragments, graph transformation rules, and rule extensions. Language variants are configured by selecting the desired modules, which entails the composition of a language meta-model and a set of rules defining its semantics. This paper describes a theory able to check consistent semantics among all languages within the family, an implementation as an Eclipse plugin, and an evaluation reporting drastic specification size reduction w.r.t. an enumerative approach.


This report outlines the findings of the 2002-2003 London and Skills Research Network Regional Research Project. It is based on the project team's findings from the analysis of data collected on views of part-time staff respondents in a survey of colleges and adult education providers.


Colleges expansion policy's exsistence keep reasonble and bring positive impact on the development of higher education and social. Howerver, colleges expansion policy has brought many problems. We will have a comprehensive understanding from the view of public policy process.


This paper addresses the question of how to measure the performance of mobile robot localisation systems. A general performance metric and a standard experimental procedure are introduced, where no semantic interpretation of the robot's internal world model is required. A novel mechanism for tracking the \true" location of the robot is also presented. Together, these methods facilitate the comparison of disparate localisation systems on the same robot in the same environment, and also the replication of such experiments by other researchers. To demonstrate the utility of the approach taken, three diierent localisation systems are compared using the same data collected by a real robot travelling over a route of 175m.


In this paper, we propose a method called the iterated estimation of kernel and error (KE estimation) to find the maximum-likelihood (ML) estimate of the error-diffusion (ED) kernel for halftones. The KE estimation consists mainly of iterated bound-constrained least squares (BLS). The KE-estimated kernel avoids the difficulty of regulating the control parameter in the previous least-mean-square (LMS) method. Most importantly, our method also guarantees the two characteristics of ED kernel: every kernel coefficient falls in the range [0,1] and the total of all coefficients must be one. The experimental results show that using the KE estimation to estimate kernel for the halftones generated from an ED process is very effective. The estimate progressively increases its accuracy as the number of iterations increases


Internet has been the largest transforming technology ever to hit the business or social life of man. The paper makes an attempt to consolidate and study the various pricing strategies the internet service providers adopt, for the distribution of the same. The paper also proposes a model which may be used to understand when an user will have the incentive to switch from a low service requirement (e.g. dial up connection) to a higher service requirement (e.g. broadband connection).


At present, the smartphone is equipped with several sensors such as Accelerometer, Gravity sensor, and Gyroscope which can be used to recognize human physical activities such as walking upstair and walking downstairs etc. Machine learning is needed to group data and get information. Statistical methods have poor performance in classifying because procedures must be met. To overcome this, an ensemble technique was used. This study proposes the application of the gradientboost ensemble method to classify walking upstair and walking downstairs. The Android-based.apk system is designed for data retrieval using a smartphone. Then, the dataset will be partitioned into 70% training data and 30% test data. The results show that the performance of the ensemble boosting method produces 81.82% accuracy, 86.11% sensitivity and 77.50% specificity.


Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) are well established treatments offered in the sub-fertile couple. As a
consequence, obstetricians increasingly have to manage high risk pregnancies without any formal guidelines to
follow. We carried out a retrospective cohort study to evaluate the risks of ART using data from 11875 women (11326
spontaneously conceived pregnancies and 549 using ART) in order to propose a policy to better manage them
antenatally. Outcome measures included induction of labour, method of and gestation at delivery, gestational diabetes
mellitus, and small for gestational age, anal sphincter injury, post-partum haemorrhage and neonatal morbidity and
mortality. The ART group had higher rates of gestational diabetes mellitus (18.9% vs 9.4%, P <0.0001), small for
gestational age (9.1% vs 5.6%, P=0.001), instrumental delivery (19.6 vs 11.8%, P<0.0001), emergency caesarean
section (26.8% vs 15%, P<0.0001) and post-partum haemorrhage >1500mL (6.9% vs 3%, P<0.0001). Lower
Apgar scores (2.6% vs 1.4%, P=0.03) and admission to neonatal unit were more likely in the ART group (10.2% vs
5.4%, P<0.0001). Our results suggest that antenatal monitoring for gestational diabetes mellitus and fetal growth,
appropriate counselling regarding mode and timing of delivery and active management of 3rd stage of labour, are
essential when managing high risk ART pregnancies.


The conditions of futuristic style have been investigated. The character traits of futuristic style have been reviewed in interior design. The foreign and domestic examples of futurism hotel complexes have been studied. The concept of a futuristic interior design of the hotel has been created in Kiev.


This invention relates to one nuclear power station with low smoke without chimney cable insulation protection materials, which uses ethene-vinyl acetate polymer or silicon resin as base resin interfacing polyolefin, wherein, it uses aluminum hydroxide, magnesium hydrate, earth silicon or silicon resin as combustion inhibitor with aid of antiager, photographic sensitizer and process aid agent; the sensitizer is for cyanoacrylate, 1,1,1-trimethylolpropane methyl methacrylate, organic silicon resin, phenylene silica gel or formaldehyde-phenol resin; The aid process agent is for aliphatic acid salt and organic silicon.


The objective of this work is to present an overview of how research on Municipal Councils of Education has been developed in Brazil. This is a review study that had as its initial reference Souza and Vasconcelos's (2006) article, which addressed the production regarding the Councils related to Education from 1996 to 2002. This research, in turn, covers a broader period and was carried out based on the survey of Doctoral dissertations and Master's theses available in the Catalog of Dissertations and Theses and Open Data of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - CAPES. Altogether, 111 dissertations and theses were identified across the country, defended between 1998 and 2019, with the highest concentration of research being observed in the Southeast region. The theoretical and methodological framework included discussions by authors such as: Cury (2004), Bordignon (2009), Mainardes (2018, 2021), Gil (2019), among others. It was verified that the production around this theme has grown over the years, with a predominance of case studies, in which the specific aspects of the Municipal Councils of Education are analyzed and how they act in the face of educational demands, denoting special interest of researchers about democratic management, participatory democracy and representativeness in the Municipal Councils of Education. At the end of this text, the systematization of the survey carried out is presented, with the works organized in 19 categories.


In recent decades, indoor positioning techniques have been researched to support automatic guidance for visitors in public buildings such as museums, galleries, etc. The exhibition goods nearby could be introduced by a smartphone after the location of the visitor has been acquired. This paper presents an indoor positioning scheme utilizing smartphones equipped with inertial and magnetic sensors. The positioning method could handle complicated human motion and various ways to hold the phone. This is achieved by applying an improved Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) algorithm and an error-tolerant magnetic map matching algorithm. The improved PDR algorithm estimates walking distances and direction in real time. As long as the user stops to appreciate showpieces, the improved PDR component will report relevant data to magnetic calibration component. Based on the updated information, the final location of the user could be calculated utilizing the relevant data, the real-time data of magnetic field sensor and the magnetic map acquired in advance. We evaluate this method using experimental measurements in practice.


In addition to meeting these criteria, the Committee is seeking projects that develop a module that have any of the following characteristics: • Innovative and challenging for you to develop it and for your students to complete it. It goes beyond a traditional assignment, such as a research paper or an oral presentation. • Uses new technologies such as Web tutorials, chat software, instant messaging. • Addresses a unique population of students, e.g. distance, developmental, or any student group that is not usually expected to acquire information literacy skills for a course or program. • Used for a new course or program. • Emphasizes a particular skill or concept, such as the critical thinking abilities needed to evaluate Web sites.


Sang Hyun Hong, M.D., Jae Min Lee, M.D., Chong Min Park, M.D., Hue Jung Park, M.D., Joon Pyo Jeon, M.D., Mi Ran Yu, M.D., and Yoon Ki Lee, M.D.Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea Background: Quality of recovery, assessed by patients, is related to patients' satisfaction, and even to quality of life. Of numerous patient-based measures to evaluate the quality of recovery, a '40-item-quality of recovery (QoR-40)' has proved to be valid and reliable. Using this questionnaire, we evaluated the quality of recovery in the gynecological patients and tried to identify factors affecting the quality of recovery. Methods: Patients undergoing gynecological surgery were asked to fill a questionnaire 8 to 9 p.m the day after the completion of anesthesia. Questionnaires were prepared after translation to Korean from 40-item-quality of recovery. From the anesthetic and recovery room records we collected data about patient's age, surgery types, anesthetic and surgical duration, recovery room stay, main anesthetic agents, and recovery room complications. Results: A total of 383 patients completed the questionnaires. Patients aged under 40 got significantly lower QoR-40 scores than those aged over 40, especially in the dimension of pain (P < 0.05). Patients who had undergone laparoscopic surgery got higher scores than those had undergone non-laparoscopic surgery (P < 0.05). Patients who answered the questionnaires in more than 30 hours after the completion of anesthesia showed lower total scores than those who did in less than 30 hours, especially in the dimensions of emotional state and pain (P < 0.05). Conclusions: In gynecological patients, laparoscopic surgery improved quality of recovery. Quality of recovery was affected by age and survey time. Postoperative pain contributed to the decrease of the quality of recovery. (Korean J Anesthesiol 2008; 54: 531~7)


Antiferromagnetic and metal to insulator transitions in the ground state of two-dimensional half-filled and nearly half-filled Hubbard models with the nearest neighbor and the second nearest neighbor transfers (- t and t ′ , respectively) are studied by using the Green's function approach with the self-energy up to the second order in the coupling constant U . For a choice of the parameter value t ′ / t =0.2 the half-filled model undergoes the first order phase transition between paramagnetic metallic (PM) phase and antiferromagnetic insulator (AFI) phase at U / t =4.0 while the first order transition between PM and antiferromagnetic metallic (AFM) phases takes place for nearly half-filled band. The one-electron spectral density is calculated for the PM, AFM, and AFI phases near the phase boundaries. In the PM phase the quasi-particle dispersion indicates the band narrowing from the Hartree-Fock results and the flat band behavior as was indicated by previous stadies and was observed in high- T c cuprates....


Using high-resolution in situ data from gliders, satellite data of sea level anomaly and geostrophic currents, we presented the detailed structure of an anticyclonic eddy during spring 2015 in the northern South China Sea. The impact depth of the anticyclonic eddy reached about 1000 m and had a maximum temperature anomaly of about 3°C at ∼120 m and maximum salinity anomaly of more than 0.3 psu in the mixed layer. The maximum geostrophic velocities perpendicular to the glider path were about 0.3 m s−1 at 100 m. The estimated radius was about 72 km and the translation velocity was about 5.2 cm s−1. The rotational speed of the eddy was estimated to be 0.35 m s−1. The high temperature and large salinity of the anticyclonic eddy indicated it did not originate from the South China Sea locally. The analysis of water mass indicated the character of the eddy water was similar to Kuroshio water, and the time evolution of the sea level anomaly and surface geostrophic velocity anomaly further validated that it originated from the Kuroshio intrusion as a loop current to the southwest of Taiwan.


Civics education in the new paradigm applies the student-active learning approach that leads activities in the class to the student-active learning and inquiry approach, and involves the students in the process of solving problems and making generalizations. Such learning is in line with jurisprudential learning inquiry strategy that emphasizes the way of solving problems by asking question, debate, and argumentation. Through this learning strategy, students are led to think structurally through debates and discussions to pursue their stance on contemporary issues. The issues learned in civics education in Indonesia are the real fact, and as such aims to bridge between students' prior knowledge and the implementation. It is suggested that teachers of civics education must facilitate their students in the class by leading them to solving the problems. It is the teachers' task to facilitate students and give them room for creating their ideas. All in all, the learning of civics education through jurisprudential inquiry learning strategy on the basis of contextual teaching and learning is discussed.


Dam break can cause disastrous consequences to natural,economic,and social systems in the downstream area.Analysis of vulnerability to dam-break disaster helps develop measures of mitigating disaster losses.This paper presents a quantitative method for evaluating vulnerability of dam-break disaster based on data envelopment analysis method with the downstream area of Huaxi dam as an example.Results show that Xiaohe District and Nanming District have high vulnerability,Huaxi District has middle vulnerability,and Yunyan District has low vulnerability in the study area.The study also provides some reference values for developing measures of mitigating disaster losses.


Abstract : The problem of the rigorous approximation of the capacity C of a closed surface is considered. By rigorous approximation the author means methods capable to give lower and upper bounds arbitrarily close to C. First of all a proper existence theorem is given for the potential functions, which considers general surfaces with edges and corners. Then several methods for giving lower and upper bounds to C are considered and all of them are mathematically justified. In the last part of the paper the numerical applications of the above methods in the case of a cube are exhibited. The author obtains the best lower and upper bounds, up to day known, for the capacity C of a cube of side 1 0.6534 < C < 0.6659. (Author)


Zero-knowledge (ZK) proof [GMR85] is a cryptographic technique where a prover P convinces a verifier V that a certain statement holds without revealing any other information. This can be done as an interactive protocol between P and V but in practice it is often convenient if the protocol is non-interactive (NIZK), meaning that P will send a single message π to V who then verifies it. This has the additional benefit that π can be verified by anyone, not just a designated V.


Objective:To investigate the status of insulin resistance in hypertensive patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome(OSAHS).Methods:Data on clinical features and biochemical measurements were retrospectively analyzed in93 hypertensive patients.These patients were then divided into OSAHS group(n=42)and non-OSAHS group(n=51)according to polysomnograph(PSG)findings.Results:(1)Body weight,body mass index(MBI),neck,waist and hip circumferences,waist-hip ratio,and systolic blood pressure were higher in OSAHS group than in nonOSAHS group.Patients with OSAHS also had significantly higher levels of fasting plasma glucose(FPG),2-hour plasma glucose(2HPG),fasting insulin(FIns) and insulin resistance index(HOMAIR) total cholesterol(TC),triglyceride(TG),and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol(LDL-C)(all P 0.05).(2) Frequency and duration of apnea-hypopnea,apnea-hypopnea index(AHI),mean nocturnal oxygen saturation,total rate and duration of oxygen saturation 90%,and the percentage of oxygen saturation90% during sleep were greatly increased in OSAHS group compared with non-OSHAS group(all P0.01).(3) Insulin resistance correlated positively with TC,TG,FIns,FPG,2hPG,body weight,BMI,neck,waist and hip circumferences,waist-hip ratio,AHI,frequency and duration of apnea-hypopnea,and total reate and duration of oxygen saturation90%,but were inversely related to mean nocturnal oxygen saturation.(4) Multiple linear stepwise regression analysis showed that FIns,FPG,waist circumference and AHI(duration of apnea-hypopnea) were independent factors for insulin resistance.Conclusion : Abnormal glucose metabolism and nocturnal hypoxia may be implicated in the development of insulin resistance for hypertensive patients with OSAHS.


Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is one of the alternative candidate polymer hosts to form solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) besides the widely used poly(ethylene oxide). However, over 3 orders of magnitude of discrepancy in ionic conductivity has been reported in PAN-based SPEs, in both the low salt concentration and the high salt concentration regimes. This discrepancy originates from different film processing conditions. In this study, we rigorously examine how processing conditions, including solution mixing, casting, and drying conditions affect the morphology, ion transport, solvation structure, Li and oxidative stability of PAN based electrolytes. It is found that the ion transport, lithium stability and the oxidative stability of PAN-based SPEs are critically dependent on the residual dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent content. We systematically study four different drying conditions and the resulting residual solvent is quantified by infrared spectroscopy. We demonstrate that conductivity variation across 5 orders of magnitude can be obtained depending on the drying conditions. Furthermore, the effects of residual DMF solvent on the ion transport mechanism, stability against lithium and the oxidative stability are elucidated. This thorough study lays the groundwork for future development of PAN based electrolytes.


Present study involves the design and optimization of oral bioadhesive delivery system of curcumin. Solid dispersion of curcumin was developed using novel hydrophilic carrier, Gelucire® 50/13, by melt granulation technique. Based on HPMC K 100 LV(X1) and carbopol 934P (X2), bio-adhesive tablets containing curcumin solid dispersion was developed by direct compression, using central composite designs for two factors at three levels. Tablet formulation was optimized for t50%, Rel24h and bioadhesive strength. The drug release mechanism was found to be by fickian diffusion, approaching zero-order kinetics. Average plasma uptake of curcumin was found to be 0.289μg/mL as compared to plain curcumin tablet formulation. The results were found highly significant (p<0.05). The swelling matrices behavior over the time period studied showed that the gelling layer thickness increases continuously. From this study, it may be concluded that the oral controlled bioadhesive curcumin delivery may be an alternative to parenteral chemotherapy.


It was studied the influence of the land-sea breese on the duration of relative humidity equal to or higher than 90% (NHUR > 90%) inside two adult rubber tree plantations [Hevea brasiliensis (Willd. ex Adr. de Juss) Muell Arg.]: one located near the shore (800 m) and other approximately 5,000 m away. It was found a significant reduction of NHUR > 90% in the plantation near the shore. This reduction was even more evident in clear nights, without rainfall effect. It is assumed that the advection of land-sea breese interferes at the starting and final moments of the humidity saturation, decreasing the leaf wettness duration period.


In this study we have treated the issue of Herniated Disc (HD) that is part of the group of degenerative spinal cord diseases that are quite common. HD is a muscusceletal disorder responsible for sciatica and occurs due to rupture of the annulus fibrosis, following the displacement of the central mass of the intervertebral disc into the dorsal disc spaces. The age of the effected population is average about 30 to 50 years, with percentage of male and female in average but that depends on many factors such as working environment, weight, physical activity, smoking, etc. Treatment of this pathology we did with physical therapy modalities. Patient that were treated achieved excellent results from a severe condition such as HD, managed to be back at work without functional obstacles. This study presents the connection between patient and physical therapist in achieving desirable results.Material and methods: an anonymous inquiry was conducted after examination of 100 patients in our clinics in Ferizaj and Pristina. Patients that came were with diagnoses and some of them we have diagnosed too, with typical HD. Also the patients received second questionnaire to verify their after treatment improvement.Results and discussion: Results achieved in this study were remarkable. From 100 patients that we had in study, 90 had max results, 6 had average results and 4 of them left treatment. It was proven that electrotherapy, sonotherapy, Tecartherapy, exerciser, osteopathy, light analgesics and home education such as exercise and right posture are crucial for achieving results.


Any periodic trajectory on an isosceles triangle gives rise to a periodic trajectory on a right triangle obtained by identifying the halves of the original triangle. We examine the relationship between periodic trajectories on isosceles triangles and the trajectories on right triangles obtained in this manner, and the consequences of this relationship for the existence of stable trajectories on isosceles triangles and the properties of their orbit tiles.


In circulation, platelets adhere to leukocytes forming relatively stable complexes that have been reported to be elevated in cases of unstable angina, myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, and postangioplasty restenosis.1–10 For this reason, measurement of circulating platelet-leukocyte complexes has been proposed as an early and accurate marker of in vivo platelet activation and myocardial injury after infarction.9,10 Increased levels of such complexes have also been noted in a range of chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, end-stage renal failure, type I diabetes, and systemic lupus erythematosus.11–13

In the majority of published studies that have examined platelet-monocyte or platelet-polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocyte complexes in human peripheral venous blood, sodium citrate (0.32 to 0.38%), a calcium-depleting agent, has been used as the blood anticoagulant. Because platelet adhesion to leukocytes is predominantly mediated by calcium-dependent interactions between platelet P-selectin and its leukocyte counter-receptor, P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1),14 we aimed to determine whether calcium depletion by sodium citrate could affect …


TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE HOUSING AND FORECLOSURE BOOM II. FUNDAMENTALS OF PROPERTY OWNERSHIP A. Mortgages 1. Recourse Lending 2. Nonrecourse Lending B. Foreclosures C. Statutory Right of Redemption III. INCOME AND THE STATUTORY RIGHT OF REDEMPTION A. Income B. Basis and Debt C. Statutory Redemption's Effect on Income 1. Recourse Scenarios 2. Nonrecourse Scenarios 3. Income Recognition IV. DEPRECIATION AND THE STATUTORY RIGHT OF REDEMPTION A. "Breaking the Chain" B. "Bridging the Gap". C. Bridging the Gap over Breaking the Chain CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION In November of 2001, the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared the U.S. economy in recession. (1) To counter this lull and restore strength to a struggling economy, the Federal Reserve began a series of interest rate reductions (2) that would lead to the lowest mortgage lending rates in forty years. (3) Almost immediately, the housing market responded. From 2002 to 2005, the U.S. economy moved from recession to expansion, sustained primarily with the aid of a housing boom. (4) It is no secret that market conditions over the past five years have made it easier than ever to own a home. (5) What is not so well known is that these same conditions have also compounded the problem of foreclosures. In recent years, foreclosure rates have increased dramatically. (6) But, should the housing market contract, or in other words, should the proverbial housing bubble burst, (7) foreclosures could reach record levels. (8) With foreclosures come statutory redemptions. The statutory right of redemption allows a borrower who lost her home at foreclosure to buy back her home within an allotted period of time, which ranges from thirty days to two years depending on the state redemption statute. (9) Because conditions are primed for a foreclosure boom, the need to address statutory redemptions is both relevant and timely. This Note looks at one unaddressed aspect of statutory redemptions, namely the tax consequences and treatment of property redeemed after foreclosure. More specifically, this Note focuses on statutory redemption's effect on income, income recognition, and depreciation. Part I will begin by discussing the housing market and the factors that have contributed to the current state of foreclosures. Part II will then provide a background of those principles relevant to property ownership and taxation, including mortgages, foreclosures, and the statutory right of redemption. Part III will discuss the effect of the statutory right of redemption on income as it applies to taxation. Part III will also address the element of income recognition, focusing on when income arising from the discharge of indebtedness as a result of statutory redemption should be recognized. Part IV will then analyze the effect of the statutory right of redemption on property depreciation. Part IV's analysis will first address the arguments for "breaking the chain" of depreciation in statutory redemptions, then address the arguments for "bridging the gap" in such depreciation, and finally conclude that "bridging the gap" should be preferred over "breaking the chain." To help illustrate the principles discussed herein, this Note will use the following hypothetical as a reference throughout the text: Borrower (B) buys a house from Seller (S) for $100,000; and B finances the purchase through Lender (L) who loans B $90,000, with B using her own money to pay the remaining $10,000. (10) I. THE HOUSING AND FORECLOSURE BOOM Low interest rates over the past five years have resulted in a boom in both the housing and lending industries. (11) Borrowers have taken advantage of low rates by purchasing homes at record pace, by refinancing, by taking out home equity loans, and by purchasing additional properties as investments. …


It is a much publicised and acceptedfact that the health of the nation has Improved In the present century. A growing social conscience which has demandedcertain standards,especiallyfor children; the stimulus of two major wars, which hasdrawn attention to nutrition; the developmentof methodsof preventing Infection and of more rapid and successful treatment have all contributed to the raising of health standards. Progress,however, has been mainly in physical health, and there is increasingawarenessof the importanceof social, emotional, and even economic conditions which influence the developmentof the individual person Into a fully balancedand healthy personality.


The article provides an overview of the Hungarian and the international market of press monitoring from the point of view of specific user needs, listing the most important for-profit and free of charge providers and presenting their services. The market convergence and new development trends are demonstrated with concrete examples. The article also deals with the legislation of press monitoring, and includes a glossary as well as a brief history of press monitoring.


ABSTRACT Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We assess the safety and tolerability of adoptive transfer of autologous cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) specific for the EBV latent membrane protein (LMP) in a patient with recurrent NPC. After infusion, the majority of pulmonary lesions were no longer evident, although the primary tumor did not regress.


Abstract : The equation stated in the abstract describes the expansion of a gas in a one dimensional porous medium. While existence of weak solutions can be obtained by standard energy methods, not much was known about regularity of the solution near the free boundaries. The difficulty is that the equation degenerates at the boundary and the hyperbolic term becomes dominant. The authors show in this report that despite of the degeneracy the free boundary is smooth with the possible exception of a discontinuity in the derivative at the waiting time. Their method is based on energy estimates in weighted norms using some of the ideas in another document. Additional keywords: estimates, approximation(mathematics); finite difference theory; finite element analysis.


Serotonin (5‐HT) and its specific transporter, SERT play important roles in pregnancy. Using placentas dissected from 18d gestational SERT‐knock out (KO), peripheral 5‐HT (TPH1)‐KO, and wild‐type (WT) mice, we explored the role of 5‐HT and SERT in placental functions in detail. An abnormal thick band of fibrosis and necrosis under the giant cell layer in SERT‐KO placentas appeared only moderately in TPH1‐KO and minimally present in WT placentas. The majority of the changes were located at the junctional zone of the placentas in SERT. The etiology of these findings was tested with TUNEL assays. The placentas from SERT‐KO and TPH1‐KO showed 49‐ and 8‐fold increase in TUNEL‐positive cells without a concurrent change in the DNA repair or cell proliferation compared to WT placentas. While the proliferation rate in the embryos of TPH1‐KO mice was 16‐fold lower than the rate in gestational age matched embryos of WT or SERT‐KO mice. These findings highlight an important role of continuous 5‐HT signaling on trophoblast cell viability. SERT may contribute to protecting trophoblast cells against cell death via terminating the 5‐HT signaling which changes cell death ratio in trophoblast as well as proliferation rate in embryos. However, the cell death in SERT‐KO placentas is in caspase 3‐independent pathway.


Ag10Te4Br3 is the first compound of this substance class, where covalent interactions in the tellurium substructure led to the formation of Peierls distorted linear chains, responsible for a strong modulation of the electronic structure. This compound represents the first example within a series of pnp switching compounds, where the interplay of mobile ions, in combination with the attractive interactions, created by partially covalent-bonded anion substructures defines a new substance class of resistivity switching phases. Herein, we report on the partial substitution of mobile copper ions into the cation substructure of cation conducting Ag10Te4Br3. An X-ray powder phase analysis substantiated the continuous intake of copper in the title compound. Thermoanalytic investigations were performed to analyse the influence of two mobile species on the structural phase transitions of the polymorphic coinage metal (poly)telluride bromide.


Recent work exploring student reactions to the anthropology of development highlights the importance of going beyond simply imparting practical skills, or alternatively delivering content that offers an unrelenting critique (Djohari 2011; Handler 2013). In this paper, I argue that by casting an anthropological eye on the classroom, teachers can provide a learning environment in which students transform into reflective 'novice' practitioners equipped for lifelong learning. This involves making explicit the processes of knowledge construction in the classroom, and by extension, the development field. It entails providing the resources through which students can become social beings in the development sector, with attention to expanding the possibilities for the formation of multiple identities.


Background Reports in the literature on childhood orofacial neoplasms do not seem to agree on a prevalent pathology, with several authors expressing a divide on the prevalence of orofacial malignancies. Objective To review the relevant clinico-pathologic features of neoplasms of the orofacial region amongst children in a Nigerian population. Materials and method A 10 year retrospective clinico-histopathologic survey of orofacial neoplasms in children aged 14 years and below seen in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria. The cases of histologically-diagnosed orofacial neoplasms seen during the period were retrieved and analysed based on the following: age, sex, site of lesion and histopathological diagnosis. Histologically, these conditions were divided into benign odontogenic, benign non-odontogenic and malignant orofacial tumours. Data were analysed using SPSS for windows version 17.0. Results One hundred and fifty–two cases of histologicallydiagnosed orofacial neoplasms were reported over the ten year period. There was a male gender preponderance of 56.6%; with a male : female ratio of 1.3:1. A total of 57.2% of the cases reported were benign non odontogenic orofacial and 5.9% of all childhood orofacial neoplasms). Fibrous, osseous lesions; comprising ossifying fibroma and fibrous dysplasia were the most common childhood orofacial neoplasms reported. Conclusion Clinico-pathological characteristics in this series are similar to previous findings in scientific literature; with this study revealing a low prevalence of childhood orofacial malignancies in Nigerians. Key words: Childhood, orofacial, neoplasm.


[Objective]To compare the immediate therapeutic effects of the treatment of gluteal muscle constracture(GMC)with arthroscopic release of contractured tissue and conventional surgery.To investigate the indications of arthroscopic surgery.[Method]Ninty-six limbs of 48 patients with traditional surgery and 84 limbs of 42 patients with arthroscopic surgery were analyzed in terms of operation time,length of the incision,postoperative pain,complications,the time of exercise,postoperative hospital stay and one-year recurrence rate.[Result]Arthroscopic surgery group had smaller incisions,earlier exercise,less postoperative pain and shorter hospital stay than conventional surgery group,but the two groups showed no significant difference in operative time,complications,effects of operation and one-year recurrence rate.[Conclusion]Arthroscopic release of contracture tissue is a safe,effective,economical and cosmetic way to treat the gluteal muscle contracture.This method is worthy of wide promotion.


A new concept of vortex shedding suppression devices was developed with the aim of meeting the requirements of easy installation and low costs. A laboratory test program was undertaken to determine the device performance in terms of their capacity to reduce the level of vibration in both the cross-flow and in-line direction. During the tests, the device efficacy was verified for different incident angles between the flow direction and the pipe axis, and for increased velocities exciting the higher modes. The experimental results showed that the effectiveness of the new devices is comparable to traditional helical strakes. The performance of the new devices decreases for oblique flow and for velocities, where the higher modes lock-on, observations that may also apply to traditional suppression devices.


Random access signaling, which allows slotted packets to spill over into adjacent slots, is investigated. It is shown that sloppy-slotted ALOHA can always provide higher throughput than conventional slotted ALOHA. The degree of improvement depends on the timing error distribution. Throughput performance is presented for Gaussian timing error distributions, modified to include timing error corrections. A general channel capacity lower bound, independent of the specific timing error distribution, is also presented.


The maximum power point (MPP) of a Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) array varies with temperature and irradiation. Shadow of various objects falling on a certain portion of the SPV array causes partial shading condition (PSC) which results in the formation of hot spot. Thus, reducing the power (output) by 33% on a single cell in addition to the occurrence of various peaks on a P-V curve. To detect global maxima among the multiple peaks is a challenge for researchers. Hence, different Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) techniques are used to overcome this challenge. In this paper, the impact of partial shading on SPV array has been analysed and the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based MPPT technique is used to obtain global maxima under partial shading conditions. The MPPT controller is incorporated with a converter (boost) to vary the input voltage as per the duty cycle of the switch generated by PSO algorithm-based controller.


The paper is an attempt to outline a hierarchical model of language apprehension based on an extension of Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH). Several arguments are presented which show that language being incomplete has limitations in representing both the reality and the mental states. Therefore, postulating LOTH similar with a conventional language is fallacious. Nonetheless, if language is related with thought, language properties would have to have a causal root in the functioning of the mind. This controversial issue is discussed in relation with the possibility of using Zipf's law for identifying a deeper causal law at the level of cognition. Zipf's law may be related with language redundancy necessary for the language understanding process. This process can be modeled based on information compression performed by a self-organizing neuralcomputation structure at two levels. At the first level, a feature extraction is done in a parsing process of a natural conventional language, and the result is a linguistic map which acts as input for the second level of compression. There, a purely semantic map is formed which is independent of any conventional language, accounting in this way the universality of thinking and reasoning process.


The morphology and thermal stability of melt-mixed poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-valerate) (PHBV) blends and nanocomposites with small amounts of TiO2 nanoparticles were investigated. PLA/PHBV at 50/50 w/w formed a co- continuous structure, and most of the TiO2 nanoparticles were well dispersed in the PLA phase and on the interface between PLA and PHBV, with a small number of large agglomerates in the PHBV phase. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and TGA-Fourier- transform infrared spectroscopy was used to study the thermal stability and degradation behavior of the two polymers, their blends, and nanocomposites. The thermal stability of PHBV was improved through blending with PLA, whereas that of the PLA was reduced through blending with PHBV, and the presence of TiO2 nanoparticles seemingly improved the thermal stability of both polymers in the blend. However, the degradation kinetics results revealed that the nanoparticles could catalyze the degradation process and/or retard the volatilization of the degradation products, depending on their localization and their interaction with the polymer in ques- tion. V C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42138.


This paper aims to explore the idea of Europe as a premise for constructing the identity of the European citizen. In our opinion, this model of metaphysical reporting to a fundamental unity of the world is philosophical, originating in Plato's theory of ideas, but has spread at the level of European political thinking through the imperial idea and the repeated attempts to revive the Roman Empire. The political model of the European Union translates this idea of Oneness – many constituting a single political organization – such as the union of the states, that although keeps its sovereign character, it devolves part of its sovereignty to institutions constituted at the level of the Union. What is more, European citizenship doesn't replace national citizenship, but is additional. We will present the constitutive values of the European cultural model and their translation in political institutions.


We present preliminary measurements of branching fractions and CP-asymmetry parameters in two- and three-body charmless hadronic B decays. The available data sample consists of 227 million Upsilon(4S) B decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at SLAC. We establish the observation of the decays B --> pi0 pi0 and B0 --> K0K0bar and constrain the CKM angle alpha with a full SU(2) isospin analysis in the B --> pi pi system and with a B0 --> pi+ pi- pi0 time-dependent Dalitz plot analysis.


In this paper, we study the sectional curvatures of the generalized semi ruled surfaces in semi Euclidean space   The first fundamental form and the metric coefficients of the generalized semi ruled surfaces are calculated and in these regards, Riemannian-Christoffel curvatures are obtained by the help of Christoffel Symbols. So, the curvatures of arbitrary non-degenerate tangential sections of the generalized semi ruled surface are investigated. In addition to this, the relations between the sectional curvatures are obtained. These are called semi Euclidean Beltrami-Meusnier formulas.


The present invention provides oral absorption is improved, exhibit excellent human SGLT2 inhibitory activity in vivo, diabetes, diabetic complications, useful as a prophylactic or therapeutic agent for a disease caused by hyperglycemia obesity, etc. Do not, the general formula In (P in the formula is a group forming a prodrug, R is a lower alkyl group, a lower alkoxy group, a lower alkylthio group, a lower alkoxy-lower alkyl group, a lower alkoxy-lower alkoxy group or a lower alkoxy-lower alkylthio group) it relates glucopyranosyloxy benzyl benzene derivatives and pharmaceutical compositions containing them are represented.


The evaluation of radar anti-jamming effect is an important part of the evaluation of radar combat performances.In this paper,the anti-jamming evaluation criteria and methods are described for radar at present,several typical anti-jamming evaluation methods are analyzed and contrusted,and conceives a new project about the evaluation of radar anti-jamming effect is proposed at last.


The invention discloses an aluminum-silicon based aluminum section. The aluminum section is composed of, by weight, 5.0-14.0% of silicon, 0.2-0.7% of magnesium, less than 0.03% of boron, less than 0.06% of strontium, 0.1-6.55% of strengthening elements, less than 0.25% impurity elements, and the balance aluminum. The aluminum-silicon based aluminium section has the advantages of high strength, high hardness, good wear resistance, etc. the invention also discloses a preparation technology for the aluminum-silicon based aluminum section, which comprises a first step of adding aluminum-silicon alloy to a graphite crucible and heating the alloy to form melt; a second step of adding the magnesium, the silicon and the strengthening elements; a third step of adding hexachloroethane for refinement; a forth step of adding the strontium for deterioration, casting to a cast iron die to form an ingot casting; and a fifth step of hot extruding, hot rolling for deformation, solid solution treating and aging treating in sequence after annealing the ingot casting, thereby obtaining the aluminum-silicon based aluminum section. The preparation technology is simple.


Jetlike glow plasmas with a diameter much larger than any of cold plasma jets in common DBD configurations are generated at approximate atmospheric pressure (700 torr) in argon and Ar/N2 mixture. The discharge is achieved by a three-electrode discharge configuration. Two bare metallic electrodes are driven with a 33-kHz ac power source and electrically grounded, respectively, and the third electrode is electrically isolated from the two electrodes with a quartz tube.


Any crime that has existed since ancient times is criminal gambling. Types of
gambling that is developing and emerging is toto gelap (togel). In Banyumas district is
famous for its gambling togel type of Hongkong, where the gambling type togel Hongkong is
centered on the dealer in Hongkong. No. as with any case 86/Pid.B/2012/PN.PWT about
gambling offenses togel Hongkong kind committed by the defendant fortunately Sukarsono
Alias Untung son of Harjowarsono.
The purpose of this study was to determine how the application of the elements of
Article 303 paragraph (1) to-2 of the Criminal Code of the District Court's decision Number:
86/Pid.B/2012/PN.PWT.
The defendant in this case proved to meet all the required elements, the judges convict
for 6 (six) months and 15 (fifteen) days reduced over the defendant in custody. Sentences in
the judge's ruling to be too light when viewed from the penal provisions contained in Article
303 paragraph (1) to-2 of the Criminal Code, namely the imprisonment of 2 (two) years, eight
(8) months or a fine of Rp 6,000 (six thousands of dollars) (based on Law No. 7 of 1974 the
number of prison has been converted into 10 (ten) years or a fine of Rp 25,000,000 (twenty
five million dollars)).
To tackle crime gambling using electronic media as a means, such as law enforcement
officials the Police, Prosecutors, and Judges to apply the criminal provisions set forth in Law
No. 11 Year 2008 on Information and Electronic Transactions, given the existing one
principle in law criminal is, "The Law specifically override the common law" or in foreign
terms "Lex specialis derograt lex generalis".


The dissertations research topic is the inclusion of disadvantaged young people in vocational education system. The "Übergangssystem" is located in the German education system in vocational schools, where young people are taught, who haven't found a company for a vocational training, who don´t attend a secondary school for further qualification, who are not yet voca-tionally oriented but are still required to attend school. Often, these young people are characterized by inadequate educational background and personal problems. It is up to teachers at vocational schools to teach these young people the skills they need for an integration into the labour market.


This resource guide provides guidance to searching the scholarly literature and links to resources in the topics of psychology, human development and culture.


Abstract The Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) fishery is currently being assessed for a certification process. It is the main economic activity within the Biosphere Reserve of Sian Ka'an-Mexico (SK), which is a marine-protected area where restricted access fishing is allowed. In this study, commercial catch rates were examined, and lobsters over a wide size range were tagged throughout the 2010/2011 fishing season, to assess fishing mortality rates and movement patterns in Bahía Espíritu Santo-SK. Lobster tag recovery data were aggregated into 2-week periods and analysed using a modified Brownie model that was parameterized to account for lobster tag-reporting, and the lobster tag-retention rates. This allowed the estimation of instantaneous rates of natural and fishing mortality, considering catchability and fishing effort. Independent aquaria trials were conducted to better estimate lobster tag retention, tagging-induced mortality and interviews with fishermen were conducted to better estimate lobster tag reporting. Based mainly on legal-sized juveniles with fast growth rates found in casitas, the stock is subject to fishing to a maximum depth of 20 m, because of the prohibition of SCUBA diving and the use of other fishing gear. The Brownie model indicated that exploitation rates within this bay area were high,>0.94. Changes in catch per unit of effort and catchability throughout the season explain how the 'casita/campo' system allows for a seasonal replenishment of juveniles and adults, which has kept the landings relatively stable for the past decade.


The optimum hop timing estimator, based on classical likelihood-ratio (LR) theory, is derived for noncoherent slow and fast frequency-hopped M-FSK intercept receivers. Such receivers have no a priori knowledge of the hopping code and thus the solution to this estimation problem differs considerably from the more commonly considered case of the friendly receiver. The implementation and performance of the LR hop timing structures are presented and compared with that of other previously documented suboptimum schemes. In particular, when compared to the multiple-hop autocorrelation (MHAC) approach and the "ping-pong" approach, the average-likelihood ratio (ALR) and maximum-likelihood ratio (MLR) optimum estimators offer an improvement in performance of several dB in input SNR. Robustness issues for the optimal estimator are examined and alternative configurations are proposed that offer enhanced insensitivity to unknown frequency offsets. >


According to the non-stationarity characteristics of the vibration signals from rolling bearing and the situation that it's hard to obtain enough fault samples,a comprehensive fault diagnosis method based on Empirical Mode Decomposition(EMD),sample entropy,a nonlinear dynamic method,and Support Vector Machine(SVM) was proposed.Firstly,the denoised vibration signals were decomposed into a finite number of Intrinsic Mode Functions(IMF),then choosed some IMF components with the criteria of mutual correlation coefficient between IMF components and denoised signal.Thirdly the sample entropy of each IMF component was calculated as fault eigenvector and served as input of SVM classifier so that the faults of rolling bearing are classified.Practical rolling bearing experimental data is used to verify this method.The diagnosis results and comparative tests fully validate its effectiveness and generalization abilities.


Recently,food safety issues,especially of sulfonamide residues in animal food stuff,have caused the widespread attention of the whole world.And,sulfonamides are a class of widely used preventive and stimulate the growth of animal antibiotics.This paper introduces the present commonly used analysis methods of sulfonamide and then these methods were compared and analyzed.The future trends for the determination of sulfonamide residues in animal food stuffs are briefly discussed.


A novel fingerprint dusting composition based on an organic dye, basic fuchsin (1) has been prepared. The proportion of the dye in the formulation is 1%, the remaining being an adhesive mixture of meshed aluminum, boric acid, talc and barium carbonate. The powder gives sharp and clear prints on a wide range of absorbent and non-absorbent surfaces, including multi-colored ones. Weak, chance prints may be detected under ultraviolet light.


This paper deals with cross-implementation of analytical and physical fundamentals of ultra low-voltage charge pumps. The analysis is based on precise, general formulas including characteristic parasitic effects valid for linear charge pumps. The parasitic effects are extended by non-linear parasitic capacitances represented as equivalent linear model of a switched transistor itself. The discussion about non-linear and linear behaviour of these parasitics is also included and demonstrated using cross-coupled, dynamic threshold implementation, where the EKV model of transistors has been utilized. The paper also introduced a new design rule for design of charge pumps based on transistors working in sub-threshold region to maximize the power throughput. This is achieved by tuning the operation conditions to the boundary case.


Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC). This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of IHC- p16INK4a (p16) as an alternative modality for diagnosing HPV infection. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane library for studies that evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of IHC-p16 staining. A total of 30 studies involving 2,963 patients were included from 2007 to 2019. The combined sensitivity was 0.94 (95% CI: 0.92–0.95); specificity, 0.90 (95% CI: 0.89–0.91); positive likelihood ratio (LR), 6.80 (95% CI: 5.63–8.21); negative LR, 0.10 (95% CI: 0.07–0.16); diagnostic odds ratio, 85.98 (95% CI: 55.57–133.03); and area under the curve value, 0.9550. Subgroup analysis showed that the IHC-p16 test was more consistent with the in situ hybridization (ISH) test and has greater diagnostic value for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. The diagnostic efficacy of IHC-p16 varied among countries. In conclusion, IHC-p16 has high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing HPV infection in HNSCC. The consistency of IHC-p16 findings with those of ISH indicate that their combination can be used to improve the specificity of diagnosis.


The vast majority of modern systems serving organization needs are closely linked into the computer networks which have evolved over recent years into unbound networks with no central authority and distributed administrative control providing a low visibility and control on the entire network. At the same time, organizational dependencies on networks are increasing, and the risks and consequences of intrusions and compromises are amplified. Incorporating survivability capabilities into organisation's systems can mitigate these risks. It is important to mention that survivability doesn't guarantee that the system will not be attacked and penetrated, but importantly it shall preserve the essential services during its operation. The development of survivable systems shall be assured by sound engineering practices throughout the system life-cycle.


The paper proposes the method and software which allows user to carry out multidimensional inversion of magnetotelluric sounding data. The computational schemes of direct problems are based on the finite element method (FEM) with the use of meshes with rectangular regular grids using nodal and vector finite elements. Mathematical model of the inverse problem is based on the idea of the Gauss-Newton minimization. In the proposed approach, the derivatives with respect to parameters are calculated analytically. The paper shows the results of numerical experiments of 2D inversion for synthetic models.


Recently, image-to-image translation (I2I) has met with great success in computer vision, but few works have paid attention to the geometric changes that occur during translation. The geometric changes are necessary to reduce the geometric gap between domains at the cost of breaking correspondence between translated images and original ground truth. We propose a novel geometry-aware semi-supervised method to preserve this correspondence while still allowing geometric changes. The proposed method takes a synthetic image-mask pair as input and produces a corresponding real pair. We also utilize an objective function to ensure consistent geometric movement of the image and mask through the translation. Extensive experiments illustrate that our method yields a 11.23% higher mean Intersection-Over-Union than the current methods on the downstream eye segmentation task. The generated image has a 15.9% decrease in Frechet Inception Distance indicating higher image quality.


Hybrid systems with switching nonlinear vector fields of ordinary differential equations (ODE) of subsystems in given instants are considered. The analysis of the dynamical properties of stability and attractivity in those models are reduced to a problem of analysis of analogous dynamics in usual ODE, but with discontinuous solutions. A reduction method with trajectory homomorphism from initial model to auxiliary one is used. Some examples are considered.


The paper titles of social science have their own characteristics and therefore,the English versions of such titles are quite different from those in other styles in expressing ways,language style and word choice.The paper discusses the characteristics of the paper titles of social science and proposes two principles and strategies in translating such titles: faithfulness and brevity.


The Way Into Stone is a book-length collection of poems, many of which have been published in books, anthologies and journals. The poems continue themes explored in my earlier work - ideas of movement and travel, exile and belonging, self and relationship - and add to this poems concerned with presence and meditation. A number of poems are written in form - free verse, as well as the sonnet, the villanelle, and haiku - as part of my larger commitment to the structures of sound patterning in verse, chiefly metre, rhyme, and stanza. The collection divides into three sections: i) "The Way Into Stone," which delves into otherness and voice through the means of art monologues; ii) "The Gift," containing poems devoted to daily life; and iii) "The Strong Wish," which contains love poems, diatribes, and prayers.The accompanying exegesis, To Dwell in Possibility: Social Roles of the Poet, asks the question: "What is the social role of poets?" In doing so, it seeks to provide a frame for writers, like myself, to formulate an underlying conception of the poetic art and our place within it. The exegesis begins with an assertion that the poet's role in contemporary, Western culture has become increasingly diffuse -- especially in comparison to earlier societies, such as Indian, Icelandic and Irish societies in which the historical roles for poets were clearly defined and functioned to direct their actions and provide poets with social identities. The core of the exegesis consists of a three-part case study that looks at ways that Les Murray has taken up the roles of the poet as mystic, individual, and public figure. The exegesis concludes with some thoughts on my own poetic practice.


The problem of maximising the time during which an open-loop system can operate without exceeding a specified error bound is considered for linear systems that are subject to uncertainties about their parameters and their initial conditions, and whose operation is hampered by disturbance signals. The objective is to characterise an optimal input signal that keeps performance errors within specified bounds for the longest time. It is shown that such an input signal exists, and that it can be approximated by a bang-bang input signal without significantly affecting performance.


In this paper, we exploit the space gain brought by the three dimension (3-D) modulation to suppress peak- to-average power ratio (PAPR) of signals for orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) systems. In our de- sign, a 3-D cubic constellation mapper and a constellation extension module are concatenated with a two-dimension (2- D) inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) module. In this 3-D modulation based OFDM system, we propose three 3-D constellation extension (CE) schemes, which are the iterative gradient amplitude extension (IGA) strategy, the projection onto convex sets (POCS) and the smart gradient projection (SGP) algorithm, to extend the constellation points. Notably, the extensions are constrained in the decision region, hence no additional module is required at the receiver and the complexity is low. Simulation results demonstrate that when compared with the counterpart systems, our presented 3-D CE aided OFDM systems achieves better PAPR performances in terms of complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) while maintaining the satisfactory bit error rate (BER) performances.


Mechanical fatigue subject to external and inertia transient loads in the service life of mechanical systems often leads a structural failure due to accumulated damage. Structural durability analysis that predicts the fatigue life of mechanical components subject to dynamic stresses and strains is a compute intensive multidisciplinary simulation process, since it requires an integration of several computer-aided engineering tools and large amount of data communication and computation. Uncertainties in geometric dimensions due to manufacturing tolerances cause the indeterministic nature of fatigue life of the mechanical component. Due to the fact that uncertainty propagation to structural fatigue under transient dynamic loading is not only numerically complicate but also extremely expensive, it is a challenging task to develop structural durability-based design optimization process and reliability analysis to ascertain whether the optimal design is reliable. The objective of this paper is development of an integrated CAD-based computer-aided engineering process to effectively carry out the design optimization for a structural durability, yielding a durable and cost-effectively manufacturable product. In addition, a reliability analysis is executed to assess the reliability for the deterministic optimal design.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


Data on maintenance hemodialysis in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) associated with spinal cord injury (SCI) are lacking. Forty-three SCI-ESRD patients treated with hemodialysis in our unit were retrospectively studied. A control group of ESRD patients without SCI were included for comparison. Predialysis concentrations of Na, K, bicarbonate, creatinine, albumin, calcium, and phosphorus and anion gap were significantly lower in the SCI group than in the control group. In contrast, chloride concentration was significantly higher in the SCI patients. Hemodialysis was equally effective in providing azotemia control and acid-base, electrolyte, and fluid balance in both groups. Interdialytic weight gain in the SCI group was significantly less than that of the control group. Hypotensive episodes during dialysis were quite common in the SCI patients. Interestingly, hypertensive episodes during or shortly after dialysis were also noted with considerable frequency. The hypotensive episodes usually responded to blood flow reduction and/or fluid administration. Hypertensive episodes were usually mild to moderate and reversed with continued dialysis without requiring vigorous intervention. The leg cramps often seen in ambulatory patients due to rapid ultrafiltration and fluid shifts were uncommon among the SCI patients. However, diffuse painful muscle spasms caused by uninhibited spinal reflexes were observed with considerable frequency and presented a difficult therapeutic problem. Due to prolonged immobilization and other factors, SCI-ESRD patients appear to be at high risk of thromboembolic disorders. SCI-ESRD patients thus appear to differ from the ambulatory ESRD patients from both clinical and biochemical viewpoints. These specific feaures can be of significant value with respect to the dietary and therapeutic considerations.


AbstrcatObjectiveTo observe the timecourse in aqueous humor of rabbits tested with the cornus officinalis glycosides (COG) eyedrops in the eyes by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC). MethodsAqueous humor levels of gallic acid following 50μL three different dosages of COG eyedrops were determined intervals for 4h by HPLC.ResultsThe highest concentration of the COG eyedrops was in 1h after dropped. There were significant difference between group A and B, groupA and C(P0.05). Conclusion COG eyedrops can be absorbed into aqueous humor. The peak concentration of the COG eyedrops is in 1h after dropped.


G roup Level Assessment (GLA) is a qualitative research methodology designed to enable groups of stakeholders to generate and evaluate data in participatory sessions.1 It has been used in diverse health-related settings for multiple research purposes, including needs/resource assessment, program evaluation, quality improvement, intervention development, feasibility/acceptability testing, knowledge generation, and prioritization.2-6 Unlike traditional qualitative research methods in which participants provide data and researchers analyze it, GLA uses a seven-step structured process (Table) that actively involves a large group of stakeholders in the generation, interpretation, and synthesis of data and allows salient themes to be identified from stakeholders' perspectives.7 GLA deliverables include a set of action items that are relevant to the target issue and representative of the collective view of stakeholders. In this issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine, Choe and colleagues used GLA methodology to identify the perspectives of pediatric medical providers and interpreters with regard to the use of interpreter services for hospitalized children having limited English proficiency (LEP).8 Each individual GLA session is intended for a group of 1560 stakeholders. Ideally, a GLA session is scheduled for approximately three hours with a skilled facilitator guiding the group through the steps of the session.1 Depending on the study scope and research questions, modifications to GLA can be made when engaging fewer stakeholders, conducting the GLA across several shorter sessions with the same group, or conducting multiple sessions with different stakeholder groups wherein results are integrated across the groups.1


Abstract. In [5], we extended the notion of ergodic optimization to the setting of C*-dynamical systems of countable discrete groups. Among the key results of that paper was that given an action G Ξ y M of a countable discrete amenable group G on a W*-probability space (M, ρ) by ρ-preserving ∗-automorphisms of M, a positive element x ∈ M, and a right Følner sequence F = (Fk)k∈N for G, the sequence


In this study, secrecy outage performance is studied for partial relay selection (PRS) schemes in cooperative systems over Rayleigh fading channels. In the considered systems, there are one source (S), one destination (D), one eavesdropper, one jammer that can send interference to the eavesdropper, and N (N > 1) relay candidates, one of which is selected as the relay (R). By considering the practical scenarios and to protect the transmitted information over R–D link from being eavesdropped, the authors propose a new transmission scheme: let D send random information to R while S sending information to R. Then, R processes the messages from S and D by XOR operation in order to prevent the eavesdropper's interception while the information is delivered between R and D. They study the secrecy outage performance for two PRS schemes: (i) the optimal source–relay link (OSRL) scheme; and (ii) the optimal source–relay–destination link (OSRDL) scheme. The closed-form expressions for the secrecy outage probability (SOP) of the two PRS schemes are derived, as well as the closed-form upper bound for SOP under OSRL scheme and the lower bound for SOP under OSRDL scheme. Finally, simulation results are given to verify the presented analytical models and the proposed transmission scheme.


The paper mixes economic theory and forecasting to assess the economic changes, North and South, since the early 1990s. The theoretical background is provided by the new economic geography and institutional economics ideas which question whether economic convergence willl automatically take place on the island when borders are reduced. The questiosn this raises include whether a more robust economy has been built when civil conflict faded in the North, whether an 'island economy' has emerged as envisaged in the early 1990s and whether the two regions on the island are likely to converge or drift further apart in the face of global challenges.


The preliminary results of the investigation of spin-lattice relaxation times in pure water, pure chloroform, and water solutions of gelatin are described. (W.L.H.)


The proteins of lumbar CSF have been investigated by two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis, and their patterns have been compared with the corresponding serum protein patterns. Serum proteins in CSF have been identified by electroblotting and immunoreaction with antiserum against total human serum proteins. Proteins derived from brain have been identified with antiserum against human brain proteins. The most prominent CSF protein group has been identified as a multiple form of apolipoprotein E. The correct position of the glial fibrillary acidic protein has also been determined. The prefractionation of CSF proteins by size exclusion chromatography or by affinity chromatography followed by two‐dimensional electrophoresis has facilitated the detection of trace components in CSF and the corresponding serum.


For the need of radar signal high-speed acquisition,based on the high-speed data acquisition card PCI-1712 of Advantech,the WDM driver is programmed by DDK for PCI Card supporting the bus master DMA in Windows 2000.The WDM driver supports the scattered buffer existing everywhere in the whole DMA address space to operate analog input.The paper discusses development method for this kind of driver which supports packet-based DMA transfer and scatter-gather ability.


Information Reconciliation is a mechanism that allows to weed out the discrepancies between two correlated variables. It is an essential component in every key agreement protocol where the key has to be transmitted through a noisy channel. The typical case is in the satellite scenario described by Maurer in the early 90's. Recently the need has arisen in relation with Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols, where it is very important not to reveal unnecessary information in order to maximize the shared key length. In this paper we present an information reconciliation protocol based on a rate compatible construction of Low Density Parity Check codes. Our protocol improves the efficiency of the reconciliation for the whole range of error rates in the discrete variable QKD context. Its adaptability together with its low interactivity makes it specially well suited for QKD reconciliation.


Abstract The influence of two yogurts, made with different starter strains, on the immune response against a respiratory pathogen was studied. Yogurt P (YP) was prepared with the immune-enhancing strains Lactobacillus bulgaricus CRL 423 and Streptococcus thermophilus CRL 412. Control yogurt (YC) was prepared with L. bulgaricus AV31 and S. thermophilus AV4 strains with no intrinsic immunoenhancing activity. Swiss albino mice were fed YP or YC for five days and infected intranasally with Streptococcus pneumoniae on day 6. The resistance to the infection and innate and specific immune responses were studied. Results showed that both yogurts were able to improve the resistance against pneumococcal infection when compared with control mice. However, YP was more effective than YC in protecting the mice against the infection. Both yogurts improved the activation and recruitment of phagocytes in the respiratory tract, but only YP was capable of increasing the number of IgA+ cells in the bronchus and the levels of pathogen specific IgA and IgG in the airways and serum. Our results show that the consumption of yogurt is able to enhance immunity in the respiratory tract. In addition, we demonstrate that the protective effect of yogurt could be improved if it is prepared with starter strains of L. bulgaricus and S. thermophils that have intrinsic immunomodulatory activity.


A differential geometric analysis has been made of the various tensor quantities associated with a grain boundary. It is shown how these tensor quantities can be developed so as to give a unique and generalized formulation for the description of the dislocation content of such boundaries.


medications and surgical procedures. Although his immortal patients no doubt complained about the size of his fees, he was nonetheless hailed and revered for his miraculous cures. His beautiful associate, Hygeia, who was alternately depicted as his daughter and as his wife, depending on the vagaries of Greek mythology, was also a health practitioner with a large clientele. But unlike Asclepius, whose style was to treat illness after it occurred, Hygeia encouraged her followers to live balanced and reasonable lives to avoid toxic substances and to provide their bodies with proper nourishment, rest, and exercise. Furthermore, during their occasional bouts of illness, her followers were to rely on their own natural recuperative powers rather than on medical or surgical intervention.&dquo;'